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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/77750-0.txt b/77750-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a8ef5b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/77750-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20191 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77750 *** + + + + + DOUBLY FALSE. + + + BY + + MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS. + + AUTHOR OF “FASHION AND FAMINE,” “THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS,” “THE HEIRESS,” + “THE GOLD BRICK,” “SILENT STRUGGLES,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” “THE + REJECTED WIFE,” “MARY DERWENT,” “THE WIFE’S SECRET,” ETC. + + There is no pathway leading to the light, + Save that which honor treadeth for her own. + The only star, that guideth through the night, + Truth wears, triumphant, on her azure zone. + + · · · · · + + The false, e’en to themselves are traitors all, + Deceit must ever end in weary strife. + As serpents’ eggs give vipers from the thrall + Of their water fosterage, it chains the life— + Coils in and out in many a poisonous fold, + And hisses through the future uncontrolled. + + PHILADELPHIA: + T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS; + 306 CHESTNUT STREET. + + + Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898, by + + T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS, + + In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in + and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. + + + TO + + MY SON’S WIFE, + + MRS. ANNIE SUTTON STEPHENS, + + THIS BOOK IS + + MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. + + ANN S. STEPHENS. + + WASHINGTON, D. C., MAY 5TH, 1868. + + + + + CONTENTS. + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.— MUSIC AND DANCING 23 + + II.— OVERBOARD 29 + + III.— ADRIFT 40 + + IV.— THE MANSION ON THE RIVER 45 + + V.— THE IRON SAFE 54 + + VI.— EUNICE HURD 60 + + VII.— BROTHER AND SISTER 68 + + VIII.— FINDING THE WILL 75 + + IX.— THE BILL OF EXCHANGE 82 + + X.— MRS. LANDER ENTERS ON HER FORTUNE 93 + + XI.— SALE OF THE CHESTNUT HORSES 99 + + XII.— MEETING OF THE LOVERS 110 + + XIII.— THE MIDNIGHT HOUR 120 + + XIV.— THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED 125 + + XV.— THE DISTURBED CONSCIENCE 136 + + XVI.— KINDRED LOVE 140 + + XVII.— DREAMS AND STRUGGLES 149 + + XVIII.— WHICH WAS THE DAUGHTER 158 + + XIX.— THE AUDACITY OF CRIME 168 + + XX.— EUNICE HURD EXASPERATED 177 + + XXI.— MRS. LANDER AND CORA VISIT LAWYER STONE 190 + + XXII.— ANOTHER STRANGE VISIT 195 + + XXIII.— THE WAYSIDE TAVERN 205 + + XXIV.— LOVE IN A LOG CABIN 212 + + XXV.— CORA LANDER AND EUNICE HURD IN COLLISION 225 + + XXVI.— THE FIEND AND THE ANGEL 232 + + XXVII.— PREPARING FOR HAPPINESS 241 + + XXVIII.— THAT BIJOU OF A HOME 256 + + XXIX.— THE WEDDING TOILET 267 + + XXX.— AFTER THE WEDDING 272 + + XXXI.— THE AUDACITY OF CRIME 279 + + XXXII.— A WEEK OF LOVE LIFE 288 + + XXXIII.— THE FIRST CLOUD 299 + + XXXIV.— EUNICE HURD FINDS HER MATCH AND SO DOES THE HEIRESS 308 + + XXXV.— CLARENCE BROOKS 319 + + XXXVI.— A LETTER FROM THE DEAD 327 + + XXXVII.— TELLING WHAT VIRGINIA AND ELLEN FOUND WHILE LOOKING FOR + CHESTNUTS 341 + + XXXVIII.— BREAKING IN THE BLACK HORSE 354 + + XXXIX.— THE FISHING PARTY 366 + + XL.— CLARENCE BROOKS TALKS CONFIDENTIALLY TO CORA LANDER 374 + + XLI.— WOMANLY FASCINATIONS 385 + + XLII.— A AUTUMN PIC-NIC IN THE WOODS 394 + + XLIII.— ELLEN NOLAN VISITS CLARENCE BROOKS 404 + + XLIV.— THE WHITE HORSE DISTANCES THE BLACK ONE 412 + + XLV.— GETTING RID OF WITNESSES 418 + + XLVI.— THE BROTHER’S CONFESSION 428 + + XLVII.— LISTENING AND PLOTTING 435 + + XLVIII.— HOPES OF REDEMPTION 448 + + XLIX.— JOSHUA HURD PROVES HOSPITABLE AND KIND 457 + + L.— THE FALSE STORY AND THE FORGED LETTER 466 + + LI.— THE MIDNIGHT RIDE 481 + + LII.— ANGELS’ VISITS 490 + + LIII.— THAT CRUEL LETTER 500 + + LIV.— IN PRISON 508 + + LV.— THE SECOND CONQUEST 516 + + LVI.— A NEW HOME 525 + + LVII.— PLEADING FOR A PARDON 532 + + LVIII.— DEATH IN THE LOG CABIN 535 + + LIX.— CONCLUSION 547 + + + + + DOUBLY FALSE. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + MUSIC AND DANCING. + + +A splendidly bright day in early spring. The ocean was unusually calm; +but a pleasant sunshine broke up its greenish blue, and dashed its tiny +ripples with the restless glory of quicksilver shimmering over crystal. +Far away the waters lapsed imperceptibly into the pure atmosphere of the +horizon, veiling the soft union with a gossamer haze exquisitely +beautiful. + +Not a sail was in sight!—not a bird in the air! One great ocean steamer +moved through the calm of the waters, her broad, white sails curving +like the tired wings of a seagull, and her black pipes heaving forth +mighty fleeces of smoke, that curled, eddied and fell apart in the wind, +floating off in a soft film of silvery gray, dazzled through and through +with sunbeams. + +The steamer was full of life, cheerful and brilliant. Though not +absolutely crowded, it had no room to spare, and all the luxury that +could be introduced into a sea voyage was to be found on its decks that +pleasant spring afternoon. Fur rugs and little encampments of crimson +cushions lay about in the shady places, occupied by men, women and +children, sitting low like Turks, if not exactly in the Oriental +fashion. Campstools and a few easy chairs were filled with dreamy +occupants, some reading, some chatting, and others sound asleep. + +Perhaps four hundred passengers were on board, most of them of that idle +upper class which holds some of the weakest and again the most powerful +members of social life in its ranks. They were in this case neither +better nor worse than the crowd of people who usually cross and recross +the Atlantic every season, as if it were some inland lake. Upon those +fur rugs and cushions a few men, tired out with the active duties of +life, sought that necessary reaction a sea life brings; with them were +merchants on business, clever men travelling for information—commonplace +people killing time—sharpers on the alert for prey—adventurers, and +worse still, adventuresses, forcing themselves, by craft or brazen +assurance, into respectable society—with all the odds and ends of that +strange thing called fashionable life. To this great majority were added +one or two God-gifted souls to whom life, in itself, was an exquisite +blessing. These found even that calm sea voyage full of wonderful poetry +which the crowd never dreamed of. They saw glorious pictures in the sky +as it bent over them—thrilling music in the soft heave of the waves +which floated them steadily shoreward, and still more varied interest in +the life that moved and changed and worked itself out among the human +beings with whom they were cast. + +Of this class was the young girl seated on that carriage robe of white +fur, which was spread out on a shadowy portion of the deck like a +snow-drift, half melted away, upon a ground-work of azure-cloth +scolloped and embroidered into a rich lace-work border. She was a +bright, happy-looking girl, with a face that Titian would have given a +goblet of wine to paint, exactly as she reclined, with her elbow resting +on a pile of cushions over which a shawl of blue cashmere, with a good +deal of gold-color in the border, had been flung in rich drapery. Her +head, with more ruddy brown hair than most women possess, was supported +by the palm of a white and finely-shaped hand—not very small, for the +girl herself was of generous proportions, and in perfect symmetry lay +her chief claim to that grace and loveliness which distinguished her. + +Close by the pretty couch, which had an air of the Orient in it, sat a +middle aged man, rather handsome—very respectable—and at the moment +closing his eyes in a dreamy way which might or might not be slumber. +Something in the distance aroused the girl and caused the father to open +a pair of mild blue eyes rather suddenly, for she cried out in her +quick, eager way: + +“Look, look, papa!” + +It was only a couple of sturgeons tumbling over each other and leaping +into the sunshine, which for an instant scaled their backs with silver +and kindled a little rainbow among the drops they flashed into the air. + +“Isn’t it wonderful, papa, that such awkward creatures can manage to +display so much beauty?” cried the girl, resting one arm on her father’s +knee and raising herself up to the cushions that she might watch the +ponderous gambols that any one else might have considered a disturbance. + +“Nonsense, my dear; we have seen a hundred of them tumbling about like +salt-water pigs. Let me rest, do—this glare hurts my eyes.” + +“Well, sleep away, dear old papa, if you like it best—I’ll settle to +reading again, since you will have nothing to do with me.” + +This was uttered with a good-natured little laugh, while the young lady +settled back into her former position, assuming her book, in its dainty +binding, of scarlet and gold, which had been lying half-buried in the +white fur, but she contented herself for a time with rustling the leaves +as it lay in her lap. + +With a smile on his lips the old man fell off into his sweet slumber +again, and his daughter began to read. Just then a group of young +persons came up from the cabin, chatting together and sending out little +joyous bursts of laughter. The first that appeared was a young lady who +presented so complete a counterpart of the person we have been +describing that a stranger would have glanced at the white carriage robe +at once to make sure that she had not left it. The same lithe form was +there, the same brilliant complexion, with eyes not altogether gray or +blue, but which partook of either color as fancy or passion warmed them. +The hair was of that remarkable tint which even artists have failed to +name properly, but which the Venetians painted in all its glory. These +traits, and more than these, the two girls had in common; no sisters +ever looked more alike or possessed the same grace of manner. They were +closely related, no one could doubt that who looked upon them, though +one was quietly reading her book and the other appeared in all the ardor +and joyousness of a spirited conversation. + +“No, indeed,” she was saying, “I make no pretence; I play well enough, +perhaps, but it is my cousin whose voice you heard last night. There she +is. Ask her.” + +She looked very beautiful, standing there in the passage with a cashmere +shawl gathered in careless grace around her, while the wind shook out +the barb of Brussels point tied in a knot at the back of her little +straw hat, and fluttered the cock’s plume in front, giving a look of +breezy cheerfulness to her persona. + +“Go ask her—or shall I?” + +“You; you, of course,” cried out half-a-dozen voices; “she might refuse +us.” + +Cora Lander walked across the deck, sweeping it with her robe of rich +silk—far too rich for the occasion—and paused close by her cousin, who +raised her eyes from the book she was reading with a pleasant smile. + +“Virginia, dear, do come and pacify these good people with one little +air. They heard that outbreak of yours last night in _Ah che la morte_, +and will not be content without the whole of it.” + +Virginia Lander dropped her book, and a bright color flashed over her +face, but this was all the sign of annoyance that she gave, though she +felt much. + +“Oh yes, I will sing, if they desire it,” she said quietly. “Come with +me, Cora, and play the accompaniment.” + +The two girls went down to the cabin in company, and a brighter, +lovelier pair you have seldom looked upon. It was not the prettiness of +common beauty, which is in fact less effective than intelligent +ugliness. But there was something unique, graceful and spirited which +belonged to them alone, provoking inquiry and commanding admiration. +Besides, one of them, the daughter of the old man dozing there on the +deck, was heiress to every dollar the millionaire possessed. + +Cora Lander sat down at the grand piano in the cabin. Virginia took a +position by her, and a merry group of young people swarmed around, eager +for any amusement that promised to break up the monotony of sea life, +but so full of mirth that they could hardly keep quiet even for the +music. A prelude—a masterly sweep of the keys, and then Virginia +Lander’s voice, full, rich and clear, broke in—at first timidly and with +a tremor of distrust in it—for she did not like this public crowd of +listeners. But even timidity cannot long hold true genius in thrall. +After a moment the color flashed into her face—her lips parted, warm and +red as coral, and out gushed the whole volume and force of her exquisite +voice, thrilling the hearts that listened as music had seldom touched +them before. The depth, power and wonderful pathos of a voice cultivated +to perfection charmed the crowd into willing silence, which continued a +full minute after the last notes left her lips. Then there was a tumult +of compliments—exclamations of delight from those who spoke from the +surface—and deep sighs of absolute ecstasy from such as understood and +felt the delicious sweetness of her performance. + +Virginia was pleased. Who is not by genuine admiration? She laughed a +little nervously, blushed crimson on seeing that a good many gentlemen +had joined her audience, and retreated shyly to a sofa at some distance. + +That moment you might have discovered where the difference lay between +these two girls. It was in the expression. As Virginia drew back, half +pleased, half ashamed of her own success, Cora let her white hands fall +on the keys she had touched with such wonderful skill, and an expression +swept over her face that transfigured it completely. In all that buzz, +hum and general outburst of praise she had no part. Her supporting +music, brilliant as it was, had been utterly overwhelmed by Virginia’s +voice. She sat a moment looking straight before her. Humiliating +disappointment left her eyes almost black. Her lips curled in their +scornful redness, but the color in her cheeks died out, sweeping all the +young brightness from her features. + +This lasted a single minute, but during that brief time no one would +have thought Cora Lander like her cousin Virginia, who had crept into a +corner of her sofa abashed by the burst of genuine applause that +followed her singing, but thrilled by the sweet exercise of her own +genius, which was in itself a delight. + +For one instant the stormy look darkened on Cora’s face, then, with an +impulse which seemed inspiration, but was defiance, she dashed her hands +across the keys and swept them with a power that hushed every voice in +the room and turned the current of applause in her favor. + +Virginia’s face brightened beautifully as this outburst of approval +reached her. Always generous and sympathetic, she forgot herself utterly +and came up to the piano radiant. Cora saw her, and with a proud lift of +the head, dashed into a waltz which rang through the cabin like a silver +war-trumpet challenging hosts to action. Half-a-dozen young ladies +accepted the exhilarating appeal, wound their arms around each other, +and whirled off in one of those impromptu dances which are the very +effervescence of happy youth. Cora cast a glance over her shoulder and +dashed on, winging those light feet with melody. Away and around they +flew jostling each other, laughing at the fun, changing partners—falling +into little mistakes, and sending their clear laughter through the music +in a riot of sweet sounds. + +Those who could not find room to dance applauded with hands and voice: +those who could rushed on more joyously, laughing at their less +fortunate friends, till the whole cabin was one whirl of gaiety. + +In the midst, piercing like an arrow through the mellow laughter, came a +cry from midship: + +“Fire! Fire! Fire!” + + + + + CHAPTER II. + OVERBOARD. + + +Fire! Fire! Fire! This withering cry stopped every pulse of life as it +ran through the ship. For one awful second it held that crowd in the +cabin motionless and pallid as if a storm of ashes were passing over it. +Some of the dancers kept their position, like statues, with scared faces +bent together, feet advanced and smiles frozen on their white lips. Some +staggered out of the whirl and clung together shrieking in each other’s +arms. Others crouched down in corners, sending out piteous cries. One or +two laughed out a hideous mockery of their own fears, and a few weak +voices joined in protesting that it was a hoax. Still all listened with +hushed breath for a second cry which might be their doom. + +Cora Lander laughed away the pale terror that seized upon her, and +dashed the awful scene with defiant music. + +It came again—that wild, desperate cry—deeper, hoarser and still more +terrible—smiting the crowd with fresh panic. A mad rush was made for the +deck. The selfish instinct of life which levels men with wild beasts was +uppermost then. Under that fierce stampede of feet the helpless and +feeble were forced aside or trampled down, and through the tumult arose +their sobs and moans, with the low roar of half-smothered flames and +gushes of black smoke that came rolling down the cabin stairs thick and +stifling. + +Virginia Lander sprang to the steps and rushed on deck, seeking her +father. Cora plunged into the frightened crowd, struggled through and +followed her cousin, looking keenly around for some means of safety as +she went. + +The old man was on his feet, white as death, but with all his faculties +clear. He reached forth his arms as Virginia came up and held her close, +promising his own heart that they would die together. Cora planted +herself by his side, pale with terror, but vigilant. + +The steamer lay with her head to the wind, which swept the flames +fiercely as they belched up the hatchway and ran along the cordage like +sheet lightning. The captain thundered orders through his trumpet which +no one obeyed. Men rushed to and fro with buckets, and flew in despair +to the pumps, but, spite of this the conflagration roared like a volcano +deep in the iron hold, and rushed up through porthole and hatchway, +fringing the sails with flame and creeping along the ropes till they +shone out against the sky one network of tangled fire. + +It was awful to see human beings struggling up through the surges of hot +smoke, and reeling into the fresh air one mass of flames. Now the scene +became terrible. Great gushes of fire roared up from the cabin and +seized upon the wood-work around it. The mainmast, already girdled with +flame and eaten half way to the heart, trembled like a forest tree +beneath the axe. The ventilators were choked up with human beings, +suffocated in a wild effort to escape certain death in the steerage. Now +an effort was made to get out the boats; but they were seized upon and +swamped under a frenzied rush of the crowd. The wretched people +retreated from bulwark to bow—anywhere that promised a moment’s shelter. +But the hot flames pursued them, leaping, hissing, routing them from +every chance of life. Some jumped overboard in sheer madness; others +swung themselves down to the sea with chains and ropes, which might grow +red hot or be burned under their grasp any instant. It was awful to see +those panic-stricken creatures huddled together like frightened deer +hemmed in by a prairie fire, shrinking, shivering and white with a dread +that was worse than death. + +Mr. Lander and those two girls had kept their place firmly upon the +deck, watching for some chance of safety, but driven towards the +bulwarks step by step as the flames leaped upon them. The sails had +burned out, scattering a rain of fire over them, and were now given to +the wind in black patches of tinder. The cordage had broken up into rags +of fire. The yard-arms were burning and cut against the sky, like a +great cross appealing to God for mercy. Only a few moments more could +those helpless creatures keep a foothold where they stood. Even now the +boards under their feet were hot and drops of turpentine came oozing out +from all their pores, tempting the flames which licked them up with +ravenous hisses. Not ten feet away, the planks had parted and they could +look down on that sea of fire raging in the hold. + +Virginia gave one glance and clung to her father, striving to shield him +from the heat. Cora saw a thousand tiny threads of flame creeping +towards them, and seizing upon the fur rug wound it about her, looking +fiercely down on the storm of fire, as if she longed to defy it. That +girl, leaning there against the bulwark, with that awful light upon her +face and the fur robe giving a savage aspect to her dress, seemed like a +priestess overwhelmed by her own incantations. + +Just then a boat had been cautiously lowered by some of the hands—so +cautiously that the terror-stricken creatures cowering on the deck took +no notice, for despair had paralyzed them. Cora saw it and her hopes +took fire. Without a word to the others, she flung off the robe, leaped +upon the bulwark, and plunged into the sea, twenty feet below. The boat +had pushed off and was some yards away, but she was a good swimmer, and +followed it, shrieking for help with every dash of her arms. + +Had it been a man, the sailors would have left him to die, for the boat +was full; but there was something so strange and brave in the desperate +effort this young creature made for life, that they took her in with +broken cheers and pushed farther from the doomed vessel, from which men +and women, with their garments one cloud of flame, were continually +dropping. + +Virginia looked up, saw that the place where her cousin had stood was +empty, and uttering a cry of anguish, sprang to the bulwark. + +“Oh father! oh Heaven help us! She is gone—she is lost! No, no, thank +God, thank God, she is in the boat. That is her. Look, father, look! +That is Cora.” + +That moment the mainmast trembled like a tree cut through the heart and +fell, dragging the steamer on one side by its weight. Then the engine +gave out, and the boiler collapsed with a dull sound, sending up a storm +of hisses, as if ten thousand serpents, coiled in its iron heart, had +suddenly crept into the flames. + +The man at the wheel, who had stood firmly till now, gave way under a +hot rush of fire, and leaped overboard, abandoning the steamer to her +fate. Left to itself, the doomed vessel, with its awful freight of fire, +headed to the wind, which gathered up the flames and hurled them in +broad sheets and masses back upon the poor creatures who crouched upon +the deck. They started up like herds of deer in a burning prairie, and +rushed toward the bow dumb with horror. There they huddled together in a +trembling crowd, turning their wild, white faces on the sea of fire +which raged behind them. Some crept out on the bowsprit and clung to it. +Others had dragged articles of furniture with them which they were +lashing together as a forlorn hope. + +Lander snatched up his daughter and followed with the rest. He too had +seen the boat in which Cora had found safety, and knowing that Virginia +could swim like her cousin, resolved that she should be saved. + +When they reached the bow, he took Virginia in his arms and kissed her +with solemn tenderness. + +“Oh, father, this is terrible—must we die? Must we die?” + +A great surge of smoke swept over them and he held her face close to his +bosom till it went by. + +“Virginia, hear me.” + +She guessed what he was about to say, and cried out against it: + +“No, no, papa—I never will—never without you.” + +“But Virginia, my child.” + +She clung to him wildly, desperately. + +“But you can swim. The boat is not so far off,” he pleaded. + +“But you, papa, can you swim?” + +Lander shook his head. + +“Then I will not go. Better a thousand times die here together. What +would life be without you?” + +“Virginia, this is wrong. It is selfish.” + +“No—no—no, father! and if it is, God will forgive the child who wishes +to live or die with her own father. See, I am not afraid. When the fire +drives us away from here, we will jump into the water together. I can +swim for us both a little while, then, if we must go down, God will see +how it was and let us be together again, for He alone knows how dearly I +love you.” + +“My child, my child!” + +The old man lifted her in his arms and was about to hurl her over. She +could swim, and alone, without incumbrance, might reach the boat. With +another to drag her down, it would be certain death. + +She understood his design and clung to him with passionate tenacity. + +“Father—father, I will not!” + +“It must be. God help us, child—it must, it must!” + +“Not yet, father; not alone. I will not go alone.” + +She clung to him madly, turning her stone, white face over one shoulder +and watching the conflagration with frightened eyes. + +“Oh, father, the wind is with us. See how it fights back the flames. +But, my God—my God, how that slow, cruel fire eats into the deck! How it +crumbles and falls piecemeal into that red gulf! It creeps upon us inch +by inch, and the space is so small now. Not yet! father, not yet! We +have a few minutes more. Then we will go together—only so. God is good +to give us this one chance of death without torture. Stand closer, close +to the bulwark, father. How the poor creatures crowd! Yes, yes, we will +give way for children, they must not burn. Poor mother—poor woman. Go +first—go first—we can wait.” + +A tall, powerful man from the steerage, with an infant in his arms, was +pushing by them, huddling his wife and four other children up to the +charred bulwarks. The children gave one glance into the depths below and +cowered back to their mother’s feet, whimpering and sobbing in pale +terror. The man placed the infant on its mother’s bosom and took them +both in his arms with solemn tenderness. The woman released herself +wildly from his arms and cried out: + +“They are not all here. Brian! Brian! Oh, Father of mercies, where is my +son?” + +That instant a lad came across that skeleton deck, leaping from one +blazing beam to another with the desperate energy of some wild deer +breaking away from the hounds. His feet sent back a storm of hot sparks +as they touched the seething wood. His woollen clothes caught fire, +enveloping him in heavy gushes of smoke. He struck the last beam with a +staggering leap—reeled dizzily, and was plunging head foremost into the +gulf of fire yawning for him, when a single cry sent the strength back +to his heart. His mother’s voice reached him through the roar of the +flames and struck the sick weakness from brain and limb. With a +desperate bound, he landed by his father’s side, strangled and quivering +from head to foot. His hands were scorched; his hair was crisped, and a +deadly whiteness showed itself through the smoke and ashes which +blackened his young face. He struggled to speak, but his chest only +heaved and the parched upper lip curved away from his teeth, giving his +mouth an awful look of agony. His eyes were uplifted to his father’s +face, burning with pity, despair, and such courage as the hero feels +when he leads a forlorn hope on the battle-field. + +He spoke at last, and his voice was like the cry of a wild eagle. + +“Father, let me go first. God has saved me for that!” + +The father turned and looked upon him almost with a smile on his lip. + +“It will give them courage, father. Mother—mother, it is only a moment’s +pain. Kiss me, mother, for I must go.” + +He flung both arms about his mother, folding in the infant. He kissed +the quivering face of the woman, the wondering eyes of the babe, seized +his father’s hand, wrung it hard, and clambered up the bulwark. + +A feeble hand caught at his clothes and a wild voice cried out: + +“Brian, Brian, take me, take me; I cannot climb up alone!” + +This was the eldest girl, who grasped eagerly at his smouldering jacket. +The lad sprang back, took her in his arms and tried to lift her up the +bulwark. + +“Yes, Ellen, we will go together—you and I.” + +He gained the narrow ledge of wood, and was dragging her up, when a +lurch of the half-burned wreck broke his hold and sent him headlong into +the deep; she fell back upon the deck moaning. + +The father turned to his wife, who shook so violently that the babe +almost fell from her hold. + +“One has gone—Mary—Mary!” + +It was all he could say. The words turned to ashes on his lips, but his +eyes looked out upon the water with an awful meaning. + +The frightened creature understood him and held the child close. She +lifted her cold lips meekly for the last death kiss, but he had no power +to give it. The rugged whiteness of his face met hers one moment and was +withdrawn again. Then, with his strong arms shaking like reeds, he +lifted her upward and loosened his hold. Twenty feet below there was a +break in the waters, a dash, and the _sharp cry_ of an infant, but the +sounds were faint and lost in the roar of the flames. The man bent +forward to look over, but his heart failed, and, with a desperate +calmness, he selected the smallest child left in that quaking group—a +little, chubby girl—and lifted her to the bulwark. One instant those +great, quivering hands rested on her head—then came the gleam of a baby +face against the black side of the vessel, a flash of soft hair in the +wind, and scarcely a ripple followed to tell where the little creature +dropped into eternity. Another—and then the last of the flock stood, +white and still, while the wretched father blessed her as he had +sanctified the others. + +She was the oldest of four girls, something more than a child, but the +most helpless of them all, for the girl was hunchbacked and dwarfed, but +it was the quiet, calm face of an angel that looked up into those +agonized eyes. + +“Good-bye, father—I am not afraid.” + +The words were on her lips when she dropped from under the benediction +of his hands, and now all was gone. Of a large family, the father stood +alone. He turned that hard, white face upon the spot where his little +brood had stood, looking yet for another. Then came a cloud of vague +bewilderment, followed by the truth, sharp and quick. With one strong +cry of terrible anguish his arms were flung upward and he plunged +overboard. + +Virginia and her father saw all this and their souls grew strong within +them. What had they to give up compared to the awful duty which this man +had performed? How patiently, and with what meek faith that woman had +gone down to her death! It seemed a little thing for them to die with +each other. After such heroism, Lander knew Virginia would stay by him +to the last, and forbore to urge her farther. So long as there was a +chance of life on the vessel, they would seek it together; when that was +gone, a plunge after that doomed family and all would be over. + +But their time grew short now. The fire was burning fiercely towards +them. Every instant narrowed the space which was even now overcrowded +with human life. Each minute some unhappy wretch was jostled overboard, +as the crowd pressed closer and closer to avoid the burning death that +seemed ravenous for every human life on board. + +“Lift me up to the bulwark, father, if there is a hope of life let me +search for it.” + +Mr. Lander lifted her up to the charred bulwark, and held her there with +desperate firmness. She leaned forward and gazed through the eddying +smoke out on the sea—praying for a sail—praying for help—nothing was in +sight save a few struggling creatures in the water—that boat drifting to +and fro at a safe distance, with Cora Lander in it, and a frail raft on +which two or three desperate men were working hard to keep above water. +Beyond this she saw one or two capsized boats drifting keel upward—and +that was all. + +From this hopeless waste of waters, she turned to the vortex of fire +raging beneath her—turned with thrills of terror that made the very +heart shudder in her bosom. + +It was an awful sight! The great ship lay seething in the water more +than half consumed, a skeleton of fire preying on itself. The light +wood-work had flashed out with vehemence and sunk to a sea of fiery +smoke in the hold. Except a few miserable feet at the prow, nothing was +left but a mighty cradle of red-hot iron, ribbed and beamed and braced +with such massive strength that fire itself seemed incapable of +destroying it. Huge beams, scintillating stormy sparks with every sweep +of the wind, spanned what had been the deck from bulwark to bulwark. +Great, crooked ribs of solid fire curved down to the engine, which lay +massive and inert—its iron heart pulseless—its mighty arms paralyzed—its +boiler a hollow ball of iron, and all its wonderful mechanism a vast +heap of white heated metal. + +Virginia Lander recoiled from this fearful sight, and sunk back to her +father’s arms, shuddering. + +“There is no hope,” she said. “The fire is working this way and +undermining us. Anything is better than a death like that!” + +“How near?” questioned the old man. + +“God may give us half an hour.” + +“Even in that time He may send us help,” said the father, bending over +her with yearning tenderness. “Oh, my child, when I think of your young +life going out so early, I’m a coward!” + +“No, no, father; after looking down into that awful gulf of fire, death +in the cool waters seems Heaven to me,” said Virginia. + +That moment a portion of the deck on which they stood crumbled in, and a +column of flame shot up close to them. + +Two or three women, mad with fright, leaped overboard, their faces +marble, their garments one mass of fire; others sunk with fragments of +the deck into the hot torments of the hold and were lost in those +scarlet billows before a sound of anguish could tell of their fate. + +Nearer and nearer those doomed ones came the stifling death, not a foot +of safe timber was left. On the very edge of that hollow cradle of fire +they stood, clinging together for the last time. + +Now a slender dart of flame shot up between the warped boards on which +they stood. Still they clung closer to each other, shrinking away from +it. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + ADRIFT. + + +“Father, our time has come.” + +Virginia Lander spoke gently, and in a calm voice, but her face was +white as snow. + +The father bent his colorless face to hers, kissed her on the forehead, +and wound his arms around her. + +“God have mercy upon us!” broke from his white lips. + +“Oh God, save him!” trembled upon hers. + +They would have gone quietly over, but a dozen others, stricken with new +terror by this sudden outburst of flame, rushed over them and separated +the father from his child. It was like a stampede of wild animals, +trampling each other to death. A whole crowd hurled itself into the deep +at once, blackening the waters one horrible minute and sinking into +eternity the next. + +Virginia Lander was borne down with the rest, but she rose again, crying +out as her head reached the surface: “Father—father—father!” + +No answer! Men were sinking all around her, but among all those +struggling creatures she could not see him. She supported herself on the +water, shrieking as each man went down with a mad fear that it was her +father whose death she witnessed. Then, as the waters swallowed those +toiling wretches one by one, she commenced swimming up and down the +black hull of the vessel, pleading with those who hung by the chains and +ropes to tell her if they had seen him fall. + +A sweet voice from one of the trailing ropes answered her at last: + +“I saw him come down close by the bow,” it said; “he fell with the great +crowd.” + +It was the hunchbacked girl, up to her neck in water, clinging to a +rope. + +Virginia made for the rope, and seizing upon it, dragged herself up half +way from the water, searching right and left for that one face. She +dropped at last, bringing the girl with her. But for this she would have +sunk without a struggle, weighed down by despair. The child gave a sharp +cry and struggled for the rope again with a last instinct of life. + +While lifted above the water, Virginia had seen the boat lying at a safe +distance, with her cousin in it. She held the girl up, seizing the rope +again. + +“Lay your hand on my shoulder; hold firmly, but do not pull me down,” +she said. “We will try for the boat. Are you afraid?” + +“No.” + +“Cling to me, then: do not struggle—one moment—he may be floating yet.” + +She lifted herself out of the water again and made a last despairing +search for her father. Then, with a moan, she settled down and told the +hunchback how to fasten both arms around her. + +The girl obeyed without a word, and with her wild eyes fixed upon the +boat, that frail girl gave herself to the deep, burdened with another +human life. Slowly and firmly her delicate arms smote the water. Her +wild eyes were fixed on the boat, which lay motionless just beyond the +fiery glow of the flames. How cool and quiet it looked. That one dark +spot was life to her, all the rest a grave. + +It was wonderful how strong and self-possessed she was. That other life +clinging to hers inspired her with a power of compassion. She could have +sunk herself without a moan; but that helpless soul, she must bear her +to a place of safety. While God gave her strength she would use it. + +So she moved steadily on, growing weaker and weaker, but slowly nearing +the boat. + +When Cora Lander saw that face rising above the water she gave a cry, +which the struggling creature heard, it was so sharp and ringing. + +“Take up the oars! Take up the oars! Pull off! pull off!” she called out +to the men. + +The men, who had been watching this brave girl struggling toward them, +snatched their oars and pushed forward to meet her. Cora seized one of +them fiercely by the arm. + +“Not that way—are you mad? They will be upon us like sharks. How many +boats have you seen swamped before your eyes? Back—back, I say, and out +to sea! We are loaded down already—another would sink us!” + +The man shook her off with horror. He thought that the two girls were +sisters. + +“Bear away toward the ship, one and all,” he cried “See that head in the +water with its trail of hair, and the other face behind. They shall be +saved if I go overboard to make room.” + +Human hearts are full of good impulses, say what you will. Every manly +arm in that boat gave its strength to save those sinking girls. + +“Pull on; pull away—see, she wavers; her strength is gone—great Heaven, +they will sink, and we so near!” + +Cora half started up in the boat, white as death, but with cruel +expectation in her eyes. + +“Keep up, keep up—hold on another minute, and we are with you,” shouted +the generous fellow, while the oar bent under his strong force and the +boat plunged forward like a goaded race-horse. + +That brave girl heard the cry, and made another feeble effort to sustain +herself; but the hunchback dragged heavily upon her and she felt herself +going. + +“It is me—it is me—I am sinking you,” cried the sweet voice, and the +slender arms loosened their hold. + +“No, no,” broke in a sob from the noble young creature, as the tightness +was removed from her neck. “Clasp tighter—tighter—God is giving me new +strength.” + +But the girl dropped away in silence, sunk and rose again close by the +boat, which came up with cautious slowness. An oar was thrust out for +her. She seized it and was dragged in half suffocated. + +A drift of human hair, weltering like sea-weed in the water, was all +that could be seen of Virginia, who was sinking. The man who had taken +command leaped overboard, gave a plunge and brought her up, senseless. + +“Make room,” he cried, lifting her up to the hands stretched out to +receive her. “God help us, she may be dead!” + +“No,” said that sweet voice once more, “God would not let her die so. +Put her head in my lap; she shall have some of my life.” + +The hunchback struggled up to a sitting posture in the bottom of the +boat, and they laid Virginia’s head in her lap, while the man who had +saved her took a travelling flask of brandy from his pocket and poured +some of it through those white lips. + +“Is she better—will she come to life?” cried Cora Lander, bending over +her. “Does that blue around her mouth mean death? She is my cousin, sir, +and I have a right to know.” + +“She is not dead,” answered the hunchback, looking up. “With my hand +here, I can feel her heart stir.” + +The strange creature had forced one of her tiny hands under the wet +garments that lay heavily on Virginia’s bosom, and found her heart +fluttering with faint thrills of life—so faint, that a rude hand might +not have discovered them. + +Cora took up one of her cousin’s hands and began to chafe it in her own, +stopping now and then to feel if there was a pulse in the wrist. + +“You feel anxious now,” said the man who had saved that young creature. +“Still, if we had listened to you, she would have been dead long ago.” + +Cora lifted her eyes to his face with something like defiance. + +“How could I know that it was my cousin?” + +“As I did from the first; sister or cousin, I scarcely know which, the +likeness is so great.” + +“But I did not dream of it.” + +“Still she was a woman struggling for life,” replied the man, forcing a +few more drops of brandy between the lips, which had parted a little, +but were yet without color. + +“Man or woman, I had no power of knowing,” was the half reproachful +answer. “I, who am so short-sighted.” + +“But you seemed to be the first one conscious of her struggles to reach +us.” + +“You are unkind—almost rude, sir. I saw a crowd of black objects +plunging down the sides of the vessel and swarming this way. How could +we withstand them? If I begged you not to let them swamp us, was that so +very unfeeling? But you have saved my dear cousin, and I can forgive +all.” + +“See, her lips move—she stirs,” said the low voice of the hunchback once +more. “Let us thank God and be still.” + +Cora crouched down by her cousin, sobbing piteously. + +“Oh, Virgie, dear Virgie, open your eyes and say if I deserve all this +man has been saying! I, who love you better, a thousand times, than +myself! Cousin, cousin, do you hear me?” + +The hand which she was chafing clasped itself feebly around her fingers, +and a low, gurgling murmur died on those lips. Then the soft gray eyes +opened, and dazzled by the slanting sunbeams, closed again. + +“Is it you, Cora?” + +“Yes, cousin—yes, we are safe now.” + +“And—and father?” + +No one answered her. She waited awhile and a spasm of pain swept over +her. + +At last she spoke very, very faintly: + +“Is my father here, Cora?” + +“No; we have not seen him!” + +Virginia fell back heavily on the hunchback’s lap, and visible thrills +of pain swept over her. At last two great drops came from under her +closed lashes and rolled slowly down her cheeks. She did not mention her +father again, but lay still while the sunset came and went, leaving the +waters purple around her. + +The boat had drifted slowly off from this burned ship, which lay a +smouldering heap of blackness upon the ocean. A few human beings were +desperately clinging to the bowsprit, which could be seen cutting +blackly against the sky. But Virginia Lander had no courage to look at +the mournful spectacle, and the boat, with its freight of human souls, +drifted slowly out to sea. The night closed in upon them with purple +warmth awhile, then deepened into a black void with one fiery spot +burning like a red-hot coal through that chaos. That one glow of fire +was the burning ship. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + THE MANSION ON THE RIVER + + +Up the Hudson river—no matter how far—stands a mansion that would be +wonderfully beautiful in any country where the leaf never falls. In the +summer time it is a splendid place enough even here, for its walls are +of pure white marble, and its architecture Grecian, which gives you an +exquisite idea of coolness and grace scarcely possessed by any other +habitation. It is not exactly a palace, though many a queen has +contented herself in a home less spacious. But the tall Corinthian +pillars that gleam through the trees—the balconies sculptured like +snow-wreaths—windows of solid plate glass, so clear that you scarcely +know when they are open or shut—and cornices wrought with no common +chisel, or designed by no common brain, give you an idea of splendor +scarcely less than royal. + +The grounds, too, convey an impression of foreign lands, for it is the +first week in September, and all around this dwelling, arrayed in +wonderful contrast, is the cool green of closely rolled sward and trees +splendidly grouped, sheltering the blaze and glory of flowers born in +every known country that the sun shines upon. A lawn, large enough for a +small farm, rolls with green breaks and undulations to the edge of a +precipice which terraces it from the river. + +Hot-houses and graperies form long avenues of rolling glass, which the +sunshine turns into waves of glittering silver at noonday, and kindles +up with bright golden fires for an hour before the night closes in. A +stretch of woodland lies to the left, full of shadowy dells and green +nooks, where splendid ferns and young wintergreen are found in +abundance. Here nature holds unmolested reign. The forest turf is kept +clear of brush, and dead branches are pruned away from the oaks and +beech trees, letting the sun in here and there with a cheerful effect. + +Along the outskirts of this grove, between its marginal trees and the +lawn, a pretty upland stream, of no insignificant depth, has cut a +ravine where ash and dogwood droop and cast the snow of ten thousand +blossoms from year to year. Through the boulders and rocks that break up +this ravine, the stream descends in riotous waterfalls—sleeps in deep +pools—where the speckled trout once led a deliciously tranquil life—and +rushes down to the great river in miniature breakers that fill the air +with music. Two or three rustic bridges cross this stream, from which +pleasant footpaths lead into the woods, where singing birds answer back +the sweet chime of the waterfalls, and half tame squirrels leap from +bough to bough, rustling the leaves in harmony with all the other wild, +sweet sounds. + +Back of the house, and away on either hand, lie broad meadows, rich in a +second crop of grass—orchards, just beginning to droop under the weight +of swelling fruit, and dim woodlands, left to nature only where art +fails to give them possibilities of new beauty. + +This is all one domain. Its owner was Amos Lander, the man whose +terrible fate we have recorded in the last chapter, with that of the +steamer in which he had set sail for America. During ten years of his +life, Lander had retired from business, wealthy, honored, and in all +respects a prosperous man. A large portion of that time he had devoted +to the pleasant task of beautifying and improving the place which was +hereafter to be the home of his darling child and heiress, Cora Virginia +Lander, usually called Virginia, to distinguish her from her cousin of +the same appellation, who took the other name of Cora. + +During the time that these two young girls had been completing their +education under the best teachers of France and Italy, the kind old man +had devoted himself heart and soul to embellishing this noble home, +which was to be their first grand surprise on returning to their native +land. + +Amos Lander had been abroad several times during that period; for it was +impossible for him to live years together without seeing his child. He +was also deeply attached to that other Cora Virginia, who was the child +of his only brother, left to his bounty and compassion by that brother +on his death-bed. If Amos Lander’s heart was bound up in his daughter, +it was good enough and broad enough to enfold this orphan child with a +love that was almost paternal. Those who watched his face might have +seen by the glow of love that his own child was forever uppermost in +that warm heart, but in all his acts he treated the girls exactly as if +they had been sisters, usually called them his children, and, with +delicate tact, avoided such explanations as would have led to inquiry +with regard to their relative claims on him. + +Each time that he visited Europe, Lander brought home statues, exquisite +marbles, pictures, bronzes and rare plants, all intended to beautify the +Paradise he was creating for his child and ward. + +Not until the year in which Lander set forth to bring the girls home had +that marble house been complete in all its appointments; but for some +years before the girls went away it had been the residence of Mrs. Noel +Lander, widow of the brother we have spoken of, and the mother of his +only child, whom we left drifting upon the ocean in a frail boat, +without food and almost without hope. + +This woman had never been permitted to feel the poverty to which the +death of an insolvent husband might have consigned her. In her +prosperity, she had been reckless, extravagant and terribly ambitious. +By audacious expenditure she had attempted to conceal a low origin and +many humiliating antecedents. But while the younger Lander went backward +day by day, everything throve and turned to gold with Amos. At last the +younger brother died, heart-broken and ruined, leaving his wife +destitute, with a child to encumber her future. + +Then Amos Lander came forward, forgetting everything but the brother who +had loved this woman, and holding her very faults sacred for his sake. +He took the widow into his own family, as if she had been a sister in +reality. Her child shared the same nursery and the same lessons with his +own. A good and gentle wife welcomed her ungrudgingly to a share of her +home, her wealth and such household affection as loving hearts bestow on +the bereaved. + +But Amos Lander, noble and generous as he was, fell into deep grief a +year or two after his brother’s widow became an inmate of his family. +The woman whom he had loved with all his life and soul died suddenly, +breaking up the richest hopes of his life. He was never the same man +after this. Business lost its stimulant, pleasure its zest. The bloom +and brightness of his life was gone. While he was in this state of +mournful apathy, the widow Lander quietly took possession of all +household authority, and, with adroit kindness, settled herself as +mistress of the family. If her brother-in-law thought of this at all, he +was grateful for it in a passive way, and thus strengthened her +position. + +But that did not satisfy her craving nature. She would be mistress in +her own right, not by sufferance. The rich widower should be brought to +acknowledge not only how needful she was to him, but that he could not +live without her. As his wife she would possess everything that a nature +like hers could desire. His wealth excited her cupidity, and his +position was exalted enough to gratify even her grasping aspirations. In +order to captivate this man, she brought all the powers of a really fine +person and considerable talent into action. But all her efforts were +insufficient even to arouse their object to a sense of her wishes. The +idea of giving a stepmother to his daughter never entered the good man’s +imagination, and if the thought had presented itself, the woman whose +false ambition had brought ruin to a beloved brother could not have been +its object. A person who could satisfy herself with possession without +one honorable effort to deserve it was not likely to attract a man like +Lander. Toiling to make the rich man her victim, she was compelled to +live upon his bounty, and this galled her ambitious spirit to its +depths. + +About this time she began to hate that generous man with the quiet, +settled hatred which a woman, not scorned but neglected, can feel in all +its bitterness. This hatred extended even to his child; but it was never +once expressed by word or action. The widow was dispirited, but she did +not altogether despair. Time frequently carries great contradictions and +improbabilities in his bosom. She could watch and wait. During several +years the widow did keep her soul in tolerable patience; but there is no +human being so blind as the man who veils his eyes with one grand idea +of the heart. Lander had no future save that which centred about his +child. To him she was the loveliest and best creature that the sun ever +shone upon. Her smile warmed his heart to the core. Her laugh was all +the music he ever cared to hear. Her breath, as he kissed her, was like +the perfume of roses. Her childish love was absolute despotism; her tiny +hand held his very heartstrings. Fortunately for him the child grew up +good and true-hearted, like her mother. Beautiful also, but of a +different type from the woman he had lost, whose soft black eyes and +raven hair haunted him to the day of his death with a sweet remembrance +of beauty, perfect in its kind. + +As a lily breathes the perfume of kindred lilies, this child possessed +all that was brightest and sweetest about her mother, the tender smile +and loving expression—while she was like her father’s family in form and +glowing warmth of color. These latter traits she shared alike with her +less fortunate cousin, but the expression was all her own. + +Time wore on and there was little change. Amos Lander was kind to his +brother’s widow, and more than kind to his orphan niece, who inherited +all her low-born mother’s taste for splendor and thirst for wealth. He +loved them, too, in a secondary way, because one looked like his idol +and the other had been in many ways useful to her childhood. Besides, +the brother who was dead had been very dear to him. So, next to the one +being who possessed him supremely, these two persons stood nearest to +his affections. + +Things were in this state when Amos Lander took his last voyage, with +the purpose of bringing the young girls home. He left Mrs. Noel Lander +in full charge of the mansion, and at last she felt the joy and glory of +supreme command. No person born to luxury could have enjoyed it with the +zest which this woman experienced when she found herself mistress of +that almost princely establishment. She took her enjoyments to the full +as they arose, like a humming-bird that leaves no drop of sweetness in +the honeysuckle for want of vigorous shaking. The choicest of everything +in that luxurious dwelling had already been appropriated to her own use. +Her chamber window looked out on the brightest flower-beds and coolest +trees. Of all the rare objects gathered in the mansion, she selected +what seemed to her most valuable and gorgeous for her own rooms and +personal use. The woman loved her daughter, it is true, but not as she +worshipped herself, not as a good mother loves her child. + +She was sitting at breakfast—this woman who seemed at this time little +better or worse than her fellow-creatures—she was getting anxious about +the steamer, and had asked more than once for the morning papers, though +it was hardly time for the train which brought them up the river to be +in. Still her anxiety failed to diminish an appetite which was both keen +and fastidious. She went on with her breakfast with a relish—picked out +the dainty white meat from the breast of a nicely-broiled chicken which +lay on a plate of china, and disturbed the little island of cream that +floated on her coffee with a gold spoon, which she stopped now and then +to examine with a sensuous enjoyment of possession. + +“I wonder how I ever got along without these things,” she said, laying +down her spoon and leaning back to survey the apartment. “How rich and +bright it looks. This is the joy of wealth—well-grounded wealth—for, +next to that girl, he loves us, and an estate like his can bear +dividing—a moiety of it is riches. But then, if he should die without a +will—if this belated steamer should be lost, I am a beggar. I, who +shudder in my sleep, dreaming of the old times when I was sent +barefooted on a cold October morning to search for the cows browsing in +some swamp before we could hope for a meagre breakfast of hasty pudding +and milk. What if I come to that in the end? Could I do anything to +prevent it? So many years of comforts like these have left me helpless +as a child. Great Heavens, I wish the steamer would come! it terrifies +me to think of this one black chance! David—David, is not that the +whistle?” + +The waiter thus addressed—who was bringing in a fruit-dish on which lay +two magnificent clusters of hot-house grapes, purple and amber-hued, +blending their tints in luscious ripeness—came forward and placed the +fruit before her. + +“No, madam, that is a passing boat, but the train is due now, and John +is waiting at the depot. We shall have the papers directly, never fear.” + +Mrs. Lander bent over the dish of fruit, touching it daintily with her +finger. + +“When were these cut?” she inquired, rather sharply. + +“At sunset yesterday, I believe, madam.” + +“Take them to the kitchen, and order the gardener to bring me some fresh +from the vines,” she said; “and see that this does not happen again.” + +“Yes, madam. It is not often that you ask for fruit at breakfast; that +is how it happened, I suppose.” + +“The possibility that I may ask should be enough,” was the haughty +answer. “There—there—surely that is the train. Run and meet John. Bring +me the papers at once.” + +“But the grapes, madam?” + +“Well, yes. It will scarcely make a minute’s difference. Go to the +gardener. See, John is coming up the terrace steps, walking fast. +Go—go—” + +The woman was really agitated, and her hand shook as she reached it +forth to receive the papers, which John gave her with unusual +hesitation. + +“Have you read—have you seen anything?” she demanded, in a voice made +sharp with anxiety. + +She opened the paper as she spoke and looked at the first page. + +“AN OCEAN STEAMER BURNED AT SEA.” + +The woman read this and uttered a cry of pain, so sharp and sudden that +David, who was half way to the kitchen, ran back in affright. Mrs. +Lander had fallen forward in her chair, with one hand pressed to her +side; quick spasms swept over her face, and she shook from head to foot. +David stooped to take up the paper, which had fallen to the floor; but +she snatched it from him, and clenching each hand on an edge of the +sheet, made a desperate effort to hold it still and read, with some +fortitude, the awful calamity which had befallen her. + +“Burned to the water—all lost! All lost! Great Heavens, this is awful!” +she cried, dashing the paper from her and sinking back in her chair, +shocked and trembling. “Read it,” she added, “read it, and search out if +any one was saved—the words run like vipers before my eyes, I cannot +make them out! Read, and if they are all dead tell me at once and let +the blow kill me.” + +David took the paper from her shaking hand and read down the first +column, which was half capitals. She watched him with a shrinking terror +in her eyes. + +“All! all! are they all gone?” she said, with a struggle of the voice. + +“Some boats put out, but they were swamped; eighteen persons were found +clinging to the bowsprit—” + +“Men or women?” + +“Men—all men. The women had jumped overboard.” + +“My child! my child!” + +A pang of womanly anguish broke forth in this cry—for one moment the +mother forgot everything save that her child was dead. This outburst of +true sorrow touched the men who witnessed it with compassion. David +knelt before her and attempted to chafe her cold hands; she wrung them +from him with passionate violence and buried her face in them. + +“Oh, it has come to pass—it has come to pass! I am a beggar again!” + +The two men looked at each other, wondering. The woman dashed her hands +apart, burst into a fierce laugh, and slid from the cushions of her +chair to the carpet in strong hysterics. She was taken up with her eyes +set and the white upper lip curved back from her teeth, shrieking like a +maniac. The burden of her cry was, “I am a beggar—I am a beggar!” + + + + + CHAPTER V. + THE IRON SAFE. + + +The two men carried Mrs. Lander to her room and laid her down on the +white bed, with a canopy of lace falling mercifully over the selfishness +of her agony. Through the delicate frost-work of this lace they watched +her writhe and moan like a spirit in torment. A woman servant came in +but dared not approach the bed, for the cries that broke from under that +cloud of lace appalled her. So the servants stood together in a helpless +group, gazing wistfully at one another, shocked and irresolute. They all +wanted to help and comfort her, but were afraid. At last the woman +started up on the bed and flung back the volumes of lace that shut her +in, with a wild sweep of one arm. Her breakfast cap, with its fresh +rose-colored trimming, had fallen off, and lay in a knot of matted lace +and ribbon under the hand upon which she leaned. Her hair, scarcely yet +touched with gray, fell in a coil to her shoulder and slowly untwisted +there like a serpent troubled with sluggish life. The spasms had left +her face cold and white, but full of keen intelligence. + +“David,” she said, in a shrill whisper, “come here.” + +The man approached her and bent his head. + +“You have his keys—bring them here. He was sorting papers the night +before he left. There is a will! The keys—the keys of his desk, I tell +you; I want to look for the will.” + +“But, madam—” + +“Hush! Do not say it—do not dare to say it! I know there was a will. +Lander was not a fool or bad enough to go to sea without a will. So +bring the keys, and when I find it you shall have five hundred dollars.” + +She whispered this in his ear with the craft of an insane person, and +watched his face keenly to mark the effect made by her promise. + +David, who was Mr. Lander’s confidential man, hesitated what to do. If +his master was dead, this lady would be, in fact, the person who had a +right to command him. He knew nothing of the law in such cases, and had +no one wiser than himself to consult with. + +“Give me the keys, I will have them,” said Mrs. Lander, imperatively. + +David went to his room and brought down his master’s keys with evident +reluctance. The offer of five hundred dollars had aroused unpleasant +suspicions in his mind. Mrs. Lander took the keys quietly, for her mind +had regained its firmness somewhat, and even in that hysterical fit was +active for her own interests. She twisted the loose hair up from her +shoulders, and flung a shawl over her white morning dress, which had +been crushed and torn about the neck in her struggles. + +“I will ring for you if any help is wanted,” she said, looking David +steadily in the eyes, for she saw by his face that he was prepared to +follow her. Her coolness impressed the man so decidedly that she had +left the room before he could find words for an opposing answer. When +she was gone, the two servants stood gazing at each other. John gravely +shook his head. Both these men had been under Mr. Lander’s employ long +before he gave up active business, and were better educated than the +common run of servants. Having followed their old employer into private +life out of pure gratitude and affection, they still kept a vigilant eye +on his interests, and mutually disliked the woman who had just walked +away from them with such hard self-possession. + +“I tell you, Dave, she’s a clipper,” said John, with a sob in his voice. +“Take care—take care. Who knows what the law will do with this place and +all that belonged to him? That poor, pretty child too. Down in the deep, +black water—think of it! think of it!—with her yellow hair, and them +eyes shut and cold! I seem to see her now! They went together, Dave; +I’ll be bound they went down with their arms around each other. Oh, it’s +hard! it’s hard!” + +“But about Mrs. Noel, John; I don’t like this. She come to, awful sudden +for an honest woman. What right has she, after all, in Mr. Lander’s +office, or study, as she calls it? None at all. I tell you, Eben Stone +is the only man who has a right to those keys, and I’ve been a fool to +give ’em up.” + +“That’s a fact, if one had but the heart to realize it—but I can’t—I +can’t—with him and her under water,” answered John, wringing his hands +in genuine sorrow. “All that he had seems to be nothing compared to them +two lives.” + +“I tell you what I will do, John,” answered David, whose grief was too +deep for much expression. “I’ll jump onto the down train and bring Eben +Stone up here. He’ll know what is right, and do it—women or no women.” +“Yes, I would,” answered John. “To think that a woman could start up in +the midst of a fit like that and ask for keys! Yes, I’d do it. Eben +Stone’s the man to settle her. Bring him up, Dave.” + +David went into the back entrance hall for his hat, and John followed +him. + +“As a general thing, I don’t think peeking and listening through +keyholes just honorable,” he whispered, “but for this once I reckon I’ll +do it.” + +David shook his head and hurried out of the hall, for the rattle of a +distant train admonished him that there was no time to lose. John turned +another way and, with the feeling of a heavy weight upon his shoulders, +crept up the back stairs, resolved to find out what the widow was doing +in his master’s study, and yet honestly ashamed of the method forced +upon him. But he found the door locked and heard no sound within. + +Mr. Lander’s study or business office was in the second story, remote +from the bed-chambers, and in the back part of the house. He had been a +man of fine natural tastes, and there was an excellent sense of fitness +in all his arrangements which made that entire dwelling like a +well-studied poem. There was little ornament in this room. Devoted as it +was to the practical realities of life, everything connected with it was +plain and simple. A heavy black walnut desk, almost entirely devoid of +carving; a case or two of the same sombre wood filled with papers, and a +solid iron safe built in the wall, composed the principal articles of +furniture. Three office chairs, cushioned with green leather, a basket +for waste papers, now entirely empty, and a severely plain gas burner of +bronze upon the desk, completed the room. The walls were frescoed in +panels of dove-color, pointed with green, and even the mantelpiece was +one solitary picture—that of a little girl sitting on the grass and +taking off her shoe, with a roguish, naughty expression of the face that +made you love the golden-haired imp even on canvas. Here, in this +business office, where no other signs of luxury were allowed to creep, +Mr. Lander had installed the shadow of his child, the creature for whom +he thought, and calculated, and saved gold by thousands, loving the +exertion because it might bring power and happiness to her in the +distant hereafter. + +When Mrs. Lander entered this room a dreary chill fell upon her. +Everything was so orderly, so clean and cold, that it seemed like +forcing her way into a death chamber. But after one half moment’s pause +she walked in resolutely, sat down in one of the office chairs and +unlocked a principal compartment of the desk. It was full of papers +neatly arranged in packages and labelled with the methodical precision +of an old business man. She took up these packages one by one, and +re-arranged them carefully. Her face was no longer pale, but hot with a +living red. Her eyes, vivid and keen, darted from package to package +with the quick scrutiny of a lawyer. + +Nothing that she wanted was there, and with her lips compressed till +their sensual fullness almost disappeared, she closed the desk and +locked it with a sharp wrench of disappointment. Then her eyes fell on +the iron door which enclosed the safe, and her face lighted up. What a +fool she had been to waste so much precious time at the desk when the +most important papers must be in the safe, which up to that moment she +had overlooked. In the palm of her left hand she held a key, unlike the +others, but whose secret she understood. She paused a moment with her +hand on the closet door—made a rapid calculation and applied the flat +key. Then the heavy door swung open, and this was followed by an eager +and quick rustling of paper. Directly she came forth from the iron +closet with a folded paper in her hand. Her face was flushed scarlet, +her eyes fairly scintillated with triumph. She unfolded the large sheet +and devoured its contents eagerly. + +“As I thought—as I knew,” she said, aloud, pressing down the paper on +the desk with both her hands. “To Virginia. After her, if she dies +childless, Cora—then, then me—me—me!” + +Her voice rang through the room clear and exultant; she stooped her face +and kissed the paper passionately, as if it had been a living soul. Then +she fell to perusing it again, and a dead white blank settled on her +face. + +“Oh, this is too much—too much—too much! It hurls me down a precipice—I +can grasp at nothing. This sick faintness—no, no, I must shake it off, +or they will come and find me here and it thus.” + +The woman thought herself wholly alone, and her passion was so great +that she spoke aloud with rash vehemence. At last she grew quiet and +leaned over the desk, pressing it hard with both elbows, while her white +face pored over the paper with the blank dreariness of despair. + +“Great Heavens, what am I to do—what can I do?” she muttered at last, +starting from the chair. “All this so near, so certain to pass from me. +It is hard—it is terribly cruel!” + +She paced the floor with quick, impetuous steps, then new thoughts crept +over her, from which she shrunk shivering at first, as if they had been +vipers. Then her movements became slow and measured, her face hardened +to a more deadly white, and taking up the paper, she folded it +carefully, and withdrawing it when half way to her pocket, placed it in +her bosom. + +A little time after this, John, who had been baffled in his attempt to +watch all these proceedings, met Mrs. Lander in the upper hall moving +toward her own suite of rooms. She stopped and spoke to him with the +grave sweetness of a person who had striven to resign herself to +inevitable bereavement. + +“I could not examine anything in that room,” she said. “The effort was +too much. Where is David? To-morrow he must go to the city and summon +Mr. Lander’s man of business, who knows something of the law, I think.” + +“David has gone now,” said John, bluntly. “I dare say Mr. Stone will +reach here before night.” + +The woman started and drew a sharp breath, but the keys in her hand gave +an assurance of power, and she merely said: + +“Indeed, I am glad of it. Where does Mr. Stone live in the city? I mean, +where is his place of business?” + +John gave the required information. She thanked him with an air of +sorrowful abstraction, and turned into a little sitting-room that opened +alike from the hall and her bed-chamber. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + EUNICE HURD. + + +In this pretty room Mrs. Lander found a woman who had for years acted +partly as her maid, partly as a general superintendent of the household. +This person was some years older than herself, with plenty of gray in +her red hair, and a greenish tinge in her eyes, which had all the +watchfulness of a cat’s without the slumbrous softness peculiar to that +animal. + +The woman had no sign of grief on her hard face, but turned upon her +mistress with the sharp vigilance of a fox. + +“Is it true?” she said. “All sunk or buried—is it true?” + +“Yes, Eunice, it is true,” was the faint answer. + +“Dreadful death! No wonder you look white,” said the woman with curt +sympathy. “What’ll become of us, I should like to know?” + +“Eunice.” + +“Well, I listen.” + +“Put on your bonnet and shawl, then walk to the telegraph station just +as fast as you can.” + +“What about, Eliza Landers? I ain’t used to being sent on errands, and +won’t agree to it, nohow.” + +“It must be done; I can trust no one else just now. Got your things. It +is only a message that I must send to New York.” + +The woman arose and went out. Mrs. Landers sat down to her writing table +and wrote this message for Eben Stone: + +“Get me all the facts of this terrible disaster. Learn everything, and +come to me at once. A messenger has gone to you, but in my grief I gave +him no instructions. If it is true, be here to-morrow at the latest. I +can do nothing without you.” + +“Take this,” she said, when Eunice returned, “and tell them to send it +at once.” + +Eunice took the paper and went out, reading it as she walked. + +“Make out that word for me—she writes like spider tracks—what is it?” +she said, addressing John, whom she met on the stairs. + +John read the message, and went away heartily ashamed of his suspicions. +Eunice threw a glance at him over her shoulder and proceeded on her +errand smiling grimly. That woman understood her mistress thoroughly, +and served her well. + +“This will give me time, which is everything,” reflected the widow as +she saw Eunice crossing the lawn with her quick, springy step. “He +cannot go about town, gather up facts and reach this place before +to-morrow. That secures twenty-four hours. If I could but force myself +into composure now. This tremor is what men call nervousness, I suppose. +How it shakes one! But an iron will should make iron nerves. I cannot +afford to be weak; but when I think of my girl—my bright, proud girl, +how I long to lie down and moan the pain out of my heart.” + +She looked out of the window, pausing there in her restless walk, and +saw Eunice coming up from the station with the straw bonnet pushed back +on her head and walking forward with great, rapid strides. How coarse +and vulgar she looked with the velvet grass and the glow of richly +grouped flowers all around her. It was the wonder of Mrs. Lander’s +friends that she had kept this woman about her person so long. Without +taste in dress or kindness as a servant, even, she had for years and +years managed to make herself of consequence to this luxurious woman in +a way that no one could understand. + +While Mrs. Lander stood by the window, Eunice came into the room, +treading down the moss-like pile of the carpet with her heavy shoes. The +widow was singularly fastidious about these things, but she never +rebuked Eunice, who just then flung off her shawl with a jerk that swept +a Parian vase, all frosted over with snow-flowers, from a console close +by, and dashed it into fragments. + +“That comes of crowding up everything with trash that’s of no more use +than moonshine,” she snarled, casting vicious glances at her mistress. +“I wish you’d call somebody to sweep up the splinters—I’m out of breath, +and won’t.” + +Mrs. Lander stooped down and began to gather up the fragments herself. +If she intended a rebuke by this action, it was a failure, for the woman +shot one of the largest fragments toward her mistress with the toe of +her shoe while untying her bonnet. + +“As well you as I,” she muttered, trampling another fragment to white +powder in the carpet. “I sent your message, and all the house knows that +I’ve done it—a thing that you’d never have thought of with all your +brains.” + +“That was well. I am glad of it,” Mrs. Lander answered, apparently +unconscious of her servant’s insolence. + +“You want something else of me, I suppose, by the meek way you take +things,” continued the maid. “What is it?” + +“Eunice!” + +“Well, what is it, I say agin?” + +“You have not practised writing much lately, I suppose?” + +“Not a bit—who accuses me of it?” + +“But you have not forgotten how, entirely, have you?” + +“That depends on how much on it is to be done.” + +“You can write your name, I dare say.” + +“Which name?” questioned Eunice. + +“The name you are known by here,” answered Mrs. Lander. + +“Never signed it more than twice in my life—felt like a thief—if the old +folks had been alive wouldn’t a done it. But, after all, a woman must +earn her bread and butter in some way, now what was that you wanted. Now +come to the mark—what is it you’re driving at?” + +“Eunice, you have always been faithful to me.” + +“Of course I have—why not?” + +“But the secrets we have had together were nothing compared to this.” + +“Well, out with it. Don’t beat this bird around the bush—it’s of no +use.” + +Mrs. Lander took the will from her bosom and held it open before her +maid. + +“You can read writing, I know. Try and understand that,” she said, in a +hoarse whisper. + +Eunice read the paper from beginning to end twice over with the +carefulness of a lawyer. Then she dropped the hand which held it to her +side and looked into the white face of her mistress, which was half +averted. + +“Well, I understand it.” + +“You are no coward, Eunice.” + +“No; but here are three of these catecornered bits of paper. Who does +the other belong to? A good deal depends on that.” + +“Your brother—is he about the stables now?” + +“I reckon so, his supply of whisky has been kept up regular as you +ordered.” + +“But is he sober?” + +“He’s always sober when his drink comes regular. I’ve told you so fifty +times.” + +“Eunice, can we trust him?” + +“I can, and that’s enough.” + +“I will speak to him.” + +“That’s what you haven’t done these three months, and Josh feels it +awfully, I can tell you.” + +“Is it so long? But he never comes near the house.” + +“Because his business is in the stables.” + +“Well, bring him here this evening after the rest are in bed.” + +“No I won’t; he stomps like a horse, and they’d hear him stombling up +the marble stairs. Go into his room yourself. It’s over the +carriage-house; he sleeps there alone. You walk like a cat, and I’ll try +the pussy-dodge for once in a pair of your quilted silk slippers. My +feet are small as yours, if I have got sandy hair and high shoulders.” + +Mrs. Lander mused deeply for a minute, during which she took the paper +from Eunice and folded it again, then she said, with a strange oblivion +of her servant’s rude speech: + +“Perhaps you are right, Eunice; Joshua so seldom comes to the house, +that it might cause remark; but you must see him first.” + +“Of course I must.” + +“I will never forget this act of devotion,” said the lady, with feeling. + +“I don’t mean that you shall,” was the curt rejoinder. “But I want to +know one thing before we go a single step further. Is there such a thing +as a genuine goose-quill pen on these premises. I wouldn’t use one of +them steel or gold things to save—no, I don’t think I’d do it to save +myself from getting married, or you from being just as poor as I am, +lady as you are. And as for Josh—” + +“There is not a pen of the kind in the house, Eunice, I am sure.” + +“Then we may as well shut up shop. If there was a goose on the premises, +now, I’d soon manufacture a pen worth while. Goodness, now I’ve just +thought of it. There’s my white fan, that I’ve had ever since you got—” + +“Eunice!” + +“True as the bible. Well, as I was saying about the fan—it’s got enough +quills in it for a dozen pens; so that hash is settled. Just hunt up +that little gimcrack knife with the gold handle, that you keep in what +you call the dressing-case, and sharpen it up well before I come back.” + +Mrs. Lander opened her dressing-case and let out a bright glitter of +gold from its scent bottles and pomade boxes, while she took out a +little knife and began to sharpen it, obedient as a child to the curt +directions of her own servant. Her hand trembled a little in the +operation, for she was a woman and a mother, after all—terribly +bereaved, and, though intensely selfish, not altogether without natural +feeling. Eunice came back directly with an old fan, which had once been +white, in her hands. This she tore apart with something that sounded +almost like a sigh. + +“He gave me this the day you bought him off with a hundred dollar bill +and sent him arter that other girl. I’ve kept it nigh upon twenty-five +years, and now it’s got to be torn up for you agin. It had a pink ribbon +in it once, but that consarned young-un of yours tore it out for a +doll’s sash—the little—” + +“Oh, Eunice, Eunice!—Don’t, don’t!—She is dead, she is dead!” cried the +mother, with a sharp outburst of anguish. + +“So she is,” answered Eunice, pausing in her work of destruction on the +fan. “I’d forgotten that. Well, don’t shiver and shake so. I didn’t mean +it. Here now, try and see if you can make a pen worth while, and do stop +taking on—it fidgets me like anything.” + +The quill which Eunice held out was a forlorn looking thing, pierced +with a wire which had left its rust behind and moth-eaten in its +plumage, but the heart of that strange creature yearned after it with +coarse tenderness, for it had been a keepsake from the sole lover of her +long barren life—the only possession she had connected with a sentiment. +When the pretty knife in Mrs. Lander’s hand rasped its way through the +quill, the pang of regret which rose in that hard bosom ended in a +growl, half rage, half pain. + +“Give it to me,” she said, “you cut like a butcher. That’s no way to +make a pen.” + +Eunice snatched the quill and knife—crowded herself up close to a window +with her back to her mistress, and fashioned a rude pen, which was +pointed on her thumbnail. + +“There,” she said, locking both pen and knife in the dressing-case, +“that job’s done. Now I’ll go and find Josh. But do chirk up a little, +that tallowy face fairly makes me sick. Take something, now do.” + +She searched among the crystal toilet bottles in the next room for some +restorative, for her mistress was faint and exhausted, but found nothing +to satisfy her, and went to her own room for a huge bottle of camphor, +which was the only stimulant she had faith in. When she returned Mrs. +Lander lay back in her chair, with closed eyes, lips perfectly bloodless +and quivering with distress. + +“This won’t do—so just come out of it,” cried Eunice, in a rage. “I +scorn and despise a person who gives up half way. There, there, if that +don’t bring you right up to the mark, nothing on earth will.” + +Eunice dashed a quantity of camphor into the hollow of her palm as she +spoke and held it under Mrs. Lander’s nose, spite of the faint struggles +made against it. + +“Fainting away—I never saw you mean enough for that before. What has +come over you?—getting childish in your old age?” + +“Oh, Eunice, don’t reproach me. Just that moment I realized so keenly +that she was dead, and I all alone in the world,” said the poor mother. + +“All alone; ain’t I with you?” + +A broken sigh was all the answer Eunice got for this consolatory +suggestion. + +“There, thank you, I am better now, Eunice. Take the bottle away, it +strangles me.” + +“Of course, but it has brought you to just as I expected. Now lie down +while I go and have a talk with Josh. If I find you in that way when I +come back, don’t ask me to help you out, for I won’t.” + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + BROTHER AND SISTER. + + +Eunice found her brother Joshua in his room over the carriage-house, +busy with a harness which he was putting in order. This man was a heavy, +shambling fellow, younger by ten years than Eunice, and every way unlike +her in person, save that he had the same sandy complexion. His limbs +were short and stout, his countenance sullen, and his movements +sluggish. He looked up as Eunice entered and nodded his head, but fell +to work again without speaking. + +“Joshua,” said Eunice, “you have heard of what has happened, I dare +say.” + +“Yes, the coachman was telling me of it. But it won’t hurt us, will it? +The place is left all the same.” + +“But it’s ten chances to one if _she_ stays in it,” said Eunice. + +“Ha! what’s that? If _she_ goes, why what’s to become of us?” + +“That’s what I come to talk about, Joshua.” + +“Josh-u-a! Well, now, what has come over you to be so polite? Want +something, I know, but what?” + +“She wants something of you, brother.” + +“Brother! How loving we are all at once.” + +“Come this way, Josh, if you like that better; see that no one is about, +first. There, sit down close by me on these carriage rugs, and speak +low.” + +Joshua sat down on the pile of rugs where Eunice had placed herself and +prepared to listen, with his legs stretched out and the soles of his +coarse shoes turned toward the door. + +For the first time almost in her life Eunice spoke low and in cautious +words. It was a long time before she could make herself thoroughly +understood, and after the sense of her conversation had settled on that +sluggish mind moments of sullen hesitation followed, which aggravated +the hot temper of the woman almost beyond endurance. + +“Is it sartin that the gal is dead?” he muttered at last. + +“Certain. No woman was saved. Some got into the boats, but they were all +swamped.” + +“And _she_ will be turned out doors.” + +“Yes, a brother’s wife isn’t a natural heir, you know.” + +“I don’t know nothing about it—but it’ll sarve her right—hang her, what +kind of feeling has she got, cutting down a feller’s licker and stinting +off his wages. That wasn’t according to promise; darn her, she needn’t +come to me.” + +“But you and I will have to go, or work like dogs for what we get. You +don’t like hard work more than I do, Josh; but we shall get enough of it +if she’s driven out.” + +Joshua fell into thought here, and, dropping his chin on his chest, +pondered over this rather unpleasant aspect of his affairs. + +“Will she stop interfering with my drink?” he said at last. + +“Yes, I promise that.” + +“And give me a decent bed. I’m tired of sleeping on horse blankets.” + +“I will send a mattress out this very day, with plenty of bedding and a +carpet, if you want one.” + +“Which I don’t—wasn’t brought up on one; but the old folks did somehow +or other make out to give us beds to sleep on.” + +“But you shall have everything. Would you rather be coachman or wait in +the house?” + +“Neither one nor t’other; shouldn’t I make a figger with them fancy +coats on, stuck up on a high seat like—oh, git out with yer nonsense! As +for the house, you’d a been a tarnal sight wiser if you’d kept out of +that. Why, there ain’t no more gentility in one of us than you’d find in +a bush fence. It’s like putting young crows in a brown thrasher’s nest. +No, no, I’ll stay where I am, and potter about just as I’ve a mind to. +She needn’t talk about permotion to me. It’s too late, I’m Josh +Warner—beg your pardon, Josh Hurd—and nothing else can be made of me. +She must let me alone, give a little extra chink when I want it, and +never put no more of her restrictions on the licker.” + +“She will promise all you want of her own accord, Joshua, and I will see +that you get all that she promises,” was the conciliatory reply. + +“Let her come then,” was the sullen answer. “But send out a lamp of some +kind; she ain’t used to seeing candles stuck in a blacking bottle, and +might turn up her nose. Let her come, Eunice, and I’ll make my own +bargain—consarn her!” + +Joshua scrambled to his feet with this concluding speech, and fell to +work on the harness. Eunice watched him for a moment in grim +displeasure, but gathered herself up and went away not altogether +satisfied, for she saw that Joshua understood the situation and was +disposed to make the most of it. Up to this time both she and her +mistress had underrated his stupid cunning. + +When Eunice returned to the house, she found her mistress prostrate on +the bed with the curtains gathered so close that the vague outlines of +her form and a wild glitter of the eyes were all that could be seen +through them. She lay like a wounded animal in its lair racked with +anguish but vigilant for her own safety. The closing of a door or a +heavy footstep threw her into a trembling fit, but her thoughts were +keenly at work all the time. + +Eunice had no mercy on a state of feelings of which she was and ever +would be profoundly ignorant. So she swept the volumes of lace aside and +looked down upon the suffering woman with harsh contempt. + +“Well, sob away; I suppose you will cry it out sooner or later,” she +said. “I’ve seen Josh; he’s growly, as I expected, but I talked him +over, and if you promise fair he’ll be on hand.” + +“What time is it now, Eunice?” asked the suffering lady. + +“Nigh upon two o’clock, I reckon.” + +“Oh, Eunice, I should so like to be still a little while!” + +“Well, why don’t you? There is nothing to be done afore dark, when +everybody is abed. Stay alone and cry it out, if you want to, I shan’t +interfere.” + +“Thank you Eunice,” said the mistress, meekly. “There is such a struggle +here, and here, that it kills me.” + +The wretched woman laid a hand on her heart, then touched her forehead, +sighing heavily as she spoke. + +“Take one at a time, that’s my advice; give up the head and tussle it +out with that tormenting thing you call a heart. Thank goodness, I never +felt nothing there worth crying over. But to-night, when the time comes, +just shut down the water-gates and give that head of yourn a chance. +Grief is grief but business is business; mind that!” + +Eunice dropped her arms, and the curtains settled over her mistress with +the pliant fall of new snow. Seized by a vague instinct of humanity, she +closed the blinds and filled the room with merciful twilight, then stole +out on tiptoe with a caution that made her shoes creak dismally, and +sent a shudder from the bed. + +Hour after hour Mrs. Lander lay upon her bed praying for a moment’s +sleep, which would not come. Her first passion of tears had, as Eunice +predicted, set her mind free, and it came out of her great burst of +grief hard and sharp as steel. Shall I tell you how this woman reasoned +there in her solitude? Do not think it unnatural, for such things may +exist in human nature—up from her worldly heart came consolation in this +form, even when she was weeping for her lost daughter: + +“Had she lived, I must have been dependent still—worse off than ever, +for even as a child she was haughty and selfish—and he was generous as +the sun. But—but she _was_ my daughter, my only child—my hope, my +beautiful, beautiful darling!” + +Here came a great flood of anguish, which proved the natural motherhood +of the woman, but directly her keen selfishness broke through. + +“Mistress of all this—unrestricted and young enough to think of a +future—no, no, I could not give it up. What do these half-cousins, to +whom the law awards it, know of wealth and its uses? Besides he wished +it. The will is every word in his own handwriting; never was a man’s +desires made more positive. Then, I shall do so much good with the +money. Let it pass from me, and the poor would be great sufferers. But +above all, he wished it. He gave it to me.” + +Thus the woman reasoned in her tears and wept in her reasoning. She +would doubtless have given up the property could that sacrifice have +brought his child to life. But with the certainty of her death, the +possession of wealth was a consolation the sweetness of which she began +to taste keenly even at this early moment. + +Toward night Eunice came into the chamber with a cup of strong tea and +some toast, of which Mrs. Lander partook. After this she became restless +and walked her room to and fro, watching the crescent of a new moon +which just smiled on the lovely landscape and died out pleasantly, like +the dimples on an infant’s face. + +At last the door opened and Eunice threw a black shawl into the room. + +“Cover up that white dress from top to toe,” she said. “They are all +hived up for the night. Come along.” + +There was no sound upon the stairs—scarcely the rustle of a dress, to +tell when those women went out or came in. Two waving shadows flitted +across the grounds, followed by the sound of a deeply-drawn breath, as +the stable door opened and closed with noiseless caution. Then a rough +head appeared at the window a moment, and the light seemed to go out. +Some thick, dark substance had been drawn over the glass. + +All this precaution seemed useless. No one was watching. The grounds lay +shadowy and quiet in the calm night. The slow sweep of the river rose +above the sounds of wakeful insects that chirped their tiny music in the +leaves. All at once the roar and rush of an engine thundering along the +road startled the two women, who had left the stable and were creeping +through the shrubbery on their way back to the house. The sound +frightened them, neither could have told why, and they ran forward +breathlessly. The front door being farthest from the household, stood +open, but there was a long stretch of the marble pavement which they +were compelled to pass in reaching it. Before leaving the shrubbery, +they paused to listen to the tread of feet coming up a flight of steps +cut along the face of a stone precipice which lifted the lawn above the +river. Two men were evidently coming up from the railroad, which wound +along the foot of this precipice, and a few moments would bring them in +sight of the house. + +“It is David and that man,” whispered Mrs. Lander. “They will find the +door open. What shall we do?” + +“Run for dear life,” answered Eunice, and gathering up her skirts, she +made a vigorous rush for the portico. + +Mrs. Lander followed close, keeping inside of the pillars, and scarcely +allowing her feet to touch the marble pavement. + +“There they come,” whispered Eunice, pausing for one instant to +reconnoitre. “I can see their heads—now for it!” + +The next instant both the women stood in the entrance hall, clinging +together and panting for breath. Eunice shook off her mistress, closed +the door with noiseless slowness, drew a bolt and turned the key in its +lock. + +“Now get rid of that and go to your room. It’s natural that I should be +up,” she whispered. “I give you ten minutes to get all right. Hark!” + +The two men were outside the portico, walking across the terrace. Eunice +took off her blanket shawl, and groping her way to the rack at the lower +end of the hall, hung it up with other out-door garments, and stood in +the dark, waiting. + +The sharp ring of a bell sounded through the stillness of the house. +Another and another peal. Then Eunice came forward and called out to +know who was there. + +“It is I—David and Mr. Stone,” was the reply. + +Eunice struck a match, lighted the hall lamp, and then deliberately +opened the door. + +“It is fortunate I was up,” she said. “The Madam has been taking on so, +I was afraid to go to sleep. Have you any news, sir?” + +“Nothing more than the papers give,” answered the lawyer. “Poor lady, it +must be a dreadful blow for her.” + +“Awful,” answered Eunice. “She hasn’t lifted head from the pillow since +morning.” + +The faint sound of footsteps and the trail of a dress came from above +just as Eunice uttered these words. She caught a quick breath and went +on: + +“Dear me, that must be her! She’s heard the door bell, and guesses that +it’s you. It’s enough to break one’s heart to go up and tell her there’s +nothing to hope for; but it must be done.” + +“Say that I will see her in the morning,” said the lawyer, placing his +hat on the hall stand. + +“I’ll go to her at once and have the worst over, or she’ll be wandering +through the house all night. David, you take Mr. Stone to his room.” + +With this Eunice went up stairs abruptly, leaving the two men to take +care of themselves. + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + FINDING THE WILL. + + +There was a heavy rain falling the next morning, and the whole house +took a dreary aspect, spite of the fragrance that came up from the +flowers with every light gush of wind, and the cheerful adornments of +the breakfast-room, which overlooked one of the loveliest pictures that +domain could produce. At another time there might have been a pleasant +variety in this stormy day, for the shifting clouds were beautiful, and +gleams of sunshine now and then struggled through the trees, bathing +them with light for an instant, then throwing them back into the mingled +fog and glitter of a fresh burst of rain. + +One grand old willow stood out on the lawn just before the bay window, +with its great boughs dripping down to the grass a mighty fountain of +leaves, and the window itself was curtained with crimson, flowering +honeysuckles, threaded about the lower sash with white jessamines, over +which ten thousand rain-drops trembled and fell away, dashing the broad +window-panes with little rivulets of brightness. The room itself was +both elegant and comfortable. Fruit and flower paintings in harmony with +the scene without hung from the walls. The table itself was a picture, +with its delicate china, its cut crystal and frosted silver. Yet the +lawyer who sat there alone took no heed of these things. His mind was on +the ocean with that burning ship, for Mr. Lander had been his friend, +and he had regarded that bright-haired child, the daughter, with no +common affection. + +The only picture in the room was a portrait of this girl, taken when she +was perhaps ten years old. It was larger and less childish than the +picture which hung in Mr. Lander’s office, but there was no mistaking +the identity. She sat with her arms folded on a desk, looking wearily at +an open book, which contained, no doubt, some hard lesson; other volumes +lay scattered on the desk, which added to her disquiet; tears were +brimming into her eyes, and you could almost fancy the lips beginning to +quiver. + +Stone looked at this picture now and then as he made a pretence at +eating breakfast. The sight of it saddened him to the heart, and more +than once he rested his forehead on one hand, sighing heavily as if the +child had been his own. He sat in this position when a low, female voice +disturbed him. Mrs. Lander drew towards the table and took a seat, not +as if she intended to partake of the breakfast, but with the dreary air +of one who forces herself to perform a painful duty. + +Mr. Stone lifted his massive forehead from the hand which supported it +and turned his eyes kindly upon her. She was very pale, and her face +presented the washed-out appearance of a woman who had cried all night. + +“You were looking at her picture,” she said. “It is like her, poor +child. You will find one in every room that her father occupied much; he +doted on her.” + +“She was a fine child,” said the lawyer, gently. “They tell me that you +also have lost a daughter.” + +“My only child,” answered the mother. + +“And who are the nearest relatives?” + +“The children of Mr. Lander’s cousin, who died long ago. They are +somewhere out West.” + +“Farmers?” + +“I believe so.” + +“This will be a fine property for them to fall into—a very fine +property,” said the lawyer, gradually gliding into the spirit of his +profession. + +“Yes,” answered the widow, faintly. + +“Have you any knowledge of a will, Mrs. Lander?” + +“I—I—have heard of one, or that he was about to make one before he went +over the seas after the girls; but he might not have done it. There +seemed to be no occasion. He was not a very old man, and worshipped his +daughter, whose health was perfect. I thought of this yesterday, and +went into his study to look for something of the kind, but my heart gave +way; I could not force myself to touch his papers, and sent for you. But +it is doubtful—very doubtful if anything is found.” + +“We will have a search. You eat nothing, madam.” + +“I cannot taste a morsel.” + +“And I have got over what little appetite this news has left to me; so +we will go to my poor friend’s room at once.” + +“No, no, I would rather not. The very sight of his chair and desk made +me faint when I went in yesterday. Here are the keys; this, which +belongs to the safe, has some mysterious combination which no one but +David comprehends. But he will go with you—a more trusty creature never +lived.” + +“I can believe that,” said the lawyer. “He seems a smart, honest fellow +enough. Let him show me the room.” + +Stone had arisen by this time and rang the bell. The sadness which hung +around him when alone had vanished entirely. He took out his watch like +a man impatient to proceed to business. Mrs. Lander kept her seat by the +table and said nothing. She did not seem to know when David came in and +the lawyer followed him from the room. Eunice entered the breakfast-room +soon after, and began to replace some silver on the sideboard, casting +sharp glances at her mistress as she passed to and fro, but there was no +talking between them. Eunice trod softly, and her mistress seemed to +listen with a strain of the senses. + +At last a slow, heavy tread came down the stairs, and Mr. Stone entered +the breakfast-room. + +“Madam,” he said, with a distinctness that made the widow start in her +chair, “had Mr. Lander, among the people about him, any such persons as +Eunice and Joshua Hurd?” + +“One of them names belongs to me, I calculate,” said Eunice marching up +to the table like a grenadier. + +“To you, eh? Well, where is the other witness?” + +“The other what?” + +“This Joshua Hurd?” + +“Where should he be but somewhere about the stables? Show me where a +hoss is, and I’ll show you Josh Hurd. Why the critter’s my own brother. +But what do you want of him, if I may be so bold?” + +“Did he and you sign a paper for Mr. Lander just before he went away?” + +“Jest afore he went away. Well I reckon it must a been nigh on to a week +or ten days afore.” + +“But you did sign one?” + +“In course we did. I happened to be going by his office door and he +called me in—” + +“Well?” + +“He was a writing fast, and kept me till he got through. I looked on +till I got a tired out. Then he signed his name to the paper, and told +me to write mine too.” + +“And you did?” + +“Of course I did; then he told me to call John or some one of the +servants, but John was out and I ran across to the stables for Joshua.” + +“Did you know what this paper was?” + +“Yes; Mr. Lander told me that he was willing away his property.” + +The lawyer was not quite satisfied, clear and simple as all this +appeared. One of those inexplicable feelings that are beyond all reason +had seized upon him, and unconsciously he fell into a spirit of sharp +cross examination. + +“Can you find this man, Joshua Hurd? I would like to speak with him,” he +said. + +“In less than no time. He’s always on hand about the stables,” answered +the woman, and she marched off with an air of relief. + +Mrs. Lander had not spoken during this examination, but her eyes were +bent anxiously on the lawyer, and he could see that some hard strain of +the nerves was harassing her. This was scarcely more than natural, +considering her position in the family. Still the lawyer watched her +with vague doubts, which he could not himself have accounted for. + +“Is it true? Has a will been found?” she asked, after a pause which +seemed unnaturally long. Her voice was low and hoarse, her eyes +downcast, she did not lift them fully to his once while she was +speaking. + +“Yes, a will has been found in Mr. Lander’s safe, witnessed by the woman +and a man who is her brother.” + +“Oh!” exclaimed the widow, and she fell into silence, leaning her elbow +upon the table and shrouding her face with one hand. She evinced no +curiosity to know how the property had been left. Was it because she had +no hopes in her own behalf or from the reticence of fore-knowledge? + +The lawyer asked himself this question as he gazed at her from under his +heavy eyebrows. The woman seemed conscious of his scrutiny, and moved in +her seat; then her hand dropped and she lifted her eyes clearly to his. + +“To whom does the will relate? Where does the property go?” she asked. + +He did not answer her; for that moment Eunice came in, followed by her +brother, who seemed restless and uneasy as the lawyer turned upon him. +First he buried a huge hand in his pantaloons pocket, then drew it out +with a jerk and took off his cap in hot haste, struck with a sudden +remembrance of some early maternal lesson on the subject. + +He grew red and sallow under the keen eyes bent upon him beneath Lawyer +Stone’s heavy brows. Indeed, in all respects, this man, Joshua Hurd, was +a remarkably uncouth specimen of a down East ignoramus—an animal +possessed of appetites and plenty of that low cunning which is sometimes +more than a match for absolute wisdom. To use his own term, endorsed by +the more acute sister, Joshua knew as well as another man “on which side +his bread was buttered, stupid as he seemed.” + +“Come here, my good man, into Mr. Lander’s office, I want a little talk +with you,” said the lawyer. + +Joshua, who had been standing with one foot planted hard on a cluster of +flowers glowing in the carpet, and the other raised upon the square toe +of his shoe, like that of a tired horse, settled down into a walking +condition and shambled out of the room. + +“Sit down, Mr. Hurd, sit down,” said the suave lawyer, pointing to a +rotary chair near the desk; “I want a little talk with you about the +paper you signed for Mr. Lander. When was it? I forgot the exact time.” + +“It was jest afore the Gov’ner went away from home last time,” answered +Joshua, with the dogged air of a stupid schoolboy. + +“But when was that?” + +“Last spring.” + +“Do you remember the date?” + +“No.” + +“Was it morning or evening?” + +“Can’t remember.” + +“Which signed the paper first, you or your sister?” + +“Eunice.” + +“Was Mrs. Lander present?” + +“No!” + +“Had Mr. Lander signed it when you came in?” + +“Unsartin.” + +“Did Mr. Lander say anything?” + +“Said it was his last testament.” + +“Was that exactly what he said?” + +“Jest that. I looked round for the book, but there wasn’t none there, +nor Bible neither; but he said it was a testament, consarned if he +didn’t.” + +“Did you tell any one of this?” + +“No; ’twasn’t none of my business what the old chap wrote about his +testaments.” + +The lawyer was puzzled. It certainly was strange that Mr. Lander, with +two intelligent and tolerably educated retainers in the house, should +have selected this boor for a witness to his will. But there was nothing +to be gathered from the curt answers that had followed his +investigations. So far, the will seemed legal in all its forms, and Mrs. +Lander was, by its provisions, sole legatee of all her brother-in-law’s +wealth. + +Mr. Stone went into the breakfast-room again and found this lady gazing +fixedly on the carpet at her feet, so lost in thought that she sprang up +and uttered a little scream when the lawyer addressed her. + +“Madam, the will we have found is entirely in your favor.” + +There was no surprise in her face; no outburst of satisfaction. Her eyes +were turned wildly on the lawyer, her lips moved, but she did not speak. + +“The news overcomes you, madam!” + +“Yes, yes—I—I am a little faint—thank you, I am only a little.” + +The woman gasped for breath and pressed one hand on her bosom. She did, +indeed, seem ready to faint. + +Eunice Hurd came into the room like a grenadier and swept off with the +widow, almost carrying her. + +“She’s tired out, and talking ain’t good for her.” + +Eunice flung the words over her shoulder, looking back upon Lawyer Stone +with a defiant air which he could not understand. + +The lawyer sat down dissatisfied, and taking out the will, read it over +again. It was certainly in his friend’s handwriting, and he was made +joint executor with Mrs. Lander. Why was it that a sense of mystery and +wrong-doing clung to him? + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + THE BILL OF EXCHANGE. + + +A young man entered an eminent banking house in the lower part of the +city, with the air of a stranger, and presented a bill of exchange so +large in amount as to occasion some surprise, for he drew the heavier +portion at once in gold and carried it off in a leathern satchel which +he carried in his hand. The strain upon his arm denoted no ordinary +amount of the precious metal; though he carried it with assumed ease, +the blood rose to his pale face with the exertion. This circumstance, +and something in the appearance of the man, drew the general attention +upon him as he passed out of the bank. There was scarcely a clerk in the +room who did not follow this stranger with his eyes and comment upon his +elegance of manner and person. His air and dress were foreign, his beard +black and bright as the plumage of a raven, was trimmed with great +neatness, and magnificent black eyes completed the manly beauty of a +face which no one could have looked upon without admiration. + +“There goes a fellow that ought to be a lord, from the cut of his +figure,” said one. + +“Or a government speculator, by the pile of gold he carries away,” +answered another. “Only he looks too modest and walks too quietly for +that.” + +“Some English nobleman going out to hunt on the Plains, travelling +_incog._, no doubt—that sort of thing is getting very fashionable of +late,” observed a third. “Stylish fellow, anyway.” + +More than one person who met this man in the street made the same +observation. His quiet, yet lofty carriage, joined to a style of beauty +which was both statuesque and manly, singled him out from the crowd. +Both men and women turned to look at him as he passed, wondering vaguely +about him. + +The stranger walked on, apparently unconscious of the general regard, +but his observation was keen, notwithstanding this seeming indifference, +and a smile curled the lips beneath the shadow of his black beard as he +entered one of the up-town hotels and proceeded to a suite of rooms +taken that morning an hour after his arrival in the steamer from Europe. + +When he entered the Fifth Avenue hotel, the stranger had carried a +leathern box in his hand, such as statesmen and persons travelling on +business sometimes use for convenience when papers are to be transported +from place to place. This box stood on a console in the parlor when he +entered that room on his return from the banker’s. He drew an easy chair +toward the console, sat down in it and unlocked the box, in which were +some papers and small packages, which might or might not contain +valuables. + +He pressed these papers down with his hands, then unlocked the satchel +and poured a steady stream of gold into the box till it was even full, +and the satchel scarcely lightened of one-third its contents. Then he +dropped a handful or two of the coin into his pockets, locked the +satchel, and flung it with a heave and a crash on the top of a wardrobe, +which stood in the bed-chamber opening out of the room where he sat. A +massive cornice of carved rosewood formed a hollow which would have +concealed a larger package, and in which this sunk completely out of +sight. + +After the exertion of hiding away his gold, the man sat down, brushed +some particles of dust from his coat and took a package of letters from +his breast pocket. These he examined with great care, and seemed to be +taxing his memory severely regarding the writers, for he muttered more +than once, “Well, I never saw this man,” or, “I wonder how the fellow +looks.” + +The letters were directed to some of the first statesmen and merchants +in the country. One, which bore the name of Lander, he singled out and +examined carefully. + +“They never met, I feel quite sure they never met,” he muttered, +smoothing his jetty beard with one hand as he read. “I wonder how near +the old man lives. But I forget, the luggage will soon he here, and I +have made no preparation.” + +Seymour, for by that name the man registered himself, arose suddenly, +took his hat and went out. He was a little bewildered now, and seemed to +be looking for some place which he was reluctant to ask for in words. A +moment he paused before the windows at Tiffany’s, and seemed tempted to +go in, but turned away, crossed the street and stopped at Morley’s, +where he lounged away half an hour examining specimens of antique +furniture with the air of a connoisseur. + +A dressing-case, richly appointed, and a desk of ebony, mounted with +silver, seemed to strike his fancy. These he put aside for purchase, +inquiring first if the cases that belonged to them could be found, if +the mountings could be brightened and the whole put in order at once. + +The man paid for these articles in gold, and the only remarkable thing +about his purchase was that he ordered both desk and dressing-case to be +carried to an express, from which they would be delivered at the hotel. +The stranger left his name in full; Horace Seymour, and gave the number +of his rooms. + +The next remarkable step that this man took was to wander on and on till +he came to a pawnbroker’s shop with a host of miscellaneous articles +hanging at the window. He went in and inquired for second-hand watches, +something unique. If one could be found with the letters H. S., or even +S., singly upon the case, he would not mind the price; a crest, too, +might enhance the value of the article. + +The pawnbroker’s sharp eyes brightened at this. Some imprudent Smith, +called Henry, Horatio, Horace or Hector, perhaps, had left his +unfortunate initials tied up unredeemed, on the back of a fine +hunting-watch, worn just enough to become highly respectable. This +Horace Seymour purchased without demurring at the exorbitant price which +the pawnbroker instantaneously put upon it. + +When the watch was transferred to his pocket, he desired to examine any +other curious things in the way of jewelry that might happen to remain +on sale. Directly a case of trinkets was brought forth, out of which +Seymour selected a seal ring whose value even the pawnbroker did not +know, for it was an antique head, exquisitely cut, and almost worth its +weight in diamonds. + +Seymour’s eyes brightened slowly as he saw this gem, but he examined +half-a-dozen uninteresting articles before he touched it. Then he +carelessly asked the price, paid it without comment, slipped the ring on +his finger and walked away, leaving the pawnbroker almost in tears +because he had not asked an additional ten per cent. on the articles +that had just left his den. + +“If I’d only known how much he would bear,” lamented the man to himself. +“Why the fellow never once attempted to beat me down, and wouldn’t if +I’d asked double. But I always was a coward—a mean coward—afraid to set +a price on my own soul. What’s the good of these ten twenty, thirty gold +eagles, when it might have been twice as much and something to drink +thrown in. Oh, the gentleman has robbed me with his still manner and +thoughtful face. It might have been double! It might have been double!” + +Meantime Seymour had walked quietly up Broadway toward his hotel, making +his own combinations. Two express wagons stood in front of the office, +and porters were busy carrying up his trunks, while the dressing-case +and desk were brought in. Everything was in order. His rooms would soon +have a homelike appearance. + +When the chandelier was lighted over his head that evening, an ebony +desk, mounted with silver, and filled in all its compartments with +papers, stood open on the table before him, and in the shaded light of +the bed-room beyond was a dressing-case, with all its toilet +paraphernalia laid out ready for use. + +Seymour rang the bell and desired that some person should be sent to him +from the office. That personage made his appearance and stood some +minutes at the door, while his guest was busily writing. At last Seymour +looked up. + +“Ah, I beg pardon.” + +“Step in if you please. Is there a person in this establishment who +would take charge of my things and help me a little about dressing?” + +“That is, you want a servant.” + +“Not exactly. In this country the best servant that ever lived would be +spoiled in a month. But I should like to have a person generally at my +command.” + +“That class of men are not abundant in our cities, sir, but I have a +needy chap now and then hanging about the office; one was there this +morning wanting to do odd jobs.” + +“An American?” + +“I did not take the trouble to inquire; but he may be there yet. He +seems a bright boy.” + +“Send him up, if you please.” + +The clerk disappeared. + +After a time a knock at the door aroused Seymour again, and a young man, +scarcely more than a lad, came in. He was very thin, rather untidy, but +had a look of quick intelligence that pleased the traveller at once. +With a single glance of his great bright eyes, the lad took in every +object the room contained. + +“You sent for me, sir,” he said. + +“You? Oh yes; you are the person I desired to be sent up. Well, what can +you do?” + +“Almost anything, sir?” + +“Do you know the city?” + +“I can find the way anywhere,” answered the lad, evasively. + +“Have you ever been in service?” + +“Never; but I know what a gentleman wants, and can do as much as +another.” + +“But I might want something out of the common way.” + +“Not knowing exactly what the common way is, that would not trouble me +much.” + +“What wages will you want?” + +“Whatever you are willing to give.” + +“Very well, we will settle that after I have learned something of your +capabilities. But your clothes are not exactly suitable for a +gentleman’s attendant.” + +The youth looked down on his coat, which was wrinkled and clouded in its +color. + +“They have been in the water,” he said, with a shiver. “No wonder.” + +“Have you no others?” + +“No, I have nothing else.” + +“Here; go out and buy a neat outfit. I suppose the shops are open yet. +It must have been a heavy storm that drenched you so!” + +The young man reached forth his hand for the gold which Seymour held +towards him. + +“It was a shipwreck—a hard choice between fire or water, sir.” + +“Indeed! Some other time you shall tell me about it; but just now I am +anxious to see you in neater trim. Those things smell of sea water.” + +“No wonder. But—but, sir, can I spend a little of this money for food?” + +“Food! Why, man, you don’t mean to say that you are in such a strait as +that?” + +“I am nearly starved.” + +Seymour started from his chair and rang the bell violently. The youth +had made a step forward to render this service and came into the full +light. Then, for the first time, Seymour saw how meagre and white his +face was. The wonderful brilliancy of his eyes sprang from protracted +and ravenous craving for food. + +“Poor fellow!” said Seymour, “poor fellow! I did not dream of it! Wait a +minute.” + +A servant entered, answering the bell promptly. + +“Bring up something to eat, and a bottle of wine, at once.” + +“What will you order, sir?” + +“Order? Why everything; beef steak, birds, chickens, turkeys.” + +“Sir!” exclaimed the servant, opening his eyes wide, and stepping back +with great dignity. + +“Well, say beef steak and plenty of potatoes. Are you Irish, my good +fellow?” + +“Yes, I am Irish,” answered the youth. + +“Plenty of potatoes then—boiled, fried, stewed, with anything else that +takes no time in cooking.” + +The servant bowed and went out somewhat astonished. Seymour laughed +lightly and turned upon the youth, who met his look with eyes full of +tears. + +“Oh, sir, you are too kind,” he said. + +“Not a bit, my good fellow; nobody on earth can be too kind, it is not +the fault of human nature. I’m not quite brute enough to see hunger like +that in a fellow creature’s eyes and not try to feed it. But no one +shall say that I’m not hard-hearted for all that, especially if any one +offends me.” + +“Shall I go down stairs, sir?” asked the youth, who was shaking with an +eager hope of food. “Will they give it to me in the kitchen?” + +“No, here. I want to see you eat. Jove! how I envy you.” + +The youth drew back and leaned against the wall, clasping his hands +hard, as if imploring the minutes to pass quickly. At length a sob of +joy broke from his lips. He could hear a jingle of crockery coming up +the stairs. + +Seymour started up, removed the desk from his table, and ordered the +waiter to place his tray there, directly under the chandelier. The man +obeyed, and lifted the cover from a noble beef steak, which soon filled +the room with its appetizing flavor. + +“That is right. You can go now,” said the young man, pointing to the +door. + +The man withdrew. + +“Come,” said Seymour, “come along. What’s your name?” + +“Brian.” + +“Brian—Brian! But I suppose you’ve got another name?” + +Seymour spoke with a touch of impatience. The boy lifted those great +bright eyes to his face for one instant, but turned them eagerly toward +the food. + +“The other name, I meant—the other name first,” cried Seymour. + +“It’s Nolan, Brian Nolan, sir,” answered the lad, with an eager catch of +the breath. + +“Nolan,” muttered the young man, “Nolan!” + +The boy did not heed him, the pangs of hunger were too keen; he quivered +all over with impatience. + +“That’s right, my poor fellow; that’s right, fall to without mercy. Sit +down, sit down and be comfortable.” + +Seymour rolled up his own soft Turkish chair to the table and patted its +crimson cushions enticingly. + +Truly his good nature must have been genuine when he could so far forget +the niceties of refinement. The lad required no second bidding. His eyes +took fire as they devoured the smoking food. With the craving of a wild +beast, he crept slowly toward the table, evidently striving hard to +control himself. + +Seymour stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, watching the poor +fellow with a glow of satisfaction as he devoured the steak. A dish was +yet covered, he stepped forward and removed the lid, revealing a mound +of potatoes, deliciously mealy, cracking the tawny skins in which they +had been boiled. + +“Mother of Heaven, this is too much!” cried the youth, dropping both +hands upon his lap. “Oh, sir, I haven’t tasted one since I left home.” + +“Go at them, then, they’ll taste so much the better,” cried the young +man, laughing and thrusting a fork into one of the potatoes, which he +held up and examined admiringly. “By Jove! I didn’t think these things +could be such a luxury! It makes me hungry to see you eat them. Here, +give me a knife and a little salt. By the way, stop a minute, my good +fellow; it just strikes me that too much isn’t good for a person in your +condition. The half of that steak is a rather powerful allowance, and +that is the third potato.” + +“Let me finish this,” pleaded the lad. + +“Couldn’t think of it,” answered the young man, replacing the covers on +the dishes with decision. Then he rang the bell. + +The lad, with his hunger but half appeased, dropped the knife and fork, +closed his eyes and fell back in the easy chair, sighing heavily. + +“Take the things away,” said Seymour, when the waiter came in, “and tell +them down in the office to find a bed somewhere for this young fellow. +He’ll stay with me for the present.” + +The man went out, closing the door behind him. Seymour stood watching +the pale face of the lad with a feeling of singular interest. + +“This is what money can do,” he thought. “Cheap too—cheap as dirt, and +yet how much happiness. Why, that one meal was like a fortune to him. +But to be kind, to give real happiness, one _must_ have money.” + +While these thoughts passed through the young man’s brain, two great +tears stole through the closed lashes of the Irish lad and rolled slowly +down his cheeks. + +“That’s the kind of diamonds I’ll buy with the money, if they’ll only +let me,” continued Seymour, still gazing on the lad. “It isn’t just to +enjoy things myself that I want it, but—but—” + +With the gesture of a man who finds his reflections beginning to grow +troublesome, Seymour dropped his hand on the lad’s shoulder. + +“Come now, wake up and get to bed, Brian,” he exclaimed, cheerfully. “We +will let the clothes go till morning.” + +Brian looked up, and Seymour saw that his great black eyes were full of +tears, while his face quivered all over with grateful emotion. + +“Oh, sir, how I thank you—how good you have been to me! What can I do +for you?” + +“Go to bed now, and forget the last hour, if you can. It has been a +little irregular as between master and servant, and may put false +notions into your head.” + +“No, no, no. You have been kind—so kind, I can remember nothing but +that. God bless you, sir, and prosper you in everything. I’d rather be +your servant than another man’s king.” + +The boy attempted to rise, but Seymour pressed a hand on his shoulder, +detaining him. + +“So your name is Nolan, and you came from Ireland,” he said. + +“Yes, sir; oh yes!” + +“What part of Ireland, my fine fellow, what part?” + +“On the Blackwater, near Waterford.” + +The young man was disturbed; he walked the room once or twice, then bent +over the lad again. + +“And your father, what is his name?” + +“John, sir; John Nolan.” + +“Of Rydehurst?” said Seymour. + +The boy looked up quickly. + +“Yes, that was the name of his place, when he had one,” answered the +lad. + +“And how did he lose it?” + +“He sold it, sir.” + +“Sold it—sold it! Why? How?” + +“I would rather not talk about that,” answered the boy. + +“But where is your father now?” + +“Dead.” + +Seymour sallied back and clenched one hand with a sudden spasm. + +“And—and your mother?” + +The young man’s voice shook as he asked this question, and he was pale +as marble. + +“She is dead too.” + +“What!” + +This single word was uttered almost with a cry of anguish. The young +man’s head fell upon the back of the easy chair, and he grasped at the +cushions nervously with his hands. + +“They are all dead—one after another they went down,” said the boy, in a +plaintive whisper. + +“Was it in the shipwreck?” + +“The steamer was on fire.” + +“And they jumped overboard?” + +“All.” + +“None saved—not one?” + +“I alone—I alone!” + +“Go,” said the young man, “go sleep, if you can.” + +“Good-night, and thank you again and again. I hope you will never be so +hungry or so lonesome as I was.” + +“Good-night—good-night, boy.” + + + + + CHAPTER X. + MRS. LANDER ENTERS ON HER FORTUNE. + + +Mrs. Lander had taken possession of her brother-in-law’s estate under +the will, and for the first time in her life began to enjoy the power of +wealth, the sublime egotism of possession. True, all this fortune gave +her no additional comfort, nor insured to her a luxury not hitherto her +own, for since her husband’s death she had been denied nothing by his +generous brother. But this, to a nature like hers, or indeed to any +nature capable of ambition, was the smallest result of wealth. She +wanted its power, its influence among men—the reputation it +conferred—the envy it created. Having been dependent all her life, these +things took a mighty value in her estimation, and no queen ever mounted +a throne with more pride than this woman felt in seizing upon the estate +which seemed to have fallen into her possession by a miracle. + +Up to this time, Mrs. Lander had been very liberal in her social ideas +and luxuriously extravagant in her personal habits, having gorgeous +tastes by nature, and that coarse hankering for display which women of +low birth and inferior associations in early youth are liable to +acquire. Beyond this the woman could not go, and a vast capacity for +intrigue lay useless and buried in her life which was likely to find +room for display now. She was not very old either; the years that +carried her beyond forty were hardly worth mentioning. A fresh +complexion, robust but symmetrical form, and rather juvenile carriage, +made her seem even younger than that. With great wealth added to these +attractions, there was much in the future for a woman like that to +expect and hope for. + +Mrs. Lander went into deep, deep mourning at once. Crape folds a yard in +depth covered the skirts of her bombazine dresses; crape veils, with +hems that made them almost double, fell from her bonnet; not a gleam of +white was allowed to appear about her person. The very handkerchiefs +wetted by her tears had a black border one-fourth of an inch wide +running under the broadest of broad hems. She stripped her fingers of +their jewels, and sent to the city at once, for chains and bracelets and +lugubrious brooches of jet, which gave a shimmer of brightness to the +volumes of English crape that clouded her mournfully from head to foot. + +The woman mourned for her daughter, undoubtedly. This elaborate show of +grief was not all pretence. She would have been delighted to hear that +Cora had escaped the shipwreck on any terms; doubly delighted if the +rescue of her child could have been achieved without disturbing the will +which made her mistress of everything. No doubt she would have been a +generous and munificent mother in that case, proud of her child and +ready to push her interests to the utmost; but she would have shuddered +a little at the thought of depending on Cora Lander for subsistence, +though a thought of this kind never took force with her now. Poor Cora +was gone with the rest, and ten thousand perfections hovered around her +memory. Still the wealth was a consolation. + +Five or six weeks after the sad news, Mrs. Lander sent for Joshua Hurd, +who came in from the stables walking after his usual heavy fashion, and +seeming half ashamed of a new suit of clothes, which gave a certain +appearance of neatness to his ungainly person. Joshua’s manner was a +little singular when he came into the presence of his mistress. He +looked around for his sister, and seemed relieved that she was not +there. Then he sat down on the very sofa which held Mrs. Lander and her +voluminous skirts, planting his heavy shoe on the crape folds of her +dress, and sat still, looking stolidly into her face. + +Mrs. Lander did not rebuke or attempt to repulse this familiarity, but +she gently extricated her dress from his foot, and smiled sweetly in +doing it. + +“Joshua,” she said, “I have been thinking a good deal about the horses.” + +“That’s exactly in my line,” he answered. “What about ’em?” + +“The pair of chestnuts don’t exactly suit me.” + +“They’re splendid critters as ever drew a carriage,” interrupted Joshua, +bluntly. “What on arth can you want better?” + +“They are too bright—too showy for my mourning.” + +“Mourning! Why, who ever hearn of putting hosses in mourning, I’d like +to know?” + +“But they disturb its sad harmony.” + +“Never was a better or a purtyer team of hosses druv. Darn’d if I +believe you know what a good hoss is!” + +“But they put me in mind of him—of them.” + +“In course they du! Why not?” + +“The truth is, Joshua, now that I’m mistress here, I’d like to choose my +own horses and carriages, and everything, and have the credit of good +taste in myself.” + +Joshua lifted one foot, laid it on his knee and nursed it for a whole +minute in thoughtful tenderness. + +“Well, I reckon that’s nat’ral,” he said at last. “So you want ter sell +them chestnuts? How much do you ask for ’em?” + +“That is what I wanted to talk to you about. Of course I shall defer to +your judgment.” + +Joshua dropped his foot cautiously and drew himself up, blushing to the +temples. + +“I’ll sell ’em or trade ’em off for you—but what kind of critters du you +want now?” + +“Black—I think we will have black.” + +“Not one of them ’ere Black Hawks?” + +“No, nothing of that kind, but a pair of fine, well-matched blacks, if +they can be found.” + +Just then Eunice came into the room, excited, fiery, and dressed with +incongruous magnificence. She saw Joshua sitting close by her mistress, +and pounced upon him with a vengeance. + +“You dolterhead, get up. How dare you?” + +She seized Joshua by the collar and almost lifted him from the sofa, +gave him a vigorous pull and planted his feet in the middle of the room. + +“I’ll teach you!” she cried, shaking her fiery locks at him. “How often +I’ve told you!” + +“Look-a-here,” said Joshua, dashing the cap on to his head, “it won’t be +worth your while to do that ’ere agin! I ain’t a going to stand it; so +you look out!” + +“Be quiet, both of you,” said Mrs. Lander, with dignity. “I cannot be +annoyed in this way.” + +“You sent for me, or I shouldn’t a come,” said Joshua, sullenly. + +“And I wanted you, Joshua, not only to consult about the horses, but to +say that hereafter the entire control of the stables shall be yours. You +shall account to no one but me, now that I am mistress.” + +“That’s something like,” said Joshua, brightening up. “When that critter +lets you alone, you’re a trump, and no mistake. But that evil spurret +that went down into the swine and druv them into the sea wasn’t nothing +to her. She’s wuss than a hull drove of hogs, if every one on ’em had a +spurret of his own.” + +“Josh!” + +“Now jest you keep away, Eunice Hurd. I’m a speaking to her, and not to +you by no manner of means. Don’t come anear me, I warn you, or I’ll bust +right out afore everybody. You’ve trod on me long enough. Now I mean to +stomp on you if you don’t behave yerself.” + +Eunice, who had been threatening violence, drew back in blank amazement; +her face grew red in spots, her eyes flashed strange light, like the +green tints in an opal. She was quivering from head to foot with a +vicious desire to box her brother’s ears. + +“Oh! you snake you—” + +“Eunice, I will have no more of this. You must learn that I am mistress +here,” said Mrs. Lander. + +“You!” exclaimed Eunice, turning upon her mistress with intense scorn. +“You, and setting there side by side with Josh!” + +Mrs. Lander took no heed of her insolence, for she was a woman of +wonderful self-possession when the occasion required it. Her voice was +quiet and calm as a summer’s morning as she once more addressed Joshua. + +“You can sell the chestnuts and buy the blacks, as I directed. Use your +own judgment in the whole matter,” she said. + +“So you are a going to buy black horses, are you?—Deep mourning, animals +and all,” said Eunice, spitefully. “Hadn’t you better have a span of +white ones ready for the half-mourning. It ’ed be mighty handy—or grays, +to shade off into white. I hate such airs!” + +“That would be a contrast worth thinking about—I am much obliged to you, +Eunice. I will take day to consider it. White or black. Go now, Joshua, +and remember that hereafter you are master out yonder.” + +“And who mistress in here?” demanded Eunice. + +“I am,” answered Mrs. Lander, with calm firmness, “and this scene must +never be repeated, Eunice. Understand me clearly—must never be +repeated.” + +“Jest say that agin!” said the virago, going off into a fit of hoarse +wrath. “I understand you; you want to get the blind side of that +soft-hearted creature, and so be one too many for me if I should cut up +rusty. But let me ketch him in here agin, or you in there, and I’ll show +you what’s what!” + +Mrs. Lander was very pale; every vestige of color left her lips, they +were pressed so firmly together. She seemed about to say something +defiant, but the strain upon her nerves had been too great, and she fell +into a chair, faint and trembling. What was she, with all her wealth, +but a slave? + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + SALE OF THE CHESTNUT HORSES. + + +The next day Joshua went to the city with the chestnut horses, proud of +his commission, and resolved to stay a week in town rather than return +without the animals his mistress had expressed a fancy for. He drove +directly to a large public stable well known as a sort of horse +exchange, and at once put up his chestnuts for sale. + +While he was hanging about the stables, a young man drove up in a hack +and entered the office, followed by a lad, who jumped down from his seat +by the driver and lingered near the door, as if afraid of losing sight +of his master. + +In a place like this, Joshua Hurd felt perfectly at home; he went up to +the lad and spoke to him good-naturedly enough. + +“Is that ’ere young man arter horses?” he questioned. Brian Nolan +answered that he thought so, but he was not quite sure. + +“Got a smashing team in there that I’d like to sell him,” said Josh. +“What’s his color?” + +“I don’t know,” answered Brian; “but there he comes, and you can ask +him.” + +Joshua saw that the young man was entering the stables with the +proprietor, and sauntered after them, whistling in an undertone. + +“I’ve got the prettiest pair of chestnuts that you ever set eyes on; +just come in. You’re fortunate in your time, sir. Those animals won’t +stay on hand long, I can promise you. The gentleman who owned them was +the best judge of horse-flesh that ever visited my stable, or rather his +man was, and that’s the same thing.” + +“Why does he sell them, if they are so perfect?” inquired the stranger. + +“They’re splendid critters,” said Joshua, cutting into the conversation +without scruple; “not a fault. The person who owned ’em is dead, and the +lady thinks that the color is too gorgeous for deep mourning. She wants +black hosses, or if them ain’t ter be got, white. Them latter she’d trim +about the heads with crape rosettes, I reckon, for she’s a hull team and +a hoss to let on mourning.” + +The young man took little heed of this speech. He was busy examining the +horses, and the proprietor saw at once that he had no ordinary judge to +deal with. + +“I can offer you nothing better than these if you fancy the color,” he +said. “They are noble animals.” + +“They are noble animals. But why does the owner sell them?” repeated +Seymour, going back to his original question. + +“He was lost at sea—the steamer that was burned, you remember.” + +The young man shrunk from the subject, which sent the color from his +face. + +“I have heard of it,” he said, hoarsely. + +“Terrible thing, wasn’t it?” rejoined the horse dealer. “Such a fine old +man, too.” + +“Was he alone?” + +“No; that is the most horrible part of it. His only daughter and his +niece went down with him.” + +“But there must be a survivor—or is there no one to claim the service of +these noble beasts?” + +“The property goes by will, I am told, to some widow up the river.” + +“She is a fortunate woman,” said Seymour, absently, “that is, if young +enough to enjoy her money.” + +This did not seem a leading question, yet there was something like +interest in the traveller’s eyes as he waited for the answer. He could +not have accounted for this feeling himself. + +“I don’t know her exact age, but she is a handsome, stylish woman, with +a good deal of life in her. I took these very horses up myself when the +owner bought them, and gave her the first drive. Smart woman, I can tell +you.” + +“Wall, I reckon she is jest that,” interposed Joshua, arousing himself +to animation. “Sharp as a steel trap, and harnsome as a race hoss. It’ed +take two of your city gals to hold a candle tu her.” + +“You are her servant, I suppose?” said the young man. + +“Her sarvant, her sar—. Yes, yes, I am that, only the name don’t suit +me. In New England, where I was born, they called us hired men. But if +she wants to call Josh Hurd a sarvant, so be it. I ain’t a going to +complain.” + +This conversation had drawn the young man’s attention from the horses, +to which he now turned, but with something of decision in his manner. + +“Have them put in harness,” he said, “and let us take a turn in the +Park. I should like to try their action. I will drive them myself, and +this fellow shall go along.” + +The horses were attached to a light wagon, and Seymour took his seat +with the ease of a man accustomed to the position. Joshua climbed up to +his side, and they were about to drive on, when Seymour remembered Brian +Holan, and bent over the wheel to address him. + +“Stay about the stables, and find out all you can regarding these +horses,” he said, in a low voice. + +The lad answered with his eyes, which were full of intelligence. Seymour +tightened his reins and drove on in splendid style. + +The Park was beautiful that day. It was too early for the regular +exhibition there, and the chestnuts had a fine, free sweep along the +avenues, delighting their driver and almost giving animation to Joshua. +By the delicious little lakes, whitened with flocks of graceful +swans—across arched bridges and around Prospect Hill they swept making +the air eddy as they went. The breath of ten thousand flowers came up +from the hollows and down from the broken uplands, sweeping fragrance +all around them. But Seymour, keenly as he relished the beauties of +nature, scarcely regarded the sweet air he breathed or the lovely +objects that surrounded him. A strange feeling of depression fell upon +him. He drove the horses splendidly, but with a grace and ease that was +purely mechanical. At last he fell into conversation with Joshua, not +about the horses, as was most natural, but dwelt with a sort of weird +fascination on the fate of their former owner. + +Was he certainly dead? Yes, there could be no doubt of that. And the +young ladies, was it positive that they had perished too? Yes, all had +gone down—the old man without a struggle, but the girls had managed to +get into a boat, which was swamped after they almost felt themselves +safe. How long had they been abroad? Why full eight years. They had been +like sisters all their lives, took the same lessons, wore the same +clothes, and were allowed the same spending money. In fact, you could +hardly tell them apart when they were little girls; but eight years must +have changed them a good deal. Joshua would always know them by the +temper, if nothing else, for the niece had that, and no mistake, while +the other was like an angel. But they were both dead now, and no harm +was done since the brother’s widow had got the money. What had they been +doing abroad? Why going to school to be sure, what else could girls of +that age be expected to do? For the last six months they had been +travelling about in what people called the Holy Land, which Joshua +supposed was just the thing to do if they had got to die so soon. + +All this time the names of these persons who interested him so much had +not been mentioned. For some unaccountable reason Seymour had shrunk +from asking it. + +Vague fears were creeping over his heart, and his voice was husky when +he at length forced himself to say: + +“But the name—you have not yet told me the name.” + +“The name, sir—why Lander, of course.” + +That instant the chestnuts gave a wild leap and strained hard upon the +reins, that had been sharply tightened, till one of them began to rear. + +Joshua turned, looked into the deadly white face of the young man, and +snatched the reins from his hands. + +“What on arth are you about? Sich driving would put wolfishness into a +pair of lambs! So, so, old fellows—easy—easy, that’ll do. There, sir, +you see how easily they are managed.” + +“Home, home,” said the young man. “I am satisfied. Drive back.” + +“What’s the matter?” inquired Joshua, bluntly. “Did the horses scare you +so? Why you’re white as a sheet.” + +The young man was trembling from head to foot. His face was contracted +like marble, his very lips were bloodless. + +“Home, home,” he said. + +Joshua drove to the stables in wondering silence. The color had come +slowly back to Seymour’s face, but there was a look of suffering on it +that startled the proprietor of the stables as he drove up. Had anything +happened? Were the horses restive? + +Joshua shook his head. Seymour did not seem to hear him, but stepping +from the wagon, walked away. The proprietor followed him. + +“Did he not like the horses?” + +“Like them? oh yes—oh yes,” said Seymour, slowly retracing his steps. +“Put them up on my account, and send to my hotel for the gold.” + +All this was said in a calm, low voice: but it seemed as if a statue +were speaking. No price had yet been named for the horses, and he had +forgotten it entirely. + +“But we have not agreed on the terms,” said the proprietor, glancing at +Joshua. + +“No,” said the young man, absently. “What are they?” + +The proprietor named a tolerably reasonable sum. + +“That will do. Take good care of them.” + +“But your address, sir?” said the proprietor, taking up a pen from his +office desk. + +Seymour took the pen and attempted to write, but his hand shook upon the +paper, and after he left, the address could hardly be made out. + +Brian Nolan followed his master in silence. He saw the look of pain in +those dark eyes, and the young heart ached in his bosom with a rush of +keen sympathy. + +They went into the hotel together, and passed into the ladies’ entrance +hall. Coming down the long passage on the second story was a hunchbacked +girl, who seemed to have lost her way, for she was looking anxiously at +the numbers over each parlor door. Brian caught hold of his master’s +dress, and the violence of this action drew the young man out of +himself. + +“What is it, Brian, are you ill?” + +The lad held him fast. His pale lips were parted, but he could not +speak. His eyes followed the hunchback almost in terror. + +“Poor fellow! the old suffering has come back,” muttered Seymour, laying +a hand kindly on his shoulder. “Brian, my boy.” + +“It is her! Those are Ellen’s eyes. I know her! I know her! she is my +sister!” + +“Your sister!” + +The lad uttered a cry and darted away. + +“Ellen! Ellen! oh, Ellen, it is me! It is me!” + +The girl started, turned her great stag-like eyes on the boy, and came +towards him with both hands extended. + +“Alive! alive! you and I!” she said, clinging to him, while tears rained +down her radiant face. “Is it, is it you?” + +“Oh, sir! it is my sister—my own sister Ellen, that I told you of! She +jumped overboard with the rest, and is saved. I know you will be glad +for me,” cried Brian, drawing the girl up to his master. “See how +helpless she is!” + +“Poor thing! dear little girl! I am glad to find you here—glad for his +sake. He is a good boy,” said Seymour, with great feeling. + +“He always was a good boy, sir,” answered Ellen smiling through her +tears. “Oh, so good!” + +“And she, sir,” joined in Brian, “she, sir, for all her size, and—and—” + +“He means this, sir,” said Ellen, gently glancing at her shoulder. “It +makes me ill sometimes.” + +“She is brave as a little lion, though, and kind—kind—yes, she would be +just as kind as you are, sir, if she had anything but her two hands.” + +“Let me look at you, dear,” said Seymour, laying one hand on her +forehead and bending her face back. “Yes, you have the family look. +These are Brian’s features—softer, though, as a girl’s should be.” + +“Do I look like him—do I, really?” cried the girl. + +“Yes, child, I think so.” + +“Then people must like my face, at any rate,” she said. + +Seymour smiled faintly and moved a little way from them. + +“Oh! Brian, we went through so much!” said the girl, “so much!” + +“But you are saved!” + +“And you!” + +They clung together in newborn joy, closer and closer, as if some one +threatened to tear them apart. The young man looked on from the +distance, interested. + +“But how came you here?” + +“Brian, an angel brought me!” + +The girl spoke earnestly, and her eyes filled with eager warmth. + +“An angel!” + +“So beautiful, Brian! so good! so full of courage! She helped me through +the water. I pulled her down, but she would not let go of me. There! +there she is!” + +A parlor door had opened as Ellen uttered her shriek, and two young +women looked out, wondering what the sound could mean. Ellen led her +brother toward them. + +“Oh! Miss, forgive me for screaming out. It is my brother. I thought he +had gone down with _them_, but it is he. Don’t let anybody take him away +from me again—oh, don’t! don’t!” + +One of the young ladies stepped into the hall and laid her hand kindly +on Brian’s shoulder. + +“So you are her brother?” she said, in a sweet, sympathetic voice. “I am +glad of that. How were you saved?” + +“Somebody flung a chair over, and I got hold of it till one of the boats +picked me up.” + +“What if some of the rest were saved?” said Ellen. + +“Oh! it seems to me as if an angel had taken care of you too!” + +The young creature lifted her eyes to the beautiful face of her +mistress, smiling gratefully, though tears were again streaming down her +face. + +“Let us hope for the best,” said Virginia Lander. “But tell me, my lad, +how did you reach this place, and what are you doing here?” + +“A vessel that picked us up brought me. I was sick and almost starved, +looking for work, when a gentleman, so kind and good, hired me to wait +on him. He is here, I just came in with him.” + +That moment a form glided by the little group and went swiftly down the +hall, so swiftly that no one saw more than the flutter of Cora Lander’s +black garments as she swept down upon Seymour, her eyes wild with +delight, her hands held out eagerly. + +“Oh, my God, be thanked!” cried out the young man. “My love, my darling, +I thought that you were dead!” + +“You here! you here!” she answered, giving him both her hands. “And I +felt so wretched a moment ago.” + +“Cora! Cora! I shall go mad with joy! Not an hour since, they told me +that you had perished at sea.” + +“And you had but just heard of it. You believed me lost? Was that why +you looked so sad?” + +“Judge for yourself. I have followed you, at what sacrifice no human +being will ever know. Everything that a man holds dear I risked rather +than lose you. My sole object in coming to America was to win you, claim +you, love you forever and ever. An hour ago they told me you were dead; +my life seemed to go out then.” + +“Then you mourned, Horace?” + +“Mourned! Great Heavens! can you ask me?” + +“But now—now that you see me alive and well—yes, yes, I think you are +glad.” + +“Glad!” + +“I know you are. Oh, Seymour, I do think you love me.” + +“Better than my life—better than my own soul! There is nothing on earth +that I would not do for you, nothing a man holds dear that I have not +sacrificed for you already.” + +“I do not understand.” + +“Perhaps not—you never may. But who is that lady with hair like +yours?—That form, the face too?” + +“That is my cousin. Some day I will introduce you—not now. She is but +just come on shore. We shall start up the river this evening or early in +the morning.” + +“Not to-night; let it be to-morrow. This evening I must see you again.” + +“I shall abide by my cousin’s decision.” + +“Abide by her decision! Does this cousin control you, then?” + +“Control me! No; she hasn’t the spirit to control a mouse.” + +“Then you win stay?” + +“Yes, if you desire it so much; but—” + +Cora broke off abruptly. Seymour was looking at Virginia Lander, who +that moment was listening to Brian and looked that way, interested in +the man of whom he spoke so gratefully. The expression of her face was +beautiful just then. Sympathy with those two helpless creatures had +filled her eyes with compassionate tenderness. A sweet smile hovered +about her mouth, and all her face was bright with feeling. She did +indeed look like an angel rejoicing over the salvation of two innocent +fellow beings. + +The young man himself, unnoticed by Virginia, gazed upon her, +fascinated; he had not even heard Cora’s last promise. A shadow, which +was almost a frown, swept over the girl’s face. + +“How very lovely she is. True, there is a wonderful likeness, but—but +such a difference. I never saw a sweeter smile on human lips!” + +Cora swept by him with angry scarlet burning in her cheeks. + +“Virginia, does it strike you that we are getting up a scene here?” she +said. “Let these two strange creatures go up to Ellen’s room. It will +not do for us to form interesting tableaux in the hall. Hear how they +laugh and sob! Go, Ellen, go and take your brother away.” + +Ellen and Brian started off, clinging together and smiling in each +other’s faces, but crying all the time. Virginia withdrew into the +parlor, delighted with this one gleam of happiness, coming as it did out +of the awful catastrophe which had made her an orphan. She had been so +occupied with the brother and sister that the meeting between Cora and +Virginia had passed unregarded. After Virginia had gone, Cora stood in +the hall, proud as Juno, waiting to be conciliated. Seymour drew close +to her. + +“So this is your cousin,” he said. “I never thought that any human being +could mate you before.” + +Cora answered him with a haughty lift of the head. + +“If you think so now, I am glad to hear it in time.” + +The pique and jealousy which embittered these words were manifest and +genuine. Seymour was a man of the world, and had read many a woman’s +heart before that day to the owner’s cost, perhaps. + +“You are angry with me. For what?” he questioned, in a low voice. + +“Angry? No, no; but my cousin will miss me and wonder that I stay so +long with a stranger.” + +“A stranger, Cora!” + +“That is what she thinks you, and what you in fact are. How much do I +know of you?” + +“Everything; I wish no concealment. Grant me one interview where we can +converse in quiet—when shall it be, and where?” + +Cora started; her cousin was standing in the parlor door looking for +her. + +“This evening, come to our parlor. She will retire early.” + +Seymour bowed and walked away, smiling over his success. Cora joined her +cousin. + +“It is the boy’s master,” she said carelessly. “A fine-looking young +man—don’t you think so?” + +“Yes, very. Did you speak with him?” + +“Only a few words—but tell me, dear, had we not better rest where we are +to-night? Think how great the shock would be at home if we go, +unexpectedly there.” + +“That is true, in my haste to get home I forgot that; but we can +telegraph before the train starts.” + +“That would bring our arrival close upon the telegraph. Give a night to +think of it. At the best, our return home will be painful enough.” + +Virginia looked down at her black dress and thought of her father with a +pang of sorrow. + +“Arrange it as you please, Cora. Heaven knows, I shall not be happy +anywhere.” + + + + + CHAPTER XII. + MEETING OF THE LOVERS. + + +Joshua Hurd went down to the hotel where Seymour was staying to get the +gold for his horses, and chanced to pass up the hall just as Cora and +her cousin were standing within the parlor door. The beauty of these +girls would have been striking anywhere, but, in deep mourning and +saddened by misfortune, the effect of their appearance was calculated to +excite something deeper and purer than admiration. Joshua was not much +given to emotions of taste or feeling, but he stopped short in his +quick, plunging walk, and stared at them with doubt and astonishment in +his face. + +“By goram, if grown folks ever looked like children, them gals belong to +the family somehow. Sich hair as that doesn’t crop out on any other +heads that I know on. What if it was them? All her bread ’ed be dough +mighty quick.” + +While he stood muttering these words to himself, Virginia Lander came +out of the parlor and passed him. Her long black dress swept across his +heavy shoes, and her side face was turned toward him. + +“Marm, marm—I say is—is—it you, or ain’t it nobody as I cares about? My +name is Joshua Hurd.” + +“Joshua Hurd!” exclaimed Virginia, turning back. “Oh, I am so glad you +are here!” + +“And it’s you, and t’other one tu; I saw you a standing together, and my +heart riz right up inter my mouth. But the old gentleman, is he on hand? +Thought you was all gone to smash at once.” + +Virginia turned her face away, not in anger at the stolid creature, but +the pain at her young heart was terrible. + +“We come back alone,” she said, with tears in her voice. “Do not let us +talk of it. My cousin and I are all that you will ever see!” + +“That’s tough,” answered Joshua, really disappointed. “Good gracious! +who’d a thought of finding you here arter we’d all gone into mourning +for you, and got kind’er pacified about so many going down at once. I +only hope _she’ll_ take it mild.” + +“We have just been speaking of that—my cousin and I. No one must be +taken by surprise.” + +“I reckon I’d better go right hum my own self and kind’er break the news +to her easy. She’s got sort a used to the property, you know.” + +Virginia smiled faintly at this and said, in her innocence, “Oh, she +will never think of that. It will make no difference to her.” + +“Who is this?” exclaimed Cora, joining them. “What, Josh! dear old +Josh!” + +“Yes mam, it’s me, sure enough. But you—by jingo, I can’t tell which is +which. How you have grown, both on you.” + +“Then you cannot tell us apart, Joshua?” said Cora, smiling. “Try! try!” + +“Couldn’t du it to save my life,” was the puzzled answer. “Defy _her_ tu +tell which is her own darter and which isn’t.” + +“What nonsense, Joshua! Why I have ridden on your shoulder a hundred +times.” + +“And so has both on ye, that’s nothing.” + +Virginia, who was falling back into the sadness which had become +habitual to her, seemed distressed by the light tone of this +conversation, and asked Joshua if he could go up the river by the first +train and carry the news of their arrival to the home which they would +be sure to reach in the morning. + +“Yes,” Joshua said, “he was on hand for anything, and would make a +straight line for the depot the minute he’d secured a bag of gold a +young chap in the hotel owed him.” + +“I will write a line and have it ready,” said Cora, exhibiting a good +deal of nervous excitement. “Are you going up stairs, cousin?” + +“Yes,” answered Virginia, sadly. “Even this meeting troubles me more +than I expected.” + +A strange light came into Cora’s eyes; she was evidently glad to be +alone. + +For ten minutes after she entered the parlor, Cora Lander walked up and +down the room, at first rapidly, like one whose thoughts were in a +tumult; then with measured paces, as she collected those thoughts out of +chaos and planted them in her mind. She took up a pen to write at last, +but flung it down again, having formed a quick resolution. + +“Let him go,” she said, beginning to pace the floor again. “It is better +not. I will neither send note nor message, but let me be certain.” + +She rang the bell, and when the servant answered it inquired what was +the latest train up the river. The man answered that one would leave a +little before eleven. She dismissed him and gave herself up to anxious +thought again. + +When Joshua came down for his instructions, Cora was sitting in the +parlor alone, grave and apparently composed. + +“She had changed her mind about writing. Indeed the effort was too much, +but Joshua could tell all that was necessary. Her cousin and herself had +escaped and were in New York. A vessel had picked them up at sea when +almost starved, and in her they had gone back to England, but these +things would all be explained in due time without burdening his memory +with them. Tell the people at home that he had seen them, that would be +enough.” + +This she said very quietly, looking in his face all the time, as if to +challenge close observation. As he was going out she called him back and +said, with a smile: + +“So you cannot make out which of us belongs to the lady up yonder, or +which is the orphan and heiress?” + +“No, I’ll be hung and choked to death if I can.” + +“Oh, you are dull, Joshua; but there will be plenty of the people who +can tell us apart, I dare say.” + +“Not a critter, without it’s our Eunice. She might.” + +“Oh, Aunt Eunice, as we used to call her. How cross she was,” said Cora, +holding up her hands in mock terror. + +“Cross! Wall I reckon she is.” + +“But she was always devoted to—to Mrs. Lander.” + +“And is yit; but natur is natur, and Eunice’s is awful sometimes. Now +Mr. Lander was a good man, but she e’enamost hated him.” + +“But his daughter, she was a favorite with Eunice.” + +“No, she wasn’t. If you’re her, you must have found that out. She took +to the other gal mostly, and so did I.” + +“Indeed! Well, well, you will think better of it when we get home. Go +now, Joshua, or you will be too late for the train. By the way, had you +not better go early in the morning? It will give you plenty of time. We +shall not start before ten.” + +Joshua gathered up the end of a shot bag, which he had brought from the +stable to carry his gold in, and resting it on his knee, tightened the +string with both hands. + +“Jest as you think best,” he said. “Shouldn’t wonder if the madam ’ell +be disappointed when she finds out that this isn’t all hern,” he +muttered. “It’ll come awful tough for her to give up. Jest as you think +best.” + +Cora arose, and, in order to hurry the man off, tied up the bag with her +own hands. + +“Go now; go, my good fellow, or you will get but little rest,” she said, +taking his cap from the marble console and putting it on his head. “Be +sure and start very early in the morning.” + +Joshua lifted himself heavily from the damask chair on which he had been +seated, and moved away with the bag of gold grasped tightly in his hand, +muttering to himself: + +“I’ll make sure of that by going up to-night.” + +The moment he was gone, Cora went up to her cousin’s chamber, and +flinging herself on a couch complained bitterly of a headache, which she +said was torturing her. But she declined Virginia’s offered help, and +lay with her face to the wall, apparently asleep, but buried in deep +thought. At dark some tea and a light supper was sent up, of which they +both partook with considerable appetite, Cora observing that a headache +like that was sure to make her hungry, while her cousin suggested that +they had eaten nothing since morning—an unwise thing when they had both +so much need of strength. After a little, Cora arose and proposed going +to bed at once. + +“We have had a weary day,” she said, “and you look very pale, dear; +besides I am so depressed.” + +“Yes; it is a sad return home. I do not feel as if I should ever sleep +sweetly again.” + +“But you must. I will not go to my own room till you are safe in bed; +you would sit up crying half the night if I left you alone.” + +“No, my heart is too mournful for tears.” + +“Still you must try for rest, or no sleep will come to me.” + +“For your sake, then, I will go.” + +Virginia arose with a weary look and prepared herself for bed. Cora +helped her to undress, and with a gentle hand brushed out the masses of +chestnut brown hair which glowed with a ruddy tinge in the light as she +braided it loosely in one massive cable. These pleasant feminine +attentions were rather unusual to her, and Virginia received them +gratefully. + +“Ah! what a mournful day we shall have to-morrow,” she sighed, wearily +taking off her dress. “You have something to look forward to, Cora, but +I—” + +The unhappy girl turned away her head, and lying down half undressed, +with her cheek to the pillow, began to cry. + +“Don’t, don’t give way so,” said Cora, bending over her. “Remember, +to-morrow we shall be home.” + +Virginia sobbed still more piteously. + +“At home, without him! Rich, helpless, oppressed with cares. How shall I +ever fill his place?” + +A strange look swept Cora’s features. She almost smiled, yet a hateful +expression mingled with the smile. + +“Do not think about that now, but put on your night dress; you will take +cold.” + +Virginia arose and invested herself in the full white garment which gave +her a nun-like purity of look. She dropped on her knees, and with her +face buried in both hands, prayed meekly for several minutes. Then she +arose with a heavy sigh, and kissing her cousin good-night, lay down, +turning her face to the wall. + +“Good-night, dear; rest well,” said Cora, smoothing the counterpane with +her hand. “Now I can go content. Good-night.” + +With these words, Cora stole softly out of the room, murmuring +good-night as she went. + +Instead of going to her own chamber, the girl turned toward the +staircase and swept down to the broad hall on which their parlor opened. +At the lower end of this passage she saw Seymour walking up and down, on +the watch. The moment her dark garments fluttered into sight he came +forward and followed her into the parlor. She closed the door and drew a +bolt, so gently that he did not detect the action. + +“Now, now tell me everything,” she said, seating herself on a couch and +motioning him to a place by her side. “I am anxious, eager to know what +brought you here.” + +“Why ask that?” cried the young man, bending his radiant eyes upon her, +while her hand was pressed between both his so ardently that her fingers +unconsciously returned the clasp. “Why ask? You brought me here. I could +not live with the Atlantic between us—death seemed better than that.” + +“And you love me so?” + +“Love you! Don’t ask me how much, or I might tell you what I have done.” + +“What you have done? But I do ask.” + +“Ask what, dear one? There is nothing to tell. I have moved Heaven and +earth to reach this place—to obtain the means without which you would +not be yourself. I have money now, brightest and dearest—ready gold and +plenty of it, at least for the present; enough in fact, to give us a +fair start in life. Only say that you love me dearly as I love you, and +a glorious future is before us.” + +“I have said it a hundred times, Seymour,” she answered, bending fondly +toward him, but remarking, even in this rush and glow of affection, that +he looked wild and spoke hurriedly, with his eyes bent downward. + +“But again, and again I want to see love-light in your eyes and passion +on your lips every moment of my life. It is my food, my drink, the air I +breathe. Oh, girl! girl! how I love you!” + +He threw his arms around her and strained her to his bosom with a +vehemence that frightened her. She was ardent and given up to her own +wild will like himself, but there was something beside love in all this, +and she felt it with a thrill of terror. + +“You are cold; you shrink from me, after all that I have done to win +you—while my heart is struggling so madly to find yours.” + +“No! no!” she protested. “I love you—I love you—ten thousand times over +I love you! It may be folly, it may be madness, but I _do_ love you.” + +“My darling! my brave, bright, beautiful love! Now I am no longer +afraid. I regret nothing. There is no treachery, no wrong that love like +this would not sanctify. Let me look at you. Heavens, how beautiful you +are! These little, warm hands, how they cling to mine! how white they +are! But I will make them rosy with kisses. Oh, girl! girl! I thought +you were dead, that this glorious form was weltering in the deep, torn +by sharks—lost! lost! The thought was driving me mad. But you are here! +you are here! I can see your heart beat and your cheeks flush, and these +dear lips parted with smiles as you listen. Tell me! tell me once more, +how much you love me!” + +“Why ask me again?” she said. “Did I ever deny my love when you were +penniless?” + +“No, girl, no; but you refused to share that penniless state.” + +“Because I hoped for something better. My—my relative was then alive. He +was generous, and loved me. When we reached home, I intended to appeal +to him. It would not have been in vain.” + +“Was this your real intention?” + +“I had no other—you would have heard from me. I might have asked such +letters as would satisfy him of your honorable position, nothing more. +But he is dead.” + +“And so we must fall back on my little hoard of gold. Will that be +enough for you?” + +“It would be difficult to say how much would be enough,” answered Cora, +with a bright smile. “Plenty of property is necessary to make love like +ours perfect. I should perish, body and soul, without objects of beauty +all around me. Is it because you are so handsome, so peerlessly +graceful, that I can think of no one else? I often ask myself, if you +were plain and insignificant, even common looking, would not my pride +sweep you off among the herd of ordinary men?” + +“I never thanked Heaven for good looks before,” said Seymour with +genuine warmth. “In fact, I never thought of it; few men do, I fancy. +Then, if I had been good and great, and all that men study and strive +for, you might never have thought of me?” + +“Oh, I would have everything, but I shall make you vain; your eyes flash +with triumph already. See how easily a woman loses her power when she +says honestly, ‘I love you.’” + +“No, no; she exalts herself. Would that I had millions to lavish upon +you instead of twenty paltry thousands.” + +“Twenty thousand! that is not much,” she said, growing thoughtful for a +moment. “But what then? We shall not be without resources; I have ideas, +and courage and will enough for anything. What if I were richer than you +think?” + +“So that you loved me still, I should rejoice—but only for your sake.” +The young man spoke honestly, and with a tone of sadness in his voice. +“Could I have been sure of you, poverty would have been nothing. Oh! how +much better to work for you! But all that is over, and I am brave enough +to be glad.” + +“We must not talk of work—I hate it,” said Cora, smiling brightly upon +him. “To me the world is divided into two classes—those who work and +those who enjoy. Had I been of the working classes, the very loathing of +it would have driven me to struggle upwards, as both men and women can +in this country.” + +“Ah! if we could have had patience to wait for that!” said Seymour, with +sudden passion. “To work alone even, hoping for you in the end, would +have been Heaven to me; I could have served any hard task-master, like +Jacob, for seven long years.” + +“And in the meantime I should have grown old and ugly—you, +round-shouldered, perhaps,” said Cora, laughing. “No, no; let us have +all or nothing. The world is before us—Fortune has always been true to +me. Like the lilies of the field, I have neither toiled nor spun, and it +will go hard if fate puts me to it now.” + +Seymour looked at her animated face in thoughtful admiration. Truly she +was very beautiful. All the love she was capable of feeling flooded her +eyes and burned on her cheek. She seemed supremely happy, and the young +man believed that affection for himself alone kindled her features into +superb loveliness. They sat in silence awhile. He was thoughtful and +grave, though her head rested on his shoulder and the perfume of her +hair swept across his face. + +“I wonder if any one ever can be perfectly happy?” he said. + +“I think so,” was her soft answer. “I feel so.” + +“When you are mine—all mine—when fate itself cannot wrest you from me, I +shall know,” he murmured. “When shall it be? There is no cause for +delay.” + +“I will tell you after to-morrow,” she whispered. + +“But you leave the city then.” + +“It is only a short ride on the railway.” + +“May I come there?” + +“Yes, but not directly. There may be reasons against it that I do not +know of. But close by the depot is a public house, where you can be +comfortable for a few hours or days. On the third day from this you will +find me in the grounds. There was formerly an odd little summer-house up +a ravine which opens to the river; you can almost see it from the depot. +Wait for me there.” + +“I shall have but one thought till then.” + +“And now good-night!” + +“But you will not send me away yet?” + +“I must. My cousin is ill and may want me.” + +“Ah, this is cruel!” + +“To myself most of all. She does not know of your existence, and might +find you here. There! there! you hurt my hand. We shall meet again very +soon.” + +“Not to part—say that, dear girl!” + +“I hope so—I think so. But be prudent, and if necessary patient. +Remember we have a whole life before us.” + +“A Heaven, you should say.” + +She smiled sweetly, gave him for the first time her lips to kiss, and +went to the door with his arm around her waist. With a dexterous touch +of the finger, she shot the bolt and let him out, almost delirious with +mingled feelings of joy, pride, shame and regret. + + + + + CHAPTER XIII. + THE MIDNIGHT HOUR. + + +Cora remained in the room some time after Seymour left it, walking up +and down, sometimes slowly, sometimes with the quick, impetuous tread of +an empress whose power was threatened. Her heart was in a tumult of +passionate feeling. The wild rush of joy that had overwhelmed her when +she first saw Seymour still beat in her bosom and crimsoned her cheeks. +So far as love is a passion, she felt it deeply toward that man—felt it +with that blind impulse which would have overmastered any obstacle and +rendered her capable almost of goodness, if that alone could have united +them. She would not have married him penniless because self-sacrifice +was not in her nature, but she possessed force of character to surmount +any difficulty which lay between them, and all her love and ambition +craved. + +“He is young, accomplished, ambitious, splendidly handsome,” she said to +herself. “What more can I ask. One thing, and that I will procure. It +requires courage, audacity, an iron fixedness of will, almost impossible +self-possession; but I have all these things. This thought has been in +my mind too long for failure. Once it was a dream, now a fixed purpose—a +purpose that cannot fail unless she has grown generous or cowardly—no, +she is not old enough for that. I know all her weak points—a love of +display, luxurious habits, a hatred of the class from which she sprung. +No, I cannot fail with her. Well, the others? This man, for instance, he +is easily managed; but then Aunt Eunice, that sharp, hard old Yankee +woman, who never forgets. Well, I have courage even to defy her.” + +Here Cora took out her watch, started on finding how late it was, and +hurried up to her room. Without a moment’s delay she changed her dress, +enveloped herself in a water-proof cloak, tied a thick veil over her +bonnet, and, locking the door after her, went down to the street, +passing unobserved as some sewing woman going about her ordinary +business. She beckoned a carriage which stood near the entrance, ordered +it to be driven to the Hudson River depot, and in half an hour was +seated in the remote seat of a car, ready to start up the river. + +The train started slowly from the depot, and went with some caution +through the streets, seeming to scatter back stars along its path as it +passed lamp-post after lamp-post, linking them as it were in a swift +chain of fire. At last the engine plunged into the country, lighting up +the track and the shadowy trees in its swift progress. Cora sat still, +muffled close in her cloak of dull gray, and with her brown barege veil +drawn close over her face. She had no luggage, not even a travelling +basket or satchel, and sat motionless, looking out of the window as if +something enthralling lay in the dark rush of the river and the broken +shore along which she was whirled. + +At the nearest station to the Lander’s dwelling she arose, softly +gathered the cloak around her, and, without speaking to the conductor, +stepped out upon the platform. She was not the only person set down at +that point, but a few moments found her standing there, as she supposed, +quite alone, while the train rushed up the river bank panting under +every impulse of its fiery heart. + +When the train had disappeared like a huge black serpent scaled sparsely +with spots of fire, this young girl turned and walked hastily toward a +flight of steps which led up the terrace and would conduct her at once +to the lawn in front of the late Mr. Lander’s dwelling. Even in the +darkness, she could detect the gleam of white marble pillars and a lofty +façade breaking through the night, contrasted with the huge trees that +encompassed them with a world of black shadows. + +It was a weird picture of home to which the young girl came, like a +thief and with the thoughts of a robber in her heart. If the darkness +had permitted it, her face would have shone out white and hard almost as +the marble on which her eyes turned with such burning greed. She stood a +moment on the verge of the terrace regarding the building, which soon +outlined itself in the sable cloud which surrounded it with vast +spectral indistinctness. Even thus, it was a noble pile, appealing +grandly to the imagination, and her heart swelled with rapacious +satisfaction as she gathered its value into her mind. + +After a little, she began to regard the house with other thoughts. Her +eyes wandered over the building in search of a light, which she hoped to +find shining through some of the windows. But none appeared, and she +walked on, burying her footsteps in the crisp grass of the lawn, for it +was too dark for any hope of finding a path. There was no wavering or +hesitation about her. Swiftly as a human being could walk, she passed +through the shadows and turned an angle of the house. In the window of a +second story room, which overlooked a portion of the lawn most thickly +planted with flowers, a faint light was burning behind curtains of white +lace, which softened it as clouds envelop a star. + +“That is her room, I know,” muttered the girl; “she never slept without +a light. But she has changed apartments with her new fortunes. That used +to be a guest chamber.” + +As she spoke the light seemed to waver as if some one held it +unsteadily. It was only the curtain stirred by a gentle wind, for the +sash was open that pleasant summer night, and Mrs. Lander, being an +epicure, loved to have perfume from the dewy flowers wafted to her as +she slept. + +“Thank Heaven for that coward habit of a night lamp,” thought the girl, +stealing softly around the house in search of some unbolted door through +which she might let herself in. She tried the back doors first, but to +no avail. Then searched for an open window, but Eunice had taken care +that no means of entrance should be left exposed. On the ground floor +every point was locked and guarded. + +After satisfying herself of this fact, Cora went round to the flower +garden again, resolved, by some means, to reach the window which had at +first occupied so much of her attention. Sharp and vigilant as a fox, +she searched the wall for some means of ascent, but the white marble was +smooth as snow-crust and nothing but a vast rose-bush broke its polished +surface. This hush, however, hung loosely on the wall, and its branches +swayed to and fro in the flickering light. Cora was seized with a wild +impulse to climb up this uncertain support, and thus, if possible, reach +the window. She seized the rose-bush by the stem and brought it down +violently, with all its blossoming branches trailing on the grass. In +starting back, Cora trod upon something hard, which almost threw her +down. She groped in the grass at her feet and found that she had +stumbled against a ladder, which lay half-buried in the grass where it +had been thrown by the gardener; who had been busy about the climbing +roses the day before and had left his work unfinished. Cora lifted the +ladder, with some difficulty, and planting it against the white wall +found that it reached the open window. Light as a bird, she climbed from +round to round, till half her form and her entire side face was framed, +like a picture, against the faintly illuminated sash. + +The stillness within the room fell upon her with a sudden check. She +leaned forward, holding her breath, and looked in. A bed stood in a +corner of the room clouded with volumes of white lace, through which the +outline of a female figure could be seen slumbering in the soft radiance +which stole like moonlight from a lamp that seemed shaded with +transparent snow. All the while Cora Lander remained as it were framed +in by the window, a stout man stood beneath that great willow, which +drooped over him like the curving waters of a fountain, and watched her +movements curiously. But when she disappeared through the window he +moved towards the stables a muttering, + +“Well, it aint none of my business as I know on, but that is a mighty +queer way for any gal to come home. I wonder which on ’em it is!” + +Cora Lander, all unconscious of this scrutiny, paused a moment to listen +before she crossed the room and drew the lace curtains back from the +bed. Mrs. Lander lay sleeping upon her pillow, frilled, laced, and +embroidered with that excess of ornament which those who come suddenly +into the possession of riches are apt to indulge in. A quantity of +Valenciennes lace lay softly around her forehead and temples. The plump +white hands crept out from double frills edged with the same rich +material, and the bosom of her night dress presented one mass of +insertion and embroidery. She was a tolerably handsome woman and these +things became her well, though a close observer would have understood +something of the suddenness of her late good fortune by those elaborate +appointments. + +Cora Lander’s proud lip curved, and a gleam of malicious humor shot into +her eyes. + +“Upon my word, she dashes into the thing with a will,” was her first +thought, “No fool like an old fool! All her toilet bottles mounted with +gold. Both hands loaded with diamonds even in her sleep! How +self-satisfied she looks. No wonder—no wonder! A property like this +might make any one rest sweetly. The more she prizes it, why the easier +my task.” + + + + + CHAPTER XIV. + THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED. + + +Cora Lander bent close to the sleeping woman’s ear, and uttered the word +“mother,” in one of those sharp, sudden whispers which thrill the heart +even in slumber. + +Mrs. Lander started up with a faint cry, and pressing one elbow into the +down of her pillow, gave a wild stare at the face bending over her. + +“Who is this? What are you?” she cried, in sudden terror. + +“Mother! mother! surely you know me!” + +“Know you! know you! I was dreaming of those eyes, but not of you. My +child was younger, frailer, lovelier. She is drowned! She is drowned! +What do you want of me? I do not know you. How dare you call me mother?” + +The woman spoke wildly, almost with defiance. Her hands quivered under +their lace ruffles; the embroidery on her bosom rose and fell with a +sudden spasm of dread. + +“Mother, you know me well enough; I am Cora Lander, your own child.” + +“My own child?” + +“You thought me dead, I dare say. But here I am safe and well. Touch my +hand—that will prove it.” + +“But—but you are taller. You are a woman!” gasped the mother. + +“A girl grows taller in eight years. But look close, mother—you would +have known me by daylight.” + +“No, no, I shouldn’t—I don’t. The hair is like, but darker—the eyes—the +mouth—that smile. Cora! Cora Lander! my child! my child!” + +All the motherhood of the woman sprang into action then. She seized the +young girl in her arms, drew her down upon the bed and rained kisses +upon her, sobbing, laughing and shivering under a rush of natural +tenderness that swept all other feelings out of her heart. At last she +pushed the girl back from her bosom and examined her face line by line. + +“And you have come back—my child! my darling!” + +“Hush! hush! we are having too much of this,” said the girl, sitting +down on the bed. “Some one will hear us.” + +“Well, why not? They will all know in the morning.” + +“I think not, dear aunt!” + +“Dear aunt! What is this for? But it reminds me that perhaps you and I +are paupers. What has become of him? Is he alive too?” + +“No, thank Heaven! he is safe, fathoms deep in the Atlantic.” + +Mrs. Lander drew a quick breath. “Oh! dear, it seems terrible to hear +you say this!” she said, with a frightened look. “But if he were alive +what _should_ we do? Poverty! poverty! poverty! I shouldn’t endure that +after having so much!” + +“But it may come upon us yet,” said the daughter. + +“How? how? Oh! I remember—that other Cora, the girl they called +Virginia. But she is fathoms deep too.” + +“She is alive and well, down in New York, this moment,” said Cora, +drily. + +“What? what?” cried the woman, strangling with a hysterical rush of +feeling. “She alive! Then we are a thousand times worse off than if +Lander had lived. He was kind and generous enough. But that child, with +her soft ways, and that smile, acting always as if she had been born a +lady, while you would let the old Adam out—I would rather starve than +take my bread from her! Oh! what will become of us?” + +“That is what I came up from New York in the dead of night to talk to +you about. No one knows that I am here—no one must know anything about +it. Do try and be calm; everything depends on that.” + +“Well, child, I am calm. Despair has this one good quality—it brings +dead repose with it. After a little, I shall find strength to look this +thing in the face. But it is hard.” + +“I know that, mother; you have not tasted the bitterness of dependence +alone. I know what it must be to give up a fortune like this. But how +came you with it? Did my uncle make a will? The man you sent to New York +with a pair of horses told me so.” + +“Yes, he made a will—all to no purpose now. Oh! it was to no purpose!” + +“And how did this will read? Tell me?” + +“It gave everything to her.” + +“Everything! And you blundered like that?” + +“Yes, Cora. He wrote it with his own hand. Upon my life and honor, it +was every word in his own handwriting!” + +“But was that all? The law would have given it to her!” + +“Yes, yes, I know; but the law, instead of giving you and I a chance of +the whole, would have scattered it among those country cousins. That was +what made Lander’s will valuable. If she died without children, you came +next, and I after.” + +“Indeed! Then it was under this that you took possession. It is hard on +you that we turn up alive—hard on me too, for Cora may marry and have +half-a-dozen children to cut us out. Will do all this, certainly, if we +are fools enough to let her.” + +“But how can we help it? What have we to do but sink back into our old +dependence?” + +“Mother, listen to me,” said Cora, in a hard, firm voice. + +“Well, I listen,” was the wondering answer. “But how hard your face +looks—there is no childhood left in you, Cora Lander.” + +“I hope not, for the thing I came to talk about is no child’s play. It +needs firmness, courage, audacity even. I fear that you will be wanting +in these qualities when the test comes.” + +“Why, do you fear me because I am taken by surprise, when roused out of +a sound sleep, to find you at my bedside—not white and dripping, as I +have seen you so often in my dreams—not the child whose brightness I was +so proud of, but a calm, hard woman, taking the lead even with me, your +own mother?” + +“True, true, there is something in that. The surprise was enough to +stagger any one. I might have bent under it myself, especially after +tasting the sweetness of such wealth. But what I am thinking of requires +the most consummate coolness, nerves of iron, a face of marble. It +requires that determination which enables a man to commit what the world +calls crime quietly, firmly. You could never do that.” + +Mrs. Lander looked at her daughter half in triumph, half affrighted. + +“You say this to test me, Cora—to make yourself certain that I am +incapable of wrong. You suspect me, perhaps?” + +“No, no; I wish that were possible.” + +“What were possible?” + +“Why, that you had the courage to reach forth your hand for this noble +inheritance.” + +“But I have the courage. You do not know—” + +“Yes the courage to submit.” + +“No, to struggle—to fight. Only all struggles are hopeless now.” + +“But you have not the courage, I repeat, to commit what men might call a +crime even to make your child, and through her yourself, heiress of all +this wealth.” + +“What—what is it you mean? Are you setting up an inquisition over your +own mother? Of what can you suspect me?” + +Mrs. Lander was deadly pale, her mouth contracted itself, her eyes +gleamed with apprehension. + +The girl looked into that craven face with keen inquiry. It puzzled even +her penetration. If the mere thought of wrong had so disturbed her +mother, there was little hope that the scheme which had brought her +there could be carried out. But her searching eye soon discovered more +than the mere revolt of innocent conscience in this strange agitation. +There was actual guilt in that face. What could that guilt be? Quick as +lightning that sharp intellect ran over all possible causes for this +singular agitation, and settled on the will. + +“I only suspect, mother, that you tampered with Uncle Lander’s will.” + +Mrs. Lander fell back upon her pillow, white and breathless. + +“The will! the will!” she whispered. “Who told—who has dared?” + +“Be tranquil, do be tranquil, mother,” said the girl taking the +trembling hand put forth to repulse her and kissing it tenderly. “All +this makes our way clear; I do not blame you. What else could you do?” + +“It would have gone to those stupid cousins,” pleaded the woman. +“Besides, the will was his, every word—” + +“Except the names,” said Cora, gently. “I understand. Well, after all, +that was risking a great deal, while my plan has positively no danger in +it.” + +“But will it secure the property?” asked the mother. + +“Yes.” + +“To me, just as it is now—and without danger?” + +“Not to you; that is impossible.” + +Mrs. Lander’s face contracted with disappointment, while her daughter +went on: + +“But through me your only child, everything can be done.” + +Mrs. Lander did not speak, but her eyes asked eager questions. + +“What matters it,” said the girl, “which is absolute owner here? Are not +a mother and daughter one?” + +“But it seems most natural that a mother should possess the power,” +faltered Mrs. Lander. + +“And so you shall in everything but the name. Only aid me in getting +possession, and there will be no dispute about power between us.” + +“But how?” + +“It is easy, mother, and perfectly safe. To-morrow, when we come home, +forget that I am your daughter, and in my place accept the girl called +Virginia Lander.” + +Mrs. Lander rose to a sitting posture in the bed, her eyes were full of +wild light, her lips parted. + +“What!” + +Cora answered this sharp exclamation very calmly. + +“We two girls are so much alike that people take us for twins. We have +been away from the country eight years. No human being is qualified to +contradict you when you claim Virginia and disown me. No other evidence +of identity will be needed, even if it comes to a court of law. I shall +support you—from the first I shall recognize you only as my aunt, claim +Amos Lander as my father, and quietly take the position of his child. By +what force can she dislodge me?” + +Mrs. Lander sunk back to the pillows, astounded by the bold scheme which +was to deprive her of a daughter. + +“Let me rest—let me think,” she said; “the audacity of this thing appals +me.” + +“Do think—reflect; nothing can be safer. It is simply to say a thing and +persist in it.”. + +“But the people abroad—those who knew you both at the schools—should +there be a contest, they will be called as witnesses.” + +“What then? They know nothing. We passed as Mr. Lander’s children; no +distinction was ever made; I doubt if any one knew that we were not +sisters. Thanks to Virginia’s sensitive generosity, she never spoke of +my dependent position, and as for Uncle Lander, he always introduced us +on shipboard and elsewhere as Miss Lander and Miss Cora Lander.” + +Mrs. Lander drew a deep breath; the anxiety was dying out from her face. + +“And this would make you heiress of everything?” she said. “But where +would my claim be?” + +“In your power to dispossess me by a word. That would make you, in fact, +mistress here.” + +“True, true; but they might force me to swear that you were not my +child; then my power of retreat would be cut off.” + +Cora Lander could be sweet and affectionate enough when it pleased her +to put forth these gentle qualities. She stooped down to her mother, +threw one arm caressingly over her and pressed half-a-dozen soft kisses +on her face. + +“It is for us both—for you, dear mother, more than myself. I am ready to +risk something rather than see you cast back into poverty. Think how +hard it will be to give all this luxury up to another—think of my fate, +compelled to take every mouthful of bread I eat from her bounty. Mother, +if you prove coward and force me to this, I shall hate you!” + +“If we could share it together, I would not hesitate, but the wrong and +falsehood will be all mine, the reward yours.” + +“Only in name, sweet mother—only in name. The wealth and power you shall +possess alike with myself.” + +“But this girl, this poor Virginia, whom we are wronging so—what will +become of her?” + +“Let her stay here and learn the bitter lesson she has taught you and +me—that of a poor relative subsisting on a rich man’s bounty. We must +change places. I will be gracious, kind and killingly generous to her, +as she has been to us.” + +“But she will protest, appeal to the law.” + +“Let her; without proof against that best of evidence, the woman who +claims to be her mother, what will her protest amount to?” + +How well this young creature had considered her plans; not a thread of +the web was wanting; even the law itself seemed powerless to break into +its meshes; never did a fraud seem more certain of success. The widow +had yielded herself to Cora’s blandishments; they seemed to insure her a +splendid future. With a creature like that, so beautiful and bright, +wealth would have tenfold value. The joy of her child’s return was +mingled with all this. She loved the fair young creature with newborn +affection. Her voice was sweet, her smile persuasive. The very crime +that she proposed assimilated so well with that already committed by +herself, that it broke down the barriers of reserve which long absence +and the change from childhood to womanliness would naturally have +produced. Sympathy either in good or evil draws hearts close together. +Cora leaned toward her mother and kissed her cheek, which was scarlet +and hot with struggling emotions. + +“Say, now,” she pleaded, “if you and I are to be mistresses of this +noble property, this house with all its luxurious appliances, or beggars +again?” + +“Cora, I never could endure that. Possession has been too sweet. This +broad, free sense of independence has expanded my whole life. I love to +give orders and receive the homage of those whom money has made the +slaves of my will. I love to feel that the marble under my feet is mine +to tread upon or tear up as I will; the fruit and flowers growing around +me are mine, mine, mine to give, keep, sell or leave on the boughs. +Cora, I never knew till now the entire bitterness of poverty, the abject +humiliation of dependence.” + +“But all this must come unless you act as I wish.” + +“Yes, I see; I see. But to give up my own fair child and take another in +her place, one too whom I have wronged so, that too seems impossible.” + +“I know, I know; but in secret I shall still be your child.” + +“But I shall be nothing, not even mother to the heiress.” + +“You will be her aunt. The most loved and honored relative that ever +controlled a household. Besides, pray remember, a few months will put +this entire property into my hands, then I can divide it with you.” + +“And will you? She too can be provided for, and it will not seem so +hard.” + +“We will think of that—but tell me now, are you prepared? Will you +promise to be firm? In a little time the train will come down; I must be +assured of my position before I go.” + +“I wish Eunice were here!” + +“Eunice, the hard-faced woman with the red hair? Surely you do not trust +people like her!” + +“She is—” Mrs. Lander stopped suddenly, checked herself, and added, as +if from some after-thought, “She is faithful and devoted to me.” + +“Mother,” said Cora, with great firmness, “this secret rests between us +two. On your life, I charge you, share it with no other living soul! +That would be to make ourselves slaves indeed.” + +“Not with Eunice? Not with Eunice?” almost pleaded the widow. + +“Mother, a secret shared is an object lost. What is this iron-faced +woman to us, that we should take her into our souls?” + +“Eunice—Eunice. Oh, nothing but a faithful old servant, who loved me +well before I became rich.” + +“Let her remain a faithful servant, nothing more,” answered Cora. “I +want no confidants bred in the kitchen, no love from any quarter which +cannot be paid for with money. So let her pass, for we have but little +time. I hear a clock striking, or rather giving out fairy music. What +sumptuous tastes you have, mother! It would be a pity to give all these +pretty things up to my cousin!” + +“That I never will—never! never!” cried Mrs. Lander. + +“Then be firm and prepare to receive that other one as your daughter. +Good-night, I must go now.” + +“Good-night! With these words we are torn apart never again to be mother +and child! God has given you back to me, and in your place I take money +got by crime.” + +Mrs. Lander spoke low, but with deep, passionate feeling. She was not +hard by nature, like the fair young girl who looked down upon her, +beautiful as Lucifer and almost as wicked. + +“This is sentiment—nonsense—and such things are out of place when an +object like this lies before us. We can love each other and live +together. Why not? Aunts are often very, very fond of their nieces. It +excites no wonder.” + +“No, no; crime strangles love.” + +“Not with the strong and bold. Take courage, you have little to do; I am +not afraid to lead the way.” + +Cora turned toward the window, gathering her cloak tightly around her. +Mrs. Lander sprang out of bed and followed her with both trembling hands +held out. + +“One embrace, Cora! Let me feel you close to my heart before you go! +Call me mother again!” + +“There, mother, am I close enough? Why how you tremble!” + +“My child!” + +“There! there! kiss me a hundred times if you like; but when that little +clock chimes the quarter I must be gone. Why, how foolish you are! how +weak! We shall meet again to-morrow or next day, and there will be no +more parting.” + +“Crime parts everything, Cora; I have learned that already. Heaven help +us! it had almost reconciled me to your death, and now that you have +come back, awaking my heart to its old tenderness, you would pile up +barriers between us. No! no! let us be poor again—very poor! I shall not +care, so long as we are innocent and love each other.” + +“But I should not love you.” + +“Don’t say that! I could give these things up, indeed I could!” + +“And repine over it forever after. Know yourself better; but this +argument would last forever. Once for all, will you act as I desire?” + +“Yes! yes!” + +“That is right. Now I love you dearly. You shall be the grand dame of +the establishment.” + +“I know that you will be kind, dear.” + +“Trust me. There goes the quarter—good-bye! good-bye!” + +When the last word left her lips, Cora was outside upon the ladder, with +her beautiful face uplifted to the light. In an instant she glided +downward into the darkness. The ladder was drawn after her and fell +softly to its old place in the grass. A branch of the rose-bush swayed +back, as if something had dragged it out of place, and that was all. + + + + + CHAPTER XV. + THE DISTURBED CONSCIENCE. + + +Mrs. Lander sprang out of bed and ran to the window, resolved to call +her daughter back and revoke the evil promise she had made. She leaned +out into the chill air, careless of the wind, which stirred her night +dress as if it had been snow, searching for her child in the darkness. +As her eyes got accustomed to the gloom, she saw what seemed like a +deeper shadow fluttering on the edge of the terrace, but that was all. + +The rattle of a coming train in the far distance kept her at the window. +The noise grew louder, wilder and more impetuous. Then a great burning +eye, fiery and seemingly bloodshot, glared out from the blackness of +crowded trees, lighting them up like the smile of a demon, and a shriek, +horrible in its shrillness, cut through the night, making the woman’s +heart quake in her bosom as if a fiend had mocked her. Then came the +sharp clang of a bell, the rattle of iron, and the train swept away +again, rushing off like a storm. + +Mrs. Lander listened to its receding noises with absolute terror. It +seemed as if some awful visitation had left her there trembling and +helpless. Such dreams had visited her before. Mr. Lander himself had +swept down upon her from mountainous waves, dripping wet, and with his +gray hair turned to icicles, clamoring for his property. Her daughter, +too, had haunted her sleep, crying for help from some yawning gulf of +waters, and she had seen Lander’s heiress dancing fantastic flings on +the surface of a calm ocean, bright as quicksilver. All these +apparitions had demanded a restitution of the property she had just +begun to enjoy with such zest. The struggle to retain it, and yet allow +them to come out free from their prison in the great crystal deep, had +often sent her out of these dreams sobbing with dread and bathed in cold +perspiration. + +But hard as these dreams had been, nothing could equal the scene that +had just swept past her. Was it real? Could it be a vision, like the +rest, tormenting her sleep? She pressed her bands on the marble +window-sill and leaned out into the night, searching it wildly for some +trace of the presence that had seemed so real. The slow rush of the +Hudson, sweeping toward the ocean just below the terrace, and a soft +shiver of leaves, was all the sound she heard. Nothing was visible save +the outline of the flower-beds and groups of shrubbery merging dimly +into the pale grey light which was just beginning to dawn in the east. + +The woman drew back with a sob of grateful relief. A new class of demons +had begun to haunt her. Fiery trains, trailing smoke as they went, out +of which came her daughter, more beautiful than she had ever dreamed of, +to tempt her into new crimes, had been coursing through her sleep. This +vision had driven her out of bed into the chilly night air. All about +her shoulders and bosom the linen robe she wore was wet with dew. She +was shivering with cold in all her limbs. For the world she would not +encounter another vision like that. Such things were getting to be +frightfully real. Eunice should sleep in the next room and that would be +a protection hereafter. She withdrew herself from the window and crept +into bed, shuddering with cold, but rest was impossible; she had been +too severely shocked; all that she could do was to lie there with her +eyes wide open and watch the daylight as it crept across the window. At +last a sunbeam shot through the lace curtains, silvering them like a +cloud and filling her room with light. + +It was very strange, but the brilliancy and stir of morning only made +that vision more definite and certain. Before this her dreams had +vanished with the darkness, but this—its distinctness terrified her. She +reached forth her hand, it fell upon a hollow place on the counterpane. +Lifting herself up from the pillows, she examined the spot. It was +pressed down as if some person had been sitting there. She remembered +that figure in the gray cloak with its hood falling back, and a sick +feeling crept over her. Was it reality? Could it be that Cora, in her +natural person, had occupied that place? She started from the bed, +resolved to search for other traces of the strange presence. + +Mrs. Lander left her bed, she leaned from the window, looking forth upon +as bright a sunrise as ever blessed the earth. A shimmer of dew lay upon +everything—grass, leaves and branches, were bright with it. A rain of +diamonds trembled on the great drooping willows, and the flowers knew a +double brightness, for the sunshine turned the moisture in their cups to +a living fire. All this dazzled the woman without satisfying her. She +leaned out of the window, searching the grass beneath it. A ladder lay +half-buried in the grass, but near it, slanting down one side, was the +print of all its rounds and supporters pressed into the turf like a +material shadow, if that could be. Straggling out from under this ladder +was a broken rose branch full of sap and fresh at the splintered end. +Away from that, crossing the lawn, a trail of small footprints was +plainly visible leading to the terrace stairs. + +The faintness of slow fear fell upon Mrs. Lander as she saw all this. +She could not yet realize that her child was alive, the impression left +by her presence was still so weird. But she knew that the vision of that +night could never be shaken off—that, as a blessing or a curse, she must +meet it with all her intellect and all her strength. + +The woman did not go back to her bed. Those wild, bright eyes were too +widely open for that, but she dressed herself in haste, stopping in deep +thought sometimes with the comb drawn half through her hair, and gazing +on herself in the glass, as if that image had been her enemy, for +minutes together; then she would hurry on her garments with sudden +impetuosity and drop into thought as before. The woman had no object in +this; for when she was dressed the whole effort ended in a hurried walk +up and down the room with an energy that was almost appalling, for her +feet gave forth no sound from the moss-like carpet, and the workings of +her face took unnatural force from the stillness, as if the passions +within her were smitten with dumb agony. + +Thus it was that Eunice found her mistress when she came to her chamber, +late in the morning. No, not exactly thus, for, at the first sound of a +step in the hall, Mrs. Lander drove the trouble back from her face, and +quietly asking if breakfast were ready, passed down stairs. She had +resolved to keep her own secret, had forced herself to _wait_, the +hardest lesson an ardent nature ever learned. + +During the first hours in which this woman was mustering her strength, +Cora Lander, who had haunted her like a ghost, was being whirled toward +the city in the remotest seat of a car filled with passengers, sound +asleep or too drowsy to notice her. There she sat folded in her cloak, +vigilant and thoughtful. So far, her proceedings had passed unnoticed, +but it would be daylight when she reached the city, and great caution +might be needed on entering the hotel. When the train reached its depot +she entered the hotel coach, pausing by the steps a moment to observe if +any passengers were bound for the same destination, and was relieved to +find that half-a-dozen persons, two of whom were ladies, came crowding +in after her. The coach thundered rapidly through the still streets, and +in a brief time sat down its occupants before the hotel Cora went with +the rest to the reception room, but while the travellers entered she +glided away up the stairs to her own chamber, and no human being save +one ever knew positively that she had left it. + + + + + CHAPTER XVI. + KINDRED LOVE. + + +That night, while Cora Lander was working out her evil plans and +Virginia had fallen asleep, with tears in her eyes, thinking of her +loneliness, Brian Nolan and the hunchbacked girl sat in a little upper +room of the hotel, talking together in that sad, hopeless way which is +most likely to follow a great misfortune. The light was dim, for Brian, +with that sensitive delicacy with which a refined nature strives to +throw a veil over deep feeling, had turned down the gas, and in this +semi-obscurity held his sister close in his arms. + +“Don’t cry so, darling, don’t. It breaks my heart to feel you shake and +sob in this way,” said the boy, trembling, himself, as he spoke. + +“I was thinking how many of us went on board that ship, Brian. Now you +and I are left alone! all are gone! all are gone!” + +“I know! I know!” answered the boy. “Oh! my poor mother! my grand, +strong father!” + +The boy shook and trembled as he spoke, and the girl clung to him more +tightly, sobbing with half-suppressed bursts of grief. + +“He looked so grand—just as Abraham must have stood when his boy lay on +the altar. When I mounted the bulwark, I knew it was death; people were +sinking all around the ship—” + +“Don’t, Brian! don’t, or my heart will break!” + +“Poor sister! poor Ellen! I am sorry! But these things are always in my +mind. Only a few days ago I prayed God to take me where they have gone. +I was all alone—hungry, oh, _so_ hungry!” + +“Poor Brian! I never was that since we left the boat. _She_ has fed me +as if I had been a bird that she loved.” + +“God bless her sweet face! But tell me how it all happened. I know that +she swam to the boat with you hanging about her neck, but that is months +ago. Where have you been ever since?” + +“We floated about for three days, cold and hungry, till some of the +strong men prayed to die; but she was patient, and tried to make them +hope for the best. It would have made you cry to hear her comforting +that other proud girl when she gave way and would sit moaning and +wringing her hands like a crazy thing. _My_ lady was calm and still as +an angel. Some of the men had tossed some bread and a keg of water into +the boat before she put off, and that kept us from quite starving. My +lady only ate half that was given to her and would have divided the rest +between her cousin and me. I would not touch it—no, no, I would have +starved to death first—but Cora, that hard, beautiful Cora, devoured it +all without a single thank. Oh, Brian, my lady is so good!” + +“I know it, darling; she looks good. But you were taken up at last.” + +“Yes, Brian, a ship bound for South America hove in sight. Oh! what joy +came upon us! Then it was, brother that my young lady gave up and burst +into tears. Her white face was so beautiful then. She snatched me close +to her bosom and kissed me, thanking God with every kiss. I clung to +her; I laughed—I cried—I shivered with joy. The other girl stood up in +the boat and beckoned the great ship with both her hands. She was eager +as a hawk, but never spoke one word of thanks or seemed to care whether +the rest were saved or not. Why, brother, the tough old seaman were on +their knees with great tears rolling down their cheeks, sobbing like +babies and blessing the ship, as if she had been a living thing that +could feel their thankfulness; but her face was one white glow. She +looked ready to trample us all down just to get into the ship one minute +before us. Once the boat gave a lurch and almost flung her overboard. +Then she caught hold of my young lady with both hands and sunk down on +her knees, but not to pray. ‘Those horrid men wanted to kill her,’ she +said, ‘and tried to throw her into the sea, just when life was so sweet +and she was so near being safe.’” + +“And you, my poor little sister, were taken on board with the rest and +treated kindly?” questioned the lad, kissing that eloquent face with +tender sympathy. + +“Me? oh yes, everybody was kind to me, you know, for I never left her +side, and she was like an angel among them. I wish you could have seen +her talking to the men who were very downhearted after the first few +days; for they had not a cent left in the world.” + +“And you, my sister, had nothing?” + +“Oh yes, I had everything, for I had her! She took great care of me, and +loved me dearly; and I—oh, Brian, I am afraid it’s a sin to worship +anything as I worship her.” + +“No, no, Ellen; such feelings as you and I have for those who saved us +are not wrong. It would be wicked if we did not almost worship these +people.” + +“Well, I do; I do—my lady had rings on her fingers worth a good deal of +money, and the other one had just as many, so there was no want when +they set us on shore. But she pined and grieved for her father. I never +saw anybody so troubled and so still. The other was always brooding, +brooding, brooding—I didn’t like her—I never shall like her, Brian. When +she touches me only with her dress I start as if a snake were creeping +by.” + +“Ellen, dear, this will never do. It is the old trouble coming back. I +can remember, when you were a little child, these fits of dislike coming +over you.” + +“But they were always true, Brian; I never shudder so at the sight of a +good man or woman. When the snake fear comes on, I know that it is to +warn me.” + +“All this is because you are what people call sensitive, Ellen, and that +will never do for a poor girl who has her way to make in the world,” +said Brian, tenderly. + +“But how can one help such feelings if God has given them? You might as +well attempt to straighten this poor back as ask me not to shrink when +anything bad comes near me. I feel it in the air. It troubles me like a +fever. It seems as if nightshade and henbane were growing all around me. +But goodness—oh! that is so different. When my young lady comes near I +grow strong, and seem to stand up straight like other people. The air is +full of bloom—roses and lilies seem breathing through the light. I long +to fall down on my knees and thank God for something.” + +“Ah, Ellen, my poor sister, all this makes you unhappy.” + +“No, no; I am very, very happy sometimes.” + +“But not generally.” + +“How can I be, and they all gone?” answered the poor girl, plaintively. +“Still, when I think how grandly he died—” + +“Don’t! don’t let us talk of that!” cried the lad, with an outburst of +passionate grief. + +Ellen lifted up her mouth and kissed him. + +“No, dear, I won’t—only it is a comfort to me sometimes.” + +“Oh, Ellen, if he had but lived!” + +“Yes, dear; but God wanted our father. Grand angels like him do not +often enter Heaven, I dare say.” + +Brian held her in his arms, and, bending his face, was about to kiss her +forehead. + +“Not there,” she said, with sweet solemnity. “Don’t touch my forehead. +_He_ kissed it—so did _she_—all the salt waters of the ocean could not +wash those two kisses out. Her poor lips trembled, but his fell upon my +forehead like a seal. Was it to make me gentle and sweet, like her—or +great and strong, like him, I wonder?” + +Brian looked down upon his sister and smiled through all his sadness. +The idea of strength, connected with a creature like that, struck him as +almost ludicrous. She smiled also, but with a sort of confidence. + +“If I were tall, and large, and grand in my person, you would believe in +me.” + +“I believe in you now, dear; people can be loving and good without being +very powerful.” + +Ellen shook her head, and her fine eyes shone with sudden light. + +“But if _she_ were in trouble, they would find me powerful, feeble as I +am. Sometimes I think she will want me, and then I am so thankful for +the education our father gave us. It is ignorance that makes a soul +weak, I think. They would not believe, Brian, that you and I have been +brought up a gentleman’s children.” + +“But he was a gentleman.” + +“Hush, dear, he told us to forget that.” + +“I know, I know.” + +“And I want to forget it. Let that proud girl think me ignorant and +low-bred; let my lady think so too, or they might both suppose me unfit +for a servant, and that I must be, if anything. You and I will take our +places low down without fretting about it, Brian. They don’t want +education, but faithfulness. Brian, there is something wrong about Miss +Cora, I am positive. But the gentleman, who is he?” + +“I do not know, Ellen, only when I was hungry he fed me; when I was +tired to death he gave me a bed to rest in.” + +“Bless him for that!” said Ellen, with deep feeling. “He laid his hand +on my head and looked into my eyes just as _he_ used to look.” + +“And did the snakes creep then?” inquired Brian, with a faint laugh. + +“No, no, Brian; but there was something that troubled me. I wanted to +throw both arms around his neck and cry.” + +“That was gratitude. That is the way I felt when he first spoke to me.” + +“No, it is not gratitude, brother; I think it is pity, sorrow—a wish to +help about something.” + +“But how could you help him?” asked Brian. + +“I don’t know, but it will come clear yet.” + +“I love him dearly,” said Brian, with tears in his eyes. “Ellen, I would +die for him.” + +“Brian, that girl knows him; I saw it in her eyes.” + +“Perhaps; but what then? He has been a great traveller.” + +“But my young lady did not know him.” + +“I wish she had; he is splendid, like herself,” said Brian. + +“Isn’t she lovely?” Ellen broke forth. “And he too, Brian?” + +“Well, sister?” + +“His eyes are like father’s.” + +“Ellen!” + +“Dark and large—gray when he thinks, black when he talks.” + +“You have such strange fancies, sister. It is because _his_ looks is +always in your mind—that look when he blessed us.” + +“It is burned into my heart,” said Ellen, in a low voice. “I see it +everywhere.” + +“Even in the eyes of my benefactor,” replied Brian, with a faint smile. +He liked this fancy in his sister, and provoked her to express it again. + +“It _is_ in his eyes,” she answered, in solemn earnest. “Not always; but +I saw it once when you told him who I was. He looked at me then with +such tender pity. Brian, I love that man.” + +“So do I, with all my heart and soul.” + +“I pity him too,” said Ellen; “more than he pitied me. But why?” + +“Because your heart is so kind, little sister,” said Brian, pressing her +to him. + +“No, it is not that. He is rich, handsome, grand. Why should any one +pity him?” + +She spoke thoughtfully and as if questioning her own mind. Brian sat +with his arms around her, and softly smoothed the beautiful hair back +from her head, which lay upon his shoulder. She had a fair complexion +and a grand cast of countenance, delicate and yet powerful. The forehead +was not remarkably high, but broad and almost massive. When she spoke +earnestly it expanded over two large eyes, bright with a deep +illumination. When she was wounded or perplexed, two faint lines defined +themselves between the brows, which would have been rather heavy had her +hair taken a deeper brown. This was not a beautiful face, perhaps, but +it was one to enter a true soul and picture itself there forever. + +“What will they do with us? Where is your friend going?” she said, +clinging to him. “Will they separate us?” + +A faint shudder passed over her frame as she asked the question, and she +laid her face, which seemed chilled, close to his. + +“I do not know where he is going,” answered the lad. + +“She will stay here, or up the river a little way. If your friend lived +in New York we could see each other very often,” Ellen continued. + +“Perhaps he will—I hope he will!” + +“I will pray for that,” said Ellen, whispering softly to herself. + +Her head fell more heavily on his shoulder. This trustful whisper set +her soul at rest. She was very weary and feeble yet from previous +suffering. He saw the broad white lids droop slowly over her eyes and a +smile crept around her mouth. + +“How tired she is, poor soul,” thought the brother, looking down upon +her face. “I love to feel her so near me! How sweetly she sleeps—how +still it is—Ellen, dear, dear Ellen!” + +His head sunk downwards, his cheek touched her hair. Her soft breath +floated across his lips—his eyes grew heavy and he began to dream of +wandering off in the fields hand in hand with a baby sister who insisted +on filling her tiny apron with the blue violets and golden cowslips +which grew along the path they had taken. Near them a little woodland +stream laughed, and rippled, and dimpled around the roots of some +crooked old hawthorn trees, which loomed up through his dreams, white +with blossoms. Above these towered a clump of elms, cumbered with +innumerable rooks’ nests, which they lifted into the sunshine and half +concealed amid a green abundance of foliage. How pleasant and still it +was—how softly the waters sung under the bending rushes—how meek and +pretty that little sister looked with those blue and golden flowers in +her lap. + +What was that? Had one of the elm trees broken from its base and +thundered to the earth? How dark it was—where was his little sister? + +“Ellen! Ellen!” he cried out, in bewilderment. + +“Here I am, Brian. Don’t be frightened, it is only some one at the +door.” + +“How long did I sleep, Ellen?” + +“Oh, a long time; it was a sweet sleep; I was dreaming of the Hawthorn +hollow, where all those violets grew.” + +“And I—” + +“Yes, I was sure that you dreamed of something pleasant—but they are +knocking again. Yes, yes; Brian will come down in a minute. He hears +you.” + +Brian kissed Ellen tenderly and turned to go. + +“I am happy now,” he said, “quite happy. God himself has brought us +together, little sister. We cannot lose each other again. Good-night. He +is wanting me.” + +“Good-night, Brian. How sweet it will be to wake in the morning and know +I have a brother.” + + + + + CHAPTER XVII. + DREAMS AND STRUGGLES. + + +Eunice Hurd was almost invariably out of sorts when in her normal +condition. The particular morning when we join her again she was +unusually crabbed, and disposed to be rather loud in her ill-humor. No +person in the whole household had changed so much, after Mrs. Lander’s +good or ill fortune, as Eunice Hurd. From a gaunt, hard-faced, rigid +female of few words and no pretension, she had graduated suddenly into a +fine lady of wonderful experiences and ridiculous proportions. Hitherto +the grand aim and object of her life had been to hoard up her liberal +wages, wear out as few dresses as possible, accumulate second-hand +bonnets, and cover all the old parasol skeletons in the house with brown +muslin and checked linen, which material sometimes formed a ridiculous +contrast to handles of carved ivory, or ebony tipped with cornelian. In +fact, a more prudent, economical, not to say parsimonious woman, than +Eunice Hurd had been up to this point, was not to be found in a ride of +ten miles. + +But a sudden outburst of prosperity had fallen on the woman whose +patronage had hitherto kept her rather above the level of other servants +in the house, and Eunice had been among the first to profit by it. When +Mrs. Lander went into the gloom and solemn magnificence of deep +mourning, Eunice pounced upon her previous wardrobe like a kite upon its +prey. A cheap dressmaker was called in. Velvets, moire antique, and +silks of various shades and dimensions were let out, taken in, tucked, +puffed, trimmed and vulgarized generally into so many grotesque forms +that poor Mrs. Lander failed to recognize any of the elegant garments of +which she had once been so proud. Nor is this wonderful. Eunice was at +least four inches taller than the widow, and her gaunt figure possessed +no more proportions than a broomstick; whereas Mrs. Lander was +symmetrical, rather plump, and walked with the dignity of a Juno, +notwithstanding her years. + +Beside all this, Eunice had no idea of fitness. To her a handsome dress +was proper for all occasions. She rather affected an elaborate toilet +early in the morning, and sometimes appeared with the breakfast in silks +rustling like a forest in the wind. Eunice had another peculiarity, +which rather impaired the full splendor of her appearance. After living +so many years on the hoarding system, it was impossible to come out at +once into the magnificent disregard of expense which she considered +necessary to her advent as a semi-lady. The old leaven was working in +her nature continually, and it fairly broke her heart to leave the +prodigal length and breadth of Mrs. Lander’s dresses in their original +amplitude. So, as each garment came under her manipulation, she +bethought herself of aprons, saques and other minor articles of dress +which might be “got out,” as she called it, by subtracting a breath here +and there. For these she told the dressmaker to “skimp out” sufficient +trimming, and the result was a wardrobe of marvellous variety and +picturesque scantiness. + +The morning after Mrs. Lander had been so strangely disturbed, Eunice +came rustling into her bed-room in a purple moire antique, short enough +to reveal her ankles in front, and fluttering out in a train behind, +rendered sparse and scant by two missing breadths, which were that +moment at the dyer’s with various other strange abstractions of like +nature. A cap of rich but very dirty blond fluttered on her head, and +the deep ruffles of heavily-embroidered under-sleeves fell over her +bony, red hands, giving double effect to their coarseness. + +“Goodness gracious, if you haven’t got up once in yer life without +calling!” she cried, on finding Mrs. Lander seated in her easy chair, +pale and quiet, but with a strange look of unrest in her face. “How long +have you been up? Gracious knows, this is a new streak! The window wide +open, too, and the lace curtains streaming through, a ketchen and +tearing in the rose bushes! Well now, I never did!” + +“Eunice! Eunice! did you hear anything in the night?” + +“Hear anything!—sakes alive, no; how should I? Nothing but the river, +that’s al’ays sounding like an etarnal troop of hosses that never will +hold up, and the yell of a railroad whistle, which sometimes makes me +e’enamost think the judgment day has come on arth, when it wakes me up +sudden out of a sound sleep. Well! what’s the matter?” + +“Nothing—nothing at all, Eunice,” said the widow, rising and walking +across the room. + +“I know better. Don’t try to cheat me; I ain’t a bird to be catched with +chaff, nor a hoss that can be bridled with a halter nohow. Once agin, +what’s the matter?” + +“Nothing, only I must have had a strange dream last night.” + +“Like enough, or you wouldn’t a been up this morning, sitting like a +ghost in that blue chair, huddled up in your shawl. It’s enough to give +you yer death of cold I tell ye!” + +Mrs. Lander went to the window and looked out. A bright morning sun was +slanting warmly across the turf, which looked fresh and crisp under its +dew. The ladder lay half-buried in the grass which had regained its +elasticity and did not seem to have been moved for days. A branch of the +rose-bush lay trailing along the stone-work of the house, but that might +have been left there among the gardener’s uncompleted work. No other +trace of the midnight presence that was preying on her mind presented +itself to Mrs. Lander. She drew a deep breath, and turned toward Eunice +with a look of doubtful relief. + +“Did you ever have a dream that was absolutely like reality, Eunice?” +she said. + +“What, I? Yes, I have, and sich dreams! Once I was a married woman, and +hated my husband like pison for whipping three tow-headed young-uns that +was the torment of my life. That ’ere dream was enough of matrimony for +me for a hull lifetime. Real! I should think it was!” + +“But did it seem as if you touched the person—kissed him?” + +“What, I? Eliza Lander, I never kissed nothing whatsomever to the best +of my knowledge and belief, sence I was a nussing baby. It isn’t in me.” + +“But did you converse? Did the words seem clear and real after you +awoke?” + +“I don’t kind’er remember about the words, but the blows did, orful +real. I must have hammered away like all possessed at the bed-post, for +my knuckles were sore as if they’d just come out of a hard day’s work on +the washboard. As for the man—well, it’s of no use talking—I’ve hated +him like henbane ever since. He’s jest as real to me as you are, though +I never saw him in my born days.” + +“Eunice,” said Mrs. Lander, impressively, “I had a strange dream last +night—a dream so like reality, that even now I believe in it—almost.” + +“What was it all about? Now don’t tell me that you’re old fool enough to +have got a husband into your head! I wouldn’t put up with it, asleep or +not.” + +“No! no! It’s not that.” + +“Wal then, what is it? Do speak out, it riles me to see you standing +there, shivering and white, like a woman kneaded out of snow.” + +“Eunice, I saw, or thought I saw, my daughter last night.” + +“Like enough—you’re al’ays dreaming about her—it’s to be expected; poor +gal, I’ve dreamed of her myself more’n once. Woke myself up scolding at +John for not letting her in only yesterday morning! Nothing in that.” + +“But I held her in my arms. She talked with me—reasoned with me—kissed +me—” + +“That is wonderful! Cora wasn’t much given to making fuss over you—no +better proof of its being all a dream than that. She took after me a +little in the way of grit.” + +“Eunice, she did kiss me.” + +“Don’t tell me that, without she wanted something awful bad.” + +“She did, Eunice.” + +“What was it?” + +“Nothing, nothing; I talk such nonsense. What could the shadows that +haunt our dreams ask?” + +“Well,” said Eunice, maliciously, “if any of ’em took to coming back, I +shouldn’t wonder if it was the old man; he might feel kind’er uneasy +about that will.” + +“But he made it! He made it, Eunice!” + +“I know that well enough. But he might take it into his head that the +thing wasn’t signed according to order. Still he’s never troubled me +about it, and won’t, I reckon, afore the day of judgment, when I mean to +give him a piece of my mind for not finishing up his work like a man, +afore he went to sea. I’ve no patience with him!” + +The shrill cry of a railroad whistle near the station stopped Eunice in +her denunciations. Mrs. Lander started up with a half-terrified look, +and went to the window in breathless haste. + +“Who is it—who can it be? This train does not usually stop here,” she +said. “Has it stopped?” + +Eunice came up, stood on tiptoe, and stretched her long neck over Mrs. +Lander’s shoulder. + +“I don’t see nobody coming up from the station. But, as true as I live, +there is our Josh a standing in the stable door. I suppose he’s swapped +off the hosses and come home to brag about it.” + +“Only Joshua!” exclaimed Mrs. Lander, with a sigh of profound relief. +“I’m glad he’s come. I thought—I feared—” + +“What?” + +“Nothing—nothing, only that dream was so real—so very, very real,” said +the widow, drawing a hand across her eyes. + +“But Josh Hurd is a good deal more real, and here he comes, large as +life and twice as nat’ral. Why, the feller is coming right up stairs! +What’s got into him?” + +The tramp of heavy feet made itself heard despite the thick carpet on +the stairs, and directly a clumsy knock sounded from the door. + +“Come in!” shrieked Eunice, in dire wrath. + +Josh opened the door and strode into the room with his cap on and both +hands in his pockets. + +“They’ve come, both on ’em,” he said. “I’ve seen ’em with my own eyes. +Got here too late to tell you last night, but it’s so.” + +Mrs. Lander fell back into her chair and gazed wildly on him, without +the power to speak, while Eunice drew close to her brother, flaming with +indignation. + +“Who’s come, Josh Hurd? Who’s come, I want to know?” + +“The two young gals, Cora Virginia Lander and Virginia Cora Lander. I’ve +seen ’em, I tell yer, and talked with ’em both, face ter face, and +they’re proper purty, I can tell yer, both on ’em.” + +“Joshua Hurd, what do you mean?” + +Eunice seized her brother by both shoulders, and gave him a vicious +shake as she shrieked this question in his ear. + +“I mean ter say that both gals are alive and ki—. Well, I won’t say +that, because they are both on ’em so genteel. But in about an hour, +when the next train comes in you’ll hear thunder, that’s all!” + +Mrs. Lander had arisen and came close to Joshua. Her hand shook like a +leaf as she laid it on his arm, and her white face was full of pitiful +anxiety. + +“Tell me,” she said, “tell me all the truth! Is my daughter alive?” + +“Yes; and Mr. Lander’s daughter’s too. They are both of ’em down in +York.” + +“How—how were they saved?” + +“In a boat. It was another boat that sunk. They floated, and floated, +till a ship picked ’em up. There is a good deal more to tell, but that +is the long and the short on’t.” + +Eunice pushed Mrs. Lander away, and seized upon Joshua a second time +with two or three rough shakes. + +“Josh Hurd, you’ve been a drinking! This is what they call delirious +tremars. I knew you wasn’t ter be trusted! I told her so!” + +Joshua shook himself loose, growling like a Newfoundland dog with a +terrier at his throat. + +“Hands off! hands off, I tell you! or I’ll pitch in, woman or no woman, +jest as sure as you live.” + +“Speak, then! speak the truth, or I’ll shake it out of you!” + +“I have spoke the gospel truth. What more do you want, Eunice?” + +“I want ter know what you mean by saying that them two gals are alive. +It’s a trifling with Providence to lie so, Josh Hurd!” + +“Jest you wait and see, then,” said Josh, shaking himself slowly back +into his coat. + +“Eunice! Eunice!” said Mrs. Lander, in a low voice. “It is true, they +are alive, both of them. I felt almost sure of it this morning.” + +“I don’t believe it—I won’t believe it! Eliza Lander, that chap’s lying +like a Connecticut trooper; I see it in his face.” + +“Wait till the train comes in,” growled Joshua. + +“I am satisfied that he speaks the truth,” said Mrs. Lander, faintly. “I +felt it—” + +“Yes, that dream;” sneered Eunice. “Eliza Lander, you are a bigger fool +than I took you for!” + +Mrs. Lander arose, pale as snow, but with resolution in her voice and +air. A gleam of wild, unsatisfied joy began to deepen in her eyes. + +“Go down, Eunice, and prepare everything. My daughter is alive—my niece +is coming home to take possession here.” + +“Take possession!—She! I’d like to see her try it! What’s to become of +the will, then?” + +“That leaves the property to her!” + +“So it does!” groaned Eunice, dropping into a chair, while both arms +fell heavily downward. “Our cake is all dough, sure enough! Why it’ll be +wuss than it was afore the old man died! Oh my! isn’t this a blow right +on the head!” + +“You forget that my child is alive,” said Mrs. Lander. “This is a joy to +compensate for all loss.” + +“That’s true; but then I ain’t her mother, and everything was going on +so pleasantly. Now all is to be given up! It’s enough to grind one’s +soul out! I shouldn’t wonder if she begrudged me these clothes, and +everything I’ve got. I tell you, Eliza Lander, I’d show fight! She isn’t +your daughter.” + +“She’s a mighty purty gal now, I tell you,” Joshua cut in “and I’m glad +she’s got it. That tarnal will won’t set heavy on my stomach any longer. +When that harnsome critter comes into her own, I shall be an honest man +again in spite of you, Eunice Hurd.” + +“You never had sense enough to be anything else!” sneered Eunice. “Don’t +talk to me, I’m sick!” + +Mrs. Lander was walking up and down the room, wringing her hands and +tearing them apart in great excitement. She was certain now that her +midnight visit was a reality, and the great struggle, which was to leave +her guilty or innocent, commenced then. Her first meeting with the +child, whom she had so honestly believed dead, was to leave her an +impostor or a beggar. She had been poor, and knew how hard poverty was; +how it ground down the soul and palsied the pride within it; how men, +even good men, despised it as a proof of incapacity. No one living, +perhaps, had felt the bitterness of these facts more keenly than the +woman who paced that sumptuous chamber, which now belonged to another. +No creature living could have found more exquisite enjoyment in wealth. +For itself and for the power it gave she held it as the great good of +life—yesterday it had been hers, untrammeled, unquestioned, almost +unlimited. In her domestic life she was a Sybarite. Every enjoyment of +sense was perfect in her organism. Her taste in matters of beauty was +perfect. Even now, when she thought of her daughter, it was to remember +with a glow of pleasure how exquisitely lovely she was. Already she +disliked that other girl, the rightful owner of all the wealth which lay +around her. Could she surrender everything and take up her dependent +life again? The very thought was hateful. + +She had but an hour to decide in—one little hour, and half of it was +gone already. + +“What shall I do? What can I do?” she cried, appealing wildly to Joshua, +who sat upon one of the silken chairs, watching her with kindly interest +in his rough face. + +“I don’t know what you are thinking on, or what you could do, if you +wanted to,” he answered, honestly. “But do just what’s right, that’s my +advice.” + +The man spoke clearly, earnestly, and with something impressive in his +manner that arrested Mrs. Lander in her walk. She looked him steadily in +the face a moment, drew a deep breath, and her eyes fell under his +honest gaze. She did not look in Joshua Hurd’s face again for many a day +after that. + +Slowly and steadily the woman paced up and down the room; she had +evidently arrived at some resolve; her step fell firmly on the carpet; +her face settled into hard composure. Her bosom no longer heaved with +sighs or struggled with irresolution. She was mistress of the occasion, +and for good or evil had made up her mind. + +Eunice watched her with sharp, searching glances. What was the secret of +her emotion? This was not the joy of a mother who first hears that her +child is safe, nor was it altogether distress. Some struggle was going +on which racked the woman’s whole being. What could it be? Eunice was +herself greatly disturbed; if Mrs. Lander had reigned in the hall, +Eunice had been even more powerful in the basement. How would this +change effect her? Would the second-class sceptre be wrested from her +hand by this young girl? Not without a fight for it. Eunice was decided +on that. As she came to this conclusion, a railroad whistle cut to her +ear. + + + + + CHAPTER XVIII. + WHICH WAS THE DAUGHTER? + + +Mrs. Lander drew slowly toward the window. Eunice Hurd followed her, and +behind the cold, hard face of the mistress, peered the sharp, anxious +features of the servant. + +“There they come, three of ’em,” snarled Eunice, laying her bony hand +heavily on Mrs. Lander’s shoulder. “Who’s the other?” + +She turned sharply to address Joshua, but he had left the room. Mrs. +Lander did not move, but spoke to her servant in a forced, husky voice. + +“Go down to your place, Eunice.” + +“What!” + +“Go down stairs and see that the preparations are complete. I shall meet +my child and niece in the hall.” + +Eunice hesitated, and stood in the middle of the chamber eyeing her +mistress venomously; one would have supposed that the lady had deprived +her attendant of some great fortune by the anger she betrayed. Mrs. +Lander took no apparent heed of this, but swept slowly across the room, +down the marble stairs, forcing a smile to her white face. + +They stood in the hall, forming a little group on the tesselated +floor—Cora, Virginia and the hunchback, whose face alone was bright with +generous exultation. The two girls were pale and troubled; Virginia +trembled visibly, but Cora was firm as granite. + +When Mrs. Lander reached the bottom of the staircase, she paused a +moment, reached out her arms, and, looking at Cora, cried out: + +“My child! my child!” + +Cora Lander drew back of her cousin, meeting that wild, motherly impulse +with icy looks. Virginia cast an astonished glance back on her cousin, +and, filled with pity for the mother, whose arms had dropped like lead, +went up with tears in her eyes and embraced her. Those arms were lifted +heavily and wound over the young girl’s shoulders. Kisses fell on that +white cheek, cold and sharp, like hailstones on snow. Twice the woman +attempted to utter a welcome but the forced voice rattled in her throat, +and at last broke forth in a hoarse cry that made Virginia start from +her arms. + +“My child! my daughter!” + +The young girl looked into the hardening face turned upon her one +instant in profound astonishment. Then the warm, true heart swelled in +her bosom, and she reached out her hand to Cora. + +“Not your daughter. It was kind to mistake me so tenderly, but this is +your child, dear aunt.” + +Cora stepped back and waved her hand with a gesture of dissent. Mrs. +Lander looked from one to the other with a searching glance, then threw +her arms around Virginia again, crying out, still hoarsely and in an +unnatural voice: + +“No, no; an attempt at deception at this moment is cruel! Do I not know +my own child?” + +“But, Aunt, you _are_ mistaken. Cora—Cora, you can satisfy her. A +mother’s heart must leap to the touch of her own child.” + +“But this lady is not my mother,” answered Cora Lander in a clear, +ringing voice. + +Virginia released herself forcibly from Mrs. Lander’s arms and turned +upon her cousin in dumb amazement. Cora was calm and cold; her lips +parted firmly, her eyes were bright, but all the rest of her face +bespoke simple surprise, merging into displeasure. + +“This is a strange time for joking, cousin,” she said. + +“I wonder that you can trifle with feelings that should be sacred. You +might have known from the first that she could not be deceived.” + +Virginia stood dumb. She could not comprehend the enormous fraud being +practised upon her. Once more Mrs. Lander embraced her. Again those cold +kisses fell on her forehead. She shrunk from them, shuddering. + +“Madam! madam! you should feel—you should know that I am not your child! +She stands yonder. I will be no party to a mysticism so cruel. Cora! +Cora, I entreat you, put an end to this!” + +“What can I do? How can I act? If you persist in disclaiming your own +mother, I can only denounce it as a great cruelty whether done in jest +or earnest. In my father’s time you would not have ventured on a piece +of pleasantry like this.” + +“Cora Lander!” cried Virginia, aroused to indignation by this cool +speech. “Cora Lander! is this a farce, or some horrible fraud?” + +“I do not understand you, cousin,” said Cora, with a gentle lift of the +eyebrows. “It seems to me that all this is at least in bad taste—I will +not say unfeeling. Remember you find a mother overjoyed to receive you, +while I have left the kindest and best father that ever lived buried in +the ocean, and return to my own home wholly an orphan. Aunt, forgive me +if this feeling has made me seem less glad to see you than I am. Believe +me, if your child seems unkind, it is not in her nature to be so in +reality. As for me, all the noble generosity which you and my cousin +have received from my father shall be renewed in his child. You shall be +to me as a mother; your child has always been my sister. There need be +no change.” + +Virginia Lander drew slowly toward Ellen Nolan, and there she stood, +lofty, pale, statue-like. The audacity of this scene kindled all the +energy of her fine nature into resolute resistance. + +“Cora Lander,” she said, “there is either a terrible crime in your +thoughts or this is a joke so coarse and ill-timed that I can never +forgive it.” + +Ellen Nolan had been vigilant during this scene; her eyes turned sharply +from Cora to Mrs. Lander, and she observed that these women never once +looked each other in the face. She saw, too, that Mrs. Lander trembled +violently and shrunk away from Virginia even while embracing her. + +“Dear lady,” she said, in a voice so sweet that it sounded strangely in +that atmosphere of discord, “come away—do come away.” + +“I will,” answered Virginia, casting a look of affection on her +attendant; “I will. When I am gone, these people may come to their +senses. Eunice Hurd, I am glad to see you—very, very glad to see you. Is +my old room ready?” + +“Yes; the room is ready exactly as you left it, Miss Lander. I have kept +it in order, but haven’t changed a thing. Mr. Lander wouldn’t have that +altered.” + +Cora Lander turned sharply upon Eunice, and the widow lifted an +imploring look to her face. But Eunice gave her head a fierce, angry +toss, and marched up stairs, muttering defiance as she went. Virginia +followed her, treading the steps firmly as a queen enters her palace. +But for the strange obstacle which she had encountered, this poor girl +would have shrunk from entering the rooms which the presence of her +father had once made so homelike; but now all the energy of her being +was up in arms. Her cheeks were flushed; her eyes burned blackly. Never +in her life had such anger filled her heart. She did not yet comprehend +the magnitude of the wrong intended her, but the single fact that some +mysticism had been practised upon her in the sacred moment when she +entered her home, an orphan and a mourner, revolted her whole being. The +tears which she would have shed for her father were turned into angry +fire by this insult offered to his memory. + +“Come, Ellen,” she said, “from this hour you are my cousin and friend.” + +Eunice turned sharply and looked at Ellen. + +“Humph!” she muttered. “Sharp and honest! No place for her!” + +A shade of feeling crept over that hard face when Eunice turned the key +in one of the chamber doors and stepped aside that Virginia might pass +her. Ellen lifted her eyes and caught the expression. + +“Be good to her,” she said, in her sweet, low voice. + +Eunice started and looked down upon that upturned face with the shadow +of a smile on her thin lips. + +“Go in, both of you,” she said, “and take the key inside. I say nothing, +because nothing has been said to me; but just now I’d like to wring that +white neck, gold chains and all—not yourn, I don’t mean yourn,” she +added, with a swing of the hand. “Go in; go in, you’ll find your things +right, letters and all. I took care that nobody should get nested here. +There, that’ll do, turn the key. Sure bind, sure find, as the Bible +says.” + +Virginia stood in the midst of her own room, half terrified, and feeling +painfully strange, while Ellen softly closed the door and turned the +key. She, poor girl, felt like a deer hunted into its lair by an +unexpected rush of hounds. She looked around—old memories came +back—there was her little writing-desk, ebony, encrusted with gold, +where many a hard lesson had been conned under the loving eyes of her +father. Close by stood a low chair, covered with rich embroidery +entraced by the hands of a mother she had never seen, save as a shadow +hovering over her first idea of life. The colors were faded, the +delicate tints of the blossoms had long since been drawn out by the +light, but it was still the dearest thing in that exquisite little +chamber—that and the desk, which had been one of the last gifts of her +father before he took her and her cousin to Europe. + +Everything reminded her of that good man; his taste had selected all the +ornaments of the room. The carpet, composed of a single medallion, in +which masses of blooming flowers seemed to have been cast on newly +fallen snow, framed in with arabesques of dove-color and delicate blue, +knotted together with garlands of roses, had been of his selection. The +walls, so delicately frescoed that the designs seemed like tinted +shadows, were more his idea than the artist’s. The great carved easy +chair in which he had spent so many hours, while she was sitting at his +feet with her little porcelain slate studying out one of the problems he +delighted in teaching her. The very books that lay on that pretty table +of Oriental alabaster, inlaid with golden beetles, spoke so clearly of +him that she gave one broken cry and fell upon her knees by the great +chair, convulsed with a storm of grief which shook her from head to +foot. + +“Oh, my father! my father!” she cried, “help me! help me! for it seems +as if I must die!” + +A pair of feeble arms were softly flung around her, a little crooked +form crept in by the side of her superb beauty, and a voice that seemed +that of an angel pleaded also. + +“Father! my father! help! help! for she is alone, with no one but me—no +one but me!” + +For some moments these two voices blended in one prayer, then the sobs +that filled the room grew fainter, and the stillness of an exhausted +tempest fell upon them. Ellen was the first to move. She arose, and +going to a broad window which opened on a balcony, saw two women +standing together and conversing earnestly. They had paused a little way +from the front portico, and by the gestures of the younger person she +judged that some stormy debate was passing between them. As she looked, +Mrs. Lander held out her arms with a gesture of imploring tenderness, +and would have flung herself upon the bosom of the proud girl who stood +before her. But Cora took a swift survey around, caught a glimpse of +Ellen’s face at the window, and pushed the woman away so impetuously +that she reeled back against one of the marble pillars, and thus saved +herself from falling. + +Ellen turned away from the window, convinced that some great wrong was +being done to the young creature who lay weeping, half upon the floor, +half on the great easy chair. + +“Lady,” said the hunchback, “do stop crying so, and let us think what is +best to be done.” + +“What can be done? He is dead—my poor father is dead, and I am so +helpless.” + +“Perhaps I can think a little for you,” said Ellen, with tender +meekness. “You, sweet lady, were strong enough to carry me safely +through the deep ocean. Now let me help you.” + +“But how, Ellen? What help is there for me?” cried Virginia, lifting her +beautiful face, wet with a rain of tears, to meet the kind eyes of her +attendant. “Astonishment and grief bewilders me so! What can they want? +What do they mean? They cannot be in earnest, Ellen!” + +“Yes, lady, I am sure they are in earnest.” + +“But he was my own father. They know it—that woman was present when I +was born.” + +“Still they mean what they say, I am sure of that.” + +“But it is impossible. They cannot carry it out.” + +“No, no; there must be plenty of people who know you.” + +“Plenty who know me—yes, yes; but we are so alike. We have been away +eight years. If her mother does not recognize the difference, who will?” + +“But her mother does recognize the difference,” said Ellen, quietly. + +“Then I have nothing but trouble before me!” said Virginia, sitting down +in her father’s chair and dropping both hands into her lap in an +abandonment of sorrow. + +“What _can_ I do?” + +“Wait, and God will show us the way.” + +“But I am so helpless—more helpless than you were when I found you in +the water, poor little friend! Until my father was taken from me, I +never knew what trouble meant. Oh, Ellen! _can_ my cousin be so wicked?” + +“I think she is a very wicked person, hard as rock. But God is above +all. Let me take off your bonnet, sweet lady, and smooth your hair. +Don’t, don’t shiver so—poor little hands, how the cold strikes through +your gloves! Let me kiss them warm. That’s right, lay your head on my +shoulder, it’s broad enough.” + +Here the kind hunchback gave a short, sobbing laugh, and searched for an +answering smile in the beautiful face of her mistress. But Virginia +shook her head, and replied tenderly: + +“Oh, Ellen! you should not do that. This honest face and true heart is +worth a thousand straight forms. How miserable I should be without you!” + +“Then there is Brian, my brother, who has such a grand heart; besides he +is sharp and bright as a lawyer. Think how many friends you have close +by.” + +“I will—I will.” + +“That’s kind—that’s nice! Look out and see how brightly the sun shines. +That is the way God smiles when he wishes to cheer us in the midst of a +great trouble.” + +“It does not seem bright to me. This is a sad return home—if it is my +home!” + +Virginia fell into despondency again. She really was very helpless, but +Ellen brightened up and prepared herself for usefulness. + +“This is your own room, so here we stay; but the closets are locked. +Must I ask them for the keys before I can put away your bonnet and +shawl?” + +Virginia started from her seat. “No, no,” she said, taking a gold chain +from her neck, to which was attached a small master key. “My father told +me to lock everything up, and promised that nothing should be touched +till I came home again. The keys are in that Malachite box on the table. +He gave it to me just before I went away.” + +Ellen unlocked the box with the tiny key, half gold, half steel, which +Virginia had worn suspended from her neck many a year. + +“Here is a bunch of keys, a package of letters, and some jewelry,” she +said. + +“They are my father’s letters and birthday keepsakes,” answered +Virginia, turning pale with a sudden rush of memory. “My poor mother’s +jewels, too, should be there.” + +Ellen closed the box and stood with her hand on the lid, quietly +thoughtful. + +“These things belong to you, sweet mistress. There may be proofs here of +the truth. Let us make sure of them.” + +“What, child! do you think they would rob me of them?” + +“They are robbing you already. Please open this desk and see if anything +is here.” + +Virginia unlocked the desk and Ellen swept out its contents into a +corner of her shawl, which she gathered up in one hand for the purpose. +There was a quantity of papers, jewel cases and one or two books. One of +these cases fell out of her dress and broke open on the floor, revealing +a necklace and bracelets of large pearls, rolling away from their purple +satin cushion. + +“They belonged to my mother. She wore them on her wedding day—that once, +but never again,” said Virginia, with tears in her eyes. + +Ellen snatched up the case, huddled the pearls into their purple bed and +thrust them back among the papers. + +“Where can we put them? I forgot to think of that,” she said, appealing +to her mistress. + +“Wait a moment—I know of a place,” answered Virginia, drawing back the +drapery from an arched recess, fluted from roof to floor with light blue +satin. Under this was a pretty, snow-white bed, clouded in from the +chamber by curtains of lace delicate as the frost-work on a window, and +so voluminous that it seemed like sweeping back a summer cloud from the +blue of Heaven when they were thrown aside. Close by the bed stood an +exquisite little toilet table surmounted by an oval glass, in a frame +that seemed woven from the most delicate golden spray, over which a +dove, cut from mother of pearl was flying with a mass of filmy lace +drapery in its bill. An ottoman of amber colored damask stood before the +toilet. + +“Here, here,” said Virginia, dropping on her knees by the ottoman and +flinging the top back, which opened on hinges. + +A moment after, a peremptory knock was heard at the door. The two girls +held their breath an instant, then Ellen ran to the desk, threw the +bunch of keys into the Malachite box, and locking that, flung the chain +and key over the neck of her mistress exactly as she had been in the +habit of wearing it. + + + + + CHAPTER XIX. + THE AUDACITY OF CRIME. + + +Aunt Eunice had gone off to the back regions of the house with her nose +high in the air, and her thin lips pressed together in fierce wrath. +There was something going on of which she had been kept in ignorance. +Even Joshua seemed to have a share in this something, and took airs upon +himself accordingly. Did they think to cheat her? Did they fancy that +she was likely to sit still and have sand thrown in her eyes? Did they, +indeed! + +Aunt Eunice gave her head a magnificent toss as she asked these terse +questions of herself, and fell to berating the servants in the kitchen +till the red of her face seemed born of brick-dust, and the fire in her +eyes grew venomous as a wild-cat’s. They absolutely blazed when she saw +Joshua striding cheerfully towards the stables, more upright in person +and free of mind than he had been for months. + +Meantime Mrs. Lander and Cora were left together, standing face to face +in the hall. + +Cora opened the drawing-room door and went into the room. Mrs. Lander +followed more slowly. There was sorrow and hesitation in her heart, but +the younger woman felt nothing of this. Her face wore a triumphant smile +as she looked around the room. + +“Splendid draperies, and walls tinted like opals,” she said, looking +around. “Upon my word, madam, you display magnificent taste, and have +lost no time. A Turkish divan along the end of the room yonder, with +plenty of Oriental cushions, might be an improvement—though I am not +quite certain. What a lovely break in the trees that is we see from the +window. It gives one such cool glimpses of the river. Oh! Aunt, this is +a place worth having.” + +“Aunt!” repeated Mrs. Lander. + +“Yes, Aunt now, Aunt always. That other word is forgotten.” + +“But, Cora, we are alone!” + +These words were uttered in a pleading voice, through which tears were +breaking. + +That young girl, so hard and self-possessed, had no patience with the +woman whose heart was not all base. She sat down in one of the most +luxuriously cushioned chairs and motioned Mrs. Lander to take a seat +close by. + +“Let us understand each other thoroughly,” she said. “We have made the +first plunge hand in hand, mother and child—I find the water +exhilarating—you feel it cold and begin to shiver already. This will +never do! We are in the depths, and must swim out boldly or drown. A +little firmness, a little of that self-abnegation which is expected from +a mother who has her children’s advancement at heart, will secure +everything. If you falter, madam, we are lost.” + +“Madam! Madam!” exclaimed Mrs. Lander with a sharp pain in her voice. +“You call me madam!” + +“A little more of this, and I shall call you coward!” retorted the girl, +starting up from her chair with angry vehemence. “Are you tired of all +these things, that you falter so at the first step?” + +“I did not think it would be so terrible that I should hate myself as I +do!” + +“Terrible! Why, Aunt, we are triumphant! I am mistress here—absolute +mistress—nothing on earth can dispossess me so long as you stand +firmly.” + +“But Eunice?” + +“The grim housekeeper—what of her?” + +“Nothing, nothing; only she knows so much.” + +“What can the tigress know? and what do I care for anything she can say? +Does a mother’s knowledge of her own child require the confirmation of a +servant? Let us have no weakness of this kind, madam! We want no +confidants, and will have none. If this red-crested serpent attempts to +bite, I will crush her under my heel. Such people are to be defied, not +conciliated.” + +“But you do not know her. She is sharp as steel, sly as a fox.” + +“Let her search and prowl—I fear nothing but the weakness which makes +you so white and woebegone. Remember, the worst is over. Every hour will +harden your resolve and sweep away these puerile emotions. Come, come, I +love you so dearly that all this suffering recoils on me. Let us work +together, support each other. It was for your sake I did it—or mostly +that. What a paradise you have made of this place! Could you give it +up?” + +“It would be like death, I know, child; but this sense of crime takes +away all sweetness from possession.” + +“Sense of crime!” answered Cora, drawing the words out with a prolonged +sneer. “Was it your fault that my father happened to be miserably poor +and his brother rich? Was it mine that this poor man chanced to be my +father? After all, possession is but an accident. Am I not more capable +of appreciating all this wealth—more willing to distribute it than the +creature up stairs? Sense of crime!—I wonder at the words! Much more at +the feeling. It is only weak people who condemn themselves, even in +thought. But, if you must have them, money will supply an antidote—you +shall have no stint in your charities. I will build a church somewhere +on the grounds, and you shall own the minister, pay his salary, have +lectures six times a week, and be the Lady Bountiful of this +neighborhood. There, you almost smile. Let us take a little walk in the +grounds while my cousin and namesake reconciles herself to my old +position; I am dying to look over the place. The grounds extend ever so +far, I believe, and beyond them are any number of farms that bring in +money. Who is executor under the will? Oh, I remember. To-morrow we must +go to the city—you and I alone.” + +“Come out on the grass before you talk of this,” said Mrs. Lander, +looking suspiciously around the room. “With so much drapery hanging +loose, there is no certainty against listeners.” + +“You are right; this thoughtfulness looks well. Ah! here is a window +unfastened. This way. What a lovely scene it is!” + +Cora Lander swept back a mass of lace and rich amber damask from one of +the windows as she spoke and stepped through, pausing under the marble +colonnade till Mrs. Lander followed her, and closed the window. Then the +little scene Ellen had witnessed transpired, and they walked together +into the centre of the lawn, where a bed of standard roses was cut into +the sward, and Cora pretended to examine the flowers as she talked. + +The conversation was but a sequel to that which had passed in the +drawing room, but, in the open air and free from all chance of +listeners, Mrs. Lander spoke more freely and entered into her daughter’s +wicked plans with greater boldness. Cora was bending over a splendid +rose and inhaling its perfume with keen relish, for so keen was this +girl’s zest for pleasure that, with her mind thus sharply occupied, she +could pause for a sensuous enjoyment and receive it to the full, but a +sudden exclamation from her companion startled her away from the flower. + +“What is it?” she inquired, sharply, following the wild glance which +Mrs. Lander fixed on one of the windows, and seeing the face of Ellen +Nolan looking out. + +“I see nothing but that tiresome little hunchback peering at us still.” + +“But she is in that room—no one has entered it since my niece—” + +“Madam, that is not a title to use applied to that young lady, even in +this solitude,” said Cora, sharply. + +“But the room contains all her things—her letters, her papers, her +mother’s trinkets. I never thought of that till now.” + +“What folly! what madness!” cried Cora, twisting the rose she had +inhaled from its stalk with a violence that half uprooted the plant. +“That room, and all its contents, belongs to me. Do you understand?” + +“Yes, yes: I comprehend all the mischief that may spring from this; but +it was Eunice! I am sure it was Eunice!” + +“Whoever has done it, there is a remedy,” replied Cora. “Come with +me—or, rather, stay here. I am mistress of the house, and will arrange +the rooms as I please.” + +This idea, false and mean as it was, seemed to have filled Cora’s whole +being with pride; she lifted her head with the poise of an empress, and +giving a wave of the hand, intended to keep Mrs. Lander back, passed +into the house. + +Ellen Nolan opened the door of her mistress’ chamber, and stood back +from the threshold, looking quietly in that hard, beautiful face. +Virginia had seated herself in the easy chair and sat with her anxious +face turned on the door, waiting for what might come. + +“Cousin, I am very sorry to disturb you, but the housekeeper made a +mistake in sending you here. This room has always been held sacred to +myself. Your old room shall be prepared at once.” + +She said this firmly, almost quietly, but there was a hard metallic tone +in the voice which betrayed something of the wonderful self-restraint +which kept her apparently so calm. “You can have more rooms if you want, +but not this.” + +Virginia arose from her seat, pale and firm, but with the pain of a +wounded spirit in her face. + +“Cora,” she said, in her soft, clear voice, “Cousin Cora, if this is a +joke, it is a very, very cruel one! Remember how mournful this coming +home is—no father, no mother to receive me—no relatives in the wide +world that I have ever seen except yourself and my aunt. Cora, my father +was always kind to you, considerate and generous to your mother. Think +how unseemly a joke of this kind is from her child, under his roof.” + +Virginia paused a moment, wiped away the tears that were filling her +eyes, and went on with a passionate outburst. + +“Or is this real, Cora Lander? That look almost warns me that it is. But +pause—pause while there is yet a chance of retreating from a fraud so +black that it must bring exposure and bitter punishment upon you and +your mother! Do not think that I shall submit; that would be to share +the infamy. Oh, Cora! Cora! remember what we have been to each other, +how dearly I have loved you! I was thinking, cousin, to make you +independent the moment I had the power. There is enough for both—enough +for us all. That hard, hard look yet! Oh! cousin, will nothing move +you?” + +The color had once or twice swept like flame across Cora Lander’s face, +but it settled back instantly, leaving it of a cold, grayish white. + +“I do not understand all this, cousin. That horrible fright which drove +us from the burning ship must have left your brain disturbed. It shocks +me to think so, but this scene almost forces the belief on me. For your +own sake, try to drive these strange ideas from your mind; they distress +me, indeed they do!” + +Virginia stepped a pace back and fixed her gaze on that immovable face. +Every feature seemed cut out of stone. The eyes alone shrunk and fell +under that calm, rebuking scrutiny. + +“I shall not speak to you again, feeling as I do how deeply-laid is the +evil in your heart. But I will at once take such steps as must ensure my +legal rights,” said Virginia, in a low, still voice, that contrasted +strangely with the grating hoarseness which broke through the forced +composure of Cora’s speech. “Heaven knows, I wished to be good to you! +It was in my heart to deal with you as if we had been what so many take +us for, twin sisters; but you will not have it so.” + +Virginia’s eyes filled again and her voice faltered. She cast an +imploring glance on that hardened girl, and, with an impulse of generous +tenderness, held out her arms. + +“Let it be thus, Cora. I have no craving wish for all this property—cast +this demon thought out of your soul, and let us be as sisters once more. +Half of all that I have shall be yours, only lift this awful feeling +from my heart and let us be friends again! Oh, Cora! you never will know +how dearly I have loved you! Take half—I will gladly give it.” + +While she was speaking, the form of Aunt Eunice darkened the door, and +behind her stood one of the housemaids. Cora recognized their presence +at once, and quick as lightning turned upon them. + +“You hear her—you hear this magnificent proposition? She will give me a +clear half of my own property! You will bear witness that she makes this +offer—she, who never had a cent on earth that did not come from my poor, +generous father!” she cried, appealing to them, and fastening Ellen with +her eyes. “She will compromise for half my inheritance, and condescend +to become my co-heiress with all the glory of a generous act upon her! +This audacity is beyond belief!” + +Virginia sat down speechless and pale. The reality of this wicked design +fell upon her with appalling force. + +“Take my poor cousin to some other room. In her present state it is +impossible for me to have her here,” said Cora, addressing Eunice. “The +chamber she occupied before is ready, I suppose. If not, ask my aunt to +take charge of her daughter till some better disposition of things can +be made. I much fear it will be impossible to keep her in the house. I +have seen this coming on for a long time.” + +Eunice Hurd strode into the room, swept by Cora with a sniff and a toss +of the head, and went up to Virginia. + +“Come here, child,” she said, almost kindly. “They have determined to +drive you out of this room, and will do it anyhow. But I’m in the house +yet, and know a thing or two that they don’t maybe give me credit for. +As if my eye-teeth wasn’t cut afore she or her mother either were born! +So she is Mr. Lander’s daughter, is she?” + +Virginia recognized the rough kindness conveyed in these words, and +clung to the hard hand extended to her with gratitude. + +“Yes, I will go with you, Eunice Hurd. You knew me when I was a little +baby, and used to be kind. Surely you remember me!” + +“No matter whether I do or not. I’ll stand by you now, if it’s only to +learn that self-sufficient gal not to try and cheat me! Pshaw! it ain’t +to be done! Come along; I’ve got a room ready for you—purty as a picter +and neat as wax. Let her bustle about here if she wants to; but I tell +her here to her face, she can’t trample me under foot, nor her mother +neither, till I make up my mind to let ’em.” + +Tortured and astonished as she had been when wounded by grief and +saddened by this mournful return home, Virginia turned gratefully toward +the only friend who had received her with kindness. + +“Yes, I _will_ go with you, Eunice Hurd—Aunt Eunice we used to call you, +I remember.” + +“Of course you do; and as for her—well I say nothing as yet—but, +Jerusalem! won’t she cuss the day she ever attempted to do her tall +walking over me!” + +“Woman, be quiet, and take your charge from the room. To-morrow we will +have a physician. Just now I wish to be alone.” + +“Hoity-toity! Who was your servant last year?” cried Eunice, putting her +red arms akimbo and shaking her fiery locks till the comb rose from them +like the crest of an angry cockatoo. “How much wages have you ever paid +me?” + +“All that you will receive under this roof,” answered Cora, with a dry +laugh. “From this moment, I discharge you.” + +This time Eunice gave her head a sudden jerk, that sent the comb flying +half across the room. + +“You dare attempt it! you she im—, but I say nothing; only try it, if +you dare!” + +Virginia, shocked and trembling under all this rude violence, arose from +her seat and walked toward the door. Eunice darted a venomous look over +her shoulder and marched after her, followed by Ellen, who looked as if +some sudden blow had fallen upon her head, bowing it down upon her +chest. + +The moment the room was cleared, Cora Lander locked the door and began a +search for such objects as might prove of value to her. But the drawers +were all locked, and, save the pretty ornaments about the room, nothing +of interest to her black scheme presented itself. At last she recognized +the Malachite box, and remembered for what purpose it had been used. +That was locked, but she broke it open with a wrench of her hands, took +the keys, unlocked the desk, and found it empty. + + + + + CHAPTER XX. + EUNICE HURD EXASPERATED. + + +Eunice Hurd was in a state of fierce indignation when she left that girl +in the chamber which she was morally certain belonged of right to +another. So fiery and intense was her feeling, that she passed by that +wing of the building where her own empire was established, and began +marching up and down the green sward close to the house, shaking her +head viciously and flinging out her hands, as if the very atmosphere +were an enemy which she longed to grapple with. After awhile her natural +strong good sense conquered all this turbulence, and she began to think +and calculate on the existing state of things in that dwelling. + +“One thing is certain,” she reasoned. “Something is going on which they +haven’t let me into, and don’t mean it. Well, that’s good for ’em. I +ain’t by no manner of means the person they can depend on to cheat a +young critter like that out of home and name. Them country cousins was +another thing. Who cared for them? But when it comes to a choice between +these ’ere two gals—one of ’em as good as pie and better, while ’tother +al’ays was a sneaking, selfish, foxy critter, jest calcerlated for this +kind o’ business, and nothing else—why it isn’t in me to take up that +side. Besides, one is liberal as all out doors, and ’tother, consarn +her! never was ginerous to anybody but herself since she was born, and +never will be. So I’ll stand up for the right. They’ve got me to tussle +with, let me tell ’em, and they’ll find out that Eunice Hurd isn’t a +baby, by no manner of means!” + +Eunice paused as these thoughts filled her mind, and then went on, +sweeping the grass with the train of her purple dress, which at length +caught on something and dragged at her unmercifully. She turned with a +snarl and seized upon the branch of a rose-bush that had fastened its +thorns in her dress, and wrenched it away, flinging it to a distance. +Again she moved on, and once more a long, thorny branch rasped the rich +silk, tearing it in places. + +“What on arth is this rose-bush down here for, ripping away at my dress +like all possessed? I saw the gardener nailing it up yesterday with my +own eyes, yet here it is, trailing off yards and yards in the grass, or +at any rate half of it. How came it here? There was no wind last night +to tear it down.” + +While asking herself these questions, Eunice stepped backward, and was +nearly overthrown by a ladder, which lay on the sward behind her. + +She turned with a fresh snarl and examined the ladder. It lay almost +directly under the window of Mrs. Lander’s room, holding down a +straggling spray of the rose-bush, which had annoyed her so. + +“Somebody has been here—somebody has done this,” she muttered. “That +ladder has been moved since the dew fell, just as sure as I’m a sinner! +There’s fresh sile on the end. The gardener hasn’t been here since +yesterday forenoon. Who has?” + +Eunice folded her arms here and fell into thought for a full minute. +Then she stooped down, lifted up the ladder and set the rose branch +which it had imprisoned free. It swayed back against the wall of the +building, and then Eunice saw that at least half the bush remained +firmly in its place. + +“Somebody has been here. What for?” she muttered. “What for, I should +like to know?” + +That moment her eyes caught two stains of fresh earth just beneath Mrs. +Lander’s chamber window—exactly such stains as the supporters of that +ladder would leave on the white marble. + +“Some one has been up there,” she thought. “In at the window, as true as +I live! Jerusalem and California! that was the dream she had! They made +up this wickedness in the night, the foxes! But Eunice Hurd is peeping +into their hole, she is. That’s why the window was so wide open and the +curtain streaming out—that’s what made her snivel and shake so—as if she +could do anything in earnest without me to back her. What’s that? +Jerusalem and so forth, what is that?” + +Eunice saw a fragment of cloth fluttering from an upright branch of the +rose-bush just below the window. Snatching up the ladder, she dragged it +forward, planted it against the wall, mounted it with the agility of a +cat, and came down with the fragment grasped in her hand. + +“It is blue merino; is it like her dress? I’ll go in before she has time +to take it off, and make sure,” she said, in high excitement. “They mean +to cheat me, do they? Let ’em try it!” + +Meantime Virginia and her little maid locked themselves in the chamber +which had been forced upon them, and there, like two caged birds, they +stood and looked at each other in pitiful helplessness. At this time +Cora was ransacking the closets and forcing the drawers in that other +chamber, which contained all the young creature’s household treasures. + +“What can I do? What ought I to do?” she said, leaning her fair forehead +down on Ellen’s shoulder. “This is terrible! Only half an hour ago I was +thinking all this mine—thinking how to share it with them in a way that +might not wound their pride. Now—now, oh Ellen! I feel like a beggar! +They would rob me twice. My inheritance and my faith in the goodness of +God’s creatures they have swept off at a single swoop.” + +“No, do not think that, lady. Some of God’s creatures are very, very +good.” + +“You are good, Ellen; I know that.” + +“And so are many, many persons that never will be known. I have heard my +father say that half the generous deeds and noble sacrifices of the +earth are such as will only be recognized in Heaven.” + +“Your father had great faith in humanity, then.” + +“Oh yes; he was so patient, so forbearing. He never believed that any +one could be entirely depraved, but hoped for the best and did for the +best.” + +“Ah me! only yesterday I thought of the best. How everything is +changed.” + +“Is it only because these people wish to wrong you and steal your name?” + +“I thought yesterday,” continued Virginia, “that mourning and the +sadness which springs out of bereavement were the worst of sorrow. But +now that the bitterness of wrong has come, I know better. This lost love +and lost faith in the living is worse than death. It seems to me as if +the cousin I loved so had passed into another being. My heart aches with +bitter pain when I think of her.” + +“I heard my mother say this once when we had a sharp sorrow to bear, but +_he_ soothed her and told her in his deep, calm way to leave the wicked +with God, who sometimes permits wo and strife in nations, sin in +households, that some evil may be driven out, some wonderful good +secured to the great bulk of mankind.” + +“I never thought much of these things, Ellen,” said Virginia, gently. +“Indeed, I never had a trouble till now.” + +“Then I am older and wiser in this way than you. I knew what hard, hard +trouble was when a little girl. It was because you suffered that I loved +you so from the first.” + +“And have you been always in trouble, my poor girl?” said Virginia, +smiling sadly on that earnest face. + +“No, I was happy once; but that was long ago.” + +“Long ago, and you so young.” + +“Am I young?” said Ellen, lifting her stag-like eyes innocently to her +mistress. “It never seemed to me so.” + +Virginia sat down and drew the hunchback close to her. There was a +comfort in this, and a sense of protection, feeble as the little +creature was. + +“Ellen, tell me what this trouble was. You and I are alone in the world; +I would like to know all that lies back in your life, because I love you +and trust you, Ellen.” + +Tears rose thick and fast into Ellen’s eyes. She sunk down upon the +floor, half kneeling, half sitting, and uplifting her honest young face +so that her eyes looked straight into those bent upon her with such +sympathetic earnestness, smiled as people only smile when ready to make +a painful sacrifice. + +“Yes, I will tell you everything, and would if death had not swept all +away. My father was what they call a gentleman once. You saw him and +know that he was one. He was married very young indeed, and his wife +died, leaving a little boy behind her that my father loved dearly; so +dearly, that he gave up everything and lived almost alone on a pretty +place he owned near Waterford, in Ireland, in order to bring the boy up +under his own care. For twelve years my father kept himself out of the +world and gave up his life to the child. Alfred had no other teacher, +and scarcely any other companion. He loved my father dearly, I think, +and I know that my father’s love for him was like worship. + +“At last Alfred was sent to Heidelberg, in Germany, where a great many +young men are educated, and my father went into the world again, +commencing life as it were then. He had some property, enough for all +their wants, and more; but went to work in earnest at his profession, +ambitious for his son. After a year or two he saw my mother and married +her. More children came—first a son, who died; then my poor self; +afterward Brian, but even Brian, bright and handsome as he is, was not +to be compared to Alfred. This must be true, for all the people about +our place agreed in saying that he was the most splendid young man that +the sun ever shone upon. He came home once when I was a little child, +but I can only just remember how magnificent he seemed. My father was +expecting him to come back to Waterford and join him in the business of +his office; but he wanted to travel, and my father felt it a happiness +to work that he might enjoy. + +“I think Alfred was in Paris a great deal and sometimes in London, for +my father went three or four times to both these places in order to meet +him. I was a sharp child; people like me often are, I am told; and +though my mother never spoke of it, I saw that these visits were always +followed by seasons of anxiety, and that men came more frequently to +talk with my father about loans of money. Then came discussions about +household expenses, and care on every side. So our home grew darker and +darker year by year. If Alfred had seen this, and heard my father +walking to and fro in his chamber till after midnight, as I often did, +he might have been more thoughtful. But he never came home. When he +wrote, the shadow of some great trouble always followed his letters. I +used to watch my father when he received these letters, and could see +his hands shake and his lips turn pale as he opened them. + +“At last a letter came which took my father suddenly from home. We +children knew nothing of his business, but the wistful sadness in our +mother’s face made us thoughtful, even to the youngest, for there were +five of us then, not counting the splendid young fellow whom my father +loved better than us all. + +“When my father came back he looked thin, and his hair had grown +white—very white for a man of his age. He was terribly cast down, and +for the first time in my life I saw tears in his eyes when he took us +one by one into his embrace. It was a miserable greeting, and we +children sat down and cried together when he took my mother into a room +alone with mournful solemnity, as if they were going to a funeral. + +“When they came forth again, my mother was white as death, but there was +something in her face that told us that she was ready to make a great +sacrifice. Through all the gloom of my father’s sorrow there shone out a +grand and settled love for her. Something that she had done or consented +to do seemed to have anchored her into the very depths of his heart.” + +Here Virginia interrupted the girl. + +“How strangely your words sound, Ellen. They are those of a woman, not +to say a poet. I cannot realize that you are little more than a child.” + +“Nor I; but I was almost always with my father, seldom with the +children—and he _was_ a poet, though I think he never wrote a word of +verse in his life. That, perhaps, is why I speak words that seem strange +and out of place.” + +“Strange child—strange child,” said Virginia, tenderly. “I think we do +sometimes entertain angels unawares. But go on, I did not mean to +interrupt you.” + +“That night my father gathered us all into the library for family +prayers. He did not read the service—I think his heart was too full for +that—but his prayer to God, as we all knelt around him, was like the +pleading of a sinner for mercy. It was not for himself, we all knew +that, but some thought deep in his soul broke forth in a wail of pain +that made even the little children look around upon his quivering white +face with tears in their eyes. This passionate cry of sorrow merged +itself into a swell of mournful thanksgiving for the love and comfort +which God had bestowed upon the darkness of his life, even in that black +hour. When we all arose from our knees and gathered around him, weeping +in blind sympathy, he blessed us with a smile upon his lip. + +“‘Children,’ he said, ‘this is not our home. I—I have sold it and spent +the money. We are very poor people now; scarcely a family in all Ireland +is so poor.’ + +“‘Father, father, shall we live in a cabin and have a nice white pig to +sleep in the corner and play with, like Michael Croft?’ asked one of the +children. ‘Oh, we shall like that!’ + +“A faint smile quivered over my father’s mouth. He patted the little one +gently on the head. ‘Yes, child, we will live in a cabin, but it shall +be far away from here, with wild woods and green prairies to look out +upon; where no one will ever learn that we have been better bred than +our neighbors. There shall be plenty of white pigs too, little Willie, +but they must have a cabin of their own, and you shall own a young fawn +to play with.’ + +“‘That will be brave!’ said little Willie, clapping his hands and +laughing through his tears, while the younger ones brightened up and +scattered off into the next room, eager to talk the thing over, leaving +Brian and myself sitting together, sorrowful with thoughts that they +were too young for. + +“‘Is it to America we are going?’ inquired Brian looking wistfully at +his father. + +“‘Yes, my son—does the thought frighten you?’ + +“‘No, father. But must you work there—till the soil like a peasant?’ + +“‘And does my son fear that?’ + +“‘For my father, yes. He was born a gentleman,’ answered Brian, ‘for +myself, no.’ + +“‘That is bravely spoken, my boy! Fear nothing for me. The education +which unfits a man for any duty that lies before him must be imperfect +and, in so much, unworthy. You and I will take our first lesson at +wood-chopping together, while Ellen here shall help her mother with the +housework. We may be very happy in the far West. No one will think of +inquiring there how much or how little we have worked before.’ + +“He spoke cheerfully, and looked at my mother, who put her hand softly +into his and smiled upon him. + +“‘You see this is not so terrible, after all. I knew the children would +not complain,’ she said, in her low, tender voice. ‘We shall only love +each other the better in a strange country. _He_ may yet join us there.’ + +“My father turned a grateful look upon her, but gave no answer in words, +though a gloom slowly gathered over his face and he sighed heavily. + +“Brian went up to him and rested one hand on his shoulder. + +“‘Father, I will be a good son, and if ever the time comes that he wants +kindness from a brother, let him try me.’ + +“Then my father burst into tears. I had never seen him weep before; but +now he sobbed like a child. + +“‘Who told you anything of this?’ questioned my mother, fluttering like +a wounded dove around its mate. ‘Why does a child of mine speak in this +way?’ + +“‘No one has told us anything,’ answered Brian, ‘but we feel, and our +hearts speak.’ + +“‘See how you have hurt him,’ she said, still dissatisfied. + +“‘No, no; I am not hurt. This is gratitude. Why should we hold aloof +from the sympathy of our children? It needs no words. Brian, you and I +will be fellow-workers—fast friends—we understand each other.’ + +“‘I wish you could feel in earnest how much I love you,’ said Brian, +standing up proudly, like a man. + +“‘I did not know myself till now. Here is Ellen, too, with such +sorrowful eyes—’ + +“‘It is because I am so helpless,’ I answered, when the great swell of +my heart would let me speak. ‘Because I can do nothing.’ + +“‘Is it nothing that you can be your mother’s comforter and mine?’ said +my father, gathering me in his arms. ‘What could we do without you, my +Ellen?’ + +“In this mood we broke up that pleasant old home—sold everything, and +with a little money—so little that we could not afford a first-class +passage, even for my mother—went on board that steamer. You know the +rest, but you do not know how often I stood on the verge of our limits +on the deck watching you as you read or talked. Dear lady, my heart went +towards you at the first glance: I longed to throw myself at your feet +as you lay on that white rug, to kiss the hem of your dress. When the +fire broke out—” + +Virginia lifted both hands to her face and shrunk back in her chair, +moaning with pain of that awful memory. + +“I wanted to tell you something more about my father,” said Ellen, in a +low, penitent voice. “I did not mean to hurt you so. When the fire raged +fiercest, and there was no longer a hope, my father gathered us close to +the bulwark—all but Brian, who had gone to the other side of the deck, +where a boat still swung with its tackling half burned away. While they +were trying to right it, all the cordage parted and it plunged into the +ocean stern foremost, almost carrying Brian with it. A great body of +flame burst up from the deck, separating us with a storm of fire. Then +my father turned away with his face to the water, and said to my mother +and myself what he had wished to say to Brian. + +“‘My wife—my child—some of us may be saved. There is no torture in +drowning. Fear nothing worse than death. They have flung spars and +planks into the water; one of you may reach them, and so float till a +ship comes up. Should this happen to either of you, remember the charge +I give. Some time in life you may meet him—I mean my eldest son, Alfred +Nolan—keep nothing back, tell him all that you have seen, all that you +have thought. Say to him that the last words of his father before he +went into eternity were these—remember them well, there may be a soul’s +salvation in them—say to him: Your father dies blessing you, praying for +you, rather than his own life. Say—and mark the words well—that his +father would gladly die this horrible death even of fire, if its agonies +could redeem his son. Tell him that you saw the flames swooping toward +me as I said this—that the fire was roaring under my feet and leaping +into the sky, leaving only a moment of life, which I used for him. Tell +him that the innocent children that will go down with me into eternity +are less dear to me than the one guilty son for whom my last breath of +prayer shall be given. Say that I perish believing that out of my fiery +grave will come repentance, regeneration, and perhaps a useful future to +him. Will you tell him this, my child, my wife?’ + +“‘We will! we will!’ cried out two voices, blending in a solemn promise. + +“Mother stood by, white and trembling, with the little ones clinging to +her skirts. She looked down upon them with low moans of pain, and on her +part clung to the garments of my father. I think if the fire had leaped +upon us then we should have perished embracing each other. The fire did +leap upon us, and went roaring after us foot by foot till we were driven +to the bow, where you stood crowded close with that good man. Then Brian +came through the flames, determined to die with us. We two were saved, +and these last words of our father are all that we brought with us out +of the deep. Some day, lady, I shall see and know my brother Alfred.” + +“It was an awful scene; my whole being shudders when I think of it!” +cried Virginia, quivering with the terror of her own memories. “We are +here—you and I, safe; but, ah! me alone! Ellen, I am glad you told me +about this noble father. I saw him then, and the very remembrance fills +me with a solemn trust in the eternal justice of God. Let us watch and +be patient. One person we can trust, and that is your brother. He has a +bright, honest face, like yours, dear—only—” + +“More life in it; and his figure is so straight and tall. What a man he +will make!” cried Ellen, brightening all over. “You would not think it, +but he has the pride of a nobleman. That is why he will not acknowledge +to the education which cost his father so much trouble. He does not wish +to be thought a gentleman’s son. As for me, no one would ever suspect +good blood or gentle breeding here. So I pass without question. The +first sight decides my claims to notice. Even that red-haired woman +settled me with a sweep of her hand into something more insignificant +than a servant.” + +“Let them think what they will, Ellen. It is enough that I know and love +you as a dear friend,” said Virginia, smoothing the waves of lovely hair +that shaded that earnest face. + +“Hush, some one is coming,” said Ellen starting to her feet; “they must +not find me here leaning on my mistress. Shall I open the door?” + +There was a knock and the jingle of china in the passage. + +“It is Eunice Hurd, I think,” said Virginia, trembling, for the scene of +that morning had shaken her nerves sadly. “Let her in; she seemed +friendly.” + +The door was opened and a servant came in with a great silver tray +between her outstretched arms, on which was a delicate tête-à-tête set +of Sèvres china, some glittering silver, and all the paraphernalia of an +epicurean breakfast. + +“I thought I’d bring it up here, as you didn’t seem to hitch hosses with +them people down stairs,” said Eunice Hurd, marching after the servant. +“They haven’t taken a morsel yet. Other things to think of, I suppose. +How do you feel now, Miss Lander? Chirker than you did, I reckon. At any +rate, here’s a briled chicken and some biscuit, and _sich_ butter. +Remember the cheny, I calculate?” + +While she was speaking, Eunice, opening out a rosewood card-table, +spread a damask cloth upon it with both her large, red hands, while the +purple moire antique shook and rustled under her quick motion. + +“Reckoned you would,” she muttered on. “Twelve years old the day he +brought this set of china home. Thought it was for the big wax doll at +first. Mercy on us, how he did laugh! Most people would have let ’em all +been broken up, but I ain’t of that sort. There, marm, is a cup of +coffee smoking hot, and plenty of cream to settle it down—and sich cream +too! The cows have grown so dainty that they won’t touch any thing less +than white clover, with nipping from the rose leaves and apple blossoms +when they flutter into the grass—queer critters, them English cows are; +and sich milk as they give! The calves had a nice time of it this +spring, I can tell you. There’s a snow-white one, with a black spot +shooting up its forehead like an Injun arrow, Joshua wouldn’t have it +killed nohow till you got home. It’s a beauty, I tell you! anything +more, Miss? I’d stay and hand the things my own self, only Miss +What’s-her-name will be prowling inter the kitchen, for anything I know. +Make yourself to home, for it _is_ home so long as Eunice Hurd is under +this roof.” + +Eunice gathered up her purple dress with both hands, and was marching +out of the room, then she turned back and added: + +“If the little flippertegibbet has a mind to, she can come down any time +and tell me if you want anything—wouldn’t go near the madam or that gal, +if I was you.” + +Eunice retreated with these words, sniffing the air as she went. + + + + + CHAPTER XXI + MRS. LANDER AND CORA VISIT LAWYER STONE. + + +Eben Stone was in his office, sitting at a black walnut desk, +honey-combed with pigeon-holes and bristling with papers, given endwise +to the light. He occupied the most remote of three rooms, all carpeted, +with green; along each carpet, from door to door, a footpath was trodden +into the fabric revealing its hempen foundation, as grass is worn from a +meadow track. This footpath bespoke many clients, and the whole +surroundings a prosperous business. Indeed few lawyers of the city +boasted a larger practice or higher standing in the courts than Eben +Stone. + +It was not often that this man lost his equanimity, but he was a little +astonished when a clerk from the front office came into his room, +followed by the widow Lander and a young lady, so like Lander’s +daughter, as he remembered her, that the resemblance really startled +him. + +The widow sat down in a chair placed for her by the clerk, but did not +lift her crape veil, though the young lady put hers aside with a rather +defiant sweep of the hand. + +“Mr. Stone, I have come to you at once,” said the widow, moving +nervously in her chair; “something so strange has happened. Please to +look on this young lady and tell me if you know her?” + +The lawyer, who was a handsome man for his years, which had numbered at +least fifty, turned his fine gray eyes on the girl with a look of +puzzled recognition. + +“But that I am certain it is impossible, madam, I should say, allowing +for growth and time, that this young lady might be Lander’s daughter.” + +“You have remembered rightly, sir,” said the widow, starting up with +nervous eagerness. “She is Mr. Lander’s daughter, saved from the wreck +almost by a miracle—restored to us only two days ago.” + +“And Lander—my friend Lander!” exclaimed Stone, eagerly. “What of him?” + +The widow shook her head, and her black veil waved mournfully. + +“He is dead, sir; my brother and benefactor went down with the steamer.” + +“And your own child?” inquired the lawyer, in a restrained voice. + +Mrs. Lander’s black-bordered handkerchief went up under the veil, which +was mournfully agitated again. + +“Not dead, I hope,” exclaimed the lawyer. “Dear me, that is terrible!” + +“Not dead, but so much worse. Oh! Mr. Stone, I fear she is insane!” + +“Insane!” + +Mr. Stone turned his eyes on the young girl as he said this. He saw +nothing in her handsome face but a look of gentle concern. + +“It was the exposure,” she said in reply to his look, “the horrible +scene of the fire, that drove her out of her mind, sir. She is not +violent—far from it—but I sometimes think it would have been better if +she had never been picked up. Why, sir, she does not know her own +mother!” + +“She does not, indeed, Mr. Stone!” cried the widow, sobbing out the +words from behind her veil. “Refused to own me from the first—fancies +that she is Mr. Lander’s child, and sets herself up for the heiress! You +have no idea how painful it is!” + +Mrs. Lander was evidently in a sad, nervous state; she began to sob +piteously, and trembled so much that the young lady put one arm around +her and made a gentle effort at consolation. + +“She is so disappointed—so sadly harassed by her daughter’s reproaches, +sir! You can imagine what it is!” she said, turning her beautiful face +on the lawyer. “My heart aches for them both.” + +“It is a mournful state of things, certainly,” said the lawyer, with +earnest sympathy. + +“What can be done—what steps shall we take regarding my poor cousin? I +would give half my father’s estate to-morrow, sir, if that would restore +her mind. Oh! sir, you have no idea what a lovely character she is—or +was before this horrible calamity fell upon her. So fond of me, so +grateful to my father. Indeed that she might well be, for he made no +difference between us. Pray tell me what can be done for her—you are my +father’s old friend—point out some way for us. My poor aunt, here, is +breaking her heart.” + +The impetuous feeling with which these words were spoken carried the +sympathies of the lawyer with it. The bright, generous glow of that face +made even his practised heart beat quicker. + +“I cannot advise, I cannot even judge correctly,” he said, “without +having seen the young lady. It is a hard case—a very hard case.” + +Here Mrs. Lander bowed her head gloomily and sobbed out: + +“Ah! sir, you cannot think how I suffer! How sadly all this has shaken +my nerves!” + +“But your daughter is not dangerous. I think you told me that she is +never violent.” + +“Not exactly violent as yet. But her conduct in the house is very +distressing. She has locked herself into her old room with a little +deformed creature saved from the wreck, and refuses to come out. But the +servants get access to her, and she talks to them as if she were +mistress of the house. As for her cousin and myself, she seems to hate +us.” + +“That is no unusual thing with insane people,” said the lawyer. “It +often happens that they take dislikes to those nearest and dearest; but +this may only be temporary. Has any physician seen her?” + +“No one has seen her,” answered the widow. “We came to you, as her +uncle’s old friend, first.” + +“Still, I think a physicians’s opinion important.” + +“What physician would you recommend?” inquired Cora Lander. + +“Any respectable practitioner. There must be one in your neighborhood. +Indeed, if it should become imperative to shut her up, two would be +necessary.” + +“Oh, don’t! don’t speak of that!” exclaimed the young girl. “The very +thought wounds me.” + +“Still it may become necessary,” said the lawyer. “In what way was she +first taken?” + +“I can hardly tell,” answered Cora. “At first she was terribly +depressed, and mourned continually over the loss she had met with in the +death of my dear father, whom she persisted in calling _her_ father. At +first I did not correct her, for sometimes she had, in a caressing way, +called him father on board the steamer. But when I heard her constantly +doing this—with such deep earnestness, too—I spoke to her about it, when +she flew at me like a fury, told me that I only wanted to cheat her out +of the property and take her birthright from her. From that day she has +been possessed with this wild idea. When she came home, after all our +troubles, and found her mother yearning to receive her, she absolutely +pushed the dear lady aside, and refused to recognize her. Dear, dear +aunt, don’t look so sad! it breaks my heart! Indeed, sir, you cannot +blame her if she does give way. Oh! Mr. Stone, it was a terrible +disappointment! Poor mother! poor, dear aunt! why how you shiver!” + +Mrs. Lander was indeed trembling, and her pallid face looked frightful +through her crape veil. She had told no more than the truth; her nerves +were dreadfully shaken. + +“I can endure this no longer!” she exclaimed, starting up in wild haste. +“It wrings my heart to hear you say these things, Cora Lander!” + +Cora broke off in her speech and looked steadily in Mrs. Lander’s eyes. +They were wild and impatient. The conversation had evidently overtaxed +her strength. + +“Well, dear aunt, we will drop the subject,” she said, sweetly. “It is +painful to us all. Mr. Stone understands how it is with my cousin, and +will think for us. We are so helpless, sir.” + +There was a quick decision in all this which did not strike that keen +lawyer as so very helpless. But he made his observations and said +nothing. Once, Mrs. Lander lifted her veil and turned a long, wistful +look upon him, as if there was something she wished to say, but the veil +dropped again, and she went out, following Cora Lander to the carriage. + + + + + CHAPTER XXII. + ANOTHER STRANGE VISIT. + + +Mr. Stone sat a long time after the two women left him, playing idly +with his paper-knife, dissatisfied, he could not tell why, and restless +even to irritability. Why was it that, from the very beginning, he had +been possessed of unreasonable doubts and suspicions, so vague that they +melted into nothingness when questioned closely by his reason? Why was +it that he could like neither Mrs. Lander nor her Beautiful as the +creature was, she utterly failed to touch one chord of his heart or +charm one ray of his intellect. + +“She has the Lander look and the Lander voice,” he said. “I felt the +tones as if my old friend had been speaking, but the air, that one +glance of the eye, those never belonged to my friend Amos.” + +While Stone was thus thoughtfully playing with his folder and frowning +heavily over it, the young man from the outer office broke in upon him. + +“Two more ladies, sir.” + +“Two more, James!” + +“Miss Lander and Miss Nolan. They want to speak with you.” + +“Send them in—send them in.” + +Again the bachelor office was darkened by two females in deep mourning. +One, the tallest, struck him so completely as the girl he had just +parted with, that he started up in astonishment and stood gazing upon +her with softened feelings, for the expression he had not quite liked +was gone, and a sweet sadness, such as he had often seen on Amos +Lander’s features in his hours of grief, had taken its place. + +“Sir—sir, you were my father’s friend, I know,” said the young lady, but +with more impressive earnestness than had marked the conversation of his +other visitor. “I have come to you in my distress—in my utter, utter +helplessness!” + +“Tell me first exactly who you are, young lady,” said the lawyer, +nervously laying down and taking up his paper-knife. “Have I seen you +before to-day?” + +“I am the daughter, the only daughter of Amos Lander, an old friend and +client of yours, if you are Mr. Stone. No, we have not met in eight +years.” + +“I am Mr. Stone, undoubtedly, and knew Amos Lander.” + +“I know, I know; I ought to have remembered you anywhere,” said the +young lady, seating herself. + +“His daughter and his brother’s widow were here only a few minutes ago,” +said the lawyer, fixing his keen eyes on that lovely face. + +Virginia met his glance with the earnest, grieved look of a child +innocently maligned. + +“That cannot be. I am the daughter of Amos Lander,” she said, with +gentle dignity. + +The lawyer looked at her earnestly. Surely there was no insanity in that +face. Truth itself was not more pure. + +“I almost believe you,” he said. “I almost believe you.” + +“Oh! believe her quite, for all that she says is true,” cried the young +girl who stood by her chair, advancing close to the lawyer and lifting +her honest eyes to his. “There is some great wickedness here, sir. That +hard, bad young woman, who looks so like my lady, is determined to drive +her from her own home, to take all her money—her name—everything—and +send her out to die. Here—here, where my young lady had a right to +expect friendship, she has been robbed of the last friend her father +had! It is a terrible, terrible thing they are attempting to do, sir.” + +“And who is it that talks so boldly, and so well, I must say?” +questioned Stone, more and more bewildered. + +“I, sir—I am only a poor girl whose life she saved—a helpless creature +that can do but little good in the world—God help me—but so long as I +can speak, or think, or look, I will protest against the wrong these +bad, bad women are doing to her.” + +“You speak of the widow Lander and her niece, I think.” + +“I speak of the widow Lander and her daughter—the two persons who have +just been here. They are in a plot to rob my young lady—I have watched +them, sir, with all my heart and all my brain, for both belong to her. +This is what they are doing.” + +“Sit down, young lady, and let us talk more calmly; these are strange +things you are telling me.” + +“But you will help her?” + +“I would help Amos Lander’s child in any way. Only let us understand +each other.” + +“There is little to explain,” said Virginia, putting aside her veil and +drawing close to the table, on which her arm rested. “You know that my +father, Amos Lander, had but one child.” + +“I know.” + +“I, sir, am that child.” + +The lawyer bent his head, but made no observation. + +“My father was lost at sea, you know how.” + +“Yes, yes; no need to pain yourself with the story; I know about it.” + +“You know as well as I do that he took the widow of my uncle into his +house—her only child was made one of the family, and in all things +treated as a daughter. Eight years ago we went to school in Europe, +studied together, and in all things continued to be as sisters. We had +the same name exactly, Cora Virginia Lander. She, being a little the +elder, was named after my mother, who afterwards gave her name to me on +the very day of my birth. Thus we were scarcely to be distinguished from +each other. True she took the name of Cora, and I bore that of +Virginia—after we went to Europe, reversing what had been before. But we +looked so much alike that there was constant confusion in the names, and +our signatures were exactly the same. We liked this; it pleased us to be +mistaken for each other, especially as Cora loved people to think her +the heiress, and I cared nothing about it. I remember when my father +came she saw him before I did, and tried to make him believe that it was +his child who claimed the first kisses. But she failed. He knew the +difference at once, and was angry with her for trifling with him. I +never saw him so much excited before or since.” + +“Was any one present when he rebuked her?” asked the lawyer. + +“No; we were alone. I think Cora was offended at this, for she was +sullen and unkind for days and days after that. But we soon went on our +travels and it all wore off for a time. Papa was known to a good many +persons on board the steamer when we returned home, and they made a +distinction that wounded Cora dreadfully. It was not our fault. Papa was +kind as kind could be to her, but he had not seen his own child in so +long, and loved her so dearly, that he also seemed to put Cora aside. It +was not intentional, and she carried herself proudly under the pain but +I knew that it was there. Then came that awful, awful day.” + +“And how did she behave then?” + +“Sir,” broke in the hunchback, “she saw a boat putting stealthily from +the steamer and plunged into the sea, screaming to be taken in—not one +word to the old man whom she now claims to be her father—not one look on +her cousin. She left them like a coward and saved herself—I saw it all, +I saw it all.” + +“Then you saw her abandon Amos Lander and seek her own safety?” + +“Yes, I did. I saw also this lady, his child I know, stand between him +and the flames till her garments were scorched. I saw them driven inch +by inch before the howling flames, till they leaped together, clinging +to each other from the bow. He begged her to go first, but she would +not. Even in the water, she went swimming to and fro searching for him, +and crying out to know if we had seen him. Then she saved me; bore me +through the water when she was herself sinking—and that wicked girl sat +in the boat watching us. I tell you, sir, she would not let the men come +to our help. One of them told me so afterward. She wished them to see +her cousin die that she might claim her inheritance. I saw this from the +first. When my lady was taken, senseless and white, into the boat, that +girl felt for her heart, and almost laughed when she found how cold and +still it was; but when those poor lips moved and the dear eyes opened, +Cora Lander’s face grew deadly. It was like that of a fiend. Oh! sir, +she is a wicked, wicked girl!” + +Ellen spoke with the energy of truth. Her fine eyes filled with light, +every feature of her face beamed with honest indignation. She swept away +even the cool reason of the lawyer with her enthusiasm. + +“Go on,” he said; “tell me all that passed after this. You have been +with these two ladies ever since the shipwreck, I believe?” + +“Yes, always,” answered Ellen. “With all my brain and all my heart, I +have been watchful over the lady who saved my life. I felt that some +evil thought slept under the frowns that girl could not invariably +conceal. I have spoken again and again of the wealth which would belong +to my lady, always to see that curved lip grow white over the set teeth, +and an evil fire flash into those eyes which could not be concealed even +by the drooping lashes. That girl, sir, from the very first had resolved +to personate my lady and thus rob her. How she came to an understanding +with her mother I do not know; but of one thing I am certain, they met +before that morning. There was mutual trust and mutual dread between +them. The girl had mastered her mother. From the first moment of our +return she has ruled her with a rod of iron. She is fearless, +unscrupulous—terribly wicked.” + +Ellen broke off and began to pace the floor, clasping and unclasping her +hands in her unexhausted excitement. + +“It is a base, wicked, deep design,” she said, “and they will +succeed—they will succeed!” + +“You have an ardent friend there, and it may be one who can return the +debt she owes you,” said the lawyer addressing Virginia. “Now tell me, +if you can, how far your own impressions go with hers. Tell me all that +has passed—do not allow yourself to be excited—try and speak calmly, I +have plenty of time and will listen.” + +“Oh, I am not excited. This trouble seems so small after the terrible +sorrow of his death, that I am likely to give it less importance than it +deserves. Ellen has spoken the simple truth in every particular. She has +been with me all the time, and having her suspicions excited, has +observed keenly. She is not generally uncharitable, and has no cause to +judge my cousin harshly. One thing is certain, Cora has assumed my name, +my identity, and will, if I have no power to check her, despoil me of my +father’s property. She has even attempted to confine me in my own house. +Ellen and I escaped from it as if from a prison.” + +“Did she give you no reason for this attempted confinement?” + +“None; in truth I have not seen her since she drove me from my old +room.” + +“Drove you from your old room! But give me all the particulars. Let me +know everything that passed—I would rather hear the facts from your own +lips.” + +Virginia obeyed him quietly, and with less betrayal of excitement by far +than Ellen had exhibited; her voice was clear, her narrative connected +and her language temperate. Tears came into her eyes once or twice as +she spoke of her keen disappointment on returning home, but there was +not a trace of mental derangement in anything she said or connected with +her manner. + +The lawyer watched her keenly as he possessed himself of the facts. +Every instant he saw some trait in her face, some tone of her voice, +which reminded him painfully of his old friend. These shades of +expression he had not remarked in the other face. In features the two +appeared so completely alike that the resemblance was startling; but +that which impressed the lawyer most forcibly was an indefinite air—a +shade of the soul which no court of law could ever be made to recognize. + +“This is Amos Lander’s daughter, and she is sound of mind as I am,” he +thought, “but how to prove it—how to prove it. If that woman persists in +claiming her and renouncing the other, what evidence can be brought to +refute the perjury? Who shall claim to know more of a child than its own +mother?” + +Then the lawyer remembered what had been said of Virginia’s insanity. +What was the object? Did they intend to make this an excuse for getting +her out of the way? Such things had been, even in the close neighborhood +of New York, and in the nineteenth century. This case, take it for all +in all, was the strangest and most incomprehensible that had ever came +within the lawyer’s practice. How was he to unravel it? + +For some time, Stone remained pondering over these points of the case, +that seemed most complicated, and the two girls sat by in silence, +waiting for him to speak. At last he looked up. + +“Did this woman know that you were coming here?” he said. + +“No, she left in the early train; they both left. Then a woman in the +house, whom they seemed to have offended—” + +“Eunice Hurd?” + +“Yes, Eunice Hurd came, unlocked our door, and told us to go out and get +some air. She was mistress just then, and didn’t mean to make prisoners +of us or let anybody else. We put on our bonnets and went out to the +terrace. A train was just that moment in sight. It stopped—we sprang in +and were on our way here before any plan of the kind had been thought +of.” + +“That is well. Now take the next train back. It is possible that you may +reach home before Mrs. Lander and her companion. Say nothing of your +excursion. Do not mention my name, but if they bring any strange men to +see you, let me know at once.” + +“I had thought that you would perhaps advise me to leave the house,” +said Virginia, “it is so very painful living under the same roof—” + +“Leave the house, and so give them possession—nine points of the law +flung up at once—not a bit of that—stay where you are—keep together and +give them a free rope. That is my advice. But if they make any desperate +move, send for me. If possible, make friends with that hard-faced +termagant with the red hair. She may be useful.” + +“She has been kind to us—very kind in her way,” said Virginia. “I think +she knows me.” + +“Heaven send that they exasperate her—but they will, she is forever on +an edge, and this successful audacity will be sure to turn the girl’s +head. That is the way crafty persons usually defeat themselves. It is +the small people whom we despise too much for conciliation that play the +mischief with us. This girl will run into some mistake of the kind, be +sure of that; but we must give her time, plenty of time. Things will all +come out right, I dare say.” + +“The power of justice lies with God,” said Virginia, solemnly. “Why +should we fear to wait?” + +“Wait and work—wait and work, my dear child! Never trust entirely to the +Lord while you can work for yourself. Remember he has given you energies +to use, and these are his instruments. I do not know what your clergyman +might say on the subject, but that is a lawyer’s opinion.” + +“I cannot realize that my cousin really means to defraud and displace +me. It seems like some hideous dream,” said Virginia, sighing heavily. + +“Make up your mind to that, young lady. She is in deadly earnest, and +the Evil one seems to have helped her. Never in my experience have I +seen a fraud so thoroughly hedged in. The mother is her tower of +strength. But they will quarrel. Wait awhile and they will be sure to +quarrel. The elder woman has some conscience; as for the other—well, +it’s hard to think a creature so rarely beautiful has no soul, but, upon +my word, all this seems like it! How cool she was—how thoroughly +self-possessed—and yet there is fire and all sorts of passion in her +eyes.” + +“Will my young lady be safe under the same roof with her?” questioned +Ellen. + +“Safe?—Yes, I hardly think the creature would commit murder, at any rate +as yet. Young lady, I repeat my advice—return to your father’s house and +rest there for a few weeks, or months if it seems best; at least till I +can thoroughly look into this case. No harm can reach you there. Accept +the position she forces upon you—be vigilant, and let this young person +keep her wit sharpened—we have a difficult game to play and must use all +our resources.” + +Virginia gathered the dark drapery of her shawl around her, and prepared +to go. The interview had depressed her greatly, and everything seemed +surrounding her with gloom. + +“I wanted rest so much—so much,” she said, mournfully. + +“That will come—only be hopeful and patient,” said the lawyer, kindly. +“Meantime you have a good friend in this girl, and in me.” + +“I trust you, sir; you were his friend—I trust, and will obey you as if +it were himself.” + +“That is well—that is well. Now hasten back, and let no one learn that +you have been here.” + +Virginia clasped the hand held out to her and went away very sorrowful. +Everything confirmed her deepest cause of grief, the utter unworthiness +of the cousin she had trusted as a friend and loved as a sister. + +The two girls reached the railroad depot and took seats in the returning +train, depressed and so weary that neither of them spoke until they came +within view of that white marble building which was Virginia’s home. How +strangely it had altered since she had looked upon its Grecian pillars +and sculptured façade the day before. It was no longer her home—no +longer a place of hoped-for rest, but its white walls loomed before her +like those of a prison. The hot atmosphere of strife had poisoned all +its flowers and darkened the very sunlight which fell around it. + +Virginia and Ellen wandered awhile among the shrubbery before they +entered the house. Virginia was depressed and so heavy-hearted that even +the beautiful world of blossoms that surrounded her failed to brighten +her face or win an admiring glance. For the time her soul fell into a +depression so mournful that she longed to sink down among the flowers +and die there. The two beings she most loved on earth were dead. One had +gone into eternity through those terrible gates of fire which seemed +forever burning before her. The other—ah! more painful still—had sunk +into those black depths of sin, shame and dishonor into which her pure +soul could not look without shuddering. + +The grave consecrates its dead—but sin embalms the soul in eternal +poison. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIII. + THE WAYSIDE TAVERN. + + +The railroad depot, which we have had occasion to mention more than +once, stood a little in advance of a small cluster of houses which +occupied a space of flat ground lying between it and the river. Among +these houses was a small hotel, or tavern, at which travellers going +back into the country sometimes stopped, and which frequently held +guests from the city weeks together for as a transient boarding house, +it was well kept and pleasantly situated. This hotel and the surrounding +houses were completely shut out from the white mansion by the fine old +grove we have described, which swept up to the last slope of the +terraces and ended there in a beautiful wilderness, through whose cleft +heart came a bright gush of running waters. + +Of all the lovely nooks which made that domain almost a paradise, this +piece of wildwoods was the most beautiful. But it lay some distance from +the house, while some of the great trees that grew upon its outskirts +almost sheltered the little hotel, and the inland stream rushing by one +end, gave it a rural aspect which can seldom be attained even from a +union of trees and running water. + +To this hotel, a few days after the Miss Landers returned home, came +young Seymour, quite alone and with only a small valise by way of +baggage. A handsomely-mounted fowling piece, some fishing tackle and a +basket, that seemed never to have been used, were left at the depot, for +which the landlord sent his boy at once, for the young man, after an +examination of his room and some general inquiries, expressed himself +delighted with the accommodations, and determined to stay some days, +weeks perhaps, and see what sport could be found in the neighborhood. + +The landlord was delighted; never had his door been darkened by a +presence so imposing. The extreme beauty of this man’s face, his +manners, at once dignified and cordial, charmed every one with whom he +came in contact. He was delighted with the room assigned to him, +remarked pleasantly on its white bed and the muslin curtains which let +in such lovely glimpses of green shadows and sparkling water, and +expressed general satisfaction. It was a lower room, and a quaint +affair, half door half window, opened from it to a little verandah. +Below this balcony the brook went eddying and laughing till lost in the +darkness cast by a plank bridge which crossed the highway and hushed it +into stillness for the space of thirty feet or more, when it broke forth +in a riot of sweet sounds and went dancing and sparkling off to its +death in the vast sweep of the Hudson. + +After giving orders about his gun and fishing tackle, Seymour looked at +his watch and inquired what he could have for dinner. + +“A broiled chicken, would that do—with splendid potatoes fresh from the +garden, custard and apple pie?” + +“Add materials for a salad and exchange the pie for a ripe peach, and +nothing could be better,” Seymour answered. + +The landlord went out delighted. He had a private understanding with +Mrs. Lander’s gardener, and made himself sure of such peaches as the +young gentleman had seldom eaten before. + +“There,” muttered Seymour, as the man went out, “this broiled chicken +will help me through an hour, then give ten minutes to the fruit, and a +cigar or two will bring me close upon sunset. I wonder which way the +house lies from here.” + +He took a note written on paper of a faint violet color from his bosom +and murmured softly to himself as he read it: + +“There is a room on the ground floor which you must secure if possible. +It opens on an old-fashioned verandah, but little used, from which steps +run down to a footpath which leads along the margin of the brook, till +it ends in the strange summer-house I have described. There, my beloved, +I shall be waiting for you with an impatience which swells my heart and +burns upon my face even as I write, hours and hours from the time when I +can hope to see you. Do not fail, the disappointment would kill me if I +should go to that place and find it empty. I will not go till the very +hour—to wait would be an agony of suspense. I must find you watching, +impatient—counting each moment which keeps me from you as an enemy to be +wrestled with and hated. But I might keep on forever and say nothing +that will satisfy the heart which struggles and swells in my bosom in a +wild effort to reach yours. At sunset, remember—at sunset.” + +The young man kissed this impassioned note more than once before he +placed it near his heart again, for with all his wayward soul he loved +the young creature who wrote it. + +“Remember the sunset—as if I could forget! Oh! she is a glorious +creature, full of genius, ardent, earnest—a woman to live for and die +for! How her thoughts leap to mine! I could be the hound, the slave of a +woman like that and feel it no degradation, for she loves me—she loves +me, and I adore her!” + +Seymour walked the room to and fro with restless impatience. The note +had broken up all the listless placidity of his manner. He longed to +tread the hours under his feet which lay between him and his love. To +most men the unwomanly warmth of that note would have brought something +like repulsion; but Seymour only loved her the better for this abandon. +Fresh from Southern Europe, he brought with him its fire and its +intensity of feeling. + +The dinner was brought in at last and placed upon a round table, covered +with a cloth white and glossy as crusted snow. + +With all his sentiment, Seymour was hungry but fastidious as an epicure. +He sent the broiled chicken back to be kept warm while he used up a +little time in mixing a salad to his taste. That was so much gained. He +was fifteen minutes nearer the sunset and had produced a delicious salad +before the covered dishes were brought in again. Everything was well +cooked and delightfully fresh. Simple as the meal was, he ate it with +exquisite relish, finding this a pleasant way of passing the time. The +landlord came in at last and inquired if his guest was satisfied with +his dinner. + +Seymour had just taken a peach in his hand and fastened his white teeth +in its crimson side. He took the peach from his lips with a sigh of +sensuous enjoyment, and answered in a single word, “Delicious!” + +“This is indeed a glorious fruit,” he said, eyeing the juicy pulp and +crimson coat of the peach he had half eaten with intense admiration; +“and seems fresh from the tree. Not of your own growing, surely?” + +“No,” answered the landlord, with a bland smile, “they were a present +from Mrs. Lander’s gardener. Wall peaches sir, and picked ones at that.” + +“And who is Mrs. Lander?” asked Seymour with apparent unconcern. “Some +Lady Bountiful of the neighborhood?” + +“She is—or was the lady of the white marble house which you passed a +quarter of a mile back—but I really do not know who it belongs to now. +Mr. Lander’s daughter has come back and everything is claimed by her, I +am told.” + +“And is it a large property?” + +“Immense, and falls, every dollar of it, to that young girl.” + +“Indeed!” said Seymour, pushing the plate of fruit from him. “And the +other—I beg pardon, but did not you say that there was a relative?” + +“No, sir, I don’t remember mentioning it. But there is a cousin, brought +up in the house, the very image and picture of the young lady, but poor +as a church mouse—hasn’t a dollar that I know of independent of her rich +cousin. Besides she’s said to be—I don’t answer for it remember—but +she’s said to be a little wild, wrong about the head, you know. The +fright of that awful shipwreck unsettled her; but it’s to be hoped that +it will go off. Quiet and her native air will do wonders the doctors +say.” + +Seymour was puzzled and a good deal mystified, but he did not venture on +questioning the landlord too closely. “There must be some mistake,” he +thought; “both the young ladies were bright as larks ten days ago. This +must be village gossip, but at nightfall I shall learn everything.” + +The landlord, finding the conversation droop, went out, and a servant +came in to remove the table and set the room to rights. Seymour stood by +the window while this was going on, and smiled as he noticed how the +shadows had lengthened, and that faint gleams of violet and rose-color +were giving an opaline tint to the west. + +When the servant disappeared with the last vestige of the meal he had +enjoyed so much, he had still half an hour to dispose of, and spite of +his impatience, was not altogether inconsolable that it was so. Under +all circumstances, Seymour was a man to make the best of his +surroundings, and never failed to snatch the blossoms from each hour as +it passed him. The room was scantily furnished, and he looked around for +a couch to rest upon. No such luxurious convenience presenting itself he +drew a heavy chair, large enough for a modern pulpit and draped with +white dimity, up to the window, stretched himself almost at full length +in it, and selected a cigar from a case richly mounted and exquisitely +embroidered, probably by some lady. This he laid daintily on the arm of +his chair, and searching in another pocket, drew forth a small box of +enamelled gold, from which a waxen match soon flashed fire in answer to +a quick motion of his hand. Then igniting his cigar, with an indolent +motion of his red lips, he fell into a reverie, looking out upon the sky +with his half-shut eyes and sending up dainty curls of blue smoke at +intervals of indolent animation. + +Thus he watched the sky till its delicate opal tints turned into +seething scarlet, broken up with great ridges of gold, which sunk, and +changed, and floated in a deep sea of purple lanced with flame and +fringed with living fire. The last sunbeams broke against the window +where the young man sat, like a handful of golden arrows. Then he +started up from his reverie with a thrill of life that completely +transfigured him, flung the end of his cigar out of the window, and +opening the lower half, which was of wood, stepped out upon the +verandah. The trees above him, were all ablaze with dying sunbeams, but +soft purple shadows were gathering in the ravine, and the brook laughed +out fitfully through the beautiful gloom which fell upon it. + +A footpath ran along the margin of this brook, to which the wood moss +crept, tufting its edges with velvet. Spotted ferns and delicate +sarsaparilla brushed against his boots as he passed into the woods, +walking rapidly and smiling as he went. + +All at once a bend of the path brought him upon a tiny log cabin, which +stood upon an embankment of the brook just below a rustic bridge, half +stone, half logs, which spanned one of its deepest parts. It was a +lovely spot, sheltered by tall chestnuts and a single hemlock, which let +in a glow of the red sunset through the dusky green of their branches. +In the door of that miniature cabin stood a female, leaning out, with a +hand shading her eyes and searching the footpath with eager glances. She +had come first, notwithstanding her promise to the contrary, and, while +her whole soul went out in longing for his presence, was angry that he +should have made her wait. + + He saw her from the margin of the brook, cleared its highest embankment +with a bound or two, and stood beside her beaming with happiness. Her +anger fled at the first touch of his hand; not a gleam of it was left in +those deep blue eyes; a tremor ran through her frame, but it was not one +of rage or resentment even. She loved the man—yes, at the time she loved +him honestly, devotedly, with a wild vehemence that might have made her +his slave; and he loved her ardently, madly, with a better love than she +could ever give in return. He was not a good man, as our readers will +know, but the depth and earnestness of his affection for this girl gave +a grandeur even to his most wayward nature. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIV. + LOVE IN A LOG CABIN. + + +The door in which the lovers stood was darkened by the hemlock; so +Seymour drew the young girl into the cabin close to a little window that +looked out upon the rustic bridge. It was a lovely object to gaze upon, +splendid ferns fringed all the margin of the brook and rooted themselves +in the stone-work of the bridge, pluming its mosses with tufts of green; +ladies’ ear-jewels, wild asters and scarlet cardinal flowers tangled +themselves in garlands of gold, blue and red over the water and round +the ends of the bridge, massing their rich foliage up the embankment +till some of the ear-jewels trembled, like bells of gold, under the +cabin window. + +“Ah, how beautiful the earth is!” said Seymour, bending to look into her +eyes. “Great Heavens! it almost frightens one to feel so happy. Is it so +with you, darling?” + +“I am very, very happy,” she answered, with a sigh that seemed to bring +up fragrance from the depths of her heart. “It rejoices me to know that +you think this so beautiful—for it is mine, all mine!” + +The young man did not take in her meaning, but drew her close to his +bosom and answered, with passionate tenderness: + +“And you, Cora, when shall I say that you are mine—all mine?” + +His tenderness, the impatient trembling of his voice, made her bold, and +she answered him with kisses, for his lips had sought them even as his +words claimed her. + +“I love you—oh! how dearly I love you!” she murmured, forgetting for +that one moment her wealth—her crime—everything but the passionate +tenderness which swayed her whole being. + +“Then why should we wait? Come with me, darling—who on earth can love +you as I will? I possess money now, we need have no fear of poverty—full +twenty thousand dollars—” + +She interrupted him with a ringing laugh, and throwing her head back, +looked triumphantly in his face. + +“And I, Seymour, I have fifty times as much—more than that—more than you +and I can spend, let us be ever so extravagant. Throw your paltry gold +into the river, or give it to your servant; with me you shall have +everything, for I am rich—you can hardly imagine how rich.” + +The young man dropped his arm from her waist and looked wildly into her +flashing eyes. He was deadly white, even to the lips. Her news seemed to +have frightened him. + +A shade of terror came into her face, and she seized him by the arm. + +“What is the matter?—how pale you are! Why, Seymour, you are trembling +from head to foot!” + +He broke away from her, folded his arms against the logs of the +window-frame, and bowing his face upon them, burst into tears. + +“Oh! my God, my God!” he broke forth, “if I had but known this before—if +I had but known it!” + +The girl was astonished. She had thought to complete the triumph of his +happiness with her news, and there he stood trembling like a +culprit—weeping like a child. + +“Seymour! Seymour, tell me the reason of this! I thought my news would +make you so happy,” she cried, partaking of his terror, for a painful +suspicion had seized upon her. + +“Did he know? Did he suspect?” + +Her hands shook like wounded birds as she lifted his head from the logs, +and the face she bent upon him was ashen with dread. + +“Are you an angry? Does it make you so wretched because I am rich?” she +said, shrinking from the mournful eyes he turned upon her. “Speak to me, +Seymour! What have I done to wound you so?” + +“Nothing,” he said, wearily; “nothing—you are everything that is +beautiful, good and generous, while I—oh, Cora! Cora! I am not worthy of +you! A beggar, and worse than a beggar, how dare I mate with a creature +so beautiful, so bright?” + +She drew close to him, for the moment generous and womanly. + +“If I owned the whole world, Seymour, and had the beauty of an angel, +all should be yours; I only ask that you love me.” + +“Love you, girl! This is the very madness of love. If you only knew to +what it has driven me!” + +“If you love me so, it is enough. There, now the color is coming back to +your lips. I felt mine growing cold, as if your kisses had frozen there. +Come, come, smile again. You frightened me terribly.” + +“Did I?” he answered, with a forced smile. “I did not intend it—but you +took me by surprise.” + +“Is it such a terrible calamity to be worth oceans of money?” she +answered, a little proudly. “Does this wealth make you love me less? +This poor little twenty thousand dollars you would have divided with me, +whom you thought penniless.” + +“This poor little twenty thousand dollars!” he repeated, bitterly. +“Girl! girl! do you know what it cost me?” + +Again she was terrified by his pallor and his vehemence, and answered, +trembling: + +“No matter what it cost you, I will repay it. There is nothing that love +and power like mine shall not redeem.” + +“Ah! if it could—if it could!” he answered, sorrowfully. “Why did you +tell me that falsehood? Was it to test me? Did you doubt that I loved +you? Why not say then, I am rich and will divide these riches with you?” + +“Because my father was living and the wealth was his, not mine,” she +answered promptly. “That was worse than poverty, for I knew he never +would consent to our union.” + +“But why not say that you were his daughter and heiress? Why pass +yourself off on the man who loved you as a dependent niece?” + +“Forgive me! forgive me! I was wrong not to know you better; but the +deception sprang from a wish to be loved for myself alone.” + +“Ah, Cora, had you but told me then!” he said, with a piteous smile. +“But let it pass. What a brute I am to frighten the color from your face +in this way. Come closer to me, love. Do not look so terrified—nothing +is wrong between us in reality. There! there! don’t tremble so, I am not +angry with any one but myself. We were talking about—about the time when +we need never separate again—oh! that blessed time for which any +sacrifice is not too great. When shall it be, love? In a week? +to-morrow?” + +“So soon—oh, no! how impetuous you are! Days—weeks—why it must be months +before I can even lighten my mourning.” + +“Your mourning! What is there in a few yards of black crape more or less +that should separate us? Must you necessarily mourn the dead less +because we love each other?” + +“No, no; but there exist reasons which force me to be careful of +appearances. My cousin, the girl I represented myself to be when you +first knew me, threatens to contest my right to the property.” + +“But how can she?” + +“How can crazy people do any wild thing? The poor creature is insane, +but only on this one point. She is so rational and even cunning, in +other matters that astute lawyers may be won to take up her cause.” + +“But why should this affect our marriage, Cora?” + +“You are a foreigner and cannot understand the senseless etiquette which +makes deep mourning and solitude imperative in this country after the +loss of a relative. Were I to abandon this mourning for a wedding-dress, +the world would hold it as strong evidence in favor of my cousin. No +daughter could so forget the respect due a deceased parent, it would +insist.” + +“And you would have me wait the tedious result of a law-suit—cast me +back from my happiness because people might cavil about time and place. +Cora Lander, this delay will prove an eternal separation!” + +“No, no it cannot—it shall not! Only wait patiently a few months!” cried +the girl, with a burst of alarm. “My heart has nothing to say in this, +it pleads for you—for myself—that alone knows how I love you.” + +“Yet, for the sake of this money, you kill me with delay.” + +“But I wound myself in doing it. Be patient, do be patient!” + +“Patient, girl! when any hour may take you from me,” cried the young +man, with a despairing gesture. + +“No power on earth can do that, Seymour. I would perish rather than give +you up. Trust me! trust me!” + +“But can I trust Fate? You have no pity, Cora Lander!” + +“You are excited—wild. There is no such serious matter in a little +delay,” she answered, soothingly. + +“There is! there is! You cannot understand. How should you?” + +“What is there, Seymour, that I do not understand? Have you secrets?” + +Cora turned white as marble, and the glitter of steel came into her eyes +as they searched the pale face turned away from her. + +“Has some other woman claims upon you?” she added, in a low, husky +voice, that made the white lips quiver as it passed through. + +“No, on my honor, on my soul, no!” + +This exclamation was full of passionate truth. The young man turned his +face full upon her now. Slowly the color came back to her cheek and +lips, and her heart flung off the pain that had seized upon it with a +throb of relief such as she had never felt before. It seemed as if she +had wrenched herself free from the grasp of a demon, that pang of +jealousy had been so sharp and bitter. + +“Cora,” said the young man, with emotion, “since the day I saw you, the +image of no other woman has entered my heart—scarcely reached my +thoughts. I have loved you devotedly, entirely—do not trifle with me +now!” + +“I do not trifle with you.” + +“But you prefer the opinion of a crowd of men and women, whom you do not +even know, to my wishes or my happiness.” + +“But I must live among these people, Seymour. They compose the world in +which men and women must work out their ambition.” + +“My only ambition is your love, Cora,” said Seymour, with great +tenderness. + +“And mine is for you,” she answered, kindling with enthusiasm. “When we +are married, Seymour, I would have the whole world look on and know that +it is my hand that endows you with wealth—my love which chooses you from +among all other men. There can be nothing costly or rare with which we +will not surround ourselves. Love, to be complete, should envelop itself +in purple, bathe itself in the perfume of flowers and be lulled to sleep +by sweet music.” + +The young man smiled to see her eyes kindle and her cheeks burn. This +material picture fired his imagination, but failed to satisfy that +deeper feeling which in reality lifted him above the woman he so +worshipped. + +“Love like mine craves none of these things,” he said, almost +reproachfully. “With you, Cora, I could be happy in a log cabin less +pretentious than this little rustic nest—away from the world, away—” + +Cora interrupted him, a little scornfully, with a laugh that thrilled +him half with pain, half with pleasure. + +“And I would lavish everything beautiful and precious in the world on +you,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. + +“But you will not give up any of these things for me.” + +“I would give up everything for you, if that were needful.” + +“Then brave the opinion of these people you call the world.” + +“Had we not better evade it?” said Cora, drawing her face nearer to his +and almost whispering in his ear. + +“Evade it; how?” + +“Why need any one know till all these vexatious questions about the +property are settled?” + +A sudden joy flashed into the young man’s face. + +“And would you, would you?” he questioned, girding her waist +unconsciously with his arm. + +“Will you wait patiently for the time of disclosure to come? Will you +keep it secret?” + +“I will be anything you wish.” + +“And not urge me to declare our marriage till it is perfectly safe?” + +“Why should I—you will be mine?” + +“Then be it next week—nay, to-morrow, if you like.” + +Her cheeks were one flush of roses, her eyes became flooded with misty +softness, over which the white lids drooped, for she was ashamed of her +own eagerness. Though perverted and wicked, she was yet a woman, and +trembled a little at the great venture she was making. Seymour did not +speak at first and his arms released its fond hold on her waist. She +looked suddenly in his face and blushed red when she saw a sort of +wonder in his eyes rather than the great joy she had expected. Quick as +thought she understood this delicate revulsion. + +“Then next week, to-morrow, if you like, we will talk the matter over +more dispassionately,” she said, drawing gently away from him. “We have +many things to reflect on. Even now it would be better to wait.” + +A flash of eager fire in the young man’s face proved the sudden reaction +caused by her words. The pride of his manhood, faulty as it was, +recoiled from an offer even of the happiness he craved when it came so +readily from those crimson lips. But her retreat, which seemed to spring +from delicacy, was made with such dexterous craft that it swept this +feeling away, and he became an eager suppliant again. + +“Not a week—not a day—not an hour—if I can help it, shall this great +happiness escape me,” he exclaimed, with passionate warmth. “I feel as +if each moment might snatch you from me, and tremble as it passes. Let +us go at once; there must be a clergyman somewhere in the neighborhood.” + +Cora gave one of her clear, ringing laughs, and patted her hand with a +light caress upon the curls on one side of his head. + +“What an impetuous, rash creature it is who has made me love him so,” +she said. “Why we might as well summon a regiment to see us married. No, +that country clergyman will never do. Let us think—let us consult. This +thing must be secret as the grave.” + +“The grave, Cora? That is an ugly word to couple with our love.” + +“Well, then, secret as the fruit that lies hidden in the heart of a +blossom. Will that do?” + +“Anything that is sweet and lovely will do. Well, we are to be secret. I +consent to that, if it brings no delay.” + +“We must go to the city. My un—, my father had a house there, which he +occupied in the winter of late years; a gem of a residence, I am told. +That shall be our home.” + +“Admirable! But soon—let it be soon.” + +“To-morrow I will go to the city alone and make all necessary +preparation. Next week—” + +“Well, what shall come next week!” + +“The clergyman, as you are determined to have it so.” + +Her eyelids drooped as she spoke, and fringes, of a rich golden brown, +curled over the passion of love that slept in her eyes. This was not all +unreal; she was womanly for the moment. He thought her the very +incarnation of pure loveliness, and trembled with a joy that was almost +pain as he gazed upon her. + +“Then I am determined to have it so. In one week I will bring the +clergyman who is to make you my wife to the place you speak of. But your +aunt?” + +“She must know nothing. Her heart would be with us, but she is weak and +irresolute. The shock of her daughter’s insanity has unnerved her. In +all things I am independent.” + +“But you will let me go with you to the city?” + +“No. You can follow me and I will manage to see you at the hotel just +once during the week.” + +“This week—this one week, and then you are my wife. Oh, Cora! this +happiness seems too great. I am not worthy of it; yet if deep, pure, +overpowering love could make a man worthy, I might claim something from +that.” + +The young man—earnest and true, most surely, for the moment—held her by +the waist as he spoke and looked tenderly into her free. She met his +gaze smiling, and with a warm red, which was not blushes, on her cheek. + +“My wife,” he whispered; “my wife! That is a dear word. Great Heavens, +how dear it must be to a good man!” + +A sensitive woman would have been troubled by these regretful +exclamations, and felt in her heart that there was something wrong under +them. But with so many passionate and ardent feelings mingled with the +selfishness of her nature, Cora was neither a sensitive nor really +refined woman. She scarcely heeded the expressions of self-reproach that +escaped him from time to time, and if she did, imputed them to the +humility of a man whom she was lifting from poverty to an equality with +herself one of the most beautiful and wealthy women of the land. + +“Now, good-bye, it is growing dark inside the cabin, and they will miss +me at home.” + +“Not yet, darling; not yet. The stars are trembling down through the +leaves with a tender light. See how the purple shadows are deepening +along the hollows of the brook. Directly the moon must begin to shine, +and that will give a holier beauty to your face. Does not this remind +you of that sunset among the hills when I first saw you wandering along, +left behind by your friends, and searching for the path which you never +would have found. With what a gentle radiance the moon arose that night! +Ah, I was free and happy then!” + +“And now your voice is sad, tears tremble in your voice. Why is this, +Seymour?” + +He bent his face to hers in the purple dusk of the twilight. + +“Have you never heard of happiness so great that it trenches on pain?” +he said, evasively. “But, look, the moon is rising; you can see its +dancing silver on the water. Ah, my beloved, now your face returns to me +as it did then, dear and delicate, like a soul imprisoned in marble. I +remember well a sadness fell upon me when I left you, so deep and +strange that it seemed like the shadow of some dark fate. It is creeping +over me now.” + +Cora broke impatiently from his arm; she had no sympathy with the +sadness of his thoughts, and strove to win him from them by trivial +questions. + +“I remember,” she said. “There was a gentleman with you then, and you +would not tell me his name; it is very cruel, for, from the distance, he +seemed both elegant and handsome. Who was it, tell me now?” + +Even in the moonlight, Cora was surprised to see how white and stonelike +Seymour turned. He was silent half a minute, then roused himself +abruptly and answered her in a voice that seemed sharp with pain: + +“I will answer that question, but on condition that you ask no more +regarding that man now or ever. He was my friend and he is dead.” + +The moment he had spoken, Seymour bent down, pressed a cold kiss upon +her lips that clung there like ice, and left the cabin. Cora found him +outside the door, leaning heavily against the logs. + +“Come,” he said, in a troubled voice, “we are getting sad, and that will +never do. Which way is your house, along this path?” + +“But it is dangerous—you may be seen. I must return home alone,” Cora +protested. + +“I will retreat when we get to the edge of the wood, from thence I can +watch you,” he answered, supporting her along the path. + +Cora allowed the escort in silence. She was depressed by his +unaccountable sadness and disappointment in the termination of an +interview from which she had promised herself unmixed joy. + +They reached the edge of the woods, and then he took her in his arms +again. + +“And will you always love me?” he said, with pathetic earnestness. “Can +nothing turn your heart from me?” + +“I will always love you, Seymour. Nothing on this earth can ever turn my +heart from you,” she answered, almost in tears. + +“In sorrow—sickness—poverty?” + +“These things are nothing that I should shrink from them,” was her +reply. + +“In disgrace?” + +He asked that question in a whisper that crept through her with a chill. + +“That can never reach you while I am your wife,” she said, proudly. + +“But if it should?” + +“Then I, your wife, would sweep it away from you, or—” + +“Or what?” + +“Share it with you. But why ask such questions? Is it to try me? That is +ungenerous. Have I not promised to many you unquestioned, scarcely +knowing or caring if you had prince or peasant for a father?” + +“What if he were low-born?” + +“Low-born—that is, a man who worked for his living? Well, what do I care +for that? In this country work is the foundation of greatness, statesmen +tell us. If you have nothing more serious than low birth and poverty to +frighten me with, pray compose yourself.” + +“But if it were crime?” + +She started, for that word lay buried deep in her own heart, and the +husky slowness with which it was uttered seemed searching it out. + +“Sometimes a great motive, an overpowering ambition, almost ennobles +crime itself,” she said. “If the object were sufficient, even that could +not conquer such love as ours.” + +He snatched her suddenly to his heart, kissed her two or three times +upon the eyelids and lips and let her go. Cora found herself out in the +moonlight and alone before she recovered from the surprise left upon her +by this action. + +Seymour drew back into the shadows, from which he watched her as she +crossed a meadow separated by an invisible fence from the lawn. When she +disappeared among the shrubbery, he turned, walked hastily back along +the narrow footpath, and entering the log cabin, threw himself prostrate +on the floor, with his face buried in his folded arms. There he burst +into a passion of tears that filled the little building with such sounds +of grief as had never visited it before. At last the violence of his +emotion exhausted itself. Then the sweet hum and flow of the brook stole +in through the open door and swept away his sobs into their own music, +soothing him, unconsciously, till the wet lashes closed over his eyes +and the moonlight streamed in upon his sleeping face, giving it the rare +beauty of some sculptured ideal. Had you looked upon him then you could +have thought nothing that was not bright and good of the young man; +grief and that gentle sleep had purified his nature for the time, and no +dark passion left its shadow upon that face. + +Hour after hour the young man slept with the scent of ferns and ripening +leaves sweeping over him hushed into sweet rest by the chime of waters, +the rustle of forest boughs and the far-off flow of the Hudson, which +came up from the distance like a voice from eternity sweeping through +the night. All at once the cry of a whip-poor-will from the hemlock, +whose branches swept the cabin roof, aroused him. He started up, felt +the sublime stillness of the night like one in a dream, and at last +began to realize where he was and what had happened. + +Fortunately the young man had but to follow the footpath which brought +him to the tavern stoop into which his own room opened. He had purposely +left the inner door locked, and that which he had unfastened remained +partly open. So he made his way to bed in the dark, satisfied that his +absence had been undiscovered. + + + + + CHAPTER XXV. + CORA LANDER AND EUNICE HURD IN COLLISION. + + +In the morning Cora Lander went to Mrs. Lander’s room, which that lady +seldom left now, and told her abruptly of her intended trip to New York. + +“I am weary of this great gloomy place,” she said; “the presence of your +insane daughter oppresses me; I wish to be alone.” + +“Oh! if I could be alone!” said the poor woman, smoothing the crape of +her sleeve with a nervous hand. “If I could ever be alone!” + +“Why if this eternal room, with its stifling perfumes and endless clouds +of lace, isn’t being alone, I should like to know what is,” said the +girl, with careless disdain. “I should die shut up so; but every one to +her taste.” + +“I had no fancy for being shut up, Cora, till you came with that cruel +temptation. Now it seems every minute as if that poor girl would break +in and reproach me. I do not hear a step on the stairs that it does not +bring the heart into my mouth, or see her shadow in the garden that it +does not make me long to throw myself out of the window. But what are +you going to the city for?” + +“I must find another lawyer, and be near him for consultation. Stone is +not more than half in our interest; I see that plainly enough, and if +this troublesome creature should go to law with us—” + +“Oh Heaven, forbid!” moaned the widow. “If they take me into court I +shall die!” + +“Nonsense, aunt, don’t talk in that way; it makes me angry! You were a +woman of resolution and power once—what has become of your courage?” + +“It went out when she entered this house. I shall never be myself +again.” + +“Come, come, this is puerile, I am weary of it! Say, will you go with me +to consult these new lawyers? We can stay in the town house when we +desire it, and they can come to us.” + +“What, the lawyers? No, no, I will not see any of them again, if I can +help it. Better stay here a thousand times, even with her and that +little hunchback prowling about. I would like to get away somewhere but +not among the lawyers.” + +This was said in a pleading, piteous tone, which almost made Cora smile, +for she had no wish to take the widow with her and only proposed it in +the deep craft which marked all her actions. + +“Well, aunt, if it troubles you so, I will not press your going, though +it is important. But you must not be surprised if I should fail to come +back for some days.” + +“If you could only take _them_ with you,” she said, brightening +perceptibly. “It was so pleasant before they came. The mourning did not +seem so very bad; what with buying dresses and planning out bugle +trimmings, one found enough to occupy the time. But now nothing but this +room seems to belong to me. The servants don’t mind my orders.” + +“There cannot be two mistresses in a house, aunt.” + +“There it is, ‘Aunt! aunt!’ I’m not your aunt, and I won’t be called so +when we are alone, understand that; and I tell you another thing, Cora +Lander; the time will come when I shall tell the whole world of it, if +you don’t treat me more as a daughter should. After I have made so many +sacrifices, too, given up everything.” + +“Mother!” said Cora, in a low, threatening voice, that made the poor +woman shrink back in her chair. “If you ever threaten this again, I will +put you into an insane asylum. It will be the only way of saving you +from State’s prison.” + +“State’s prison! Cora Lander, how dare you use that word to me!” + +The widow started up from her chair with all her old haughty grace, and +stood tall and erect before her child, stung into active resentment +dangerously menacing. + +“I do not use it unkindly, mother, but in necessary warning. You cannot +turn back or unsay that which makes me heiress of this property. To +admit your part in this would inevitably lead to a prison, and to +prevent that, I solemnly assure you, I would find means of putting you +in some asylum.” + +“Yes, that is where you wanted to put _her_, but I would not permit +it—we have done her wrong enough. I sometimes lie awake all night +thinking of it.” + +“But you did not lie awake when you held possession under that will,” +said the daughter, with deliberate cruelty. + +“No; why should I? No one was wronged then. Those distant relatives +never expected a dollar of his money. Besides he intended it to be so, I +am certain he did. Then I was my own mistress, and should have sent +those fourth cousins money from time to time, when I haven’t a cent now, +only what you choose to give me.” + +“But you shall have plenty so soon as things are settled. Do be patient +and a little reasonable. Now tell me about the house—is it furnished and +in order?” + +“Yes, I suppose so.” + +“Are any servants in charge?” + +“Yes, one; an Irish woman I placed her in the house.” + +“Still,” said Cora, with sudden caution, “I had better go to a hotel. +That house would be so lonely without you, and I shall probably want to +stay in town sometimes for days together, the house will be out of +order, I’m sure of it. You are certain that it would be unpleasant to go +with me?” + +“I should like the change, Cora, but those lawyers would be my death in +a week.” + +“Well, then I will try and do without you; take good care of yourself. +Now kiss me, mother, and good-bye.” + +Mrs. Lander received Cora’s embrace, but she returned it with little +warmth; the harsh words she had used still ranked in the mother’s heart, +and, as usual, mutual crime was fast corroding mutual love both in the +parent and the child. + +As Cora was going out, Eunice Hurd came into the room, carrying a china +plate with some fruit on it. She swept by Cora with a sniff and a toss +of the head indicative of unmitigated hostility, and went up to her +mistress with something like tenderness in her manner. + +“Here now, poor soul, do try and eat one of these peaches, they’re +mellow as sunshine can make ’em, and red as a baby’s cheek. Then here’s +a bunch of grapes with the juice just ready to bust the skins, took +right from the vines, and a pear that’ll melt in your mouth; just let me +cut one in two.” + +“Thank you, Eunice, but I do not want them just now; perhaps Miss Lander +would take one.” + +Eunice made no answer to this suggestion except to turn her back square +upon the young lady. + +“It ain’t of no sort of use,” she said, almost with tears in her sharp +voice. “You don’t eat enough to keep body and soul together, but you +shall or I’ll know the reason why. You’re pining to death—eat jest the +wing of a chicken this morning, and didn’t half pick that. Strong +coffee, morning, noon and night, and nothing can be wuss for you. Shake +your narves all to pieces. Come, now do take one of the peaches, it’s +ripe enough to melt in your mouth.” + +Mrs. Lander reached forth her hand languidly and took the peach Eunice +held toward her. + +“There, that seems something like,” cried Eunice, in triumph, as the +widow began to eat the fruit with forced relish. “If they’d leave you to +me, I’d bring you round in short order, but where weeds are rank flowers +won’t grow.” Eunice gave a vicious look over her shoulder at Cora as she +spoke, which terrified Mrs. Lander and brought that angry steel gleam +into the young lady’s eyes. + +“Aunt,” she said, with haughty emphasis, “I am very reluctant to +interfere in any way with the servants you choose to keep about you; but +this person I really must dismiss. Her ill-breeding and studied rudeness +is unpardonable.” + +Mrs. Lander started half up from her chair, agitated and frightened, as +nervous persons will be at any sudden proposition. + +“Oh, Cora—Miss Lander, don’t—don’t, I beg of you, attack Eunice. She is +strange—she is odd—but she is my—my—” + +“I’m her old, faithful servant and friend, Miss Cora Virginia Lander,” +said Eunice, snatching some word from her mistress before it passed her +lips, and turning boldly upon the young lady, “and it’ll take more than +you, or fifty just like you, to send me away from her. Try it, and see.” + +“I repeat it,” said Cora, passing by this covert threat with the disdain +of a strong character, “that you must leave this house.” + +“Cora! Cora Lander!” exclaimed the widow, with passionate protest, “she +has lived here ever since you were a little girl. Mr. Lander always was +kind to her.” + +“For my father’s sake, I would do anything but keep an insolent servant +in my employ.” + +“Father’s sake!” burst forth Eunice between a snort and a sneer, which +left Cora pale as death and sent Mrs. Lander off into a fit of hysterics +that really threatened her life. + +“Just clear the room and leave me to take care of her,” commanded +Eunice, with a sweeping wave of her hand. “The sight of you’ll only make +her worse, and I can’t stand it; pison’s nothing to it.” + +Cora still white with wrathful fear, obeyed the woman, only pausing to +say, “I am going to the city for a few days; when I come back I shall +expect that my aunt will have discharged you. Under this roof you cannot +stay!” + +I think the girl would have said this if her own life had depended on +silence. Yet it was done with a secret trembling of the heart, which +imperceptibly stole into her voice. Eunice, who had a sharp ear, +understood it, and, uttering a contemptuous “Oh, now don’t,” raised Mrs. +Lander up with both her powerful arms and helped her to the bed. + +“There, now lie down, that’s a good soul, and don’t fret; so long as +Eunice Hurd is under the same roof with you nobody shall tread on you, +niece or child, I don’t care which. What’s this stuff in the cut-glass +bottle? There’s opium in it, and you oughtn’t to take it. Nothing is the +matter with you but worry. Never was a woman that eat and drank with +better relish till these girls came to turn us all out of doors. I’d +like to see ’em try it! Well, just take a few drops. Has she gone out? +Yes, and joy go with her. Shut the door? Of course I will. Now we are +alone—I have turned the key. Yes, lay your head on my bosom, poor dear; +there isn’t one that loves you better in these United States. Don’t take +on—don’t cry so, now don’t. That’s right now, put your arms around my +neck and hug me close if you want to; I’m crooked as a sassafras root +with you sometimes, I know; but, mercy on us, I love you all the time, +and would lay down my life for you. What was you saying? Wal, if you are +sot on it, I’d try and mollify the stuck-up critter, but it goes agin +the grain. Still I’d do anything on arth for you, and allays would, you +know that.” + +By this time Eunice had her weeping mistress gathered up in her arms, +and was rocking her head and shoulders back and forth on the bed. + +“Couldn’t you just taste some of the grapes now, that’s a dear soul? You +can see right through the white ones.” + +“Eunice,” said Mrs. Lander, when the roughly kind woman had laid her +back on the pillow. “Promise me one thing.” + +“Of course I will. What is it?” + +“No matter what any one says to us, do not leave me.” + +“Leave you, Eliza Lander! They shall tear me limb from limb first! As +for that girl, she’s brought a curse and a mildew into this house; but +God is just, and she will suffer for it.” + +“Oh no! no, Eunice! Do not say that! It kills me to hear you say that!” + +“Well then, I won’t say it. Only remember this, while I live, neither +she nor any one else shall put upon you. There she goes traipsing off +toward the depot, and there go the men lugging down her trunk. One would +think she was going to stay a year; I wish to gracious she was!” + +“Does she look back? Is her face sad? I was very ill, you know, when she +left the room.” + +“Sad; no, she steps along like a young colt. Now she’s stopping to pick +her hands full of them everblooming roses that you think so much of. +Wal, never mind, more will blow out by to-morrow, and she won’t he here +to grab them.” + +“She knows how I love them, and picks them for my sake,” said Mrs. +Lander. “Oh, Eunice! isn’t she graceful? Isn’t she very, very handsome?” + +“Yes, I reckon most people would think so. But I like the poor critter +up stairs best, that no one ever seems to have any motherly feeling for. +You couldn’t tell ’em apart, sure enough, but there’s something in her +eyes that this one will never have. You can’t tell what it is any more’n +you could make out where the smell of a rose comes from; but it’s there, +and that is what I call being handsome.” + +“Have you seen Vir—have you seen my daughter lately?” + +“I see that poor motherless child every day, and that crooked-backed +angel that is with her—but it is enough to break one’s heart.” + +“Is she so very unhappy then?” + +“Unhappy! I should think she would be. But I have no patience to talk +about it. It riles me up awfully, till I am amost sot agin you!” + +“Against me I what, you also, Eunice? Don’t say that! I am unhappy +enough already.” + +“Well, then, lie down and go to sleep; I won’t say another word to worry +you.” + +Mrs. Lander closed her eyes wearily, then opened them again and looked +with frightened earnestness into the grim face bending over her. + +Something in those eyes answered the question she dared not ask, and +with a faint moan she turned her face to the wall. + +That moment a light knock came to the door, and Eunice, thinking it a +housemaid called out sharply, “Come in.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXVI. + THE FIEND AND THE ANGEL. + + +The door opened and Virginia Lander passed through. Her face was sad and +pale, violet shadow lay faintly under her eyes, and the long, sweeping +folds of her black dress trailed upon the carpet. How like she was to +the haughty girl who had so lately left that room. The face, the hair, +the carriage the very bearing of the head seemed hers. In everything but +the soul which gives vitality and expression the two girls were +identical. In certain moods, Cora was like her cousin, for at times she +could be sad, regretful, and given up to tender thoughts. Then again, on +rare occasions, Virginia could be indignant, proud, almost imperious; +but that was always under a keen sense of wrong. Then it was that you +could not have told the two girls apart. True, Cora had her own harsh +individuality. The sneer that sometimes curved her red lips downward was +never seen on the sweet mouth of Virginia, and her eyes never knew the +steel-like glitter which sometimes shot through the sleeping venom of +her cousin’s deadly glances. But these startling expressions came but +seldom even on Cora’s face, and it required a sharp observer to mark the +difference. Eunice Hurd _was_ a sharp observer. + +“I heard that you were ill, Aunt Lander, and came to help you, if I can +be of use.” + +Her voice was low and calm, but no trumpet ever thrilled human nerves as +it disturbed those of Mrs. Lander. A sudden trembling seized upon her +which shook the whole bed. But she made an effort to meet this kindness +with answering affection, and struggling up from her pillows, held out +one shaking hand. + +“Thank you—thank you, my—my—” + +She could not utter the lying word. Her teeth began to chatter, her lips +turned white. + +“You are ill—you suffer—let me bathe your forehead.” + +“No, no; do not touch me. It is very kind of you to come, but I am well, +I need no help. Eunice, tell her that I—I—” + +Here the wretched woman fell upon her pillows and burst into tears. + +“You only make her worse,” said Eunice, with strange gentleness. “It’s +her nerves, they’re all shook to pieces. Jest go out, that’s a good +soul.” + +“Let me say one word to her,” persisted Virginia, with sweet firmness. +“Aunt Eliza, do try and compose yourself, I will never harm you; I will +try not to blame you very much. Do not let my presence disturb you so—I +shall never forget how good you were to me once. Look up and see how +much happier I am than—than—” + +She was about to say, “than you are,” but checked herself and changed it +into “than you might suppose.” + +“Oh, God help us! Can any one be happy in this house?” exclaimed Mrs. +Lander, in an outburst of bitter grief. “I cannot! I cannot! everything +is dust and ashes!” + +“Ah! I fear we shall none of us be happy again,” said Virginia, filled +with commiseration by the evident distress of a woman she had once loved +tenderly. “But God is just, and we can trust in him.” + +Mrs. Lander started up in her bed. “Do not say that! You intend it as a +reproach, and reproaches are cruel.” + +“No, no; I did not mean to reproach any one; only to comfort you a +little if I could. I saw _her_ go down to the depot, and thought that +you might be alone and suffering. But I have only disturbed you.” + +“Disturbed her! I should think you had!” answered Eunice, sharply. +“Everything disturbs her, poor cretur. Jest go out, that’s a good soul; +she ain’t herself nohow.” + +Virginia went softly out of the room, sad and heavy-hearted. What but +misery came out of the vast property that her father had left? Those who +held it seemed scarcely less unhappy than herself. Through that spacious +mansion, bedded in flowers and swept by perfumed winds, the different +members of the family wandered like unquiet spirits. No one was really +at rest; no two of the Lander blood thoroughly loved each other. +Distrust, and that hatred which springs from suspicion, poisoned the +life that might have been so sweet and luxurious there. + +Ellen Nolan met Virginia as she came from Mrs. Lander’s chamber. + +“You look ill, dear lady,” she said, lifting her fine eyes to the +disturbed face of her mistress. “Why is it that this sin, in which you +have not participated, should trouble you so?” + +“Come with me, Ellen—come with me. The very atmosphere of these rooms +oppresses me. The woods out yonder look so cool and green: there is a +log cabin within them, that I once used to play in. Cora and I have +spent many a happy day there keeping house with our dolls. It is a +quiet, pretty place, and my father loved it. Let us go down there.” + +Ellen was ready to go anywhere with her mistress, and glad to feel the +entire freedom promised by those distant woods. So the two girls, in +reality companions rather than lady and servant, went together across +the lawn and into the woods, where the brook made its sweet music under +the rustic bridge and the sunlight came in a maze of golden green +through the hemlock boughs. Virginia entered the log hut and looked +around with a sad, wistful expression of the face. + +“How many times _he_ has been with me in this little cabin. It was here +he first taught me to read.” + +“Let us sit down and think how he would have wished you to act in this +hard strait,” said Ellen, drawing a splint-bottomed chair to the window +and unfolding a camp-stool for herself. “Surely, if the spirits of the +dead even can visit us, his will be near to guide his child when so +terribly beset!” + +“I think he has guided me, Ellen. All the time something whispers me to +wait and let God himself unravel the iniquity which surrounds me. I have +seen Lawyer Stone a second time, and even his sharp intellect fails to +discover any means of redress so long as my aunt persists in the +statement she has made. It seems like madness when I contradict this +statement without a single witness to sustain me.” + +“Your aunt is not bad enough to persist in this forever. In her sense of +justice there may yet be hope. She looks miserably, and the servants +tell me is in no respect the woman that she was,” said Ellen. +“Necessity, in this case, may prove the best wisdom. You can do nothing +but wait.” + +“Oh! Ellen, my life in this house is one torment. But I cannot leave +it.” + +“But where can you go, if it becomes unbearable?” + +“Anywhere, so that you and I are alone.” + +“But we have no money!” + +“Yes, in the drawer of that desk was a box with some gold in it; not +much, but enough to keep us a year or two, with economy, I should think. +Then the pearls and other bits of jewelry are worth something. My poor, +dear father gave me the gold, piece by piece, all through my childhood, +and the box we called my bank. He little thought how precious it might +become to me. But in what way to use it—where to go—Ellen, you are wise, +and have learned something of the world—what could you and I do? We will +live very humbly, work hard, if that is needful. I can do embroidery and +fine needlework.” + +Ellen shook her head and sat in restless thought awhile then she looked +up brightly. + +“That will never do; thousands of women are dependent on needlework and +starve on it. But, lady, I can work.” + +“You, Ellen!” + +“Yes, lady, I am weak and crooked, and seem very helpless, but God, in +compensation, my father used to say, has given me a strength here and +here, out of which you and I shall win bread and that independence you +long for.” Ellen touched her heart and her forehead lightly as she +spoke. + +“What do you mean, Ellen?” + +“I can think—feel—dream—write such things as men and women will take joy +in reading.” + +“This you can do, Ellen; I see it in your face, I read it in your words; +sometimes they thrill me with all the sweetness of poetry. Yes, Ellen, +you can write a book—but what can I do?” + +“Sing like an angel, dear lady. In all my life I never heard a voice +like yours.” + +“But to make that available I must be seen and take rank with opera +singers. There would be no privacy for me.” + +“True, true; and that would be terrible. Well, you were not born to +work. Your gold shall keep us a little while independent if you are +compelled to use it. When that is gone, I will do the rest. God will +help us, for he always aids those who try for themselves. While I write +you will sing, thus making a noble voice richer and sweeter. Then, if my +poor effort fails, you will be prepared to make sacrifices. Besides, God +will not drive you to the last resource unless it is good for you.” + +“How wisely—how like a woman you talk, Ellen. If we could only go at +once.” + +“What prevents us, lady?” + +“This, Ellen; Lawyer Stone does not sanction our leaving the house. +While we stay here, he says, the right to possession is a disputed +question. If we go away, it is to surrender all.” + +“And we must live here.” + +“It is my duty, Ellen. The rights which my father gave me must not be +abandoned weakly. As I would be in duty bound to protect another, I must +protect myself. The property which my father left is a sacred trust to +be used for the good of mankind, as he used it. In her hands it will be +perverted; humanity will gain nothing by it. Even now it gives neither +comfort nor content to any one. Wealth is a wonderful power, Ellen, +either for good or evil. I have thought a great deal of this in our +lonely sea voyage after the ship rescued us. It was a weight upon me, +Ellen, and I prayed for strength to bear this noble responsibility as he +had done. But it is wrested from me.” + +“Not altogether, sweet lady. God is just.” + +“But for that belief, we should be helpless indeed,” said Virginia, +smiling kindly upon her humble friend. “Ellen, yours is wise counsel; we +must not waste our lives in vain regrets or idle dreaming. That which is +in your brain and my voice shall be worked out faithfully. In this large +house we can live almost solitary lives—you and I. That strange woman, +Eunice, will, I think, help us in this. We will study, practice and +wait.” + +“I have often heard my father say that the great secret of success lay +in knowing how to wait and when to act.” + +“Your father was a wise, good man, Ellen.” + +Ellen Nolan’s eyes filled with tears, and in her sweet humility she took +Virginia’s hand and kissed it. + +“Hark, I hear some one coming,” said the young lady. “Look out, Ellen, +and see who it is.” + +Ellen looked out of the little window and saw a man coming up the path +by the brook. He stood in the shadow of the bridge a moment, cast one +glance at the cabin, and retreated hastily. Ellen did not see his face +clearly, but the figure was that of a young person, tall and elegant. + +“It is some traveller from the tavern below here, I fancy,” said +Virginia when Ellen told her what she saw. “We must go away; this place +was solitary enough while _he_ lived, but everything is changed now.” + +Ellen looked a little anxiously after the man. His air and figure seemed +familiar to her and brought the brother she loved so much to her mind, +by some unconscious train of association. + +“Yes,” she said at last, with more cheerfulness than was usual to her, +“let us go now. But what a lovely place this would be to write in, so +cool and shadowy, it seems almost like the green light of a wilderness.” + +Virginia smiled and shared the poetic love of nature which beamed in +those honest eyes with that kindred sympathy which makes letters and +music twin arts. + +“How I wish we could gather up the murmurs which come up from the brook +and the mysterious shivering of the leaves in one melody,” she said. “I +have tried more than once and failed.” + +“Try again,” answered the hunchback, hopefully, “over and over again; +that is the way in which genius accomplishes itself, my father often +said. If you have an idea, work it out. When God gives a thought, he +gives the capacity for developing it. Gold never comes from the mine +without hard labor. Toil and thought go hand in hand.” + +“Your father must have been a strangely thoughtful man,” said Virginia, +looking with tender affection on the hunchback. + +“He was—he was!” answered Ellen. “I love to think his sayings over in +the night; I love to feel them starting up like blossoms in my own +heart. He was a good man, was my father. I know how he lived—you saw how +he could die.” + +“The inheritance he has left you, Ellen, is better far than gold.” + +“Yes, because it is a part of himself.” + +“Still he was, from your account, a practical man.” + +“I think that genius which is not practical may be called by some other +name—insanity perhaps. He used to say so, and I believe it. The great +geniuses of the age, those who will live and breathe through all time, +are, at least in this age, eminently practical men. It is small minds +that affect eccentricity.” + +It was a study to watch those young lips uttering thoughts and sayings +that seemed so much beyond her years; but Virginia was right, Ellen had +received an inheritance of thought from her father with a memory which +treasured every saying of his as a miser hoards his gold. What seemed to +be precocity in her sprang out of the intense love she had borne for +him. When she spoke of him or his thoughts the light would deepen and +kindle in her eyes; her white forehead expanded and the expression of +her mouth grew beautiful to look upon. + +“How deeply you have thought of these things,” said Virginia, stealing +an arm fondly over Ellen’s shoulder. “Sometimes it seems to me as if +nothing could make you unhappy.” + +“Is any one in this world altogether unhappy, I wonder? When God has +made the earth so beautiful and filled it with so many sources of +comfort, no human soul should be really miserable. Then the thoughts of +that other world, to which your father and mine have gone, fills the +future with noble sources of aspiration. While love exists in this world +and travels on through eternity, linking humanity with the divine, what +present trouble should rob a firm heart of its energies and its hopes?” + +“I love to hear the father’s thoughts on the child’s young lips, but it +makes me almost afraid of you, Ellen,” exclaimed Virginia, smoothing the +bright hair of her protégé with a kindly touch of the hand. + +“Not of me, lady; you cannot be afraid of me while I love you so +dearly.” + +Speaking thus lovingly to each other the young girls left the cabin and +walked slowly towards the house. + +“It is strange, but this seems really like my home, now that she is +away,” said Virginia, looking towards the house, whose pillars rose +white and symmetrical from the green of the lawn and shrubbery. “I +breathe more freely.” + +“Carry out your idea of living by ourselves, and this nervous feeling, +which holds the very breath in one’s bosom, will pass away. This life of +ours gives too much time for thought.” + +“Yes, yes, we will go to work,” answered Virginia, made cheerful by the +idea. “There is music in my throat, and thought in this brain of yours.” + +“These are our mines, and we must work them,” said Ellen. “Perhaps it +was for this God allowed that wicked girl to steal your inheritance. Who +knows?” + +By this time the two girls had reached the house and disappeared behind +the white pillars with their arms around each other, happier than they +had been for months. + + + + + CHAPTER XXVII. + PREPARING FOR HAPPINESS. + + +The town house which had once been the property of Amos Lander was a +small building, old in itself, but to which modern improvements had +given an air of elegance more than in keeping with the times. It was in +the heart of the city, and surrounded by a small garden overrun with a +luxurious variety of roses, so rare and well cultivated that they +sometimes outbloomed the summer. The house stood back from the street, +directly in this nest of flowers, which climbed up its walls, hung a +living drapery around the windows, and made the verandah in front a +perfect mass of rich leafiness. Since Mr. Lander’s death these roses had +been permitted to run riot in their rich blossoming. Great branches of +the running species broke loose and shook themselves free of restraint, +dashing showers of leaves and petals about whenever a high wind swept +over them. The verandah, which was a delicate network if iron, had a +straggling, neglected appearance, and many a flower-loving child peeped +with longing eyes through the iron fence at the beds of heliotrope and +verbena that were half-choking up the little yard in front. + +This semi-desolation prevailed when Cora Lander unlocked the gate and +passed through, holding up her black dress from the tangle of scarlet +verbenas that had crept over the pathway. + +Cora cast a disapproving glance at all this neglect and rang the bell, +which required some effort, for the wire was getting rusty. After awhile +the door was opened and an Irish woman, evidently just from an ill-kept +kitchen, asked abruptly what the lady wanted. + +“I am Miss Lander,” said Cora, sweeping past the woman and entering the +house with a haughty feeling of proprietorship. “My aunt told me that +some one was left in charge here. Are you the person?” + +“I suppose so, marm,” answered the woman, distrustfully. + +“Where is the key to this room?” inquired Cora, shaking one of the +parlor doors, which was too closely fitted for any effort of hers to +open it. + +“The door is locked—where is the key, I say?” + +“In my pocket, marm,” said the woman, thrusting one hand into the pocket +of her dress and doggedly holding it there. “How am I to know who you +are? Miss Lander was drounded with her father, how can you be her then?” + +“I tell you I am Miss Lander, the owner and mistress of this house. Open +the door, I say?” + +Still the woman hesitated; imperious as the command was, it failed to +intimidate her. + +“I have seen Miss Lander,” she said, “but it was nigh upon eight years +ago. How can I tell, especially as she was drounded with her father, to +say nothing of being burned up?” + +“If you have seen Miss Lander,” said Cora, who was anxious to take +possession without disturbance, “you will remember something about her. +Was she at all like this?” + +Cora took off her bonnet, pushed the masses of ruddy hair back from her +temples and turned her face on the woman. + +“I—I—yes—yes, she did look like that as much as green apple can look +like a ripe one; but it isn’t a handsome face that I would give up my +keys to. But that ring on your finger, I’ve seen that many and many a +time on the old gentleman’s hand. He left it with the madam, I know, and +if she could give it to you, I can open the door, and will, right or +wrong.” + +The woman unlocked the door and flung it open with a bang. + +“Go in,” she said, following Cora into the darkened room. “Go in, and +I’ll open the shutters.” + +Directly a flood of light was let into the room, subdued a little by the +thick leafiness of the verandah, but quite sufficient to reveal a dusty +parlor, well furnished, but with a good deal that was old-fashioned and +faded about it. + +“That will do,” said Cora, casting a half-scornful glance around her. +“Unlock the other rooms, I must see them all.” + +The woman obeyed, for, with her bonnet off, Cora had enough of the +Lander in her face to satisfy a more careful person of her identity. + +“They’ve been shut up a good while, and ain’t in over good order, I’ll +own up to that,” she said, as Cora took up her lace parasol from the +piano, where she had laid it, and brushed the dust away. “But madam +hasn’t been here since the old man died, and it’s of no use fixing up +for people if they won’t come. This room is the back parlor, half full +of books, for Mr. Lander dearly loved reading. That’s his picter over +the fire-place.” + +Cora started as a stream of light poured through the window close by her +and fell on the portrait of Amos Lander, whose eyes seemed bent +mournfully upon her. Something like a pang of remorse seized upon the +girl for a moment, and putting one hand to her side, she uttered a faint +cry of absolute pain. Those mild eyes seemed to follow her with +reproaches which she could not bear. + +“Close the shutters,” she cried out, sharply, “you throw in light enough +to blind one.” + +The woman fumbled awkwardly at the blinds, and secured them at last, +slowly gathering a sinister light over the picture, which took a stern, +threatening aspect from the change. Cora Lander felt a cold chill +creeping over her, and the sensation made her angry. + +“Will you never have done?” she said, leaning over the woman and +sweeping the dusty slats up with her hand. “I have seen enough to know +that everything shall be changed here. Now lead the way up stairs.” + +“There is a dining-room, and—” + +“I know, I know, but the air is oppressive. Up stairs it may be more +cheerful.” + +Cora shivered as she thus abruptly broke in upon the woman, and when she +went into the hall her very lips were cold and pale. That picture had +reached even her heart. + +The chambers, like the lower part of the house, were furnished after the +fashion of years ago. She remembered each object, and to her own +surprise felt a sort of terror at approaching them. They had been so +closely associated with the man whose only child she was wronging that +each article seemed an embodiment of her crime. After passing through +the upper stories in quick haste, she came down again, and pausing in +the hall, addressed the woman. + +“Have a room made ready; I shall sleep here to-night. Get a cup of tea, +and anything else you like, ready for me a little after seven. If there +is anything in the house that you fancy, set it aside and have it for +your own. But make your selection at once, for to-morrow I shall order +all this old-fashioned furniture moved out and new put in. Don’t be +modest and open those eyes so. Take what you want and as much as you +care for. Have your wages been paid?” + +“Yes marm, up to this week.” + +“Do you live here alone?” + +“My husband comes home at nights.” + +“That will do. Tell him to look out a residence of some kind for you. +The furniture is already provided. I will pay a year’s rent in advance +and give you a month’s wages. Stay to see all this trumpery removed; +then go to your new home. I shall not want you an hour after that.” + +“But, Miss, consider. Who will take care of the house?” + +“No matter about that. I may sell it—rent it, or shut it up entirely. At +all events no one will be wanted to keep watch and ward.” + +“Dear me, what a change!” exclaimed the woman, lost in astonishment. +“This comes of the old going out and the young coming in their +footsteps—I’m much obliged for the furniture—much obliged—but it does +seem strange!” + +“Don’t trouble yourself about that. As I estimate it, you have no reason +to complain. Take what you want for this new home of yours—call in a +second-hand furniture dealer to buy the rest—he can give the money to +you for anything I care—But have the house empty by to-morrow at noon.” + +“Everything—must I take everything, Miss?” + +“Yes, everything.” + +“What, Mr. Lander’s picture—must I sell that?” + +Cora hesitated, turned pale, and then, with an air of desperation, +answered: + +“Yes, that above all things.” + +“What, sell your own father’s picture, Miss!” said the woman, looking at +Cora with new distrust. + +Cora shrunk back as if the woman had given her a blow. She had not been +sufficiently on her guard with this low-bred woman, who could feel what +she had forgotten. A cloud of scarlet swept over her face at the +thought. Then her quick wit asserted itself. + +“It is not a good likeness; I do not prize a portrait which distorts its +object. That is why I wish it taken down.” + +“Oh!” said the woman. “His daughter is the best judge, but it seemed to +me natural as life.” + +Cora swept the subject away with a motion of her hand. + +“I saw a little room over the hall,” she said, “with things in it that +seemed newer than the rest: at any rate there is nothing that I +remember; have that ready for me to sleep in. Tell your husband to find +out some good gardener and have all these straggling vines and bushes +tied up, properly cut and roll what little grass there is and trim the +flower-beds. There is a marble fountain in the yard, dry as a desert. +Have the water thrown in and order the gardener to bring some aquatic +plants.” + +“Some what, marm?” + +“Plants that live with their roots in the water—some of those +broad-leaved Ethiopian lilies, and—and—. He will know best what to +bring—I want mosses, too, and plenty of fern roots—but I will speak with +the gardener myself. Let your husband find one to-day, I will give him +my directions in the morning.” + +The woman, still half bewildered, promised all that she required, but +she did it like one in a dream. She could hardly believe it a reality +when Cora entered the hired carriage she had left before the gate and +drove away. + +It is true money can almost annihilate time itself. By the terms of that +will found in Amos Lander’s room his daughter came into full possession +of her property, with all its uses, at once. The will had been admitted +to probate without question, and a large sum of money was found in one +of the city banks subject to her order. Never in her life before had she +possessed personal control of large sums of money. Like most other young +persons under the protection of their elders, she had found all her +wants supplied without much responsibility. Her dependent position had +made this irksome. From day to day she had longed for the independence +which money gives—thirsted to spend gold without a thought of economy or +fear of questioning. Virginia had never known this feeling, and her +indifference, no doubt, sprang out of a position directly opposite to +that of her cousin. She would have felt no pleasure in the excitement +which burned in scarlet on Cora’s cheek and made her eyes sparkle like +stars. + +The first thing that Cora Lander did was to search for a fashionable +intelligence office and inquire for servants of a certain class, +peculiarly difficult to obtain. A woman of education and some +refinement, not very young nor really handsome, but to a certain extent +a gentlewoman, was particularly wanted. Her duties would be manifold, +but then there was no trouble about compensation to a person that +suited. She would be expected to act as housekeeper for a very small +family, as lady’s maid when such services were required, and, indeed, +make herself generally useful, but no really hard labor would be +required of her. Did the gentleman at the desk know such a person? + +The man shook his head. He knew plenty of housekeepers, and ladies’ +maids without number; but the exact combination of qualities desired by +the young lady was not easily found. + +“But when I tell you that wages are of no consequence, that I am ready +to give any premium for the woman I am in search of, will not that +secure her?” + +The gentleman at the desk removed the pen from behind his ear, ran it +down page after page of a book he opened, paused, looked up, then shook +his head, answering Cora’s eager question if he had found what she +wanted, despondently. + +There was a person that might have answered, perhaps, only she was a +foreigner, just come over. + +That would answer. Was she lady-like? Did she dress well? Was she a +trifle ugly? + +The young lady had almost described the person in his mind. She was +lady-like, about thirty-five, and dressed neatly, as a lady should, but +there was one fatal drawback, she spoke no English. + +Spoke no English, there was no objection to that; indeed it was rather a +recommendation—but what language did she speak? German and a little +French. Better and better. Where was the person? She would be wanted +immediately. In the neighborhood—how fortunate! What was her name? + +“Alice Ruess.” + +“Married or single?” + +Indeed the gentleman behind the desk could not tell, but she looked like +a woman who had known trouble, so he took it that she was or had been +married. + +“Would he send for this person at once?” + +“A boy had already gone—would the young lady sit down and wait?” + +Cora sat down within the sacred enclosure which held the desk and its +proprietor, who was averse to losing time, and so turning easily on his +stool, made some professional inquiries regarding the other servants +that had been inquired for. + +A good laundry woman and the best cook that could be procured for money. +There might be a little time given for a first-class chambermaid, but +these two were indispensable. + +“The man at the desk had his eye on exactly the persons wanted. Would it +be any objection if the laundry woman was black?” + +No, that would be an advantage. + +Then there would be no trouble about the matter. A cook and laundry +woman would be on hand—but what name? Where should they be sent? Mrs. +Seymour, No— street—all right. Just in time—here comes the German woman, +all in black and neat as a new pin. Cora half rose from her seat and saw +a well-formed, light-haired, and blue-eyed woman, neither handsome nor +ugly, but with a worn and rather sad expression, coming into the office. + +“Ah, madam, we are in luck; hadn’t an idea we could get you a situation, +and here it is dropping into your lap, like a ripe peach; just have a +little talk with this lady.” + +The man spoke in execrable French, and opening the gate of his +enclosure, let the woman in as an especial recognition of the style and +beauty of the fair lady who sat there scrutinizing the stranger through +her veil. Alice Ruess passed through the gate and Cora addressed her at +once, but, a little to the man’s disappointment, she used neither French +nor English, but spoke to the woman in German. + +The conversation was not long, half that Cora wished to say was left for +another time; but she studied that face well, and drawing her own +conclusions therefrom, hired her at once, depending rather on what she +supposed than on anything she knew of her fitness for the place. + +When the preliminaries were arranged, Cora gave a satisfactory +examination of the dress worn by her new recruit, and without farther +ceremony requested her to step into her carriage, which stood at the +door. A morning of tiresome shopping was before her, and she wanted a +companion. + +Alice Ruess was ready. She was afraid her alpaca dress was not quite +good enough, but if the lady did not object to that, nothing would give +her more pleasure than a ride. So the two went out together, followed by +the proprietor of the office, who opened the carriage door for them, +leaving a twenty dollar bank note, his share of the transaction, on his +desk. + +Feeling for the first time all the importance of a large bank account, +Cora drove from warehouse to warehouse, giving prodigal and almost +unlimited orders for the adornment of a house not yet divested of its +costly old-fashioned furniture. + +She made all her purchases in the name of Mrs. Alice Ruess, who was a +stranger in the city, she said, and speaking no English, had entreated +her aid in furnishing a house she had taken. Her friend was wealthy—very +wealthy, she asserted, and cared little for prices. She only, stipulated +regarding the time—that was important to her—everything must be done at +once. Three days was the latest moment she could give. + +This Cora said as she went from store to store, buying costly hangings, +carpets, china, linen, pictures, statuettes bronzes, and all the +multifarious articles that go to make up a sumptuous establishment. + +“Crowd the house with as many workmen as you please,” she said; “my +friend does not care for the confusion, but in a week her house must be +in order. Beyond that time she cannot wait.” + +The dealers promised, one and all. A customer who gave such unlimited +orders, and was so indifferent to prices, did not often fall in their +way. Of course everything else must be put aside for her accommodation. + +Alice Ruess behaved beautifully, taking just as much interest in these +proceedings as seemed becoming, and giving a quiet attention to what +passed, which convinced the dealers that she was not altogether +indifferent to the value of their goods or an incompetent judge of their +qualities. Indeed, she once or twice prevented Cora buying an inferior +article, for, with all her prodigality, that young lady was rash and +inexperienced, as youth will be, and really required the quiet +counsellor who moved at her elbow. Of course all the conversation which +passed between these two was carried on in French, and, pleading her +friend’s ignorance of our currency, Cora paid the bills in money as she +went, sometimes joking gracefully about the pleasure of handling so much +money, though it did belong to another person. + +Thus Cora Lander went on with the sad-faced German woman by her side, +receiving what seemed to others the reflected homage of her friend’s +wealth; but knowing that it was all her own, she enjoyed it to the +utmost. Never in her life had she felt the power of property so +exultantly. Truly, if crime produced such results, she was content to be +criminal. + +Among other things, Cora purchased such dresses as could be worn +indoors. She hated the deep mourning, which was in fact a part of her +fraud, and resolved to cast it off in the privacy of her married life. +If she could help it, no one thing should remind her of the days that +were gone, or the man whose wealth she was squandering. Among +dressmakers and milliners, as with the rest, money proved itself +omnipotent. There was no danger that Cora Lander’s nuptials, private as +they must be, would cloud themselves with mourning. It was dark when +Cora returned to the house, which seemed gloomy as a sepulchre to her, +for, with all its memorials of the past, it was in truth a dreary place +for one who knew its history, and sometimes felt the weight of a +perpetuating sin on her conscience. She had left Alice Ruess at her +boarding house and was quite alone. + +She found the woman and her husband ready to receive her. “Those +movables” had at last settled themselves upon their conviction. They +only feared that she might change her mind and withdraw her promise, +which would in fact, secure a little fortune to them. Hoping to please +her, they had lighted up the dining-room and spread a somewhat dainty +repast there; but she could remember sitting by that table with her +uncle and mother, when they were all a united family. Then the widow and +her little girl were grateful for the shelter that good uncle had so +kindly given them, and opened their hearts to his daughter with maternal +and sisterly affection. The very last time she had been at that table +Mr. Lander had given her the watch she wore, with words of such gentle +affection that she remembered how gratefully tears had crowded to her +eyes. Now she was in that room again, and how? An imposter, a swindler, +an ingrate. For the moment she became conscious of all this, and saw +herself as she was. + +The chandelier burned brightly over her head, revealing familiar +pictures on the wall and pouring a flood of light on the silver, glass +and delicate china, which had been hastily brought forth and polished +for her use. A faint cloud of steam came from the silver tea-pot which +stood upon the tray, hot from the kitchen fire. A nicely cooked and +well-selected repast stood temptingly ready. Near the table waited the +woman who would be enriched on the morrow. She bore the consciousness of +this on her smiling face. Before the waiter a large, cosy chair had been +drawn, tempting a weary guest with its crimson cushions. Cora was tired +and hungry, for she had eaten nothing since morning. She threw her crape +bonnet and black shawl on a sofa, pushed the hair away from her temples +with both hands with a feeling of relief—for she had worn the bonnet +since morning—and sat wearily down in the chair. + +The woman came forward and poured some tea into the china cup, with its +exquisite whiteness enriched by a deep border of gold and purple. + +“I hope the tea will suit you,” she said, obsequiously, for the promise +of to-morrow was still in her mind. “It is hard to get cream in the +city; but my old man found some. Take a waffle; I wasn’t exactly the +cook, but as a little girl you used to like my waffles.” + +Cora helped herself to one of the waffles and began to drink her tea +with a relish. She was far too weary for conversation, and allowed the +woman to talk on, scarcely heeding her. + +“I suppose you remember the silver,” said the woman, coming gradually +round to a question she was longing to ask. + +“Yes,” answered Cora, glancing wearily at the tea-set, “I remember when +my aunt bought it.” + +“Your aunt, Miss!” exclaimed the woman. “Why she never brought the value +of a silver thimble into this house. That tea-set was made especially +for your mother not a year before she died.” + +A faint crimson dashed over Cora’s face but she answered, quietly +enough: + +“Did I not say my mother? Surely I could have mentioned no one else; +though I am so weary that the words change on my lips.” + +“You said aunt, young lady, and seemed to connect her with an idea of +silver plate, a thing I’ll be bound she never saw till she came to this +house. I’m poor enough, goodness knows, but, if folks tell true, that +lady, with all her airs didn’t begin to come up to me in the way of +property, and never would have done if it hadn’t been for your father. +Dear old man he was as good to her as good can be, to say nothing of her +daughter, who was the spitefullest, worst tempered young ’un that I ever +waited on. Has she got over them tantrums of hers, Miss, I’d like to +know.” + +“She—my cousin—of whom are you speaking, woman?” cried Cora, flashing an +angry glance over the table. + +“Dear me, how much you look like her this minute!” replied the woman, +laughing nervously. “That was where it lay—nothing on earth could be +more lovely than your disposition. I never saw that look on your sweet +face before in my life. It’s got by living with her so long, I suppose. +When she was good-natured, no one could tell you apart hardly; but when +she got the evil one agoing, you were no more alike than chalk’s like +cheese. I could always tell you apart by the temper.” + +Before the woman ceased speaking, the angry flash had been forced back +from Cora’s face, and a smile stirred her lips. + +“I loved my cousin very much,” she said, sweetly. “She was a little +quick at times.” + +“It wasn’t exactly what I should call quick,” said the woman. + +“No, no, perhaps not; but I am sorry to tell you she is not altogether +right in her mind.” + +“Well now, did you ever—I shouldn’t wonder. She had a sort of +disposition that never suited me, and then her mother made it worse and +worse, indulging her so.” + +“It was injudicious, I dare say; but Aunt Lander suffers for it now,” +answered Cora, leaning her head sadly on one hand. “It is a terrible +thing to see a young creature like my cousin out of her mind.” + +“Speaking about the silver,” said the woman, coming desperately around +to her personal interests again. “I suppose you would like that to be +kept back—not thrown in with the rest, I mean. Then there is the china, +and glass, and ivory-handled knives. Shall I keep them back too?” + +“What are you saying—what is it about, the silver?” inquired Cora, +starting out of her amiability a little too abruptly. + +“I was asking if you wished to keep that and the—” + +“Keep that, no! Glass, china, knives—have I not told you to sweep +everything out of my sight? They take away my appetite—they torment me! +If I hadn’t been hungry as a wolf, I could not have endured them, even +for one meal.” + +She spoke with startling emphasis, and was pale to the very lips with +some suppressed feeling. The woman, though well pleased with her words, +stood gazing upon her in dumb surprise. What could have angered the +young lady so? + +Again Cora caught that look and saw danger in it—the great danger of +perfect recognition. With a power of self-control that crime had taught +her, she gradually softened down from the perilous vehemence which she +felt to be so unwise. + +“I have a detestation of old things,” she said; “silver among the rest. +Besides, it was my father’s wish that the furniture of this house should +be changed entirely. I but carry out what I know would have been his +wishes when I give them to a faithful servant like yourself.” + +The woman’s face brightened and her voice bespoke the contentment that +had come upon her with this understanding of all her anxieties regarding +the smaller valuables of the establishment. + +“I’m sure, so long as I and my husband live, we shall be grateful to +you, Miss, and the good gentleman who is gone, for all your kindness.” + +Cora laughed, a light, half-mocking laugh, which stung the woman, who +was proud in her way. + +“Oh, I did not do it out of kindness, and don’t want to be troubled with +gratitude, if such a thing exists in the world. I have deprived you, or +shall deprive you of a good place, and mean to pay you well for it.” + +“But your father, if he wished us to have the things, was kind.” + +“My father—I had forgotten.” + +“Forgotten your own father, and sitting in the chair he used at this +very table! I placed it for you on purpose.” + +Cora dropped her knife so suddenly that it broke a piece from the plate +she was using. She turned in the chair, saw its heavy oak carvings and +its crimson cushions as she had seen them a hundred times when her +uncle’s form rested against them. She turned very faint, and starting +up, pushed the chair away with all her strength. It seemed as if she +were beating her hands against a tombstone. + +“What is the matter, Miss? What is it frightens you so?” + +Cora forced a smile to her white lips. + +“Nothing—nothing—I think your tea was strong enough to make me nervous. +Good-night; if my room is ready, I will go to it at once.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXVIII. + THAT BIJOU OF A HOME. + + +It was finished. Money, the great magician, had done its work, and a +prettier place than that modernized little house in the heart of a great +city could not well be met with. The grounds were all in order—the +straggling rosebushes were confined to their trellises and supporters +once more—the great mound of heliotrope and verbenas was trimmed at the +edges, and its glowing crimson and purple filled the eye with beauty and +the air with perfume. The fountain was in full play; its bright waters +cooled the air, and its basin was garlanded two feet deep with plants +massed in rich combinations of color. Green mosses drank in the +sparkling waters and covered the pots which contained the plants so +richly that the whole great wreath of blossoms seemed to take life from +its greenness. It was late in the season, but spring time, summer and +autumn seemed to meet in that little nook of a garden, turning it into a +Paradise. + +Back of the house was a high iron fence, over which a Virginia creeper +swept in and out, forming draperies inexpressibly graceful, which the +first breath of autumn had turned crimson at the edges, where the leaves +were most exposed. This background of green and crimson foliage framed +in the house like a picture. The burning red more than replaced all the +flowers that had perished. + +Indoors the change was even greater. Upholsterers, painters and artists +had done their work well. It seemed impossible that so much could have +been completed in three days. But many hands had been busy on the +ceilings, the walls and the floors—all that money, taste or labor could +do had been forced into that young creature’s service, that her wedding +might combine everything within the reach of a sensuous imagination. It +was finished now—complete in all its appointments. Not a vestige of the +old furniture remained; everything was new, fresh and the most exquisite +of its kind. + +That day week two servants came into the house—a man who scorned to +speak any language but the French, and a woman who could converse with +him brokenly, but her native tongue was German. Later in the day another +woman came, broad African in every line of her face and curve of her +body. On this woman the other two looked with supreme contempt. + +In the basement these three persons assembled for the first time. They +had been engaged in different points of the city, and no two of them had +ever met before. As for the African, she could not understand a word +that the others said, but she was shrewd enough to understand the sneers +and contempt exhibited in their lifted shoulders and mobile eyebrows. +Her heart resented these gestures, calling her fellow-servants poor +white trash in the depths of her soul, which epithet, in its supreme +contempt, was a full equivalent for their shrugs and sidelong glances. + +When these three had looked on each other sufficiently, they felt a +desire to investigate such appointments of the household as belonged to +their individual callings. The man-cook fell to a critical examination +of sauce-pans, kneading-boards, jelly moulds and freezes. Everything was +there, and the most perfect of its kind. The smaller sauce-pans were all +lined with silver; the flour-dredge, the nutmeg grater and spice boxes +were altogether of that precious metal. In the drawers were piles of +kitchen napkins, fine as those in general use at any gentleman’s table. +The cooking apparatus was perfect, and covered with ever-so-many patents +attesting the fact. Limpid water flowed abundantly through silver +faucets, and light came in from the most desirable point. + +At first the Frenchman was a little disappointed. He had hoped to find +some deficiency to shrug his shoulders and spread his hands over in +horrified refinement; but the perfect arrangement of everything took him +by surprise. His hands and shoulders were lifted in astonishment. His +admiration was uttered in bursts of French quite unintelligible even to +the German woman. + +“Great heavens, what perfection! and here, too! In Paris it would be +nothing, but outside, across the Atlantic it is wonderful! This lady +must be a genius; I am honored in serving her; she will appreciate the +delicate aspirations which I shall give to her palate. There will be +pleasure in exercising my art for her. Heavens! I have dropped into +Paradise!” + +The Frenchman sat down, smiling complacently on his little kingdom. He +longed to share his exultation with some one, and looked around for the +German woman, who had, however, left the room. But Hagar, the black +servant, was there, standing in the door of the laundry, where she had +been to inspect the stationary tubs and water-faucets. Their +completeness brought a smile to her broad face and revealed a row of +teeth, white as ivory in themselves, and rendered whiter still from +contrast with her black skin. + +The Frenchman was willing to put up with this auditor if no better could +be found. He burst forth in a torrent of French, broken up in +ejaculations, which drove the smile completely from Hagar’s face. She +thought that he was scolding her, and grew frightened. Seeing that this +was the result of his eloquence, he subsided into gesticulations and +grimaces which made the negress laugh till her sides shook. She was a +plump, comely African, and the laugh that heaved her full bust had all +the mellowness of a deep contralto voice just as it bursts into tune. + +The Frenchman was in despair. What was the use of being supremely +satisfied if no one would sympathize in that satisfaction with him? That +sort of mellow laughter was not sympathy. He might as well have iron as +silver in his utensils for any heed she took of the subject. + +Just then the German woman came back to the kitchen. She had been up +stairs to examine the chambers and the toilet arrangements. They were +superb. Bohemian glass, mounted with pure gold; a dressing-box of +malachite with _such_ appointments! gold, gold, gold—nothing but +gold—all contrasting so richly with the clouded green of the malachite; +she had never seen anything more superb—she, who had possessed the honor +of waiting on many a lady of rank in her time. In this country it was +wonderful—beyond belief! She could not understand it! The lady they were +to serve must be some princess to whom privacy was an object. What would +be her own situation; until positive of that she would be watchful and +silent. So she came down quietly and asked what it was which had excited +the contraband, for with that word even she had become familiar,—who +could help it in those times? At any rate they had all been very +fortunate. + +Hagar caught the word contraband, and understood that if nothing else. + +“Yes,” she said, coming eagerly forward, “I is contraband, driv clar +away up Noth by de war. Sot free when Mars Sherman march by old Mars’ +plantation. Don’t know what yer sayin more en dat, but Ise contraband, +and I glories in dat truf, Hallaluyah—thar!” + +Having uttered her manifesto, Hagar retreated into a corner of the +kitchen and sat down triumphant. If those two people didn’t understand +her, she couldn’t help it, “dey was poor white trash anyhow, and de +berry next time dey looked at her so she’d sing ole John Brown right in +dere faces. Bressed be de Lord, she could sing!” + +The Frenchman and the German woman looked at each other in amazement, +then, after a volley or two of French exclamations, they began to laugh, +for Hagar’s gesticulation had been more effective than her words. Then +Hagar caught the word, put her threat in force, and broke forth +defiantly into “Old John Brown,” a gentleman with whom her auditors were +entirely unacquainted, both in fact, and in history. But they had heard +good singing enough to understand the superb fullness and depth of that +voice which defied them with all its force, and stood listening, +surprised and charmed. + +When Hagar finished with an angry motion of the head, which seemed to +shake the last mellow notes up from her chest, the Frenchman came +forward, bowing and smirking, with his hand extended. + +“Madam, or perhaps it is mademoiselle, permit me to offer my homage. +That voice is one grand success. I give you my honor it is one grand +success, madam. I am charmed; mademoiselle, here, is charmed also. The +air is superb, the words must be what we call stirring—they reach one’s +heart—upon my honor, they reach the heart.” + +Hagar saw that he was complimenting her, and showed her teeth liberally +through the broad smile that swept her face. + +“Dat ar music brought him plump on em knees—taut it would. Dat old John +Brown took him right off en his feet. I ain’t nuffin but a contraband, +sure nuff but Ise done it for _him_.” + +With this comfortable self-assurance, Hagar folded her arms over the +broad chest, which still seemed heaving with unexpressed music, and +closing her eyes, pretended to sleep. + +The two persons, thus left together, sat down and held a few words of +conversation. + +“Mademoiselle—is it Mademoiselle or Madam?” + +“Madam,” answered the German woman, giving a guttural sound to the word +which made the Frenchman shiver. “Madam, if you please.” + +The French cook seemed disposed to press her confidence further; but +that moment the door bell rang and brought Hagar to her feet. + +“It’s the young missus!” she exclaimed, going up stairs in haste and +opening the front door, where she dropped a low courtesy as Cora Lander +walked through, clad in rich mourning, so heavily trimmed with bugles +that it swept the marble pavement like a hail storm, as she moved. + +“Have the other people come?” she inquired. + +“Yes, missus, dey am here. Shall I call dem up?” + +“No, no; I will go down to the basement.” + +Cora swept through the hall and down the stairs in haste. She had only +seen her new servants at the intelligence offices, and wished to give +them directions. + +The Frenchman and his companion both arose as she entered the kitchen. +Since they had seen the house the new mistress had become an object of +great curiosity to them. + +“Your name is Alice Ruess, I think?” she said, addressing the woman. +“Step into the servants’ parlor, I wish to speak with you.” + +Alice arose and followed her mistress into the front basement, which was +more expensively furnished than most gentlemen’s drawing-rooms. + +“Sit down,” she said, addressing Alice. “Understand, I look upon you as +half mistress of this house; in fact no other mistress must be known, at +least for the present.” + +“Madam!” exclaimed Alice, surprised out of all composure, “I do not +understand.” + +“But you must understand. I shall live in this house, be its mistress +and your mistress in fact, but it is a fact that must not exist outside +these walls. To the world you are Mrs. Ruess, the lady of the house. +Your name will be upon the door. When the mistress of the house is +inquired for, you must present yourself.” + +“But, madam, I have no money—no means.” + +“I find the money and pay the bills that are made out in your name.” + +“Ah, very well, that makes it easy.” + +“But, remember, there must be no company.” + +“Not a soul, mademoiselle.” + +“After to-morrow you will call me madam.” + +“Madam—is my lady married then?” + +“She will be after to-morrow.” + +“Ah, I begin to comprehend. It is a secret marriage.” + +“Alice Ruess, this marriage is to be kept so secret that it will be +almost a fortune to any one who keeps it safely for me—ruin to the +creature who betrays it. To-morrow night I shall be married in this +house—your house, remember.” + +“I shall not forget, lady.” + +“Your house, not only to the outside world but to the other servants.” + +“I understand. Madam or mademoiselle shall be obeyed.” + +“It must be understood that we board with you—that is, my husband and +myself.” Cora felt a warm flush spread up to her face as she uttered the +words “my husband,” and a sigh, of such exquisite pleasure that it +seemed almost like pain, broke up softly from her bosom. Alice Ruess +smiled covertly, and felt a sort of envy creeping through her heart, of +the beautiful young creature who was just entering a life in which she +had been shipwrecked. “It must be also understood that we have just come +from abroad, which is the truth—” + +“Ah, forgive me, but I thought so!” exclaimed Alice, interrupting her. +“Such taste, such grace, were never born or fostered in this country.” + +Cora bent her head in reply to this intended compliment, and went on: + +“You—pay strict attention to this—knew us in the old country—came over +in the same steamer—” + +“Indeed I did.” + +“And for that reason—being too wealthy yourself for the need of such +means—you took us as inmates.” + +“Lady, I am listening.” + +“To-morrow the bills for all that has been done here will be sent in. +You must pay them—they are made out to Mrs. Alice Ruess—here is money. I +have made a rough computation; there will be plenty left for the +household expenses for weeks to come. Take it, and remember to keep a +strict account. I can be generous, but no one must cheat me.” + +“Is mademoiselle afraid to trust her money with me?” said Alice, turning +red with anger. “Does mademoiselle mean that?” + +“No, I mean nothing of the kind. Were I afraid, you would have no +opportunity to cheat me. I only wish to draw a line clearly between that +which I will give and that which I place in your hands for specific +purposes. Be faithful, and we shall have no reason to complain of each +other.” + +“Lady, I will be faithful.” + +“Alice Ruess, I believe you.” + +Cora arose as she spoke, all her other directions she gave standing. + +“The cook—can you judge, Alice—is he what they recommend him to be?” + +“Lady, I think so.” + +“The supper to-morrow night must be perfect.” + +“Supper for how many, lady?” + +“Two.” + +“What, no more?” + +“Only two—us two, alone,” she muttered in English, while a gleam broke +through her half-closed eyelashes as she looked modestly down. + +“A little supper, very perfect, for two. That man will prepare it—I +answer for him.” + +“As for the rest, let the lights be shaded, get flowers the choicest and +sweetest—you should have taste, I see it in the kindling of your +eye—yes, I will leave that with you; see that they are not gathered +before sunset, we must have no wasted perfume. If I could rifle +sweetness from the flowers of Paradise for him I would do it—I would +though they never bloomed again.” + +Cora spoke these last words in English, but the woman read them in her +face, and hers clouded over. Once she had felt like this herself. How +had it ended? + +Cora shook out the folds of her heavy silk dress and prepared to go. + +“Be sure and have nothing wanting,” she said; “I depend on you +entirely.” + +“Will not mademoiselle stay all night?” + +“Not for the world. I might dream, and that would be a terrible +beginning. No, it is almost time for the train, and I have a carriage at +the door.” + +“But the name, lady? I have not as yet heard your name.” + +“True enough. Well, it is no matter about that just now—to-morrow +evening I shall be Mrs. Seymour. A pretty name, don’t you think so?” + +“Yes, lady, a very pretty name; may you be happy in bearing it.” + +“Happy!” cried the girl, almost clasping her hands. “Nothing +shall—nothing can prevent that.” + +Again Alice looked away, and again her face clouded over; she almost +hated that radiant young creature, because of her faith in the man she +loved and in the destiny which united them. + +“It is almost time for the train,” said Cora, taking a watch from her +side, glittering with diamonds that formed a raised monogram on the +back—_his_ initials and hers, for Seymour had given it to her out of the +paltry thousands which she had considered as hardly worth mentioning. +“It is almost time—let me think—I have said everything; you understand +my wishes.” + +“Trust to Alice, lady, she will not disappoint you.” + +“Well then, good-night; I hope those people in the kitchen will suit; +they are highly recommended.” + +“Yes, highly recommended. What, will you go out this way?” + +“Certainly; it does not matter,” said Cora, opening the basement door +and drawing the thick crape veil over her face, but she came back again +with some anxiety on her face. + +“The dresses, have they come?” + +“Yes, lady, you will find a pile of paper boxes in the dressing-room.” + +“That is pleasant. How prompt these people have been. I never knew what +a glorious worker money was before.” + +The young girl said this half aloud as she mounted the steps and stood +in the flower garden. They had obeyed her well. She felt the freshness +given to the air by the play of the fountain. Some drops fell upon her +veil and trembled there like lost diamonds. The perfume of late roses +swept over her. Again that delicious sigh rose and swelled in her bosom. + +“All this—and he loves me. Was the love of Venus herself ever more +richly surrounded? I have beautified this place for him. It is my taste, +my wealth, my great love for him, that has done it all. I give him love, +gold, beauty, and by-and-by position. He should have had all at +once—everything I have on earth—if he would but have waited. Waited, no, +he loved me too well for that; and I loved him a thousand fold better +because he won me from all my strong holds with such impetuous +affection. It is, like being carried off by violence, forced into such +happiness as the soul grows faint in thinking of, and this will endure +for a lifetime. I wonder if it will. Can such love die? How empty and +blank my heart would be without it!” + +These were the eager ejaculations and broken questions that chased each +other through Cora Lander’s mind as she drove to the station and took +her seat in the cars. She had seen Seymour in the city, a few moments, +three days before, but fearing that he might prematurely guess at the +exquisite home she was preparing for him, had sent him back to the +country tavern, promising to meet him at the log cabin that night and +arrange for the future. It was scarcely dark when she reached the +station, for a fine round moon was just rising, and by its light she +found her way into the grove and along the footpath which led to the +cabin, certain that she would find him there, waiting for her with all +that ardent longing which filled her own heart. + + + + + CHAPTER XXIX. + THE WEDDING TOILET. + + +It was not exactly a dressing-room, nor was it a boudoir, in which Cora +Lander stood robing herself for that secret marriage, but one of those +elegant snuggeries which bespeak unbounded resources and a taste so +luxurious that it almost revolts the imagination. + +A toilet table was there, standing against the blue of the wall; its +tall mirror framed in with a sumptuous enwreathment of gilded flowers, +drooping lilies and clustering roses. From the bell of each lily a +slender jet of gas shot forth and lighted up the whole toilet with +quivering fire, indescribably beautiful. Above the mirror, and floating +down each side of the table, was a cloud of filmy lace, grasped in the +hands of a flying Cupid that seemed to float in the air and bathe itself +in starlight, so adroitly were the wires hidden that connected it with +the ceiling. + +The table beneath the glass was an elaborate combination of ivory, +satin-wood and gold, which stood upon a low platform of the same +delicate workmanship, curved back at the sides just far enough to +support two figures carved in ivory, with bands of gold about their +heads and touches of gold gleaming along the draperies. These figures +seemed to have just seized upon the floating lace flung to them by the +Cupid, with uplifted hands and with feet advanced, gracefully poising +themselves to dance off with it. + +Upon this table the malachite dressing-case lay open, with all its +crystal and golden equipments flashing in the light, and close by was a +jewel-box, with the lid flung back from which came the flash of diamonds +through a rope of pearls that coiled over the edge and trailed half +across the table. + +Beyond this superb article of furniture there was little indication that +the room was used for anything but a place of rest. All the more +commonplace appointments of the toilet were contained in the spacious +bath-room, seen through an open door, which had evidently just been +used, for the bath of snow-white marble, lined with some silver-plated +metal, was half full of water that sent a faint perfume of roses into +the dressing-room. The fur of a white bearskin rug, which lay on the +marble floor, had been lately trampled on by wet feet, and on a marble +slab, beneath a mirror let into the wall, lay combs and brushes, with a +crystal array of pomade boxes, perfume bottles, carafes of water, all in +confusion, as Cora Lander had left them ten minutes before, when she +entered the larger dressing-room. + +A dress of white silk half covered the blue damask of a couch that stood +in the room, and over a large Turkish chair close by the delicate +frost-work of a Brussels veil was thrown out in exquisite relief by the +richer color of the damask. + +Alice Ruess stood near her mistress, who was surveying herself in the +glass, well pleased with the effect of her own work. Never had Cora +Lander appeared more beautiful than she looked that night, even before +the bridal robe had fallen over that cloud of muslin skirts and the +delicate Valenciennes edging that cast its almost imperceptible shadows +on her arms and bosom. The hair was rolled back from her forehead in +rich folds, ending on the left side in a single long heavy curl, which +fell in coils of ruddy gold on her white shoulder. + +“It is beautiful,” said Cora, turning toward Alice and taking up the +rope of pearls; “shall we twist these around the back hair?” + +“Not for the world, mademoiselle is lovely as it is. The veil will be +enough.” + +Cora relinquished the pearls with evident reluctance; but she recognized +a genius in the woman before her, and was wise enough to submit. + +“What will you fasten the veil with then?” she inquired. + +“These, mademoiselle; they are fresh as May dew and white as snow, just +one little blush of pink at the heart—no more.” + +Alice went to an alabaster vase that stood in a corner of the room, and +took from the flowers crowded in it a handful of white roses, warmed, as +she said, with blushes at the heart. These she laid carefully upon the +dressing-table after pulling away all the green leaves. + +Then there was a rustling of heavy silk, delicate satin gaiters laced +over symmetrical ankles, and at last what seemed a shower of frost-work +cast over a dress white and shimmering like crusted snow. + +No wonder the waiting-woman stepped back and surveyed her mistress with +clasped hands and exultation in every feature. Never had high art a +lovelier object to exhaust itself upon. Some sweet, womanly feelings had +crept into that young heart, spite of its ambition. The long, curling +lashes swept a cheek brighter than any damask rose that ever bloomed; a +smile parted those red lips. When she looked up the love-light in those +soft almond-shaped eyes made the heart yearn toward her; for the time +she was natural, womanly, almost good. + +“You have made me beautiful, for that creature in the glass is +beautiful,” she said, flinging some jewels out of the box and searching +for a roll of bank-notes it contained. “Take this—and this. I hope you +are poor, that it is the first money you have possessed for a long time; +I would have it a surprise, for I must make some one happy to-night, or +this feeling here, so sweet, so sacred, so holy, would kill me. Oh! if I +were worthy of it!—Oh! if—. But I will think of nothing but him. Neither +angel nor fiend shall drag my thoughts back to the old subject. In an +hour, _one_ little hour, I shall be his wife. Heavens, how I love him! +And he loves me! I know it! I feel it here, deep, deep as my heart can +feel! Oh! if, like Cleopatra, I could melt all that I have into a single +pearl, he should drink it and I would smile as it touched his lips. If +this wealth has cost me my own soul, so much the better—it is for +him—all for him, and cheaply bought. But why am I thinking of that? He +will never know. Heavens! must this subject forever crowd upon me? What +business has it here? I, who have commanded wealth almost unlimited, +should know how to crowd back my own thoughts. Oh! if I could! if I +could!” + +Cora had been speaking all this, wildly, brokenly, in English. Alice +could not understand the language but she saw the color come and go in +that beautiful face till it became pale as death. Then the features +began to quiver, and tears rose slowly to those eyes so full of +sparkling happiness a moment before. Spite of her resolve, the fiend and +the angel of her life were having a sharp struggle that evening. She +fell down into the Turkish chair, and grasping a fold of her veil in +both hands, pressed them to her eyes. When her hands fell away, the lace +was wet and Cora Lander’s lips were quivering. She would have given the +world that moment could she have flung all her hideous wealth away and +gone to her husband with a pure heart. + +“Is mademoiselle displeased with her dress? Would she prefer the +pearls?” inquired Alice, troubled by this new display. + +“Displeased—no, no—what a child I am! The roses are lovely as innocence +itself. When little girls are confirmed they wear white roses. Who shall +forbid me to loop them in my bridal veil? I will not have the pearls, +Alice.” + +“If mademoiselle pleases, I can clasp one string about her neck and +twist the other about her arm. Let me try them.” + +“As you please,” answered Cora rising to survey herself once more. She +bent her stately head before the glass and held forth her arm firmly +while the woman wound the string of pearls over it serpentwise, and +clasped another around her neck. + +“There, mademoiselle, your toilet is perfect. There is your +handkerchief. Now sit down awhile, it is so fatiguing; you look pale. +Let me open the window, this fresh air, cool with drops from the +fountain, will bring back all the lost roses to this pretty cheek. Ah, I +thought so—they come back all at once. It is a footstep on the gravel.” + +Cora started to her feet: a smile just parted her lips; she seemed +inspired. + +“Does mademoiselle expect company to the wedding?” inquired Alice. + +“Not a soul, Alice. My happiness is so complete, I would not share it +with an angel.” + +“I thought, from the grand toilet, the quantity of flowers and the +little supper, that Monsieur would bring some friends, perhaps.” + +“No, the clergyman will come, perform his duties and go. We want no +strangers—nor must you ever mention to a human being what you witness +here to-night.” + +“Lady I never will.” + +“The time may come when I shall call upon you; till then promise that +you will be silent.” + +“I promise; on my honor I promise.” + +“Truly,” said Cora, smiling at her image in the glass, “we have made a +grand toilet; we have a profusion of flowers, and this new French cook +has promised wonders for the supper. What then? A bride should dress for +her husband, not the crowd that choose to follow her to the altar. +Should I make this evening less splendid because he alone will enjoy it? +No, no; love, to be perfect should be nobly surrounded. It shall be—it +shall be so with us!” + +“Mademoiselle, some one rings at the door.” + +“It is my husband!” cried Cora, radiant. “Go down, Alice, and—stay, +stay. I will go myself. Hark! there is no footstep but his?” + +“None, lady.” + +“I knew it. I felt sure that he would come alone. Heavens, how my heart +beats!” + + + + + CHAPTER XXX. + AFTER THE WEDDING. + + +Cora Lander ran down stairs into the parlor, whose frescoed ceiling, +dove-tinted walls and thickly carpeted floors were lighted up for the +first time, and there, standing as it were in the midst of an enchanted +bower, was Seymour, her bridegroom. + +“Great Heavens, how beautiful you are!” he exclaimed, coming forward +with both hands extended. “So radiant and so lovely, all for me!” + +She placed her two gloved hands in his, and stood before him blushing +and with downcast eyes. Her hands shook and quivered in his like young +birds caught among the roses. + +“Oh! Seymour, _do_ you love me? Shall this last through our whole +lives?” + +“So long as we live, Cora Lander, I will love you for better for worse, +in good or evil, in holiness or sin. You and I belong to each other. +_Nothing but death shall part us, so help me God._” + +Why did her hands cease their happy flutter and grow cold in his clasp? +What was it that sent the blood from her face and neck till they were +white as the pearls on her bosom? + +“Why, love, how white you are!” + +“Your love is savage, Seymour. It half frightens me.” + +“My love frighten you! What have I said, dearest, only that I would love +you forever and ever?” + +“But you spoke sternly.” + +“Solemnly, sweet one, not sternly.” + +“I am very foolish to let the tone of your voice wound me so.” + +“Yes, darling; but it is over now. There, there, lean your head on my +shoulder, so; and let me kiss the roses back to these lips.” + +They sat down on a sofa near the window. Her lips had got back their +redness; her cheek, warm with a flush of happiness, lay close to his. +She half clouded him with her bridal veil. + +“And you, Cora, will it be always thus with you?” he whispered. “Will my +love content you forever?” + +“It contents me now, Seymour—I am supremely happy—nothing comes between +my heart and yours. In this place we can be happier than mortals ever +were before.” + +“And is this to be our home?” said Seymour, glancing around the +sumptuous room. + +“Yes, it is our home; I give it to you. Thank Heaven, my love does not +come empty handed!” + +Seymour gently released her from his arm, and moving to a window, looked +out. The little garden in front was flooded with moonlight; drops from +the fountain were shooting through it in bright flashes and raining back +upon the flowers, which repaid them with perfume. It was indeed a little +Paradise that his bride had created for him. There every sense could be +gratified. The most refined idea of beauty must be satiated in a place +like that—a creation of love itself. + +Was he satisfied? I think not. This man, with all his faults—and he had +more than the reader yet knows of—was proud in his way, and it is in the +nature of proud men, good or bad, to give benefits to the women they +love; to receive them entirely wounds all sense of manhood. In the first +abandon of her love, Cora had felt great pleasure in the idea of +bestowing benefits on the man who was to be her husband. In her +short-sighted egotism, she expected every new benefit conferred on him +to add another link to the chain of flowers which was to bind their +lives together. She was generous to him, because at that time, she +considered his destiny as her own, and it was simply being generous to +herself. She made no calculation for change, either in herself or him. +The rash, impetuous passion that carried her selfish nature out of +itself she really believed would last forever. It pleased her to be +munificent with him—to make his life one dream of Paradise was her +ambition. But it was to be a Paradise she was to give him and share with +him. + +Did she expect gratitude for this or a greater harvest of affection? +Yes, in simple truth, this was what lay in her heart. With all her +ability, her craft and daring, the young girl sitting there in her +bridal dress knew little of human nature, or she would not have +attempted to humiliate the man she loved with obligations with which it +was his place to endow her. From every point of earth she, with her +money, had gathered materials of enjoyment for him, exulting in the +power of thus proving her love. The result was that he stood there by +the window, moody, and with a clouded brow. Was he, too, an appendage? +Did she wish to overshadow him with her wealth—crush him down with her +munificence? + +She came to the window where he stood and laid her hand on his shoulder. + +“You look sad, darling. Why is it? I expected to see you all joy.” + +“And so I am, dearest girl. Why should you think otherwise? No woman +ever gave her pet macaw a more glittering cage.” + +He spoke with something of bitterness. She had been too lavish of her +superior gifts, and he felt it. + +“You have taken a dislike to my house—our house—and I—I thought it so +beautiful,” she said with tears in her eyes. + +She was keenly disappointed. After all, objects of material beauty are +very uncertain things when we depend on them to perfect our happiness. + +He looked down upon her and relented. Other and deeper causes of regret +lay in his heart; but he crowded them back and allowed all the warm +tenderness of his love to answer that tearful look. + +“It is beautiful,” he said, “but how can I think of that with you by my +side? Come closer to the window, love, and let us watch for the man who +will make you my wife.” + +She drew close to his side and allowed him to circle her with his arm as +they stood looking out upon the moonlight. + +“How lovely and how still it is,” she said; “we can almost hear the +bell-like tinkle of those water drops as they fall back into the +fountain. Softer and sweeter music never heralded in a wedding. Will you +accept the omen, Seymour?” + +“I can accept nothing that does not promise happiness with you so close +to my heart, Cora.” + +A sharp click of the iron latch startled them both. The gate fell to +with a clang that struck those two young creatures like a blow. Then, +like a spectre, came the dark form of the clergyman, sweeping the +moonlight from the flowers with its shadow. + +“He is coming,” whispered Cora, chilled, she knew not why. + +Seymour did not speak, but be strained her to his bosom so violently +that she gasped for breath. + +“Have you no fear of me—no questions to ask? It is not too late.” + +“Fear of you,” she answered, clinging to him tenderly when his arm would +have released her. “Fear of you—I should as soon fear the flowers around +that fountain. Questions—why should I ask questions just as our two +lives are trembling together? Hark, he is ringing the bell!” + +They left the window and sat down upon the couch, waiting for the +clergyman. He came in, after some delay, smiling blandly and rubbing his +white hands over each other, while he paused on the threshold and cast a +wandering glance over the room. Then his observation fell on the young +couple. He moved forward and greeted them cordially. + +“Then it is to be a wedding, after all,” he said, glancing at the +costume of the bride. “I was not prepared for that.” + +“No,” said Cora, blushing under his gaze. “There will be no one present +but ourselves.” + +The minister smiled, glanced at her a second time, with a look that +bespoke as much admiration as clerical eyes are ever permitted to +express, and answered still more blandly: + +“And the witnesses, dear lady—we must have witnesses.” + +The young people looked at each other in dismay. + +“Alice Ruess might do for one,” said Cora, in a low voice. “But the +other?” + +“My boy, Brian Nolan; I wish I had brought him; he might be of use, he +is sufficiently intelligent.” + +“Is he trustworthy?” asked Cora, in a whisper. + +“I would trust him with a secret that held my life, if needful,” +answered Seymour. “But we have no one to send for him.” + +“No,” said Cora. “But the Frenchman—he will do.” + +A few minutes after, Alice Ruess and Lubin came into the room and stood +near the couple while they were married. + +Then the clergyman kissed the bride on her burning cheek, shook hands +with Seymour, pledged them in a glass of amber-hued wine, and went away +for richer than he had expected to become that night, leaving a wedding +certificate behind, and any amount of warm congratulations. The name of +the bride written on that certificate was Virginia Cora Lander, and the +bridegroom’s name was written out in full, Alfred Nolan Seymour. + +Cora scarcely stopped to read the document, but put it in her bosom, +afraid to trust it away from her own heart, so precious did it seem to +her. + +Seymour did not think of the fact then, but he afterward had cause to +remember it. The clergyman was an utter stranger to him. Alice Ruess had +employed a friend to engage him, and so he came personally unknown to +them all. His name was signed to the certificate, but no one cared to +examine that just as the man was going away. + +That little supper had been served in the dining-room, and Lubin, the +French cook, was in an ecstasy of impatience lest his favorite dishes +would be spoiled. The clergyman had been a little late, having met with +some difficulty about finding the house. Then he had lingered awhile +after the ceremony, charmed by the sprightliness and beauty of the +bride, lured, as even clergymen will be sometimes, by the sparkle and +flavor of rare wines, taken in moderation, and therefore slowly. + +Thus it happened that Lubin’s supper was put back, and Lubin himself +almost driven to despair. He stood ready to serve out his own rich +viands—for, to secure that pleasure, he was willing to give up any +amount of dignity—waiting for some signal of the clergyman’s departure. +But, as I have said, the good man was in no haste, and Lubin had plenty +of time to survey the round table, rich with gold and silver plate, +glittering with cut crystal and crowned by a swelling mound of flowers +covered by a glass shade, so transparent that it seemed a film of woven +air. Thus the poor fellow stood with a snow-white vest contrasting with +his black clothes, kid gloves, spotless as the vest, half broken-hearted +and ready to cry with vexation. The chandelier over his head was one +blaze of gas; the ceiling to which it hung was aglow with flowers, that +seemed to burst into fresh bloom under that blaze of light and open out +new folds of beauty. A carpet, thick and soft as forest turf spread away +from the table and met the edges of the room in a heavy rope of flowers +that coiled all around it, chaining in a broad medallion in the centre. + +All this was new, and thus had a claim on the Frenchman’s imagination; +but he had neither heart nor eye for anything but the dishes left under +black Hagar’s care, which he knew were losing something of their +perfection every instant. At last he heard the front door close, and +Alice came into the dining-room to say that Madame and Monsieur were +ready for supper. + +Into this blaze of lights and glory of flowers the young couple came and +seated themselves at their first home repast. In his travels, once, +Seymour had passed through a forest twenty miles deep, haunted with +birds and full of wild deer that had never heard the crack of a hunter’s +gun. In the very heart of this forest, close by the corduroy road, stood +a log cabin, so newly built that tufts of hemlock and pine still clung +to the green bark of the logs. Two or three acres of land were cleared +around this rude dwelling, but a great walnut tree had been left to +shelter it, and morning glories were already creeping toward its tiny +windows. The door of this dwelling was open as he rode by, and at a +small table, covered with a cloth white as snow, he saw a young couple +eating bread and milk. Seymour thought of that picture and sighed as he +sat down to the exquisite little supper with his wife. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXI. + THE AUDACITY OF CRIME. + + +It was October now—gorgeous, beautiful October. All the trees on the +Hudson felt the ripeness of the year in their foliage, which had taken +rich gleams of crimson into its greenest masses, and was just beginning +to throw out flashes of gold where the maples grew thickest. + +In September Mrs. Lander had consented to accept Cora’s invitation to +stay with her awhile at one of the fashionable hotels in the city. A +splendid outfit of second mourning had been the principal inducement +held out for this temporary change of residence, and this important +business occupied the widow almost exclusively. + +As for Cora, she took little interest in all the details of dead silk, +gray silk, bugle trimmings, or black ribbons. Indeed she was seldom at +her rooms twenty-four hours together. The first year of her mourning had +not yet expired; she made this an excuse for avoiding all society and +living a secluded life, which even her reputed aunt could not +understand. There was neither sympathy nor confidence now between these +two women. Cora held her mother at arm’s length and kept out of her +society as much as possible. She gave no explanation of her own mode of +life, but came and went as it pleased her, answering to no person for +her movements. At first there was a glow and enthusiasm about her that +forbade all thoughts of wrong or sorrow in her life. If she was +reticent, it was easy to see that intense happiness was all that she had +to conceal. She absolutely lived away from every friend, in a world of +her own that became more and more secret every day. + +At last Mrs. Lander grew weary of shopping, and more weary of the +strange isolation which Cora’s retired life forced upon her. She +demanded more money and a broader range of social life in the hotel, +both of which Cora refused. So, one day when Cora was more insolent than +usual, Mrs. Lander packed up her things and betook herself to the old +home, where she threw herself upon Eunice for sympathy and protection. + +When the evil spirit of the family was gone, something like tranquillity +settled upon the household. Eunice, who controlled her mistress with an +iron hand, broke up the old habit of staying in her chamber by main +force. The family meals were served in the dining-room, she said, and +were not to be scattered all over the house in trays, as if they kept a +tavern, as it was when that other highflyer was at home. If she was +expected to superintend things, every soul under that roof would come +down to regular meals in the regular place. She was tired of seeing such +goings on, and meant to take the reins in her own hands, just to see how +it seemed after being put down and rode over, as she had been for ever +so long. + +She said this to Mrs. Lander when she came back from the city with her +intense mourning softened by gleams of jet, and her neck surrounded by a +rope of great black beads, to which a good-sized cross was suspended. + +Mrs. Lander might not have yielded to this dictation in Eunice, but for +the trouble that had arisen between her and Cora at the hotel, which had +at length aroused all her temper and her old pride. Mrs. Lander never +gave even Eunice the details of the quarrel which had preceded her exit +from the hotel. But it had arisen in this way. After spending large sums +of money on her wardrobe, Mrs. Lander had asked for more, and was put +off grudgingly with a small sum, and in a manner that drove all the +woman’s smothered temper into revolt. “She wanted more,” she said, in +hot anger, “five times as much—ten times—twenty times. The money +belonged to her a great deal more than it ever did to her daughter.” + +“Your daughter,” said Cora, rolling up the rejected money and crowding +it coolly back into her purse. “Never call me by that name while you +live, unless you wish to be arrested as a perjurer. You have rejected me +and claimed that other creature over and over again, and I, for one, +believe you. I am no more your daughter than you are mine.” + +“Cora Lander, are you crazy or a fiend to say this?” cried the woman, +appalled by an audacity she had never dreamed of before. + +“I am simply in earnest, madam.” + +“Madam! and we alone!” + +“No child can be sure of its parentage. We must take the word of some +one. A mother’s word is held as the most sacred evidence. That you have +given, society has accepted it. The Probate Court has accepted it. I +accept it. The thing is decided.” + +“But it was not true—the falsehood was of your own contriving, wicked, +wicked girl!” cried the astonished woman. + +“Falsehood! I will not permit you or any one to use such language to me. +I had long been troubled with suspicions, and did what I could to get at +the truth. It came from your false heart with a pang, I dare say; but it +was the truth, nevertheless.” + +“Cora Lander, this is too much! Are you my child or a demon?” + +“I would certainly rather be a demon than your child, provided demons +could inherit. As it is, I prefer to be as I am, the child and heiress +of Amos Lander.” + +That young girl looked in her mother’s face with cold audacity as she +uttered this speech. It was evidently premeditated and the result of +deliberation. Did she wish to drive the poor woman to extremities? One +would think so. Mrs. Lander’s passion was completely subdued by this +unheard-of assurance. She began to doubt her own senses. Was that +creature really her child? + +“Do not go too far,” she said, standing up with some of Cora’s own stony +resolution in her face. “If you treat me in this way, so help me Heaven, +I will retract and expose everything!” + +“Do,” answered the wicked girl. “Try that, and so surely as we both +live, I will ground a charge of insanity; on that very confession, and +shut you up in a mad-house. Remember, madam, it was your lips that first +proclaimed the fact that insanity was a family inheritance on your side +of the house—that it had already appeared in your daughter, the young +woman who has driven me out of my own house by her crazy vagaries. What +is more natural than that you, my poor aunt, should give way to the +malady that you assert has existed for generations among your +ancestors—such ancestors?” + +“Cora Lander!” cried the wretched woman, coming out of her amazement +pale and stern as the bold creature who taunted her, “be careful how you +gibe at me and mine! Whatever I am, you came of the same stock.” + +“That is exactly what I deny, and am prepared to deny before the face of +the whole world. My mother was a Ravensworth—a nice old family, that +never had a blemish were the Ravensworths—I will not hear a word against +them.” + +Cora smiled as she spoke, the very insolence of her words made her lip +curve. Mrs. Lander saw this, and was seized with a new idea. She came +eagerly forward and threw her arms about the girl. + +“Ah! now I understand it all. You are only teasing me—saying all these +horrid things to see if I mind them. Of course I did a little—who could +help it? But it is all over. Give up the money, dear, and we will have +no more of these cruel jokes—they hurt me, indeed they do. There, now +kiss me.” + +Cora kissed that poor, quivering face with lips of ice. + +“I will give you the money, aunt, of course. I have always wished to be +liberal, both with you and my cousin; but there is no joke in what I +have been saying.” + +“Oh, how can you, child! This is too cruel!” + +“Cruel! no, it is a fixed truth, Aunt Lander.” + +“Aunt Lander! I will _not_ hear that!” cried the woman bursting into a +passion of sobs. + +“You will and must,” answered Cora, in a low resolute voice, “for never +on this earth will I recognize you by any other name.” + +“But I will compel you,” said the desperate woman, in a hard whisper. + +“Hush! this white rage will make you ill. Here is the money, take it and +let us be at peace.” + +She took the roll of notes a second time from the reticule purse still +swinging from her wrist, and held it towards Mrs. Lander. + +“No!” said the outraged woman, dashing the money from her, “I will +perish first.” + +Cora picked up the money with a forced smile, and would have offered it +a second time, but Mrs. Lander had left the room. + +Half an hour after this scene, the widow Lander came from her room with +her mourning shawl on and a thick crape veil drawn over her white face. +She shivered as if an ague fit had seized upon her, and went back for +her furs, thinking, poor woman, that they might drive off the cold that +was freezing her heart. But even under that thick cloak of Russian +sables she shook with that inner cold which seizes upon the very life. + +Cora stood at the window as her mother went out, and a cloud swept over +her face. With all her iron courage, she did not feel altogether secure. + +“Let her go,” she said at last, turning from the window. “This money +will soon draw her back; she cannot live without it. Why on earth did I +refuse all she wanted? Why—because having decided on being mean, I must +have it out. It’s my fate, when a thing is to be done I must rush at it; +there is no patience in my whole nature. It was a dangerous move, +though! How she turned upon me. I had no idea that she had so much iron +in her composition. What if she should really revolt and do what she +threatens? But she will not do it. If she did—well, my threat might soon +be a reality—I would fight it out to the bitter end.” + +Cora left the window and sat down near the fire, hardening her heart; +for some natural relenting did force itself upon her. After all, the +woman was her mother, and had been an over kind one all the early years +of her life. But the crime which she had been tempted by her very +affection to commit stood between them, till the girl began almost to +hate the mother who knew how wicked she was. In a little time she +reasoned: “_Our_ life must begin, and I want no incumbrances—Seymour and +I are enough for each other. We must become leaders in the world—I in +society, he in political life. Whatever he wants, that my husband shall +have. With wealth, beauty, talent like mine, it will be easy to give him +any position he may desire—I will obtain it for him—I will subdue men +and women in his behalf—when I am ready to take his name he shall soon +stand highest among great men. Talent; oh, yes, no one can question +that! Thank Heaven, he has the ability to back up all my exertions to +hold place with the strongest and the proudest!” + +Foolish, vain woman! did she not understand that a man, to be great must +work out his own greatness? That he despises the ladder erected by other +hands than his own, though he may mount it to the topmost round. She was +thinking of ambition now. Before it had been all love, that wild +impetuous love, which is sure to end in some other selfish passion. + +Months had gone by, and her great love had already come to this. She +thirsted now for her days of mourning to be over, that she might come +forth into the world hand in hand with her husband, and astonish it. But +exactly as she had prepared that exquisite home for her married life, +she would burst forth upon the great world and dazzle it. When she +presented herself to society as an heiress, a bride and a beauty at the +same time, it must be surrounded with even greater splendor than she had +already secured in her secret home. Until all this was arranged and her +mourning thrown off, that home must be enough for them both. + +Was Cora, in fact, beginning to weary of it? Had the first bloom of her +love gone off? Did she find constant companionship sometimes a little +oppressive? Better women might have done so without blame. Men worth +having do not care to be caged with their mates eternally, like singing +birds. + +Cora had not come out of that cruel scene with her mother anywhere near +so calm and unhurt as she seemed. The widow’s resolution had startled +her. There was something in her conscience, too, that disturbed her +temper. She was surprised and fearfully anxious; that sudden departure +annoyed her exceedingly. The presence of her aunt, as she introduced the +woman, was a necessity for her at the hotel. Perhaps she might come back +again—time would show. She would say nothing of their separation, but go +for a time to her own house, leaving every one to suppose that aunt and +niece had gone up the river together, meanwhile. + +Cora went to her own house. Seymour had gone out, his servant said, but +would return soon, he was quite sure. Cora was ill at ease; the little +drawing room, with its closed curtains and maize-colored furniture, was +overheated, and oppressed her. A certain feeling of satiety made her +turn palled from the costly things which she had deemed indispensable to +her wedding. “I will have them changed,” she said. “The same thing for +ever and ever—how it tires one!” + +Up the stairs she went into her own bed-chamber; there the heart would +be less oppressed. That day the room did not look exactly the same to +her. The lace curtains, falling like sifted snow over the bed, had lost +their first crispness; the silk, of a faint rose-color, with which the +walls were fluted from floor to ceiling, was beginning to fade to a dull +white where the sun had touched it. The alabaster vase which stood close +to her pillow was full of dead flowers. Here, too, a faint betrayal of +disgust came into her face. The dead flowers made her angry—knowing how +keenly she loved flowers, he might at least have kept them fresh even +with his own hands. It was not much to expect in return for all she had +done. + +Hah! woman, had it came to that? Are you beginning to count obligations? +Better not let your husband know it. + +The trouble was in Cora’s heart, not in the rooms; but she would not +look there, fearing to discover something worse than dead flowers, no +doubt. Sweeping her long, black dress over the carpet, she entered that +little snuggery that I have told you of. The toilet table was littered +with ornaments just as she had left them. A wreath of artificial daisies +hung over one of the gilded lilies, and a lace handkerchief, more than +half soiled, was thrust beneath another. + +“It seems like the room of a broken-down actress,” she said, looking +around, bitter at heart. “As I can flee to no other place, this shall at +least be made tidy.” + +She rung the bell and Alice appeared, calm and quiet as ever. What did +madam please to want? + +Why everything; but first, she would like to see that table cleared off, +the wreath flung into the fire, and the handkerchief—that might as well +be sent to the laundry. It had cost thirty dollars or so, and was worth +keeping. + +Madame should be obeyed; if Madame remembered, she had requested that +the things on that table should not be disturbed. What dress would +madame prefer? + +Madame was out of temper, and answered sharply that she did not care to +change her dress. + +Alice looked at the black bombazine, trimmed knee-deep with crape, and +shook her head. Madame knew best, she said, but it seemed strange to see +her sitting in that chair which had relieved the whiteness of her bridal +dress so beautifully, in such gloomy mourning. But Cora had a little +satisfaction in keeping on her sable dress—had not Seymour neglected to +put fresh flowers in that Hebe vase? So she sat still in her mourning, +angry with herself, angry with him—out of humor with all the world. + +An hour went by—another—and still Seymour did not come. This was +strange. The young man had few acquaintances in the city, and nothing +was likely to delay him long. It was dusk before Cora heard his step on +the gravel. She had become nervous with anxiety, and sprang up with a +feeling of relief, followed close by a flash of resentment that he had +caused her so much pain. She stood in her bed-room window and saw him +pass the fountain. He walked hurriedly—wildly—like one in a dream, or +like a ghost just freed from the grave; for his face was deathly white +and his eyes were full of terror. She heard Alice tell him that she was +up stairs, and listened for some exclamation of pleasure, but a single +sentence escaped his lips, which fell upon her ear like living fire; + +“Great Heavens, I hope not!” + +The blood sprang up from her heart hot as venom. She bit her lips till +they grew white under her teeth. How she was thoroughly angry. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXII. + A WEEK OF LOVE LIFE. + + +Seymour waited awhile in the hall, afraid to present that scared face +before his wife. He turned to Alice, and, lifting the hat from his head, +questioned her. + +“Do I look ill? Do I look wild?” + +Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead and upper lip; his +whole face was fearfully pale, his eyes unnaturally bright. + +“Yes, monsieur,” answered the woman. “Monsieur is pale and wild. Let me +bring monsieur some wine.” + +“Wine!—No, no, bring me brandy. Tell Lubin to send the decanter.” + +Seymour went into the parlor and threw himself on a couch, wiping the +moisture from his face as he waited for the brandy. It was the couch on +which he and Cora had seated themselves after the ceremony that had made +them man and wife. This came to his mind, and tears sprang to his eyes. +“Poor girl—poor, unhappy girl—had I known this, I would have died rather +than drag you down with me,” he muttered. + +Alice came in with the brandy and a goblet. Seymour seized the decanter +and filled the glass half full, dashing the brandy over his unsteady +hands as he did it. He drank eagerly, set the glass down on a Mosaic +table, leaving a broad stain, and starting up, would have gone in search +of his wife, but she met him at the door with a white heat of anger on +her face and a smile upon her lips. + +By this time Seymour’s face was flushed with color, and a gleam of red +stained the pure white of his eyes. She thought that he was intoxicated, +and for the moment loathed him; for Cora was as fastidious as she was +unprincipled. Drinking was sure to imperil the grace that she was so +proud of and stain the noble beauty of his features. This was why she +recoiled from it with such terror. + +“What is the matter, have you been ill?” she demanded, in a low, +constrained voice. + +“Yes, darling, I have been very ill.” + +“In the street?” + +“Yes, something seized me in the street—a vertigo.” + +“It seems more like a panic,” she said, looking keenly in his face. + +“I—yes, I suppose it must be like a panic. Being so ill, I was afraid of +terrifying you—the very thought made me a coward.” + +“Was that all? Well, you see that I am not frightened.” + +“That is a brave girl. Kiss me, dear, for I am almost heart-broken.” + +She kissed him upon the forehead. His lips were moist with brandy; she +could not have forced herself to touch them, with all her self-control. + +“What is it about, Seymour? What is it that is breaking your heart?” she +asked, softly, thinking of her own secret with dread. + +“Breaking my heart? Did I say that? What nonsense! I was only afraid +that you would think me worse than I really was. See, I am well again; +give me a few moments to dress for dinner, and I shall be gay as a +lark.” + +He ran up stairs laughing rather loudly, and, entering his +dressing-room, fell upon his knees by the couch, and struggled with his +grief till the frail structure shook under him. + +“What can I do? What shall I do? No deer was ever run to covert so +closely as I am. She will hate me, or it will be her death. Better the +last—better death a thousand times! One look of hate on that face would +be such punishment as no other human being has power to give. Oh! my +God! my God! how I love her! Will she believe it? Can I convince her +that it was this craving affection, this intense love that drove me on? +Oh! if I had told her that day in the little cabin, when the subject +came up so naturally! She would have forgiven me then, I am sure of +it—forgiven me and saved me—but now I dare not tell her. There was +something in her eye and the touch of her lip that froze me. Can she +suspect?” + +He started up while these thoughts were flashing through his mind, +bathed his face in cold water over and over again, and began to brush +his hair violently. The exercise did him good; he tore away at his black +curls like a tiger. + +“If I could tear them out! If I could only change this mass of black +waves, all might yet be saved. But with her eyes upon me there can be no +change. Oh! if she would but go away for a month or two, or let me. +Perhaps she will. Yet how can I live without her, my wife—my dear, dear +wife!” + +He sat down on the couch now, with the hair-brush in his hand, gazing +past it on the floor, in deep thought. All at once he started up and +began to dress himself more rationally. His face cleared, his lips +parted and lost the iron tension of nerves that had strained them +together when he attempted to speak cheerfully. An important idea had +come into his mind—an idea that drove away all the excitement from his +brain and left him with the face of a man who had indeed been ill. + +When Seymour went down stairs all the wildness had left his eyes. He was +calm and thoughtful, but apparently suffering from past or present pain. +He went up to Cora and kissed her tenderly upon the forehead; she had +shrunk from meeting his lips with hers once, and he would not offer them +again. + +“Did I frighten you, darling?” he said, smoothing the bands of her hair +with one hand. “Forgive it; I was really ill. But for the brandy, I must +have fainted—see how my hand trembles now.” + +She looked up at him,—the beautiful dissembler—and touched his trembling +hand with her lips very lightly, but the gesture was playful, and she +smiled one of her sweetest smiles. + +“I am so unaccustomed to sickness that it frightens me. Come, now let us +go to dinner—I, for one, am hungry. Aunt Lander has gone up the river, +and I shall be my own mistress till she chooses to come back.” + +Seymour tried to express his happiness, but the words stopped in his +throat. She looked at him earnestly. + +“My husband does not seem so glad as I had expected,” she said, +laughing. + +“Not glad, Cora! If there is a joy on earth for Alfred Seymour, it is +the presence of his wife. Never on this earth was a woman so beloved—so +worshipped.” + +“Is this real, my friend? Am I indeed so dear to you yet?” + +“Ask your own heart, Cora. It shall answer you.” + +It did answer her, and truly. Yet she was not satisfied. What was it +that had begun to alienate her from the man she had loved so +passionately? Who can tell the exact time when the ripe leaves change +and fall? When I say that Cora Lander’s love for her husband, from the +first, had been an unreasoning passion, those of my readers who know +anything of the human heart must have expected the change that was +creeping upon her. + +“Shall I drink wine?” said Seymour, laughing pleasantly. “Or will you +shrink from the flavor on my lips, Cora?” + +“Wine—oh, I will pledge you in champagne with all my heart,” she +answered; “but brandy, I detest that; you never drank it before.” + +“Because I was never so ill before, Cora.” + +“And now, dear, you eat nothing.” + +“I have no appetite.” + +He did indeed seem ill, and it was true that he could not taste the food +she placed before him. + +“Do try something; I have a horror of sickness. It puts me in mind of +death,” she said, seriously disturbed. “I would not have you really ill +for the world.” + +Seymour leaned back in his chair and covered his face for a moment with +one hand. + +“It is this confinement, Cora. What if I take a little trip somewhere? +That will set me up, I dare say.” + +She looked at him a moment, and then answered in her usual clear, calm +voice: + +“It may come to that, but let us hope not. I cannot spare you yet, +Seymour.” + +The words were affectionate enough, but there was something in her +manner which broke the harmony. + +“Well,” he said, “we need not talk about that just now. I am already +enough of an invalid to keep me indoors for some days.” + +Cora had spoken the truth; she did hate sickness, and had no patience +with it in any one. Her own abounding health was perfect, and she was +always tempted to consider indisposition in others a pretence. That +Seymour could be feverish and complain took away from his perfection +with her. The man she loved should have been lifted far away from +infirmities like that. But she had some sympathy in her nature, and was +just then disposed to take a romantic view of any question that +presented itself. + +“That will not be so very unpleasant,” she said; “you shall lie upon the +couch and listen to me while I read.” + +“And will you stay with me, Cora?” + +His voice trembled with tender thankfulness, which surprised her. + +“Why that was exactly what made me rejoice when my aunt took her +departure. It left me at liberty. The people at the hotel think that we +have gone up the river in company.” + +“So my bird of Paradise has flown to her cage.” + +His words were forced, and she felt it, but answered lightly: + +“To find her mate sick on the perch.” + +They both laughed at this, and she arose from the table. “Come, Alfred, +if you are going to play invalid, let us begin.” + +He followed her up stairs wearily and with an oppressive weight on his +mind. + +“Lie down upon the couch, I will search for your dressing-gown and +slippers. Here they are—now see what a capital nurse I shall make.” + +He took the dressing-gown and put it on, thrusting his feet at the same +time into a pair of Damascus slippers which she had given him. Cora +brought a pillow from the bed and laid it on the couch. + +“There, everything is ready. Lie down and tell me what book I shall +read.” + +“Anything you like, Cora.” + +He lay down wearily on the couch and curved one arm over his eyes, as if +the light disturbed him. Cora got a book and began to read, but his +immovable position annoyed her. + +“Does you head ache badly?” she inquired. + +“Yes, it aches; I ache all over;” he replied, turning his face to the +wall; “but go on, I am listening.” + +Cora went on with her book, and Seymour lay perfectly still. At last a +slight noise, something like a broken sob, disturbed her. His hand was +over his eyes, but she saw by the crimson strain on his forehead and the +quiver about his mouth that he was crying. + +“Why, Seymour, what on earth is the matter with you? This is +intolerable! I hate tears; especially in a man.” + +He dashed the drops from his face and turned suddenly. + +“You will soon begin to hate me—I feel it—I know it!” + +Cora looked at him steadily. It was true she had no sympathy with grief. +What business had he to bring sickness and tears into that chamber? + +“Do not let your prophecy work out its own fulfilment,” she said. “The +great charm of our love was that no disagreeable thing ever came near +it.” + +He lay quite still, gazing at her from under those long, moist +eyelashes. + +“In sorrow or humiliation you would not love me, then?” he said, with a +keen interest in the question that convulsed all his features. + +“I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully, as if the question had +presented itself for the first time to her mind. “To me love is only +perfect with pleasant surroundings. Now, sorrow and tears are not +pleasant, take them from any point of view one will; and sickness—when +real and in earnest, is simply revolting.” + +Seymour got up from the couch with a pitiful attempt at playfulness. + +“Then I must be making myself very disagreeable,” he said. + +“You might be, Seymour, if the fever did not make your cheeks so red, +and if that quick fire had not driven the tears from your eyes. So lie +down again. I rather like you in that dress, it puts me in mind of the +Orient.” + +Seymour lay down again with a heavy sigh, and she went on reading. After +awhile her voice became low and drowsy; she read on brokenly, then +making long pauses. At length the book fell into her lap, and, with her +red lips parted as the last word had left them, she fell into a slumber +so profound that she scarcely seemed to breathe. + +Then Seymour turned upon his couch and gazed upon her with indescribable +mournfulness, which changed after awhile to an expression of such pain +as seldom visits an innocent man’s face. + +“It is enough,” he thought, “she would not overlook it. That which +wounded her delicacy or stung her pride would kill all love. She has no +patience with sickness or sorrow. Well, be it so; I can bury my secret +here like the Spartan boy, till it eats my heart out. Expose it, I never +will.” + +Seymour arose carefully from the couch and went into his own room. With +eager and trembling hands he put on his coat and boots, brushed his hair +and went softly into the next room. Cora was sleeping sweetly, and +dreaming of something very pleasant. Her lips parted in a smile, and her +cheeks were two sleeping roses. Seymour loved the woman and could not +keep his lips from her forehead, but they touched it lightly as rose +leaves fall, afraid that a touch would disturb her, and stole out of the +room again, holding his breath as if it had been sacrilegious to kiss +his own wife in her beautiful sleep. It was dark now, he looked out of +the window to make sure of this, and left the house, with the latch-key +in his pocket. + +First he went to the hotel, where Brian Nolan still kept his room. Brian +met him with an anxious face, for he saw at once that there was +something wrong. With him sympathy was intuitive; he could not look on +his master’s face without knowing of the pain that was consuming him. + +“Brian,” said Seymour, sitting down on the boy’s bed panting for breath. + +“Sir, I am here,” answered the boy, lifting his great, loving eyes to +the young man’s face. + +Seymour drew Brian close to him and took his head between both his +hands. Thus holding him fast, he looked earnestly into that young face. + +“Brian, do you love me?” + +“Love you?” answered the boy with a quick heave of the chest. “Yes, I do +love you.” + +“But if I were a bad man—if I were wicked, could you love me then?” + +“I don’t know, because that would make you another person.” + +“But if I had, under great temptation, done a wrong thing, could you +love me then?” + +“Yes; it would break my heart, but I should love you all the same.” + +Tears stood in the boy’s eyes; he looked wistfully in Seymour’s face. + +“You are only saying these things to try me, sir,” he faltered out. + +“Yes, I am saying them to try you, Brian. God forbid that I am ever +compelled to put such affection to the test. But it is a great thing to +know that it exists; I shall not feel quite friendless or alone in the +world now.” + +“Ah, sir, how can you be alone?” + +Seymour smiled but gave no answer. He could not tell that boy of the +speeches his wife had just made, and of the anguish with which they had +filled his heart. He had evidently called on the boy with some definite +purpose, but a change had been wrought by those few words of simple +affection, and requesting Brian to be sure and keep within his room all +the evening, he let the boy go. + +“No, no; better run some risk myself than mix him up with the affair. +Danger—I cannot avoid that, but it must be braved rather than imperil +him. What a grand heart the lad has. Let me get through this tight +place, and he shall be lifted out of this menial position. It is a shame +to keep a lad of his parts among such associations, but at present I can +do no better. When our marriage is made known, then indeed—” + +Seymour was in the street as these thoughts ran through his mind. +Whatever enterprise had brought him forth, he was evidently resolved on +pursuing it alone. Following a well-formed purpose, he entered a +hair-dresser’s establishment. + +Wigs—certainly. Light brown—then the gentleman did not want one for +himself? + +No, it was for a friend—an actor going his theatrical rounds in the +west. A moustache too—his friend would want a moustache certainly, +something heavy, to match. Were they certain to compare well by +daylight? No, he would not have time in the morning, they must be ready +for the express. + +So the wig was purchased, and on the next block a pair of light steel +glasses, fanciful affairs, such as young men sometimes wear who effect +short-sightedness. With these done up in a parcel and held tightly in +his hand, Seymour walked home in haste, hoping to find his wife still +asleep. Cautiously he turned the latch-key in its lock—more cautiously +still he went up stairs, thankful for the thickness of the carpet, which +rendered his footsteps noiseless. Cora was asleep exactly as he had left +her, except that the heavy hair at the back of her head had partly +broken loose and coiled down to her shoulder. He had walked rapidly, +and, though it seemed an age to him, the real time of his absence had +been brief. + +Seymour was scarcely a minute changing his dress and locking up his +purchases. The gas had been lighted early but burned low; he turned it +on more powerfully under its Parian shades, flooding the chamber with +moonlight. Still Cora slept, enjoying her slumber, as she did every +other physical indulgence. In her very dreams she always had a glowing +sense of life, which made her sleep delicious. Sickness really would +have been a terrible calamity to this woman. + +Seymour kissed her upon the lips now, and attempted to twist her hair +into place. This awoke her, and she started up, rubbing her eyes open +with both hands, like a sleepy child. Then she opened them wide and +wonderingly on her husband. + +“Dear me, I must have fallen away reading; and you, I will wager +anything, dearest, that you set me a naughty example. After all, this +‘Enoch Arden’ does not stand a second reading; the story looms out of +the verse a little too broadly after you have had time to think it over. +What business had this Enoch to let his wife live with another man? It +made him the chief sinner.” + +“You would have had him claim his wife, then?” said Seymour. + +“Yes; was not his happiness worth as much as that of the other man? She +was his wife.” + +“Yes, but she was prosperous and happy with the other man, innocent of +all wrong.” + +“What then? He, her husband, was miserable, and had a right to her.” + +“You would not have given her up, then?” + +“Not if I loved the woman still—that is, supposing myself a man. Could +you have given me up so?” + +She asked this, laughing; but he answered in fiery earnest. + +“Give you up, Cora? No, no, a thousand times no! The man who takes you +from me must give his life or take mine.” + +“But if I loved him?” + +“Then I would kill you.” + +“Dear me, what a blood-thirsty old darling it is,” cried Cora, who had +just re-arranged the hair in a sumptuous twist behind her head. “But it +is very pleasant to be loved in this brigand fashion, so long as one +loves back, you know.” + +“You speak as if change were possible, Cora.” + +“Well, all things are possible in this world, I suppose.” + +She said this roguishly, looking at him over her shoulder as she thrust +a golden arrow through her hair. + +“Cora!” + +“Don’t speak so—I am loving you desperately this minute; only don’t talk +of being sick again and spoil it all.” + +“But one cannot always be well—” + +“What nonsense! of course you can. Come, take your place again, and I +will go over that scene in the woods where the children go a nutting. +That is beautiful!” + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIII. + THE FIRST CLOUD. + + +Cora arose the next morning with a delicious sense of home-life upon +her. She entered her dressing-room in a pretty morning robe, looking +fresh as a flower, and informed Alice that she wished to have her +breakfast served there, if Mr. Seymour would take it with her. + +“Monsieur had eaten his breakfast and gone out,” Alice said. “It was +past ten o’clock, and he had been gone half an hour at least.” + +Cora was vexed. Why should he have gone out before she was awake? Then, +eating his breakfast alone, as if he were a business man, and had any +excuse for neglecting his wife. She would take no breakfast; he had +broken up all the happiness of her morning by these strange actions. +Indeed, she would go back to the hotel and stay there till he knew how +to appreciate her company. + +These were the first thoughts that flashed into her mind. Her life with +Seymour had been one of perpetual adoration. No man ever loved a woman +more sincerely, but it must be wonderful genius which can perpetuate +through all married life the devotion of the lover or the bridegroom. +Having created her Paradise and chosen her husband, Cora expected the +first passionate homage which he lavished on her to last forever. +Without knowing it, she held him as a sort of splendid vassal conquered +by her charms and bought by her munificence. This act of leaving her +alone was his first offence, and she resented it as a great wrong. A +little persuasion from Alice, however, induced her to taste some +breakfast, which was placed temptingly before her on a sofa-table; but +she was really too much annoyed for any relish of the meal. The +tête-à-tête set of snowy Parian provoked her with its one empty cup. +Lubin had done his best with the little breakfast, looking upon her +visit as a sort of gala season in the house. Everything was perfect; the +biscuit white as snow, the butter absolutely tasted of the sweet grasses +upon which the cows were fed, coffee that filled the little room with +its fragrance. But he was not there, and this very perfection stung her +with fresh anger. + +“I have a great fancy to go up the river,” she said, pushing the cup +from her after taking one sip of the coffee. + +“It would serve him right; I really seem to be in the way here in my own +house.” + +_Her own house!_ She was beginning to remember that everything was hers. +How much love can rest in a woman’s heart when such thoughts become +familiar to it? + +“Who is that? Go look, Alice; I heard the gate close.” + +Alice went to one of the front windows and saw a tall, fine-looking man, +with light brown hair and a pointed moustache, walking toward the house. +She returned to the boudoir and told her mistress. + +“Who can it be, Alice, we have no visitors?” said Cora, a little +disturbed. “Some one to see Lubin, I suppose.” + +“No, madame, his air was too gentlemanly for that.” + +“It can be no one else, that is certain,” answered Cora. “Besides these +French artists—Lubin is one, I am sure—sometimes look like gentlemen.” + +The mistress and servant were so deeply engaged in this discussion that +they did not hear the faint click of a latch-key or the footsteps of a +man as he ascended the stairs and entered Seymour’s dressing-room. + +The first thing that the young man did on entering the room was to lock +himself in. Then he took the wig from his head and the moustache from +his lip, and crushed them both into a drawer, which he locked with +force. While doing this he panted for breath, and drops of perspiration +stood thickly on his forehead. But now he took time to bathe his face +and hands, change his coat and brush his hair with scrupulous nicety. +After thus refreshing his toilet, he took a package from an inner pocket +in his vest, opened it and counted fourteen bank-notes of five hundred +dollars each. These notes he secured in a travelling-belt and laid upon +the bureau, while he counted what might have been some thousands of +dollars in gold in a hurried, breathless manner, as if the task was one +which he longed to get over. Both the gold and the notes he crushed into +the writing-desk we have seen him use for the same purpose before, which +he locked with care. + +“Now,” he said to himself, wiping the moisture away which would keep +gathering on his forehead; “now I can go to her with a lighter heart. +Great Heavens! that man’s eyes are on me yet! I wish there was brandy or +wine up here. He has driven all my strength away.” + +There was no brandy or wine, so he poured out some cologne water from a +bottle on the dressing-table and drank it off eagerly. Even that did not +give him strength to appear at his ease before his wife, but he heard +her voice in the next room and entered. + +This is what Seymour had been doing that morning. While his wife was +asleep he had gone into his dressing-room and carefully put on that wig +with its light, curling hair, and the moustache with its curved points +turning upwards after a fashion that changed the entire expression of +his mouth. Then the glasses were put carefully over his eyes, and a coat +of pinkish drab cloth replaced the quiet color that he usually wore. +This disguise he completed with a stove-pipe hat, so new that it shone +like satin, and a little rattan cane. + +Thus, entirely changed in his appearance, Seymour went softly down +stairs, a little before ten, and let himself into the street. He hailed +an omnibus at the next corner, and rode down Broadway, with some ten +other persons, all going to the lower part of the city on business. One +of these men was the person of whom he had bought those chestnut +carriage horses. He resolved to court this man’s attention, and thus +test his disguise. + +“I beg your pardon, sir, but permit me to open the window, it seems a +little close.” + +The man of horses looked at him indifferently, moved, and allowed the +window to be opened. Seymour drew a deep breath as he sat down. The man +had not recognized him in the least. + +He entered the bank where some of his money was still on deposit, and +where his bills of exchange had been cashed; after a few moments’ delay +he quietly presented a draft at the desk, and to the very clerk who had +done business with him before, signed by Alfred N. Seymour, with Philip +Ware’s name on the back. The clerk examined the signature, compared it +with one in his books, took a quiet survey of the person who presented +it, and counted out the money. There was still a balance left in the +bank. + +“Where is Mr. Seymour just now? I see this is dated at Quebec. On his +way home, perhaps?” + +This was exactly what Seymour wanted. He had been all the way +fruitlessly studying how to open a conversation that should lead to the +answer he was ready to give. + +“More than probable. He was intending to sail from Halifax the week +after I left Quebec.” + +“Well, I suppose we shall hear from him when he wants the rest of his +money,” observed the clerk. + +Seymour smiled, lifted his hat and walked out of the bank. On the steps +he almost ran against a man, who came up so suddenly that he sallied +back with a sharp recoil, as if the stranger had struck him. + +“I beg pardon,” said the stranger, lifting his hat. “Did I run against +you, sir?” + +“It is I who should beg pardon, I fear—pray excuse my awkwardness,” +answered Seymour, in a voice so hoarse and changed that his best friend +would not have recognized it. + +The two men bowed politely to each other and Seymour passed on, hurrying +to the nearest omnibus, which he entered, trembling from head to foot +and pale as agitation could make him. + +Thus it was that Seymour returned home. No wonder he wanted a few +minutes rest before he entered the presence of his wife. + +“Am I late, my angel?” he said, drawing a chair to the little table. “Is +there not at least one cup for me?” + +Seymour took up the little silver coffee-pot, and lifting the lid, +looked in. + +“Why it is almost full,” he said. “Waiting for me? How good you are. I +had almost given up the pleasure of our breakfast in this pretty nest.” + +“But why—why did you go out this morning, of all others?” said Cora, +rather sharply. + +“Why because my head ached fearfully, and I hoped to drive it off before +you awoke to be annoyed with it; but, unhappily, I got into the wrong +omnibus, and it took me out of the way.” + +Smiles began to hover about Cora’s mouth again; she filled one of the +Parian cups and gave it to him, resuming her own breakfast with fresh +appetite. + +“The air does not seem to have given you much color,” she said, looking +at him earnestly. + +“No, it must be change of air, I fear, Cora, before I am quite myself +again. It enervates one to be idle so long, even with the sweetest and +dearest woman that ever lived, coming to one like an angel now and then. +You must let me take flight for a week or two, Cora; after that I will +come back to my birdie the happiest fellow alive.” + +“You are very anxious to leave me, Alfred.” + +“Yes, dearest, since you have told me how unpleasant the presence of a +sick man is to you, I dread being taken down. Really, love, I am no fit +companion for you. An excursion West among the prairies will send me +back to you healthy as a crusader.” + +“If I could only go with you, Alfred.” + +“But that is impossible. We must not be seen together until all the +world knows of our marriage.” + +“I have a great mind to proclaim it to-morrow,” answered Cora. “Only I +do want all my affairs settled first and out of the executor’s hands. +When he once renders up his charge we need not hide away in this stupid +place. I am tired of it already.” + +“And I like its solitude. It is a little romance we are living out here, +Cora. The very secrecy is charming.” + +“But you will leave it and me.” + +“Only because I must, or you will cease to love me.” + +“But not yet—a week from now, say.” + +“Very well. Only you must nurse me, pet me, read to me, swear to love me +forever and ever, let what will befall us. That will make this one week +a heaven.” + +“You are not content with that, but spend the whole morning no one knows +where, and leave me to eat my breakfast alone,” she said, with a look of +pleasant reproach. + +“Ah! yes, I must atone for that. Not one step will I walk from this +house till the week is up. Will that satisfy you, Mrs. Seymour?” + +“Are you in earnest? Is this a promise?” + +“A solemn promise.” + +“Then I must forgive you; but it was a little hard.” + +Seymour arose from the table laughing. + +“Now let us begin our week,” he said. “That at least, we will snatch +from fate itself.” + +Cora took no heed of the significance of these words, though they came +from a heart heavy with foreboding. + +“Now what shall we begin this glorious week with? Let it be music—how +you did love music in those old days.” + +“And now as well as ever—better, if you are the musician. Come, the +piano has not been opened yet—your hands shall consecrate it.” + +Cora looked into the glass, pushed the hair back from her temples, shook +out the lilac-tinted folds of her morning dress, and swept on before her +husband into that gem of a drawing room. There stood a grand piano, and +close by a music stand, for nothing had been omitted in that +establishment. Seymour opened the instrument, drew an easy chair so +close to the music stand that the flow of her dress fell over his knees, +and, leaning back, prepared to listen or think such thoughts as make men +grow old in their youth. Heaven help the man! Such was his strait that +he was thankful to be silent and reflect a little—thankful to shield his +agony of apprehension under the sweet storm of music that soon broke +over him. + +Thus the young couple spent the week, all alone, surrounded by splendor +in every form, loving each other and putting that love into language +sweeter than poetry, but which did grow just a little tiresome from +eternal repetition. Cora brought forth all her accomplishments to charm +him with. When she sat down to the piano, people in the street stopped +to listen, and wondered who and what the family were that had surrounded +itself so richly, and from which such music came floating like strains +from Paradise. + +Sometimes, in her more fanciful moods, Cora would take her guitar from +its case and sing ballad after ballad with a sprightliness which would +have brought any man to her feet. They played chess in her boudoir, +arranged flowers in the vases, watched the fountain throw up its waters +in the moonlight—in fact lived out the picture which Claude Melnotte +placed before Pauline as his bright ideal of a love life. Yet something +was wanting. Those young hearts, so close together, were far, far away +from each other at times, each busy with its own hidden secret, and each +tempted almost beyond endurance to own everything, and thus get rid of +the one hindrance to a happiness which might have been so complete. + +At times, during that week, Cora had almost wished for some change. She +was not satisfied that Seymour had kept his promise so faithfully, but +would have given anything to see him go in and out as if occupied like +other men. Sometimes she would shut herself up for hours only that she +might feel the pleasure of welcoming him when her door was opened. After +all, I think this one week of unbroken happiness had more effect on the +after fate of these two persons than any one reading this history will +admit. Satiety is a worse evil to deal with than want itself. Love is +sometimes smothered under too much luxury, as honeysuckles and roses +strangle each other when they grow close together. + +Seymour was saved from this by his own troubles. He had an inner life of +apprehension and regrets which lifted him out of the enervating effects +which fell upon his wife so imperceptibly, that she was all unconscious +of the change as the bough from which a ripe pear has fallen. Cora told +the truth, she began to feel a loathing for the home which her taste had +made so beautiful. I think a week, at this time, in the log cabin, which +Seymour could not keep out of his mind, with prairie chickens cooking by +an out-door fire, and fresh water brought from some spring under the +rocks, would have been far better for those two young hearts. Under the +blue sky, with God’s grand old wilderness shading them, they might have +found out the secret of making love immortal. As it was, they were about +to part—he for the woods and the prairies, and the woman for her +ill-gotten home and crime-stricken mother. + +They stood together that morning in the little room of which both would +have been weary but for the anticipation of this parting hour—stood +together with arms interlaced, looking into each other’s faces till +tears blinded them. + +“We have been so happy here,” she sobbed, looking around with new +interest on everything. “Oh! Seymour, Seymour, will this ever come to us +again!” + +The man commenced trembling, and could only answer her with passionate +kisses. With that cloud over his head, how dare he reassure her? + +“You will not forget me?” she pleaded, clinging to him. “Nothing shall +drive me one moment from your heart?” + +“Nothing but death can drive you from this heart, my wife—nothing but +death.” + +“What can I do for you? I would give the world to work for you, suffer +something for you!” + +“Rather be happy for me, sweet wife.” + +“I cannot be that, and you gone.” + +“It will not be for long—I pray to God that it may not be for long,” he +said straining her to his heart. “Do you doubt it; is there a single +fear in your heart that we shall meet again and that speedily?” + +“No, darling, no. I talked at random. Now farewell! Kiss me once more, +again—again! God bless you, Cora. Think kindly of me. Love me, let what +will come. Nothing but death can really part us, remember that, for you +are my wife—no human power can change that. Once more, farewell!” + +“Seymour! Seymour!” + +There was no answer. The door closed and he was gone. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIV. + EUNICE HURD FINDS HER MATCH, AND SO DOES THE HEIRESS. + + +Cora went up to the house on the river, heavy-hearted, but with a +certain sense of relief which she could not quite understand. The +parting scene with her husband had exhausted the sensibility of her +nature. She really thirsted for change. This working out of a secret +romance was getting a little wearisome. Unless she could exhibit this +handsome husband and glory in him, as her own property, with all the +rest of her possessions in full and imperious ownership, marriage seemed +to her almost a failure. In fact it would be the same to any other woman +if she attempted to shut herself out from the world and live to the +music of sweet lutes and all that sort of thing. One might as well +expect to feed on Hymettus honey and May dew gathered from opening +violets and not be ravenous with keen, wholesome hunger in the process. + +Now if Cora’s love for that man had been anything but a willful, selfish +passion from the very first, she would have come out from this +paradisiacal experiment weary of that, certainly, but not of him; she +had not reached this state exactly, but was open to any temptation or +circumstance that might end in utter distaste for the life she had so +rashly entered upon. With all his faults, Seymour possessed the better +nature. He at least loved her honestly, madly—it might prove fatally. + +Once at home and in her own dominions, the heiress assumed her old +position with all the insolence of a woman whose authority had slept for +a season, only to assert itself with increased vigor on the awakening. +She was a woman who forgot nothing which affected her own interest or +pleasure, and who never forgave the person who once offended her. + +Cora’s first object, on going home, was to dismiss Eunice Hurd from her +household. That woman had tacitly repudiated and defied her; she had +become a partisan of the cousin whose very existence was hateful to +herself—for on this earth there is no antipathy equal to that inspired +by a person whom the hater has wronged. + +On the very day she reached home, Cora sent for Eunice, and, in a few +cold, quiet words, gave the woman her discharge. + +Eunice stood stiff and upright, with her nose high in the air, and her +greenish eyes regarding the young lady with a sidelong, sneering +expression, which made Cora’s nerves creep in spite of herself. + +“Here are your wages for the full year, exactly what my aunt has always +paid you. As I give no warning, and expect you to quit the house at +once, it is but fair that you receive full pay for the year. My aunt +will write you a recommendation.” + +“_Your aunt!_” sneered Eunice, with a long-drawn breath. “YOUR AUNT!” + +Cora turned cold, but kept her eyes unflinchingly on the woman, knowing +well that a contest almost of life and death was before her. + +“Yes, I said my aunt. Always having been known as the head of this +house, her recommendation would be better recognized than mine.” + +Cora spoke calmly and without a quiver in her voice to betray the dread +that had seized upon her like a vulture with the first look of those +eyes. She never took her gaze from the woman’s face either. Yet Eunice +saw her advantage and took it, for no self-control could conquer that +shrinking of the person which is the result of sudden fear. + +“I shall take no recommendation from her or you,” said Eunice, slanting +her head from the right shoulder to the left. + +“And why?” + +Never was a question asked with an appearance of more innocent surprise, +and never did forced composure effect less. + +“Because I don’t intend to leave this house, Miss Cora Virginia Lander, +till its owner tells me to go, which she isn’t likely to do in a hurry.” + +It took strong nerves to suppress the trembling which seized on Cora, or +force a natural voice through that contracted throat, but the young +impostor accomplished it, and answered, with a laugh: + +“I have already told you to go—foolish woman, are you waiting for a +second dismissal?” + +“No, I’m not waiting for anything from you, or the like of you; but I +can’t but just keep my hands off you. Who was it sent that poor cretur +home, crying like a baby? Who was it that refused to give her money, to +buy dress with and threatened her with an asylum?” + +“And my aunt told you that?” + +“YOUR MOTHER told me that.” + +Cora arose fiercely—her forehead, her lips, her very hands were whiter +than whiteness, but she confronted her enemy bravely. + +“Woman, who put you up to this?” + +“Who put me up to it? The great God, who will, sooner or later, punish +you for your cruelty to the weak, foolish woman who is crying her life +out up stairs. Don’t speak to me—take your eyes off from my face, they +have got rattlesnakes in ’em!” + +“Woman, are you mad?” + +“Yes, I am mad as blazes—don’t provoke me! don’t I say, or I’ll tear the +nest you have feathered so cunningly all to flinders!” + +“Indeed!—How?” + +Cora was cool and resolute now. In this struggle she was careful not to +lose a point from weakness. She was pale yet, and her eyes glittered +like steel; but she had full control of her voice. Eunice had prepared +her for the worst, and knowing the danger she had to meet, the girl grew +brave and cautious as a tiger. + +“You want to know, do you? Well, I’ll tell you, up and down is my +fashion. You’re a cheat—a humbug—a mean, cruel cheat, and I can prove +it—yes I can! you needn’t widen your eyes at me, I _can_ prove it, and +if it wasn’t for the poor creature up stairs, I’d do it too once. +Attempt to abuse her again, only just look sideways at her, and I’ll +pull the pillars out from under your temple, as Job did in the Bible. +You had her for awhile, but I’ve got her now. When she haint got no one +else to go to she comes to me—I’ll stand by her, never fear.” + +“What has my aunt told you, pray?” + +Cora was cautiously drawing out all the power Eunice possessed, but the +woman was not deficient in her own craft. + +“I didn’t need her to tell anything; I have got my own eyes and ears; I +can ask questions, if I ain’t over quick to answer ’em. The man who came +up on the same cars with you that night is on hand when I want him—oh +yes, that makes you hop, does it—kinder stirs up the rattlesnake in them +eyes. But that isn’t all. That man was used to climbing ladders, and he +did it.” + +“Woman, you lie!” + +The words broke from Cora’s lips sharp and venomous; she shook from head +to foot with mingled rage and desperation. + +“You wore a blue merino dress and left a piece on it behind you. That +dress you was kind enough to pitch at me one day. It was torn and you +was too much of a lady to mend it. That accounts for my having the +dress, but it don’t account for the piece that you left sticking to the +rose-bush under Mrs. Lander’s bed-room winder, which piece I took oft +that morning, and which piece I matched with the dress after you pitched +it at me over them bannisters; it was an awful scragly tear, and it +fitted to a T. I’ve got the dress and the piece safe and sure.” + +“Fool! I have not worn that dress for ages—I am in: mourning.” + +“Of course, and for that reason didn’t wear black that night, but put on +the only other dress you had, the one you had jumped overboard in. It +smells of salt water yet. That’s another clincher! Besides there’s a +place in the front breadth which that little humpbacked girl up stairs +darned for you after you got a shipboard again. I know all about it. Old +moles are as cute as young ones any day.” + +“This dress is nothing to me; I have not worn it since we went on shore +from the wreck—no creature on earth has ever seen me wear it.” + +“Oh, wasn’t there? What was the conductor a doing when you opened that +gray cloak to take out your ticket? What was the man a doing who knows +how to climb ladders when he sees ’em at a lady’s winder? What was the +other conductor a doing who took up a passenger who wore a blue dress +and gray cloak after midnight at the station down here? Wimmen in these +parts don’t start on journeys often after midnight, and when they do the +conductors are apt to eye ’em sharp. That one did eye his passenger with +the blue dress very sharp, for he saw her get into what they call a +hotel coach and that went to the very place you was all putting up at. +Oh! I am nigh upon as wide awake as you are, Miss!” + +A gleam of sharp intelligence shot over Cora’s pale face; while the +woman was talking, a smile of assured triumph came to her lips. + +“What is all this to me, woman? I know nothing of the matter. If any one +came here that night, it was my cousin. From the first she was resolved +to claim my inheritance. What more probable than that she should have +stolen away and attempted to gain her mother over to the plot. Now that +you tell me these things, I have no doubt of it.” + +Eunice stood aghast; her mouth fell, her eyes fairly quivered with +astonishment. + +“For her sake we had better say nothing about it,” resumed Cora, +blandly; “it would throw discredit on the family were it known that a +person so young, and always respectable till now, had contemplated so +base a fraud. Of course her mother will keep the secret, and, in pity +for my cousin, you must be silent, Eunice. There is no sacrifice that I +would not make to protect her reputation. The knowledge of this unhappy +attempt to defraud me of my birthright gives you a hold upon the family, +Eunice. Remain with us, if it pleases you, and keep that dress in your +possession; it may be wanted as proof yet. I remember now, it was in my +cousin’s trunk when we came ashore. There does seem to be something +providential in your having found the piece. Take especial care of it, +Eunice.” + +Eunice Hurd was not altogether subdued, but she stood her ground like an +Indian woman from whom the enemy has stolen a quiver of arrows. She was +defeated but not convinced. This permission to remain was, after all, a +kind of triumph, and she was preparing to withdraw her forces in +tolerable order, when Cora spoke again. + +“You are right, Eunice, I should have been more liberal with my aunt; +the knowledge that her daughter entertained this nefarious design—” + +“Ne—ne—what?” interrupted Eunice. + +“Nefarious—it means wicked, Eunice.” + +“Oh,” ejaculated the old maid, “that’s it, is it?” + +“As I was saying, Eunice, you have been a trusty servant in the family +for years, and are no doubt almost indispensable.” + +“Inde what?” questioned Eunice again, growing snappish as Cora became +blander and sweeter. + +“A person that she cannot do without; that is the spirit of my word, +Eunice, and I dare say you and I will get along very nicely together +after we know each other thoroughly. Now that I have learned the secret +cause of my aunt’s irritability, I would not deprive her of your +services for the world. Are we friends now, Eunice?” + +Cora held out her white hand with the most winning grace imaginable, but +Eunice clenched her bony fingers and put the hand behind her, angry at +herself for being so tempted by that smiling manner. + +“We are friends, Miss, just so long as you treat that poor lady, for she +is a lady, well and with kindness. She has always been mistress here, +and I won’t obey nobody else. She’s always been used to having plenty of +money, and that she’s a going to have.” + +“Why, Eunice, what do you think of me? Am I a tyrant or a miser, that +you insist on these things? Was not my father always generous to her and +my cousin? Was not that ungrateful girl educated at my father’s cost +exactly as I was educated? I know he loved these two helpless women, +and, notwithstanding my cousin’s attempt to wrong me, I am anxious, in +all things, to carry out my father’s wishes. When the estate is settled, +my aunt and cousin shall each have a fixed income. I promise it on the +honor of a Lander.” + +“You mustn’t stint her now. She’s got to have all she wants.” + +“Of course.” + +“Nor the young creature up stairs. It’ll be dangerous, now I tell you—” + +“Do you think her so insane as that, Eunice?” + +“Insane! stuff! She is no more crazy than you are!” + +“I am sorry to hear that, Eunice. It would have been some excuse for her +conduct.” + +“Her conduct?” + +“Yes. That midnight visit to the house seems very like the freak of a +crazy person. I hope it was! In charity, I hope it was!” + +Cora had controlled herself wonderfully through this scene; she carried +everything before her so adroitly that her spirits rose almost to +elation at its close. For this once she had escaped and forced down the +peril that threatened her, but she felt the necessity not only of +conciliating this shrewd woman, but of obtaining in herself a reputation +for great liberality and kindness. The generous nature of Amos Lander’s +child was too well known for an abrupt change of character to be +accepted readily. This sudden fright, brought on by her first effort to +play the despot, had warned her of the peril in time. + +Mrs. Lander had returned to her home almost broken-hearted. It was with +great difficulty that she kept back her secret from Eunice, who might +have won it from her had she not already gathered it up by her own +ingenuity. But this interview with Cora had so completely demoralized +her facts that Eunice resolved to win more positive knowledge from the +lady herself. But even here the young woman had been too quick for her. +Scarcely had Eunice made what she considered a victorious retreat, when +Cora went to Mrs. Lander’s room, for the first time since her return +home. She found that lady seated by the bed in her room, looking over a +quantity of mourning dresses, rich in themselves, but from which the +first freshness was gone. The sight of those crape folds, crumpled and +taking a brownish tinge from use, filled her heart more than a thousand +harsh words could have done, with a sense of her daughter’s cruelty. + +“Oh! it is dreadful,” she exclaimed, looking at the dresses through her +tears. “They are absolutely growing foxy, and she won’t permit me to get +all the new ones I want nor to freshen them up with jet. I proposed +that, and she said no, as if I had been a child or a servant. _He_ never +did that by me—oh, my good, kind brother! I thought it hard not to +control everything when he was alive, but what was that compared to the +life I lead with I her?—and she my own child, to whom I gave +everything—cursing myself to do it. These old things, she said were +quite good enough to last the year out. She had heaps of new dresses, to +my knowledge, at the dressmaker’s at the very time. An English crape, +worth all these together, covered with such a lovely pattern in +bugles—silks that would stand alone—grenadines, and I don’t know what. +_She_ must brighten up her mourning, indeed, but as for me, old +bombazines and alpacas are good enough!” + +Mrs. Lander was giving way to thoughts like these when Cora entered the +room. Mrs. Lander uttered a little scream, and started from her chair, +feeling strangely guilty, as if the thoughts she had just indulged in +had been made known to her daughter. + +“Oh! Cora, is it you at last?” she exclaimed, turning away her face to +hide the tears that stained it. + +A white arm stole caressingly around her neck; two warm lips were +pressed to her cheek. She turned and threw both arms around her +daughter. + +“Oh! Cora, Cora, how could you be so cruel to me?” + +“Dear mother, I am _so_ sorry.” + +Mrs. Lander burst into tears and fell to raining kisses on that upturned +face, which looked to her so beautiful with that expression of penitence +upon it. + +“Darling mamma; so you have been fretting over my crossness—thinking me +stingy, and that hatefullest of all things, a miser—have you? Stingy to +you, above all creatures on earth! How could you believe it? Something +had gone wrong with me; I was vexed, and you, mamma, were just a little +unreasonable. I had been spending so much money—and so had you.” + +“Why, not so very much for me. Cora, those crapes and things were very +expensive, I know, richer by half than mine—but the cost was nothing to +you, with so much money in the bank.” + +“Oh yes, I know all about that. It wasn’t so much the money, but other +things. Besides, you went off on a tangent and hurt my feelings so. I +waited and waited, thinking that you would come back, but love for the +dear cross mamma was too strong. I had to follow her at last. Now kiss +me and let us be friends.” + +The heart of that poor woman rose and swelled with such tenderness as +only a mother can feel. She kissed the fair face lifted to hers over and +over again. She took it between her hands and gazed fondly upon it +through the happy tears that would come rushing to her eyes. + +“Oh! Cora, you do love me a little,” she said, in her pathetic longing +for the affection so long withdrawn from her. “We might be so happy if +you only loved me.” + +“We are—we will be happy—I have come here determined on it. Come, come, +forget and forgive! How long it seems since I have seen you!” + +“Miserably long, my child!” + +“Still, it is only a week—such a week! One sometimes crowds so much +happiness into a week that it answers for a lifetime. Don’t you think +so, mamma?” + +“Happiness! You mean misery, child. Neither of us can have been very +happy the last week, I am sure.” + +“Happiness—did I say that, and you with tears in these dear eyes all the +time? Of course I meant unhappiness, but one does drop syllables so when +the heart is full.” + +Mrs. Lander laughed, and smoothed Cora’s hair back from her forehead. + +“What are you about here?” inquired the daughter. “What a pile of +dresses!” + +“They are my old mourning. I was just ready to send for Eunice and see +if they couldn’t be freshened and pressed out.” + +Cora gave the pile of dresses a push with her hand. + +“Give them away. Eunice will look lovely in black—give her your whole +wardrobe. To-morrow we will go to the city and get an entire outfit. The +dressmaker is working for you now.” + +“Second mourning—shall it be second mourning, Cora?” + +“Just as you please. Yes, for my part, I should much prefer that. By the +time the estate is settled entirely, we can come out in white and silver +gray.” + +“Lavender for you—it will be lovely with your hair.” + +“Do you think so?—Oh, Eunice, is that you? Come in and carry this pile +of dresses away. My aunt will not wear them any more. She has had enough +of bombazines, and is coming out with something brighter. My cousin, +too, we must order new dresses for her—she will never do it for +herself.” + +There was a gleam in Cora’s eye and a mocking smile on her lip, which +informed Eunice that she had just came too late if she expected to take +advantage of the quarrel which had sent Mrs. Lander home half +distracted. So, with answering self-composure and craft, she gathered up +the dresses in her arms and carried them away. On her progress down +stairs, she met Ellen Nolan and stopped to speak with her. + +“Tell Miss Virginia to come down to her meals as usual—I don’t want no +change,” she said. “Miss Cora promises to behave herself, and I guess +she will.” + +“My lady has decided how to act; she will come down. She, at any rate, +has nothing to be ashamed of.” + +Thus a sort of hollow truce was arranged, and, by mutual consent, all +subjects calculated to create discord were avoided. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXV. + CLARENCE BROOKS. + + +A stranger arrived by the railway and came up from the river hotel to +pay his respects to the family. He had been a travelling companion and +old friend of Amos Lander in Europe, who had so earnestly invited him to +visit the family should he come to America, that he was searching the +neighborhood for that purpose, where he had first heard of Mr. Lander’s +death. + +The card which the man sent up to the mistress of the house bore the +name of “Clarence Brooks.” + +Cora received the card in her room, and went down to meet her guest +sedate and thoughtful, as became an only child within a year of her +father’s death. She found a tall young man—that is, a man of some two or +three and thirty—standing by one of the reception-room windows, looking +out upon the prospect. The scenery was beautiful from that point, for a +group of the Highland fountains rose above each other along a sharp +curve of the river, which took the appearance of a mountain lake so +completely that it was impossible to believe there was a broad inlet or +outlet in that green entanglement of hills. The railroad, running under +the terrace, was entirely concealed, and, with the exception of a +mansion just visible on the opposite shore, everything beyond the house +seemed wild as it was beautiful. + +Cora, whose footsteps were lost in the moss-like thickness of the +carpet, walked quietly up to the window and spoke. + +“You will find nothing more beautiful on the Rhine,” she said. + +“Nor anywhere else, so far as my experience goes,” answered the +gentleman, turning one of those clearly cut manly faces upon her that +impress you with a sense of greatness at the first sight, and regarding +her with two fine gray eyes, that smilingly searched her through and +through. + +“It is a lovely scene.” + +She stood by his side and looked out upon the landscape he praised. It +was autumn now, and all those hills broke up in one wild flush of dying +colors, the crimson and golden maples—the deep purplish red of the +oak—the soft, pale maize-color of the ash, and spotted red of the gum +tree mingled and massed their sumptuous foliage together so richly, that +the waters of the river, as it weltered under the shadows at sunset or +in the morning, seemed filtering through broken jewels and sands of +gold. It was near sunset now and the effect was beautiful. + +“I have never seen anything so strikingly beautiful,” he said, turning +so slowly from her face to the scene, that she was puzzled to know which +he was really praising. + +“There is nothing like our woods in the autumn, when a sharp frost comes +suddenly. We had one last night, and you see the result.” + +“It is worth coming across the Atlantic, if only seen for an hour,” he +answered, again falling to the perusal of her face, which wore its most +delicate bloom that day. + +“I, for one, am grateful to the frost if it makes you so in love with my +country, Mr. Brooks.” + +“And I am a thousand times grateful that it is seen in its richest +beauty by the side of my old friend’s daughter.” + +Cora started and her color changed; she never could hear Amos Lander’s +name with composure; it seemed like calling upon her judge to come out +of his watery grave and denounce her. + +The stranger saw this sudden change in her face, and remembering how her +father died, fell into deep sympathy with her grief at once. + +“I have a letter from your father, Miss Lander, written only two days +before he took passage on that unfortunate vessel. It contained an +invitation to this house. Will you read it?” + +Cora was glad to take the letter, and thus get back her self-control. +She reached forth her hand, but drew it back again, shuddering as the +paper touched her fingers. + +It seemed as if her crime must be written out in a letter sent so near +upon her uncle’s death. + +Mr. Brooks observed this movement, and, mistaking its meaning, unfolded +the letter before he offered it to her again. + +“It may give you pain, dear lady, but as you are mentioned in it so +lovingly, the pleasure will overbalance all.” + +Cora took the letter, and read it through in the light of the window. + + +“MY DEAR BROOKS,” it commenced, “we sail for my own blessed land in +three days from this—that is, I, a niece, who has been at school with my +daughter, and the dear child herself. I wish you had seen her, my +friend. Never, I do think, was a father so blessed in his child as I am, +and ever have been. I do not know as you will think her beautiful; to my +eyes she—well, I will not say all that a fond old man may think of his +only child—besides, in this respect, my niece shares admiration with +her. Strangers, I assure you, can hardly tell them apart. But to me the +difference is as great as that which lies between sunshine and +gas-light. Not that my brother’s orphan is an inferior girl—far from +it—but my young wife’s spirit does not look out of her eyes, and the +sweet, gentle, yet exalted nature of my young wife does not dwell in her +heart, at any rate for me. + +“Come to us, my friend. I am your senior by many years, it is true, but +we have enjoyed life together before now, and will again, God willing. +That which we were talking of must be kept a secret between us. The dear +child must not be influenced even by a shadow of suspicion that her +father wishes her happiness in that form. But come, and we two will +watch for the first blush that gives us hope. This idea has been the one +dream of my life—in all other things I am a practical and commonplace +moneymaking man. But, where she is concerned, I am romantic as a poet. +Am I praising her too much? Will this enthusiasm of a worn-out old heart +lead your imagination astray? No, it is impossible—never on this earth +was there a better child. Remember, I do not dwell upon her beauty—of +that I am no judge. They tell me she looks like the Landers,—that is, +the women of our family,—and this must be true or people would not so +often mistake her for my brother’s orphan. But, in the soul, the +expression, there is no shadow of resemblance—there, as I have said, my +girl is her mother over again. + +“Come to us, my friend, and see what a grand, noble country you were +born in. Make my house your home. I only wish fortune had not dealt so +bountifully with you; for then I might hope that some commercial +advantages that I can control would keep you near me, even though—. But +that subject is too sacred for a letter. + +“You are going East, the last letter tells me—up the Nile and over the +Holy Land. I hope your travelling companion will prove all that you +think him, but sudden fancies of that kind sometimes prove dangerous. + +“God bless you. + + AMOS LANDER.” + + +The blood had receded from Cora’s face when she first took this letter; +for she would rather have strangled an flip in her hand than touch the +writing of a man whose child she had sacrificed; but it came back hot +and red long before she had concluded the reading. Clarence Brooks saw +this and smiled softly; he thought those bright blushes came from a +consciousness of Amos Lander’s meaning, so vaguely expressed in the +letter. + +“It was the last letter he ever wrote, I feel quite certain,” he said. + +Cora could hardly refrain from crushing the paper in her hand. + +“He does not speak over kindly of me—my cousin, who was an orphan and at +his mercy,” she said, in a voice that trembled more with anger than +grief. + +“Miss Lander!” + +The voice in which this name was uttered put her on her guard at once. + +“I loved my father dearly—dearly,” she said, with quick moisture in her +eyes. “But this young girl is so helpless, so dependent. His brother’s +daughter, too—with all her faults. But he was wise—he understood her +better than I can. Oh! father, father, forgive me if, for one moment, I +thought you a little unjust and forgot all that has happened since!” + +She kissed the letter in what seemed a passion of tender remorse, and +flinging herself in a chair, turned her face to the cushions and sobbed +audibly. + +Clarence Brooks walked to a distant window and looked out, a little +disturbed by this scene. He rebuked himself for the tone in which he had +addressed her, and was anxious to make some apology. In a few moments +Cora came toward him, wiping her eyes with a tiny handkerchief bordered +with black an inch deep. + +“Forgive me,” she said, “I did not mean to give way but the sight of his +dear handwriting was a terrible shock. Then so many things have +conspired against my cousin, and those who cannot love her as I have +will not take the charitable side of this question. No one but her poor +mother and myself—but I forget, you are a stranger to us all.” + +“No, not quite a stranger. One who knew the father so well and loved him +so entirely cannot be considered in that light, surely, where the +daughter is concerned.” + +“Indeed, you seem to me like a friend!” + +“That I will be, Miss Lander, if you permit it.” + +She smiled through the tears that still hung on her lashes. + +“If I permit it? He loved you; that letter proves it.” + +“Yes, he loved me well enough—” + +Brooks paused, colored, and added, “well enough to invite me here.” + +“There was something else to which my father seemed to allude, as if +there existed some plan, some hope?” + +No lamb that ever followed its mother with his mouth full of white +clover ever looked more innocent than Cora when she asked that question. +Clarence Brooks felt the blood mounting to his face under those wistful +eyes, but answered, evasively: + +“Oh, that was nothing—only a little plan we had in common.” + +“Commercial?” she inquired. + +“Perhaps it might be considered so.” + +“Certainly, I remember that last sentence. Poor papa never could quite +give up business.” + +“Some time, perhaps, I shall desire to explain his plans more fully,” +said the gentleman; “when you are more composed and I shall have been +fortunate enough to obtain your confidence.” + +She smiled sweetly upon him. + +“I have no talent for business,” she said; “still his wishes, I think, +would come to me by heart. But I am very thoughtless. My aunt will fancy +that I am assuming her prerogatives; she does not know that you are +here.” + +Cora rang the bell, gave directions to the man who presented himself to +inform Mrs. Lander that a gentleman was waiting to see her, and then she +resumed her seat again, breathing a little quickly. + +Mrs. Lander came into the room sweeping her black garment slowly down +its whole length, and looking a little terrified, as had become her +habit now when any person called upon her unexpectedly. + +“Aunt, dear aunt, this gentleman, Mr. Clarence Brooks, brings a letter +from my father.” + +“Your father, Cora?” cried the widow, beginning to tremble. “Why he has +been dead years and—” + +“Not quite a year yet, dear aunt,” said Cora, with a quick catch of the +breath. Then turning to Brooks, she added, in a low voice, “The shock +affects her yet; she cannot hear his name mentioned without this +confusion of thought.” + +“Was he a friend of Amos Lander’s?” questioned the widow, looking from +the stranger to Cora. + +“Yes, aunt, a very dear friend.” + +“And he has a letter from him, written by his own hand? How can that he? +The dead do not write.” + +“It was his last letter, lady, written just before he sailed.” + +“On that fatal ship—for fatal it has been to me—fatal it will prove to +us all, I solemnly believe! Did you also escape?” + +“No, Madam, I never was on board. Some months before Lander sailed, I +had turned to the East. His letter followed me into the Holy Land.” + +“Where none of us will ever follow him!” muttered the widow, seating +herself drearily. + +Brooks did not catch her words, but he was struck by the singular manner +of the woman. There was absolute terror in her eyes as she turned them +upon him. + +“It must have been a terrible shock to affect her so,” he thought. “Even +the daughter, who shared his danger, bears it with more fortitude.” + +“Do you wish to see my father’s letter?” said Cora, gently. + +Mrs. Lander made a sudden gesture of repulsion. + +“It will be a pang at first, but—” + +“Yes, Cora, I will read it. If he has left a wish that I can fulfill, +weak and hampered as I am, I would give my life to accomplish it. That +would be something to show how sorry I am for—for—” + +“Dear aunt, we know how much you regret his death. Take the letter to +your room and read it there—Mr. Brooks will excuse you.” + +Mrs. Lander took the letter and went out. Cora excused herself with a +gesture and followed her into the next room. + +“Do you wish to ruin me, and yourself also, that you take that paper as +if it were a rattlesnake, and talk like an insane person? I tell you +this gentleman must be received cordially. He knew Amos Lander well, and +is a man of mark, or I know nothing about it. Invite him to remain, and +enforce the invitation by something like cheerfulness. It is my wish!” + +“Then, if I must be cheerful, take the letter; I won’t read it!” +answered the harassed woman. + +“There, there, take it to your room and do as you like about reading it, +though I think you will find something in his last words to rouse your +pride a little. For my part, I am glad this gentleman brought it. If I +had one scruple, it has vanished now. Read it, read what he says about +us and about her. It will bring the color to your white face, I +warrant.” + +“I will read it,” answered Mrs. Lander. “After all, it’s nothing but +writing. That cannot kill one.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVI. + A LETTER FROM THE DEAD. + + +Mrs. Lander went up to her room and read the letter through. It brought +the blood to her cheek and the old pride into her heart. “Did he think +her everything, and my child the dirt under his feet—and this to a +stranger? Well, we shall see how it works now that my girl stands first +and foremost! As if his child was the only person worth speaking of! +Cora is right. I do feel as if it wasn’t so very wrong—as if she was +born to the place. Isn’t one Lander as good as another? Was Amos one +whit better than his brother because everything turned to gold for him +and iron for my husband? Cora is right; property belongs to those who +have the power to hold it. That was the origin of all property; why +should the rule be changed now? As for Virginia, she never would have +made anything of it all; she has not even the spirit to fight for it. +Cora, now, would have done that, and conquered too. But she must be +very, very good to Amos’ daughter—that I will _insist_ upon.” + +In her indignation, Mrs. Lander had flung the letter on a table, and was +walking up and down the room firing her resolution with thoughts like +these, when Eunice opened the door. + +“What’s the matter now?” she said, in her curt, dry way. “Some +highflying feller has come, so the men tell me, and acts as if he was +going to stay all his life. Now I want to know the truth on’t.” + +“Yes, a gentleman has come, Eunice—a very fine-looking man indeed. He +brought a letter from Amos Lander.” + +“Amos Lander! Well now, that heats me! Has Amos Lander come to life as +well as the rest on ’em? I’m glad on it. Now we shall see who’s who!” + +“Eunice Hurd, how can you talk so wickedly? Amos wrote the letter before +he sailed on that terrible steamer. Of course he’s fathoms and fathoms +under water.” + +“Oh, he is, is he? Well, dead men tell no tales—I wish they did. Anyhow, +who is this feller, and what does he want?” + +“He’s a gentleman Amos knew abroad, Eunice. I can’t stay to tell you +more; my niece will expect me back—I only came out to read the letter. +Is my hair all right—does this dress sweep gracefully? Do, for once, be +good-natured and tell me. I declare it seems like old times to have +company in the house!” + +Away Mrs. Lander swept with something of her old spirit and grace, +leaving Eunice standing in the middle of the room, struck dumb with +astonishment. + +“Well!” she ejaculated, “well, this does take me right off from my feet! +Hoity-toity, how we do spread our feathers! That Eliza Lander is enough +to tire the patience of Job and all the other Bible folks that were sot +up for I patience. Now, this morning she was broken-hearted, ready to go +into a Methodist class-meeting and confess more sins than the +class-leaders could listen to in a week. Now she’s all ago putting on +airs like a girl, and ready to stand by that young serpent to the last. +I can see that in her eyes. I wonder what has done all this.” + +The open letter offered a solution of these doubts. Mrs. Lander, in her +haste and excitement, had forgotten it on the table. Eunice seized upon +it and soon mastered its contents, spelling out the words aloud and +making her comments as she went on. + +“Oh yes, his daughter is all in all. Well now, she was a purty cretur, +and kind as kind could be. Of course Eliza’s girl was no more to be +compared to her than chalk’s like cheese—a hateful, stuck-up cretur, +that hadn’t heart enough to be grateful, though Amos Lander did treat +her as if she’d been a princess instead of—well now, I mustn’t talk +about that out loud, if I am alone.” Eunice muttered all this over to +herself, then fell to reading the letter with earnestness, and went on +with her comments. “I didn’t think Amos Lander was ’cute enough to find +out the difference between them two girls. He allays treated ’em so much +alike. I saw it clear enough. They didn’t seem scarcely a bit alike to +me. When nobody else could tell ’em apart, I knew which from which by +the look of the eye and the bend of the head. That’s a thing one isn’t +always free to swear to, but it satisfies me. Oh! if Eliza Lander wasn’t +what she is, I’d set things to rights in less ’en twenty-four hours. I +wonder if they’ll let her see this—poor thing. It’s the last line her +father ever wrote, I’ll be bound. She shall have it—they shan’t keep +this from her with the rest.” + +Eunice obeyed this impulse, and took the letter up to Virginia, who was +practising her noble voice in the remote room assigned to her. + +“Here, take this and just tuck it in your bosom if you want to keep it,” +she said, flinging the letter down upon the piano. “It may be a comfort +to you, and it mayn’t—I don’t know, but if anybody in this house has a +right to read it, you have.” + +Virginia took the letter and read it through. Eunice stood by and +watched her with interest. She saw the color retreat from that beautiful +face as the poor girl recognized the handwriting; then it came back, +swelling the delicate blue veins and flushing the whole face with a +pressure of tender weeping. + +“Oh! how he loved me—how he did love me!” she cried pressing the paper +to her lips with mournful rapture. + +“Eunice, had you given me back every dollar my father was worth, I +should not have been more thankful. Who was the letter written to? How +came it in your hands? Be kind, dear Eunice, and tell me all about it.” + +“Now don’t be making an old fool of me—don’t now, I can’t stand it. The +letter was sent to a man that is in the house this minute—a first-rate +looking chap, with an air as if he was President of the United States +and King of the Sandwich Islands thrown in. He was an old friend of +your—of Amos Lander—and I like his looks, what I saw of ’em through the +door.” + +Virginia was reading her father’s letter a second time. + +“What does he mean? Is it something that relates to me, I wonder?” she +thought. “But all the letter is about me. How the gentleman will be +disappointed. Who ever will regard me with my father’s eyes? Alas! alas! +and he is dead! God help me! if I could have gone down in his arms, what +a mercy it would have been! This great crime would have been spared to +Cora, and I should have been so much happier.” + +“Hope the gentleman won’t be disappointed in Mr. Lander’s daughter,” +broke in Eunice. “She’s making herself agreeable now, I tell you.” + +Virginia looked up wonderingly. For the moment she had forgotten that +Cora was in the house. + +“And will she take my father’s friend from me? The man he seems to have +loved so dearly?” + +“I don’t see how you are to help it.” + +“I will go down and speak with him.” + +“And what will you tell him? That letter musn’t kick up no row. It isn’t +the time, and I won’t have Eliza Lander thrown into hysterics, if I can +help it.” + +“I will tell him that I am Miss Lander.” + +“But you won’t be particular about the which Miss Lander, will you now, +that’s a good girl?” + +“Have no fear about that—I shall provoke no dispute. But the man who was +my father’s friend I must and will welcome under my father’s roof. It +matters very little whether he thinks me the mistress or a guest here. +My father wished me to know him, and I will.” + +“Well, I reckon I’d do purty much the same thing; your—that is, Amos +Lander did intend you to know one another, I’m sure of that from the +letter—that is, supposing you are—mercy on me! one does get tangled up +so, it’s dreadful talking at all!” + +Ellen Nolan was sitting in another part of the room, writing with such +earnestness that she did not heed what was passing near the piano; but +she heard Eunice now, and looked up. + +“Come here,” said Eunice; “tell her not to go down and raise a muss. +That’s a York word I despise, but it will get into one’s mouth unawares. +But don’t let her raise a muss with a stranger in the house. It’s none +of his business which is which.” + +“But I don’t intend to make a disturbance, Eunice.” + +“Well, then don’t go down. It’ll make me sick as rank pison to see her a +introducing you.” + +“You are right, Eunice; I will not take any part in the imposition which +places me in a false light before this man or any other person. At first +I was excited and rash. To present myself in any other character than my +own would be to sanction a fraud.” + +“If the gentleman is worth knowing, he will not like you the less +because you can not present yourself as an heiress,” said Ellen, in a +low voice. + +“True, Ellen. I will take no part in his reception.” + +“That’s a good girl. Give out rope—give out rope—if she’s wrong. I don’t +say she is, though; but supposing she’s wrong, she’ll hang herself at +last. Be sartain of that.” + +Eunice went out with these words on her lips, leaving Virginia and her +companion together. Virginia gave her father’s letter to Ellen. + +“_He_ so wanted me to know this gentleman,” she said, regretfully. “I +have heard him speak of Mr. Brooks a hundred times on the passage, and +before that.” + +“Who is Mr. Brooks, lady?” + +“He is an American by birth, the son of a banker who spent his life in +London, having moved there when this young gentleman was a lad. My +father knew his father before he left this country, and has always +considered the younger Brooks almost as a son. I think there was some +unusual friendship between the families while our parents were young men +together. At any rate they were fast friends for life.” + +“Have you ever seen this Mr. Brooks?” + +“No; my father said that he had written to invite him here, and seemed +to think much of it. He described him to me as good and noble—a man +among men. He appeared to wish that I should consider him as a brother.” + +Ellen read the letter seriously. + +“He seems to have some unexplained idea here—some hope only hinted at.” + +“Oh, they had business together; I think there was some talk about +establishing a banking house in New York to co-operate with that in +London.” + +Ellen smiled faintly, but kept her eyes on the letter. + +“I think Eunice was right,” she said at last. “Yes, she is right.” + +Virginia sighed heavily, the oppressive weariness of that most wretched +life was beginning to tell upon her. It was hard to turn aside from the +closest friend her father had. But that, like the rest, she must give up +or enter upon a contest from which humiliation or sure defeat might +follow. For half an hour she walked up and down her room feverish with +anxiety. No poor fly in the net of a spider ever felt the thrall of its +imprisonment more keenly than she did. She could have given up the +property with but little regret. Never having learned the power or value +of money, it was of minor importance to her. But to remain under that +roof, to live with the woman who had so wronged her, and not exhibit the +slow indignation that crept upon her stronger and stronger every day, +was fast growing into a torture. + +“What have I done—how have I deserved this treatment?” she cried out at +last. “Am I or am I not Amos Lander’s child? How can a wise and just +being look on and see such terrible iniquity prosper?” + +“Hush, lady! this does not seem like yourself. The Being you speak of +bides his own time. Wait patiently.” + +“And see my patrimony taken from me—know that my father’s dearest friend +is to be swept from the lowly path she has doomed me to tread—alone. Oh! +it is beyond belief—beyond bearing! I _must_ do something, or go mad!” + +“No, dear lady, you will not go mad; that is exactly what they want.” + +Virginia listened angrily. She was indeed out of all patience. The life +that lawyer Stone recommended had become unendurable. Must she wait +forever in that dull agony of living? Shut out from friends—forbidden to +make acquaintances by her false position—a prisoner, chained down by +circumstances more potent than iron shackles? Better break through it +all—give up everything and strike out boldly for a new life. + +Ellen looked up as her mistress paced the room to and fro with fire in +her eyes and defiance on her lips. “Now,” she thought, “Not even I could +tell her from her cousin. That very tread is alike; with what imperious +pride she walks. How the color wakes and trembles in her face. Thank +Heaven, it cannot last.” + +That moment Virginia sunk to the music stool, dropped her folded arms on +the instrument, and her face fell upon them, half smothering the burst +of tears that shook her from head to foot. + +“Oh, it is cruel! it is cruel!” she moaned. “If I only knew how to act!” + +Ellen’s arms were around her in an instant, gentle kisses stirred her +hair and fell upon her neck. + +“Be patient—oh! be patient,” whispered that sweet voice. “God _is_ just. +Wait and see.” + +Virginia lifted her head and swept the hot tears from her eyes. + +“Ellen, I—I—really think this is jealousy. How foolish! I never saw this +gentleman in my life; but the thought that she assumes my place with him +hurts me worse than the loss of all this property. There, you see how +weak I am!” + +Ellen answered with a kiss so fervent that it was far more eloquent than +words. + +A servant knocked at the door. Miss Lander’s compliments—there was a +gentleman below who had known Mr. Lander, and would like to see Miss +Virginia. + +“Say that Miss Lander is not well, and desires to be excused,” answered +Virginia. “Heaven knows it is the truth,” she said as the man closed the +door after him. “I have worried myself into a headache, Ellen.” + +The poor girl laid herself on a couch and quietly wept herself to sleep. +Never since her father’s death had she been so disturbed. + +Ellen went on with her writing, and in a few moments was so lost in her +subject that she did not hear the long-drawn sighs that came now and +then from that dear slumberer on the couch. This power of concentration +it was which constituted the force of Ellen’s genius. She literally +lived and breathed in the ideal life her mind created. This it was which +gave the girl that untiring industry without which the brightest genius +in life must die out in flashes of poetry and broken efforts at prose. +Those who reach the temple of fame, in these latter days, must work +their way to its very portals, and toil harder and harder after they are +reached, for that which is won by toil must be by toil maintained. + +Clarence Brooks excused himself from accepting the invitation that Mrs. +Lander pressed upon him, to take up his quarters at the house. He had +left his portmanteau at the little hotel just beyond the station, he +said, and would remain there for the present. He should even then claim +hospitality of Mrs. Lander to an unreasonable extent. If he did not +really sleep in the house, they might expect him there half the time, as +he was sure to get terribly weary of his own society. There seemed to be +pleasant drives in the neighborhood; and shooting—he should think there +must be shooting in the back country. Did Miss Lander ride? + +Yes, Cora admitted that she had a tolerable seat on horseback, but since +they had been in mourning she had scarcely cared even to take the air. + +“Oh, that must be remedied,” the gentleman said. “He must run down to +the city and look up a good saddle horse. Was the lady provided with +one?” + +“Oh yes; two ladies’ horses were in the stable—one black as jet, the +other white as snow, which Mr. Lander had himself selected for herself +and his niece before he went abroad.” + +By the way, Mr. Brooks wanted to know if he was not to have the pleasure +of seeing this niece who was in her person so complete a counterpart of +the lady before him. He had heard of such resemblances; but really, in +this case, could hardly think it possible that two persons so entirely +beautiful could exist. + +Here it was that Virginia was sent for. There was no possibility of +keeping her in the background after this, and Cora submitted with +charming grace. Her cousin was just a little peculiar sometimes; but, +for all that, one of the most interesting characters in the world. Mr. +Brooks would be charmed with her—everybody was. + +Here the servant came in and received his orders. Mrs. Lander swept +after him into the hall. + +“Tell her she must come, I insist upon it,” she whispered. “This +gentleman must see our family circle complete.” + +It was some time since any of the servants had cared much about Mrs. +Lander’s wishes. They were the first to ascertain who was in fact +mistress of the house, and veered round accordingly. Before he had taken +three steps this eagerly-given message was forgotten. + +Meantime Clarence Brooks and Cora were talking by the window; for the +gentleman never seemed to weary of looking out upon the soft, smoky air, +and rich coloring of the trees. + +“Black or white—which should it be? His saddle horse must match one of +the young ladies’ ponies. Might he choose at a venture with fair hopes +of adopting her color? Then it should be black.” + +Cora’s eyes sparkled as she lifted them to his face. + +Ah! he had won. Black was her color. Well, his steed should be coal +black and not too large. He did not wish to be overpowering. A ride +under those superb trees would be delightful; he was almost tempted to +run down to the city at once. A day lost that fine weather would be a +misfortune. + +Here the servant came in and delivered Virginia’s message. Cora shook +her head, cast a deprecating glance at her guest, and allowed a gentle +sigh to escape her lips. + +“It is one of her nervous days,” she said, “I am so sorry.” + +“Is your cousin apt to be nervous?” the gentleman inquired. + +“She is a little—just a little excitable, as you may guess from my +father’s letter, but a dear, sweet creature. I am so sorry she is ill!” + +“Yes, I have great compassion for illness of all kinds. My own +experience in that line has been terrible.” + +“Indeed! and you look so thoroughly well!” + +“Yes, you will hardly believe it, but not a year ago the best physicians +of the East gave me up for dead. It was when I lay ill of the Syrian +fever, in Damascus. I must have been in some sort of a fit, for the +natives were urgent to have me buried, and even the physicians were +about to give way, when I came to life again. It was the crisis of my +disorder, and I ran a narrow chance of being buried alive. It isn’t a +pleasant thing to remember even now, I assure you.” + +“It must have been terrible! I have heard of such things, but always +accepted them with some unbelief,” said Mrs. Lander, joining in the +conversation. “Were you conscious?” + +“Yes; that was the most awful part of it. With every nerve stiffened to +iron, and all my senses acutely awake, it was the most exquisite torture +to hear those about my bed discussing my funeral. With closed eyes and +everything but the brain spell-bound, my hearing became unusually keen. +I even heard the rustle of paper two rooms off, when a person I thought +true as steel was searching for the letters of credit I had taken out +for America and carried with me. The sound, to me, was like the shiver +of leaves on a breezy day, yet it must have been faint enough, fer the +man had a light touch.” + +“Did he leave you?” asked Cora, suddenly interested. + +“Yes; but I do not wish to think of that. There might have been +extenuating circumstances, and I loved the fellow so thoroughly that +even now it is a pain to think ill of him.” + +Cora could not press the subject beyond this point; but she was seized +with an eager desire to learn more, and resolved to question her guest +some other time and learn all that there was to know of this singular +event. + +Two days from this, Virginia and Ellen went down to the grove. It was a +lovely afternoon, made brighter and more exhilarating by a sharp frost +that had brought whole rainbows of color in the woods the night before. +The roses were all gone now, but many of the bushes were flushed with +berries red as coral, and a rich variety of chrysanthemums still +brightened the lawn and garden. + +“After all it _is_ a beautiful world,” said Virginia, pausing in her +walk. “One looks at this scene in amazement after being abroad so long. +I wonder how an American can ever content himself in any other land when +this is his home. Look at the hills, Ellen—have you genius enough to +describe what you see there?” + +“Who has?” Ellen replied. “No pen can do it—no pencil can copy it. After +all, God is the great artist.” + +“I am glad the frosts have been so sudden and sharp; they have found +enough sap in the leaves to make them vivid. Look here.” + +Virginia sprang up, snatching at a twig of maple, broke it off with her +hand and held it towards her companion. + +“Here is the most perfect green, fringed so vividly with red that each +leaf might have been traced with vermillion. No painting was ever half +so beautiful. Ah! here comes one quivering down from some tree far off; +deep red, veined all over with maroon color so dark that it looks black +at first sight. Oh! Ellen, no pen of yours or pencil of mine will ever +equal that. Come away, it makes me envious.” + +“Thankful, rather, dear lady.” + +“Well, thankful. So I am, Ellen. While God surrounds us with so much +beauty, we ought to be full of gratitude, and so happy. Come, come, let +us go down to the grove, the leaves are thick there.” + +The girls walked on, chatting cheerfully together; both were young and +full of healthy life. No crime or sense of evil-doing touched the +conscience of either. The very day was enough to make them happy, spite +of their present position—spite of the bereavement which usually +overshadowed them. + +“I know of a chestnut tree that must hang full of burs; the frost last +night has let the nuts out—suppose we go look for them. It makes one +feel like a child again to get into the woods. Oh! there is Joshua Hurd, +coming up the carriage road with two splendid horses! The white one is a +beauty! See how she shakes her mane, and dashes the gravel with that +delicate hoof! Oh! Ellen, I should so like to have a gallop!” + +“I would have one, if I were you, lady. Ask Joshua to saddle that white +beauty. Why not?” + +Virginia shook her head, but that moment Joshua came up, riding the +black horse with a dash and leading the other, who curvetted and danced +over the gravel like some beautiful child tossing her hair to the wind; +the sweeping whiteness of its tail and the mane flowing free, like floss +silk set in motion, gave an air of superb grace to all the creature’s +movements. + +Joshua drew up the black horse and challenged the girls’ admiration of +the creature by his really fine horsemanship. + +“Isn’t she purty as a blackbird, Miss Ellen; jest let me lay my hand on +your head and she’ll whirl round you like a top; never saw the heat of +these ’ere two animals for ladies’ hosses. Which on ’em do you like +best, Miss?” + +“The white one, I think, Joshua.” + +Josh began to whistle. + +“There’s gumption,” he said, patting the white horse with his great +rough hand. “She would have the black one. Wanted to know which Mr. +Lander bought for his own daughter. I told her black was his choice—no +lie, neither, but then he chose it for t’other one—and black she would +have. Why Snowball cost a hundred dollars the most! I sarched her out +myself, and know all about it. She’s yourn anyway, for the other gal +pounced on the black ’un like a hawk on a spring chicken. When do you +want to ride her, Marm?” + +“I’m afraid I shouldn’t he permitted,” said Virginia, speaking to Ellen +in an undertone. + +“I’d like to know who’s a going to stop you when Eunice Hurd says it’s +got to be done, or while Josh Hurd takes care of the hosses? Jest give +the order, and I’ll have her saddle on in no time. Now do, I want to see +this animal on the road dreadfully!” + +“I will think of it, Joshua; thank you very much—another day will do. +Are you sure, old friend, that my—that Mr. Lander bought that horse for +me?” + +“I’m sure he bought it for his own child, and jest as sartin that the +other one never will ride her. I’d drive a nail under her huff if she +was to ask for her.” + +“But why, Joshua, if you recognize her as the mistress of this place?” +asked Ellen, very quietly. + +“Because I aint a heathen, neither am I a justice of the peace. What +belongs to hosses I know all about, and will stand up to like a sojer; +but property belongs to the courts; I may feel bad to see things going +on so, but it’s none of my business. Besides I couldn’t go agin my—my +old mistress; what she says is right. I’m bound to say is right so long +as Eunice don’t go agin it. But bosses is bosses, and no one touches +this white beauty but you, Miss; you may depend on that as sure as your +life.” + +Joshua rode off after this speech, scattering the gravel right and left +as he went. + +“That looks well,” said Ellen, turning to her mistress. + +“It proves that I have one humble friend that I did not count on,” +answered Virginia. “Now for the woods—I long to be in action. Can you +climb, Ellen?” + +“Me!” said the hunchback, looking mournfully down on her person. + +“Oh! forgive me, dear; I am in such spirits to-day, that I talk at +random.” + +“I can pick up chestnuts as fast as any one,” answered Ellen, laughing. +“I can run too—come along.” + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVII. + TELLING WHAT VIRGINIA AND ELLEN FOUND WHILE LOOKING FOR CHESTNUTS. + + +Virginia and Ellen had reached the edge of the woods, and ran like +children down a footpath which led to the little log cabin. On the other +side of the bridge stood a huge chestnut tree, heavy with brown burs, +opened like stars by the frost. Some of its branches overhung the +bridge, which was now bereft of all its ear-jewels and asters, which had +perished long ago with the first cold turn. But quantities of ferns +clung about its arches yet, shedding that delicate perfume on the air +which is only exhaled after a frost has revelled among their long +feathery leaves. + +Virginia and Ellen ran along the bridge, laughing joyously as the +chestnuts rattled over their heads. Virginia gathered up the skirt of +her black dress and began to pick up the nuts, sweeping the beautiful +leaves away with her hand as she searched for them. + +“Oh! Ellen, I remember doing this so often, when Cora and I were little +girls. She was wild as a bird then, and I loved her—you have no idea how +I did love her.” + +Ellen drew close to her mistress, and, holding out her skirt, exhibited +the nuts she had gathered about the bridge. + +“So many!” exclaimed her mistress. “Why, Ellen, you beat me.” + +“Come to the bridge, they lie thick among the fern leaves.” + +Virginia left her place and ran down to the bridge, over which a great +gnarled branch stretched itself horizontally, bristling all over with +burs. + +“If I had a club, or something to beat them down with,” she cried out, +“what quantities we might gather. Stay, I can climb up the sides of the +bridge and shake the bough.” + +“Pray, let me do that for you, Miss Lander,” said a voice from the log +cabin. “You would stand a fair chance of being thrown into the brook.” + +Virginia started, dropped down from the side of the bridge, up which she +was clambering, and stood looking at the cabin window thoroughly +abashed. Who was there? What man had been listening to them? + +“Forgive me, I did not intend to listen,” said Clarence Brooks, coming +through the door, “but really it is dangerous, Miss Lander, and I must +be permitted to help you.” + +Virginia guessed who it was, and make an effort to resume her +tranquillity. + +“You are not so angry at this intrusion that you will not bid me good +morning, I hope?” he continued, gaily. “If so, I shall regret my good +fortune in seeing you again so soon.” + +He paused all at once, and stood on the bridge regarding the young girl +with a puzzled look. Virginia dropped the skirt of her dress and allowed +the chestnuts to rattle over the bridge. + +“I think—I fancy perhaps—that you have mistaken me for my cousin,” she +said, advancing toward him with her hand extended. “If it is Mr. +Clarence Brooks, this is the first time that we have met.” + +“I beg ten thousand pardons, Miss Lander, but the resemblance is so—so +very remarkable—yet when I look on your face there is a difference, +which one feels rather than sees. Now that I have been so careless or so +rude as to force myself upon you, pray let me attack this great bough. +It would have proved too tough for a lady’s management, believe me.” + +Brooks sprang upon the parapet of the bridge, and seizing the huge +chestnut branch, shook it with so much vigor that a storm of nuts came +rattling over the bridge and splashed into the brook on either side. +Here the wavelets seized upon them and went dancing on their way, +laughing, chasing, jostling each other and sending out a ripple of music +all the while. + +The girls darted back and forth, picking up the nuts in wild glee. +Virginia, all careless of the effect, gathered up her skirt again and +dropped nut after nut into it with joyous rapidity. The frills of her +white underskirt fluttered around her daintily clad feet, relieving the +general gloom of her dress. Her straw hat, with its knots and streamers +of black ribbon, had fallen off, exposing a head of hair that would have +driven Titian wild with a wish to paint it exactly as it was done up in +a sumptuous coil back of the head, and rippling in wavy folds away from +the forehead. There certainly was feminine grace and pure guilelessness +in this girl, which Cora never, in her most amiable moments, could hope +to possess. + +“_She_ is what Lander describes. They are alike, yet how unlike,” +thought Clarence Brooks as he grappled the bough, for another hard +shake. “The heiress has dash, brilliancy, self-possession, but this girl +is pure, womanly. How could Lander be so blind? Even a father’s +partiality must have seen the difference.” + +As this thought flashed through his mind, Virginia looked up and +laughed; the supply of nuts was nearly exhausted on the bridge, but +overhead yawned hundreds on hundreds of great clustering burs, to which +the ripe fruit clung in rich abundance. + +“Oh, Mr. Brooks, they are getting scarce down here.” + +The voice was cut short by a tornado rushing over the great chestnut +bough, and such a storm of nuts came pattering around her that she cried +out for mercy, as well as she could for laughter. + +Down he sprang from the side of the bridge and began scattering the +gorgeous drifts of ripe leaves about with his hands, shaking out the +nuts and filling Virginia’s skirt with such perseverance that she soon +began to feel oppressed by the weight. + +“Come this way and empty your nuts on the cabin floor; we must not leave +these for the squirrels,” said Brooks. “Take my arm and I will help you +up this rough slope. Here we are, with room enough for a dozen bushels. +There, now you are free to begin again.” + +Virginia laughed and dusted her hands, knocking the rosy palms together +in childish glee. + +“What a quantity! and we so little time about it! Why the old monster +must have bushels and bushels on its upper branches. Would you believe +it, Mr. Brooks, we used to climb ever so high in that chestnut tree when +we were girls. It was great fun, I can tell you!” + +“Suppose I climb it now?” + +“Well, if you like it; I’m sure there is no danger. But where is +Ellen?—we have run away from her.” + +Brooks leaned out of the window. + +“No,” he said, “she is down among the fern leaves. What a strange little +creature it is.” + +“Sir,” answered Virginia, “she is an angel.” + +“I shouldn’t exactly look for an angel in that form.” + +“But you would. Her face is splendid when she thinks brightly or feels +deeply. To me, that girl is beautiful.” + +“Love makes all things beautiful. It even made your uncle think his +daughter more lovely than his niece.” + +The light went out of Virginia’s face instantaneously, and her eyes +filled with a rush of tears, so sudden and impetuous that they startled +even his composed nature. + +“No, no, he never did. I beg pardon, Mr. Brooks, but upon this subject I +am a little sensitive.” + +He saw that she was trembling all over in the sharp struggle she was +making against her tears. Just then Ellen came up to the cabin with her +contribution of nuts. She saw that Virginia had been crying, and guessed +the cause. + +“Please not to speak with her about—about Mr. Lander; it breaks her +heart to hear him mentioned,” she said, in a low voice, that sounded +severe to the man, who was feeling like a culprit. But instantly her +voice changed—she poured her nuts into the general pile and called out +cheerfully: + +“There’s plenty more, Miss Lander; the fern leaves under the bridge are +thick with them.” + +Virginia leaned out of the window to hide her tears. + +“I will gather no more,” she said; “the childish spirit has left me.” + +“Have I driven it away?” said Brooks, leaning against the window-frame, +really troubled. “If so, sweet lady, one sob from those lips has been +punishment enough.” + +She drew her head in from the window and met his look with a smile which +made the tears flash as if they had leaped up from her heart perfect +diamonds. + +“I am very foolish, and should ask your forgiveness. Now, if you have +the nerve for a climb, which is an undertaking, I can tell you from +experience, Ellen and I will do the work below—won’t we, Ellen?” + +“Indeed we will,” answered the hunchback. + +Brooks caught a glimpse of her face as she spoke, and admitted in his +mind that it was one not easily forgotten, for never in this world did +spirit master the material more thoroughly. + +“Come then,” he said, throwing himself down the acclivity which lifted +the cabin from the bridge. “Now give one leap, and I will help you +down.” + +Ellen came forward first, looked him steadily in the eyes a moment, and +said, gently: + +“Yes, I can trust you,” and sprang into his outstretched arms. + +Virginia hesitated one instant, but made her leap, and for one instant +the strong man held her in his arms. It was but an instant—still the +blood thrilled in his veins and his heart gave a bound that startled +him. + +“Now,” he said, dashing over the bridge, “let us go to work in earnest. +I never went a chestnuting before in my life.” + +“Nor I,” said Ellen, kneeling down among the leaves, “but it is +pleasant, _so_ pleasant!” + +“Indeed it _is_,” he answered, “I shall never forget this day. It is +like working out a dream.” + +“Or a fate,” muttered Ellen. + +Virginia leaned against the great, rough trunk of the chestnut, and +watched Brooks as he swung himself upward from one huge limb to another. +Her father had done the same thing for her hundreds of times in his +younger days, but she had never looked upon the process with anything +like terror till then. Was it that she had grown older and understood +the peril as she had never done before? Before he reached the topmost +boughs she was pale as death, and stood trembling at the root of the +tree like a frightened child. + +“Oh, come down, come down, there is peril in it!” she cried out when a +limb swayed and cracked under his feet. But he had swung himself out of +danger and sent back a laugh from among the leaves. + +“Keep from under,” he called out, “for now comes the deluge.” + +Virginia and Ellen ran down under the bridge and waited among the ferns. +Directly it seemed as if a hailstorm were rattling over them heads; now +and then a nut dropped down to their hiding-place and rolled into the +brook. + +“Once—twice—three times, and I am coming down to help pick them up,” +called out a voice high in the chestnut. + +“Dear me, how high he is!” exclaimed Ellen, shading her eyes with one +hand. “The limb he stands on bends like a whip-stick. I wish he would +come down!” + +“Ask him! oh, ask him!” + +Virginia’s hand trembled as she seized Ellen by the arm. Her voice was +low and hoarse. How could she have tempted a fellow creature into such +peril? + +“Call to him, Ellen! Why don’t you call, when I ask you?” + +“He is coming down, dear lady. There is no danger now. This is the +fourth volley of nuts. How fast he comes—don’t you hear the leaves +rustle? There, he has swung himself on to the side of the bridge and is +looking down at us.” + +“Are you sure—are you quite sure?” + +“Look up and see.” + +Virginia lifted her eyes and saw the head of Clarence Brooks, splendid +with excitement, bending over the arch. + +“Come and see how thickly the earth is covered with them—or shall I jump +down there and rest awhile?” + +He swung himself over an end of the bridge, and with a leap landed in +the bed of ferns. + +“Ah, how pleasant it is,” he said, lifting the light hat from his head +and allowing the wind to sweep over it. “The air is more bland than +spring time. If this is what you Americans call chestnuting, I would not +mind gathering nuts forever. What do you say to that, little lady?” + +He spoke to Ellen, who had fixed her large eyes on him in undisguised +admiration. She laughed and said that hour in the woods had been like +Heaven to her. But she crept away as she spoke, and going down to the +brook, walked a little distance up its bank, apparently enticed by its +murmurs. She did not go out of sight, but the young couple were not the +less isolated. Yet they both felt themselves alone, and possibly it was +a consciousness of this fact which kept them so silent. But the silence +itself was full of exquisite pleasure. He sat by her side, pulling up +tufts of the frostbitten ferns and flinging them lazily into the brook, +which laughed, and sparkled and carried them away, as it had before +rippled off with the chestnuts. She was thoughtful and dreamy, but +tranquil as a breath of Heaven. It seemed as if she had known that man +all her life—as if she were stronger, wiser, infinitely better, when he +was by her side. She, too, began to tear the fern leaves up by the root +and cast them after his. Sometimes the leaves united and floated off +together, mingling so closely that all proprietorship was lost. Then +these two people, so lately thrown together, would look at each other +and smile as if some mutual hope had been fulfilled in the companionship +of those dim leaves. + +“Why would you not come and see me when I inquired for you?” he asked at +last, struck by a sudden thought. + +“Do not ask me.” + +Virginia spoke in a low voice, but it was serious as death, and he could +not press a subject that had begun to trouble him. + +“But you will not refuse yourself to me again?” + +“Yes, up yonder I must.” + +“And why? Have I been unfortunate enough to have offended you unseen? +Have I an enemy?” + +“No, no, it is not that. On the contrary, I never heard anything that +was not good of you; never had a thought of you that was not pleasant.” + +“Then you have thought of me?” + +“Oh yes, with _him_, you know, I could not help it.” + +“Then I was in good hands. Your uncle thought far better of me than I +deserved, but charity was in his nature.” + +Virginia was silent; she could not speak of the dead as her uncle. Then +Brooks spoke again: + +“But you have not told me why you will refuse my visits.” + +“Will you not accept the fact without explanation?” + +She turned her eyes on his face with a look of such entreaty that he had +no heart to press her farther. But she seemed to have formed a sudden +resolution, and spoke again, more frankly: + +“My cousin and I are not good friends—I cannot meet any one with her on +equal terms or without pain.” + +Clarence Brooks grew thoughtful. He would not ask any explanation of the +estrangement she spoke of; but the fact of its existence struck him +unpleasantly. + +“But she spoke so affectionately of you,” he said at last. + +Virginia looked up wistfully. + +“Did she?” was all her lips uttered, but there was deeper meaning in +those eyes. + +“Her father always spoke of his daughter as royal in her generosity.” + +“Oh, sir, you do not understand—you never will understand!” the poor +girl cried out in her anguish. + +“I can understand, dear young lady, that you at least are blameless, let +the cause of this trouble be what it may.” + +“I am blameless, do believe that—neither in thought, word or deed have I +ever wronged my cousin.” + +“You tremble. This agitation will hurt you, Miss Lander. As her father’s +friend, I may have some personal influence with your cousin. Be sure it +shall be used in your behalf.” + +“No—no, I beseech you, sir, as his friend, I beseech you not to +intercede for me or even speak of me to her. Our difficulty is one which +never can be reconciled by human means, I solemnly think. Let it alone, +sir—let it alone.” + +“On one condition, I will. If you ever discover a way in which I can +interfere with any hope of success, call on me. Promise this, and I will +be silent.” + +“I do promise it.” + +“With all your heart?” + +“With all my heart and soul.” + +“Then it is a compact.” + +“Yes,” she answered, smiling sadly enough, “it is a compact.” + +“But I must see you again.” + +“I do not know how,” she answered, drearily. + +“But I must and will, unless you hate me for this first rude intrusion.” + +“Hate you!” + +Her eyes opened wide at the idea. She reached out her hand, then drew it +back, blushing red, and strove to conceal the action by tearing up a +little wild vine that grew by the stone on which she sat, fiercely as if +it had done her some harm. + +Clarence Brooks smiled. He had gathered up some experience of the better +sort of women in his lifetime, and understood an innocent impulse better +than most men. He took the hand quietly which she had withdrawn, and +pressed his lips upon it. + +“Think of me kindly, at least,” he said, with more tenderness in his +voice than he was conscious of. “Heaven knows, I shall think of you +often enough.” + +Virginia arose. + +“You are weary, you will gather no more nuts to-day?” said Brooks, +reluctant to part with her. + +“Not to-day,” she answered. “Some other time, perhaps. They are safe in +the cabin; no one ever comes there in these days.” + +“But to-morrow?” + +“Yes, to-morrow we will come,” she answered, with shy frankness. “I +shall be glad to see you again.” + +“No one shall gather our harvest of nuts. Meantime I take it on myself +to guard this part of the woods till you come again.” + +Ellen saw that they were both standing, and came up from the brook side. + +“Are you going, lady?” + +“Remember Miss Nolan, you are to help finish our work to-morrow. We have +a large crop to gather in, and must commence early—say just after +dinner.” + +“If Miss Lander pleases, I shall like it; one so enjoys running wild in +the woods,” answered Ellen, brightening all over. “See what a color it +has given the lady!” + +It is true Virginia’s cheeks wore a rich flush. This idea of another +day’s meeting had set her heart in a pleasant tumult, and every pulse +sent up a glow of wild roses to her face. + +“I hope it will be a pleasant morning,” she said. “Now good-bye till we +meet again.” + +Brooks walked with them till they reached the edge of the woods. Then, +seeing a look of anxiety on Virginia’s face, he lifted his hat and +returned along the footpath. + +When they were alone, Virginia turned and looked earnestly at Ellen. + +“Have we done right? Was it well to encourage this gentleman in all his +kind attentions as I have done?” + +“Lady, I think it is right. He was your father’s fiend. It was certainly +his wish that you should know each other. Nothing could be more clearly +expressed than that was in the letter.” + +“It is strange, I cannot lose my identity for a moment, but he looks +upon me as the niece my father mentions with such wonderful sagacity. I +wonder how he came to understand her so well? How I trusted her then! +how I loved her!” + +“She fascinates all who meet her for the first time,” said Ellen, drily. + +“Do you think he is pleased with her?” asked Virginia, in a low voice. + +“At first—yes. The glowing affection expressed in that letter being +applied, as he thinks, to her, will draw him toward her. She is +beautiful, has many accomplishments, converses well, and, worse than +all, has a triumphant sense of success. This may please him for a time, +but he is no common man, lady.” + +“Indeed I think so, Ellen.” + +“His keen penetration will not long be at fault; the true nature of your +cousin will sooner or latter appear.” + +“Sooner or later—sooner or later. Oh! there lies the danger. What if he +too were shipwrecked? He speaks of having influence with her already.” + +“Dear lady, can you trust nothing to this gentleman’s penetration? Can +you trust nothing to our God?” + +“But we do fall victims to craft and wickedness.” + +“For a time.” + +“Oh, Ellen, I never felt my helplessness or the wrong that has been done +me as I do now. This man was my father’s friend.” + +“And will be yours. The high nature must assert itself.” + +“At any rate, I am powerless as a child. Were I to tell him the truth he +would not believe me against a mother’s assertion. Then the very +distrust that my father expressed of her, will, in this gentleman’s +mind, apply to me. Oh! Ellen, is it not terrible that, in defrauding me, +that wretched girl should find the power to make me responsible for all +the wrong acts of her own life. It is I who abandoned my benefactor and +left him to perish, while saving myself! It is I who attempted to claim +the patrimony of his child! These thoughts are driving me mad. In +wresting away my fortune, she has left me a burden of reproach. This is +how I am placed. Never was a poor girl so fearfully beset. If I dared to +take fate in my own hands, to change my name and escape from all this, +life might become endurable again.” + +“Not yet, lady. Do not abandon the home which is by right yours, while +it can be held with self-respect. My father used to say that +difficulties change or disappear when firmly met. We have but to watch +and be ready when God opens the path for us. When everything seems dark +and you are afraid to move in the gloom, rest quietly and be hopeful. +There will be a break in the clouds somewhere, and light must shine +through. This was my father’s method of reasoning.” + +“True, Ellen, but he went down with that burning wreck.” + +“I know it. There was a glorious opening in the clouds that beset his +path. He lacks no enlightenment now. He believed then that God’s justice +was eternal; he knows it now.” + +The two girls had been walking slowly with downcast eyes, not heeding +the surrounding objects, but they both started when a horse came +sweeping down the carriage road, and the skirt of a long riding-habit +flaunted by. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXVIII. + BREAKING IN THE BLACK HORSE. + + +Cora Lander curbed in her black horse and called out, with radiant good +humor: + +“What, out walking? What a glorious day it is! But what has become of +you, cousin? I missed you at dinner yesterday and at breakfast this +morning. Do be a little more sociable—I so long to hear you sing again. +So, so, Blackbird!” + +The horse was purposely rendered restive by a tight curb, and was +tossing his lovely head impatiently, while the gravel flew from under +his hoofs. + +“Which way have you been?” she inquired, slackening the curb. + +“Into the woods,” answered Virginia, gravely. + +“Into the woods—why that is a long walk.” + +“We did not think it so when we were children together.” + +Cora curbed her horse sharply again. He reared to his hind feet, shaking +his head and arching his neck till the jet black mane streamed on the +wind; then, seizing the bit in his teeth, he dashed away, plunging +forward like a prairie horse in the lasso. + +“There, he will hurl her from the saddle! Great Heavens, how he +plunges!” exclaimed Virginia. + +“No, he won’t—she wasn’t born to be killed by a critter like that, I +answer for it,” broke in Joshua Hurd, coming upon them from behind a +thicket of almost leafless rose bushes. “Never you fear about her; she’s +got grit enough for that animal. Look at her now. Golly, ain’t she a +clipper?” + +Cora had turned her horse off the road and was riding him furiously over +the lawn, lashing out with her whip and beating his side with her heel +till the foam flew over his chest like massed snow flakes. + +“She’s a darned sight more likely to kill the hoss than he is to throw +her. Consarn the critter! don’t she know the natur of a dumb beast +better than that! Why, you should see this identical animal in the +stable, he’s playful as a kitten. Snowball herself ain’t playfuller.” + +That instant Cora flashed by them like a comet; her hat had been blown +from her head; her face flushed with wild excitement. She took a swift +circuit on the lawn and reined up the quivering beast upon the carriage +road again, drooping and panic-stricken. + +“Joshua Hurd, come take this brute,” she cried, leaping from the saddle. +“I think by this time he begins to know who his mistress is—I’ll teach +him!” + +“He’s teached a ready, marm,” answered Joshua, catching the bridle she +flung to him. “But we hain’t got a feller in the stables as could find +it in his heart to treat a critter so, if he was ever so contrary.” + +“You are not pleased, Joshua Hurd?” she cried, turning sharply upon him. + +“No, I ain’t!” + +“Then you can call up at the house and get your wages; I keep neither +refractory men nor beasts in my employ.” + +“Yes you do. ’Cause I’m ’fractory as all possessed. Ask Eunice, if you +don’t believe it.” + +She flashed a fierce, baffled look upon the man, and biting her lips +till they turned white under her teeth, she struck the skirt of her +riding-habit five or six times fiercely with her whip, as if that +allayed her fiery resentment. + +“Go back to your lair in the stables, I will attend to you,” she said, +trembling with passion or dread, for it galled her that Virginia should +hear this. “While I am mistress of this establishment, those who receive +my money must be obedient and respectful.” + +Joshua drew close to her, grasping his oilskin cap in one hand fiercely +as she held the whip. He trod upon her skirt, thus holding her prisoner +with his feet, and placed his mouth close to her ear. What he said no +one but herself could tell, but she turned ghostly white and attempted +to step back, but his heavy shoes were planted so firmly on her skirt +that she was held face to face with him till the twinkle in his small +eyes drove her frantic. + +“Stand off my dress, sir, and begone, or I shall forget myself.” + +The whip quivered in her hand, specks of foam flew from, her white lips. +She seemed absolutely about to strike him. + +Joshua kept his position just long enough to provoke her beyond bearing, +then moved away, muttering as he went, and leading the horse loosely by +its bridle. Cora watched him with flashing eyes until he disappeared +behind the stables—then she turned upon Virginia. + +“I suppose you envy me this pleasant position,” she said, with a sneer +in her voice. “Give me joy of the happiness; it brings! There is not a +servant about the house your mother has not spoiled.” + +The quiet contempt with which Virginia heard this was just visible in +her face; but she said nothing, merely passing her cousin in silence. +Cora followed her, still fiercely grasping the whip and dragging her +long skirt over the crisp grass, stirring up a little winrow of red +leaves as she moved. + +“You have put him up to this,” she said; “your underhand cunning is +demoralizing my servants.” + +“Have the goodness to take your hand from my shoulder,” answered +Virginia, in her clear, low voice. “If you will usurp a lady’s place, at +least attempt something of her good manners.” + +Cora’s hand dropped as if an arrow had pierced it. The calm dignity of +this rebuke struck her dumb. Long before her usual audacity came back, +Virginia and Ellen had entered the house. + +Cora was standing mute and angry as her cousin had left her, when a +servant, coming up from the post-office, gave her a letter. It was from +Seymour; she knew the writing at once, but held it in her hand a full +minute unopened. In the days of her eager courtship, she would have torn +the envelope into shreds in order to seize upon the precious words it +covered. But now she pulled it open at the ends bit by bit, hesitating +as if the act were a task she had rather not perform. + +One of the gardeners came loitering that way as she was slowly opening +her letter. So she thrust it into the corsage of her habit, and +gathering up the heavy folds of cloth falling about her feet, hurried to +the house and into her own room. Here she cast off her riding-dress, +flung it in a heap on the carpet, and locked the door with great +caution. Even then she did not read her letter, but pushed back her hair +before the glass and put on a fanciful loose-dress of white alpaca, +brightened with bows of lilac ribbon—for Mrs. Lander was right, she had +begun to soften the rigor of her first mourning to a considerable +extent. + +“It is a lovely tint,” she decided as the ribbons fluttered around her; +“I will venture on it to-morrow!” + +At last she sat down on a lounge, drew her feet up under the snowy +dress, arranged a cushion back of her head and took the letter from her +bosom, where it had been lying close to her heart without stirring a +pulse there. This was the letter she read: + + +“MY DARLING:—Oh, that some dearer and sweeter word might be found which +could leap from my heart to yours, carrying with it some faint idea of +the love that fills my being. I long for a new language of the heart +which can at once thank you for the happiness I have known and the hopes +which live in my heart continually as fire once kindled on a vestal +altar never goes out. Do believe it, my wife, you are the first woman I +ever loved, the only woman on this earth that I ever can love. The +happiness you have given me makes me so restless in my absence that I +sometimes grow desperate and resolve to come back at once. But I cannot, +I cannot. It is necessary that my original idea should be carried out. +My health is a little better, and the invigorating air of these vast +prairies brings spirit and life back to my frame. Unless you send for me +and command me to come back—unless you say that this separation makes +you wretched as I am, my reluctant face will be turned westward till I +reach the Rocky Mountains. + +“Do I wish this, or do I dread it? Both, my beloved. The message which +says that my love is necessary to your happy existence would bring me to +your side though death itself lay in wait for me there. But it is +better—far better that I should go forward; therefore I dread the sweet +temptation which would lie in your recall. Do not be unhappy, love—yet I +would not like to think of you as content, or really capable of +enjoyment, now that I am away from you. This is egotism, and I know it; +but such egotism springs out of a soul that would sacrifice itself a +thousand times over rather than give you an hour’s pain. + +“Do you love me after this fashion, my wife? Sometimes I ask this +question aloud in the depths of the night, with nothing but a thin +canvas between me and the arch of Heaven; for then a yearning desire +seizes me to read your soul and know, of a certainty, that it answers +mine in all the sweetness and depths of its requirements. But nothing +answers me, not even my own intelligence. I would give the world, if it +were mine, to have this question put at rest in my heart. Cora, I would +live for you in any stage of poverty and never feel it a sacrifice to be +poor or lowly for your sake. I would die for you, my wife, if that were +needful to your comfort or your happiness. To die _with_ you, my +beloved, would make death sweet to me. Can anything ever part us, my +wife? My wife! that is the holiest and sweetest word that I know of in +any language. I think this over sometimes and wonder that I am so +blessed, that you could have chosen me, given yourself to me with such +generous inconsideration. I was not worthy of you; I had neither +position, wealth nor any of the great advantages which make you the +ornament and glory of social life. But if love is a merit—if capacities +of affection can make a man worthy, then am I fairly matched, even with +my peerless wife. No other man living—or that will ever live—could have +loved her more devotedly. Believe that, oh! do believe it; let what will +come in the hereafter, there is not a pulse of my heart that is not +yours. What I am, good or bad, this great love has made me. Have I no +other object in life? you will ask. I answer, none. From the first hour +that I saw you in that beautiful Italian sunset, like a lost angel +searching for its fellows, my life had no hope or thought stronger than +that one keen wish to see you again. I left study and ambition to those +unhappy men who had not seen a woman like you capable of absorbing a +whole life and making these things as nothing. I took you into my +thoughts and brightened them with your goodness, your genius and your +beauty—for you are beautiful, my wife, so beautiful that I close any +eyes at night, and, folding your image in my heart, wonder if the angels +are more lovely. + +“Yesterday I took the tress of hair that you gave me from my bosom for +the first time. I had not the courage to look at it before. Did you know +that it was tangled in with a ring of gold, a plain hoop like the +marriage ring I gave you, with the date of our wedding day? Was it +really that ring? or another, by which you thought to remind me of an +event I could no more forget than a happy spirit can forget when the +gates of Paradise opened for him? + +“But the ring troubled me a little. It had become so tangled in the hair +that I was compelled to use some force before it was extricated. It was +a singular idea, wasn’t it, darling? but it seemed to me as if even that +light force was hurting you. I had not injured the tress, which now lies +in a coil of dusky gold in the palm of my hand, bright and silky as when +it was shorn from your head—that head which rested on my bosom with all +its wealth of hair thrown abroad that I might cut the richest tress. Oh! +my beloved! my beloved! shall we ever meet again? Can any calamity tear +you from me? What if you were to die? What folly! Hebe herself never had +fresher roses or more perfect health. What if the very intensity of my +love should weary you? + +“This is how I torture myself with questions. I know they are absurd, +that devotion like yours should meet with perfect trust. But there is +something in my bosom that will torment me forever and ever, I fear—a +sense of unworthiness—a dread that some time you will discover to how +many faults a most generous love has blinded you. I wish you had not +left that ring so knotted up with the lock of hair. If it was our +wedding ring, you should have kept it sacredly on the finger where I +placed it, swearing to be faithful, solemnly promising my God to strive +hard and lift my imperfect nature up to yours. It was in this way I +circled your finger with that gold, my beloved. Is it possible that you +have cast it back upon me? + +“I met a company on the Plains, going forward to the new Territory of +Montana. They are full of hope and eager for enterprise. The mines there +are said to be wonderfully rich. How I wish the great wealth you possess +had fallen to your cousin, and that you were penniless as I first +thought you. Then we would go together into this new country and I would +work for you, think for you, gather up wealth which should be doubly +ours, because the energies of affection had won it from the earth. + +“What scope and purpose there would be for our energies in this new +world. How completely we should live out our youth to ourselves and by +ourselves. Say, Cora, is not this possible? Sometimes I have thought +that the possession of so much property has cast shadows of care over +you which seem unnatural. Is it so, my angel? I would to Heaven you +could say yes, and cast the burden of all this money aside. It oppresses +me and shames my manhood to feel the overpowering weight of another +man’s money choking up all aspirations for well-earned success. Cora, +Cora, if we had never given undue value to riches how happy we might +have been—you and I in the mountains of Montana! I have been looking my +past life in the face, dearest, and wonder that the possession of money +should ever have been important to me. I think of our life in that +exquisite little house which your taste made so beautiful, and ask +myself if a log cabin in some western nook, with morning glories running +up to the eaves and wild roses in front, would not have witnessed a +happiness as sweet and pure as that we knew there. Love like ours needs +no luxurious accessories to make it perfect. + +“My wife, if I possessed the whole world, and you wished me to give it +up that your happiness might be more complete, I would do it. Will you +give up this property, which somehow seems at times to weigh you down, +and go with me into a new existence beyond the mountains? I ask it in +all seriousness. What has this wealth done for us? Shadowed our first +union with secrecy—a delicious secrecy, it is true, which had something +of Heaven in it, but which is sure to detract from the dignity of a pure +love. Sooner or later, we shall wish that our marriage had been open as +the day. + +“Why will my pen refuse to quit the paper? Because it is writing to you, +my wife, and finds the thoughts that turn to you inexhaustible. But you +will weary of me, and I force myself to say good-night. + +“Are you thinking of me now, as I think of you, with a yearning +tenderness that fills the eyes with tears? Good-night, my +bride—good-night, my dear, dear wife! + + “ALFRED N. SEYMOUR.” + + +She read this letter stretched luxuriously on that couch, with the lilac +ribbons fluttering around her, and her foot dropping in and out of the +kid slipper into which she had thrust it after taking off her +riding-boots. She was not much affected by the reading. The impassioned +language sometimes brought a gleam of gratification to her face, and she +more than once muttered, “Poor fellow—poor fellow! how he does love me!” +But when she reached the latter part of the epistle, her face utterly +changed—a cloud came upon her forehead which deepened and deepened as +she went on, till she laughed out in her scorn. + +“That’s splendid! So he really tired of my pretty box, as I did. That +_is_ delicious! He would have preferred a log cabin with morning +glories. Well, I’m not sure about it. A grand passion might last three +or four weeks longer perhaps, in a breezy new country, with plenty of +wild game, and so on. I did rather overdo the thing, but no one can say +that it was not regally done. I wish somebody would buy up the whole +affair at half-price, I really am afraid it was a failure.” + +She read on after this, and came to the proposal about Montana, which +brought a storm of scornful wrath to her face. + +“What, I! I, Cora Lander, with money enough to purchase all Montana—with +this form and face, bury myself in the gold mountains, fling away what I +have and trust to chance and his energies for getting more! Why, the +idiot! He really has not the capacity I gave him credit for; I should +make a pretty figure in the gold regions. So that is the length and +breath of his ambition. I am glad he enlightened me in time. Secrecy, +indeed! That becomes more and more important to me every day. What fools +women do make of themselves while the first grand passion lasts! I +wonder if I ever shall be really in love.” + +The woman started as this question sprang to her lips. It had been +coiling in her heart like a viper for many a day, but she was shocked at +herself when it crept forth and shaped itself so repulsively. + +“Well, I must answer this letter,” she said, turning the key of her desk +upon it. “That will be a safe way of keeping his face westward. I wish +he would go on to that gold country; it would be spring before he could +come back. Yet after all, I should rather like to see him. It is +something in a woman’s life to be so completely adored. That Montana +business has put me out of sorts, I suppose, or I should not feel so +indifferent. Of course I am fond of him. There never was a creature so +blindly in love as I was. But one cannot hold to the exaltation of any +feeling forever; I suppose that accounts for it all.” + +Having pacified an easy conscience in this way, Cora turned her thoughts +on the scene which she had just gone through in the grounds. She +remembered the unseemly passion into which the horse had thrown her, +with bitter humiliation. + +“I am mad,” she thought, “to give way in that fashion. This temper of +mine will certainly betray me, while she is cool and crafty enough to +take advantage of it. But it really is hard to keep up such a reputation +as the creature, somehow or other, managed to get for munificence, +amiability and so on. Then they all were really kind to me, and I cannot +order her out of the house without betraying the contrast. She never +would have whipped that horse so. It was well they were my only +audience. Then that brute of a man—it is clear that both he and that +red-haired virago know more than I dreamed of. Can any intelligence they +have shake my mother’s evidence? There again what a fool I was to refuse +money for her eternal shopping! After all, conciliation is the only safe +course. But so many secrets irritate the best of tempers, and I am +afraid mine isn’t quite that. I will have a little talk with this +Eunice; as I cannot get rid of her, she must be appeased.” + +Here Cora rang the bell and gave orders that Miss Hurd, the housekeeper, +should come to her. + +Eunice was informed of the exact words in which this message was given, +and gave her head a proportionate lift in the air as she marched up to +obey the summons. + +“What do you want of me, I’d like to know?” was her first curt +salutation. + +“Nothing very particular, Miss Hurd; but you know I have been spending a +little money down in the city. You have been in the family a long time?” + +“Ever since you was a year old, Miss.” + +This was a point that Cora was anxious to avoid, so she said, hurriedly: + +“Never mind about the exact time; you have been a faithful housekeeper, +and, under a false impression, I was about to act unjustly by you. In +proof that you have forgiven me, pray, accept this.” + +Here Cora took a piece of heavy moire antique from a drawer and placed +it in the housekeeper’s hands. + +Eunice turned the rich material over and let it fall in glossy folds +from her arm. + +“Now if this isn’t worth while. I never had a right down new moire +antike afore in my life. Well, I don’t know how to thank you, never was +good at thanking people all my life.” + +“Never mind that, Miss Hurd, I am glad it pleases you. Some time next +week I will pay your expenses down to the city, and a person that +occasionally makes up things for me shall fit it for you.” + +“I hope she’ll make it long enough to sweep like anything. It does one +good to hear sich silk a rustling and sweeping along the floor. How many +yards may there be?” + +“Oh, you will find plenty for a long skirt, and to spare. The dressmaker +may trim it prettily, as you like it best; I wish it to be complete.” + +Eunice stood with her head on one side, feasting her eyes on the silk. + +“Mercy on me! how do they contrive to catch the lightning so nateral? It +seems to be blazing away all along the breadths. Well, Miss, I’m much +obliged. Gracious! don’t it glisten!” + +“That will secure her brother’s silence,” said Cora, as Eunice closed +the door, but the words were scarcely out of her mouth when the +housekeeper returned and flung the silk in her lap. + +“Put it up; I’m not going to take it,” she said, bluntly. “If either I +or Josh hold our tongues, it’s for Eliza Lander’s sake. It’ll take a +stupendouser silk than that to buy us up, if it is skiltered over with +chain lightning. Treat her well and don’t bear too hard on Amos Lander’s +daughter, and I’ll stand by and grit my teeth while this inikety goes +on, but no silk can buy me up.” While Cora sat dumb with astonishment, +Eunice left the room. + + + + + CHAPTER XXXIX. + THE FISHING PARTY. + + +Cora’s motive for trying that black pony on the lawn was explained the +next morning, when Clarence Brooks came riding up the carriage road on a +horse that might have matched that spirited animal in everything but +size. Before he reached the house, Cora came forth, equipped for the +road and looking bright as the morning. She stood leaning against one of +the marble pillars when Brooks came up,—the long skirt sweeping far back +on the white pavement and her lithe figure defined by a closely-fitting +habit, to which a profusion of gold buttons gave dash and character. The +tiny cravat about her throat, and piquant hat curled up at the sides, +gave graceful dignity to what might otherwise have been masculine in +this costume. But now, from the gauntlet gloves on her hands to the +riding whip, mounted with a thick branch of blood-red coral, her +appearance was exquisitely complete. + +Brooks must have been less than a man—or more—had he not checked his +horse a little, that he might leisurely admire that beautiful woman, +posed so gracefully against the marble column. It was a sight which +brought the breath quickly to his lips. She saw it all, the sudden +check, the look of intense admiration, that touch of the spur which +brought the horse so near that she could almost lay her hand on his +neck. + +“So I find you ready and waiting, five minutes before the time,” said +Brooks, dismounting and looking at his watch. “What a glorious morning!” + +“Too bright for me to remain indoors one moment after my habit was on,” +she answered. “Oh, here comes my demon of the stables with Blackbird. I +gave him—the horse, I mean—a trial yesterday on the lawn, and he nearly +mastered me.” + +“I hope he is not vicious,” said Brooks, casting a sharp look at the +horse. + +“No, I think not. After our little encounter, I fancy he will be gentle +enough. Hold him firmly, Mr. Hurd. He seems in capital condition this +morning—does you credit.” + +She came down to the side of her horse, and lifting one hand to the +saddle, placed her foot in the hand which Brooks presented to her. In +one instant she was seated and arranging the folds of her skirt. + +“Now,” she said, drawing the curb, for she had no objection to a second +exhibition of the animal’s spirit, so that it was not too violent. +“Now.” + +The horse shook his head, gave a leap, and came into subjection +gracefully after the first minute. + +“Isn’t he a beauty?” she cried. “But I need not ask; I see by your eyes +how much you admire him.” + +“If my eyes express so much, I must be careful in your presence, Miss +Lander, or they will tell secrets I would rather keep to myself.” + +She laughed, blushed a little, and busied herself with the button of her +gauntlet, while her horse struck into an easy canter. + +It was indeed a glorious day, the softest and brightest of a long Indian +Summer; the scent of ripe leaves and such flowers as give their best +perfume to the frost floated on the air; great forest trees, blazoned +like war banners, waved above them, and their horses sometimes waded +fetlock deep in the floating leaves, dyed richly as the garments of an +Eastern Satrap. Through these gorgeous woods, up the sloping hills and +along the river, they rode at random. Wherever a picturesque curve or +tempting by-path presented itself they explored it, conversing seriously +or laughing off the rare exuberance of spirits that a ride so pleasant +and a morning so lovely were sure to produce in two healthy young people +disposed to be pleased with each other. Still any one who had observed +Brooks closely under the chestnut tree and on horseback would have seen +a difference, too subtle perhaps for words, but marked and easy of +detection for all that. With the girl riding so masterfully on her black +horse, this man of the world exerted all that was brilliant and +superficial in his character; compliments such as only very clever men +can utter fell easily from his lips. With Cora he was gay, careless, +full of graceful badinage. He saw that she wished to be admired, and +fulfilled all her desires in that respect to the utmost, no difficult +matter where the woman was so handsome and matched him so nearly in the +character of her wit. With Virginia he had been no less cheerful, no +less gallant—but underlying all was that impulsive respect and tender +sympathy which draw noble hearts close together. He was playful with +her, but never extravagant; if he felt the general effect of her great +beauty, the feeling was not once expressed in words. In fact it would +have been difficult to define what it was that distinguished the +loveliness of these two girls. Certainly form or color had but little +share in the difference. + +Well, that ride through the autumnal beauty of the woods was a success +to be remembered for many a day after. But Cora was dissatisfied when +she laid her hand on Clarence Brooks’ shoulder, and leaped from her +horse on the marble pavement where she had waited for him that morning. +Again she posed herself against the pillar and watched that noble figure +as horse and man swept out of sight. + +“Will the man never act earnestly? Does he think I am worth nothing +better than the froth and foam of his mind? Who is he saving the wine +for, I wonder? He trifles with me. Does he think I have no ideas, no +feeling? Seymour at least let me look into his soul. But this man—why +his very carelessness defies me. Such a morning—such opportunities, and +not a word spoken beneath the breath or with real seriousness. Yet these +careless outflashes of a superior intellect sicken me with all other +homage. The man shall love me, though it breaks his heart. He shall love +me!” The woman checked herself an instant and sneered inly at her own +wickedness. “Me, another man’s wife!” + +She went in then, and, as a panacea for such thoughts, read over her +husband’s letter with the image of a tall, gray-eyed man on horseback +between her and the writer, shutting out all that wonderful beauty of +person which had enthralled her so only a few months before. + +Why did Brooks keep his interview with Virginia a secret? He told +himself that she had requested it, but it is very doubtful if he would +have said a word about it even if no hint had been given him on the +subject. This encounter in the woods was to him a bit of romance which +would lose its charm if talked over in commonplace words with any one. +He had found the cabin by accident, having discovered the footpath which +Seymour had trodden along the brook while smoking a cigar on the back +porch, to which his room opened by the door, half sash, half panelling, +which had proved so convenient in another romance that we know of, but +which was so carefully kept out of sight at this period. Springing over +the low railing of the porch, Brooks had sauntered up the path, smoking +as he went; now and then he stooped to watch the eddies of the brook and +wondered if any of its sparkling pools covered trout worth the trouble +of catching; then he looked upward into the gorgeous roofing of the +trees which let glimpses of the blue sky in here and there, with stray +gleams of sunshine searching for the rainbows that seemed to have got +entangled in the leaves. + +Of course all this threw the man into a certain train of thought which +had both sadness and poetry in it. He muttered to himself: “The +melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year.” Then walked on +again, thinking of his friend, whose terrible fate haunted him at such +times, and wondering if he ever should love the young woman he had seen +well enough to make her his wife, for this had been the romantic wish of +the man whom he had regarded almost as a father. A heavy sigh answered +this question, or rather left it unanswered, for the heart that sent it +forth was disturbed by many doubts in which the lady was concerned. + +For a long time the young man sat down on a curve of the bank, opposite +an elm tree, over which a frost grape-vine had wound and crept, and +thrown itself in such leafiness that it flung a broken arch across the +ravine; along the drooping boughs long slender clusters hung profusely, +with the frost, that alone ripens them, covering their purple with its +own shimmering bloom. + +Brooks flung away his cigar and began to sketch this pretty object on +the back of an envelope. + +“Now, if I were an artist, like that young Howe, whose sketches of bits +like this have made the English fellows look about them in astonishment, +this tree with its trailing fruit and leaves, would make my reputation. +It really is exquisite!” + +After working away with his pencil awhile, he became dissatisfied with +his effort, flung the envelope into the brook and sauntered up the path +till the cabin and bridge came in full view, with the huge old chestnut +tree spreading its boughs over one, and that group of hemlocks +embowering the other. + +“Upon my word, here is something like rustic taste!” he exclaimed, in a +burst of surprise. “Why the bridge is a gem; as for the cabin I must +explore that; what a fanciful mockery it is!” + +The bank was steep and the path rough, but Brooks was no holiday man to +dread a little exertion. So he caught hold of a branch, lifted himself +upward, and reached the cabin with his breath coming a little quicker +from the exertion. Not three minutes after, Virginia Lander and Ellen +came down the bank and showed themselves under the chestnut tree. + +This was the morning that Brooks was contrasting with his ride that day, +as he walked his horse toward the little hotel. + +“I wonder if they will really care enough about the chestnuts to think +of gathering them,” he thought, when an early dinner had been disposed +of. “At any rate I may as well take a walk up the ravine. It is a shame +to waste one moment of all this delicious weather indoors.” + +There was no loitering along the path that afternoon. Even the frost +grape-vine, bending the stout tree under its tendrils, as love bows a +strong man, failed to win more than a passing glance from him. The most +beautiful thing, to him, in the woods was a huge old chestnut tree, +bristling all over with open burs, its enormous limbs stretching far and +wide, and the ground under it thick with long yellow leaves. + +He came in sight of this tree, uttered a quick exclamation, and hurried +on. A basket stood on the stone-work of the bridge, and two girls were +busy among the leaves picking up chestnuts. + +I cannot permit any one to say or think one word against Virginia or +Ellen for thus deliberately meeting this gentleman that afternoon. It +was not the careless act of two thoughtless girls, ready to amuse +themselves at any cost, but a thing they had both considered over and +resolved on. To Virginia, her father’s letter was almost a command. He +expected her to see and like this man, who was his bosom friend, and +this out-door acquaintance was all she could offer him without openly +accepting the false position given her in that house. That she could not +and would not do. But chance had thrown this man, whom her father loved, +into her companionship. Without formal introduction, they had met, +conversed, and fallen into cordial relations. Why should she refuse to +see him again? Why deprive herself of the only happiness that had +crossed her dreary path since that terrible shipwreck? To her there +seemed to be something providential in the accident that had thrown them +together. She felt it a sacred duly to know and like the man who seemed +to come to her with a message from the dead. Of course Virginia did not +understand the full meaning of that letter as Brooks understood it. To +her those hints and broken sentences, which he connected with previous +conversations, were vague and might have applied to fifty things of +which she was ignorant. They really made no impression on her mind more +than the rest of the letter. Cora had understood everything at the first +glance, but the purer and better girl never dreamed that her father had +for years selected Clarence Brooks as her husband. + +So there really was nothing unmaidenly in the fact that she went, +deliberately and with throbs of pleasant expectation, down to the woods +that afternoon. She had seen Brooks riding off with Cora in the morning +from her chamber window, and a strange feeling of sadness came over her +at the sight. It was hard to know that another person was usurping her +place—harder than she had ever felt it before. Cora’s clear, ringing +laugh came back to where she stood as she rode gaily down the drive. +They were splendidly mated, she could not deny that, and a finer couple +could not have been found within a hundred miles. But her heart sank and +a sense of the wrong done her grew bitter as death in her bosom. She was +restless all that morning, and when she spoke the tears rushed so close +to her eyes that Ellen grew sad at heart every time she looked up from +her writing. + +So the two girls kept their promise and went down to the stone bridge, +innocent as birds, and came back almost as happy. Such a day for nutting +did not often present itself, yet so little had been done in reality. +There had been another long conversation among the ferns and a visit to +the frost grape-vine, which Virginia sketched on a bit of Bristol board +taken from her memorandum book, with a touch and finish that made Brooks +doubly ashamed of the scrap he had thrown away. + +Would she give it to him? Why, of course, that was what she had taken it +for. Not worth offering, but if he liked it, she would bring down +materials to-morrow and sketch the bridge and cabin, with that dear old +chestnut tree, just as it was. Some time, perhaps, it would serve to +remind him of her and Ellen. + +So, in this innocent fashion, a meeting was arranged for the next day. +It took a long time, I must confess, to gather up all the chestnuts, +though the pile in the log cabin grew larger and larger every day for a +full week. Then work grew rather dull in the woods. The frost grapes +were a resource, but grapes would not last forever, deliciously ripe as +the clusters were, and when they gave out, what was to be done? Brooks +bethought himself of a pic-nic for three, all the preparations to be +left for his superintendence, and some fishing in the brook the day +after, for he solemnly believed that trout were to be found higher up +the ravine. At any rate, it was worth trying. On second thought, they +would have the fishing first, and after that the pic-nic; the trout +would be so nice cooked by a fire in the woods, that was, if they caught +any. Virginia scarcely believed that there was trout in the brook. But +then, to be sure, she had been away for so many years that some change +was to be expected. + +Well, the next afternoon was devoted to exploring the brook; poles had +been provided, and a case of flies quite enchanted the girls as a matter +of high art. So away the trio went up the banks of the brook, casting +out their lines and dancing the flies about after a fashion that would +have fascinated the most wary trout to his undoing, if any fish of the +kind had taken shelter in those bright waters. But coquettes without +beaus, and artistic flies in a stream which produces nothing but shiners +and pin-fishes, must necessarily be at a discount. Still it is hard to +discourage a man who in his heart expects nothing. + +Clarence Brooks expressed himself as hopeful that plenty of trout could +be found higher up the stream, and the girls, having great faith in his +judgment, acquiesced. If they caught nothing at last, it was no fault of +his. Besides, a fine, breezy walk, with bright, ripe leaves showering +over them at every step, was compensation enough for any fatigue they +might have felt. So, after all, the fishing excursion was not exactly a +failure. Indeed, but for the shame of it, Virginia would have pronounced +the whole affair a brilliant success. + +As for Brooks, he went home that night and instead of going up to the +house, where Cora sat ready to charm him with unlimited music, such +music too! he spent the whole evening alone on that back stoop, so lost +in thought that the cigar went out between his lips, and it was midnight +before he became aware of it. + + + + + CHAPTER XL. + CLARENCE BROOKS TALKS CONFIDENTIALLY TO CORA LANDER. + + +Cora Seymour—we cannot honestly call her Lander, though others did—had +her fit of abstraction also. She had been in the drawing room all the +evening, anxious, feverish, indignant. In all those days she had made no +head way with this strange man, Clarence Brooks. Their morning rides had +been bright, cheerful, exhilarating as ever. He had spent almost every +evening in her company, when she had charmed him with the brilliancy of +her music and fascinated him by her conversation. Still the man’s heart +seemed no nearer to her than ever. She did not want his admiration, that +was not enough, but his whole being—that intellect which so overmastered +her own, compelling such homage as she had never given to human being +before—the heart, proud, tender, honest. She wanted absolute power over +this man, to enslave him with her love, tie him down with ten thousand +meshes woven by her crafty mind and burning heart. She cried out to +herself as Cleopatra questioned her handmaid: + +“Did I ever love Seymour like this?” + +Her imperious nature answered exultantly: + +“Never, never; that was not love. The mad passion of a mad heart lifted +him to my level for a brief time, but had no power to hold him there. He +is coming, I hear his step on the gravel. No, no, it is the heavy +animal, Joshua Hurd. How I loathe that man! He will not come to-night. +But to-morrow we ride again. How his absence stings me! I asked him to +come—implored him! He only smiled, but promised nothing!” + +She walked that spacious room hurriedly up and down, round and round, +like a wild leopardess in its den. Fight against it as she would, the +knowledge that she was a married woman tortured her. A hoop of diamonds +concealed her wedding ring; even in her waning love some romantic fancy +had induced her to put it’s duplicate with the lock of hair which she +had given her husband when he set forth on this journey westward—a +journey for which she could find no reason. He was not well, certainly, +but that offered no excuse for this prolonged delay. A sort of vague +respect for the sanctity of her marriage vow had kept the ring on her +finger, but this evening she took it off, guard and all, and, darting +through the French window on to the colonnade, hurled them both into the +night with a gesture of absolute loathing. + +It was ten o’clock now, and there was no hope that Brooks would come, so +her heart leaped forth to the morning, when she was sure to see him. + +Once in her own room, she locked the door with an angry twist of the +key, and sat down by her desk with hot red upon her cheeks and hot fire +in her eyes. + +She wrote a letter to Seymour—a harsh, cruel, bitter epistle—reproaching +him for the advantage he had taken of her youth and inexperience. She +told him, in sharp words, that she did not love him, never had loved +him, and from the depths of her heart hated the idea of ever seeing him +again. “Go,” it said, “go to Montana, to Oregon, to the Indies, any +place where the English language is not spoken or civilized rites +recognized. I will send you money for this purpose to an unlimited +extent, make you rich enough to satisfy the ambition of any man, but +never on this earth let me hear your voice again, never take the name of +wife, as regards me, between your lips, for I will perish rather than +recognize myself as your wife.” + +The letter was entirely in this strain. All the disappointment and venom +of a bad heart she threw upon the paper, blindfold as to its +consequences. For the time, the cunning and craft of her nature were +swept away. This man was an impediment; he had snared her in the first +wild impulses of her youth, and she found a keen pleasure in hurling +defiance at him. + +The letter once written she treated it like an enemy, struck its folds +down to the table with her clenched hands, then dropped burning wax upon +it, which she stamped fiercely under a seal ring which he had given her. + +When all this was done, the cold craft which underlaid the rash passion +asserted itself. + +“Not yet,” she muttered, “but it shall be, though it were like tearing +shackles from my wrists with red-hot pincers. It shall be done, but +warily, warily. With gold and courage I shall find my way out.” + +She closed her desk and locked it, first securing the compartment in +which the letter was placed with a tiny key, which formed an ornament to +her chatelaine. + +After this the woman went to bed, and lay awake all night planning such +plans and thinking such thoughts as take all the youth out of a human +life. + +Clarence Brooks came at his usual hour in the morning. He was graver +than usual, and placed the woman, whose eyes were fixed upon him with +such earnest meaning, in her saddle without looking in her face. For a +time they rode on in silence. There might have been some cause for this +depression in the heavy air and clouded sky which overshadowed the +beautiful woods and crisp fields with a gloom which took away half their +brilliancy. + +“You seem depressed this morning,” said Cora, reining her horse up to +that on which Clarence Brooks sat, upright and thoughtful, looking +straight before him. “Is it this dull sky, or has something happened?” + +“It is not exactly the sky, though we have ridden under those that were +brighter—nor is it that anything has happened; but I received a letter +this morning which has set me to thinking of unpleasant subjects.” + +“Are they such as a very sincere friend may not share?” she asked, +sweetly. “I am low-spirited enough myself to sympathize with anything +sad.” + +“I think it is the saddest thing in the world to meet with ingratitude +where one has loved, and treachery in reward for honest confidence.” + +“And is this your case?” + +“I will tell you, Miss Lander, for it is a thing that has troubled me +not a little, and I am in doubt how to act. You remember something that +I told you about my illness in the East?” + +“Yes, I remember every word you ever said to me.” + +She spoke impressively and with a slight tremor in her voice. He turned +on his saddle and looked at her earnestly a moment. She felt the blood +rising to her cheeks, and, with a sudden impulse of that modesty which +springs from genuine feeling, made her horse wheel half round, thus +taking her face out of view. + +“I remember about the illness, certainly. It was strange enough to +fasten all its details on the mind.” + +“You will then recollect that I spoke of hearing the rustle of papers.” + +“Yes. It was very singular.” + +“Those papers were bills of exchange on America to the amount of twenty +thousand dollars.” + +“Twenty thousand dollars, just that sum?” + +“This was how they happened to be with me in the East. I had intended to +go directly to America, but learning that your father had come to +Europe, changed my plans and set forward to the Holy Land, without +disturbing the bills of exchange, which I determined to use at a later +period. These bills were taken from my desk when I was supposed to be +dead, by a young man whom I had loved and trusted as a brother.” + +“Your servant?” questioned Cora, in a low voice. + +“No; I had never in my life considered him in any light but that of a +friend and travelling companion. He was introduced and recommended to me +by a person in whom I had perfect trust. Handsome, accomplished, genial +in his character, I had no reason to doubt him, though, from his own +confession, he had been a little wild in early youth, which he seemed to +regret sincerely. He was, in fact, a petted favorite, and we travelled +together as friends; but, in spite of all that, he abandoned me on what +he believed to be my death-bed, plundering my desk of these bills before +he went.” + +“It was an ungrateful act,” said Cora; “an unaccountable act in the man +you describe.” + +“The more so,” answered Brooks, “because he always had charge of all the +money intended for our travelling expenses, and was never questioned +regarding it. That money was left. Yet there was enough to have tempted +his cupidity.” + +“Can you account for this?” + +“In no way but one. From the time we left Italy the aim and hope of his +life seemed to be a voyage to America. He spoke of it incessantly, and +made various efforts to break up our trip to the East, that we might go +earlier than I proposed.” + +“You spoke of being in Italy with this ungrateful man. In what part?” + +“We were staying at Sarento; I was not well, and liked the place. He was +much at Naples, and spent some time in the neighborhood of Gaeta, where +he met a party of interesting strangers, some of them American ladies, I +fancy, for after that he became wild to visit that country.” + +“At what period was this?” + +“I remember the date well, for I started with him and went up to Rome in +advance. He did not join me till six weeks after. It was on the first of +June, 18—.” + +Cora’s horse swerved from the road. She struck him violently; so +violently that he reared and came down with a force which would have +thrown a less firm horsewoman over his head. Brooks dashed up, and, +seizing her bridle at the curb, brought the horse’s head down upon his +chest. + +“Are you hurt? What started him? Don’t be frightened, he seems quiet +enough now.” + +She was white as marble, and her eyes were turned away from him. + +“I am neither hurt nor frightened, thank you,” she answered, in a voice +so deep and husky that he could not believe her words. + +“I am afraid—I am sure you deceive yourself, Miss Lander. Why there is +not a gleam of color in your face!” + +“That is nothing. He startled me a little, I confess. It was the +suddenness. One is not prepared for everything, you know.” + +She laughed a sharp, ringing laugh, that cut to his ear like an arrow, +and turned her white face full upon him, as if to brave the severest +scrutiny. + +He shook his head and looked more and more anxious. + +“This sort of thing makes one a little hysterical, I suppose,” she said, +more quietly, “though I hate to own it. Come, let us ride on; we are +losing the best part of the morning.” + +Brooks loosened his hold on the bridle, and patted the pony’s neck as he +arched it again. + +“He does not seem in the least vicious. What could have frightened him +so?” + +“No matter,” she answered, moving on; “I am not to be surprised again.” + +They rode on in silence some ten minutes, then she was the first to +speak. + +“You did not tell me all. Have you ever seen or heard of this man who +robbed you since?” + +“Yes, I have seen him twice, and heard news of him only this morning.” + +“Oh, that seems interesting. When was it that you saw him?” + +“Some weeks ago. He was in the Central Park, driving as handsome a pair +of chestnut horses as I ever set eyes on.” + +“Alone?” + +“Yes, he was quite alone, and driving himself.” + +“And the next time? You see I am getting quite curious about this +handsome culprit. I think you said he was handsome?” + +“Very. I think, in my whole life, I never saw a more perfect specimen of +physical beauty. He was clever, too, in a certain way—had a great deal +of fanciful taste, and all the telling accomplishments which take so +with ladies. But, to do him justice, he seemed to regard these things +very little, and rather avoided the popularity they gave him with the +sex.” + +“He must have been a singularly interesting person.” + +“He was; I loved him almost as if he had been my brother. Even now I +find myself making excuses for him. Some powerful temptation must have +possessed him—of that I am certain.” + +“I think you said that you had seen him twice?” + +“Yes, but it was under very doubtful circumstances. A person who had +loved and observed him less might have been deceived. I was not, though +he was carefully disguised. The next morning after seeing him in the +Park, I almost ran against him while entering the bank on which my +letters of credit were drawn.” + +“Indeed! when was that?” + +“Just six weeks ago to-morrow.” + +“In the morning, did you say?” + +“Yes, not half an hour after the bank opened. He had just presented a +draft and drawn out most of the funds that he had left on deposit. The +date and signature of the draft and its regular endorsement would have +convinced ordinary observers that he was far away from New York, but I +was sure of my man.” + +“Did you follow him?” + +“Yes; the carriage which brought me was at the door; I got into it at +once and kept my friend in sight. He entered an omnibus, left it and +took another, got out and walked, then suddenly entered a singular house +in —— street, using a latch-key. It must have been his home.” + +“Then you had him in your power.” + +“I knew where he was, certainly, for I took the number.” + +“And made no use of the knowledge.” + +“How could I? the man had been my friend, I had aided him, liked him. He +had some fine qualities. Was I to degrade him forever for a few thousand +dollars?” + +“You are a generous man!” exclaimed Cora with quick admiration. “It is +the grand character, after all, which wakes up all the homage of one’s +nature.” + +After her first exclamation, she had spoken like one in a deep reverie. + +“There was no great generosity in leaving this man to his fate. I had no +purpose of revenge to gratify.” + +“Then you have no thought of arresting him?” + +“If I had, the thing would be easy enough, for I know where he is at +this moment.” + +“Indeed!” + +“A party of my friends are going out to the great prairies, buffalo +hunting. This man joined them at St. Joseph, in Missouri. They mention +him in their letters as the pleasantest fellow in the world.” + +“Are you certain it is the same man?” + +“Quite certain; he wears a seal ring that I gave him, an antique that I +got at Thebes, which one of my friends, who has a fancy for such +matters, describes to me minutely. There is not another ring like it in +America. Besides, there is no mistaking the account he gives of the +person. Then, again, I have reason to believe he went West. When I was +in town searching for a good saddle horse, I came across the pair of +chestnuts that I had admired so much in the Park. It was these horses +which first drew my attention to the man. They were at a livery stable; +the keeper of the stable said that he had just received a letter from +their owner, who wrote from the West, ordering them to be sold and the +money transmitted to St. Joseph.” + +They had been walking their horses while this conversation was going on, +but all at once Cora drew her bridle. + +“Thank you for the story,” she said. “Notwithstanding your rare +magnanimity, the fellow seems but a very commonplace plunderer after +all. Now, I would have gone to you at once, thrown myself on your mercy +and given up all. But such courage as that belongs to great manliness, +and that the creature never had.” + +“No, Miss Lander, he never would have had courage enough for that, +though I cannot exactly see how you should understand him so well.” + +“Why all that you have said proves it, Mr. Brooks. But we are allowing +this very worthless person to abridge our ride. See, the sun is breaking +out. Let us try this stretch of level road and have a race for it. A +pair of gloves that Blackbird wins!” + +Away she went, challenging him with a clear, silvery laugh, that seemed +never to have known what a spasm of the throat meant; but there was what +seemed to her an absolute girdle of iron around her chest when that +laugh broke from it, and nothing but fierce motion kept her from crying +out that this pain was killing her. + +“There,” she said, five minutes after, drawing Blackbird up so suddenly +that he staggered backward on his haunches with his chest flecked with +foam and drops of blood about the bit, “I have won the gloves. Now let +us ride along like Christians.” + +She reeled upon her saddle as the last words died on her lips, and would +have fallen, but Brooks pressed his horse close to hers and supported +her with his arm. + +“I—I am faint—it was imprudent—let us go home,” she faltered, leaning +her head against him. + +“Rest a moment as you are,” he answered, gently. “I feared this spirited +creature would tire you out.” + +She closed her eyes, and up through all the anguish in her bosom a soft +smile came trembling to those pale lips. + +“Are you better, Miss Lander?” + +She neither answered nor moved her head, but the smile died out. His +position was an irksome one, and there had been a shade of impatience in +his voice, which she felt keenly. + +“Yes, thank you, I _am_ better,” she said, after a moment. “The air is +very close—this swift motion has made me giddy. How far are we from +home? I have not noticed much.” + +“Four or five miles, perhaps. Have you strength to return? I will ride +close to your horse and keep him steady.” + +“Thank you—oh, yes, I shall be able to manage the distance. If I only +had a glass of water now.” + +“We passed a house a quarter of a mile back; I will get you a glass of +water there. Come, Blackbird.” + +Cora slowly wheeled her horse around, and in a few minutes reached a +little one-story house close by the road. Here a glass of water was +obtained, and after that they returned home almost in silence. Brooks +asked if she felt better, now and then, with that tender sympathy of +manner which made a strong contrast with his sterner qualities, and she +answered him gratefully, as proud women sometimes will when doubtful of +their power. + +When they reached home, Brooks lifted Cora from the pony, and, throwing +an arm around her, almost carried her into the drawing room. There he +placed her in a curve of one of the broad couches and arranged the +cushions for her to lean against. + +She accepted these attentions with a wan smile, and taking his hand as +it was withdrawn from the cushions, held it close between both hers, +looking at him with a mute appeal as if claiming some deeper sympathy +than he had yet given her. + +“Shall I ring for wine, or anything?” he said. “Perhaps your aunt had +better be called?” + +“By no means; I am well enough,” she answered, rising slowly from among +the cushions. “You are in haste to be gone, I see.” + +“Not if I can serve you in anything.” + +“But you cannot; I have only to rid myself of this heavy dress and lie +down awhile. Good morning, and many thanks. Shall I see you this +evening?” + +“I shall certainly come to inquire after your health.” + +He was gone. Cora ran up stairs, fell upon the bed and lay there +motionless. + + + + + CHAPTER XLI. + WOMANLY FASCINATIONS. + + +Cora Lander lay still a full half hour. No sob stirred her bosom, not a +tear reached the feverish hotness of her eyes. Her very hands thrown +upward above the pillows were white and still. But for this death in +life—this stupor following suppressed excitement, the woman must have +gone mad or died. + +At last she started from the bed, threw up the window and let the cold +air blow over her neck and bosom, tearing her habit open with both hands +to give it free course. There was hail in the air, which fell cold and +hard as shot on her delicate skin. But she received it with a sob of +satisfaction. It cooled the fever of her blood. How she had struggled +against herself—how she had endured—it made her faint to think of it. +But she had performed that awful task bravely. He guessed nothing, +dreamed of nothing that was going on in her heart while they were +talking so quietly. Still he seemed to pity her, thinking that she +suffered only from paltry fright brought on by a restive horse. What +would he have thought or felt had he known the miserable truth? + +“But he never shall! he never shall!” she exclaimed, holding fast to the +window-sill and leaning out into the storm. “I will keep the disgrace +close as death, secret as the grave; no human being shall ever know what +a fool I have been. I will break this thing off, crush it under my feet, +tear it out of my life! The villain, the double-dyed villain! The weak, +miserable cheat! Great Heavens! and I am that man’s wife! His legally +wedded wife!” + +She drew her head in from the window. Beads of hail lay thickly in her +hair and melted on her neck. She shook with cold now, and threw off her +wet habit. Wrapping herself in a zephyr shawl of soft white wool, she +crouched, like a wild animal, in a corner of a tête-à-tête, and strove +to gather up her thoughts. + +“Shall I let him know? Shall I load him with the scorn and hatred which +makes me despise myself? Shall I forbid him ever to look upon me again? +He loves me madly, more madly than I ever thought possible. It might +drive him to suicide—I think it would. But the letter found upon him +would betray all. I am hampered on every side. What can I do? How free +myself? If I could see him once, and kill him with words I dare not +write. Yes, that is it—I will do nothing. When he waits day after day, +and receives no letter, this mad love will bring him back, spite of +everything. Then I will see him—oh! yes, I will see him!” + +The cruel scorn that stirred within her broke forth in words here and +lifted that beautiful upper lip from the white teeth as a wild animal +shows its instinct of hate. She arose from the tête-à-tête, unlocked the +desk and took out the cruel epistle written, to her shame, before the +knowledge of that day came to her; lighting a small lamp that stood upon +her desk, she held this letter over its flame till it shrivelled up and +fell in a shower of black flakes from her hand. + +“It was a relief to write it,” she muttered. “Oh! how I wish it were not +madness to send it! Sitting still and doing nothing is the hardest of +all.” + +After this, Cora became more calm, and, huddled in the soft network of +her shawl, held counsel with herself. On reviewing her position, she +found less cause for regret in it than a first passionate view had +revealed. So long as Clarence Brooks was in the neighborhood of New +York, Seymour would never return unless some overpowering inducement +drew him into a place full of danger. But, with no letters from her, he +might return any day. How was she to act then? Break him down with the +weight of her own indignation—overwhelm him with scorn—convince him so +thoroughly of her loathing, that he would have no heart or power ever to +seek her again. She remembered then that the marriage certificate was in +her own possession, and, better still, the name and residence of the +clergyman only known to herself and Alice Ruess, to whom was consigned +the duty of finding him. The cook, Lubin, was not informed in this +matter. Seymour, she remembered now, had never looked at the +certificate. + +Cora thought over all these points with deliberate coolness, and asked +herself how it had happened that all the proofs of her marriage lay so +completely under her own control. Had some latent caution been at work +all the time under the overweening passion that had expired so soon and +so entirely? Had she ever thought of repudiating him in those days? + +No, there had been no absolute design in the girl’s mind; she was too +madly infatuated for that. But, crafty by nature, she had acted with +unconscious craft even then, and fairly hugged herself when the memory +of all the precautions she had taken presented itself. There was one +person who must be got out of the way—two, in fact—Alice Ruess and +Lubin. She would attend to that; no time should be lost. + +After pondering these things over in her mind hour after hour, Cora +prepared to dress for the evening, when Clarence Brooks had promised to +come. The dinner hour had long since passed, and it was getting dusk. +Hail was rattling against the window, and a mournful sound of dead +leaves came up from the grounds, carried off by the wind, which seemed +to moan over them. All this made her shudder. She rang the bell and +ordered a strong cup of tea. That would give her strength and +brilliancy. Brilliancy! She felt a thousand years old! Would a feeling +of true youthfulness ever come back to her? A mirror stood opposite her +seat, swinging between two gilded figures that seemed to hold it in +place with their hands. Did the thoughts which shook her so belong to +that beautiful girl, with all her rich hair loosened into sumptuous +disorder, and the weary young face resting on that small hand, which the +waves of hair half concealed? How delicate and pale and wild-eyed the +girl in the glass looked. There was something weird about her which a +man like Brooks would shrink from. Yes, a cup of strong tea would change +all that; if not, there was plenty of champagne in the cellar, and that +always invigorated her. + +A dress of purple silk hung in a wardrobe in the next room, she would +wear that—nothing should induce her to put on black for that one +evening. Everything, out doors and in, was gloomy enough without that. +This purple dress had the bloom of a ripe plum rippling over it in +waves. She would wear some delicate lace about her neck and run a white +ribbon through the folds of her hair, with a blush rose in the knot. He +might think strange of it, but she was weary of presenting herself +before him in eternal black. + +It is wonderful how soon the thoughts of a young person can be diverted +from all sources of annoyance by pretty trifles of the toilet. Even a +woman like this gives way to such weaknesses quite as readily as the +innocent of heart. + +“I will think of him no more,” she said, pushing back her hair with both +hands; “‘sufficient to the day is the evil thereof.’ When the time comes +for action I will act; I shall find myself sufficient for the occasion +when it arrives. After making myself mistress here, unquestioned almost, +there is little that I need despair of doing.” + +With these thoughts floating in her mind, she folded her arms in the +shawl, fell back against the cushions of her seat and was soon in a +profound slumber. + +A servant came up with some tea, but, seeing her position, went away +again, walking on tiptoe. + +Clarence Brooks came later in the evening, and found Cora radiant. The +purple dress seemed rippling with chain lightning as she passed under +the chandeliers; the sparkle of champagne was in her eyes; the glow of +almond flowers suffused her cheeks. Brooks had never seen her in colors +before, at least by gas-light. She was indeed a creation of rare beauty. + +“I need not ask if you are suffering—never did I see an appearance of +health more perfect,” he said, taking the hand she held out. + +She drew him toward the couch, where the cushions he had brought for her +still lay in confusion. + +“Sit down,” she said, seating herself in an easy chair close by the +couch. “It is chilly this evening; you will not find a hickory-wood fire +oppressive. No, indeed, I will arrange the cushions for you now. Do I +look like a patient?” + +“Like an houri, rather. What a strange girl you are! Why, this morning, +I really thought you would be ill.” + +“No,” she said, leaning her arm on the head of his couch and dropping +her hand carelessly downward till the fingers touched his hair, “my +sympathies are troublesome enough, but in your case they shall not make +me ill.” + +“You felt for me, then, in my bitter disappointment regarding this man?” + +“Felt for you! Did I seem to feel? But we must not talk of it. I am +resolved that nothing sad or grievous shall come between us to-night. +Every thought given to this miserable person is a jewel thrown away.” + +He felt her hand upon his hair; he felt her breath floating over his +face. This man was not very much better or worse than other men of honor +and culture; all this had its effect upon him. The night was stormy and +disagreeable outside; hail was beating upon the marble of the colonnade, +and gushes of rain swept across the windows. The contrast with all that +warmth and silken elegance, full of comfort as it was, made itself felt +luxuriously. + +That white hand dropped lightly as a snow-flake from his hair and fell +down to a level with his mouth. He turned his head suddenly and kissed +it. I think almost any other man would have done the same thing, tempted +so; but instantly a rush of color came to his face, he started up from +his lounging position and begged her pardon with great earnestness. + +She smiled sweetly, looked down upon the flush of red his lips had left +on the whiteness of her hand, and pressed her own lips upon it. + +“This is how I forgive you,” she said. + +He looked at her a moment and sat down suddenly as if he had been shot. + +“Have I shocked you with the punishment?” she questioned, shrinking back +timidly. “Do you think the worse of me for that?” + +“Think the worse of you—Heavens, no! Why ask the question?” + +“You looked so serious.” + +“Would you have me look triumphant?” + +“I—I have been very much to blame.” + +Tears stood upon her eyelashes. She was really distressed. He saw this, +and strove, with delicate chivalry, to reassure her. + +“Does the daughter of Amos Lander regret that she has been kind to his +friend? Does she fear that he will presume upon it?” + +“She fears nothing on this earth so much as losing his good opinion,” +she said, in a soft, low voice. + +“That she never can. It is too firmly rooted. Why, you are trembling, +dear child!” + +“Am I?—not much—it is very foolish. Will you have some music—some +battle-piece to harmonize with the storm?” + +“No; let the tumult without take its own way. We will have nothing that +is not sweet and pathetic. Shall I open the piano?” + +“No; I will bring my guitar.” + +She went out of the room, ran up stairs, and came down again with a +guitar in her hand. + +“I must have a low seat,” she said, drawing an ottoman close to the head +of his couch and resting herself upon it like a Bird of Paradise. Her +purple draperies swept far out on the carpet; the rose in her hair sent +its perfume across her auditor’s lips. There was no use in resisting the +charm of her presence; he gave way to it, especially as she did nothing +to challenge admiration, but sat with downcast eyes and a sweet +seriousness of demeanor, tuning her guitar. + +She played a slow, tender little air at first, and after awhile joined +in with her voice, which was sweet and sympathetic without being +powerful. There was no attempt at anything superior. She played and sung +naturally, but with such feeling that Brooks felt tears stealing into +his eyes. + +“That is too sad; the guitar is best for lively airs,” she said, lifting +her humid eyes to his, questioning him with them rather than with her +voice. + +“Not yet; do not make the transition too abrupt; the charm would be +broken. What a sweet, plaintive voice you have.” + +She answered him with a grateful look. The desire to please was so +intense that it absolutely made the haughty creature humble as a little +child. Had this feminine spirit been upon her from the first, the +struggle that had been going on in the heart of Clarence Brooks would +probably never have existed. Be that as it will, for the time he yielded +unresisting to the sympathetic feeling which her gentleness and grace +excited, and listened to her music with half-closed eyes, doubting if he +really knew his own heart, and had not done grave injustice to the +lovely creature at his feet. + +Cora was not unobservant. From under those fringed eyelids she cast many +a look at the noble face, which the fire-light shone upon so fitfully, +and felt that her hour of triumph was fast approaching. What would she +do with it? Of what avail the conquest she was almost sure of? Was she +not that other man’s wife? “No, no, no, a thousand times no!” she said +in her heart. He had committed a gross fraud in marrying her, had made +himself amenable to the law, degraded himself forever. She had been +infatuated, insane, but not in love with him. All that was a delusion. +How could it have been love when she hated him so now? When this new +feeling was so different? + +This new feeling! Alas, alas, had it come to that? Yes, the haughty +creature had found her master passion when it was all too late. She +would not believe it, but hoped yet to wrest happiness out of the +future, reasoning, as wicked women will, that the one great fault in her +husband absolved her from all the obligations of her marriage +vow—obligations that the world should never know. This woman, in the +grander and nobler passion, as she deemed it, which possessed her now, +found excuses for treachery, injustice, and even crime. Had he not +deserved all this? Was Alfred Seymour worthy of a moment’s +consideration? How had he dealt with her? + +Exactly as she had dealt with him in her rash, passionate selfishness—if +she could only have seen it. But vanity and arrogance would not permit +her to look clearly on her own conduct. + +It was singular that, in the intense scorn that she really felt for her +husband’s crime, her own more deadly offence never once presented itself +as far outmatching his. She was a usurper in that house; an impostor; a +woman who made her beauty the accessory of a fraud whose least crime had +been greater than his, because unrepented of, yet she dared to arraign +and despise him. The creature was sincere in all this; her crime seemed +only the action of great ability—the proof of an intellect born to +control circumstances. The woman almost turned her fraud into poetry and +gloried in the genius that carried it out. She was thinking these things +over as that soft music flowed from her lips. + + + + + CHAPTER XLII. + A AUTUMN PIC-NIC IN THE WOODS. + + +On the next day, that pic-nic in the woods came off, and a pleasant +affair it was. The brook that filled the ravine with its music found its +source in a spring that came from a ledge of rocks, high up on a slope +of the hills, back of the Lander grounds. This ledge was one broad table +of granite, sloping inward some ten feet, where a shelf of stone shot +out, cleft by a fissure from the upper rock, and from that long break in +the stone the spring leaped forth and poured itself over the granite +shelf in one transparent sheet of crystal. These bright waters were +gathered below the ledge into one of the loveliest little rocky pools +you ever set eyes on. Soft sand with pebbles, white as snow, gleamed up +from the bottom, and jagged points of rock held it in, covered with that +delicate moss which finds its highest green in the crystal of +ever-falling water drops. Here the sheltering banks and overhanging +trees had kept away the frost, and all the pool was bordered with tall +ferns, spear-like rushes and broad-leaved water plants, turning red +about the edges. Some lily pads, too, floated like sheeted emeralds on +the water, and the ledge above the little cataract was fringed with +maiden-hair, sarsaparilla and other rock-clinging plants, which sent +their trailing vines now and then to the very outgush of the waters, +rippling them into ridges of silver as they prepared for a plunge into +the pool. + +A perfect bower of hemlocks, pines, and feathery larches bent over and +twined themselves about this ledge, so completely closing it on all +sides except the one which opened to the ravine, that twenty people +could have taken shelter there undiscovered. + +Into this delicious retreat Clarence Brooks came with the two girls who +had so often been his companions of late, after a long ramble through +the woods. There really was no tiring youth out in a day like this, for +the sky overhead was blue as blue could be, and the clear, silvery +sunshine gave it a luminous softness never witnessed in the hot summer +time, when out-door excursions are most in vogue. + +They came up to the ledge, these three persons, and sat down on its +brink, very cheerful and happy, but rather more silent than usual. The +truth was, Clarence Brooks had lost a good deal of his playful +self-possession since that first day under the chestnut tree. Many +things troubled him, and for some days a struggle had gone on in his +life which no one dreamed of but himself. It was over now and his +resolution taken. But he was anxious, and so grave that Ellen, who had +won a high place in the general companionship, asked him more than once +what it was which made him so serious. He answered with some light +evasion, but soon fell into his quiet mood again. + +He was thinking of a downcast face drooping with such feminine modesty +over a guitar, which uttered its sweet complainings under a hand that +had half challenged half repelled his kiss. He was thinking, more +seriously yet, of the dear old friend whose most sacred wishes he was +about to sacrifice. Was it right? Was it generous? Did the girl really +love him, as every look and word that evening seemed to imply? + +He remembered the look, so full of gentle love-light, which she had +lifted to his face at parting—the pressure of her hand, which had +nestled itself like a bird into his. He remembered, too, how wistfully +she had gazed after him when he went out into the storm. He could see +her yet, standing in the French window, purpling the golden light behind +her like a cloud, the masses of ruddy hair sweeping back from her head, +bent slightly forward as it peered into the darkness. Why would this +picture haunt him so? On that day, too, when he had determined on a step +which should drive all such thoughts from his mind. + +These reflections had possessed him as he waited for the girls under the +chestnut tree and amused himself with flinging clusters of the open burs +into the brook, which bore them onward as if the rough things were a +burden. He could not shake them off after those young creatures came, +looking bright as flowers and happy as birds. The spirit of Amos Lander +seemed to reproach him for the purpose that lay in his heart. + +This was the reason of the seriousness for which Ellen half rebuked him. +He threw it off with the vigor of a strong mind giving itself to an +honest idea and was himself again as they came out upon the ledge. Here +some moss-cushioned stones had been rolled into place, forming seats +around a broad, flat stone, which had fallen from the embankment above, +and answered capitally for a table. + +“Under that broad hemlock branch which sweeps so close to the ground you +will find a basket, with lots of things which belong to the +housekeeping,” said Brooks, looking around well pleased. “My duties lie +somewhere back of this pile of rocks.” + +The girls laughed, and began to loop their dresses high up on their +snowy skirts and roll the sleeves back from their white arms ready for +work. + +That broad hemlock branch, which spread itself along the earth like a +banner, concealed a world of choice articles. First came a basket, which +gave out a warning rattle of china striking against silver or steel, all +buried under a table-cloth and a pile of napkins. This was soon disposed +of, and directly that great flat stone loomed up from the centre of the +ledge, like a snow-drift, and the girls were busy as bees laying plates, +arranging knives and forks, opening little jars of jelly and pickles, +unrolling biscuits and discovering little pats of butter stamped with +tiny birds, and all sorts of dainties that were constantly taking them +by surprise and bringing forth exclamations of delight. + +When all was arranged, the girls began to wonder what had become of Mr. +Brooks. They had heard the crash of a breaking stick now and then, +denoting his presence somewhere in the neighborhood, and now a curl of +blue smoke, floating in and out of the hemlock branches, excited their +curiosity. They stole to the verge of the table rock and looked over. +Nothing but a silvery flash of water met the view in that direction, but +to the right, standing before the hollow of an old oak, whose half dead +branches stretched far and wide, bristling through the pines and +hemlocks like broken spears, they saw Mr. Brooks. He was hard at work +before a fire made of chips and dry branches, turning half-a-dozen +lengths of twine attached to a horizontal branch overhead, on which as +many woodcocks were spinning round and round, raining drops of gravy on +the yellow leaves underneath at every turn. He looked up and saw the +girls watching him from the ledge. + +“Don’t be impatient,” he called out; “they are almost done.” + +Then he gave a twirl to the threads of twine all round, and fell to his +task again. The girls enjoyed the sight amazingly. + +“Wouldn’t it be delicious to spend one’s life so,” said Virginia, +pressing her hands softly together. “I wonder if we shall ever be so +happy again?” + +“Who knows?” Ellen answered, smiling in her usual quiet way, which was +at all times a little sad. “But why not? Nature is the only thing in +creation that eternally renews itself. So long as the world lasts she +will prove the same.” + +“Why, how gravely you talk, Ellen! It is not Nature which makes us +so—makes everything so pleasant. These woods are gloomy enough with the +rich leaves all turning brown as dust, if a weary heart goes with them. +You remember the first day we came here, how grandly all the foliage was +colored, how warm and bright the sunshine was. Yet we were very sad.” + +Ellen looked up with a bright smile in her eyes. + +“What is it then that makes the change?” she asked. + +A vivid blush rose to Virginia’s face; she looked away, far down a vista +of the wood, and answered softly that she was sure she did not know. +Then Ellen dropped her eyes and sighed very faintly. This love was a +mournful study for her, poor thing. She might witness it, feel it, dream +of it, but who was ever known to love a girl deformed as she was? Who +could understand the true, warm heart and great brain fettered to a form +like that? + +No wonder Ellen sighed and longed to go away into the woods and sit +alone when the happy face of her mistress brought reflections like these +into her mind. But why did the heart in her bosom grow heavier and +heavier day by day? God help the girl! Did she too love the man who had +come so strangely into their lives? or was it only the yearning of her +woman’s nature for a little of the affection which she saw lavished upon +others? + +“Will some one bring me a plate?—I cannot leave the birds,” called out a +voice from the fire. + +Ellen started to her feet, and, snatching a plate from the table, ran +down to the oak and received the woodcocks upon it as they were cut +loose from the twine that held them. + +“Splendidly done—now carry them up, while I go after the fruit and +wine,” cried Brooks, gaily. + +Ellen went up to the rock, carrying the plate of birds steadily between +her hands. Brooks went down to the little cataract, and, from under the +broad leaves of some water plant that grew among the ferns, brought +forth a basket of grapes and delicate lady-apples, with a long-necked +bottle, capped with tin-foil. The spring water had acted like ice upon +them, and the first rare bloom lay on the grapes like a frost. + +Cora had sent a quantity of cut flowers from the greenhouse to the +little hotel that morning, and Brooks had garlanded the basket with +them, after his own taste, mingling the scent of roses with the rich +odor of the grapes. Perhaps Cora might not have liked this, had she +known it, but the party on the ledge considered that basket a crowning +glory of the feast. + +That was a delicious meal—sharp appetites, the clear autumnal sunshine +and soft air of a genial Indian Summer made it perfect. Three children +at play in the woods could not have enjoyed themselves more naturally. +Even Ellen Nolan came out in force and astonished them with her rare +flashes of wit. Brooks was getting to think the world and all of Ellen +Nolan—there was something so fresh and sincere about her. Then the +bright things that fell from her lips were coupled with words of +absolute wisdom, such as only come from keen observation and deep +thinking. Sometimes the little creature positively startled him with her +sayings. + +After the feast was over, and all its fragments packed away except the +basket of fruit, which they carried off into the deeper shadows of the +rock, Ellen stole off alone, and, letting herself down to the edge of +the pool, on which the sunshine shimmered bright as quicksilver, fell to +throwing leaves and fragments of wood into the water, giving herself up +to gentle thoughtfulness. She had got into her ideal world, and was +fashioning a romance out in her mind, smiling or frowning to herself as +the scenes she imagined pained or pleased her. + +The other two had found a seat far back on the ledge, sheltered by the +boughs of a hemlock, that curved over them like a tent. Some +conversation had already passed between them, for Brooks was speaking +earnestly. + +“If you can love me, Virginia, as I love you with all my heart and soul +and strength, say it to me in words. I must feel the assurance +thoroughly before the exactions of this heart will be satisfied. These +blushes are sweet, dear child, and I love to feel your form trembling +against my arm. But my love craves something more. Tell it me in words, +darling. Can you love me?” + +“I do! I do!” + +She clasped the hands in her lap and lifted them up as a child does in +prayer. Her eyes sought his and fell again, but half veiling the light +that filled them; then her face fell forward, and she burst into a sweet +passion of tears. + +He drew her close to his bosom and kissed her for the first time in his +life, gently as a mother kisses her first infant, almost doubting if it +yet belongs to her. + +Then they sat together in silence, or only uttered such broken words as +great joy uses in expressing itself. After a time she drew herself +softly from his arms and said, with a little anxiety: + +“I have no property; you will marry a penniless girl.” + +“So much the better. I would far rather have it so than join poor +Lander’s vast wealth to my own. We shall not need it, dear child; I have +enough.” + +“And you have chosen me, knowing how worse than penniless I am.” + +“I have chosen you with all my heart and soul, thinking and caring +nothing for the rest. It was your uncle’s wish that I should marry his +child.” + +“His wish! Indeed—indeed!” + +Virginia was greatly excited. It seemed as if, that moment, her father +was close to them. + +“And he wished it—he wished it! His blessing reaches me in spite of +all.” + +Brooks remembered the vague distrust in Lander’s letter, and applied +this speech to that. + +“If the departed really do know what passes here, my child, Lander has +read your heart with a juster knowledge than he had on earth. Do not let +it grieve you that great affection for his daughter blinded him a +little.” + +“No, no, he never was unjust. He was good, wise, generous—the best man, +I do think, that ever lived. You did not half know him, Mr. Brooks.” + +“He certainly did not know you.” + +“Indeed—indeed he loved me dearly—I cannot talk of it now, the subject +is too sad; but some time, when I can have the power—when we are away +from this place—I will tell you everything—you will believe me—I know +that you will.” + +“Believe you! yes, against the angels themselves.” + +Then he drew her close to his heart again and soothed the agitation that +seemed to have frightened all the joy from her heart. + +It was a full hour before Ellen came up to the ledge again, but the +lovers felt her presence as an intrusion, and would not believe it when +she told them that the sun was almost setting. They went down the ravine +almost in silence, and parted under the old chestnut. A few whispered +words passed between the two, and he kissed the little hand she gave him +while Ellen was looking over the side of the bridge to see if the ferns +were all quite dead. When the two girls reached Virginia’s room, Ellen +found herself all at once held in a close embrace. + +“My friend, my friend, thank God with me! It is for myself—my own, own +self—that he loves me! Had I possessed my father’s wealth there might +have been a doubt. Now there is none. Oh! Ellen, how can I make you as +happy as the last hour has made me? Child, child, tell me it is all +real! Does it take you by surprise? Did you think for a moment that he +loved me like that when we saw them riding out so gaily, morning after +morning? Tell me the truth, Ellen, did you not think it was her he +loved?” + +“No, dear lady, I felt from the beginning that it was you.” + +“But I never would have met him so—why did you not tell me? It was like +putting myself in his way.” + +“As he did not seem to feel that an impropriety, we need not grieve over +it.” + +“Grieve! Why, Ellen, it seems to me as if there was no such thing as +grief in the world. She has got my father’s wealth, child, but, oh! how +much richer I am than that can make her!” + +“Did you tell him the truth, lady?” + +“What, about the property? No; it will be time enough by-and-by, when we +have nothing pleasanter to talk about. But you look grave—troubled. What +is the matter, Ellen?” + +“Nothing, lady; I am a little thoughtful, that is all.” + +“No, Ellen, there is something more than that.” + +“Does Mr. Brooks intend to tell your cousin of this?” + +“Perhaps it was mentioned. But why should he wish to conceal it?” + +“Lady, I think Cora Lander loves Mr. Brooks herself.” + +“Ellen!” + +“It is the common talk of the house. But that is nothing; I have watched +her closely, and have watched him too.” + +“Well, Ellen?” + +“She is a girl of subtle power.” + +“I know that well, but what then?” + +“She loves this man, and love with her will be stronger than ambition. +If she knows of this engagement, evil will come of it.” + +Virginia turned deadly white. + +“What could she do?” + +“How can an honorable person tell what an unscrupulous one will do to +accomplish a purpose?” + +“Ellen! Ellen! you have hurt me! My heart was so light, and now it feels +like marble. How can I protect myself from this girl?” + +“Keep your engagement a profound secret.” + +“But how can I?” + +“Easily enough. There is the old way of meeting every morning, if you +like. For some cause, she never goes in that direction now. That cause +will probably still keep her away.” + +“But he will see her in the morning; for some reason, he seems anxious +to inform her and have everything settled. They are to ride out again +to-morrow, and he will tell her then.” + +“Write him a note—ask him to delay it.” + +“No, Ellen, I cannot do that without giving a reason. Besides, what have +I to fear? He will protect me. His love is enough for me to shelter +under. Let us think no more of it; your great affection for me makes you +over cautious, my friend.” + +“It may be so,” Ellen said; “at any rate we must not keep ourselves +miserable with doubts. I have made you look serious.” + +“Yes, a little; I cannot help it. Yesterday I had nothing more to lose; +now I have nothing to gain. In his love God has given me back +everything.” + +“And if she deprived you of that?” + +“Don’t, Ellen; I cannot think of it. That would be death.” + +“Do you love him so entirely?” + +“Yes, Ellen. I would not have told you so yesterday, because I did not +know. I thought perhaps that it was her, and was ashamed of the feeling +that is my glory and blessing now. Like the poor Spartan boy, I should +have let my heart be torn in silence, and even you would never have +guessed. But now I need not blush, though blushes will come in spite of +one out of such feelings, just as perfume steals from a lily. But I need +not blush with shame, at any rate, when you ask me this question. Yes, +Ellen, I love him better than anything in the world; to me there is but +one man on earth. But I am extravagant—words sound coarsely here. Yes, +Ellen, I love him: our language can express no more.” + +“Then, God make you happy,” said Ellen, solemnly. “Guarded by His love +and this other love, all must be well.” + +Virginia and Ellen usually took tea in their own room when Cora was at +home. Indeed, at such times, they seldom appeared in the lower part of +the house at all. Eunice had fallen into this arrangement, and, as +neither Mrs. Lander nor Cora made objections, their isolation from the +family had become almost complete. That evening they ate very little; +Virginia, spite of the doubts that had been forced upon her, was far too +happy for any thought of refreshment, and Ellen had evidently something +on her mind which made her very serious. She went out with Eunice when +she carried off the tray, whispering good-night to the happy young +creature, whose greatest wish was to be alone with her memory and her +dreams. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIII. + ELLEN NOLAN VISITS CLARENCE BROOKS. + + +Ellen Nolan was prompt, both in action and thought. Virginia, in the +full security of a first passion, believed herself safe in the shelter +of her lover’s strength, but with a presage of evil which sprang out of +her own quick intelligence, and would not be shaken off, her friend +resolved to meet the question herself. Putting on her black bonnet and +shawl, she left the house, and, following the railway soon reached the +little hotel where Clarence Brooks found a temporary home. Some men +belonging to the station sat in front of the house. To avoid these +persons, Ellen passed down on the opposite side, keeping in the shadow, +crossed the road at the bridge, and came in sight of the little porch to +which the sitting-room Clarence Brooks occupied opened. She drew nearer, +saw him walking to and fro in the parlor, and, running lightly up the +steps, knocked with her finger against the sash-door. + +Brooks saw her through the glass, and opened the door at once, wondering +what could have brought her there. + +“I have come,” said Ellen, breathing hard, for she had walked rapidly; +“I have come to ask a favor of you, Mr. Brooks.” + +“There is nothing on earth that I will not grant you, Miss Ellen,” he +said, cordially; “but first sit down and let me offer you a glass of +wine.” + +Ellen took the wine and drank it. She was a brave little creature, ready +to go any lengths for the right; but Nature had left her feeble, and, at +times, she felt this a great drawback on her exertions. + +“Mr. Brooks, my young mistress has told me of—of—” + +“She has told you that I love her, and hope to make her my wife. I +suppose there is no secret in that; so you need not hesitate.” + +“That is what I come to ask, Mr. Brooks. Will you let it be a secret?” + +“Did you come from her? Does the lady wish it?” he questioned, in some +surprise. + +“No; I asked her permission; rather, I urged her to make the request, +but she declined.” + +“Then why do you ask it?” + +“I cannot explain, Mr. Brooks, and you would not understand me if I did; +but I ask this favor of you nevertheless, believing that your happiness +and the welfare of Miss Lander depend on it.” + +“Miss Ellen, you surprise me a little I have never known any good come +from a secret yet.” + +“Indeed,” answered Ellen. “What has this whole attachment sprung from +but a succession of secret meetings?” + +Brooks laughed. He rather enjoyed the sharp wit of Virginia’s friend, +and trusted her integrity entirely. + +“But there was a reason for that.” + +“What was it pray, only that it was impossible to receive you at the +house, without giving offence to her cousin?” + +“Well, that was reason enough; but I do not fear to give offence when my +honor requires it.” + +“But Miss Cora Lander has no right to your confidence. She is not her +cousin’s guardian.” + +“True; but Miss Virginia has a mother.” + +“Oh! Mr. Brooks, I implore you, let this thing rest a secret, as it has +done. Mrs. Lander is a weak, selfish woman, in every way under the +control of Cora. She would only do mischief. Believe me, when I solemnly +tell you that the secrecy I ask is both honorable and wise.” + +“But it must be made known. I really would be glad to oblige you, Miss +Ellen; but there are reasons why Miss Cora Lander should be informed of +my engagement with her cousin at the earliest moment.” + +“I understand the reasons, Mr. Brooks.” + +“You!” + +“Yes; and that is one motive for my coming here to-night. This much I +may speak, Miss Virginia has been cruelly treated by her cousin.” + +“About property?” + +“In every way. She dislikes her—hates her is nearer the truth. When she +learns that her own hopes or fancies—call them as you like—have been +thwarted—in secrecy too—by the person she has so wronged, her resentment +will be terrible.” + +“We shall not fear it,” said Brooks. + +“But you will feel it.” + +“Miss Ellen, I think you are a little hard on Miss Cora Lander. She +never has spoken a word to me about your lady that has not been more +than kind.” + +“Oh, sir, do not believe in this; it is a part of her character.” + +“Hush! hush! Remember this lady is the daughter of my old friend. There +has been some trouble, I know, between the cousins. Those things are +common enough when great estates are settled, but they all come right in +the end; at any rate, in this case, they are of no importance. I never +wanted a dollar of Amos Lander’s property, and, thank Heaven, do not +want it now.” + +Ellen arose to go, sorrowful and disheartened. + +“I thought it best to come,” she said. “Knowing the truth myself, I +hoped you would believe it: but I have only done mischief—God forgive +me!” + +“Don’t look so sorrowful, child. At the worst you have done no harm. How +earnest you are about this strange request.” + +“But you will not grant it?” she said, looking wistfully into his face. + +“I would, child, but that I think it wrong to pass, in the household of +my old friend, as a free man, when I am absolutely engaged to a lady +under a roof that was once his. It seems like social treachery.” + +“Mr. Brooks, believe me, I entreat, when I say, that neither in honor or +courtesy are you bound to reveal your real position to either of these +ladies. Had Miss Virginia thought so, she would never have accepted you +unconditionally, as she has done. Do you hold her sense of honor as less +delicate than your own?” + +There was something peremptory, and yet so respectful, in this speech, +that Brooks, spite of himself was impressed by it. + +“Well, well, I will think the matter over, and speak with your lady +about it. We shall meet to-morrow. Be sure and take your usual walk.” + +Ellen took his hand, tears arose to her eyes, and brightened them into +absolute beauty. He wondered that her face had never impressed him so +before. + +“Oh, if you would only believe in me!” she said. + +“I do, child. It is impossible to help it.” + +“You will not speak of this to-morrow, when you ride out with Miss Cora +Lander?” + +“No. I have promised that.” + +“Thank you. My young lady is very happy now, and happiness drives all +sense of wrong out of the heart. She may not look on this matter as I +do, who have plenty of time for cool thought. That is what brought me +here to-night; forgive it, if I have done wrong. Good evening.” + +Brooks seized his hat and overtook her on the stoop. + +“I will see you safely home,” he said; “rough men occasionally hang +about the depot.” + +“I would rather go alone,” she said gently; “not by the railway, that +does frighten me a little. But I know the footpath by the brook and will +take that; enough moonlight will come through the branches, now so many +leaves are gone, to show the path. I don’t want any one to know that I +have been here, so shall be safest alone.” + +Brooks saw that she was in earnest and let her go, but he stood on the +stoop and watched her little figure till it was lost in the duskiness of +the woods. + +Ellen walked up the path rapidly, holding her breath with a vague sense +of awe, for the noise of the brook and the shivering of dead leaves +filled the night with that weird music which makes the silence beyond it +so impressive. The moon gave down a fitful light, exaggerating the +shadows and throwing fantastic gleams through the half stripped +branches. All at once she stopped and gave out a sharp cry. The figure +of a man stood before her in the path, just below the rise of ground on +which the log cabin stood. At first she thought it one of those heavy +shadows thrown by the body of a tree; but the figure stooped and rose +again—a spark of fire seemed to float upward with the motion. Then the +blue light of a match revealed, for one instant, the handsome face of +her brother Brian’s benefactor. All was dark again in an instant, save +the glow of a cigar which the man had evidently just kindled. + +Ellen hastened forward, sweeping back a branch that had fallen across +her path, so eagerly that it swayed into place again with a loud +rustling noise, enough to startle any one desirous of concealment. The +branch had brushed her face, blinding her for the moment. When she +looked for the man he was gone. + +She stood a full minute, searching around in blank amazement, then +hurried away, fairly panting for breath, and so frightened that she ran +at full speed across the lawn, and sheltered herself in the house. + +What was that man doing in a place held so sacred to the Lander family? +Was he staying at the hotel? Did he know any one in the neighborhood, or +was it a myth that had startled her into such abject cowardice? No, she +had seen the face plainly, for that single instant it was illuminated in +all its features; but why had it gleamed upon her so strangely in that +place? + +The next morning Cora carried out a plan that had been arranging itself +in her mind, and went down to the city. She had engaged to ride with +Brooks that day, and the sacrifice which she made in giving up this +pleasure was a great one; but a feeling of insecurity troubled her, and +she resolved to make her future secure at once. She arose early, took +her breakfast alone, and went away by the first morning train, leaving a +note of apology for Brooks behind her, which she ordered Joshua to +deliver before ten o’clock. + +It was wonderful the restraint which that girl’s absence took off the +whole household. No sooner did Mrs. Lander learn that she was gone, to +be absent some days, perhaps, than her spirits rose far above their +usual languid pitch. She refused to have breakfast sent to her room, and +took something of the old liberty on herself, in assuming the head of +the family table. Eunice, in high good humor, went up to summon +Virginia, carrying Mrs. Lander’s compliments with her, in place of the +usual great silver tray, with its elegant equipments. + +Both Virginia and Ellen were glad to accept any change. Indeed, the +former, in her great happiness, could have refused Eunice nothing, for +the woman, in her brusque way, had been very kind to her. So they went +down to the breakfast-room smiling, and so cheerful, that Mrs. Lander +became unusually social. Eunice herself waited on the table that +morning, and a sense of domestic comfort prevailed in that +well-appointed breakfast-room, to which it had been a stranger for +months. + +“Now, I tell you what it is, girls, jest take the bits atween your +teeth, while _she’s_ gone, and have a good time of it. Miss Virgie, I +want to see you a riding on that white pony, that’s been a spiling in +the stable, till our Josh is getting savage about it. So jest put on +your habit after breakfast, and let us see if you can’t set a +side-saddle as well as other folks. It’s a burning shame that you hain’t +been out afore.” + +Eunice shook her head, like a vicious horse, and crashed a plate of +toast down upon the table, with a force that cracked the delicate china. +She was always violent, even in her fits of good nature, and spoke now, +in a state of apparent indignation, about somebody, looking fiercely at +Mrs. Lander all the time. + +“Dear me, Eunice,” said the lady, coloring crimson under the greenish +deepening of those eyes; “it isn’t my fault that Virginia hasn’t ridden +every day of her life. Is it, my dear?” + +“It is no one’s fault, I fancy,” answered Virginia, smiling—(the happy +girl could not speak without smiles that morning)—“only I, I don’t care +much about riding.” + +“It’s no such thing. You know better. But that white animal has got to +be brought out this very morning, or I’ll know the reason why.” + +“But, Eunice, I have no habit.” + +“There goes another. Wasn’t you measured, with t’other one in Paris, and +wasn’t the habits and whips, and them side-saddles, all sent over +together, long afore you started? Trust Amos Lander for that.” + +“Eunice! Eunice! how can you?” cried out Mrs. Lander, white with the +sudden shock which that name was sure to produce. “Have you no feeling?” + +“I’ve got a good deal of feeling for _her_,” answered Eunice, who was +ready to show fight on any subject just then. “She’s been hived up here +long enough, and you’ve stood by and seen it done without a whimper. +Some folks are afeared to say their souls are their own; but I ain’t one +of that sort. Come now, Miss Virgie, jest to please me, let Josh bring +out that white critter. _He_ bought it for you.” + +Virginia’s eyes filled with tears. Eunice saw it, and drew the back of +her bony hand across her own eyes, sniffing violently. + +“That’s right! that’s right! I thought his name would do it!” she +exclaimed. “The habit is all laid out on your bed, gold buttons and all. +There’s a soft hat, too, with a feather as long as the foot-post. He +ordered ’em jest alike, all but the hat and feather. He never made no +difference between girl and girl, only as one looked better in a thing +than t’other.” + +A still more vicious look at Mrs. Lander destroyed all that lady’s +appetite, and, with genuine tears in her eyes, she besought Virginia to +oblige her and take a ride. The happy girl would have done anything that +morning, to please even her worst enemy, so she made the promise, at +which Mrs. Lander arose from the table and kissed her. + +Eunice stood by, smiling grimly at all this, with the feeling that she +was fast getting up a happy family, which would some time be sheltered +under her own wings. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIV. + THE WHITE HORSE DISTANCES THE BLACK ONE. + + +In the exuberance of her spirits, Virginia was delighted with this idea +of a ride, the first that she had thought of taking since her return to +America. So, later in the day, she put on her habit with its garniture +of gold buttons, and the hat with its trailing feather, which made her +resemblance to Cora absolutely startling. + +Joshua Hurd brought out the horse, washed white as snow, with his mane +shining like floss silk and his eyes full of genial fire. Proud as a +lord, he lifted Virginia to her saddle, and stood, with his stout arms +folded complacently, and a broad grin on his face, watching her as she +rode off. Every time that beautiful animal tossed his head, or began to +curvette the gravelled road, Josh would give out a mellow chuckle of +delight, and move his great feet on the ground, in an ecstasy of +admiration. + +Virginia had refused the escort of a groom. She longed to enjoy her +freedom without even that restraint. As for fear, the girl had scarcely +a remembrance of the time when she had not ridden on horseback. Besides, +who could be afraid of that beautiful animal, whose wildest movements +were full of playful grace without a touch of viciousness in them. So +away she rode, coming out of the grounds at the broad iron gate, just +above the hotel, after which she took the road at a gallop. + +Clarence Brooks had received his note just before the hour appointed for +his morning ride with Cora. Joshua had been busy preparing his favorite +for the road and sent the note by another servant, who loitered on the +way, so that Brooks got it just as he was prepared to mount. He went +back into the house and seated himself in the stoop, half resolved to +give up his ride when Virginia went by on her white horse, casting one +shy glance toward the hotel as she went. + +Up Clarence Brooks started, knocking over his chair, seized the riding +whip and gloves he had flung aside, and, leaping to his saddle, put his +impatient horse to the top of his speed at once. + +Virginia heard the clattering hoofs behind her and spoke softly to her +horse. + +“Steady, steady, Snowball; not so fast, not so fast.” + +Snowball arched her neck and began to amble, as if she understood the +beating of that young heart and was resolved to humor it, irksome as the +restraint was. + +“So I have overtaken you at last,” cried out a happy voice, just behind +her. The next instant that black steed came neck and neck with her white +one, contrasting finely, like the two riders. “Oh, Virginia, this is too +great a happiness! What a glorious day we will make of it!” + +“I thought you would see us pass; Snowball, here, almost wanted to stop. +I think the creature knows more than she ought—indeed I do.” + +How well she rode; not with the dash and conscious power of Cora. But +with so firm a seat, and that gentle touch of the bridle, there was +little danger that any horse would rear and plunge with her in the +saddle. Away they went, riding off the first glow of animal spirits with +a dash. When the horses took their own course, Brooks rode so close to +Virginia’s bridle rein at times that his hand touched hers, while their +horses walked lazily forward or absolutely stopped under some cool +shade, seeming to know how pleasant the whole affair was to their +riders. + +In the fullness of their contentment these two people talked of a +thousand things which drew them closer and closer into sweet sympathy +every moment. He told how his heart had gone out to her on that first +day when they met under the chestnut, how he had struggled against the +feeling, which grew stronger and stronger every hour, because it seemed +like treason against the wishes of his friend, whose great object had +been for a union between himself and the daughter he so devotedly loved. +She was beautiful, he said, and accomplished beyond most women. At first +he had liked her, notwithstanding a shade of disappointment, for Lander +had prepared him for something more feminine—at any rate less +pronounced. Perhaps, had things gone on as they commenced—had he never +found that log cabin in the woods and looked from its little window—Amos +Lander’s last wish might have been carried out. But that day of +chestnuting had played the mischief with all such ideas. He had found +the niece all that the daughter had been described to him—all that he +had loved before seeing either. Still the contest had been a hard one. +Death had sanctified his friend’s wish, and the feelings that were so +surely arising to oppose it seemed to him almost as a crime. He resisted +them bravely for a while, gave himself up to the society of Lander’s +heiress, strove to force his heart into loving her—had admired her +greatly, and did then. But the heart in his bosom was not to be +controlled. Cora Lander was beautiful, brilliant, talented, noble; but +he did not love her, for heart and soul, body and strength, he loved her +cousin. + +All this was heavenly language to the fair girl who listened. She +longed, in the fullness of her confidence, to tell him everything, but +the truth was so painful that she put it off. Why dash their happiness +with a subject like that? He loved her, and that was enough. Poor, +wicked Cora, she was welcome to the wealth—welcome, to all the happiness +that could be wrested out of a fraud. Why should she feel a pleasure in +destroying the respect he felt for her? It might be necessary for her to +tell all the truth some time—would be, no doubt—but why trail the +serpent over their flowers just then? + +So they talked of nothing that was not pleasant and hopeful. Brooks told +her of Ellen’s visit the night before, and of her strange request, which +he could not yet understand. Virginia listened, smiling—what had she to +fear with this lordly man by her side? Still she had compassion on +Ellen’s terror, groundless as it seemed, and said: “Perhaps it would be +as well to gratify her. Dear girl, all this fear grows out of her great +care; besides, their secret way of love had been so bright, she, for +one, would rather keep in it a while longer.” + +“But your mother, dear girl, we must ask her sanction of our love.” + +Virginia started at this, and a revulsion swept over her fair face. + +“No,” she said, “not yet; I cannot consent to that. Do not ask me why, +but it is impossible.” + +Brooks was disturbed by her perturbation, and wondered at it. He saw the +color come and go in her face, leaving it unusually white and serious. +This look of distress, devoid as it was of all temper, touched him with +compassion. + +“Why, how have I managed to drive the color from your face like that?” +he said, with a broad smile, which was like sunshine to her. “We need +ask no one’s consent to our love because that cannot be helped, try as +we will. As for your mother—” + +“Don’t, don’t, I cannot bear to hear you speak of her in that way!” + +“Why, you sensitive darling, what have I said disrespectful?” + +“Nothing, nothing; this shade chills one. Shall we ride on?” + +For half a mile they went forward at a gallop. When this hot speed was +checked, Brooks turned toward her and said, very gently: + +“So, I am not to tell!” + +“Give me a little time to think what is right and best,” she answered, +in a low voice. + +“I will—I will, an eternity, if you ask it. Now smile upon me once more. +I feel like some poor fellow in a storm while you continue to look so +troubled.” + +She looked up and smiled upon him with such sweet trust, that his heart +yearned toward her with a tenderness almost paternal. + +“Now,” he said, “we have a fine piece of woods to ride through—on the +other side is the neatest little country tavern you ever saw. There we +will dine.” + +Virginia brightened instantly. + +“You and I alone,” she said, radiant with the thought. “Oh! that will be +happiness.” + +They made a short passage of the woods, sending back storms of dead +leaves along the road, and at length came in sight of a long stone +house, nearly overrun by a Virginia creeper, blood-red, and half bereft +of its foliage, which make the grass around one brilliant carpet of +crimson and green. + +This creeper curtained the windows of a little sitting-room, with a +home-made carpet on the floor, a wooden settee with a green cushion, +along one side some upright cane-bottomed chairs standing like sentinels +against the wall, and a round table with a faded cloth in the centre. I +do not think those young people gave much heed of the hardness of that +settee, or were very impatient because that choice little dinner took +some time in the preparation. They took pleasantly to the steel forks +and coarse napkins, for both were exquisitely clean. As for the broiled +chicken, mealy potatoes and home-made bread, I had rather say nothing +about them, because the fragments taken out were by no means so many as +very sensitive people might expect from two persons so thoroughly in +love with each other. A long ride on that glorious October morning had +really deranged the usual course of things, and the romance of eating +their first meal together was scarcely equal to the reality. + +They left that shaded room reluctantly after all, and Virginia cast a +wistful look behind her as she passed its threshold. What a happy hour +it had been! Even the rag carpet and that stiff settee looked beautiful +to her. + +The ride home was quieter but not less delightful than the morning had +proved. The deep contentment which settled upon them was the delicious +repose which follows joyous excitement. These young persons loved each +other, and every phase of their growing passion was a delight. + +Virginia would ride home alone. She was not prepared to brave the +questions and criticism which would follow a bold dash up to the house +with Clarence Brooks by her side. He protested and threatened to rebel, +but she was firm as a little tyrant, and rode away from him before the +argument was half closed. As for the people at the hotel and along the +road, the affair made no comment, for Virginia, in the same style of +dress, was so like her cousin that people only observed, in a careless +fashion, that Miss Lander had changed her horse that day, and, with a +feather in her hat, looked more beautiful than ever. Somehow the black +horse had given her a dashing and fierce air, which did not appear at +all on that snow-white beauty. No wonder Mr. Brooks was in love with the +lady. What a match it would be; both so rich and good-looking—in fact, +they were the finest couple that was ever seen in those parts, and worth +millions between them. + +Joshua Hurd was waiting for his favorite when she came up, in a high +state of enjoyment. The white horse had, for once, been fairly placed +upon the road, and the neighbors had been given a chance to see what +sort of animals were kept in the Lander stables; people did not know it, +but Snowball was a full-blooded Arabian, and had been purchased in Egypt +for Mr. Lander’s daughter. Cora had made the wrong choice that time, and +Joshua Hurd chuckled over it. What did she know of a horse? + + + + + CHAPTER XLV. + GETTING RID OF WITNESSES. + + +Cora went directly to her house the moment she reached the city. She +hated the place now, and nothing but an important purpose would have +induced her to enter it. The servants were in possession, all except +Lubin, who, loving his art better than money, had left a place where his +talent had so little chance of appreciation. The week before, he had +discharged himself and sailed for New Orleans. This was good news for +Cora; it relieved her visit of half its difficulty. This man had been +present at her marriage; he knew of her domestic life, and was therefore +dangerous. But he was removed from her path now, and the only person +left whose evidence would be fatal was the woman, Alice Ruess; she it +was who had gone after the clergyman; she had witnessed the marriage +ceremony and held the whole secret in her possession. This woman must be +disposed of—but how? Could persuasion or money do it? That was what had +brought Cora to the city. Mrs. Lander believed that the trip was taken +in order to superintend the new dresses which had been purchased with +such liberality for her own wardrobe. But dressmakers were very little +in Cora’s mind just then, and while her mother thought her busy with +lavender and purple silk, she sat quietly in that little room, +conversing with Alice Ruess in the most kindly and social manner. Cora +had long noticed that there was something on her humble friend’s +mind—not that she called her humble—Cora had too much tact for that, +under the circumstances. Indeed, did Alice suppose her so entirely taken +up by her own affairs that she had no sympathy for others? On the +contrary, she had come now to learn if there was nothing that she could +do which might alleviate the sadness that really was mournful. What was +it that preyed upon Alice Ruess with such depressed effect? + +Alice Ruess had her troubles, poor thing—and very serious ones they +were. After a good deal of persuasion, and more caresses than Cora +usually bestowed on any one from whom she wanted nothing, the unhappy +woman was prevailed upon to admit that she was a married woman and had a +husband in California, whom she had not seen in three years. He had left +Germany, promising to send for her the moment he was settled in the gold +region; but year after year had gone by without bringing the promised +summons. So she had saved a little money by hard work and paid her +passage to New York, where she was compelled to remain for want of means +to go farther. But she was hoarding her wages, every cent of them, and +in the course of another year hoped to have enough to pay her passage to +San Francisco. It was a long time to wait, but necessity knew no laws; +she had been compelled to patience before, and must endure it again. + +Then it was that Cora came out in a new and beautiful character. Why had +she never been applied to before? It was cruel, it was unjust. Did Alice +consider her the most hard-hearted creature in the world? Of course she +should go at once to California. In the very next steamer if money could +do it. What, separate a husband from his wife for the want of a little +money, the thing was barbarous! Alice was in an ecstasy of gratitude. +She loved her husband, and was dying to proceed at once on her +pilgrimage in search of him. This munificence in her employer brought +genuine tears into her eyes. She fell upon her knees, buried her face in +Cora’s lap, and called down blessings upon her, such blessings as a good +woman would have felt to the core of her heart. Even this calculating +creature; took a sort of glory to herself when the grateful voice, +broken with sobs, told how happy this goodness had made her. She had so +long pined in silence for the means generously offered now, that it was +a benefit beyond her realization. + +Cora was glad to know that the means she was using for her own safety +had given so much happiness. She liked Alice, and was grateful to her +for asking so few questions and receiving all her sympathy with such +genuine good faith. + +Cora slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel that night; she still retained +rooms there, expecting to return in the winter. As for sleeping in that +house, her very soul recoiled from it. She shuddered when Alice proposed +it, and put the woman away from her with both hands. + +“Not for the world!” she said, breaking into a passion. + +She checked herself instantly; it was no part of her purpose to inform +Alice of her discontent. Her tools must be used blindly. No old diplomat +was ever more reticent in his craft than this young woman, to whom +duplicity came by heart. She could not always restrain those outbreaks +of feeling which belonged to her double character. But her mind, ever on +the alert, had explanations and excuses ready for adroit use on such +occasions, and her resources were always sufficient for the occasion. + +“You forget,” she added, with a saddened face, “he is not here, and +without him I think my heart would break, surrounded by these precious +associations. Alice, you know what it is?” + +Alice began to cry from tender sympathy. + +“But Monsieur will return, he has not gone for long,” she said, with a +kind effort at consolation. “The great God is good, he will not allow +Madame, who is so generous, so munificent, to suffer a long separation, +such as has taken away all my youth.” + +Cora was a splendid actress. When she entered into a part like this, it +was with all her soul. She put a handkerchief, made of filmy linen and +lace, to her eyes, and shook her head mournfully. + +“It is a long time even now, Alice.” + +“But Monsieur will return. He will shoot many birds, grow tired, and +come home. Oh, Madame Seymour, I will pray very much for that!” + +Cora started as this name was uttered. A gleam of pleasure came to her +face, which Alice thought had sprung out of the comfort given by her +assurances. But Cora remembered that his name of Seymour was the only +one that even Alice ever had known her by. Here she was doubly guarded. + +“I see Madame will take hope,” said Alice, cheered by her fancied +success. + +“But I am so young—so foolish, Alice! To me weeks seem like years when +he is away.” + +“Ah yes, I understand. My years have been so long—so long!” + +“But there shall be only weeks now between you and your husband. By the +very next steamer you shall go.” + +“Ah, Madame, you are so good!” + +“I will send down, get your ticket and arrange about the state-room this +afternoon. Now I think of it, get into the carriage and we will drive to +the office at once.” + +The grateful woman put on her bonnet with trembling hands, and throwing +a mantilla over her shoulders, stood in readiness to go, more glad at +heart, than she had been for years. + +They got into a carriage, which stood at the door, and drove down to the +Bowling Green almost in silence. Both were cheerful—Alice, because she +was going to her husband; Cora from a consciousness that, one by one, +the shackles of her married life were giving way. When they reached the +office, Cora gave Alice her purse. + +“Get the ticket, arrange everything, and keep the rest, you will want +it.” + +“Oh, Madame!” + +“There, there; go at once or the choice of berths will be less,” said +Cora, waving aside the poor woman’s gratitude, which, being thoroughly +genuine, began to rebuke her a little. + +Alice went into the office, and came out with her ticket, smiling +gratefully. + +“When does the steamer sail, Alice?” + +“In three days, Madam.” + +“Well, I will drive you home; you must begin to pack up at once, three +days are soon here and gone.” + +“In a month—in one little month, I shall see him!” + +“And this makes you so happy.” + +“So happy—oh, _mon Dieu_, so happy!” + +“Well, here we are. Be ready in time.” + +“But the house, Madame—what shall I do about that?” + +“Leave it with that stout black woman—I forget her name—but she seems +honest.” + +“As madame pleases—Hagar is very good negar.” + +Alice got out of the carriage and Cora drove away, well pleased with her +morning’s work. She did not inform Alice Ruess where she was going, but +promised to call again or send for her; so the woman was well content. + +After driving a block or two, Cora pulled the check-string and ordered +the coachmen to return. Alice saw the carriage and came out. + +“Come here, close to the door,” she said. + +Alice obeyed, and Cora whispered to her: + +“If my husband should return, tell him I have gone up the river, and do +not speak of my coming down again, that might keep him here and I should +lose so much time, you know.” + +“But I shall see you again, Madame?” + +“Yes; oh yes, I shall see you off, never fear. But remember what I have +just told you.” + +“Certainly, Madame.” + +After this, Cora drove away for good, and actually did go to Mrs. +Lander’s dressmaker and torment the poor woman terribly with a confused +discussion about trimmings—white, lavender, purple and gray—with which +the second mourning was to be illuminated into a phase at once sorrowful +and desponding. The happy medium in such cases is difficult to reach. + +Three days from that, Cora drove to the door of her own residence and +took Alice into the carriage. The luggage was already on board, and +Alice Ruess had no friends to weep over or bid farewell. When once +seated in the carriage, she said: + +“Oh, Madame, Monsieur came last night.” + +“What, my husband?” Spite of herself Cora’s voice was sharp and +startled. + +“Yes, Madame, Monsieur Seymour. He was grieved—very sad indeed, when I +told him Madame was up the river.” + +“And I have missed him—of course he took the train at once.” + +“Perhaps. He went away but said nothing.” + +Cora looked at her watch. + +“The steamer sails at twelve, I have plenty of time. It is only a few +hours delay.” + +She spoke carelessly, but her face was like ashes in its paleness. They +drove down to the wharf, crowded with drays, carriages, wheelbarrows, +and swarms of people of all grades and character, from the rich +aristocrat to the humblest orange woman. Men and women crowded the deck +and swarmed up the gangway, jostling each other, some carrying carpet +bags, some holding great bouquets, and others, who came late, dragging +valises and trunks desperately upward by one handle. + +It was a scene of wild confusion. Women leaned down from the deck, +searching for those they loved and were leaving among the crowd; some +with a last gift of flowers in their hands, others flinging kisses from +lips quivering with grief, others again weeping piteously. + +Through this crowd Alice Ruess made her way with a little satchel in her +hand and a look of touching joy on her face. She had nothing to leave, +but all the world to follow. In a few weeks she would see her husband. +This was the happy thought that went singing through her mind as she was +hustled up to the deck and stood there, eager for the bell to ring, for +she considered every minute lost which was not bearing her onward. + +Cora leaned out of the carriage, interested in the woman she had helped. +Indeed she felt almost the sensation which springs from a generous +action. The poor creature’s intense gratitude seemed to make a virtue of +her selfishness. + +Finally the bell rang, the great cable was uncoiled and followed the +heaving vessel like a huge snake till rough hands drew it up, wet and +dripping. The ponderous wheels began to buffet the waters; the great +vessel swept out into the river and the boom of a gun sent back her last +farewell. Cora saw the slender figure of Alice, waving a handkerchief, +through the smoke, and drew back into the carriage with tears in her +eyes. Whatever her motive was, she had done good to that helpless little +woman, and loved her a little as we all love those we have benefitted. +But the words she said five minutes after had little of goodness in +them. + +“Thank Heaven, that possible danger is escaped. This change of name will +be like a tombstone on the woman should he ever attempt to search her +out.” + +In going down to the office that day, Cora had suggested that Alice +should take out her ticket under a changed name. “It will give your +husband a pleasant surprise,” she said. + +“You will have the happiness of seeing his heart leap into his eyes. But +the commonplace warning of a passenger list would spoil everything.” +Alice acquiesced. She would have done almost anything at the bare +suggestion of a lady who had so generously befriended her. + +This was the reason that Cora congratulated herself with such +earnestness. All traces of Alice Ruess were lost when that California +steamer left the harbor of New York. + +From the wharf, Cora drove to a law office in Nassau street. The man she +went to consult was a perfect stranger to her, and she seemed resolved +to keep him so, for, on entering his office, she carefully drew the +thick crape veil over her face, and her figure had been as much as +possible enveloped in a large mourning shawl. She had only a few words +to ask of the gentleman: “Would he give her his attention just for one +moment? A friend of hers had been unfortunate in marrying a man +afterwards condemned to a term of service in the State’s prison, would +that fact relieve her from all marriage obligations?” + +Cora had been a little unfortunate in her lawyer, who happened to be a +clerk in the office. Seeing a stylish-looking lady come in, who +evidently mistook him for the superior, he assumed the position and gave +his opinion with confidence. + +“No doubt of it—no doubt of it. My dear Madam, the lady is free as air. +No marriage ceremony can bind any woman to a convict.” + +“You are quite sure of this?” + +The impromptu lawyer smiled in a superior way, and gently waved his +hand. + +“Those who know me, dear lady, would not find it necessary to ask that +question.” + +“Excuse me,” answered Cora from behind her veil, “but my friend is +naturally anxious to be certain. Her position is a very delicate one.” + +“No doubt of it; but the question is a very simple one and easily +answered. Why, common sense teaches one that it must be an unjust law +which ties an innocent woman to her guilty husband when crime itself +separates them. What if a man is condemned for life?” + +The petty impostor seemed disposed to enter into an argument on the +subject, being rather anxious in his own mind; but Cora was only too +glad that his convictions were so positive, and, taking out her +porte-monnaie, she handed him a bank bill of considerable value, +scarcely heeding the amount. + +The man took it, cast a sharp glance at the face, which only gave an +imperfect outline beneath that provoking veil, hesitated and said, +“Madam,” as if she had spoken. + +She turned away, impatient of his scrutiny. + +“Hem, hem, Madam, perhaps you will expect some change?” he said, folding +the bill and leisurely placing it in his pocket-book. + +“It is no matter,” she answered, moving away. + +“But, Madam, Madam, I insist.” + +The fellow was closing his pocket-book all the time. She saw the action, +and turned away, despising him in her heart. There is, after all, an +aristocracy of crime in this world. This woman, whose life was one great +fraud, dared to look with contempt upon the man who could commit a petty +offence against herself. She did not regret the money he had pocketed so +adroitly, for the information he had given her was worth ten times that +amount, but her lip curled with contempt of the man. + +“To the Hudson River Depot.” + +Cora was eager to reach home now—eager to commence the contest which lay +before her. No, she thought better of it. Seymour would never venture to +come into the neighborhood of her residence while Clarence Brooks was +there. She would drive to the house in town and make sure of an +interview with her husband, should he have returned to it. Her haughty +spirit was now prepared for the issue—prepared to repudiate and defy +him, if that course seemed best to her. She drove up to the house and +entered it, almost expecting to meet the man who had been all the world +to her only a few months before in deadly enmity. Whether the contest +would be one of force or craft she had not determined, but she was +resolved that it should be final and decisive. + +He was not there. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVI. + THE BROTHER’S CONFESSION. + + +That night, a little after dark, Alfred Seymour came to that almost +deserted house, and, letting himself in with a latch-key, walked +directly up stairs, not with his usual elastic tread, but heavily, like +a man borne down with age or fatigue. He entered Cora’s chamber and +looked around, his eyes heavy with such bitter wretchedness that his +most fiendish enemy would have pitied him. + +“Oh! God help me! God help and forgive me!” he cried, in a dry, feverish +voice. “I cannot find her. She avoids me, and I love her so!” + +The unhappy man threw himself on that sumptuous bed, soiling its +whiteness with his dusty clothes, and crushing one of the laced pillows +against his face, kissed it with a wild passion, that seemed almost like +insanity. + +“Her head had touched it—her warm cheek lay here, and here the breath +from her sweet lips floated over this lace. If she shed tears during my +absence, they fell upon this linen. Oh! if I knew—if I only knew!” + +The terrible sway of his grief shook the bed till all its frost-like +draperies trembled above his prostrate form. + +“She loved me once. She did love me—but now, when I come home famishing +for a sight of her, she is not to be found! Does she know that I am +here? I told that woman to tell her, but find the house dark and empty +as a grave. I have been to that house. In my disguise I ventured into +the very stables. The stupid man I found there told me that she had not +yet returned from the city. I saw _him_ too, looking calm and noble, as +he always did, riding as I have seen him a hundred times in the desert +and on the plains. At first I thought she was with him. The very fear +made me faint. Thank God, it was not her, but so like, so like! Can two +women on this earth be so beautiful? I would have sworn not till +yesterday. Another man might have been deceived; but I was her husband, +and after that one look felt the difference. What an angel that girl on +the white horse looked. He will marry her; I saw it in his face, in the +movement of his stately head as he bent toward her. God bless him! God +bless the woman who makes him happy!” + +These were the thoughts which tortured that wretched man as he lay there +bewailing the past, half frantic with fever, the most pitiable object +that the darkness of that night closed in upon. + +Later in the evening a slender figure came through the gate and went +down to the basement, where a few words were exchanged with the colored +woman. Then Brian Nolan sprang up the stairs, mounted both flights like +a deer and knocked at the door, from which low sounds of grief reached +him. + +Seymour got up and opened the door. Brian almost threw himself at the +young man’s feet in an ecstasy of joy. + +“Oh! Mr. Seymour, you have come back at last! I have waited, and +waited—longed for you till the loneliness made me ill.” + +“Thank God, there is one human being that loves me!” cried Seymour, +straining the lad to his heart with an embrace that would have pained +him at another time. “You are glad to find me, Brian?” + +“Glad—only feel how my heart beats!” + +“It is a good, faithful heart, and beats honestly, I know,” said +Seymour, kissing the boy’s upturned forehead. “Ah! if you were a little +older, Brian.” + +“I am old enough to love you dearly and do anything on earth for you +that a strong man is capable of. God will give me strength, and love +will make me wise when strength and wisdom are needed to prove how +grateful I am.” + +Seymour looked wistfully into that eager face. He felt so friendless +that the boy’s ardor comforted him. + +“I know you love me, Brian.” + +“Indeed I do; try me!” + +“I shall, perhaps, Brian, and that before long. Look me in the eyes, +boy.” + +“See, I do.” + +“It is an honest look.” + +“I am honest, Mr. Seymour.” + +“And for that reason would have no charity for dishonesty in others.” + +Brian bent his head a moment in thoughtful silence; at last he looked up +brightly. + +“My father used to say that good people were always the most +charitable.” + +“Your father was a good man, Brian.” + +The words were spoken so impressively that Brian felt his heart swell +with a strange, new feeling. + +“Did you ever know my father, sir?” + +“Yes, boy, I knew him well.” + +“What, my own, own father, who is now a grand spirit among the angels?” + +“Brian, sit down here—not here, I forget. Come into the next room, it is +my own.” + +With his arm about the lad, Seymour went into another room and closed +the door, shutting out the light of a small lamp filled with perfumed +oil, which was always kindled at sundown in the chamber they had left. +They were altogether in the dark now, save the moonbeams, which flung a +belt of silver half across the carpet. + +Seymour sat down on a sofa and drew the boy to his side. Throwing one +arm over his shoulder, he sat for some time in silence, sighing heavily. + +“Brian,” he said at last, in a voice so changed that it made the boy +start, “Brian, I am going to tell you a great secret, and trust you as +grown men seldom dare to trust each other.” + +“You may—I will keep your secret; trust me, I shall be proud of that.” + +Seymour tightened his arm around the lad, and Brian felt that it was +trembling violently. + +“Brian, I was not good, naturally, as you are.” + +Brian interrupted him. + +“Oh, I’m not so very good after all. Ellen could tell you that.” + +“But I was not good at all in comparison. My boyhood was full of +faults—I did my father great wrong—injured his children—almost broke his +heart—” + +“Poor man,” said Brian, tenderly. “And he must have loved you so!” + +“He did love me—never on this earth shall I be so loved again.” + +“I will love you dearly, Mr. Seymour.” + +“But I did worse than this in the end; I almost ruined my father and his +whole family.” + +“That was very sad; but I suppose he forgave you?” + +“Yes, thank God, he did!” + +Seymour’s voice was choked with emotion, for some moments he had no +power of speech. + +“At last I went into the world alone. I meant to act rightly; I had a +great many accomplishments, and made friends wherever I went. There was +a man among them who took to me, whom I loved devotedly—as you love me, +Brian.” + +Brian’s eyes shone like stars in the moonlight, and he drew close to +Seymour, murmuring: + +“Almost, perhaps.” + +“I was poor and he was rich. He wanted a travelling companion, for he +was going across the desert to Jerusalem and up the Nile—farther than +travellers usually explore—and wanted companionship in his adventures. +First we went into Switzerland and Italy.” + +Here Seymour stopped, and his heart swelled against Brian’s side with +painful throes. + +“In Italy I met and loved a lady you have seen once at the hotel.” + +“Yes, I saw that you loved her.” + +“That is our secret, Brian—keep it sacredly. I have married that lady.” + +“I will keep the secret.” + +“I thought that she was poor—that poverty would keep us apart forever. +It was this thought which ruined me. You are young and cannot know what +power love holds over a heart which gives itself for the first and only +time to a woman like her.” + +“I—I can imagine it,” said Brian, softly. + +“We parted. She went one way and I another, following my friend and +benefacter—for he was that to me—into the far East. This man was rich +and had no relatives that he cared for. Once he said to me, ‘If I should +take the fever or be flung from a precipice, it will be a shame that I +did not make you my heir, Alfred, when we had lawyers in plenty around +us.’ I laughed at this as a joke at the time, but it afterwards +suggested a great temptation to me.” + +Again Seymour paused. His voice was becoming more and more husky. + +“My friend was taken ill. This was on our return from the Holy Land. He +had what is call the Syrian fever, and I nursed him faithfully. God is +my judge, I loved that man as if he had been my own brother. Night after +night I watched by his bedside, trying to pray for him, when I had +almost forgotten to pray for myself. One night the coldness of death +came upon him—the stillness of Death in all its ghastliness. The people +took charge of him then. I will not speak of my grief—that would seem +like a mockery after what I must tell you. Brian, when I thought that he +was dead, lost to me forever, those words about the heirship of his +property came into my head, haunting me with temptations. I knew that he +had bills of exchange to a large amount in his travelling-desk. Those +bills were enough to make me comparatively a rich man. His relatives +would have the great bulk of his wealth, while I, his best friend, +beloved more than them all, was left penniless. + +“Brian, I took these bills from his desk, leaving all the money there, +which was no inconsiderable sum, that nothing might be wanting, and came +away.” + +Brian had been gradually shrinking from the arm that held him, but he +gave no other sign of the shock that seemed to freeze the heart in his +bosom. + +“I came to this country and found the lady for whom I had done all this, +so wealthy that all the gold for which I had cursed myself was nothing +to her. She never knew how it had been obtained—I pray God that she +never will. But I know it, Brian, and this knowledge makes a coward of +me.” + +Brian sat perfectly still, with his eyes and his hands hanging +listlessly downward. The boy had not expected this. He was prepared for +trouble, humiliation, anything but crime. Seymour sat speechless for a +moment, waiting for some sign of the feeling his story had excited. + +“I am so sorry—so sorry,” said the boy, drawing a deep breath. + +“And hereafter you will hate me,” answered the young man, in a voice so +mournful that it brought tears into the lad’s eyes. + +“No, no; it makes me sad. I love you better than ever, but with a +trouble in it.” + +“Dear, dear boy! But I have not told you all.” + +Brian shuddered. He thought some deeper crime would be in the next +words. + +“Do not shake so, boy; I cannot bear to make you suffer. What I have +more to say is this. The man I supposed dead is alive and in this +country.” + +Brian started, and grasping Seymour’s arm, looked wildly in his face. + +“Then you are in danger, sir?” + +“Yes, great danger; that is why our happy home was broken up. I dared +not face the man I had so wronged; for _her_ sake, I fled like a coward; +for her sake, I have come back again. Her letters have not reached me. I +find this house desolate; for we lived here, Brian, so happy—so happy! +That man is in the very neighborhood with her. What if she knows the +truth?” + +“If she loves you there will be pity and forgiveness.” + +“But a consciousness of shame and disgrace. My proud, beautiful angel, I +would rather die than see scorn on her lips.” + +“But this gentleman is brave, you say—generous, kind. Go to him.” + +“Heavens! I cannot do that! One glance of his eye would kill me!” + +“I would do it,” said Brian, gently. “Indeed I would.” + +“If I had used none of the money—if I could replace it—that would be +possible. Indeed I have thought of it, but I have already spent three +thousand dollars.” + +Brian was thoughtful a moment. Then he started to his feet. + +“But the lady—she is rich. Ask her for these three thousand dollars.” + +“She would give it to me if I dared but ask. Still, what reason can I +urge for wanting it? She knows that I have this money.” + +“Tell her the truth!” + +“Boy, boy, I would die first!” + +“Oh! if I only had so much money!” + +“You would give it to me, I know; but for a friendless unknown man to +raise even three thousand dollars is impossible. In a wild hope that it +might be done, I sold my horses and all the valuables in my possession. +Everything has been turned into money, but that is all I can do.” + +Brian sat down again and laid both hands on Seymour’s arm. + +“Let me try and help you?” + +“You, Brian?” + +The young man looked into the boy’s face, which was singularly pale and +earnest in the moonlight. Then, in a voice that trembled with tender +gratitude, he said: + +“If you only could! If you only could!” + +“Even a boy like me can try.” + +“How much this is like your father, Brian.” + +“Yes, yes, I remember. The other terrible thing drove it out of my mind, +but you have seen my father.” + +“Brian, he was my father, as well as yours. I was his eldest son.” + +With a wail of such exquisite pain and pleasure as goes well nigh to +break a young heart, Brian threw both arms around his brother’s neck, +sobbed out some inarticulate words, and lay still as death upon his +bosom. The boy had fainted. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVII. + LISTENING AND PLOTTING. + + +The moment Cora returned home, she sent a note to Clarence Brooks, +challenging him to ride that afternoon as some compensation for the one +she had so unexpectedly deprived him of. With all her anxiety this +strange being had been restless with a feverish desire to see Brooks and +hear more distinctly than he had yet spoken the wishes that she believed +burning in his heart. Throwing off her travelling dress, she put on her +habit, and, ordering Blackbird to be saddled, was ready to start long +before the man returned with her note unopened. + +“Mr. Brooks had gone out to ride early in the afternoon,” the people at +the hotel told him. + +“What road?” she asked. + +The man believed it was the river road. At first they were not quite +certain that he had not taken his usual walk up the ravine. + +“Up the ravine. What ravine?” + +“That in which the pretty log cabin stood. Mr. Brooks spent a great deal +of time up there, chestnuting and making pictures on scraps of paper. +But he wasn’t doing anything of the kind this afternoon, for one of the +boys had seen him riding across the little plank bridge below the +railway.” + +A wild, fierce pang shot into that woman’s bad heart. She knew that +Virginia made frequent visits to the ravine, and her suspicions took +fire at once. She turned her stormy face on the man and pointed sternly +with her whip toward the stables. + +“Go tell Joshua Hurd to bring my horse out at once.” + +The man obeyed, and five minutes after his mistress was galloping up the +river road with fire in her heart and a hot red on her cheeks. She had +ridden perhaps three miles in this way, when a rise in the ground gave +her command of a cross road which led through a maple grove on the +right. With a sudden jerk of the bridle, she checked her horse, and a +spasm of pain closed the teeth upon her lips, which grew white under the +pressure. + +This was what she saw—a black and a white horse drawn close together +under a huge maple tree, which was raining its golden leaves all around +them—a gentleman stooping toward a tall, slender girl, who wore a +riding-dress almost exactly like her own. These two persons seemed to be +talking earnestly, but after a few moments they prepared to move on. +There was something wrong about the lady’s bridle, evidently, for the +gentleman dismounted to arrange it, and snatching the hand which was +extended to receive the reins from his, pressed it to his lips more than +once. Cora not only saw this, but she observed that there was no glove +upon that hand, for the lady drew on her gauntlet as she rode along. + +Fierce as war, and hard as iron, that woman wheeled her horse slowly +around and rode home. She made no remark, and avoided all questions, but +seated herself by a window—massing the curtains into a safe +concealment—and waited till her cousin should appear. + +Virginia came at last, walking her horse up the carriage drive; she +stooped forward more than once and patted the pretty animal’s neck, as +if, in the supreme contentment of her heart, she must caress something. +Cora remarked the bloom of happiness in her face and the cheerful leap +with which she sprang from her horse. The sight was poison to her. + +Ellen met Virginia at the door of their parlor, looking anxious and +disturbed. + +“She has come—Miss Cora is in the house,” she said, as if announcing +some great calamity. + +Virginia laughed. What had the beloved of Clarence Brooks to hope or +fear from Cora Lander? Let her come and go as she pleased; a little time +would separate them forever. But there was one thing she was anxious +about. Could Eunice be persuaded to let them have the tray sent up a +little earlier? The ride had given her an appetite, and then she had +promised to bring Ellen to this little cataract—it was a shame to call +it a cascade—to watch the sun set. There was a pile of clouds in the +west, which would fire up beautifully. + +Ellen undertook to propitiate Eunice, with whom she had become a great +favorite, and Virginia, after taking off her habit, nestled herself into +an easy chair and fell to dreaming, as innocent girls will when love +throws a rosy bloom into the atmosphere around them. + +The promise held out by that embankment of clouds was brilliantly kept; +floods of rosy light floated through them, touched at the edges with +fringes of living flames; opaline seas and lakes of amber hue broke out +from their depths, surrounded by embankments of living gold, flashes of +green and purple shot in here and there, as if the angels had got tired +of weaving rainbows and flung their overplus of colors into one gorgeous +sunset. As usual, Ellen wandered off by herself and drank in the glory +of the scene with thrills of such delight as genius alone can feel. Even +those two lovers, happy and refined as they were, failed to reach the +exquisite pleasure that stirred her heart. + +When did sunset or landscape ever draw two lovers out of their own lives +for any length of time? Before those noble colors had begun to melt into +that soft purple which precedes the night, the young couple had become, +as usual, absorbed in each other. They spoke of their loves—of the +bright future which lay before them—of the long, long life in which they +were never to be parted. + +“It seems too blessed; sometimes I am frightened lest all this should +fade away,” murmured Virginia as she saw that vivid tumult of colors +melt tint by tint into a soft purplish blackness. “What if it should all +break up like that?” + +“The heavens themselves shall pass away first,” said Brooks, with +solemnity. “The man or woman does not live that could separate us.” + +A rustling of dead leaves, as if a sudden wind were whirling them up +from some hollow, followed these words and out from behind the rock +against which they sat started a tall figure, wrapped in a large blanket +shawl. + +Brooks heard this sound of whirling leaves and wrapped Virginia’s cloak +more closely around her. + +“The wind seems to be rising,” he said. “I must not keep you out in the +cold.” + +She thanked him with a smile, and, all unmindful of the evil thing that +had crept so near them, they went down the ravine together for the last +time. + +The next day it rained heavily, and with the rain came a high wind, +which swept the woods of all their foliage and filled the air with +whirling leaves. It was a sad, gloomy day, such as only the late autumn +can bring, and no human being, save those compelled to brave the storm, +thought of venturing out of doors. This gloomy weather answered to the +dark thoughts in Cora’s mind, as nature sometimes will aid evil +passions. The woman had not closed her eyes all night—had not even +undressed herself or gone to bed. Wrapped in the dull red of that great +shawl, which had so well covered her movements among the perishing +leaves, she huddled herself in a corner of her silken couch, and sat +there like some wild animal waiting for its prey—fierce, watchful, +poisoned with bitter thought—till the dawn looked in upon her. Then she +arose and stood before the mirror, breathing heavily, as if, soul and +body, she had been laboring in some oppressive atmosphere. + +“It is well this rain has given me a few hours to myself,” she said, +looking at the haggard face that seemed to threaten her from the glass. +“I must have time to get smiles and color back to that miserable face. +So beautiful as it was, and yet fail to keep that one man. What was +nature doing, to match her features with mine? To make her slender, +lithe, graceful as I am? It is like rivalling one’s self if it were not +for this and this.” + +Cora touched her heart and her forehead, while a look of triumph swept +over the pallor of her face, changing it so that its resemblance to +Virginia’s almost entirely disappeared. She had so many secrets, preying +upon her like vampyres, that it was a relief to lock herself in that +room and talk to her own image in the glass, or answer to the thoughts +that haunted her through the darkness when she could not sleep. This +expression of feelings which she dared not expose to any human being was +like letting in fresh air on a poisonous atmosphere. It became a relief +and habit to her at last. + +“This quick intellect, this fiery heart—that tact which some people +might spend a life time and never learn—she will no more acquire than +she will get back the property I am enjoying. After all, compared to +these advantages, beauty is a small thing, well enough in its way, but +one could afford to dispense with it. Still, in a contest like this, +everything counts.” + +Thus this young woman gave forth her wicked thoughts, that were echoed +back by her own heart only as rocky solitudes receive sound. She had +formed her plans during the night, and began to work them out at once. +Opening her door softly, she stole down a long passage leading to that +end of the house where Virginia’s apartments lay. These were composed of +two sleeping rooms and a small parlor, which Eunice had insisted on +arranging for her occupation. Since her plain talk with Cora, this +hard-faced woman had exercised her own will in the house with more +despotism than she had ever used when Mrs. Lander was mistress. She +seemed to take a pleasure in defying the person who had once attempted +to drive her from the house. This defiance was most generally exhibited +in some act of devotion to Virginia or Ellen, whose noble character had +made itself felt even by her rough nature. She saw that it offended Cora +to have this unfortunate girl recognized by the servants as their +superior, and exalted her accordingly. The other retainers followed the +housekeeper’s example, and no person in that mansion was treated kinder +or respected more than Ellen Nolan. + +Towards the rooms thus independently appropriated by her cousin, Cora +made her stealthy way. She remembered that a narrow passage connected +one of these rooms with the chamber that Amos Lander had formerly +occupied, and which had been shut up since his death. Did this passage +lead to Virginia’s sitting-room or had her sleeping chamber been +arranged next that of her father? This was a question she had stolen +forth in the early morning to satisfy herself upon. Treading softly, and +holding her breath, she paused by a door, which might lead into +Virginia’s sitting-room, or, quite as likely, into the chamber where she +lay sleeping. With a silken touch, she turned the silver knob and +cautiously opened the door just far enough to look in. With a sense of +relief, she saw that it was unoccupied and evidently used as a parlor. A +piano stood opposite the door, which she knew to have been removed from +the drawing room to give space for the grand instrument Mrs. Lander had +ordered during her brief season of extravagance. Books lay upon the +tables, flowers drooped in the vases. Standing against the door, which +Cora surveyed with eager scrutiny, was a desk, littered with +manuscripts, some of which had fallen to the floor. + +Cora advanced on tiptoe and took up one of those loose sheets. They were +not in Virginia’s handwriting—nothing of her graceful elegance was +there. The manuscript was hasty, erased, interlined and blotted as if a +hand, stirred by strong feelings, had seized upon the pen in a passion +of thought, and left almost illegible traces on the foolscap. + +“Why, has that crooked thing turned author?” she thought. “I should not +wonder, there was always something of that kind in her eyes.” + +She let the paper flutter down from her hand, observed that the door +against which the desk stood opened inward, and was thus blocked up. She +was going out with another sweeping survey of the room, when her eyes +fell on an object which made her heart stand still. It was the portrait +of Amos Lander, hanging above the piano—a picture which, up to that +season, had always hung in his office or private study. Struck with awe, +breathless with vague terror, the woman could not turn her eyes from +that face, which seemed to look down upon her in calm confidence that +justice would reach all those evil deeds at last. She strove to wrest +her eyes from the glance that held them, but could not, and walked +backward, holding her breath, till she reached the door. She closed this +and fled along the passage, seeking shelter from that face in her own +room. + +Some weeks before this, duplicate keys of all the rooms in the house had +been brought to her, for she had begun with an elaborate display of +housekeeping, which was an unforgivable cause of offence with Eunice +Hurd. These keys she now searched over, and taking out the one which +unlocked Mrs. Lander’s chamber, put it in her pocket. + +By this time the household was astir, and she commenced her morning +toilet, touching her cheeks with rouge for the first time in her life, +for that picture had driven the last vestige of color away from them, +and no effort of hers could bring it back again. + +“They shall not see how haggard I am,” she muttered, sweeping the rich +hair back from her temples and coiling it on the back of her head. “If I +could get ten minutes’ sleep now. But that is hopeless. I can understand +how Lady Macbeth felt when she prayed for sleep and only found dreams. +But dreams that come when you are wide awake, as I was last night, are +the worst of all when you are forced to work them out. Right or +wrong—right or wrong I will accomplish mine.” + +Cora met Mrs. Lander at breakfast, as had become her habit of late, with +those hollow expressions of affection which appease rather than satisfy +a loving heart. She went into an elaborate detail of the dresses which +she had seen in progress; suggested more expensive trimmings for some, +and took an interest in the whole affair that charmed her mother into a +season of absolute forgetfulness of the sin she had committed. While +they still lingered at the breakfast table, a servant came in with +information that a boy had come up from the city on the early train, +with a letter to Miss Lander, which he was directed to give to her in +person. + +“It is something from the dressmaker, I fancy,” said Cora, rising with +every appearance of tranquillity from the table. “I told her to leave +the silver gray satin till we sent farther directions. I thought lace +would be lovely for the body and sleeves, but she objected on account of +the mourning.” + +“I’m afraid, dear,” said Mrs. Lander, “that the dressmaker was right. +Even satin may be considered an innovation. Dead silk is really the +thing. I am _so_ sorry, but we must give up the lace. People are so +censorious you know. Plain, with pipings of black, was what I had +settled on. But I will see Fanchon’s messenger.” + +“That will do no good; just write your directions and send the note down +to me. I will add all that is necessary. She has my general orders to +make everything as beautiful as possible and spare no expense.” + +“What a dear, kind, liberal creature you are—no mother ever had a more +generous child.” + +“Dear aunt, have you not always been treated exactly as if I were your +own child? I’m sure it was my father’s wish.” + +Cora looked steadily into her mother’s eyes as she said this, and walked +quietly out of the room. There was no danger that the widow would follow +her after this covert rebuke. + +Cora found, as she expected, Brian Nolan waiting in a small reception +room which opened from the library. She had never seen this lad but +once, and that was at the hotel the day after her arrival in New York. +She took the letter that he gave her and looked at the address, which +was a simple name, with some evidence of surprise. + +“This is for my cousin,” she said, “I will take it to her. Wait for the +answer here.” + +“If you please, there is a young person living here that I should like +to speak with,” said Brian, glad to have accomplished his task so +easily. “Her name is Ellen—Ellen Nolan.” + +“She shall be sent for at once.” + +Cora rang the bell and told a servant to inform Ellen Nolan that a +person from the city wished to speak with her. Then she left the room +with a quiet, leisurely air, as if the paper in her hand could be of no +possible consequence, though it was making her tremble from head to +foot. + +“I wonder if his wife is so very handsome,” thought Brian, watching her +as she moved through the library. “This is the lady Ellen loves so much. +She speaks softly and does not look unkind, but I should hate to ask her +myself. What a slow, proud walk she has.” + +Ellen Nolan came like a bird into the room where her brother sat. She +knew that it must be him, for, in all that strange land, there was no +one else who had the slightest interest in her outside of that house. + +“O, Brian, Brian, how glad I am!” she cried, throwing her arms around +him, and kissing his hair and mouth and eyes with indiscriminate +affection. “I have so longed for you—so pined and prayed for a sight of +you. Don’t think it strange, dear, if I do act like a crazy thing; in +the wide, wide world you are all I have, except my lady. God forgive me +if, in my joy, I forget her for one moment. O, Brian, she is an angel!” + +“I am glad of that,” answered Brian, returning his sister’s embrace with +ardor, and giving back glad tears in exchange for her kisses, “for I +have a great favor to ask of her. Something that will frighten you at +first.” + +“A favor to ask of my lady, Brian?” + +“Ellen, I have come to you for help. The best friend I ever knew is in +trouble.” + +“What, the good gentleman?” + +“Yes, dear. Bend your head; we are alone, but I dare not speak out +loud.” + +Ellen bent her head, but, in an instant, started back with a cry of such +wild surprise, that it was clearly heard in the library, where Cora was +reading that letter. She lifted her face and listened. + +“What _can_ it be about?” she thought. “Surely he has not entrusted that +boy with our secret.” + +She arose white with dread, and, stepping through one of the library +windows, regardless of the drifting rain, which wetted her slippers +through in an instant, softly opened the blinds of another window, over +which she remembered the silken drapery of a curtain was falling loose. +The reception room had been occupied late the evening before, and the +curtain let down, to shut out all sounds of the storm, which was beating +against that side of the house with violence, from which another window, +opening to the west, was protected. No servant had entered the room that +morning. Thus it remained, with the drapery sweeping over one window and +looped back from the other. + +Taking advantage of a gust of wind, that came sweeping around the house +that moment, Cora softly pushed the unfastened sashes back to the places +made to receive them, on each side of the deep recess, and, drawing the +blinds after her, sat down on an ottoman, which always occupied the +space shut in by the curtains. In this position she heard all that Brian +Nolan had to tell his sister, except those words which he could only +force himself to utter in a whisper. This much, however, she did learn. +Seymour was making strenuous efforts to repay the money he had taken, +and Virginia was to be importuned in his behalf. Out of this came +glorious materials for the web her crafty mind was weaving. If she could +only bring Seymour and her cousin once into companionship, the task she +had imposed on herself would be of easy accomplishment. + +Brian kept his benefactor’s secret well. Not even to his own sister +would he whisper the secret which had been entrusted to himself alone. +That which related to himself, Seymour had permitted him to tell their +sister Ellen, who sat listening, half in joy, half in bitter grief, but +the words of her father still whispering in her heart. He was her +brother—with all his faults he was her brother! He had been so kind to +Brian, who came to him miserable and utterly unknown. There must be some +nobility of heart in a man who could be so generous to a helpless fellow +creature. She would see him, help him, toil for him, if the way could be +pointed out. + +Brian told her of his hopes that her friend and mistress might be +induced to let their brother have the money, which would save him from +eternal degradation. + +Ellen shook her head. “Her mistress was not the rich one; she had the +heart of an angel, but—” + +Here Ellen paused, sprang up, and clasped her hands with passionate +force. + +“Oh! it might be—it might be! God grant it! That would, indeed, prove +the happiest moment of her life. Brian must not ask her what it was yet; +but she had hopes. Only wait a little, and she would soon test her +ability.” + +All this was incoherent enough; but there was something so earnest and +hopeful in all the girl said and did that Brian had that faith in her +which singleness of purpose always inspires. + +“You will ask this good lady to help us, Ellen,” he said; “we are so +friendless that no chance must be neglected. If you only knew how he +suffers.” + +“But he shall not suffer long. This will be working out my father’s +wishes. O, Brian, he loved his prodigal devotedly!” + +“I know it, Ellen; but love for a man like that is so natural. It seems +to me that he is younger than I am—as if you and I must be strong for +him.” + +“I remember him, Brian. His face was beautiful. His eyes—yes—yes—his +eyes are like our father’s, so deep, so mournfully deep.” + +The listener in that window heard nothing of this. Having mastered the +substance of their conversation, and discovered their object, she left +these affectionate nothings to their speakers, and, opening the letter +which Seymour had sent her, began to read it by the bars of light that +fell through the shutters. + + +“My wife, my own beloved wife,” it began—“I am here in the house, which +was our Paradise, but now seems deserted. Without you, every place is +like a desert to me. With you, I desire no better heaven. Come to me, my +beloved. Do you know that it is weeks and weeks since I bade you +farewell in this room, with your dear head on my bosom, and your +trembling lips pressed to mine? That was a moment of anguish +unutterable; but, compared to this dull waiting, and the baffled +expectation that tortures me, whenever the gate opens, or a carriage +turns the corner, it was happiness, for you were with me. I know it is +very foolish, but sometimes a fear comes upon me that—No! I will not put +into language the apprehensions that harass me. Your presence will drive +them away, as sunshine turns the blackest clouds into embankments of +luminous snow. Did the woman tell you that I had returned? I am sure she +must have forgotten it, or I should not now be sitting among our +‘household gods’ alone. But you will get this. I send it by one who is +trustworthy, and who loves me. Give him a few gentle words for my sake. +Above all, give him an answer to this. Tell me what hour and minute I +may hope for you! + + ALFRED.” + + +Cora read this letter from beginning to end, without a quickened breath +or a flush of the face. She had prepared herself for anything he might +say, and no granite was ever harder than the heart which beat in that +young bosom. + +“Let these young fools talk out their dreams. I have the pith of all +they know or intend,” she said, inly. “Innocent as lambs they will be +working for me. I cannot exactly see how as yet; but this brain is ready +to mould events.” + +She moved from her place of concealment, closing the blinds carefully +behind her as she went out, leaving wet footsteps on the marble pavement +in her progress. + + + + + CHAPTER XLVIII. + HOPES OF REDEMPTION. + + +When once in her own room, Cora Lander read Seymour’s letter again, +pondered over it darkly for a time, then threw it on her desk with a +burst of sudden animation. + +“I have it—I have it,” she said, aloud. “We must have no quarrelling, no +reproaches—that pleasure I must forego. It will rack me, but a love like +his is not to be trifled with. This man, if I turn upon him, may prove +dangerous; despair is always powerful. The strong man who has nothing to +lose becomes a giant.” + +She sat down and began to write, taking a letter from her desk and +laying it before her, which she examined carefully from time to time as +she proceeded. This was what the letter said: + + +“MY OWN:—I am afraid to leave home just yet, for reasons which I will +explain when we meet. About five miles from this, on a cross road +leading from the river, is a long stone building, which you will +recognize by the sign as a country inn. You will know it by a grove of +maples, through which the highway leads a mile or so after you leave the +river. It may be dangerous and difficult, but I will certainly meet you +at this place to-morrow evening.” + +Here Cora made an effort to give something of her old passionate +tenderness to the note, but her hand refused the task, and she added: + +“I dare not use the language this heart prompts, lest it fall into hands +that might make an evil use of it; but in all things believe me +unchanged and unchangeable as when we met so often at the log cabin. Do +not, I pray you, venture there again, it is dangerous. + + V. C. L.” + + +Cora compared this note carefully with the open letter she had laid on +the desk, and which seemed to have been written long ago, for it bore a +foreign post-mark and was worn about the edges. The handwriting was that +of Virginia Lander, and that of the note was almost a _fac simile_. + +This note Cora locked in her desk, hastily writing another in her own +natural chirography, which she placed in an envelope and left without +address. + +When all this was done, she put the note in her pocket and opened the +door of her chamber, knowing that Ellen must pass by it on her way to +Virginia’s apartments. + +She had not long to wait; Ellen came along the hall, walking quickly, +and apparently much excited. The moment she was gone, Cora went down +stairs and gave her note to Brian, who was looking out of the window in +order to conceal the traces of tears that stained his face. + +“My cousin desires me to say that she wishes you to be careful of this. +Upon my word she has forgotten the address, but no matter, you will know +how to deliver it, I suppose.” + +Brian took the letter from Cora’s hand. For a moment he stood +irresolute, looking wistfully in her face. + +“Ellen is my sister,” he said. “Thank you very much for being so kind to +her.” + +Cora smiled blandly. + +“Ellen is a good girl; one deserves no credit for being kind to her,” +she said. + +“She will ask a great favor of you before long, lady—a very great favor. +Do not refuse her—it will break a kind heart if you should.” + +“She need not fear that I shall refuse any reasonable request.” + +“But it may seem unreasonable.” + +“Well, even then you may be sure that it will be kindly considered.” + +Brian looked into her face; brightening with hope, he took her hand and +touched it reverently with his lips. + +“Lady, I thank you!” + +That moment a railroad whistle seemed shrieking for Brian to be in +haste. He snatched his cap and was gone in an instant. + +“If it were another cause and for another person, I would give the money +he asks, if it were only to see his face light up so pleasantly. How +that man makes everybody love him! How I loved him once!—No, no, that +was not love; but such delusions take the bloom off a woman’s life. I +almost wish it could have lasted.” + +Cora smiled in calm scorn of her own thoughts as they turned to Clarence +Brooks, with his grand presence and self-centred manliness. She asked +herself if the same woman could have loved two men so opposite—one so +inferior. Yet this one was her husband. All at once she remembered that +Ellen would be opening her heart to Virginia just then, and it was +important that she should know exactly what passed between them. Ten +minutes after, she was in the passage between Virginia’s parlor and the +room that had been Amos Lander’s sleeping chamber. + +Ellen Nolan was seated at the desk, which, as I have said, stood across +the door. She was busy gathering together the sheets of manuscript that +lay upon the desk and had fallen over the carpet. + +Cora remembered that a pile of books lay on the desk in front of the +keyhole, and fearlessly pushed back the porcelain shield which guarded +it, thus letting in every word that could be uttered in the room. She +could hear Ellen’s quick breath distinctly as it came in eager gasps +from her lips while the manuscript rustled like dead leaves in her hand. + +Then she heard Virginia’s voice; she had just entered the room from an +inner chamber, and, seeing her favorite with a red flush about her eyes, +handling her papers with such eager haste, came up to the desk and began +to question her. + +“What is the matter, Ellen? What are you doing?” + +“Counting the pages, dear lady; thinking how I had best head the +chapters. It is almost done, and I want to sell it at once.” + +“But you have no great need of money just yet, Ellen.” + +“Oh! yes, I have the greatest possible need. Do you remember, Miss +Lander—” + +“Call me Virginia, Ellen.” + +“I will! I will! But you remember, I told you of a brother—an elder +brother—whom my father loved so dearly and suffered for.” + +“Yes, Ellen, I remember everything about him.” + +“Well, Virginia, that brother is in New York; you have seen him.” + +“What, I?” + +“That splendid man—so handsome, so elegant—Miss Cora spoke to him in the +hall. You remember it?” + +“Yes, I remember him; he was very handsome in a certain way.” + +Virginia was thinking of Clarence Brooks, and rather resented the idea +of any other man being considered preeminently handsome by a person who +had seen him. + +“In every way—at any rate Cora Lander thought so. He was the one who +took compassion on my younger brother. You remember Brian?” + +“Yes, dear.” + +“Well, this man is my brother; I have a message for him from my father +given to me on the deck of that steamer when the flames were all around +us. That message will be his salvation, I am sure of it. He has fallen +into error and great difficulty again, and is breaking his heart over +it. Oh! Miss Lander—Virginia—I do so want money! They talk about the +misery of slaves, but I would sell myself on a plantation—yes, I +would—to pick cotton for three thousand dollars!” + +“Three thousand dollars, Ellen!” + +“Yes, that is the exact sum I want. Some writers get thousands on +thousands for a novel. Do you think the men who buy them would give me +three thousand dollars out and out for mine? You shake your head—you +don’t know anything about it. But I read the papers, and they tell of +such prices. After all, Miss Virginia, three thousand dollars isn’t so +very much for one’s soul—for that is really what a book means when it is +worth anything. Dear me, how many tears I have shed, how angry I have +been, how sad and mournful. If people want to buy your thoughts and your +feelings, why—why—oh! Miss Virginia, _do_ you think any one will buy +this book and let me redeem my poor brother? My father loved him so—my +father loved him so!” + +Ellen’s head fell forward upon the arms which she threw over the desk, +and her excitement burst into a passion of tears that shook her little +frame like a storm. + +“Ellen, dear, dear child!” + +Ellen lifted her head and pushed back that splendid hair from her +tearful face. + +“You think they will not buy it? Perhaps you think it good for nothing?” + +“No, no, Ellen dear, I think nothing of the sort. But the sale of a +book, however good, takes time.” + +“I know it, I know it, and he needs the money at once. What can I do? +what can I do?” + +“This is what I was thinking of, dear child. I have those pearls and +some diamonds, with the other jewelry that was my mother’s. We will sell +them, raise money on them or something.” + +Ellen lifted her head suddenly. + +“But those jewels are all you have when we go away from this house.” + +“I know it; but we shall not want them. Oh! Ellen, I am provided for so +richly! so richly!” + +Virginia’s face was scarlet with innocent shame as the fullness of her +joy broke into words. + +“In a few days we shall be married.” + +Ellen’s tearful eyes opened wide, and her lips parted with sudden +surprise. + +“Are you not glad, Ellen, that it is to be directly?” + +One great throe of pain set that generous heart free. + +“Glad? yes, I _am_ glad.” + +That little frame was shivering all over. The wild eyes filled with a +light so deep and holy that Virginia unconsciously dropped to her knees, +and, drawing down that broad forehead, kissed it almost reverently, she +could not for her life have told why. + +“In a few days, you said,” Ellen whispered, holding that fresh young +face between her two shivering hands, looking into it tenderly, and +smiling as noble women alone can smile when their hearts are breaking +up. + +“Yes, he will not wait longer. This very day he is coming to tell my +cousin and my aunt. You see how little need I shall have for money.” + +“But they were your mother’s jewels.” + +“She is an angel now, and knows what I am doing.” + +Ellen looked wistfully at her manuscript. She so thirsted to redeem this +fallen brother with her own work! It would be a consecration of the +genius which burned within her. + +“You shall do it,” she said, with a heavy sigh. + +Virginia understood the feeling of disappointment, which another might +have mistaken for ingratitude. + +“It shall be you, after all,” she said. “We will not sell my mother’s +jewels outright, but raise money on them. Such things are done, and we +will find out the way.” + +“Then, after my book is published, I can get them back again. Oh! lady, +that mother you love so is not more of an angel than you are!” + +The sound of a soft kiss checking the next words was all the answer that +reached the woman listening so intently close by them. + +“We will consult him, Ellen.” + +“Oh! no—no, that would be to expose my brother!” + +“Forgive me, I did not think of that. We must manage this business +alone.” + +“Yes, all alone!” + +“Still I must see him before we go to the city.” + +“And will you go?” + +“Certainly. Why not?” + +“To him—will you go with me to comfort him?” + +“I will go with you anywhere in so holy a cause.” + +“I cannot thank you, lady; my heart aches to express its gratitude. But +the words—the words!” + +“Hush, dear, it is a great mercy that the means are left to us. But for +you, these jewels would have been swept away with all the rest.” + +“That thought was an inspiration from God, I do believe, lady. He knew +that a soul was to be saved, and gave you the means—making three people +happy at once.” + +“Oh! if I could make all the world as happy as I am!” said Virginia. + +“Shall we go in the morning?” questioned Ellen. + +“Yes, in the morning. This terrible storm will not keep him away; I will +send him a note this evening, after he has seen them, saying that I must +go to the city for a day or two. Mr. Stone will help us. I think he is a +good man, Ellen.” + +“Oh! lady,” cried Ellen, with a sudden outburst of gratitude “I really +believe the world is made of good people.” + +Cora had heard enough and stole back to her chamber, resolved on two +things, not to see Clarence Brooks that day, rain or shine, and to +search Virginia’s rooms thoroughly for the jewels which were to wrest +Seymour from the fatal power she held over him. With the knowledge she +had just gained to work upon, Cora fell to reweaving the crafty details +of a plot which had been forming in her mind, as the web of a spider +grows thread by thread. + +Before noon, Clarence Brooks called, and was refused. Mrs. Lander was +ill, the servant said, and Miss Lander was so anxious that she did not +like to leave her aunt’s room. + +Brooks was half tempted to ask for Virginia, but remembering her +position in the house, forbore until he should have obtained a right to +see her when and where he pleased. Cora saw him from her window as he +walked down the carriage drive in the rain, with the wind sweeping over +him and almost wrenching the umbrella from his hold. + +“Let him struggle!” she said, bitterly. “He will have a harder contest +than that before the week is over.” + +That evening Virginia sent her note to Clarence Brooks, informing him of +her intended absence. It was a delicate, modest little note, full of +shyly-worded regrets, and such hints of love were more expressive to a +refined man than any passionate protest could have been. + +The difficulty was about obtaining a messenger. In a household of +servants devoted to her cousin, Virginia did not know whom she could +trust. Ellen would have gone, but it was raining harder than ever, and +Virginia would not permit the exposure. + +“I will manage it—let me have the note, I will find a safe messenger,” +said Ellen, thinking of Joshua Hurd. She threw a heavy shawl over her +head, slipped her feet into a pair of overshoes, and ran down to the +stables. A light over the carriage-house guided her to Joshua’s room. +She found her way up the narrow staircase and knocked at his door. + + + + + CHAPTER XLIX. + JOSHUA HURD PROVES HOSPITABLE AND KIND. + + +“Come in, if it’s you, Eunice,” said a voice from within, “only don’t go +to pitching in about the whisky; I mean to drink a hot punch every night +of my life—two on ’em—three on ’em—four on ’em, if I’ve a mind to. The +kettle’s on now, I give you fair warning. Come in, if you’ve a mind to, +but none of your tantrums. Josh Hurd is Josh Hurd, and he ain’t to be +trod on.” + +“It isn’t Eunice—only me,” said sweet-voiced Ellen, coming into the +room, where Joshua was hard at work, with his coat off, crushing an +unfortunate lemon in a huge wooden squeezer, which he held at arm’s +length, while the juice ran into a tumbler of generous dimensions, in +the bottom of which a liberal supply of sugar was fast melting. + +“Wait one minute, till I get the licker mixed and the bilin water turned +in, and then if I don’t show you a punch wuth while for a rainy night, +set me down for a fellow that don’t know what’s what. This ’ere punch +will be a sneezer, now I tell ye, Miss Ellen. But hitch your chair up to +the stove; no need to be afeared of the tea kittle; I’m going to take +that off right away. Golly, don’t it steam up splendid!” + +Ellen sat down by the little stove, on which a small iron tea kettle was +puffing steam from its nozzle with great commotion, and watched Joshua +compound his punch with considerable interest. Like the bird that has a +nest to build, a mind like hers is forever gathering up materials, rude +or beautiful, as circumstance or nature presents them. So Ellen warmed +her feet by the stove and looked on, smiling, while Joshua brewed his +punch with as much pride as some artists feel in composing a picture. + +When the punch was complete, all but the water, Joshua took the kettle +in one hand, a spoon in the other, and stirred his beverage into +perfection, tasting it from time to time from the spoon, fearful of +getting in too much water. At last he took a spoonful in his mouth, held +it there, deliberated over it, and swallowed it at once with a sigh of +infinite satisfaction; then he exclaimed, exultantly: “That _is_ punch!” +with a nod of the head that seemed to be intended for the tea kettle, +which was fast subsiding from a rampant little humbug of a steam engine +into a harmless shell of iron; for the steam had concentrated itself +into a single drop of water, which trembled meekly on the end of the +nozzle, as if afraid to fall at the moment of Joshua’s triumphant +exclamation. + +Then Joshua went to a cupboard, devoted to bridles and small articles of +horse furniture in its lower compartment, and in the upper part to such +odds and ends of crockery as he had been enabled to pick up in the +kitchen. From this miscellaneous assortment, he brought forth a pretty +amber-hued glass, with a frost-like pattern of grape-leaves cut around +it, but broken off at the stem. This he filled with punch from his own +tumbler and presented to Ellen, tasting it with a delicate sip on his +way from the table to the stove. + +Ellen took the glass and tasted the hot punch, while Joshua stood +rubbing his huge hands, delighted. + +“Isn’t that the clear stuff, now?” he said. “Lifts ye right out of your +bo—yer Ingin rubbers, now don’t it?” + +“Isn’t it a little—just a little strong, Mr. Hurd?” Ellen suggested, +strangling in spite of herself. + +“Strong!” exclaimed Joshua, in supreme contempt. “Strong! why a nussing +baby could drink that and think it was fennel-seed tea. Strong!” + +“Perhaps it was from being so hot,” said Ellen, coughing the next +strangle down resolutely. + +“Well, mebby! that tea kettle does spout the hottest I ever saw—blow it +and shake it up a little, and you’ll find it scrumptious enough. There’s +one good thing about boiling water, it will cool off, and then the +whisky comes uppermost.” + +Ellen followed his directions, and at last managed to empty the tiny +glass, which, being without bottom, she was unable to set down. + +“Have another?” said Joshua, reaching out one hand while he lifted the +tumbler to his lips with the other. “Speak right up, if yer do, for the +supply’ll give out mighty soon.” + +“No more, Mr. Hurd. It’s as nice as can be, but my head isn’t used to +it, you know.” + +“Nice! why of course it’s nice! Didn’t I wash the spoon and glasses +myself? But if you won’t take any more, here goes.” + +Joshua emptied his tumbler and set it down with a deep, deep breath. +Then he drew a chair close to the stove. + +“Now what is it yer want of me, Miss Ellen?” he said, confidentially. +“Whatever it is, I’ll do it, for if there’s a gal on arth that I set +store by, it’s you. Next to the hosses, Miss Ellen, I’d do more for you +than anybody, not to say our Eunice. She thinks you’re awful smart, and +I usuerly think as she does. Now what is it yer want?” + +“I want you to carry a letter down to Mr. Clarence Brooks and bring an +answer back, if there is one, without saying a word about it.” + +“Your letter? ’Cause if it is, I won’t do it, nor tech it. That proud +chap’ed only make fun of you if I did.” + +“I know it, Joshua,” answered Ellen, sadly; “I shall never write letters +to gentlemen, like other girls. No one will ever ridicule such things in +me!” + +“I should like to see ’em try it!” exclaimed Joshua, clenching his huge +hands. “But if the letter ain’t from you, who’s it from?” + +“I will tell you, Joshua; but, remember, it is a secret between us. Miss +Virginia wishes to send this note.” + +Joshua unclenched his fist and uttered a low whistle. + +“What, both on ’em—both on ’em!” he exclaimed. “But I’ll do that for +her, or anything else. Hand over the letter.” + +Ellen placed the note in his hand. + +“You’ll want an answer—I’d better not bring it into the house; jest you +stay here till I come back.” + +Ellen promised to wait where she was till he returned. Joshua put on his +cap, wrapped an india rubber horse-blanket around him and went down +stairs. Ellen, being left alone in the room, fell into thought which was +only interrupted by the storm, which pelted against the windows and +absolutely raved among the tall elms that overhung the stables. All at +once she started up; a thought had come into her head which threatened +to destroy all her hopes for the morrow. The jewels which were to redeem +her brother had been left in Virginia’s room when Cora Lander took +possession of it. How were they to be obtained? Cora always locked the +door leading to her suite of rooms when she left them, if it was only +for an hour. + +This thought, added to the gloom of the place and hour, completed the +feeling of depression that had for some time been creeping over her. She +was sad, too, from other causes. It was hard to feel that she—so full of +thought, young, talented and rich with feelings that few women ever +possessed—should be shut out of all the sweet hopes that were making +Virginia’s life so bright. Joshua’s speech, rude and uncouth as he was, +had wounded her deeply. She could not drive it from her mind. + +Ellen arose from her chair and began walking up and down the room. +Sometimes, she paused to look out upon the storm, which beat heavily +against the windows. It seemed to her that Joshua had been gone a long +time; she listened for his footsteps on the stairs, and peered +impatiently from the window. Once she thought that he was stumbling up +stairs, and opened the door to listen. It was the horses stamping in +their stalls, and she went back disappointed. + +At length footsteps plainly sounded from the room below—they mounted the +stairs and paused. Ellen flung the door open to give Joshua light, and +found herself face to face with Eunice Hurd, who strode into the room +flushed red with surprise. + +“What on arth brought you here?” she demanded. + +“I—I came to see Joshua Hurd,” faltered Ellen. + +“Came to see our Josh, what for, I want to know?” + +“I wanted him to go a little errand for me.” + +“For you—a rainy night like this—well, I never did! Where has he gone +to? What has he gone after?” + +Here Eunice began to sniff suspiciously. A new idea had come into her +head. + +“Isn’t that a smell of licker? If this isn’t a lemon-squeezer, I don’t +know what is. What on arth—” + +Here Eunice thrust her long forefinger into the tumbler, and scooping +out some sugar from the bottom, tasted it. + +“Licker, and strong as Jehu—if he was strong, which it ain’t no proof of +because he driv hard. This ere tea kettle, too, hooked out of the +kitchen! That feller has hot drinks here every night of his life, I’ll +take my Bible oath. Have you seen him a doin ’on it?” + +“I’m afraid I have done worse than that. He gave me a little, and I +drank it.” + +“You did!” + +“Yes, he was very earnest about it, and—and—” + +Eunice had drawn her chair in front of the stove and planted her feet on +the hearth. + +“Now tell me, Ellen Nolan—honestly—does that critter know enough to make +a decent punch?” + +“Oh, Joshua knows enough for that and a good many other things.” + +“Now, do you think so? Josh is a good soul as ever lived.” + +“He is indeed; but, Miss Eunice, I want to ask a great favor of you.” + +“Well, what is it?” asked Eunice, drawing close to the stove and lifting +the skirt of her dress a little, that the genial heat might fall on her +ankles, a sure sign of good humor with her. + +“Miss Eunice, there is something in Miss Cora’s room that I want.” + +“Well, what is it?” + +“In the recess is an ottoman, something that has strayed into the room, +for it does not match the furniture. May we have it in our parlor? I do +not suppose she will miss it, or care if she does.” + +Eunice turned her face square on the hesitating girl, and searched her +through and through with those scintillating eyes. + +“Ellen Nolan, you are asking one thing and meaning another.” + +“I know it, Eunice; but that is all I want.” + +“Tell me all about it.” + +“I cannot, Miss Eunice. It is my young lady’s affair.” + +Eunice turned round and planted her feet on the floor with emphasis. + +“Ellen Nolan, you may believe it or not, but Miss Virginia Lander +hasn’t, on this arth, better friends than I and Josh are to her. If we +could do what we want to, she would be—no matter, I’m ready to help her +do anything that won’t hurt Mrs. Lander.” + +“This will hurt no one.” + +“Tell me what it is? Trust me—you may. I’m bitter as gall sometimes, but +I’d amost lay down my life for that poor gal.” + +Tears actually came into those changeable eyes. The bony hands which +Eunice clasped around her knees shook visibly. + +“I _will_ tell,” said Ellen, feeling how sincere the woman was. “When we +were in those rooms, the first day we came here, Miss Virginia hid her +mother’s jewels in that ottoman. It is hollow, and closes with a +spring.” + +Eunice burst into a chuckling laugh. + +“That’s where they was, is it? _She_ knew about them, and has searched +all the desks and drawers over and over agin. She seemed to hanker arter +them pearls more than anything. So she hid ’em—I wouldn’t a thought so +much cuteness was in the innocent critter. Only this very night ’tother +one was after me to know if I hadn’t seen ’em somewhere about among her +things. She’s jest crazy to get hold on ’em.” + +“But you will never permit it, Eunice?” + +“Permit it! I’d see her in—in Jehosaphat fust!” + +“But how can we get them out of her room?” + +“Wait till to-morrow, and I’ll do it. If she keeps keys, well I have to +have ’em too.” + +Ellen threw both arms around the old maid’s neck and kissed her on the +lips. A grim smile stole over that hard mouth. + +“I ain’t much used ter kissing,” she said, and her harsh voice broke a +little, “but sometimes it is a refreshment, ain’t it?” + +The loneliness that spoke out in these words touched Ellen to the heart. + +“I am so glad I trusted you,” she said. + +“You might a done it always—I meant to have helped that poor gal—for +Josh and I knew how it was—and thought I had it all worked out, but that +young sarpent was too much for me. The time may come yit. It’s only on +account of Mrs. Lander that I have grit my teeth and kept in. She’s jest +as near to me as Miss Virginia is to you, and that critter has almost +killed her. She began to domineer over her as if she’d been a nigger +slave driver, and Mrs. Eliza Lander her personal property. But I told +her a thing or two and scared her out of that. She’s afraid of me now, I +tell you. If it hadn’t been for that, Miss Virginia would a suffered +more en you ever dreamed on; she’d a been in an insane asylum now. It’s +the gospel truth I’m telling you.” + +“I believe it. Miss Virginia knows how often you have befriended her.” + +“She don’t know, and she can’t know how hard it is for me to do more or +not to do more. If it wasn’t for Eliza Lander—well, well, that young imp +of Satan has got the better of us all—tied us up by the heart. I ain’t a +religious pusson, Ellen Nolan, and I’ve done some things that I’m awful +sorry for, not meaning to do anybody one mite of harm, but I’d no more +change places with that splendid cretur than I would with a rattlesnake +carrying a string of rattles that long. I hate the sight of her, and so +does Joshua.” + +Here Joshua came in, dripping wet. He stopped a moment on the threshold, +astonished to find Eunice there and embarrassed about the letter, but +Ellen spoke to him at once. + +“Did you find Mr. Brooks?—have you brought any answer?” + +Joshua took a note from his vest pocket and gave it to her. + +“It is for my young mistress,” she said, addressing Eunice. “We are +going to New York just as soon as you can help us about what we were +talking of, and after that we shall have some good news to tell you.” + +“What—she hasn’t found any new evidence? That Brooks ain’t a lawyer nor +nothing, that’s going to take up her case, is he? If that’s so, I must +have her word—no, she must take her affidavit on it—that she’ll be a +better child to Mrs. Lander than that critter has ever been. If she’ll +take her Bible oath to that, I’ll do my best to help her, and so will +Joshua Hurd; I’ll answer for him.” + +“And he’ll answer for himself,” said Joshua, seating himself on the +table and pushing the tumbler behind him, fully believing that Eunice +had not seen it. + +“You needn’t push it away, brother Joshua, I know what’s been in it.” + +Brother Joshua! What was the world coming to? Such words of endearment +had not met the man’s ears for so long a time that he could not remember +back to them. + +“Joshua?” + +“Well, Eunice?” + +“Is there any hot water in the tea kettle?” + +“I—I don’t know, Eunice.” + +“Is there any licker in that long bottle there?” + +“Well, Eunice, I—I—shouldn’t wonder!” + +“Lemon and sugar?” + +“I sometimes make a glass of hot lemonade before I go to bed on rainy +nights like this, and try to keep them things handy.” + +“Joshua, make me a glass of that hot lemonade, exactly as you have made +it once afore to-night; I feel kinder chilly, Joshua.” + +“Jest?” asked Joshua, looking wistfully at the table. + +“Jest,” answered Eunice. + +Joshua made the lemonade, and the brother and sister sat a long time +with their feet on the stove hearth talking in low voices to each other. + +Ellen went away just as the kettle was put on the stove again, and +Eunice called after her not to fear about the otterman, she would attend +to that. + +When Virginia received her note, she hurried off to her bed-chamber and +read it on her knees by the little shaded lamp, that seemed to fill the +room with moonlight. It was very short, but she read it over and over +again, leaving half-a-dozen kisses on the signature and sleeping with it +in her bosom that night. + + + + + CHAPTER L. + THE FALSE STORY AND THE FORGED LETTER. + + +Early in the morning, Cora sent a note to Clarence Brooks, full of +regrets that she had not been able to receive him the day before. Her +aunt was better, she said, and she wished very much to see Mr. Brooks as +soon as possible. An affair, which she could not speak of except to a +very particular friend, who had been her father’s friend also, was +troubling her greatly; indeed, it had been the cause of her aunt’s +illness. Would Mr. Brooks come prepared to give her his most serious +attention and some little sympathy? She was so young, the trouble that +had come upon her seemed worse than it might appear to his experienced +judgment. + +In reply to this letter, Mr. Brooks wrote that he had intended to call +that day, and would be most happy to give her aid or counsel in any +difficulty which beset her. Indeed, as the daughter of his old friend, +he had an especial interest in her tranquillity and welfare which no +time or circumstance could destroy. He only hoped that it would prove +his good fortune to remove any little unpleasantness that had for a +moment distressed her. + +Cora read the letter eagerly. + +“That is well,” she muttered; “before night he shall share my troubles, +I will pledge myself to that. If my sweet cousin will only oblige me by +going out now, she will serve a double purpose; I must find those +jewels. Where can she keep them? Not a drawer, wardrobe or desk that I +have not searched. If she once gets the money for that wretch I am lost. +Let me think; a sharp intellect and prompt action might turn even that +to account. If one could only be in two places at once now. In her +conversation with that little hunchback she will be sure to betray the +hiding-place of those jewels, but I cannot spend my time there. He might +call at any minute.” + +Brooks did not call till afternoon, when Cora went down to receive him +in the little reception room, which looked towards the woods. The +curtains were all drawn back this time, and the blinds open. She was +determined to give no chance for listeners in that interview. + +“My aunt is better, thank you, but not quite able to come down,” she +said, answering his polite inquiries and seating herself on the sofa he +occupied. “You must think it strange that I should send that note, +but—but—” + +Here Cora’s fine eyes filled with ready tears, and her speech gave way +for a moment. Brooks was surprised and touched. It was not often that +Miss Lander gave way in this fashion. He reached forth his hand, laying +it upon hers, and felt the quiver that ran through her frame stirring +that. + +“I trust it is nothing serious; do not agitate yourself so. Tell me what +the trouble is and I may be of use.” + +“I tried to keep it from you—I tried to keep it from everybody, but now +it is impossible; I must confide in some one. So young and +inexperienced, how can I help it? It is cruel, so cruel in my cousin to +drive me to this strait.” + +“Your cousin, Miss Lander—is all this agitation about your cousin?” said +Brooks, struck with sudden amazement. + +“Yes, Mr. Brooks, you never will know all that I am suffering on her +account. It is impossible for any one to understand it who has not loved +her as I did—and do, for, with all her faults, I _cannot_ help loving +her.” + +“Pray, explain,” said Brooks, a little coldly, “I do not understand.” + +“How can you—oh, Mr. Brooks? But I will tell you from the beginning. You +know that my cousin and I were educated together—that my father made no +difference between us. He was one of the most liberal men you ever +knew—” + +“I am aware of that.” + +Brooks was arming himself against this girl, and she saw it. A stern, +angry fire came into his eyes—he withdrew his hand from the trembling +fingers that clung to it, and sat more upright, like a judge listening. +He remembered what Virginia had told him regarding the enmity of her +cousin, and took up her cause warmly in his heart. Cora saw this with +one of her side glances, and went on confident of the result. + +“We were at school in Paris and in Brussels, and went to Florence +afterward to study Italian there. In this place, attended by a governess +and faithful old courier, we joined a party of Americans and travelled +over Italy some five or six months before my poor father came to bring +us home. Up to this time, Mr. Brooks, Virginia and I had been like twin +sisters. We loved each other dearly, trusted each other in thought and +word—she was everything to me.” + +Here Cora broke off with a sob in her throat. That creature would have +made a magnificent actress; she really half believed the story she was +telling, and wept as artists shed real tears in their imaginary +characters. + +“But in Italy, Mr. Brooks, all this changed. She kept away from me, +insisted on having a room to herself, went out alone for hours and hours +together, was unsettled in her spirits—in short here she gave the first +wound to a love that had united us from the cradle. Some weeks after, +the old courier explained all this to me. Virginia had made an +acquaintance and formed an attachment, which she kept from me and every +one. Some strange young man, travelling for pleasure or in pursuit of a +calling I did not dream of at the time, had won her heart from us. How +or where she first met him I do not know, but her first letter was +written from Florence.” + +“To whom and where was it directed?” asked Brooks, sternly. + +“I do not know. The courier spoke no English, and could not pronounce +the name intelligibly. Besides, I was a mere school girl then and shrunk +from prying into my cousin’s secrets. I only know that several letters +passed between these two persons before my father came.” + +“Did you tell him of this?” + +“It would have seemed like treason to my cousin. Thank Heaven he was +spared the misery of knowing how his generosity had been wasted.” + +“Go on, I am listening,” said Brooks, in a cold, hard voice. + +Cora looked at him timidly, as if so ashamed of her cousin’s conduct +that it weighed her eyelids down, and went on: + +“We sailed in that fatal steamer. The fire broke out when my cousin and +I were in the cabin; we both rushed on deck, I to my father. She plunged +overboard, abandoning us both to perish, and was taken up, swimming for +her life, by one of the boats. I cannot describe the scene to which she +left us—the fire raging under our feet, the passengers driven closer and +closer together like wild animals in the heart of a prairie fire. My +father and I together; he begged me to leap overboard alone and thus +save myself, knowing how well I could swim. But I would not do it. +Clinging to each other, we made the fearful leap together. Others +pressed upon us, tore us apart—I never saw my father again. Around and +around that burning hulk I swam in search of him. At last the hot flames +drove me away. The boat in which Virginia had found shelter was still in +sight, lying motionless: I made for it, fighting the waves with +desperate energy. She saw me—I know that Virginia saw me, but the boat +never stirred. At last the men seemed to rebel against the cruelty of +seeing a poor girl sink before their eyes and came toward me. I was +sinking, senseless, almost dead, when they picked me up. In the boat +with my cousin, was a little hunchbacked creature who had fastened on +her in the water and thus saved herself. This girl, Ellen Nolan, became +warmly attached to her from that time, and has ever since been the +creature of her will. I think, at this moment, she would work, sin or +die for the girl who saved her life. I consented that this girl should +come with us to America when we were at last rescued by a passing +vessel. The secrecy she maintained and her course in the shipwreck had +disturbed my confidence in her, but I loved her in spite of all and +resolved to deal generously by her and her mother, as my father had +done. + +“We reached home—my aunt had taken possession of the property under a +will found in my father’s desk: she believed us all lost, and we took +her by surprise. Mr. Brooks, something transpired then which I will not +dwell upon; you would hardly believe me if I did. It has no bearing on +the point I wish to consult you about, and I have little wish to +prejudice you unnecessarily against my cousin. But it created +estrangements between us which have, I fear, destroyed all my influence +over her—a sad, sad conviction when she stands so much in need of a firm +trusted friend.” + +“Go on,” said Brooks, still sitting upright, resolute in his trust of +the woman he loved. “Let me hear all—then I _will_ speak.” + +“Mr. Brooks, that man, the person she met in Italy, has followed her +here.” + +Brooks started; that shot told upon his armor, and Cora knew it. She +went on in a low and seemingly reluctant voice: + +“He is in this neighborhood; she goes out to meet him.” + +Again Brooks started, a flash of joy swept his face. She had mistaken +him for the Italian lover, who probably never had an existence. + +“He must have come about the time that we did, for I know that she has +met him, from time to time, in the house where he lives, or it may he +boards. Yesterday, just before you called, a youth came here from the +city with a letter for Virginia. I was anxious about her, and went down +to question him. I wore a black dress, as she does invariably, and +people say that I and my cousin are so much alike that a stranger might +mistake one for the other. I think the boy did take me for Virginia, for +he gave me a note, directed to her, and went on to state the urgent need +there was for action regarding a sum of money that was wanted and must +be obtained. He spoke of jewels which were to be turned into money, and +said, if everything else failed, the rich cousin was to be applied to as +a last resort. All this was said as I stood with the note in my hand. +The lad was earnest and a good deal excited. I found out afterward that +it was his own brother he was pleading for, and that both were the +brothers of Ellen Nolan.” + +Brooks suppressed a start of surprise, and seemed to listen as he had +before; but there was a burning red on his cheeks, and even his forehead +grew dusky. He lifted his eyes, that had a strange glow in them, and was +about to say, “Go on,” firmly, as he had before, when his voice faltered +and his hand fell nervelessly down from the back of the sofa, where it +had been resting. Directly before the window, and half way through the +flower garden, he saw Virginia Lander and Ellen Nolan, conversing +earnestly together and walking towards the woods. There in his bosom was +the note, so modestly tender, which told him that they were both going +to the city early that morning. Cora glanced out of the window, saw what +it was that had disturbed him, and said, very naturally: + +“There is my cousin now, and Ellen Nolan with her. You have never seen +either of them, I believe.” + +Brooks made no answer to this, but leaned back and prepared to listen; +she observed that his face had taken a dead whiteness, and all around +his mouth seemed chiselled from marble. + +“I went away, as he thought, I suppose, to read the note alone—” + +“And did you?” asked Brooks, with sudden impetuosity. + +She smiled faintly and shook her head. + +“I could not have forced myself to obtain information in that way.” + +“True—very true.” + +“I sent the note to Virginia by a servant, and told him to bring the +answer back to me; but she came down herself and gave her reply to the +lad, with some whispered message, which I did not hear. I have no idea +what his reason was, but this messenger, who seemed as much interested +in the affair as a principal, did not leave the house as another person +would have done, but went across the lawn, through the thick wet grass, +into the woods yonder. It was raining hard, and I stood by the window a +long time, wondering what could take him in that direction, when I saw +him come out from among the trees, accompanied by another person, who +probably had been waiting there.” + +“Did you get a full view of this person?” asked Brooks, quickly. “Was he +tall or short, light or dark?” + +“He was above the middle height and seemed young, but a large Mackintosh +concealed his figure, and I was not near enough to distinguish his +features. They went down toward the road in company, and that was all I +saw of them.” + +“And what conclusion do you draw from all this?” asked Brooks. + +“I am unable to draw conclusions, Mr. Brooks, or decide on what ought to +be done; one thing is certain, my cousin is in a dangerous position; she +has been led into some entanglement which will be her ruin. The brother +of Ellen Nolan can be no proper match for Virginia Lander, and if he +were, why this secrecy? She is under no guardianship; my aunt loves her +devotedly, and would interpose no objections to a proper marriage. I +stand ready—and she knows it—to bestow the portion my father intended +for her—more, even. Why does she have concealments, then, from her best +friends? How am I to protect her? What can I do? My aunt has fretted +herself into a pitiable state of nervous weakness since she obtained a +knowledge of this trouble, and looks to me for counsel and help. I have +tried to gain Virginia’s confidence in every way, but she avoids me, +scarcely recognizes her mother, and is only intimate with this strange +hunchback, _his_ sister.” + +Brooks shrunk from the recollection this speech brought to his mind. Had +not Virginia repudiated her mother even to him? Had she not refused to +recognize the maternal right of consent to his proposal of marriage? He +arose, and, taking his hat, would have left the house without speaking a +word. + +“Have you no counsel to give me? Remember how young I am,” pleaded Cora, +following him. “Have I done wrong in telling you this?” + +“Wrong! who says you have done wrong? I have a right to know.” + +“Can you give me neither comfort nor advice, Mr. Brooks?” + +He laid one hand on her arm and stood smiling on her for at least a +minute, but the smile upon a face so white made her shrink. + +“In a few days, Miss Lander, I shall be better prepared to advise you. +It is a delicate matter, and must not be rashly handled. Good +afternoon.” + +He seemed firm, but the hat which he had taken shook in his hand. + +“This has been a painful conversation, believe me. I tried to avoid it. +If there had been any other person with whom the family honor could be +entrusted, I would not have troubled you.” + +“There is no other person—there must be no confidences with strangers on +a subject like this.” + +“No, I felt that, oh! how forcibly.” + +She clasped her hand on his arm, thus mutely claiming his sympathy. +Tears stood in her eyes; she closed those long silken lashes and crushed +them back as if ashamed of the sweet feminine impulse which had sent +them from a kind heart. + +“My father would have been so sorry,” she faltered. + +Brooks put her hand gently from his arm and turned away; for the heart +in his bosom began to swell, and he was afraid of the passion that had +well nigh outmastered his manhood. + +Cora watched Clarence Brooks as he went down the carriage drive; her +features did not change, she had acted her part so well that it seemed +absolutely real to her. + +“What a grand heart is there—how good and kind he is.” + +She stood awhile by the window with those false tears on, her eyelashes, +wondering if he would follow Virginia to the woods or go directly to the +hotel. He went down the terrace steps and took the railway track, which +curved in a circuitous bend there, making his walk twice as long as it +would have been by the carriage drive. + +“He will go there—it is only because he thinks that some of us may see +him. Ah! there they come; I shall have time.” + +Virginia and Ellen came across the lawn, walking slowly and with an air +of depression. Cora watched them impatiently. + +“Will they never go in?” she cried, stamping her foot on the carpet. +“Twenty minutes, I only ask twenty minutes.” + +She ran up stairs, put on the shawl which was so nearly the color of +dead leaves, and went down the back way. Once out of doors, she took a +path, well sheltered by shrubbery, which led around the stables, and +skirting the grounds, mostly under the protection of a stone wall, +entered the ravine a little below the cataract. Here she took the +footpath, treading it like a panther, and sheltering herself behind a +clump of wild spruce trees, took an observation. No one was in sight. +The ravine was a solitude; by this time the leaves were almost swept +from the trees, giving deeper gloom to the evergreens, which grew +thickly along the brook. After making sure that she was not observed, +Cora darted down below the bridge, dipped a letter, which she took from +her bosom, in the brook, and climbed the bank again. Just where the path +was broken up by the roots and stones which formed an embankment for the +log cabin, Cora threw the wet paper down among the leaves, partly +unfolded as if it had opened in falling. The leaves all around it were +still moist and sodden from the storm; she trailed a torn oak leaf half +across it, and made her way up the ravine, swiftly as she had entered +it, and went home, sheltering herself, as before, back of the stone wall +and in the thick shrubbery. + +She was right, ten minutes after Clarence Brooks came, with long, +powerful strides, up the ravine, searching for Virginia Lander. His +strong spirit was determined to throw off the doubts that oppressed it +or learn the worst at once. He had not seen her return from the woods, +and felt an almost savage wish to find her where he could wrest the +secret from her heart and crush her with scorn, or hear the vindication +which he still hoped, and almost believed that she would be enabled to +make. + +But the woods was solitary as a grave; the foliage had been so +completely swept from the trees that he could command a full view up the +ravine from the stone bridge to the cataract, that mocked him with a +sharp pang of memory, and he thought of that pic-nic on the ledge with a +sudden rush of feeling which absolutely brought hot tears to his eyes. +Virginia was not anywhere in sight; the whole ravine was a solitude, all +the hollows were full of dank leaves, the forest turf was carpeted with +them, not as they had been, rich and gorgeous only a week before, but +with the colors all washed out, broken and sodden, decaying refuse of +the autumn. The naked boughs rose drearily against a dull sky, sending +forth that low metallic chiming which is the winter music of the woods. +The brook, bereft of half its brightness, crept along, saddened, like a +criminal going to judgment. The chestnut tree was studded with brown +burs, open like stars, from which all the nuts had fallen. A few long, +ragged leaves fluttered on the branches and from the topmost boughs two +crows called to each other gloomily. + +“I will go up to the cabin,” that unhappy man muttered to himself. +“Possibly they are among the evergreens and I can see them from the +window.” + +As he turned to mount the eminence that paper fell under his +observation. He stooped, picked it up almost mechanically, and was about +to throw it down again, when something in the writing fixed his +attention. The paper was wet but not much blotted; with a little trouble +he read it from beginning to end, and, strange to say, a sensation of +relief succeeded the reading; that dead certainty which follows +suspense, though it amounts to despair, is always a relief, for the +tension of nerves gives way and a species of rest follows. + +“It is true! She loves some other man—she never loved me. This beautiful +creature, with her innocent looks and frank speech, is one mass of +deception. Amos Lander’s letter warned me of this clearly as his +generous nature could warn the friend he loved against a creature of his +bounty. But I was wilfully blind, worse than blind, a willing idiot. +Still there was some excuse for me; a lovelier creature than she seemed +never possessed a man’s heart.” + +Brooks did not enter the cabin but turned drearily, as men prepare to +leave a grave newly filled, and walked slowly toward the hotel, so +wretched that he scarcely cared to live, for if ever man loved a woman +on this earth he had loved Virginia Lander. + +Meantime Virginia and Ellen had returned home from a dreary walk +disappointed; Ellen had been writing hard since the first break of day, +writing as only one whose genius is inspired by a noble purpose can +write. Sheet after sheet of manuscript she had flung from her, eager for +the next, panting to complete the work which would redeem her brother +from the peril that threatened him. But, with the best of us, the spirit +is sometimes willing when the flesh is weak. Virginia saw that Ellen +grew pale as she wrote, that her little hand trembled to and fro on the +paper, leaving blots and erasures behind it. She went up to the desk and +leaned caressingly on the writer’s shoulder. + +“Come, Ellen, stop writing a little while.” + +Ellen shook the arm from her shoulder and went on with her work. + +“No, no; God has given me these hours to finish in. Do let me alone!” + +“But I am so anxious to go out. He will be regretting our absence and go +up to the cabin—I feel sure of it!” + +“_He!_ oh, he cannot come here till my work has set him above all fear.” + +“I was not speaking of your brother, Ellen.” + +Ellen took her mind, with a wrench, from its subject, and tried hard to +understand what was wanted of her. She had that essential qualification +for an author, and that rare thing among women, a power of strong +concentration, and it possessed her then entirely. + +“What—what is it?” she questioned, while the pen quivered in her hand. +“Afraid this will hurt me?—Not at all. Fresh air?—We can have plenty of +that by-and-by.” + +“But it is for myself I am so anxious to go out,” said Virginia, partly +in her own behalf, and partly because the pallor on that thin face +terrified her. + +“You, yourself?” Ellen flung down her pen. “Well, what is it you would +like, lady? I—I am ready. A walk? Of course, nothing better, only don’t +let us stay out long. You see, I am close upon the ending, and—and—my +things? Oh yes, I will have them on in a minute.” + +In this state of bewilderment, Ellen went out, following Virginia almost +in silence to the woods. She had not entirely gained command of her own +mind, which would keep turning back to the creation it had left with +such reluctance. They found the ravine solitary, and so changed, that +Virginia felt oppressed by everything she saw. + +“He is not here. He will not come to-day. Why should he, thinking us in +the city?” + +With these words, she wandered on up to the little cataract, which had +lost all its crystal brightness, and was swollen by the rains into a +great outgush of muddy water. Here she lingered about awhile, looking +anxiously down the ravine for the person who was listening with a +burning heart to Cora Lander’s falsehood. + +“He is not here! It is of no use waiting; the storm has made everything +so dreary that it chills one. Shall we go back, Ellen?” + +“Back?” answered Ellen, eagerly. “Oh, certainly; this air has done me so +much good.” + +So the two girls went home again, one sad and out of spirits, the other +eager for work. They saw nothing of Brooks, who had just left the house, +but went at once to the parlor up stairs, where Ellen fell to her +writing again and Virginia sat down by the window, wondering why +Clarence Brooks had not yet come to the house as he proposed. + +It was getting dark, when Eunice came into the room, carrying an ottoman +in her arms. + +“Here,” she said, setting it on the floor, “take out what there is in it +quick! She’s gone down to tea, and I must have it back again afore she +comes up. The critter has got eyes like a hawk.” + +Virginia started from the window, touched a spring in the wood-work and +flung back the top of the ottoman, revealing a miscellaneous heap of +papers, jewel-boxes, pen-holders and loose ornaments. + +Eunice snatched Ellen’s shawl which had fallen back from her chair, +spread it on the carpet and emptied all these things into it. Then she +closed the ottoman with a snap, and carried it away, muttering: + +“The Lord knows they’re your own property, and you’re welcome to ’em.” + +Ellen wrote on, she had neither heard nor seen anything of this. Away in +a world of her own, she was working out a brother’s freedom. Once more +Virginia aroused her. + +“Ellen! Ellen! we have got the jewels! See here! these pearls most be of +great value—and these, and these!” + +Ellen started and looked up, holding her pen suspended. + +“What is it? Pearls, and such pearls!” she cried, as Virginia laid the +necklace of large strung pearls, with seven pear-shaped pendants, on the +paper before her. “And diamonds too! We shall go to the city now. No +more delay. God bless you, dear, dear lady, for this! I am so tired that +thanks struggle in my bosom without utterance; but I feel them. I wonder +why Eunice don’t bring in the tea, my throat is parched and my eyes +burn—why don’t she bring in the tea?” + +“She brought it an hour ago, Ellen, and you drank two cups.” + +“Did she? I knew nothing about it, a glass of water will do just as +well. These things, how beautiful they are! Your mother’s too! It is +cruel, but you shall have them back again. I feel it in my heart that +these sheets of paper will redeem your mother’s jewels. Strange, isn’t +it, that these blotted pages should have gold in them? I cannot +comprehend it.” + +Here this strange girl fell to her work again, while Virginia carried +her treasures into the next room, where she lay down on the bed, sad at +heart and weeping softly because of the loneliness brought on by two +days’ absence from the man she loved so devotedly. + +Between eight and nine o’clock that night, Virginia was aroused by the +tread of a horse passing by the house, and going to a window, looked +out. The clouds had all rolled themselves away in billows of fiery gold +at sunset that night, and the broad, silvery radiance of a full moon +fell upon the earth. Virginia saw nothing, but she still heard, the +cautious footfall of a horse falling upon turf near the house. + +“It is one of the servants going on some errand,” she thought, and went +back to her half darkened room again. Ellen wrote on, made restless for +an instant by the strange sound, but unconscious of it the next moment. + +Joshua Hurd, who had gone to bed very early that night, heard a strange +noise in the stables just as he was falling asleep. He got up, opened +the window and looked out. The front of the stables was flung into deep +shadow by the drooping elm trees, but he distinctly saw a white horse +come out from the open door with a lady on his back. + +“What on arth does it mean?” he muttered. “That is Snowball; but which +of the wimmen folks is it, and what is she up to?” + +That moment the horse came into the moonlight and he saw the lady’s +face, clearly as any face could be seen, with a soft hat drawn over the +forehead and shaded by a long feather. + +“That long feather belongs to her, sure enough; that she sarpent never +wears one. What can she want a horseback this time o’ night? If ’twas +t’other, I shouldn’t wonder, but her! Well, it’s all right, I haint no +doubt. She’s a good gal, if ever one lived, and I ain’t a going to tell +nothing about her even to our Eunice. Least said is soonest mended. But +where on arth can she be a going?” + + + + + CHAPTER LI. + THE MIDNIGHT RIDE. + + +Clarence Brooks sat on the stoop, into which his room opened, that +night, thinking over the last few weeks in his mind. How could he have +been so utterly deceived. Why had this girl, loving another, engaged +herself to him? Was it in human nature to feign that purest and holiest +of all passions so thoroughly? No, he could not believe that. Whatever +had been, Virginia Lander loved him then—to believe otherwise would be +horrible. That she had fallen into a serious, perhaps disgraceful +entanglement with some unprincipled man, it was impossible to doubt, but +she was young, inexperienced—no, no, he could not say that, remembering +all she had said to him—how earnest and true she had seemed. The girl +was artful, unprincipled, worthless. Yet he could not fling her entirely +from his heart. Some designing man, with the aid of that singular little +hunchback, had perverted her into the thing she was. What had they +really intended? If she did not love him, why— + +He paused, angry with himself. The girl was not worth thinking about. +Yet if, by a miracle, she should prove innocent—that was, of course, an +impossibility. Cora Lander had no motive for deceiving him. She did not +know of his engagement or dream of the secret meetings which had so +ensnared him. That secrecy, which seemed so pleasant at first, veiling +his love with a sort of romance—why had he never suspected its true +meaning before? She would have married him; her earnestness on this +point was evident enough. But why?—Did she know him to be a wealthy man? +He had never told her so much till the very day of their engagement, and +she had no means of understanding the fact. If money was not her object, +where was the motive for all this deception? That letter, in the very +handwriting which had been worn against his heart, had method, decision +in every word. It was not the language of a young girl wildly in love. +How far had Ellen Nolan influenced the destiny of her benefactress? Was +it this strange girl who had led her into the meshes of a deception so +debasing? He remembered with what noiseless facility she had disappeared +whenever he wished to converse with Virginia. Had this been a practice +with her? Was she indeed the crafty little thing such conduct would +bespeak her? + +To these questions of the brain, Clarence Brooks’ heart was constantly +answering, “no!” But for the letter in his pocket he would have cast off +all that burning load of suspicions and trusted to the simple denial of +a young creature, whose very presence was a contradiction of everything +evil. True, she had seemed willing to make an unnecessary secret of her +acquaintance with himself—had met him over and over again in the +solitude of that glen, with no companion but that little hunchbacked +imp, as he called Ellen in his mind, for he remembered with bitter +disgust how she had pleaded with him not to speak of his engagement that +night when she came alone to his hotel. + +“I will search this to the bottom,” he promised himself, “and either +rescue her from these people or force the man, whoever he is, to come +out openly and claim her. She is lost to me, I know that,” he added, +with a swelling heart, “but having consecrated her with a love, pure as +man ever felt for woman, I will not abandon her to the fate which may +prove a terrible one.” + +Brooks was thinking in this generous way when he heard the sound of a +horse coming along the road, evidently treading upon the turfy border. +His heart stood still; muffled as it was, he knew the fall of those +light hoofs, and listened breathlessly. Directly a white horse, with a +woman upon its back, rode slowly over the little plank bridge. The lady +turned her face toward the hotel, looking partly backward, and he saw +the face plainly as clear moonlight could reveal it. The long feather, +which he had seen Virginia wear so often, fell to the shoulder nearest +him, but that only established her identity in his mind. + +Directly after she crossed the bridge, the lady evidently put her horse +to his speed, for the quick clatter of his hoofs sounded distinctly +along the road, beating down that noble heart with every step. + +As the noise died away, Brooks arose and staggered back against the +window-frame sick at heart. Up to this moment he had not given up all +hope that, by some miracle, the woman he loved might be cleared from the +suspicion which wounded him so terribly. But now all was over. His own +eyes had witnessed what his heart ached to disbelieve. She was lost to +him forever, but he still hoped not to herself. + +He went into his sitting-room and paced it up and down for half an hour, +growing stern and resolute every minute. + +“I will wait for her here,” he said; “as she crosses that bridge I will +stand before her horse and demand the truth from her own lips; she shall +not plunge over this precipice without some one to hold her back.” + +His voice shook under the blow he had received. As the poor artist picks +up the scattered fragments of a statue which he has just fashioned into +beauty only to see shattered at his feet, he resolved to rescue some +peace of mind out of the chaos of this ruin for the only woman he had +ever loved. With this generous resolve in his heart, he sat down +patiently and waited. + +It was between twelve and one o’clock when faint sounds of a coming +horse aroused him from the stupor of grief into which he had fallen. He +listened, stood up and looked out upon the road. Surely there was more +than one horse coming, and at a sharp pace too. His chair stood in a +shadowy end of the porch, and he sat down again so far out of sight that +no one but a keen observer could have discovered his presence there. +That double sound of hoofs came along the road so swiftly that two +horses appeared above the bridge with a suddenness that startled him. It +was the white horse with that lady rider, and a dark bay, ridden by a +man. The two came neck and neck on to the bridge, and drew up there in +the full sheen of the moonlight. The man and the woman seemed to be +conversing together in low voices. As they talked, their horses veered a +little and backed toward the farther side of the bridge, turning those +two human faces directly toward the hotel. Brooks started to his feet +and leaned forward, struck with sudden panic of suspicion, but as yet +uncertain. The man took off his hat, reined his horse close up to the +lady’s, threw an arm around her waist and kissed her, more than once, +with what seemed the passionate earnestness of a farewell. + +This was neither resented nor shrunk from by the lady. To the reverse, +when her companion put on his hat and turned his horse, she wheeled +after him, leaned from her saddle and offered her lips to him again. +Then the two parted, one galloping up the road at full speed, the other +moving more cautiously toward the Lander mansion. Clarence Brooks fell +back to his chair, uttering a single sentence: “That man!” + +The next morning Virginia and Ellen started for the city by an early +train. At the same hour Clarence Brooks was riding toward the Longstone +tavern where he had eaten that pleasant dinner, it seemed to him ages +ago. The landlord met him at the door, beaming with hospitality. + +“Was it the gentleman who came day before yesterday, the same that put +up, for a week or two, in that second-rate affair just above the lower +depot, some time since—no wonder he wanted a change for the better—was +that the man?” + +“Yes,” Brooks replied, staggering under the new proof which lay in the +landlord’s speech. “Yes, it is that man I wish to find.” + +“Oh, sir, he went away this morning, I took him to the upper depot in my +own buggy.” + +“Has he ever been here before? No, not even for a ride. The folks down +yonder say he kept mighty quiet, going a trout-fishing up the brook that +runs through the Lander grounds, but never ketchen none. From something +that happened here last night, I reckon one could make a guess about +that.” + +Brooks turned away, heart-sick, but came back directly, and asked if the +landlord knew where his guest of the night before could be found in the +city. + +No, the landlord could not exactly tell; but, from something he +overheard the young man saying to a boy that came with him that rainy +day, he thought it was —— street, somewhere near Madison Avenue. + +A flush of red came into Brooks’ face. He remembered the locality of a +house in that direction perfectly, a singular house, with a back drapery +of vines, and a fountain raining water drops down among flowers in +front. He thanked the landlord, ordered a glass of wine as an excuse for +leaving a dollar behind him, and rode away. + +An hour after, he called on Cora Lander, who came down to meet him with +an anxious face. + +“She has gone, and taken the hunchback with her,” she said, in great +seeming agitation. “The jewels, too, I can find them nowhere; they +belonged to my poor mother; but for that I would not care.” + +“Belonged to your mother, and gone with her! Why this is—” + +“Hush, hush—not that—I did not mean it. She claims that my father gave +them to her—perhaps he did. Aunt Eliza thinks so. I only wish that they +shall not go out of the family. There is a double string of pearls, with +pear-shaped pendants, which has been in the family a long time. If she +will only give me a chance to buy them back, it is all I ask. This +wretched man may have their value and welcome.” + +“Miss Lander, do you, know where your cousin will stay while she is in +town?” + +“I am not certain; she may go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, but I rather +fancy she will prefer a house that my father used to occupy winters, +when we were at school. I have not had the heart to visit it since we +came home, but she has been there often, I think.” + +“Does any other person live there, Miss Lander?” + +“Yes, a servant; some one has always been left in charge. It is a pretty +place, and my father loved it so, I gave my agent orders to keep it in +good condition. Some day I hope to find courage to visit it, but not +yet.” + +No violets after a rain ever looked more touchingly beautiful than Cora +Lander’s eyes as she said this. + +“What do you fear so much, Miss Lander? Is it that your cousin will +marry this brother of Ellen Nolan?” + +“Yes, I fear that; she has not been kind to me, but I could not hear to +see her thrown away upon an adventurer like him; for he must be an +adventurer.” + +“She shall never marry him. Leave that to me!” + +“How kind you are—how—forgive me, I hardly know what I am saying; this +has made me so nervous; not to tell any one that she was going—I have +not deserved this. Indeed, indeed I have not.” + +Cora turned away and wiped her eyes on a handkerchief taken hastily from +her pocket, but they filled again instantly. + +“Have you any idea to whom they would go with those jewels?” + +“It is impossible to say; perhaps Lawyer Stone would help them. He knows +Virginia, and was my father’s lawyer. In fact he is one of the executors +of his will.” + +“What is Mr. Stone’s address?” + +Cora gave the address, but added, with great feeling: + +“Don’t say a word, I beseech you, that will lead him to think there is +anything wrong. If we save my poor cousin, it must be entirely without +stain or blemish. So far, the secret of her imprudence rests with us. It +shall never go farther if I can help it.” + +“Have no fear, Miss Lander; you can trust this whole affair safely with +me. It is a sad, hard task, but I will perform it.” + +Brooks was very pale that morning, and there was a strange tone in his +voice; but his eyes bespoke a steady, firm resolution. He was going +away, when Cora followed him. + +“When may I see you again?” she questioned. “I shall feel so anxious, so +lonely.” + +“When your cousin is safe, not before.” + +She lifted her eyes to his; he turned away, their soft expression so +resembled Virginia’s that it made him recoil. + +“Farewell, then, till you bring me good news.” + +“Farewell,” he answered, and added as he went along, “There will never +be good news for me in this world again. God is my judge, I only do this +to save her.” + +A down train came shrieking along as he descended the terrace steps, and +a boy met him at the depot with a small valise. He took the valise, +sprang into the car, and was whirled off on his painful errand. + +The first person Brooks went to after reaching the city was Lawyer +Stone. He inquired of that gentleman if Miss Lander had been there that +morning. + +Lawyer Stone admitted that Miss Virginia Lander had just left the +office, with a very singular little friend, whom she had saved from +drowning, he believed. + +Mr. Brooks then observed, with great quietness: + +“Yes, I know, she came on special business, to raise money on some +jewels, I believe.” + +“You seem to be entirely in the young lady’s confidence,” said the +lawyer, smiling. + +“So far that I know she is in want of money, and am willing to advance +all she may require—that is, in behalf of Miss Cora Lander, who does not +wish her cousin to want for money, or anything else. As her agent, I am +ready to arrange this matter with you.” + +“If Miss Lander is so generous,” answered Stone, drily, “I wonder she +did not prevent the necessity of this application on her cousin’s part.” + +“She was not informed of any necessity, and only heard of it by +accident. Even now I must stipulate that her name shall not be mentioned +in the transaction.” + +“I shall respect the lady’s secret,” said the lawyer, coldly. “When will +it be her pleasure to pay over the money?” + +“On the day after to-morrow. Will that be time enough?” + +“I am not sure, the young lady seems in great haste. But I doubt very +much if she could get it so soon from any other source, so we must be +satisfied. I am no judge of this kind of security. You may not find +these gimcracks of sufficient value for the money.” + +“If it is convenient, let me see them.” + +Mr. Stone took an inlaid box from his desk and turned several jewel +cases from it to the table. + +“Here is something she thinks very valuable,” he said, opening a morocco +case and revealing a double string of pearls coiled around a red satin +cushion. + +“They are of sufficient value, no matter about the rest,” said Brooks, +looking sadly at the pearls, but without touching them. “How much money +does she want?” + +“Three thousand dollars.” + +“It shall be ready at the time I mentioned. As for these things, keep +them in your own possession. Miss Lander wants neither security nor +repayment from her cousin. But say nothing of this at present. We can +trust you to return them to her at the proper time. When Miss Virginia +comes, simply tell her that the money will be ready at the time +mentioned. Good morning, sir.” + +“Good morning,” answered the lawyer, sweeping the jewels back into their +box. “A good-looking fellow, and came just in the right time, for I +haven’t the least idea that anybody else would have advanced half the +amount on these things. What on earth does the girl want with so much +money, I wonder? I would have refused to help her, but I knew well +enough that some one would direct her to a pawnbroker’s, where Mrs. +Lander’s pearls would have cut a pretty figure. Who is this fellow? I +suspect the three thousand dollars will come out of his pocket. That +girl does not pay it, I’ll be sworn.” + +Muttering these words, the shrewd lawyer locked the jewels up in his +safe and was soon lost in a pile of papers which lay, with a piece of +red tape loosely twisted about them, on his table, for he had been +disturbed while untying the parcels, first by Miss Virginia Lander and +then by Clarence Brooks, in a fashion which took him so completely out +of his usual routine that he found some difficulty in getting into +groove again. + + + + + CHAPTER LII. + ANGELS’ VISITS. + + +The first step that Virginia Lander took in the business that brought +her to town was, as we have seen, to visit Lawyer Stone, who gave her +some vague encouragement about raising the money. He asked a good many +embarrassing questions, which she was not prepared to answer, and which +excited a little distrust in that acute mind with regard to things that +had gone before. Ellen had answered for her once or twice, and that +rather added to the general bad effect of the visit. In fact, Virginia +left the lawyer’s office a little disheartened. This helping a fellow +creature out of the results of a crime is no easy matter, as she was +doomed to learn. + +“Now,” said Ellen, “let us go to him. Oh! lady, my heart aches with +desire; I so long to look on his face again.” + +They were near the Park now, and Virginia beckoned a carriage. When she +gave her orders to the driver, Ellen interposed. + +“Not to the house, lest we draw attention to it. Let him stop at the +corner.” + +Virginia acquiesced, and they were set down in Madison Avenue, where the +man was ordered to wait. There was a shade of mystery in all this which +troubled Virginia. + +When they opened the gate, Brian Nolan came to the door and held it +open, gazing at them wistfully as they came up the walk. Ellen answered +his look with a smile which brought glad light into his eyes. + +“Go up,” said Brian, “he is in the back room, close by the stairs. If +the lady pleases, she can wait in the drawing room.” + +He opened the drawing-room door, and Virginia, amazed by all she saw, +went in. Was this the home of Ellen Nolan’s brother, the man who was in +such abject need of money? For a moment all sympathy for him went out of +her heart. Those sumptuous surroundings revolted her, for with all those +changes the girl did not recognize the house as one that had belonged to +her father. + +Ellen went up stairs, trembling in every limb. This brother had been, +since she could remember, the romance of her family, the being for whom +they had all made sacrifices and endured those haunting anxieties which +frequently knit an offender closest to the family heart. To Ellen this +young man had been a sort of hero, splendid even in his faults; she did +not allow even the crime which she knew of to shake her faith in his +fine qualities, utterly. It wounded her to the soul, but she said to +herself, “He must have been fearfully tempted.” + +Into the room she went, half afraid and so overcome by a rush of +affection that she could hardly stand. Seymour was lying on the dainty +couch where Cora had so often idled her time away. His face was turned +to the wall, one hand was thrust under the silken pillow and the other +lay clenched upon his bosom. + +Ellen stole to the couch, and, kneeling down, took the clenched hand +between both hers. + +“My brother!” + +Seymour turned instantly, fixed his eyes on that face and cried out: + +“Is it Ellen? Is it the poor girl he loved little better than all the +rest?” + +“Yes, brother Alfred, it is Ellen. He loved me better than the rest +because of this.” + +She touched her shoulder with a simplicity that was more than pathetic. + +“He knew that I should have so much need of love,” she added, answering +the mournful glance of his eyes. + +“Who could help loving you, child?” + +It was natural to call Ellen a child; everybody did it, though in +thought and feeling she was so old. + +“Oh! if I could make you love me, brother!” + +“I do—I do; between us there is a terrible sympathy which united us +closest in our father’s love.” + +“I know what you mean!” said Ellen, with a smile that brought tears into +the young man’s eyes. + +“That was nothing to the deformity which lay here,” he said, with bitter +emphasis, striking the clenched hand against his heart. “You awoke all +the tenderness of his soul, I tortured him through his entire life, +robbed his little ones of their natural rights, and lie here accursed in +my own mind—little better than a convict, Ellen Nolan!” + +“Hush,” she said, gently, “I will not hear you talk so. This one act, +which preys upon us all, can be retrieved. She is below.” + +“She! Who? Not—not—Ellen, dear, tell me who it is.” + +“My young mistress!” + +“Which? Who are you talking of?” + +“Miss Virginia Lander!” + +Seymour fell back on the couch, great beads of perspiration started to +his forehead. He absolutely panted for breath. + +“I thought it had been—had been—but no matter, it is before the time. I +am mad to dream of it yet. This other lady, what is she doing here?” + +“She has come to save you—to save us all. This morning she has been to +raise the money you want.” + +Seymour started up wild and pale. + +“What!” + +“She is my friend—she saved my life. She saw my father when he prepared +us all to die. Now she comes here to save his son from something worse +than death.” + +“You know it—she knows it?” + +“Yes, she knows it. I could not ask help without giving confidence.” + +“She will betray me!” + +“She would die first.” + +“Are you sure—are you sure, Ellen Nolan?” + +“Oh, brother, you do not know her!” + +“And she will give me this money? Remember, it is three thousand +dollars.” + +“I know; that is what she asked for.” + +“And will she get it? Are you sure?” + +“I think so; the gentleman the same as promised.” + +Seymour threw both arms over his head and burst into a wild passion of +tears. + +“Saved! saved! Oh, my God, I am grateful, so grateful!” + +His whole frame shook. He clasped both hands over his face and the tears +streamed like rain from beneath them. + +“She does not know all the good she is doing; she has lifted a human +soul out of a plight so desperate that he was ready to kill himself.” + +“No, no! not that! You could not have thought it!” cried Ellen, clinging +to him. + +“She has redeemed me—that which the prayers and entreaties of a good +father failed to do, this young girl has accomplished. From this day, +with God Almighty’s help, I will be a good man.” + +He was in earnest. Those clasped hands uplifted to Heaven—those +features, quivering with strong emotion, bespoke the energy of a fixed +resolution. + +“Our father knew that this day would come, and believing it, sent you +his last blessing,” said Ellen, almost in a whisper. + +Seymour turned his wet face and looked mournfully into her eyes. + +“Did he? My poor father! my poor father!” + +“They were the last words he ever spoke.” + +“And I so unworthy! God forgive me!” + +“I knew,” said Ellen, speaking low and with tears in her voice, “I knew, +from that awful hour, how it would end. The duties he laid down were +given to me: I am feeble and hardly worth the life she saved; but God +sometimes gives great purposes into weak hands.” + +“You came here with a noble purpose, Ellen.” + +“_She_ came with a noble purpose; this three thousand dollars is all she +has got in the world.” + +“And is ready to give it to a man she never saw?” + +“She offers it of her own free will.” + +“Ellen, is this lady a woman or an angel?” + +“Both, I think.” + +“God bless her! God forever bless her! She has saved me! she has saved +me!” + +“God has blessed her, for she is dearly beloved,” said Ellen. + +The poor girl spoke very sadly. Seymour leaned forward and kissed her +forehead. + +“I will love you dearly, little sister.” + +She lifted those wistful eyes to his. + +“You and I will be all the world to each other yet,” she said. “I know +it.” + +The young man smiled for the first time that day. He was thinking of +another love which would forever stand pre-eminent with him—of the sweet +promises given during that midnight ride. Now that his secret might be +kept from her and the whole world, there was love for him deeper and far +more precious than Ellen ever dreamed of. In a week, a single week, he +would stand without fear before the whole world and openly claim Cora +Lander, the most beautiful woman and richest heiress in New York, as his +wife. The iron chain of his crime was about to fall from him. As these +thoughts passed through his mind, he bent over Ellen with a pity in his +eyes that almost broke her heart. + +“Heaven so deal with me as I am kind and generous to you little sister!” + +Ellen arose; he also stood up, caressing her with his hand. + +“I wish you knew how happy I am! What a dead, heavy weight has been +lifted from my heart!” + +“I do know; it brightens all your face. I too am happy. It is the +sweetest thing in life to be grateful. Good-bye, brother; we shall come +again the moment that money is paid. Then you will have cause for joy.” + +“Are you going, Ellen?” + +“My lady is below, will you go speak with her?” + +“Not now, dear; this news has unmanned me; I could not thank her without +making a child of myself. Say this for me, Ellen, and say also that, +while I live, I shall be grateful to her. Some day soon I will prove +it.” + +Ellen went down stairs and found Virginia looking through the lace +curtains of the drawing-room window. A close carriage stood on the +opposite side of the street from which a man was stepping to the +pavement. + +“Come here, Ellen,” said Virginia, in a low voice. “It is very strange, +but I thought—you know it is impossible—but a face like that of Mr. +Brooks seemed to be taking a survey of this house.” + +Ellen caught her breath, but went up to the window and looked out, with +Virginia’s arm over her shoulder. They did not know it, but that moment +Seymour was looking out of the upper window, just above them. He saw +nothing but a close carriage driving up the street. The man who had +stepped from it was walking quietly along the sidewalk, but this +conversation had passed between him and Clarence Brooks, who had just +driven away: + +“That is the man, but do not arrest him while ladies are in the house. +When they leave, lose no time.” + +“All right. You can depend on it, I’ll make a neat job of the affair. It +isn’t often one has a chance at so handsome and gentlemanly a fellow.” + +So the man walked on in a careless, idle way, which disturbed no one, +until Virginia and Ellen left the house. Then he turned and followed +them to the carriage, doing a little amateur business of his own, not +set down in the programme. + +“Now that the Canary birds have flown, I may as well go to work in +earnest,” he muttered. “What a jolly nest the fellow has got into! Upon +my word I hate to spring the trap on him, and so did the gentleman, or +I’m no judge of a man’s face. How deadly white he was when that girl +came to the window. His jaw closed like iron—jealous, I wonder? Robbed +him double. I’ll be sworn. I may as well begin.” + +With a soft step, the man paused at the gate, stopped at the fountain, +and, picking a sprig of myrtle from one of the plants still left in the +open air, fastened it daintily into his button-hole. Then he sauntered +leisurely up to the door and rang the bell. + +Brian Nolan opened the door with a frightened face. It was not often +that strangers called to see any one there, and the least sound agitated +him. + +“Was Mr. Seymour in?” + +The man did not wait for an answer, but gently pushed by the boy and +entered the hall. + +“Tell him that I have a letter, or rather a scrap of writing, from a +lady who could not say all she wished when she saw him. It is only a +line, and in pencil.” + +“Give it to me, I—I will deliver it, should he come here.” + +“Beg your pardon, promised not to let it go out of my hands. Up +stairs—yes, I am sure she told me I would find him up stairs.” + +Again the man pushed by Brian, who attempted to intercept him, and +quietly walked up stairs. Seymour heard the sound of voices and stood on +the threshold of the boudoir listening. The hand with which he held the +half open door grew cold and white, and he was about to retreat into the +room, when some word about a lady’s letter brought the blood again to +his scared face. He took a single eager step into the hall, hesitated, +and was drawing back again, when the strange man came swiftly up the +stairs and laid a hand on his arm. + +“Mr. Seymour, excuse the intrusion, but here is a paper for you to +read.” + +Seymour reached out his hand slowly for the paper, looked at the man for +a minute, turned deadly white, opened it with terrible quietness and +read a warrant for his arrest. + +“I wish you had come two hours earlier, it would not have seemed so +hard. Give me a few moments for preparation,” he said, after a little; +“I will not keep you long.” + +“As many as you like,” answered the man, seating himself among the +silken cushions of Cora’s couch. “One might find much more unpleasant +places to wait in.” + +The man punched one of the pillows into a compact shape and planted his +elbow on it as he spoke. Seymour saw the action with a dreary look of +despair. At another time he would have flung any man headlong from the +window for daring to seat himself among the cushions her cheek had +touched. But now—now he turned aside with a groan and went into his +chamber. With a slowness that seemed like composure, it was so awful and +still, he took from one of his bureau drawers a revolver and examined +it. The barrels were all loaded, a single movement of the finger and he +would be far beyond the reach of that man. He lifted the weapon to a +level with his forehead, turned it and placed the muzzle between his +knitted brows. A hand struck the weapon upward and wrenched it from his +grasp. Brian Nolan’s face, whiter than whiteness, looked into his. + +“Coward!” + +Seymour shook from head to foot. + +“Brother!” + +The boy flung himself upon that wretched man’s bosom and cried out, in +the anguish of his self-reproach: + +“Oh, forgive me! forgive me, I did not mean to call you that!” + +“Anything unpleasant going on?” questioned a calm voice close by them. + +“No, sir; nothing. I am his brother,” said Brian; “pray, leave us +alone.” + +“Oh, I understand,” said the man, glancing at the revolver. “Often the +case when one of my customers happens to be a real gentleman. Rather +unfair to me, though; Coroner’s inquest, and all that, hurts a man in +his profession. Didn’t think of that, I dare say!” + +Seymour turned his face all white, and withered, upon the man; he was +wondering how careless words could come from human lips when he was in +such mortal distress. + +“Do go!” pleaded Brian, “you are killing him.” + +“And have that bit of tragedy over again? No, I must not lose sight of +him.” + +“I must speak with my brother!” said Seymour, in a husky voice. + +“Leave us! leave us, I beg of you!” added Brian. “He shall not harm +himself.” + +“Give me that trinket, then,” said the officer, pointing to the pistol. + +Brian handed it to him, and once more the brothers were alone. + +“What shall I do? What _can_ I do?” said Brian. + +“Keep it from her, for God’s sake, keep it from her!” + +“And from Ellen?” + +“Tell her later, but not yet. Poor girl! poor girl! better for her that +I perish in prison unknown! Thank God, our father’s honorable name has +been spared!” + +“Can I make no effort to save you, my brother?” + +“None—listen. I _was_ a coward, but it was only for _her_ sake. Save her +from a knowledge that would break her proud heart, and you shall see how +much I can endure. Come to me in the prison, Brian; I shall have plenty +of time for thought there. Oh! my God, my God, help me to endure it!” + +“I would suggest,” said the calm voice again, “that this conversation is +too exciting for any good to come from it. Better take a night’s sleep +on the gentleman’s affair. If your brother is at all sensitive about +appearances, I have no objection to a carriage. Covered up my star on +purpose to make the whole thing as genteel as possible. In fact, the +gentleman who thinks himself aggrieved made that a special request. He +even left a sum of money in my hands to buy up the reporters—not that I +think it can be done for money—most of those chaps are kind-hearted +fellows as ever lived, and are ready enough to spare a man. If they all +agree to it, he is safe.” + +“Ask them to spare me for the sake of—of my friends,” said Seymour, in a +low voice. “If death could do it, I would die.” + +“Never fear, we will arrange that. When all parties agree upon one +point, it is easily settled; never met with a more amicable case in all +my experience. Oh here is the carriage; I will trust to your honor. You +and I will walk out of this house like two friends going for a sociable +drive, say in the Central Park. Lovely spot—think I have seen you +driving there—pair of chestnut horses, superb—always alone, +though—thought that rather singular, upon my honor I did.” + +Chatting thus in an airy, pleasant fashion, the officer led the way +through the hall and into the yard, where the fountain was still +throwing up water drops like a child at play. + +“Some people looking out of that window opposite; suppose we gather a +bouquet from these plants; looks innocent, and will satisfy any +curiosity that two carriages and my walking up and down has excited +among the crinolines. Charming institution, but curious—very.” + + + + + CHAPTER LIII. + THAT CRUEL LETTER. + + +That great Egyptian monster, crouching like an embodied pestilence in +the heart of New York, concentrating all the horrors of a prison with +the awful solemnity of a tomb, never received a human being into its +portals who gave himself up to despair more thoroughly than Alfred +Seymour. All night long he lay in that narrow cell—hard, cold granite in +the floor, the walls and the ceiling, cold iron shutting him in at the +narrow door, which opened and closed with a clang that made him start +and shudder from head to foot—all night long he lay, thinking such +thoughts as might turn the hair on a young man’s head white as snow and +create little wonder. + +A gleam of moonlight pierced through a long, narrow loop-hole that +served as a window, cut so deep in the outer wall that the radiance came +through wedge-shaped, and, to his tortured imagination, seemed solid in +its whiteness. No steel ever went more keenly through a human heart than +that mournful illumination penetrated his. Only the night before, those +self-same moonbeams had fallen like shimmering silver along the highway +when Cora rode by his side, cheerful as a bird, animated as he had +seldom seen her before, talking so hopefully of the early day when their +marriage would be proclaimed and they need not steal forth in secret or +at night to meet each other. She had even proposed to proclaim the +choice she was so proud of and end all secrecy at once. But he dared not +accept this generous proposition, though enforced by eloquence and such +affectionate caresses as nothing but a heart shackled down by crime +could have resisted. + +This was only one night ago. It seemed an eternity to him, there in that +prison, with the stillness of death all around him. Thinking of her +thus, generous, loving and so beautiful, the unhappy man came to a +solemn resolution. She should never hear of his fate; they might bury +him in prison walls still more gloomy than those which seemed to enclose +him in like a grave, and he would make no sign. To-morrow, perhaps, they +would bring him into court for examination. He would plead guilty there, +and again when they brought him before a higher tribunal for final +trial. No public journal should make a romance of his crime or his +misery. He would allow the law to do its worst, and disappear. + +This man had done wrong, but he was not a hardened sinner; no creature +who was ever wept as he did that night. He had longed to make atonement +for his crime, and struggled hard for the power which was almost within +his grasp when this ruin came upon him. This nearness to escape made his +fate doubly bitter. + +“A few hours—only a few hours, and I should have paid all,” he said, +aloud. Then, frightened by the sound of his own voice, which seemed +struggling up from a grave, he drew the coarse, gray blanket over his +head and lay moaning out his grief at intervals, hiding away from the +moonlight which reminded him so keenly of all that was wrested from him. + +At last the dawn came struggling through that loop-hole, filling the +cell with gloomy light. Then a crash of locks and the heavy swing of +iron doors struck on his ear ominously. The routine of that mournful +tomb’s life had commenced, and every new sound made him shiver beneath +that gray blanket like some wounded animal that hears the hounds +scenting out its lair. + +After awhile the door of his own cell was flung open, a heavy can was +set down on the stone gallery close by, and out of this grim vessel a +tin cup half full of coffee was dipped, this with a piece of bread, was +placed upon his cell floor. + +Seymour drew the blanket from his face and turned his bloodshot eyes +upon this coarse breakfast. He was not hungry, and would have rejected +the most dainty food—this he loathed. + +Hours went by and Brian Nolan came with his sorrowful heart, and again +craved to know what could be done for his brother. + +Nothing. Seymour had fully made up his mind now. The misery that Fate +had in store for him he would accept. Perhaps he would be so happy as to +die. Then that noble young creature who had loved him so dearly would +have freedom. She might—no, no, he could not think of a second marriage. +He was ready to die, and the rest might follow, but it would be a long, +long time—that grand-hearted creature was too thoroughly his for any +meaner result. He said all this to Brian, and charged him, as he hoped +for happiness, never to betray the secret of his marriage to any human +being, not even to Ellen; never hint at his knowledge of it to the woman +who, in a fatal hour, had become his wife; but, in every respect to +guard the confidence placed in him. Not content with a simple promise, +he went farther. + +There was a cheap missionary Bible in the cell. This he placed in +Brian’s hands and bade him take an oath never to reveal the secret of +his marriage or hint at it to any living soul. + +Brian touched the book with his lips and took the oath. + +“It is hard to ask this of me. Your lady has money and power enough to +open these doors.” + +“To let the husband she knows to be a criminal out. Brian Nolan, the +first look of her face after that would kill me. I shall plead guilty; +there will be no trial. The officer promises me that there shall be no +publicity. When all is over, I will write two letters, one to her, one +to the man whose vengeance is upon me. There is money belonging to him +which he must have—a favor which he will grant if he is not a demon.” + +The mention of money reminded Brian of that which his sister Ellen and +Miss Virginia Lander had promised to bring. + +“What shall I say to them when they come with the money?” he asked. “Is +it altogether too late, if I appeal to this cruel man with the money in +my hand?” + +“Yes, too late. He has no power to save me if he wished, I know that +much of American law. Beside, you cannot go to him. He, above all men +living, must be kept in ignorance that I ever saw one of the Miss +Landers. There is no appeal, no hope for me. Give up the thought, +Brian.” + +Brian did give up the thought and went away broken-hearted. Virginia and +Ellen came to the house the day after, radiant and happy, with the money +which Lawyer Stone had just paid over to them. Brian met them in the +drawing room, thanked Virginia with tears in his eyes, but refused to +take the money. His brother had settled all his difficulties in another +way. It involved a somewhat lengthened absence from the city, he said, +but everything was in a sure course of arrangement. Mr. Seymour had +charged him to give a thousand thanks for her kindness, which he should +feel to his dying day. + +“Did he leave no word for me?” inquired Ellen, nervously. “Not even a +farewell?” + +“He left you this, and this,” answered Brian, pressing his quivering +lips to her cheek and forehead. + +Ellen knew that there was some terrible sorrow under those kisses, but +the delicate intuition that impressed her heart with the truth kept her +silent. Virginia, who had been so ardent in her desire to serve Ellen’s +brother, was a little disappointed by the result, as any generous person +might well have been. Still there was joy in the thought that they were +at liberty to return home—that within a few hours she would meet +Clarence Brooks. + +They went up the river by the first train, Virginia grew light of heart +as she approached home. Would he expect her just then? Was he +disappointed because she did not return the night before? Had he told +Cora and Mrs. Lander of their engagement? How would they feel about it, +glad or sorry? She almost wished that it had been done before she left +home. It would be very awkward enduring their sneers or congratulations, +as they might chance to prove, with no one but Ellen to sustain her. + +These thoughts brought a troubled joy with them, and when the train +stopped at the depot she had become nervously anxious. Ellen’s grave +face added to this feeling, this return home really was a trying ordeal +to a young, motherless girl, who believed that the most precious secret +of her life had been given to her worst enemies. + +Eunice met them at the door; but no one else came with smiles or +welcome. Mrs. Lander was in her room, the servant said, and Miss Lander +had gone out to ride on Blackbird. Ellen saw the question in Virginia’s +eyes, and asked if Miss Lander had gone alone. + +“Yes, quite alone; there had been no gentleman in the neighborhood to +ride with her these two days; a groom followed her, that was all.” + +Virginia went up stairs somewhat perplexed. Was Cora so annoyed by her +engagement that she would not ride with Mr. Brooks? What could it all +mean? + +Just as the girls were taking off their things, a clumsy knock sounded +from the door, and Joshua Hurd looked in. He beckoned Ellen and +retreated into the upper hall. Ellen went out to learn what he wanted, +when he placed a letter mysteriously in her hand. + +“You jest give it to her. He made me promise to put it into her own +hands; but it’s the same thing, now ain’t it, when I give it to you?” + +The letter, which Ellen took, was directed in a bold, firm hand, to Miss +Virginia Lander. + +“Who gave it to you, Mr. Hurd?” she anxiously inquired. + +“He, Mr. Brooks; the chap I took your letter to that rainy night. He +came up here yesterday morning, and, arter siting awhile with t’other +gal, came out to the stables—a thing he never done afore—and took a good +deal of interest in the hosses, ’specially Snowball, a critter that I +allays curry down myself. That morning he diskivered that she’d been rid +hard since any one dressed her down, and was curous about the mark of a +saddle that was plain as could be on her back. You don’t know how that +mark came there nor nothing, do you now, Miss Ellen?” he added, eyeing +her keenly with his little, sharp eyes. + +“Me?—No, indeed. How should I?” answered Ellen. + +“Jes so; thought as much. Nor she, nuther?” + +Joshua pointed over his shoulder to the room where they had left +Virginia. + +“What, Miss Virginia? She hasn’t seen Snowball these three or four days, +I can answer for that.” + +“Jes so.” + +“But what does all this mean, Joshua?” + +“Nothing, only he said the hoss must a been rid or else I hadn’t took +good care on her, which made me mad. Rid or no rid, curry-combed or not +curry-combed, it was none of his bisness, and I e’enamost told him so.” + +“Well, Joshua, I don’t understand about that, but the letter?” + +“Well, he gin me that arter I’d sot him down a peg about the hoss, and a +golden half eagle with it—none of yer greenbacks, but gennine gold, woth +amost double if one specerlates on it, which I mean to. ‘Give that into +Miss Virginia’s own hand, don’t let any other person tech it,’ says he. +‘I depend on you, Mr. Hurd.’ Well, he might do that. If I haint gin it +into her own hand, it was because she was doing up her hair afore the +looking-glass, and that made me kinder skeery; but it’s all right now.” + +Ellen was turning away, when Joshua began again: + +“Miss Ellen, what was the matter with Mr. Brooks? He looked so down in +the mouth that I raly felt sorry for him; kinder locked up about the +mouth and forrid.” + +“How can I tell, Joshua?” + +“Jes so. But you’ll give that ’ere letter?” + +“Certainly I will.” + +“Jes so,” muttered Joshua, stumbling down the hall. “Jes so!” + +Ellen went into the room where Virginia was standing, and gave her the +letter. + +“From him! from him!” cried the delighted girl, snatching it between +both her hands. “I will be back in a minute, Ellen, and tell you all +about it.” + +She went into the sanctuary of her own chamber, pressing the paper to +her lips with both hands, as young girls will when the sweet insanity of +a first love is upon them. + +Ellen sat down by the window, wondering why her heart felt so heavy; she +had fallen into thought about her brother, whose present position seemed +to be so mysteriously kept from her, when a sharp cry from the inner +room, and directly after a heavy fall, made her spring from the chair in +sudden dismay. + +The next instant she was in the bed-chamber striving to lift Virginia +from the floor with her trembling arms and crying out in her alarm: + +“My lady! Virginia! Virginia! won’t you speak to me? It is Ellen, your +own poor Ellen, who loves you better than her life! What have they done +to you, darling?” + +In her distress, the poor girl broke into the pathetic terms of +endearment which are so touching in her countrywomen. She kissed that +pale face, dropping unconscious tears upon its whiteness. She strove to +warm the cold hand with her own quivering palms. But all was in vain, +Virginia Lander lay motionless; her lips ashen, her eyes closed in deep +shadows. Ellen at last believed her dead, and shrieked aloud: + +“Eunice! Eunice! Oh! my God, will nobody come?” + + + + + CHAPTER LIV. + IN PRISON. + + +A person entered the room and stood close to Ellen. It was Cora, just +come in from her ride; she stood motionless, grasping her whip tightly +in one hand; masses of heavy dark cloth fell around her feet, sweeping +far out upon the floor, and the black hat shaded a stormy brow. + +“This is hysterics; she had them frequently in Europe. Go and call +Eunice—this shrinking will do no good. Go; I will take care of my +cousin.” + +Cora stooped down to take the pale form from Ellen, but the little +creature laid her charge upon the carpet, sprang upon Cora like a tiger +and pushed her half across the room, so tangling her feet in the +riding-skirt that she almost fell. There she left her struggling to +retain her feet, and lifting that pale head, laid a pillow tenderly +under it. + +“Do not touch her; do not dare to touch her, unless you wish Almighty +vengeance to fall on you at once! It will come—it will come!” + +Pale as death, and shaking her slender forefinger at the half-terrified +woman, Ellen went in search of Eunice. + +The moment she was gone, Cora tore the skirt from under her feet, ran to +the door, closed it and shot the bolt. Then she took up the letter, +which had fallen from Virginia’s hold, and tried to hold it firmly +between her two hands, but they shook so violently that she could hardly +see the writing. The struggle of an iron will soon conquered this +tremor, and she eagerly devoured each word as it seemed to flash before +her eyes. + +“No explanation—no loop-hole for her to creep through. Quiet, gentle, +positive! My Heavens, what a man this is! How dare she worship him? Why +he is the mate for an empress!” + +She heard footsteps in the hall, flung the letter down where she had +found it, shot the bolt and flung the door open before Eunice and Ellen +came in sight. + +“She is getting conscious, I think. How she moans. What can be the +meaning of this, Eunice?” + +“The meaning—why the poor, sweet creature has fainted away; but what do +you care about that, I want to know?” + +“Ellen! Ellen!” + +These faint words came from Virginia, for into that loved name the moans +on her lip had shaped themselves. + +“It is not Ellen, but your cousin, dear, dear Virginia, what shall I do +for you?” + +“Not a thing,” Eunice broke forth, seizing upon Cora and lifting her to +her feet, for she was half kneeling, “not a thing so long as I am here, +and, so help me John Rodgers, I’m not going away. Some one has e’enamost +killed this poor girl; I don’t know who it is, but _you_ shan’t touch +her.” + +Here Eunice lifted Virginia from the floor as if she had been an infant, +and laid her tenderly on the bed. + +“Now jest lie still and come to naturally, that’s a good girl. No need +of shetting them eyes like a scared baby. She’s going out right away, +knowing she ain’t wanted for nothing. Here, Ellen, jest put your arm +under her head and yer cheek agin hern so—nothing but double-dyed +friends shall get near this bed now, I promise.” + +“Ellen,” whispered Virginia. + +“What can I do?” + +“Where is it?” + +“What, the letter?” + +“Yes.” + +“Here, here, I took it from the carpet. Let me put it in your bosom.” + +“No, no, it would kill me!” + +She pushed at Ellen with both her quivering hands, stretched herself +suddenly and fell into another deathly swoon. When she awoke from that +it was to the wild unconsciousness which heralds in the first stages of +a brain fever. + +The next few weeks were full of terrible apprehension to Ellen Nolan and +Eunice. Joshua, too, hung about the house night and day, anxious and +downhearted, wanting to help, but too awkward for any real usefulness. +Mrs. Lander shut herself up in her own room, and regarded Eunice with a +frightened look whenever she came in from the sick chamber, but asked no +questions. The woman was becoming an abject coward, and had only courage +to shut her eyes at her only evil work. + +Even in the insane ravings of that fever, Virginia never mentioned the +name of Clarence Brooks or spoke of Cora. Both Eunice and Joshua +believed that this fever had been brought on by the wrong which Cora had +done in usurping her inheritance, a wrong in which they were compelled +to participate or expose their own benefactress. This thought gave that +rough woman many a sleepless night, and Joshua felt compelled, through +all that long winter, to take a double portion of punch to keep away the +dreams that haunted him. He told Eunice, that nothing but the liquor +kept him from going into a consumption. + +Eunice neither scolded nor sneered when he said this: she was too sad +for ill temper now. All her fine dresses were packed away in the garret +as a sort of self-punishment for her own misdoing. She went about the +house like a ghost, and once, when Mrs. Lander questioned her face with +those wild, sunken eyes, as she came from the sick chamber, the woman +absolutely burst into tears. + +How did Cora Lander act in this mournful state of things? At first she +was busy all the morning searching the daily papers for a paragraph that +never presented itself. This made her restless and ill at ease. She +wanted some proof that her web, so artfully woven, had entangled its +victim. One day the express brought up a quantity of dresses for Mrs. +Lander, and, in the unpacking, Cora fell upon a small paper which she +had considered too insignificant for her notice, and which had, in fact, +been overlooked by the officer with whom Clarence Brooks had left the +task of silencing the press when Seymour’s trial came on. + +There was the paragraph. Her eyes seized upon it with the greed of a +famished hawk. + +“A young man, who gave his name as Seymour, was put upon his trial for +embezzlement, and pleaded guilty to the indictment. His appearance and +the frank avowal of his guilt excited general sympathy in the court +room. Even the judge exhibited more than usual commiseration while +sentencing the poor fellow, who was condemned to seven years at +Sing-Sing.” + +This was the paragraph which Cora seized upon with such keen interest. +She carried the torn paper to her room and read it over and over again. + +“It is done! it is done!” she cried, pacing to and fro in her room like +a panther, hugging the paper to her bosom. “I willed it, and Clarence +Brooks, the most splendid specimen of manhood I ever saw, has been the +instrument of my freedom. I knew it would be so; but this game is but +half played out. The next move shall secure him.” + +Even while she was speaking a knock came to the door, and when she +opened it, impatient of the intrusion, a letter was placed in her hand. + +“His writing, and to me. How dare the wretch presume so!” + +She tore the note open and shook it a moment at arm’s length, as if his +hand must have left poison in its folds. + +I cannot give the contents of this letter, it would be too painful; but +she read it, from beginning to end, with dry, hard eyes, that felt no +pity; now and then a gleam of triumph shot through them; otherwise, they +shone with a heavy glitter, like dulled steel. + +The letter told her of the anguish her husband felt in leaving her +again, “it might be for years, and it might be forever.” He went into no +details. He was going far away, he said, so far that she might not hear +from him for months together, but he would write whenever fate permitted +him. Something had happened, connected with his life in the Old World, +which compelled him to go—something which even the great love which he +felt for her could neither overpower nor break through. His absence for +a time was imperative as his love for her would be immortal. He besought +her to have patience with him, to pray for him sometimes, as he would +ever pray for her. + +More there was of such sad, pitiful pleading for continued love as would +have made any real woman’s heart ache with sympathy. Even Cora Lander +felt a touch of compassion as she read the last lines of her young +husband’s letter, knowing where he was, who had sent him there, and how +he must suffer. She sat for a time with the paper in her hand, +conquering the last remnants of tenderness that evil thoughts and evil +acts had left in her nature. Then she flung the letter into the fire and +held it down with the poker till it was consumed. + +I do not know whether compunction or triumph kept the woman in her room +all the day after this letter was placed in her hands, but she refused +to come down and see Brian Nolan, and when he sent to know if he was to +wait for a reply, she sent back a message that she was too ill for +writing just then. + +Brian obtained an interview with his sister, who came from Virginia’s +sick room to see him, but it was a sad meeting, for Ellen was borne down +with apprehensions regarding her benefactress, and Brian had a secret +aching in his heart which forbade him to give or claim sympathy. So he +went away heavy-hearted and so lonely that he longed to creep off into +some quiet place and die. + +But he had another duty to perform, and that took him to the hotel where +Clarence Brooks was staying; for he never returned to his rooms up the +river, and few persons had seen him abroad in the city. + +When Brian entered the room where Brooks was sitting, there was +bitterness in his heart which gave him both strength and courage. He +approached the desk where the young man was writing and laid the letter +he brought upon it without a word. + +Brooks started a little, glanced at the boy and took up the letter. He +evidently knew the handwriting, for a stern, hard look came over his +face and he cut the envelope slowly, like a man who has made up his mind +not to be moved from a settled purpose. If he had expected prayers or +entreaties in that letter, the contents undeceived him, that was visible +enough in the change of his countenance, for a slow color came into his +face and all its features softened as he read: + + +“I have wronged you, have wronged myself more, in an act which makes me +seem ungrateful. I thought you dead—as God is my judge and your +avenger—I thought you dead and mourned for you—I did! I did! You will +not believe it, but I would almost have given my own life if it would +have availed to save yours on the day I robbed your desk. It was your +heirs I wronged, not you, not you. Remember how I watched your sick bed, +how many sleepless nights I spent—how tireless was my love. The +temptation was terrible; I cannot tell you what it was that made me +thirst so for money. I dare not, but it was enough to outmaster stronger +principles than mine. God help me! + +“Clarence Brooks, I loved you even when I wronged you—no, not you, but a +memory that should have been sacred. I love you now, though you have +taken such vengeance for my fault as crushes me out of the world. I do +not understand it—you never were hard of heart—never cared so much for +money as to ruin a fellow creature because he deprived you of it. +Something must have hardened you against me before you could bury me +alive in this terrible place. + +“I do not complain. Having wrought out this fate for myself, I will +endure it if God gives me strength—perish under it if that is withheld. +Do not think that I write to ask for mercy or excite the sympathy I have +forfeited. It is not that which forces me to brave the pain of writing +this; but I have a favor to ask—only one, so easy for you to grant, yet +so important to me. I have friends, a few both here and in the Old +World; the youth who brings you this is my own brother; I have a sister, +too, young, helpless, sensitive, friendless save in the love of one +person. My fate is a secret to this poor girl, and to all that ever +loved me excepting my brother. He knows where I am and how I suffer; +poor lad, I have been his worst enemy; yet he loves me, oh! how much +better than I deserve! For the sake of this friendless boy—for the sake +of my sister and of others not less dear—I ask you, Clarence Brooks, my +once friend, to be generous, and keep my misery, my crime, and my +disgrace a secret. Do not allow my name to pass your lips to any human +being. This is the only request I shall ever make. Grant it, I implore +you! Unless you would torture me to death in my living tomb, this small +favor will not be denied. + + “ALFRED NOLAN, + +“For Seymour was an assumed name.” + + +Brooks read the letter carefully, kindly; he had no real vengeance to +gratify here. What he had done was in behalf of Virginia Lander, who had +not only wronged him, but was about to shipwreck herself forever. The +reader knows well that he never would have arrested this man simply for +his crime regarding the money. But the reasons which had prompted the +act held good yet; nothing but the removal of this man from her path +would keep a girl so infatuated from rushing on to her own destruction. + +Brian Nolan stood by the desk looking earnestly into the man’s face as +these thoughts went through his mind. When Brooks lifted his head, those +sorrowful eyes met his; they were full of unspoken reproaches. + +“You will grant my brother’s request?” he questioned. + +“He need not have made it,” said Brooks, kindly. “What I have done has +been from a stern sense of duty—for the world, I would not take one step +beyond that. Say this to your brother; tell him I have done nothing in +malice—that I have not an unkind feeling toward him.” + +Here the young man’s voice faltered a little, and he shaded his eyes +with one hand. + +“Then I can carry your solemn promise back to my brother in his prison?” +said Brian, regarding this agitation with something like wonder. + +“You may give him my solemn assurance that his wish shall be carried +out. Unless he sends a message to me, I will never mention his name.” + +“Thank you,” said Brian Nolan, “thank you for him and myself. There is +another thing; my brother left above sixteen thousand dollars. It is +your money; he charged me to pay it over. Here is a check for what there +is in the bank. The rest I can obtain. Shall I send it here?” + +Brooks took the check and tore it in fragments. + +“I will not take a farthing of this money. It was not for that I +arrested him—God knows it was not for that! Keep the whole of it for +him; he will need it when he comes out.” + +“He will not live to come out,” said Brian. “You have broken his heart.” + +The boy passed out of the door as he said this leaving Clarence Brooks +alone. + + + + + CHAPTER LV. + THE SECOND CONQUEST. + + +The winter came, sharp and cold, while Virginia lay ill; for the fever +left her helpless as a child, and the physician said that, without great +care, she must sink into a decline. This he suggested to Cora early in +the season. Her system, he said, had received some great shock and +refused to rally its strength again. Unless something could be done to +interest her, his skill would be of little avail. If Cora was rejoiced +by this intelligence, she took good care to conceal the shameful truth, +for no person ever seemed more anxious than she did for the recovery of +another. Indeed she haunted that sick chamber with the pertinacity of a +professed nurse, though warned by Eunice again and again that her +presence was hurtful to the patient. Fortunately for Virginia, this +affectionate farce only lasted two or three weeks, for after that time +Cora persuaded Mrs. Lander to go with her to the city, and took up her +residence in their old rooms at the hotel. She learned, with infinite +satisfaction, that Clarence Brooks had taken rooms there for the season. + +This was true, but Brooks had no idea that Cora had made this house her +stopping-place, and was surprised when they met in the public drawing +room one day, some few weeks after Seymour’s trial. He strove to inquire +after the welfare of her cousin with composure, but his voice shook in +spite of himself, and he again thanked Heaven that Cora was ignorant of +the deep cause of interest he had in that unhappy girl. + +She answered him very quietly, and with every appearance of +unconsciousness that Virginia had been quite ill. Some disappointment +seemed to have thrown her into a fever. Probably the person who had +given them all so much uneasiness had abandoned his pursuit of her after +attaining the money he wanted. She could only guess at this. But her +cousin had been taken much worse after the boy who had been there once +before came a second time with a letter, and for a few days was confined +to her room. There was no doubt some tendency to insanity in all this, +for Virginia had taken the most unaccountable dislike both to her and +her mother. As for herself, it was not strange; but a kinder mother +never lived than her aunt Lander. So bitter had this antipathy become at +last, that the physician made it a particular request that they should +both leave the house until some change took place. This was the reason +they had come down to the city. She wished people to understand all +this, because it might seem unfeeling in a mother to leave her child in +her sickness if all the facts were not explained. The whole affair had +been very painful both to herself and her aunt. + +Clarence Brooks had no reason to doubt all this; he believed that no +human being but himself knew of the identity of Seymour with the man who +had robbed him. He was also certain that Cora had no knowledge of his +engagement, or even acquaintance with Virginia; the manner and +conversation of Cora Lander convinced him of her ignorance. In this +respect, it was fortunate that Ellen was so completely at variance with +Cora and Mrs. Lander. That romance of the ravine, the sweetest of his +life while it lasted, was sacred to himself, and shared only by those +two lonely girls. Of course Virginia was sad; of course she must feel +the absence or, if she knew it, the incarceration of her lover with such +anguish as might throw her on a sick bed. But this was the natural +result of her own mad infatuation; no human help could protect her from +it. She had been wrested from this bad man by an act of legal power that +made his heart ache when he thought of it; yet, under the same +circumstances, he would have done it again, even though the girl had +never been dear to himself. + +Cora was very sweet and gentle when they met; you would have thought +Virginia had appeared over again from her manners, for never on this +earth was there a better actress lost to the stage. At her instigation, +Mrs. Lander invited Brooks to their parlor. There was no visible reason +why he should not accept this invitation to intimacy with Amos Lander’s +daughter. The treachery of his niece could not reach that fair being. +Had not his dead friend warned him against one and invited his love for +the other? + +He went to that pleasant parlor again and again. He saw that singularly +gifted being in all the phases of her loveliness. There was no struggle +in his bosom then; never in this world was there a more willing victim. +If uncertain of his own feelings, he soon became vividly conscious of +hers, for, with all her art, the creature could not conceal the +absorbing passion that had entered her heart with such irresistible +power. + +Cora Lander was right in one thing; she had found her master passion in +this love for Clarence Brooks. I have no heart to give the details of +that wicked courtship. The old intimacy revived, those two persons spent +half their time together; for Cora still pleaded her mourning as an +excuse for avoidance of general society. She sent for Blackbird, and +almost every afternoon a pair of black horses, with two of the +finest-looking riders ever seen in those broad avenues, were admired and +commented on till it became generally known that Amos Lander’s heiress +was engaged to the distinguished-looking foreigner who was forever by +her side. + +As the spring came on, this rumor was confirmed by the dress makers and +furnishing houses where the wedding paraphernalia was being prepared. + +All this time Virginia was worse than an invalid; she received no +company, and heard nothing that was going on in the out-door world; +those who saw her believed that a few months would end a life that, from +no given cause, seemed to have become wearisome to that fair young +creature, and a burden that she would not be long troubled with. + +One day, early in the last month of spring, Brian Nolan went from New +York to see Ellen, who received him up stairs in Virginia’s parlor; she, +poor girl, was lying feeble and pale on the bed in her own room. But the +door was open, and the great house so still that almost every word could +reach her from the parlor. + +Ellen had finished her book during the winter and it lay on her desk, +sealed in a large package, which she was anxious to put in some +publisher’s hands. There was no great vigor of life about Ellen in those +days. Her slight figure had fallen away with constant watching and +severe thought; her eyes were almost wild with anxiety, and she was +constantly giving little nervous starts, as if apprehending some evil +every minute. + +“You look ill, Ellen,” said Brian, sitting down by the desk. + +“No, no; I am not ill, Brian, only it makes me suffer to see her passing +away so quietly and so surely.” + +“Is she no better, then?” + +“Worse, if anything, Brian.” + +“Do you know, Ellen—can you guess what it is that preys upon her?” + +Brian asked this under his breath. Remember, Cora had denied her +identity to him, and had sent down word that she was ill on another +occasion. He had seen Virginia at Seymour’s residence, and fully +believed her to be his wife, pining perhaps to death under the +unaccountable absence of her husband. + +“Brian, all that ails her is soon told. Among them, they have broken her +heart.” + +“Do you think she is so bad? Will the sweet lady really die?” + +“God help us, I dare not ask the question, much less answer it!” said +Ellen, beginning to cry. + +Brian could not speak openly, he was held down by that solemn promise to +his brother. He had just been to the prison and came up to get news of +the woman whom that unhappy convict so thoroughly loved. + +“This will be sad, sad news for him,” was his silent reflection. “Should +she die, he will feel the shock through his prison walls. O! if I dared +say one consoling word to her!” + +These were silent thoughts; he would not have spoken them for the world, +shackled so with that oath of secrecy. But one thing he could do. +Seymour had not altogether forbidden him to make a confidant of Ellen. +He would tell her, not about the marriage, but regarding his brother’s +unhappy condition. + +“Ellen,” he said, after a prolonged silence, “will you shut that door, I +want to say something to you alone?” + +“She is there, speak low, I think she is sleeping,” said Ellen, closing +the door softly and retreating to the farther side of the room. “Now you +can tell me, Brian. Is it anything about our brother?” + +“Yes, Ellen, I just came from him!” + +“Came from him? Where is he then?” + +“Stoop down your head, sister.” + +Ellen bent her head, listened, turned deadly white and stepped back as +if he had struck her. + +“In prison—sent there by Clarence Brooks—Brian, why was this kept from +me so long?” + +“He forbade me to tell you, or any one. It would have done harm.” + +“But I am his sister.” + +“And for that reason have enough to bear. Even now I tell you without +authority. But for what I have heard to-day, I would still keep +silence.” + +“And this was where he was—this was why he did not need our money. +Brian, Clarence Brooks is a villain, a double-dyed villain! I detest +him!” + +“So did I at first, but after seeing him—Ellen, there is something +strange about this. Mr. Brooks does not seem vindictive. He would not +accept any portion of the money, though I urged it upon him. He seemed +distressed, anxious to make Alfred’s life easy where he is. Ellen, at +one time I saw tears in that man’s eyes.” + +“Have you seen him more than once?” + +“Yes, but not to speak with him. Only last week I saw him riding in the +Park with Mrs. Lander and the young lady.” + +“What! Cora Lander?” + +“Yes, it is said about the hotels that they are going to be married +soon.” + +Ellen flushed red and turned white again; thought after thought flashed +through her mind. Cora Lander had known her brother. She remembered +thinking so at the hotel the first time they all met there. Had she +instigated Brooks to prosecute him as he had done? + +There was no chance that an honest mind could follow Cora Lander in her +iniquitous scheming, but Ellen jumped at the one broad conclusion that +she was at the bottom of all her brother’s trouble and of Virginia’s sad +state. + +“That cruel wretch shall not break his heart!” she exclaimed. + +Brian thought that she alluded to Clarence Brooks, and answered: + +“I do not think it was done from cruelty. This man is not hard-hearted. +Something that we do not understand is at the bottom of it all.” + +“Brian, tell me more of our brother. How many years is it?” + +“Seven!” + +“So many! Let me think—let me think! Oh! if she were well now!” + +“That is it. You must keep this from her, of all persons in the world.” + +“We must keep it from every one, though the secret burns our lives out.” + +“If she had not been in the danger you speak of, I would not have told +you.” + +“I do not understand. My lady has nothing to do with it; she would be +sorry, of course, but I will not tell her or any one. Our father left +Alfred to us. To save him is the duty of my life.” + +“Ellen.” + +“Well, Brian?” + +“I should like to see your lady.” + +“No wonder, Brian; it would be strange if you did not. She has the +loveliest face. I hear her moving. Perhaps she will come out.” + +She was right, the door opened and Virginia came into the room, pale as +a lily. Her white merino dress was girded in at the waist by a black +ribbon, and a string of jet beads fell from her neck. She had heard his +voice and put these things on hurriedly, hoping something from his +visit, but without knowing what. + +“You have come to see Ellen; I am glad of it,” she said, gently, as +Brian bowed before the frail creature whom he believed to be his +brother’s wife. “Is there any news of her brother yet?” + +Brian’s face lighted up. Here was a chance of giving her comfort without +betraying his knowledge of her secret. + +“Yes, we have heard from him; he is well, and thinks nothing so +important as his return to us.” + +“But when will he return?” + +“Not yet; he cannot tell. But this is certain, his heart is with us.” + +She smiled faintly at his eagerness, and sat down wearily, supporting +her head with one hand. + +“I shall write, lady. May I tell him that you remember him kindly?” said +Brian, so agitated that his voice shook while uttering words that seemed +to him of great hidden importance. + +“Yes, say that, for I do remember him very kindly, little as I have seen +of him. Ellen’s brother, you know, is almost my brother.” + +“Thank you, he will be pleased! Sister Ellen, good-bye.” + +“I will go with you, brother. We must not say good-bye so soon.” + +Ellen walked with her brother down to the depot, conversing earnestly +with him all the way, and waited till the train took him up. + +About a week after this, Eunice intercepted Ellen as she was coming in +from the garden. + +“Come here,” she said, “I’ve got a letter from Mrs. Eliza Lander. Read +it, but don’t say a word to _her_.” + +Ellen read the letter. It told Eunice, as a matter to be kept secret in +the household, of Cora’s approaching marriage. “Everything is getting +ready,” it said; “Cora’s first year of mourning will be more than over +in June, when the wedding will take place at the mansion. She wishes you +to have the house put into perfect order. Hire extra help, and tell the +gardener to put on a double force if the grounds require it. The wedding +will be a large one and some of the first people in the land will be +present. There is one thing that troubles my niece, and I share her +anxiety. What can be done with my—with Virginia and her uncouth friend? +If she would only consent to live in the city. Cora has such a lovely +house; it belonged to Mr. Lander: she will give her a deed of it, if +that will suit her for a residence. She can choose her own servants and +have some nice elderly person to live with her. The house has just been +beautifully fitted up Cora tells me, especially for her cousin. I have +been over it, and it is superb. There is a colored woman in charge now, +but Cora will send her off and let her cousin have full sway. I think +this very liberal—don’t you, Eunice? If you like it, would you object to +speaking to her about the arrangement? Now that a strange gentleman is +coming into the family, it does seem best that something should be done. +I wouldn’t speak to her myself about it, nor would Cora, she is so +sensitive; but you will not mind it, I am sure, Eunice. Do try and get +that girl with the back to favor this measure. She can do anything with +Virginia. + + “E. LANDER.” + + * * * * * + +“What do I think of that?” cried Eunice, when Ellen had read the letter +through. “Jehosaphat, Judas Iscarrot and Nebbecudnezzer rolled into one +heap of wickedness. Eliza Lander’s getting to be disgusting! Don’t look +at me, I’m blushing all over for her. It’s scandalous!” + +“Still my young lady must go. It would kill her to remain here.” + +“But it is turning her out of doors. This city house that the critter +has been a fixing up isn’t her home like this, though it is a purty +place.” + +“She will not go there, Eunice, I am sure of that. But she has some +money. We raised it on those jewels—bless you for getting them—and I can +work.” + +“Work! You! why you couldn’t iron a pocket hankecher without being tired +out.” + +“But I can write.” + +“Why that ain’t work.” + +“I fancy you would think it was, Eunice, if you had it to do.” + +“Why, you cretur you, I thought you was a doing it jest for fun!” + +“Fun,” answered Ellen, smiling wearily, for this hard writing had worn +her out, “see how my hand trembles, feel how hot my head is. This a +pretty severe fun, Eunice!” + +“And what’s the good of wurrying yourself out so? I hain’t seen nothing +come of it but a heap of paper with writing on it that Jehosaphat +couldn’t read if he was to come right out of the Scripters to do it.” + +“You may be right. After all my toil, it may be worth nothing,” answered +Ellen, who had arisen from the pile of manuscript so depressed and +exhausted that even such criticism as Eunice gave discouraged her. “But +I have tried so hard! Besides she would be disappointed!” + +“Will she? Well, cherk up, cherk up, if writing ever is worth anything, +yours will come up above the level. I don’t know much about it, but I’ve +seen your face kinder blazing out and withering up over that paper day +after day. There must be something in it to make a young cretur work as +you have. Don’t let anything I’ve said put you down in the mouth, for I +don’t know no more about writing than a swing fence. Gracious knows, I +wish I never had learned, so does Josh, though we ain’t either on us +much to brag of.” + + + + + CHAPTER LVI. + A NEW HOME. + + +Eunice was going into the house after this speech, but Ellen followed +her. + +“Eunice, will you give me that letter?” she said. + +“Not to show her. I tell you that girl shan’t leave this house without +she wants to of her own self. Nobody on this arth shall drive her away.” + +“But she will not remain after this—after her cousin comes back.” + +“Ellen Nolan, there’s a thing that sets hard on Josh’s and my mind. You +sent a letter once down to the tavern from her, and that Mr. Brooks sent +one back agin. Besides, Josh says that the men about the tavern say that +you was down there one night to see him. Now was you?” + +“Eunice, please don’t question me about that. It is all over now.” + +“Ellen, you’re a good girl, and I won’t. But tell me one thing; you may, +for I don’t know anything more about love than I do about writing; but +did he kinder make her like him and then treat her bad, going over to +t’other? He’s a man, and it’s in ’em I know.” + +“Eunice, please oblige me. Don’t talk of her, only to decide what is for +the best. She’s very feeble, and the least excitement may throw her upon +a sick bed again. If nothing had happened, we should have gone away. +This life is terrible!” + +“Not without she wants to; remember Josh and I are agreed on that.” + +“But it is impossible to stay—the—the—confusion would kill her. Think of +some quiet place that she can live in, where no trouble can come.” + +“I’ll think it over. But it’s a burning shame.” + +“Somewhere in the neighborhood of Newburg or Sing-Sing, if you can think +of a nice family,” said Ellen, faltering in the last part of her +sentence, while the slow color came into her face. + +“I know a widow woman about four or five miles on this side of +Sing-Sing, back from the railroad; she’s a New England woman, and just +as kind as kind can be. Sometimes she takes one or two boarders. I’ll +send Josh right down to see about it if you want me to, and she _will_ +go.” + +“Do, Eunice, let him start at once.” + +“It ain’t so far off that I can’t come and see you now and then.” + +“I hope not, Eunice, for you have been a good friend to her.” + +“No, I haven’t—more shame to me—but I wanted to be. You don’t know how +both Josh and I wanted to be her friend but couldn’t. Are you going? Do +you want the letter?” + +“No, I can tell her; it only takes a few words.” + +Half an hour after this Joshua was at the depot waiting for a train, and +Ellen sat in Virginia’s bed-room with both her arms around the invalid, +striving to arouse her from the state of dead silence into which she had +fallen. + +“Oh! darling lady, make an effort and cry; just a few tears will make +your heart easier. Look up, look up, and say I haven’t killed you with +the news!” + +Virginia heard this appeal through all her numbed senses. She lifted her +head and smiled in Ellen’s face—one of the most pitiful smiles that ever +parted human lips. + +“Ellen, you told me of this, but I would not be warned.” + +“Sweet lady—dear lady, cast him from your mind. He is cruel, +dishonorable, vile! Unworthy of your regret.” + +“No, Ellen; in that you wrong Clarence, wrong me, if you think I can +believe such things of him. It is my cousin—I will not curse her, or +blame him. Let us go away, my friend. You are right, let us go away. She +took my inheritance and I was powerless to defend it. She has taken the +heart from my bosom now and crushed out all its life. Still I am +powerless. But some day he will learn the truth, whatever that wicked +truth may be; then she will suffer as I do. I do not ask it—I do not +wish it, but God is above all.” + +A fortnight after Virginia Lander heard of the wedding which was to +drive her from under her father’s roof, a little figure, whose deformed +shoulders were but half concealed under a circular mantle of black silk, +entered one of the principal publishing houses in New York, with a paper +parcel in her arms; for it was too heavy for her weak hands. The vast +room which she entered was lined with placards of various +publications—divided into compartments by stands, crowded with specimen +books, and scattered over with desks, each of which represented a +department of that vast establishment. A large portion of the front of +this room was divided off from the stairs and main apartment by a light +wooden railing, which enclosed a well-trodden carpet, with some desks +and office chairs, all appropriated by the heads of this great firm, +which had existed since the eldest partner was a little child. They were +kindly-looking men, who found their greatest happiness in the brotherly +society which was sufficient to themselves; still they were at all times +ready to give a cordial greeting and kindly hearing to any one who came +to them, either in friendship or on business. It so happened that all of +the partners were present at the moment Ellen Nolan entered the room. + +Genius may be modest and shrinking, but it is seldom at a loss for the +best means of attaining a proper object. These men were all strangers to +Ellen, but her earnest face and quiet movements won upon them at first +sight. The tallest and eldest of these gentlemen arose to meet her, +glanced at the parcel in her arms and directed her to another +pleasant-faced man, who sat by a desk, leaning back in his office chair +and calmly smoking a cigar, which he flung through the window as she +came up. This man, with a smile that brightened Ellen’s face like a +reflected sunbeam, reached forth his hand for the parcel, simply saying: +“Is it a book?” + +Ellen sighed heavily as she gave up her manuscript. It had been so long +a part of her life that she shrunk from the separation when it came, as +an artist hates to sell the picture which is the embodiment of a +beautiful idea. + +“Yes, sir, it is a book—a novel.” + +He looked at her with kindly interest. Her bright face, and, more than +that, her helplessness awoke his sympathy. The man of business saw +genius in that face—and the man of feeling pitied one whom God had so +endowed and yet left imperfect. + +“Your first, of course?” + +“Yes, the very first I ever attempted.” + +Ellen was trembling all over now. It seemed as if half her strength had +been taken away with the manuscript. + +“Leave it, if you like. We will submit it to our reader.” + +Ellen, of course, supposed that her book would be given over to the +judgment of some great author, capable of doing at least all that she +could accomplish, and gave it up with a sort of awe, for there is no +reverence in life so fervent as that which genius yields to genius. + +I do not know how it was with this firm, but had she guessed that, in a +majority of cases, her manuscript would have been given to some +pretending school girl or favorite friend of the publisher, she might +have had less reverence and more apprehension. As it was, she felt +certain that the ideas which had thrilled her whole being in the +progress of that book would meet with kindred appreciation in some +powerful mind, and was content. + +So Ellen left her book and went back to the little stone farm-house in a +hollow of the hills, where Virginia was longing for her presence as only +the suffering and feeble of health can long for companionship. The home +which these girls had chosen presented a great contrast to the noble +mansion they had left; yet it was a pleasant residence; neat, +old-fashioned, and shaded with a huge walnut tree, which was just +putting forth its most delicate green. Quantities of daffodils, jonquils +and snowdrops brightened the front yard and the garden. Peach and cherry +trees were in full blossom, and the great lilac bushes under the parlor +windows were budding with a famous promise of flowers. Humble as all +this was, it seemed to those girls far pleasanter than that marble +house, with all its discord and painful restraints. Virginia had +brightened a little under the comfort and freedom of her new home. The +wholesome scent of those garden flowers and walnut trees awoke +sensations of pleasure unknown to her former luxurious life. She sought +the open air now, and could ramble off at will without fear of meeting +her worst enemies. It was a new life in which she was becoming +interested; the languor and illness which had kept her indoors all +winter became less and less apparent every day. + +One morning Joshua came riding toward the house, leading Snowball by the +bridle. + +“I brought her down because the doctor ordered something nice to be sent +to you. ‘Sich as hosses?’ says I. ‘A white hoss with a mane and tail +like drifted snow, is that the medicine you was thinking of?’ sez I.” + +“‘Jes so,’ says he, ‘that kind of a hoss is jest what she wants.’” + +“‘Side-saddle and all?’ says I.” + +“‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Side-saddle, riding-dress, hat, feather and whip?’ +says I agin. Then he laughed and told me to bring everything, so I did. +Besides, Eunice would put up some jelly and sich like in this basket, +and I put something in for you, Miss Ellen. Remembered how you took to +the punch that rainy evening, and brought down some of the licker—jest +room for it in the basket. Writ out a receipt, too, for the punch with +my own hand. Here it is.” + +Ellen took the paper and thanked him cordially. Persons like her are not +apt to ridicule a kindness, however uncouthly expressed. Virginia was +looking out of the window with something like animation. Snowball seemed +an old friend to her, spite of the memories she brought. + +“Yes, Joshua, I promise to ride her; the beauty, see how she paws the +turf. Tell Eunice how pleasant everything is here—how much we like Mrs. +Rice. I am getting quite strong, as you see.” + +“Well, yes, you do look better, marm. But it’s getting pleasant up our +way too. I was down in the gorge yesterday, setting things to rights +about the little log cabin. That big chestnut tree is putting out the +heaviest grist of leaves I ever saw, and the vines are all green about +the bridge. But what do you think I found in the cabin? Nigh upon half a +bushel of chestnuts heaped up in one corner. Been there all winter and +nobody teched ’em. Curous, wasn’t it?” + +Virginia’s animation was all gone; she sat down in a chair by the +window, panting for breath. + +“Well,” said Joshua, unconscious of the mischief he had done, “I suppose +I must be a going. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, Joshua,” said Ellen, following the kind fellow from the room. +“When is it to be?” + +“Next month, arly, I reckon by the orders we get. Eunice told me to tell +you she thought so. A pair of stupendous carriage hosses came up +yesterday, and a new barouche. The stables won’t hold ’em if she keeps +on.” + +Ellen went back to the house. She had not yet told Virginia that her +cousin’s marriage was so near at hand. Indeed they seldom talked on that +subject now. It was too seriously painful. + +“Ellen,” said Virginia, when her friend came in, “after it is all over, +tell me.” + +You would have thought from the quivering pallor of her face that it was +the execution of some friend she was speaking of. + +“I will,” said Ellen, in a low voice. “It is not yet.” + +Virginia drew a struggling breath, and no more was said. She had seen +Ellen talking with Joshua, and guessed at the subject of their +conversation. + + + + + CHAPTER LVII. + PLEADING FOR A PARDON. + + +The Governor of New York was alone in his private office one day, when +his Secretary came in, followed by a little creature that would have +appeared like a child but for a face, which possessed a wonderful power +of expression, such as only thought and experience could give. + +This young creature went up to the Governor where he sat, and, leaning +on the table with one arm, looked earnestly into his face—so earnestly +that the color mounted faintly over it. + +“I have a brother,” said Ellen Nolan, “my eldest brother; he has +committed a crime, and they have put him in State’s Prison. If he were +innocent, I would ask your pardon as a right; but knowing him guilty, I +have come up here to beg mercy for him. My father, sir, is dead; he was +lost in a steamer, burned on the ocean more than a year ago. With his +last words he bade me fill his place to this unhappy son, and I +promised. Sir, my brother is ill; I fear his mind is becoming disturbed. +He will die if you leave him there.” + +That earnest face, those eyes so full of deep, deep feeling, had more +power upon the Governor than this broken speech which seemed to come in +gasps from her chest. + +“Have you a memorial? Does the Judge or District Attorney sign your +petition?” + +“I have no petition.” + +“No petition—no letters?” + +“I am a stranger, sir, and do not know how these things are done. +Yesterday I was in the prison for the first time; for I had been again +and again and they refused to let me in. I found him alone in his cell, +burning with fever, wild with distress. The very sight of me drove him +half crazy. He is an educated man, who has committed one grave fault, +but there is no wickedness in him. If ever a man was sorry for +wrong-doing he is. I know he has done a dishonest thing, but he says it +was under terrible temptation, and I believe him. You would believe him, +sir, if you had held his poor, shaking hands and looked into his eyes as +I did. Oh! sir, I wish you could see him. It would melt your heart. My +father loved him so dearly; knowing all his faults, he could understand +how a man might do wrong and yet not be so very bad. This is all the +plea I have to make. If you keep him there he will die, and my promise, +given to a father who was just entering the gates of Heaven, will go +unredeemed.” + +The Governor, who was a kind and most just man, listened to the girl +with more than patience. Her energy, that broken language, which was +half explanation half petition, all unstudied and earnest as a child +pleads, took him by surprise. He asked her to sit down, but she would +not. Supporting herself with one arm, she still kept her eyes on his +face, looking as it were deep into his heart. The magnetism of a brain +and heart like hers, united on one purpose, is more powerful with +sympathetic men than argument or prayers; they troubled that man’s heart +till it stirred mercifully in his bosom. He took Ellen’s hand. She +seemed so small and helpless that it was like encouraging a child. He +asked questions, and listened to the whole story as she had told it to +Virginia months before. When she came to the robbery, her voice broke +and her eyes fell; that painful truth brought the crimson of deep shame +into her white cheeks. He was guilty, she owned, but not so guilty as +might be thought. He positively believed his friend to be dead, and in a +loose way that friend had almost promised the money, and more than that +to him. It was all wrong—terribly wrong—but would the Governor forgive +him for her sake? She was so helpless and an orphan. If he would, they +two, with a younger brother she had, would go out West, far beyond the +Rocky Mountains, and there work out a new life for him, such as her +father could look down from Heaven and ask the angels to witness. + +All this was touching and pathetic; but the Governor of a State cannot +always listen to the pleadings of his own heart. He became restive under +those wistful eyes, that shed no tears, but was all the more powerful +for that, and at last broke off the conversation rather coldly. It was +imprudent, he said, to listen to a petition which had really nothing but +sisterly affection to recommend it. It grieved him to say this, but it +seemed to him impossible to act otherwise. + +He shook hands with the poor girl kindly, but chilled to the heart by +his words, she went away feeling like death. + +Virginia knew nothing of this. She thought Ellen busy negotiating for +her book, and asked her about it when she came home at night, looking so +tired and careworn. This reminded Ellen that the week was almost up. In +her anxiety she had forgotten the precious manuscript. + +The next day she went down to the city and came home radiant. Her +manuscript was accepted with warm praise. In a few weeks it would be +published. + +“Now,” she said, stealing an arm around Virginia’s neck as she told her +the news, “now we shall be independent.” + +“Ah, how happy you look, Ellen! No wonder! You have done so much, while +I have accomplished nothing and have no hope. Oh! Ellen, I tried to sing +while you were away, and could not. My voice is gone.” + +“That is because you have been so ill, dear lady. It will come back +sweeter than ever; if not, my book will sell. I can write more, and that +will be enough for us both. This is independence, lady!” + +Virginia returned her kisses with warmth. She loved the generous girl +well enough to take even money from her without a sense of obligation +wounding her pride, and that is the greatest test of a magnanimous +nature that a human being is capable of in this degenerate age. + +“What is the difference?” said Ellen, brimming over with gratitude that +she could do something for her lady. “Don’t I love to take everything +from you? Oh! I’m so thankful that it is my turn now!” + + + + + CHAPTER LVIII. + DEATH IN THE LOG CABIN. + + +Cora Lander had been a good deal into society during the latter part of +her season in town. With her great beauty and reputation for enormous +wealth, there was no difficulty in taking her position in fashionable +life. It came and lay down at her feet. Hundreds of the highest among +the high followed her and her bridegroom to that mansion on the Hudson, +where the marriage ceremony was to be performed with a splendor that had +never been witnessed in this country before. A glorious moon flooded +that clear summer evening with its light, and flashed, like rippling +quicksilver, along the river as the train tore along its banks. The +sound of laughter and low, sweet voices softened the noises of the +engine and the rattle of wheels to those within the cars, as that +wedding party was whirled onward almost with the speed of lightning. + +All at once that white house, with all its stately trees, drooping +shrubbery and clustering vines, illuminated as with ten thousand stars, +burst upon the view. The marble colonnade shone out clear and white, all +its fluted pillars well defined, and the long white leaves of their +Corinthian capitals tangled in, as it seemed, with wreaths of fire. The +roses were in full bloom, loading the air with fragrance; such fruit +trees as grew near were lighted up, and their blossoms fell around the +hanging lamps like garlands of snow. + +From the terrace stairs to the front of the building, a broad pathway of +crimson carpeting was laid, bordered on each side with greenhouse +plants, massed till their blossoms seemed one tangle of flowers from the +steps to the colonnade. + +Within, everything was in stately keeping with the exterior; all the +rooms, on which Mrs. Lander had lavished so much money, were flung open. +The air penetrated them through clouds of lace. Some were brilliantly +lighted, others left in a soft moonlight obscurity, inviting repose. The +colors in each room contrasted or harmonized with the next so +imperceptibly that they could hardly be separated in the mind, but +composed one grand picture of light, rich coloring and artistic effects. + +When the company came pouring into these rooms, chatting, laughing, +brilliant with expectation, it only added a movement of graceful life +without in the least crowding them. The beautiful women moving to and +fro seemed like lost Peris that had found a new way back to Paradise and +were rejoicing over it. + +This crowd of gay people had come rather early, scattering themselves +about the rooms and the grounds, as previously arranged. The ceremony +would not come off before eleven o’clock. Then the supper rooms would be +thrown open, and there would be dancing for those who liked it. The +whole affair was, in fact, one grand reception. Mrs. Lander received the +guests in a dress of silver gray satin, clouded with Brussels point, +that swept the carpet in a train absolutely regal. She had cast off her +nervousness and threw life into a scene which was her highest idea of +happiness. + +While all this fashion and beauty were passing in and out of the lower +rooms, Cora stood in the chamber of which she had so ruthlessly +defrauded her cousin, ready for her second marriage. Excitement had +rendered her more than beautiful; her cheeks were burning with +rose-tints; the rich tresses, rolled back from her forehead, fairly +flung off the light. The satin robe fell around her as snow settles to +its place, and swept the floor in long, sumptuous folds. She held the +bridal veil in her hand and was directing the attendant how to arrange +it in her hair with perfect art and seeming negligence, when a servant +knocked at the door. + +“See what it is,” she said, “surely it cannot be time!” + +The woman opened the door and brought back a note, which the servant +said a strange man had delivered, with directions that it should be +given into her own hands at once. + +Cora tore the note open impatiently; she was annoyed by the delay it +occasioned. This was what she read: + + +“I am at the log cabin waiting for you. If you fail to come at once, I +shall stand by your side at eleven o’clock. + + “YOUR HUSBAND.” + + +Cora Lander neither fainted away nor uttered one sound of the terrible +dread that seized upon her. She folded the note and held it firmly in +her hand. Then turning to the woman, she bade her unlace the corsage of +her dress, it was rather tight, and she would let the dressmaker, who +was in attendance from the city, alter it a little, there was plenty of +time. She took up her watch from the dressing-table and made sure of +this. It was about ten o’clock. + +The woman obeyed, and in a few moments Cora came out of those voluminous +folds of satin as if she had just escaped from a snow-drift. + +“Shall I carry the dress to Mrs. Green?” inquired the maid. + +“Yes, tell her to let it out the least in the world. Give me that scarf, +I will attend to something else while she finishes it. These +hair-dressers tire one to death. I will ring when you are wanted again.” + +The woman went out, carrying the dress carefully on her arm. The moment +she was gone, Cora stepped into the next room, snatched up the dress she +had flung off before commencing her toilet, and put it on. Across one of +the chairs hung a lace shawl, which she had worn in the grounds that +afternoon. She threw this over her head, gathering it up in black folds +about her bosom, which scarcely seemed to rise or fall with human life. +The last thing she did in that room was to open a drawer of the +dressing-table and take out a small pistol, scarcely more than a toy, +which had been given her at the manufactory in Hartford as a beautiful +specimen of its workmanship, once when Amos Lander had taken her and +Virginia over the works there. It was loaded, for one day she had given +it to Josh Hurd to put in order, and he sent it back ready for use. She +put this in her pocket, and now her voice was heard for the first time +since the maid went out. + +“I will kill him! If he attempts it, I will kill him!” + +You would not have known that voice—you would hardly have recognized the +woman’s face as she went out of her chamber and made for a flight of +back stairs leading to a passage-way near the kitchen. Once in the open +air, she paused, holding her breath, if indeed she could be said to +breathe at all. How she hated that bright illumination which made the +tiniest flowers in the thickets visible; for it had filled the grounds +with her wedding guests, who were walking, chatting, or gathering roses +in the beautiful light which fell around them; half moonbeams and half +fire. + +The woman had no time to wait hesitating there. She gathered the black +lace over her head and took a somewhat shadowy course by the stables. +Then she skirted the stone wall and ran toward the ravine; passing +through the shadows with swift stillness as if she had been a spirit of +the night; fleeing in search of perfect darkness. As she went Cora tore +her husband’s note into fragments and cast it to the winds. + +A man was waiting for her in the log cabin; the moonlight lay upon his +face as he looked out of the window, revealing its fixed and terrible +whiteness. Not twenty-four hours before, he had been in one of the +prison cells at Sing-Sing, but the Governor was haunted by the words and +looks of that hunchbacked girl so persistently, that his great, generous +heart spoke out in spite of legal forms, and a pardon set the young man +free. + +Seymour went first to his sister, full of eager gratitude; for had she +not given him back to his wife and spared her the misery of knowing how +unworthy he was? Ellen told him of the wedding, bitterly, for she almost +hated Clarence Brooks and the girl he was about to marry. But she did +not dream of the awful blow her words dealt on the unhappy man who had +just come out of his imprisonment; indeed the resentment she felt +towards those two persons must have been overpowering, to break through +the joy that filled her heart when she knew of a certainty that her +brother was free, and through her intercession. + +Seymour left her without a word, looking deathly. He had no time to +lose; the sun was already verging toward the west. + +While Ellen stood where he had left her, lost in painful wonder, Brian +came up. He had gone to the prison, hoping to see his brother, and there +heard news of his pardon. Knowing well where he would go first, the +happy youth followed him to Ellen’s residence. + +“Where is he? Has he gone in there—was she glad? How, now, Ellen, she +will get well again. It was only the pining.” + +Brian was so full of joy that he forgot his promise—forgot that Ellen +was still ignorant of their brother’s marriage. + +“What do you mean, Brian? What does all this mean? Alfred came to see +me, beaming with happiness, and left me like a ghost when I told him +that this was Clarence Brooks’ and Cora Lander’s wedding day.” + +“And he did not see her?” + +“He saw no one but me, and scarcely that. What does this mean, Brian? He +seemed turning to stone when I told him of Cora Lander’s wedding.” + +“Ellen, tell me one thing—did your lady know our brother in Europe?” + +“No.” + +“Has she ever been for days together in the city?” + +“No; I have been with her every day, almost every hour. No, I say.” + +“Ellen, Ellen Nolan, is she—tell me truly—is she breaking her heart for +him?” + +“For him? No, no, a thousand times no. She has never seen him alone in +her life.” + +Brian looked around, frightened. + +“Which way did he go, Ellen?” + +“Up the river, toward the depot. But what does this mean? I will know.” + +“Hush, Ellen, I hear a train coming—kiss me—pray for us—pray for him +most of all.” + +He was gone; she saw him fleeing down the cross road in desperate haste, +never looking to the right or left, but straight forward, as if the race +was for his life. She saw him stop suddenly. The train was sweeping +by—he was too late. + +Yes, he was too late. But the boy walked on, and in a minute commenced +running again. Something might delay the train. Three minutes—he only +asked three minutes—no, it swept off like a serpent, coiling slowly +around a curve of the road, and no other train would stop there before +night. He walked on in the desperate hope of being taken up by some +miracle of chance, or of springing on board a train at slow speed, for +the boy was ready to risk his life without question. He did get on that +special train full of wedding guests when it stopped a moment to have +the hot wheels examined. + +This delay left Seymour to his own wild self till that note was written, +and Cora Lander came down to the log cabin, where he stood waiting for +her. + +She passed in at the door and stood by his side in the moonlight, +throwing the lace shawl back upon her shoulders. + +“You have sent for me under a threat. I am here to listen, if you have +anything to say.” + +Her voice was hard and sharp as steel; her eyes glittered in the +moonlight. + +He looked at her and reached out his arms with such a cry of tender +anguish as thrilled the very air. + +“Oh, Cora! Cora! this is not so! Tell me that is not the truth!” + +She stood like a statue, neither repelling nor accepting his embrace. +His arms fell heavily downward, a groan broke from his lips. + +“Will you not speak to me, Cora?” he cried. + +“I have nothing to say, Alfred Nolan.” + +“Alfred Nolan! Great Heavens! has it reached her at last.” + +“It reached me at first. Before you were put into the prison, where you +should have hid yourself forever had my will availed anything, I knew +all that you had done and felt all the shame of having been your wife +even for an hour.” + +The poor man dashed both hands to his face and cried out: + +“Oh! my God—my God, have mercy upon me!” + +“There shall be no mercy for you,” she answered, hoarsely, “unless you +quit this place at once and forever. I came here to make this proposal: +go to the Indies—go to Australia—I will give you one half of all that I +have on earth; secure it to you with bonds that can neither be violated +nor evaded. Only go—go—go! and never let me hear of you again!” + +That wretched man shook from head to foot. She saw the agony in his face +clearly by the moonlight. That look would have stirred even a hard heart +to compassion, but she had none. + +“Make up your mind at once. In becoming a convict, you set me at +liberty. The certificate of our marriage is in my hands; the witnesses +are beyond your reach; the grave itself never closed over a dead man +more firmly than that disgraceful secret is locked up from all human +knowledge.” + +“Cora! Cora! was this done purposely? Was it in your heart then? Did you +never love me?” + +“I don’t know what was in my heart, but supreme folly, of which I +repented. Yes, if you will have it—if it will make you hate me—revolt at +the sight of me—hear the truth. I had ceased to love you before this +infamy gave me a reason for it.” + +“Oh! have mercy, have mercy! And I loved you so! I loved you so!” + +She took no heed of the anguish which broke out in this cry, but went on +ruthlessly: + +“Take my offer—it is a princely fortune, but I am tempted to double it +and make sure that these eyes will never see you again. Not that I fear +you. Refuse it, come up to the house and claim me, as you threatened so +delicately in your note, and I will say, ‘this man is insane, he is just +out of the State’s Prison; I do not know him.’ Where is your means of +proving that we ever met?” + +She broke off, for Seymour seized her by both arms, and, forcing her up +to the window, looked wildly into her face. + +“Is this my wife? Is this the woman I loved; or some fiend in her shape? +Woman! woman! do not go too far! I reject your money; it was for you—not +that—I became criminal. I will not permit the crime you meditate against +an honorable man. Tell me that it is a slander, a gross falsehood—that +you never thought of marrying Clarence Brooks, or I will claim you +before the crowd you have gathered up yonder. There is evidence, at any +rate, that you lived in the same house with me.” + +“And I will tell them as I told him, that it was my cousin Virginia +Lander who was domesticated with you there—she who is so intimate with +your hunchbacked sister. They will believe that, and so will he.” + +Seymour still held her arms; his dark eyes looked into hers. + +“Is the woman a demon?” he exclaimed, wildly. “Is your love for this +honorable man such as you gave to me? Would you tear up his heart by the +roots as mine is torn?” + +“I love Clarence Brooks, the man you robbed, with all my heart and soul. +Oh, that makes you writhe! Let go my arms, you are pinching them black +and blue, and I am to be married to him this night. In defiance of your +ravings I shall. I did mean to shoot you; but, no, I have the courage to +dare the worst.” + +“No, madam,” said a deep, grave voice close by her, “neither this night +nor ever will you marry Clarence Brooks. He has heard this +conversation—your wicked confession arrested him on the threshold of +that door. He—” + +The woman started upright and turned her haggard face toward him. The +moonbeams lay full upon them both. Her dress swayed and rustled as if +she were grasping its folds with a shaking hand. With a slow, almost +stealthy motion, the hand was lifted. The click of a pistol followed. + +Seymour uttered a cry and attempted to wrest the weapon from her, but +too late. The sharp sound of a shot rang up the ravine. She fell forward +into the arms thrown out to save her, and lay on her husband’s breast, +dying. + +The sound of that shot reached the pleasure grounds where the guests +were wandering a little impatiently, for it was full eleven o’clock, and +as yet they had seen no signs of the bride and bridegroom. The shot was +followed by a wild shriek, and up from the ravine came a boy, flinging +up his hands and crying aloud for help. There was a simultaneous rush +through the shrubberies. Men, seeing the darkness into which they were +going, snatched lamps from the lower boughs of the trees and lighted +their way down into the ravine. The lad went before them, pointing out +the little log cabin, from which came heavy sobs and moans, such as can +be wrung only from the bosom of a strong man. + +It was a strange scene, those men and women with their rich dresses +sparsely lighted by the tiny lamps, crowding up this broken path and +stopping in dumb awe at the cabin door. Brian went in advance. He too +had snatched a lamp from the branches and held it up, revealing a +terrible picture. + +Seymour was holding the woman, whom they had all been so impatient to +see in her bridal dress, in his arms. He had been trembling, moaning and +weeping over her in a wild passion of sorrow. In the darkness he had +kissed her lips, her forehead and her half-closed eyes, calling upon her +to answer him, look at him, breathe so that he could hear the life stir +in that bosom. But when that frightened crowd came up he hushed his +grief and looked down upon her, still as death. + +Clarence Brooks was on his knees also, pressing a handkerchief to the +wounded temple, which was blackened a little and bled in slow drops, +staining the linen deeper and deeper. + +“Here is the physician,” said Brian Nolan, addressing his brother. + +Seymour lifted his haggard face, and a gleam of hope came into it. An +eminent physician, who had been invited among the guests, touched Brooks +on the shoulder, who arose and resigned his place. There was no hope—the +lady might live through the night, but that would be more than he could +answer for. How had this terrible thing happened? + +The woman stirred, struggled and spoke: + +“I did it with my own hand. The pistol is mine, my name is on it.” + +Then the clergyman came into the cabin, his long gown sweeping like +night around him, as he had put it on for the bridal ceremony. He too +knelt by her side and took the pale hand in his. + +“Was it an accident?” he said. + +“Yes, I did it! I was alone—no one else.” + +Those white lips only uttered these words. Question that dying woman as +they would, she answered still: + +“I did it—I was alone—an accident.” + +Neither Seymour nor Clarence Brooks spoke. The crowd held them no more +responsible than the rest. It was natural that the man who had first +lifted that dying woman from the ground should be pale and agitated—more +natural that the bridegroom, who stood before them in his wedding +garments still and stricken, would be almost paralyzed by a calamity so +dreadful. No one dreamed that Seymour was not one of the invited guests; +his air, his face, everything about him carried out the idea. So the +pallor and the silence of these men passed as a natural thing. + +Cora’s lips moved, her eyes opened, and she fixed them on Seymour. He +bent down his head, and she whispered: + +“Be silent, I—I charge you.” + +He whispered back: + +“I will, so help me God.” + +The clergyman bent over her with sorrow and compassion in his face. + +“Poor lady,” he said, “tell us how this dreadful thing happened. It may +save great trouble.” + +She made a violent effort and spoke, so loud that they heard her outside +of the door: + +“I loved this cabin; we were going away in the morning. I had time, and +came down to take a farewell look. The pistol was in my pocket, +forgotten there; I came to the window, the pistol struck against the +logs; I bent down to search for it, low, for it caught in my dress; I +was drawing it upward with force, when it went off. It was an accident, +I was alone.” + +The force of these words exhausted her; for a moment she did not +breathe. The doctor felt her pulse anxiously. All at once she revived. + +“Doctor, must I die?” + +“Yes, poor lady, I dare not say otherwise.” + +She made a painful struggle and turned her head, fixing those eyes, +heavy with coming death, on Brooks. The clergyman and doctor saw that +she wished to speak with her bridegroom, and made way for him, drawing +back to those who stood around the door. + +Brooks obeyed the sad appeal of those eyes, knelt down, bending his head +to hers. + +“I am not his child, but the niece he warned you of. Virginia is his +daughter. Spare my memory. Tell her it was I, not my poor mother, who +did it. He says I must die; deal gently with me then.” + +“May God forgive you and pity you as I do.” + +She turned her eyes back to Seymour and faintly pressed the hand which +was shivering under the coldness that was numbing her fingers. Perhaps +some gleam of the old love awoke in that death hour, for he remembered +in after years that it was his bosom she turned to at last. + +“Forgive me, Alfred!” + +“I do—I do!” + +“Do not let them hurl shame on my grave.” + +“No, no, I will perish first. Oh! Cora, my wife! my wife! would to God I +had died for you!” + +Her hand fell away from his, those beautiful eyes turned to lead, her +limbs stretched out suddenly and the stillness of death fell upon that +log cabin; but outside, the breeze was moaning in the hemlocks; and the +low, sad chime of waters came up from the depths of the ravine, +answering the shiver of the leaves and the rustle of flowers that +trembled beneath their night-tears, and seemed to whisper mournfully +each to the other as the death spirit passed over them. + + + + + CHAPTER LIX. + CONCLUSION. + + +A man lay sick almost unto death in that stone farm-house. Hot fever was +preying upon his brain; an awful sorrow gnawed at his heart. He did not +even know that sweet-voiced, gentle sister, who watched over him so +faithfully, or the wild-eyed boy, who stood hours together at the foot +of his bed, praying for him as only good, true-hearted youth can pray. +Virginia Lander, too, came and went among them with kindly soothing, +though her own heart was filled with gloomy anxieties; for she knew that +an inquest had been held in her father’s house, and that her cousin, the +young girl she had once loved so dearly, lay cold and dead, shrouded in +the marriage garments that had been prepared for her wedding. She knew +that Cora’s own account of the death had been received unquestioned by +the jury. Indeed, what other reason could be given for the violent death +of a young creature, so richly endowed, whose path of life seemed +altogether of roses—a creature who did not seem to have an enemy on +earth. + +Neither Clarence Brooks nor Alfred Nolan were questioned, but the +servants confirmed the account that unhappy woman gave of her death. +Having a little time, while the dressmaker was letting out her +wedding-robe, she had put on another and gone out, doubtless, as she +said, to take leave of a place made dear by loving associations. There +she had met her death. It was a strange fancy for a young bride to +indulge in; but the evening was beautiful, and she had loved that place +from childhood, when it had been her play-house. Some said it was in +this little cabin she had first seen Clarence Brooks. So, in place of a +scandal, the crowd of persons who had gone up to a wedding and found a +death-bed, went home weaving out beautiful romances, which no one ever +contradicted. Cora Lander had besought those she had wronged to spare +her memory, and they did spare it, with religious sacredness. + +While Seymour lay in his first illness, and Virginia shared Ellen’s +duties in the sick room, Lawyer Stone came down from the marble house +and besought her to go home. The will, he said, left Amos Lander’s +property to his niece, after the daughter’s death, so there was no need +of the question of identity being opened at all. He had brought her a +letter from Clarence Brooks, the gentleman to whom her cousin would have +been married, but for the sad accident which had sent her so suddenly +out of life. Would she read the letter before they started? + +Virginia took the letter into her own room, and read it alone, with +tears and prayers and mournful thanksgiving. It told her everything that +the reader knows. It told her more; though there was not one word of +love in all those closely written pages, she knew, as well as if it had +been printed there in letters of gold, that in Clarence Brooks’ heart +there had been no real unfaithfulness. He did not say this in words; but +it pervaded the whole letter as if it had been lying close to his heart +for a year. + +So Virginia, feeling this her higher duty, went back to the home which +was now all her own. There Clarence Brooks met her at the door. They +looked into each other’s faces in mournful silence, and, without a word, +he led her up stairs into the room from which Cora had driven her so +rudely, little more than a year ago. There, upon a bed pure and cold as +a snowbank, she found all that was left of this haughty woman. The +mother, ignorant of that other marriage, which made the bridal dress a +mockery, had insisted that the satin robe, in all its rich amplitude, +should go with her down to the grave. She lay there, calm, and still, +like a young bride sleeping. The rich folds of her hair had been drawn +in waves over the wound on her temple, concealing it entirely. The veil +fell over her face, like frost-work on the white rose. All that had been +bright and blooming about her had vanished into dead whiteness. + +Up to that time, a bitter sense of wrong still lingered in Virginia’s +heart against Cora Lander. But it melted into tender forgiveness, when +she saw her lying there in the tired repose of death. She lifted the +veil, which cast its faint shadows over her face, and kissed the lips +that had wronged her so. When she turned away, holy tears trembled in +the network of that shrouding lace. + +She was about to leave the room, when her progress was stopped by Eunice +Hurd, who came in, supporting Mrs. Lander with one arm, and followed by +Joshua, whose eyes were red with weeping. + +“Miss Virginia, we have come here to say how wrong—” + +“Hush!” said Virginia, pointing to the bed. “Spare her; we know +everything. Do not be troubled, Eunice; I can never forget how truly you +were my friend when I needed one so much. Aunt Lander, for her sake let +us be friends. But we must not talk here.” + +Mrs. Lander looked piteously into that sweet face. She saw nothing but +forgiveness there, and the tears began to tremble from her eyes. She +cast a glance at the bed, and, in a low, broken voice, tried to take +blame on herself. + +“It was me. My child! my poor child! It was for my sake she did it.” + +“Eliza, don’t say that; don’t say nothing. Let the dead bury the dead. +But there is one thing that she did not know, and couldn’t have told. +Miss Virginia, that poor young cretur, that they seem to have buried in +a snowbank, is my own niece, and Joshua is her uncle. Eliza Lander here, +is our youngest sister, and she wants us to say so. This awful trouble +has took all the pride out of her. She ain’t ashamed to own her poor +relations now. She wanted to live with us and we wanted to live with +her, but she was a lady born, though it was in a house where you could +see daylight through the clapboards, and we wasn’t. But we wasn’t mean +enough nuther to want to mortify her amongst her husband’s connections, +so we jest came here and hired out. All she asked was that we should +take some other name, so that we shouldn’t be found out; and we did it. + +“Arter this, it’s sister Eliza Lander’s wish that we should take back +the old name, but I wont. She’s a lady, and I’m proud of it. But I ain’t +nothing of that sort, nor is Joshua. We’ve told you the truth, because +secrets in a family lie awful heavy on the mind; but, as to the rest of +the world, it’s none of their business. So my name is Eunice Hurd and +his name is Joshua Hurd. Hers is Eliza Lander, and we two are her +servants. Where she goes we mean to go, where she lives we shall be +chasing after, and we mean to be buried in the same graveyard with her, +as that young woman in the Bible said to her husband’s marm. If she’s +sent out of this house poor we’ll work for her. She’s the only lady our +family ever had in it, and we’ll work our fingers to the bone, before +she shall want her lace cap and silk gown, jest as she allers had ’em +when Amos Lander was alive, and you two cousins little girls.” + +“She shall never want anything that I can give her, not shall you my +faithful friend. Aunt Lander, do be comforted; it breaks my heart to see +you looking so old and worn.” + +She wiped away the tears from those heavy eyes, and kissed that poor, +grieving mouth, with more than a daughter’s tenderness. “Take good care +of her, Eunice, and tell her that, while we can help it, she shall have +no more troubles.” + +Here Joshua came forward. + +“Miss Jinia, I can’t do much for you. It ain’t in me but I’d—I’d die to +please you. Yes, I think it ed come tough; but, if you want me to, I’ll +give up licker—never taste another drop of punch in my born days, if you +say the word.” + +“But I wish you to give up nothing, Joshua.” + +“Well then, I’ll take sich care of Snowball; litter her down with roses, +if you say so. I’ll take good care of the black horse too, for her sake, +for, arter all, she was my own niece.” + +When this conversation commenced, Brooks and Virginia had quietly +withdrawn from the chamber of death and closed the door, but Joshua +spoke low when he alluded to the young creature lying within, and took +off the hat, which had been returned to his head, in that natural +reverence which even ignorant men pay to death. + +After this, the group went down stairs, but directly Eunice returned +again. + +“About the mourning,” she said. “Eliza Lander is dreadfully anxious, and +wants to know if anything has been done.” + +“Tell her to please herself. I have no need of change,” said Virginia, +almost smiling. “Take charge of everything, Eunice, for, when all is +over, I must go back to the farm-house. Ellen has a brother there, very +sick.” + +He was indeed very sick, nigh unto death, and so he lay for many a weary +week. Ellen’s book came out, while he was at the worst, and she scarcely +knew of it, though its fame went far and wide, reaching distant lands, +and critics on both sides the Atlantic pronounced it a work of wonderful +promise. She had no thoughts to give from that sick bed, where the son +her father had charged her to save, with his last words, lay suffering. +Clarence Brooks found his way to that farm-house, and strove to comfort +the young man who lay there with more than his old friendliness. + +One day when Alfred Nolan was in his right mind and gazing with wistful +observation in Brian’s face, the boy crept close to his bed, and took +the hand his brother held out. + +“Brother,” he said; “it was I who brought all this upon you. I followed +you up the railway—saw you go into that cabin—saw her come down the +ravine. This frightened me. I was afraid that some trouble would happen. +I heard the threats in her voice and went after Mr. Brooks. He was in a +chamber of the house, ready and waiting to be called by pleasanter +messengers than I was. But, when I told him that a man was in peril, he +seized his hat and followed me. If his coming caused what happened +afterward, I am to blame. Forgive me, Alfred, I intended no wrong. +Forgive me.” + +“My poor boy,” said the invalid, faintly; “there was no fault in what +you did. God was working out our punishment and it came. It was better +to have our lives end so than in deeper sin. I thought these things over +very solemnly in the stone tomb down yonder. I have thought them over +here since our sister gave me, word for word, that last message from our +father. _She_ is dead, but God is merciful, and who shall say that the +last moments of her young life were not spent in asking for that Divine +forgiveness which is not limited by time or space.” + +Nolan lay still, and with his eyes closed some minutes after he uttered +these words. When he spoke again it was more calmly. + +“Brian.” + +“Well, brother.” + +“This is no place for us. I could never be at rest here. But far away, +beyond the Rocky Mountains, lie vast countries, rich in minerals, +fertile in soil, and so far from what we call social life, that a man +can live by himself and learn to grow strong. God is giving me back +life, Brian. I am young, and must no longer be an idle and useless man. +Will you go with me to this country, Brian?” + +“I will go with you anywhere, brother,” answered Brian. + +Ellen came in just then bringing a cup of tea for the invalid. + +Brian, with all a boy’s eagerness, asked her if she would go with them. + +“Nay,” interposed Alfred; “she is feeble. She must be left behind.” + +She looked at her elder brother, and quick tears came into her eyes, +while she repeated, with sweet, impressive earnestness, the words of +Ruth to her mother: + +“Ask me not to leave thee, or cease from following after thee. Where +thou goest, I will go. Where thou livest, I will live; thy people shall +be my people; thy God shall be my God; and where thou diest, there will +I be buried.” + +No more was said that day, for neither Alfred nor Brian could speak, +their voices were too full of tears. But it was agreed that the brothers +should go first, and prepare a home for Ellen, who would get the money +her book was bringing in for their use, write another, and make +arrangements with the publishers for more, that were yet to come out of +her new life. She thanked Heaven that her work could be done anywhere. +Alfred wondered at the prompt business way in which all this was said; +but he had yet to learn that real, absolute genius is comprehensive as +Nature itself. Those who confine it to simple romance dwarf God’s +greatest gift to man. + +When Clarence Brooks heard what Alfred Nolan had decided on, he resolved +to go with him, for Nolan absolutely refused to accept the money which +Brooks had almost forced upon him, and he resolved to invest it there, +hoping that it would at last find acceptance. So, after a few weeks, +these two men, who had travelled over the Old World in company, bridged +the awful chasm that had separated them, and went Westward, taking Brian +with them. Ellen went back to the marble house, and joined Virginia in +the tranquil life she led there. + +About a year from this time Brooks came back again, strengthened and +rendered cheerful by the constant change and excitement of a frontier +life. A month after that, there was a quiet little wedding in that +marble mansion, so quiet that the daily journals brought the first news +of it to those who had been invited to that other sumptuous affair which +ended so fatally. + +At many a breakfast table that morning the news was read aloud, and more +than once it was followed by this exclamation: “So Clarence Brooks has +married Amos Lander’s heiress, after all. So much alike, they say. The +bridesmaids—why, there was only one, the author of that book everybody +is talking about! Would you believe it? She is a hunchback, but _so_ +talented and _petite_. Such lovely eyes and hair too. Mrs. —— had it +from her publishers.” + +The next month Ellen Nolan went West with her brother, who had used his +scientific learning to great purpose, and was opening sources of +prosperity in the wilderness, with his knowledge, which many a +hard-working man availed himself of, working the same mines and +gathering the same gold, which was fast lifting him into that +respectability and independence which honorable labor, either of mind or +hands alone can bring. + +Ellen keeps his house; she has plenty of mountain flowers all around +that neat log cabin, and so many vines clambering over it, that it looks +more like a mammoth bird’s nest than a human habitation. But, though she +loves flowers, and seeks to cover up coarser things with them, back of +that house you may find a well kept vegetable garden, which Brian takes +care of, and which the colored girl, who went West with her, sometimes +vigorously works in, when there is nothing to be done indoors. +Especially she goes out when her young mistress is writing by that +little window, curtained with morning glories; for then it seems almost +wrong to tread hard upon the floor, and she feels like holding her +breath as she moves about. + +Just now Ellen is reading a letter from Mrs. Clarence Brooks, who +proposed, during the summer, to take that Western trip with her husband. +She wrote just then to know if there was an unoccupied room in the cabin +for them. + +Ellen has taken up her pen, which shakes and quivers in her hand; but +she makes out to write, that unoccupied rooms are unheard of in that +part of the country, but a new cabin, opening into theirs, will be up +long and long before her friends can get there. In fact, Alfred will +have the log-rolling at once, that she can have flowers growing over it +when they come. + + + THE END + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES + + + Page Changed from Changed to + + 57 As a general thing, I don’t As a general thing, I don’t + think peaking and listening think peeking and listening + + 329 think Amos Lander was cute think Amos Lander was ’cute + enough to find out the enough to find out the + difference difference + + 355 She’s a darned sight more likely She’s a darned sight more likely + to kid the hoss than to kill the hoss than + + 446 space shut in by the curtains. space shut in by the curtains. + In this position he heard In this position she heard + + 446 was making strenuous efforts to was making strenuous efforts to + repay the money she had repay the money he had + + ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77750 *** diff --git a/77750-h/77750-h.htm b/77750-h/77750-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5a38895 --- /dev/null +++ b/77750-h/77750-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,23637 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> + <head> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title>Doubly False | Project Gutenberg</title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + body { margin-left: 8%; 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+ clear: both; } + .covernote { visibility: hidden; display: none; } + div.tnotes p { text-align: justify; } + .x-ebookmaker .covernote { visibility: visible; display: block; } + h1 {line-height: 150%; } + .chapter { clear: both; page-break-before: always; } + body {font-family: Garamond, Georgia, serif; text-align: justify; } + table {font-size: .9em; padding: 1.5em .5em 1em; page-break-inside: avoid; + clear: both; } + div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; + page-break-after: always; } + div.titlepage p {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; + line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 3em; } + .ph1 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: xx-large; + margin: .67em auto; page-break-before: always; } + .ph2 { text-indent: 0em; font-weight: bold; font-size: x-large; margin: .75em auto; + page-break-before: always; } + .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } + </style> + </head> + <body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77750 ***</div> + +<div class='tnotes covernote'> + +<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> + +<p class='c000'>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p> + +</div> + +<div class='titlepage'> + +<div> + <h1 class='c001'>DOUBLY FALSE.</h1> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>BY</div> + <div class='c003'><span class='xlarge'>MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.</span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'>AUTHOR OF “FASHION AND FAMINE,” “THE SOLDIER’S ORPHANS,” “THE HEIRESS,” “THE GOLD BRICK,” “SILENT STRUGGLES,” “THE OLD HOMESTEAD,” “THE REJECTED WIFE,” “MARY DERWENT,” “THE WIFE’S SECRET,” ETC.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='lg-container-b c004'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>There is no pathway leading to the light,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Save that which honor treadeth for her own.</div> + <div class='line'>The only star, that guideth through the night,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Truth wears, triumphant, on her azure zone.</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'> · · · · ·</div> + </div> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>The false, e’en to themselves are traitors all,</div> + <div class='line in2'>Deceit must ever end in weary strife.</div> + <div class='line'>As serpents’ eggs give vipers from the thrall</div> + <div class='line in2'>Of their water fosterage, it chains the life—</div> + <div class='line'>Coils in and out in many a poisonous fold,</div> + <div class='line'>And hisses through the future uncontrolled.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> + <div class='nf-center'> + <div>PHILADELPHIA:</div> + <div>T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS;</div> + <div>306 CHESTNUT STREET.</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='small'>Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1898, by</span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'>T. B. PETERSON & BROTHERS,</span></div> + <div class='c003'><span class='small'>In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div>TO</div> + <div class='c003'>MY SON’S WIFE,</div> + <div class='c003'>MRS. ANNIE SUTTON STEPHENS,</div> + <div class='c003'>THIS BOOK IS</div> + <div class='c003'>MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED.</div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='c005'>ANN S. STEPHENS.</div> + +<div class='lg-container-l'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Washington, D. C., May 5th, 1868.</span></div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CONTENTS.</h2> +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c007'><span class='sc'>Chapter</span></th> + <th class='c008'> </th> + <th class='c009'><span class='sc'>Page</span></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>I.—</td> + <td class='c008'>MUSIC AND DANCING</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_23'>23</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>II.—</td> + <td class='c008'>OVERBOARD</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>III.—</td> + <td class='c008'>ADRIFT</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_40'>40</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>IV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE MANSION ON THE RIVER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_45'>45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>V.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE IRON SAFE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_54'>54</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>VI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>EUNICE HURD</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_60'>60</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>VII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>BROTHER AND SISTER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_68'>68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>VIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>FINDING THE WILL</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_75'>75</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>IX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE BILL OF EXCHANGE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_82'>82</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>X.—</td> + <td class='c008'>MRS. LANDER ENTERS ON HER FORTUNE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_93'>93</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>SALE OF THE CHESTNUT HORSES</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_99'>99</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>MEETING OF THE LOVERS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_110'>110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE MIDNIGHT HOUR</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_120'>120</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XIV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_125'>125</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE DISTURBED CONSCIENCE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_136'>136</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XVI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>KINDRED LOVE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_140'>140</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XVII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>DREAMS AND STRUGGLES</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_149'>149</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XVIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>WHICH WAS THE DAUGHTER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_158'>158</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XIX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE AUDACITY OF CRIME</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_168'>168</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>EUNICE HURD EXASPERATED</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_177'>177</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>MRS. LANDER AND CORA VISIT LAWYER STONE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_190'>190</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>ANOTHER STRANGE VISIT</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_195'>195</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE WAYSIDE TAVERN</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_205'>205</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXIV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>LOVE IN A LOG CABIN</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_212'>212</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>CORA LANDER AND EUNICE HURD IN COLLISION</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_225'>225</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXVI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE FIEND AND THE ANGEL</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_232'>232</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>XXVII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>PREPARING FOR HAPPINESS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_241'>241</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXVIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THAT BIJOU OF A HOME</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_256'>256</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXIX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE WEDDING TOILET</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_267'>267</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>AFTER THE WEDDING</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_272'>272</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE AUDACITY OF CRIME</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_279'>279</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>A WEEK OF LOVE LIFE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_288'>288</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE FIRST CLOUD</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_299'>299</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXIV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>EUNICE HURD FINDS HER MATCH AND SO DOES THE HEIRESS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_308'>308</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>CLARENCE BROOKS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_319'>319</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXVI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>A LETTER FROM THE DEAD</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_327'>327</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXVII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>TELLING WHAT VIRGINIA AND ELLEN FOUND WHILE LOOKING FOR CHESTNUTS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_341'>341</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXVIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>BREAKING IN THE BLACK HORSE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_354'>354</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XXXIX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE FISHING PARTY</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_366'>366</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XL.—</td> + <td class='c008'>CLARENCE BROOKS TALKS CONFIDENTIALLY TO CORA LANDER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_374'>374</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>WOMANLY FASCINATIONS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_385'>385</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>A AUTUMN PIC-NIC IN THE WOODS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_394'>394</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>ELLEN NOLAN VISITS CLARENCE BROOKS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_404'>404</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLIV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE WHITE HORSE DISTANCES THE BLACK ONE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_412'>412</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>GETTING RID OF WITNESSES</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_418'>418</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLVI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE BROTHER’S CONFESSION</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_428'>428</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLVII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>LISTENING AND PLOTTING</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_435'>435</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLVIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>HOPES OF REDEMPTION</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_448'>448</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>XLIX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>JOSHUA HURD PROVES HOSPITABLE AND KIND</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_457'>457</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>L.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE FALSE STORY AND THE FORGED LETTER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_466'>466</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE MIDNIGHT RIDE</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_481'>481</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>ANGELS’ VISITS</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_490'>490</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THAT CRUEL LETTER</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_500'>500</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LIV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>IN PRISON</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_508'>508</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LV.—</td> + <td class='c008'>THE SECOND CONQUEST</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_516'>516</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LVI.—</td> + <td class='c008'>A NEW HOME</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_525'>525</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LVII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>PLEADING FOR A PARDON</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_532'>532</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LVIII.—</td> + <td class='c008'>DEATH IN THE LOG CABIN</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_535'>535</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'>LIX.—</td> + <td class='c008'>CONCLUSION</td> + <td class='c009'><a href='#Page_547'>547</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class='chapter ph1'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c010'> + <div>DOUBLY FALSE.</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<div> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER I.<br> <span class='c011'>MUSIC AND DANCING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>A splendidly bright day in early spring. The ocean +was unusually calm; but a pleasant sunshine broke up its +greenish blue, and dashed its tiny ripples with the restless +glory of quicksilver shimmering over crystal. Far away +the waters lapsed imperceptibly into the pure atmosphere +of the horizon, veiling the soft union with a gossamer haze +exquisitely beautiful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Not a sail was in sight!—not a bird in the air! One +great ocean steamer moved through the calm of the waters, +her broad, white sails curving like the tired wings of a seagull, +and her black pipes heaving forth mighty fleeces +of smoke, that curled, eddied and fell apart in the wind, +floating off in a soft film of silvery gray, dazzled through +and through with sunbeams.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The steamer was full of life, cheerful and brilliant. +Though not absolutely crowded, it had no room to spare, +and all the luxury that could be introduced into a sea voyage +was to be found on its decks that pleasant spring afternoon. +Fur rugs and little encampments of crimson cushions +lay about in the shady places, occupied by men, +women and children, sitting low like Turks, if not exactly +in the Oriental fashion. Campstools and a few easy chairs +<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>were filled with dreamy occupants, some reading, some +chatting, and others sound asleep.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Perhaps four hundred passengers were on board, most of +them of that idle upper class which holds some of the +weakest and again the most powerful members of social +life in its ranks. They were in this case neither better nor +worse than the crowd of people who usually cross and +recross the Atlantic every season, as if it were some inland +lake. Upon those fur rugs and cushions a few men, tired +out with the active duties of life, sought that necessary +reaction a sea life brings; with them were merchants on +business, clever men travelling for information—commonplace +people killing time—sharpers on the alert for prey—adventurers, +and worse still, adventuresses, forcing themselves, +by craft or brazen assurance, into respectable society—with +all the odds and ends of that strange thing called +fashionable life. To this great majority were added one or +two God-gifted souls to whom life, in itself, was an exquisite +blessing. These found even that calm sea voyage full of +wonderful poetry which the crowd never dreamed of. They +saw glorious pictures in the sky as it bent over them—thrilling +music in the soft heave of the waves which floated +them steadily shoreward, and still more varied interest in +the life that moved and changed and worked itself out +among the human beings with whom they were cast.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Of this class was the young girl seated on that carriage robe +of white fur, which was spread out on a shadowy portion +of the deck like a snow-drift, half melted away, upon +a ground-work of azure-cloth scolloped and embroidered +into a rich lace-work border. She was a bright, happy-looking +girl, with a face that Titian would have given a +goblet of wine to paint, exactly as she reclined, with her +elbow resting on a pile of cushions over which a shawl of +blue cashmere, with a good deal of gold-color in the border, +had been flung in rich drapery. Her head, with more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>ruddy brown hair than most women possess, was supported +by the palm of a white and finely-shaped hand—not very +small, for the girl herself was of generous proportions, and +in perfect symmetry lay her chief claim to that grace and +loveliness which distinguished her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Close by the pretty couch, which had an air of the +Orient in it, sat a middle aged man, rather handsome—very +respectable—and at the moment closing his eyes in a +dreamy way which might or might not be slumber. Something +in the distance aroused the girl and caused the father +to open a pair of mild blue eyes rather suddenly, for she +cried out in her quick, eager way:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Look, look, papa!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was only a couple of sturgeons tumbling over each +other and leaping into the sunshine, which for an instant +scaled their backs with silver and kindled a little rainbow +among the drops they flashed into the air.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t it wonderful, papa, that such awkward creatures +can manage to display so much beauty?” cried the girl, +resting one arm on her father’s knee and raising herself up +to the cushions that she might watch the ponderous gambols +that any one else might have considered a disturbance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nonsense, my dear; we have seen a hundred of them +tumbling about like salt-water pigs. Let me rest, do—this +glare hurts my eyes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, sleep away, dear old papa, if you like it best—I’ll +settle to reading again, since you will have nothing to do +with me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was uttered with a good-natured little laugh, while +the young lady settled back into her former position, +assuming her book, in its dainty binding, of scarlet and +gold, which had been lying half-buried in the white fur, +but she contented herself for a time with rustling the leaves +as it lay in her lap.</p> + +<p class='c013'>With a smile on his lips the old man fell off into his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>sweet slumber again, and his daughter began to read. +Just then a group of young persons came up from the +cabin, chatting together and sending out little joyous +bursts of laughter. The first that appeared was a young +lady who presented so complete a counterpart of the person +we have been describing that a stranger would have +glanced at the white carriage robe at once to make sure +that she had not left it. The same lithe form was there, +the same brilliant complexion, with eyes not altogether +gray or blue, but which partook of either color as fancy or +passion warmed them. The hair was of that remarkable +tint which even artists have failed to name properly, but +which the Venetians painted in all its glory. These traits, +and more than these, the two girls had in common; no sisters +ever looked more alike or possessed the same grace of +manner. They were closely related, no one could doubt +that who looked upon them, though one was quietly reading +her book and the other appeared in all the ardor and +joyousness of a spirited conversation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, indeed,” she was saying, “I make no pretence; I +play well enough, perhaps, but it is my cousin whose voice +you heard last night. There she is. Ask her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She looked very beautiful, standing there in the passage +with a cashmere shawl gathered in careless grace around +her, while the wind shook out the barb of Brussels point +tied in a knot at the back of her little straw hat, and +fluttered the cock’s plume in front, giving a look of breezy +cheerfulness to her persona.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go ask her—or shall I?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You; you, of course,” cried out half-a-dozen voices; +“she might refuse us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander walked across the deck, sweeping it with +her robe of rich silk—far too rich for the occasion—and +paused close by her cousin, who raised her eyes from the +book she was reading with a pleasant smile.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>“Virginia, dear, do come and pacify these good people +with one little air. They heard that outbreak of yours last +night in <i>Ah che la morte</i>, and will not be content without +the whole of it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia Lander dropped her book, and a bright color +flashed over her face, but this was all the sign of annoyance +that she gave, though she felt much.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes, I will sing, if they desire it,” she said quietly. +“Come with me, Cora, and play the accompaniment.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two girls went down to the cabin in company, and a +brighter, lovelier pair you have seldom looked upon. It +was not the prettiness of common beauty, which is in fact +less effective than intelligent ugliness. But there was +something unique, graceful and spirited which belonged to +them alone, provoking inquiry and commanding admiration. +Besides, one of them, the daughter of the old man dozing +there on the deck, was heiress to every dollar the millionaire +possessed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander sat down at the grand piano in the cabin. +Virginia took a position by her, and a merry group of young +people swarmed around, eager for any amusement that +promised to break up the monotony of sea life, but so full +of mirth that they could hardly keep quiet even for the +music. A prelude—a masterly sweep of the keys, and then +Virginia Lander’s voice, full, rich and clear, broke in—at +first timidly and with a tremor of distrust in it—for she did +not like this public crowd of listeners. But even timidity +cannot long hold true genius in thrall. After a moment +the color flashed into her face—her lips parted, warm and +red as coral, and out gushed the whole volume and force of +her exquisite voice, thrilling the hearts that listened as +music had seldom touched them before. The depth, power +and wonderful pathos of a voice cultivated to perfection +charmed the crowd into willing silence, which continued a +full minute after the last notes left her lips. Then there +<span class='pageno' id='Page_28'>28</span>was a tumult of compliments—exclamations of delight +from those who spoke from the surface—and deep sighs of +absolute ecstasy from such as understood and felt the +delicious sweetness of her performance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia was pleased. Who is not by genuine admiration? +She laughed a little nervously, blushed crimson on +seeing that a good many gentlemen had joined her audience, +and retreated shyly to a sofa at some distance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment you might have discovered where the +difference lay between these two girls. It was in the +expression. As Virginia drew back, half pleased, half +ashamed of her own success, Cora let her white hands fall +on the keys she had touched with such wonderful skill, and +an expression swept over her face that transfigured it completely. +In all that buzz, hum and general outburst of +praise she had no part. Her supporting music, brilliant as +it was, had been utterly overwhelmed by Virginia’s voice. +She sat a moment looking straight before her. Humiliating +disappointment left her eyes almost black. Her lips curled +in their scornful redness, but the color in her cheeks died +out, sweeping all the young brightness from her features.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This lasted a single minute, but during that brief time +no one would have thought Cora Lander like her cousin +Virginia, who had crept into a corner of her sofa abashed +by the burst of genuine applause that followed her singing, +but thrilled by the sweet exercise of her own genius, which +was in itself a delight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>For one instant the stormy look darkened on Cora’s face, +then, with an impulse which seemed inspiration, but was +defiance, she dashed her hands across the keys and swept +them with a power that hushed every voice in the room and +turned the current of applause in her favor.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s face brightened beautifully as this outburst of +approval reached her. Always generous and sympathetic, +she forgot herself utterly and came up to the piano radiant. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span>Cora saw her, and with a proud lift of the head, dashed +into a waltz which rang through the cabin like a silver war-trumpet +challenging hosts to action. Half-a-dozen young +ladies accepted the exhilarating appeal, wound their arms +around each other, and whirled off in one of those impromptu +dances which are the very effervescence of happy +youth. Cora cast a glance over her shoulder and dashed +on, winging those light feet with melody. Away and +around they flew jostling each other, laughing at the fun, +changing partners—falling into little mistakes, and sending +their clear laughter through the music in a riot of sweet +sounds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Those who could not find room to dance applauded with +hands and voice: those who could rushed on more joyously, +laughing at their less fortunate friends, till the whole cabin +was one whirl of gaiety.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In the midst, piercing like an arrow through the mellow +laughter, came a cry from midship:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Fire! Fire! Fire!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER II.<br> <span class='c011'>OVERBOARD.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Fire! Fire! Fire! This withering cry stopped every +pulse of life as it ran through the ship. For one awful +second it held that crowd in the cabin motionless and pallid +as if a storm of ashes were passing over it. Some of the +dancers kept their position, like statues, with scared faces +bent together, feet advanced and smiles frozen on their +white lips. Some staggered out of the whirl and clung +together shrieking in each other’s arms. Others crouched +down in corners, sending out piteous cries. One or two +<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span>laughed out a hideous mockery of their own fears, and a +few weak voices joined in protesting that it was a hoax. +Still all listened with hushed breath for a second cry which +might be their doom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander laughed away the pale terror that seized +upon her, and dashed the awful scene with defiant music.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It came again—that wild, desperate cry—deeper, hoarser +and still more terrible—smiting the crowd with fresh panic. +A mad rush was made for the deck. The selfish instinct of +life which levels men with wild beasts was uppermost then. +Under that fierce stampede of feet the helpless and feeble +were forced aside or trampled down, and through the +tumult arose their sobs and moans, with the low roar of +half-smothered flames and gushes of black smoke that came +rolling down the cabin stairs thick and stifling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia Lander sprang to the steps and rushed on deck, +seeking her father. Cora plunged into the frightened +crowd, struggled through and followed her cousin, looking +keenly around for some means of safety as she went.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The old man was on his feet, white as death, but with all +his faculties clear. He reached forth his arms as Virginia +came up and held her close, promising his own heart that +they would die together. Cora planted herself by his side, +pale with terror, but vigilant.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The steamer lay with her head to the wind, which swept +the flames fiercely as they belched up the hatchway and +ran along the cordage like sheet lightning. The captain +thundered orders through his trumpet which no one obeyed. +Men rushed to and fro with buckets, and flew in despair to +the pumps, but, spite of this the conflagration roared like a +volcano deep in the iron hold, and rushed up through porthole +and hatchway, fringing the sails with flame and creeping +along the ropes till they shone out against the sky one +network of tangled fire.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was awful to see human beings struggling up through +<span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>the surges of hot smoke, and reeling into the fresh air one +mass of flames. Now the scene became terrible. Great +gushes of fire roared up from the cabin and seized upon the +wood-work around it. The mainmast, already girdled with +flame and eaten half way to the heart, trembled like a forest +tree beneath the axe. The ventilators were choked up with +human beings, suffocated in a wild effort to escape certain +death in the steerage. Now an effort was made to get out +the boats; but they were seized upon and swamped under +a frenzied rush of the crowd. The wretched people retreated +from bulwark to bow—anywhere that promised a +moment’s shelter. But the hot flames pursued them, leaping, +hissing, routing them from every chance of life. Some +jumped overboard in sheer madness; others swung themselves +down to the sea with chains and ropes, which might +grow red hot or be burned under their grasp any instant. +It was awful to see those panic-stricken creatures huddled +together like frightened deer hemmed in by a prairie fire, +shrinking, shivering and white with a dread that was worse +than death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Lander and those two girls had kept their place +firmly upon the deck, watching for some chance of safety, +but driven towards the bulwarks step by step as the flames +leaped upon them. The sails had burned out, scattering a +rain of fire over them, and were now given to the wind in +black patches of tinder. The cordage had broken up into +rags of fire. The yard-arms were burning and cut against +the sky, like a great cross appealing to God for mercy. +Only a few moments more could those helpless creatures +keep a foothold where they stood. Even now the boards under +their feet were hot and drops of turpentine came oozing +out from all their pores, tempting the flames which licked +them up with ravenous hisses. Not ten feet away, the +planks had parted and they could look down on that sea of +fire raging in the hold.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Virginia gave one glance and clung to her father, striving +to shield him from the heat. Cora saw a thousand tiny +threads of flame creeping towards them, and seizing upon +the fur rug wound it about her, looking fiercely down on +the storm of fire, as if she longed to defy it. That girl, +leaning there against the bulwark, with that awful light +upon her face and the fur robe giving a savage aspect to +her dress, seemed like a priestess overwhelmed by her own +incantations.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Just then a boat had been cautiously lowered by some of +the hands—so cautiously that the terror-stricken creatures +cowering on the deck took no notice, for despair had paralyzed +them. Cora saw it and her hopes took fire. Without +a word to the others, she flung off the robe, leaped +upon the bulwark, and plunged into the sea, twenty feet +below. The boat had pushed off and was some yards away, +but she was a good swimmer, and followed it, shrieking for +help with every dash of her arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Had it been a man, the sailors would have left him to +die, for the boat was full; but there was something so +strange and brave in the desperate effort this young creature +made for life, that they took her in with broken cheers +and pushed farther from the doomed vessel, from which +men and women, with their garments one cloud of flame, +were continually dropping.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia looked up, saw that the place where her cousin +had stood was empty, and uttering a cry of anguish, sprang +to the bulwark.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh father! oh Heaven help us! She is gone—she is +lost! No, no, thank God, thank God, she is in the boat. +That is her. Look, father, look! That is Cora.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment the mainmast trembled like a tree cut +through the heart and fell, dragging the steamer on one +side by its weight. Then the engine gave out, and the +boiler collapsed with a dull sound, sending up a storm of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>hisses, as if ten thousand serpents, coiled in its iron heart, +had suddenly crept into the flames.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man at the wheel, who had stood firmly till now, +gave way under a hot rush of fire, and leaped overboard, +abandoning the steamer to her fate. Left to itself, the +doomed vessel, with its awful freight of fire, headed to the +wind, which gathered up the flames and hurled them in +broad sheets and masses back upon the poor creatures who +crouched upon the deck. They started up like herds of +deer in a burning prairie, and rushed toward the bow dumb +with horror. There they huddled together in a trembling +crowd, turning their wild, white faces on the sea of fire +which raged behind them. Some crept out on the bowsprit +and clung to it. Others had dragged articles of furniture +with them which they were lashing together as a forlorn +hope.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Lander snatched up his daughter and followed with the +rest. He too had seen the boat in which Cora had found +safety, and knowing that Virginia could swim like her +cousin, resolved that she should be saved.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When they reached the bow, he took Virginia in his +arms and kissed her with solemn tenderness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, father, this is terrible—must we die? Must we +die?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A great surge of smoke swept over them and he held +her face close to his bosom till it went by.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Virginia, hear me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She guessed what he was about to say, and cried out +against it:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, papa—I never will—never without you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Virginia, my child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She clung to him wildly, desperately.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you can swim. The boat is not so far off,” he +pleaded.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you, papa, can you swim?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>Lander shook his head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I will not go. Better a thousand times die here +together. What would life be without you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Virginia, this is wrong. It is selfish.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No—no—no, father! and if it is, God will forgive the +child who wishes to live or die with her own father. See, +I am not afraid. When the fire drives us away from here, +we will jump into the water together. I can swim for us +both a little while, then, if we must go down, God will see +how it was and let us be together again, for He alone +knows how dearly I love you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My child, my child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The old man lifted her in his arms and was about to +hurl her over. She could swim, and alone, without incumbrance, +might reach the boat. With another to drag her +down, it would be certain death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She understood his design and clung to him with passionate +tenacity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Father—father, I will not!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It must be. God help us, child—it must, it must!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet, father; not alone. I will not go alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She clung to him madly, turning her stone, white face +over one shoulder and watching the conflagration with +frightened eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, father, the wind is with us. See how it fights +back the flames. But, my God—my God, how that slow, +cruel fire eats into the deck! How it crumbles and falls +piecemeal into that red gulf! It creeps upon us inch by +inch, and the space is so small now. Not yet! father, not +yet! We have a few minutes more. Then we will go +together—only so. God is good to give us this one chance +of death without torture. Stand closer, close to the bulwark, +father. How the poor creatures crowd! Yes, yes, +we will give way for children, they must not burn. Poor +mother—poor woman. Go first—go first—we can wait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>A tall, powerful man from the steerage, with an infant +in his arms, was pushing by them, huddling his wife and +four other children up to the charred bulwarks. The children +gave one glance into the depths below and cowered +back to their mother’s feet, whimpering and sobbing in +pale terror. The man placed the infant on its mother’s +bosom and took them both in his arms with solemn tenderness. +The woman released herself wildly from his arms +and cried out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are not all here. Brian! Brian! Oh, Father of +mercies, where is my son?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That instant a lad came across that skeleton deck, leaping +from one blazing beam to another with the desperate +energy of some wild deer breaking away from the hounds. +His feet sent back a storm of hot sparks as they touched +the seething wood. His woollen clothes caught fire, +enveloping him in heavy gushes of smoke. He struck the +last beam with a staggering leap—reeled dizzily, and was +plunging head foremost into the gulf of fire yawning for +him, when a single cry sent the strength back to his heart. +His mother’s voice reached him through the roar of the +flames and struck the sick weakness from brain and limb. +With a desperate bound, he landed by his father’s side, +strangled and quivering from head to foot. His hands +were scorched; his hair was crisped, and a deadly whiteness +showed itself through the smoke and ashes which blackened +his young face. He struggled to speak, but his chest +only heaved and the parched upper lip curved away from +his teeth, giving his mouth an awful look of agony. His +eyes were uplifted to his father’s face, burning with pity, +despair, and such courage as the hero feels when he leads a +forlorn hope on the battle-field.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He spoke at last, and his voice was like the cry of a wild +eagle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Father, let me go first. God has saved me for that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>The father turned and looked upon him almost with a +smile on his lip.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It will give them courage, father. Mother—mother, it +is only a moment’s pain. Kiss me, mother, for I must +go.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He flung both arms about his mother, folding in the +infant. He kissed the quivering face of the woman, the +wondering eyes of the babe, seized his father’s hand, wrung +it hard, and clambered up the bulwark.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A feeble hand caught at his clothes and a wild voice cried +out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, Brian, take me, take me; I cannot climb up +alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was the eldest girl, who grasped eagerly at his +smouldering jacket. The lad sprang back, took her in his +arms and tried to lift her up the bulwark.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Ellen, we will go together—you and I.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He gained the narrow ledge of wood, and was dragging +her up, when a lurch of the half-burned wreck broke his +hold and sent him headlong into the deep; she fell back +upon the deck moaning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The father turned to his wife, who shook so violently that +the babe almost fell from her hold.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“One has gone—Mary—Mary!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was all he could say. The words turned to ashes on +his lips, but his eyes looked out upon the water with an +awful meaning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The frightened creature understood him and held the +child close. She lifted her cold lips meekly for the last +death kiss, but he had no power to give it. The rugged +whiteness of his face met hers one moment and was withdrawn +again. Then, with his strong arms shaking like +reeds, he lifted her upward and loosened his hold. Twenty +feet below there was a break in the waters, a dash, and the +<i>sharp cry</i> of an infant, but the sounds were faint and lost +<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>in the roar of the flames. The man bent forward to look +over, but his heart failed, and, with a desperate calmness, +he selected the smallest child left in that quaking group—a +little, chubby girl—and lifted her to the bulwark. One +instant those great, quivering hands rested on her head—then +came the gleam of a baby face against the black side +of the vessel, a flash of soft hair in the wind, and scarcely +a ripple followed to tell where the little creature dropped +into eternity. Another—and then the last of the flock +stood, white and still, while the wretched father blessed her +as he had sanctified the others.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was the oldest of four girls, something more than a +child, but the most helpless of them all, for the girl was +hunchbacked and dwarfed, but it was the quiet, calm face +of an angel that looked up into those agonized eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-bye, father—I am not afraid.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The words were on her lips when she dropped from under +the benediction of his hands, and now all was gone. Of a +large family, the father stood alone. He turned that hard, +white face upon the spot where his little brood had stood, +looking yet for another. Then came a cloud of vague bewilderment, +followed by the truth, sharp and quick. With +one strong cry of terrible anguish his arms were flung upward +and he plunged overboard.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and her father saw all this and their souls grew +strong within them. What had they to give up compared +to the awful duty which this man had performed? How +patiently, and with what meek faith that woman had gone +down to her death! It seemed a little thing for them to +die with each other. After such heroism, Lander knew +Virginia would stay by him to the last, and forbore to urge +her farther. So long as there was a chance of life on the +vessel, they would seek it together; when that was gone, a +plunge after that doomed family and all would be over.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But their time grew short now. The fire was burning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>fiercely towards them. Every instant narrowed the space +which was even now overcrowded with human life. Each +minute some unhappy wretch was jostled overboard, as the +crowd pressed closer and closer to avoid the burning death +that seemed ravenous for every human life on board.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lift me up to the bulwark, father, if there is a hope of +life let me search for it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Lander lifted her up to the charred bulwark, and +held her there with desperate firmness. She leaned forward +and gazed through the eddying smoke out on the sea—praying +for a sail—praying for help—nothing was in +sight save a few struggling creatures in the water—that +boat drifting to and fro at a safe distance, with Cora +Lander in it, and a frail raft on which two or three desperate +men were working hard to keep above water. Beyond +this she saw one or two capsized boats drifting keel upward—and +that was all.</p> + +<p class='c013'>From this hopeless waste of waters, she turned to the +vortex of fire raging beneath her—turned with thrills of +terror that made the very heart shudder in her bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was an awful sight! The great ship lay seething in +the water more than half consumed, a skeleton of fire +preying on itself. The light wood-work had flashed out +with vehemence and sunk to a sea of fiery smoke in the +hold. Except a few miserable feet at the prow, nothing +was left but a mighty cradle of red-hot iron, ribbed and +beamed and braced with such massive strength that fire +itself seemed incapable of destroying it. Huge beams, +scintillating stormy sparks with every sweep of the wind, +spanned what had been the deck from bulwark to bulwark. +Great, crooked ribs of solid fire curved down to the engine, +which lay massive and inert—its iron heart pulseless—its +mighty arms paralyzed—its boiler a hollow ball of iron, +and all its wonderful mechanism a vast heap of white +heated metal.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>Virginia Lander recoiled from this fearful sight, and +sunk back to her father’s arms, shuddering.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is no hope,” she said. “The fire is working +this way and undermining us. Anything is better than a +death like that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How near?” questioned the old man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God may give us half an hour.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Even in that time He may send us help,” said the +father, bending over her with yearning tenderness. “Oh, +my child, when I think of your young life going out so +early, I’m a coward!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, father; after looking down into that awful gulf +of fire, death in the cool waters seems Heaven to me,” +said Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment a portion of the deck on which they stood +crumbled in, and a column of flame shot up close to them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Two or three women, mad with fright, leaped overboard, +their faces marble, their garments one mass of fire; others +sunk with fragments of the deck into the hot torments of +the hold and were lost in those scarlet billows before a +sound of anguish could tell of their fate.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Nearer and nearer those doomed ones came the stifling +death, not a foot of safe timber was left. On the very +edge of that hollow cradle of fire they stood, clinging together +for the last time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Now a slender dart of flame shot up between the warped +boards on which they stood. Still they clung closer to +each other, shrinking away from it.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER III.<br> <span class='c011'>ADRIFT.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>“Father, our time has come.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia Lander spoke gently, and in a calm voice, but +her face was white as snow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The father bent his colorless face to hers, kissed her on +the forehead, and wound his arms around her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God have mercy upon us!” broke from his white lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh God, save him!” trembled upon hers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They would have gone quietly over, but a dozen others, +stricken with new terror by this sudden outburst of flame, +rushed over them and separated the father from his child. +It was like a stampede of wild animals, trampling each +other to death. A whole crowd hurled itself into the deep +at once, blackening the waters one horrible minute and +sinking into eternity the next.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia Lander was borne down with the rest, but she +rose again, crying out as her head reached the surface: +“Father—father—father!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No answer! Men were sinking all around her, but +among all those struggling creatures she could not see him. +She supported herself on the water, shrieking as each man +went down with a mad fear that it was her father whose +death she witnessed. Then, as the waters swallowed those +toiling wretches one by one, she commenced swimming up +and down the black hull of the vessel, pleading with those +who hung by the chains and ropes to tell her if they had +seen him fall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A sweet voice from one of the trailing ropes answered +her at last:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I saw him come down close by the bow,” it said; “he +fell with the great crowd.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was the hunchbacked girl, up to her neck in water, +clinging to a rope.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>Virginia made for the rope, and seizing upon it, dragged +herself up half way from the water, searching right and +left for that one face. She dropped at last, bringing the +girl with her. But for this she would have sunk without a +struggle, weighed down by despair. The child gave a +sharp cry and struggled for the rope again with a last +instinct of life.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While lifted above the water, Virginia had seen the boat +lying at a safe distance, with her cousin in it. She held +the girl up, seizing the rope again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lay your hand on my shoulder; hold firmly, but do +not pull me down,” she said. “We will try for the boat. +Are you afraid?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cling to me, then: do not struggle—one moment—he +may be floating yet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She lifted herself out of the water again and made a last +despairing search for her father. Then, with a moan, she +settled down and told the hunchback how to fasten both +arms around her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girl obeyed without a word, and with her wild eyes +fixed upon the boat, that frail girl gave herself to the deep, +burdened with another human life. Slowly and firmly her +delicate arms smote the water. Her wild eyes were fixed +on the boat, which lay motionless just beyond the fiery glow +of the flames. How cool and quiet it looked. That one +dark spot was life to her, all the rest a grave.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was wonderful how strong and self-possessed she was. +That other life clinging to hers inspired her with a power +of compassion. She could have sunk herself without a +moan; but that helpless soul, she must bear her to a place +of safety. While God gave her strength she would use it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So she moved steadily on, growing weaker and weaker, but +slowly nearing the boat.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Cora Lander saw that face rising above the water +<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>she gave a cry, which the struggling creature heard, it was +so sharp and ringing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take up the oars! Take up the oars! Pull off! pull +off!” she called out to the men.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The men, who had been watching this brave girl struggling +toward them, snatched their oars and pushed forward +to meet her. Cora seized one of them fiercely by the arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not that way—are you mad? They will be upon us +like sharks. How many boats have you seen swamped +before your eyes? Back—back, I say, and out to sea! +We are loaded down already—another would sink us!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man shook her off with horror. He thought that +the two girls were sisters.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Bear away toward the ship, one and all,” he cried +“See that head in the water with its trail of hair, and the +other face behind. They shall be saved if I go overboard +to make room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Human hearts are full of good impulses, say what you +will. Every manly arm in that boat gave its strength to +save those sinking girls.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Pull on; pull away—see, she wavers; her strength is +gone—great Heaven, they will sink, and we so near!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora half started up in the boat, white as death, but +with cruel expectation in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Keep up, keep up—hold on another minute, and we +are with you,” shouted the generous fellow, while the oar +bent under his strong force and the boat plunged forward +like a goaded race-horse.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That brave girl heard the cry, and made another feeble +effort to sustain herself; but the hunchback dragged +heavily upon her and she felt herself going.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is me—it is me—I am sinking you,” cried the sweet +voice, and the slender arms loosened their hold.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no,” broke in a sob from the noble young creature, +as the tightness was removed from her neck. “Clasp +tighter—tighter—God is giving me new strength.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>But the girl dropped away in silence, sunk and rose +again close by the boat, which came up with cautious slowness. +An oar was thrust out for her. She seized it and +was dragged in half suffocated.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A drift of human hair, weltering like sea-weed in the +water, was all that could be seen of Virginia, who was +sinking. The man who had taken command leaped overboard, +gave a plunge and brought her up, senseless.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Make room,” he cried, lifting her up to the hands +stretched out to receive her. “God help us, she may be +dead!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” said that sweet voice once more, “God would not +let her die so. Put her head in my lap; she shall have +some of my life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The hunchback struggled up to a sitting posture in the +bottom of the boat, and they laid Virginia’s head in her +lap, while the man who had saved her took a travelling +flask of brandy from his pocket and poured some of it +through those white lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is she better—will she come to life?” cried Cora +Lander, bending over her. “Does that blue around her +mouth mean death? She is my cousin, sir, and I have a +right to know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is not dead,” answered the hunchback, looking up. +“With my hand here, I can feel her heart stir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The strange creature had forced one of her tiny hands +under the wet garments that lay heavily on Virginia’s +bosom, and found her heart fluttering with faint thrills of +life—so faint, that a rude hand might not have discovered +them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora took up one of her cousin’s hands and began to +chafe it in her own, stopping now and then to feel if there +was a pulse in the wrist.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You feel anxious now,” said the man who had saved +that young creature. “Still, if we had listened to you, she +would have been dead long ago.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>Cora lifted her eyes to his face with something like +defiance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How could I know that it was my cousin?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As I did from the first; sister or cousin, I scarcely +know which, the likeness is so great.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I did not dream of it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still she was a woman struggling for life,” replied the +man, forcing a few more drops of brandy between the lips, +which had parted a little, but were yet without color.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Man or woman, I had no power of knowing,” was the +half reproachful answer. “I, who am so short-sighted.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you seemed to be the first one conscious of her +struggles to reach us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are unkind—almost rude, sir. I saw a crowd of +black objects plunging down the sides of the vessel and +swarming this way. How could we withstand them? If +I begged you not to let them swamp us, was that so very +unfeeling? But you have saved my dear cousin, and I can +forgive all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“See, her lips move—she stirs,” said the low voice of +the hunchback once more. “Let us thank God and be +still.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora crouched down by her cousin, sobbing piteously.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Virgie, dear Virgie, open your eyes and say if I +deserve all this man has been saying! I, who love you +better, a thousand times, than myself! Cousin, cousin, do +you hear me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The hand which she was chafing clasped itself feebly +around her fingers, and a low, gurgling murmur died on +those lips. Then the soft gray eyes opened, and dazzled by +the slanting sunbeams, closed again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it you, Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, cousin—yes, we are safe now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And—and father?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No one answered her. She waited awhile and a spasm +of pain swept over her.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>At last she spoke very, very faintly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is my father here, Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; we have not seen him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia fell back heavily on the hunchback’s lap, and +visible thrills of pain swept over her. At last two great +drops came from under her closed lashes and rolled slowly +down her cheeks. She did not mention her father again, +but lay still while the sunset came and went, leaving the +waters purple around her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boat had drifted slowly off from this burned ship, +which lay a smouldering heap of blackness upon the ocean. +A few human beings were desperately clinging to the bowsprit, +which could be seen cutting blackly against the sky. +But Virginia Lander had no courage to look at the mournful +spectacle, and the boat, with its freight of human souls, +drifted slowly out to sea. The night closed in upon them +with purple warmth awhile, then deepened into a black +void with one fiery spot burning like a red-hot coal through +that chaos. That one glow of fire was the burning ship.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IV.<br> <span class='c011'>THE MANSION ON THE RIVER</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Up the Hudson river—no matter how far—stands a +mansion that would be wonderfully beautiful in any +country where the leaf never falls. In the summer time it +is a splendid place enough even here, for its walls are of +pure white marble, and its architecture Grecian, which +gives you an exquisite idea of coolness and grace scarcely +possessed by any other habitation. It is not exactly a +palace, though many a queen has contented herself in a +home less spacious. But the tall Corinthian pillars that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>gleam through the trees—the balconies sculptured like +snow-wreaths—windows of solid plate glass, so clear that +you scarcely know when they are open or shut—and cornices +wrought with no common chisel, or designed by no +common brain, give you an idea of splendor scarcely less +than royal.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The grounds, too, convey an impression of foreign lands, +for it is the first week in September, and all around this +dwelling, arrayed in wonderful contrast, is the cool green +of closely rolled sward and trees splendidly grouped, +sheltering the blaze and glory of flowers born in every +known country that the sun shines upon. A lawn, large +enough for a small farm, rolls with green breaks and undulations +to the edge of a precipice which terraces it from +the river.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hot-houses and graperies form long avenues of rolling +glass, which the sunshine turns into waves of glittering +silver at noonday, and kindles up with bright golden fires +for an hour before the night closes in. A stretch of woodland +lies to the left, full of shadowy dells and green nooks, +where splendid ferns and young wintergreen are found in +abundance. Here nature holds unmolested reign. The +forest turf is kept clear of brush, and dead branches are +pruned away from the oaks and beech trees, letting the sun +in here and there with a cheerful effect.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Along the outskirts of this grove, between its marginal +trees and the lawn, a pretty upland stream, of no insignificant +depth, has cut a ravine where ash and dogwood +droop and cast the snow of ten thousand blossoms from +year to year. Through the boulders and rocks that break +up this ravine, the stream descends in riotous waterfalls—sleeps +in deep pools—where the speckled trout once led a +deliciously tranquil life—and rushes down to the great river +in miniature breakers that fill the air with music. Two or +three rustic bridges cross this stream, from which pleasant +<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>footpaths lead into the woods, where singing birds answer +back the sweet chime of the waterfalls, and half tame +squirrels leap from bough to bough, rustling the leaves in +harmony with all the other wild, sweet sounds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Back of the house, and away on either hand, lie broad +meadows, rich in a second crop of grass—orchards, just +beginning to droop under the weight of swelling fruit, and +dim woodlands, left to nature only where art fails to give +them possibilities of new beauty.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This is all one domain. Its owner was Amos Lander, +the man whose terrible fate we have recorded in the last +chapter, with that of the steamer in which he had set sail +for America. During ten years of his life, Lander had +retired from business, wealthy, honored, and in all respects +a prosperous man. A large portion of that time he had +devoted to the pleasant task of beautifying and improving +the place which was hereafter to be the home of his darling +child and heiress, Cora Virginia Lander, usually called +Virginia, to distinguish her from her cousin of the same +appellation, who took the other name of Cora.</p> + +<p class='c013'>During the time that these two young girls had been +completing their education under the best teachers of +France and Italy, the kind old man had devoted himself +heart and soul to embellishing this noble home, which was +to be their first grand surprise on returning to their native +land.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Amos Lander had been abroad several times during that +period; for it was impossible for him to live years together +without seeing his child. He was also deeply attached to +that other Cora Virginia, who was the child of his only +brother, left to his bounty and compassion by that brother +on his death-bed. If Amos Lander’s heart was bound up +in his daughter, it was good enough and broad enough to +enfold this orphan child with a love that was almost paternal. +Those who watched his face might have seen by the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>glow of love that his own child was forever uppermost in +that warm heart, but in all his acts he treated the girls +exactly as if they had been sisters, usually called them his +children, and, with delicate tact, avoided such explanations +as would have led to inquiry with regard to their relative +claims on him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Each time that he visited Europe, Lander brought home +statues, exquisite marbles, pictures, bronzes and rare +plants, all intended to beautify the Paradise he was +creating for his child and ward.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Not until the year in which Lander set forth to bring +the girls home had that marble house been complete in all +its appointments; but for some years before the girls went +away it had been the residence of Mrs. Noel Lander, widow +of the brother we have spoken of, and the mother of his +only child, whom we left drifting upon the ocean in a frail +boat, without food and almost without hope.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This woman had never been permitted to feel the poverty +to which the death of an insolvent husband might have +consigned her. In her prosperity, she had been reckless, +extravagant and terribly ambitious. By audacious expenditure +she had attempted to conceal a low origin and many +humiliating antecedents. But while the younger Lander +went backward day by day, everything throve and turned +to gold with Amos. At last the younger brother died, +heart-broken and ruined, leaving his wife destitute, with a +child to encumber her future.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then Amos Lander came forward, forgetting everything +but the brother who had loved this woman, and holding +her very faults sacred for his sake. He took the widow +into his own family, as if she had been a sister in reality. +Her child shared the same nursery and the same lessons +with his own. A good and gentle wife welcomed her ungrudgingly +to a share of her home, her wealth and such +household affection as loving hearts bestow on the bereaved.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>But Amos Lander, noble and generous as he was, fell +into deep grief a year or two after his brother’s widow +became an inmate of his family. The woman whom he +had loved with all his life and soul died suddenly, breaking +up the richest hopes of his life. He was never the same +man after this. Business lost its stimulant, pleasure its +zest. The bloom and brightness of his life was gone. +While he was in this state of mournful apathy, the widow +Lander quietly took possession of all household authority, +and, with adroit kindness, settled herself as mistress of the +family. If her brother-in-law thought of this at all, he +was grateful for it in a passive way, and thus strengthened +her position.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But that did not satisfy her craving nature. She would +be mistress in her own right, not by sufferance. The rich +widower should be brought to acknowledge not only how +needful she was to him, but that he could not live without +her. As his wife she would possess everything that a +nature like hers could desire. His wealth excited her +cupidity, and his position was exalted enough to gratify +even her grasping aspirations. In order to captivate this +man, she brought all the powers of a really fine person and +considerable talent into action. But all her efforts were +insufficient even to arouse their object to a sense of her +wishes. The idea of giving a stepmother to his daughter +never entered the good man’s imagination, and if the +thought had presented itself, the woman whose false ambition +had brought ruin to a beloved brother could not have +been its object. A person who could satisfy herself with +possession without one honorable effort to deserve it was +not likely to attract a man like Lander. Toiling to make +the rich man her victim, she was compelled to live upon his +bounty, and this galled her ambitious spirit to its depths.</p> + +<p class='c013'>About this time she began to hate that generous man +with the quiet, settled hatred which a woman, not scorned +<span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>but neglected, can feel in all its bitterness. This hatred +extended even to his child; but it was never once expressed +by word or action. The widow was dispirited, but she did +not altogether despair. Time frequently carries great contradictions +and improbabilities in his bosom. She could +watch and wait. During several years the widow did keep +her soul in tolerable patience; but there is no human being +so blind as the man who veils his eyes with one grand idea +of the heart. Lander had no future save that which +centred about his child. To him she was the loveliest and +best creature that the sun ever shone upon. Her smile +warmed his heart to the core. Her laugh was all the +music he ever cared to hear. Her breath, as he kissed her, +was like the perfume of roses. Her childish love was absolute +despotism; her tiny hand held his very heartstrings. +Fortunately for him the child grew up good and true-hearted, +like her mother. Beautiful also, but of a different +type from the woman he had lost, whose soft black eyes and +raven hair haunted him to the day of his death with a +sweet remembrance of beauty, perfect in its kind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>As a lily breathes the perfume of kindred lilies, this +child possessed all that was brightest and sweetest about +her mother, the tender smile and loving expression—while +she was like her father’s family in form and glowing +warmth of color. These latter traits she shared alike with +her less fortunate cousin, but the expression was all her +own.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Time wore on and there was little change. Amos +Lander was kind to his brother’s widow, and more than +kind to his orphan niece, who inherited all her low-born +mother’s taste for splendor and thirst for wealth. He loved +them, too, in a secondary way, because one looked like his +idol and the other had been in many ways useful to her +childhood. Besides, the brother who was dead had been +very dear to him. So, next to the one being who possessed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>him supremely, these two persons stood nearest to his +affections.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Things were in this state when Amos Lander took his +last voyage, with the purpose of bringing the young girls +home. He left Mrs. Noel Lander in full charge of the +mansion, and at last she felt the joy and glory of supreme +command. No person born to luxury could have enjoyed +it with the zest which this woman experienced when she +found herself mistress of that almost princely establishment. +She took her enjoyments to the full as they arose, +like a humming-bird that leaves no drop of sweetness in +the honeysuckle for want of vigorous shaking. The +choicest of everything in that luxurious dwelling had +already been appropriated to her own use. Her chamber +window looked out on the brightest flower-beds and coolest +trees. Of all the rare objects gathered in the mansion, she +selected what seemed to her most valuable and gorgeous for +her own rooms and personal use. The woman loved her +daughter, it is true, but not as she worshipped herself, not +as a good mother loves her child.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was sitting at breakfast—this woman who seemed +at this time little better or worse than her fellow-creatures—she +was getting anxious about the steamer, and had +asked more than once for the morning papers, though it +was hardly time for the train which brought them up the +river to be in. Still her anxiety failed to diminish an appetite +which was both keen and fastidious. She went on +with her breakfast with a relish—picked out the dainty +white meat from the breast of a nicely-broiled chicken +which lay on a plate of china, and disturbed the little +island of cream that floated on her coffee with a gold spoon, +which she stopped now and then to examine with a sensuous +enjoyment of possession.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wonder how I ever got along without these things,” +she said, laying down her spoon and leaning back to survey +<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>the apartment. “How rich and bright it looks. This is +the joy of wealth—well-grounded wealth—for, next to that +girl, he loves us, and an estate like his can bear dividing—a +moiety of it is riches. But then, if he should die without +a will—if this belated steamer should be lost, I am a +beggar. I, who shudder in my sleep, dreaming of the old +times when I was sent barefooted on a cold October morning +to search for the cows browsing in some swamp before +we could hope for a meagre breakfast of hasty pudding and +milk. What if I come to that in the end? Could I do +anything to prevent it? So many years of comforts like +these have left me helpless as a child. Great Heavens, I +wish the steamer would come! it terrifies me to think of +this one black chance! David—David, is not that the +whistle?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The waiter thus addressed—who was bringing in a fruit-dish +on which lay two magnificent clusters of hot-house +grapes, purple and amber-hued, blending their tints in +luscious ripeness—came forward and placed the fruit before +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, madam, that is a passing boat, but the train is due +now, and John is waiting at the depot. We shall have the +papers directly, never fear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander bent over the dish of fruit, touching it +daintily with her finger.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When were these cut?” she inquired, rather sharply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At sunset yesterday, I believe, madam.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take them to the kitchen, and order the gardener to +bring me some fresh from the vines,” she said; “and see +that this does not happen again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, madam. It is not often that you ask for fruit at +breakfast; that is how it happened, I suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The possibility that I may ask should be enough,” was +the haughty answer. “There—there—surely that is the +train. Run and meet John. Bring me the papers at +once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_53'>53</span>“But the grapes, madam?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, yes. It will scarcely make a minute’s difference. +Go to the gardener. See, John is coming up the terrace +steps, walking fast. Go—go—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman was really agitated, and her hand shook as +she reached it forth to receive the papers, which John gave +her with unusual hesitation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you read—have you seen anything?” she demanded, +in a voice made sharp with anxiety.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She opened the paper as she spoke and looked at the first +page.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<span class='sc'>An Ocean Steamer Burned at Sea.</span>”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman read this and uttered a cry of pain, so sharp +and sudden that David, who was half way to the kitchen, +ran back in affright. Mrs. Lander had fallen forward in +her chair, with one hand pressed to her side; quick spasms +swept over her face, and she shook from head to foot. +David stooped to take up the paper, which had fallen to the +floor; but she snatched it from him, and clenching each +hand on an edge of the sheet, made a desperate effort to +hold it still and read, with some fortitude, the awful calamity +which had befallen her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Burned to the water—all lost! All lost! Great +Heavens, this is awful!” she cried, dashing the paper from +her and sinking back in her chair, shocked and trembling. +“Read it,” she added, “read it, and search out if any one +was saved—the words run like vipers before my eyes, I +cannot make them out! Read, and if they are all dead tell +me at once and let the blow kill me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>David took the paper from her shaking hand and read +down the first column, which was half capitals. She +watched him with a shrinking terror in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All! all! are they all gone?” she said, with a struggle +of the voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some boats put out, but they were swamped; eighteen +persons were found clinging to the bowsprit—”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_54'>54</span>“Men or women?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Men—all men. The women had jumped overboard.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My child! my child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A pang of womanly anguish broke forth in this cry—for +one moment the mother forgot everything save that her +child was dead. This outburst of true sorrow touched the +men who witnessed it with compassion. David knelt +before her and attempted to chafe her cold hands; she +wrung them from him with passionate violence and buried +her face in them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, it has come to pass—it has come to pass! I am a +beggar again!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two men looked at each other, wondering. The +woman dashed her hands apart, burst into a fierce laugh, +and slid from the cushions of her chair to the carpet in +strong hysterics. She was taken up with her eyes set and +the white upper lip curved back from her teeth, shrieking +like a maniac. The burden of her cry was, “I am a beggar—I +am a beggar!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER V.<br> <span class='c011'>THE IRON SAFE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The two men carried Mrs. Lander to her room and laid +her down on the white bed, with a canopy of lace falling +mercifully over the selfishness of her agony. Through the +delicate frost-work of this lace they watched her writhe and +moan like a spirit in torment. A woman servant came in +but dared not approach the bed, for the cries that broke +from under that cloud of lace appalled her. So the servants +stood together in a helpless group, gazing wistfully at +one another, shocked and irresolute. They all wanted to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span>help and comfort her, but were afraid. At last the woman +started up on the bed and flung back the volumes of lace +that shut her in, with a wild sweep of one arm. Her +breakfast cap, with its fresh rose-colored trimming, had +fallen off, and lay in a knot of matted lace and ribbon +under the hand upon which she leaned. Her hair, scarcely +yet touched with gray, fell in a coil to her shoulder and +slowly untwisted there like a serpent troubled with sluggish +life. The spasms had left her face cold and white, but +full of keen intelligence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“David,” she said, in a shrill whisper, “come here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man approached her and bent his head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have his keys—bring them here. He was sorting +papers the night before he left. There is a will! The +keys—the keys of his desk, I tell you; I want to look for +the will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, madam—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush! Do not say it—do not dare to say it! I +know there was a will. Lander was not a fool or bad +enough to go to sea without a will. So bring the keys, and +when I find it you shall have five hundred dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She whispered this in his ear with the craft of an insane +person, and watched his face keenly to mark the effect +made by her promise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>David, who was Mr. Lander’s confidential man, hesitated +what to do. If his master was dead, this lady would be, +in fact, the person who had a right to command him. He +knew nothing of the law in such cases, and had no one +wiser than himself to consult with.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give me the keys, I will have them,” said Mrs. +Lander, imperatively.</p> + +<p class='c013'>David went to his room and brought down his master’s +keys with evident reluctance. The offer of five hundred +dollars had aroused unpleasant suspicions in his mind. +Mrs. Lander took the keys quietly, for her mind had regained +<span class='pageno' id='Page_56'>56</span>its firmness somewhat, and even in that hysterical +fit was active for her own interests. She twisted the loose +hair up from her shoulders, and flung a shawl over her +white morning dress, which had been crushed and torn +about the neck in her struggles.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will ring for you if any help is wanted,” she said, +looking David steadily in the eyes, for she saw by his face +that he was prepared to follow her. Her coolness impressed +the man so decidedly that she had left the room before he +could find words for an opposing answer. When she was +gone, the two servants stood gazing at each other. John +gravely shook his head. Both these men had been under +Mr. Lander’s employ long before he gave up active business, +and were better educated than the common run of servants. +Having followed their old employer into private life out of +pure gratitude and affection, they still kept a vigilant eye +on his interests, and mutually disliked the woman who had +just walked away from them with such hard self-possession.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I tell you, Dave, she’s a clipper,” said John, with a sob +in his voice. “Take care—take care. Who knows what +the law will do with this place and all that belonged to +him? That poor, pretty child too. Down in the deep, +black water—think of it! think of it!—with her yellow +hair, and them eyes shut and cold! I seem to see her now! +They went together, Dave; I’ll be bound they went down +with their arms around each other. Oh, it’s hard! it’s +hard!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But about Mrs. Noel, John; I don’t like this. She +come to, awful sudden for an honest woman. What right +has she, after all, in Mr. Lander’s office, or study, as she +calls it? None at all. I tell you, Eben Stone is the only +man who has a right to those keys, and I’ve been a fool to +give ’em up.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s a fact, if one had but the heart to realize it—but +I can’t—I can’t—with him and her under water,” +<span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>answered John, wringing his hands in genuine sorrow. +“All that he had seems to be nothing compared to them +two lives.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I tell you what I will do, John,” answered David, +whose grief was too deep for much expression. “I’ll +jump onto the down train and bring Eben Stone up here. +He’ll know what is right, and do it—women or no women.” +“Yes, I would,” answered John. “To think that a +woman could start up in the midst of a fit like that and +ask for keys! Yes, I’d do it. Eben Stone’s the man to +settle her. Bring him up, Dave.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>David went into the back entrance hall for his hat, and +John followed him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As a general thing, I don’t think <a id='t57'></a>peeking and listening +through keyholes just honorable,” he whispered, “but +for this once I reckon I’ll do it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>David shook his head and hurried out of the hall, for the +rattle of a distant train admonished him that there was no +time to lose. John turned another way and, with the feeling +of a heavy weight upon his shoulders, crept up the +back stairs, resolved to find out what the widow was doing +in his master’s study, and yet honestly ashamed of the +method forced upon him. But he found the door locked +and heard no sound within.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Lander’s study or business office was in the second +story, remote from the bed-chambers, and in the back part +of the house. He had been a man of fine natural tastes, +and there was an excellent sense of fitness in all his +arrangements which made that entire dwelling like a well-studied +poem. There was little ornament in this room. +Devoted as it was to the practical realities of life, everything +connected with it was plain and simple. A heavy +black walnut desk, almost entirely devoid of carving; a case +or two of the same sombre wood filled with papers, and a +solid iron safe built in the wall, composed the principal +<span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>articles of furniture. Three office chairs, cushioned with +green leather, a basket for waste papers, now entirely empty, +and a severely plain gas burner of bronze upon the desk, +completed the room. The walls were frescoed in panels of +dove-color, pointed with green, and even the mantelpiece +was one solitary picture—that of a little girl sitting on the +grass and taking off her shoe, with a roguish, naughty +expression of the face that made you love the golden-haired +imp even on canvas. Here, in this business office, where +no other signs of luxury were allowed to creep, Mr. Lander +had installed the shadow of his child, the creature for whom +he thought, and calculated, and saved gold by thousands, +loving the exertion because it might bring power and happiness +to her in the distant hereafter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Mrs. Lander entered this room a dreary chill fell +upon her. Everything was so orderly, so clean and cold, +that it seemed like forcing her way into a death chamber. +But after one half moment’s pause she walked in resolutely, +sat down in one of the office chairs and unlocked a principal +compartment of the desk. It was full of papers neatly +arranged in packages and labelled with the methodical precision +of an old business man. She took up these packages +one by one, and re-arranged them carefully. Her face was +no longer pale, but hot with a living red. Her eyes, vivid +and keen, darted from package to package with the quick +scrutiny of a lawyer.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Nothing that she wanted was there, and with her lips +compressed till their sensual fullness almost disappeared, +she closed the desk and locked it with a sharp wrench of +disappointment. Then her eyes fell on the iron door +which enclosed the safe, and her face lighted up. What a +fool she had been to waste so much precious time at the +desk when the most important papers must be in the safe, +which up to that moment she had overlooked. In the +palm of her left hand she held a key, unlike the others, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>but whose secret she understood. She paused a moment +with her hand on the closet door—made a rapid calculation +and applied the flat key. Then the heavy door swung +open, and this was followed by an eager and quick rustling +of paper. Directly she came forth from the iron closet +with a folded paper in her hand. Her face was flushed +scarlet, her eyes fairly scintillated with triumph. She unfolded +the large sheet and devoured its contents eagerly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As I thought—as I knew,” she said, aloud, pressing +down the paper on the desk with both her hands. “To +Virginia. After her, if she dies childless, Cora—then, +then me—me—me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her voice rang through the room clear and exultant; +she stooped her face and kissed the paper passionately, as if +it had been a living soul. Then she fell to perusing it +again, and a dead white blank settled on her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, this is too much—too much—too much! It hurls +me down a precipice—I can grasp at nothing. This sick +faintness—no, no, I must shake it off, or they will come +and find me here and it thus.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman thought herself wholly alone, and her passion +was so great that she spoke aloud with rash vehemence. +At last she grew quiet and leaned over the desk, +pressing it hard with both elbows, while her white face +pored over the paper with the blank dreariness of despair.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Great Heavens, what am I to do—what can I do?” +she muttered at last, starting from the chair. “All this so +near, so certain to pass from me. It is hard—it is terribly +cruel!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She paced the floor with quick, impetuous steps, then +new thoughts crept over her, from which she shrunk shivering +at first, as if they had been vipers. Then her movements +became slow and measured, her face hardened to a +more deadly white, and taking up the paper, she folded it +carefully, and withdrawing it when half way to her pocket, +placed it in her bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>A little time after this, John, who had been baffled in his +attempt to watch all these proceedings, met Mrs. Lander in +the upper hall moving toward her own suite of rooms. She +stopped and spoke to him with the grave sweetness of a +person who had striven to resign herself to inevitable +bereavement.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I could not examine anything in that room,” she said. +“The effort was too much. Where is David? To-morrow +he must go to the city and summon Mr. Lander’s man of +business, who knows something of the law, I think.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“David has gone now,” said John, bluntly. “I dare +say Mr. Stone will reach here before night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman started and drew a sharp breath, but the +keys in her hand gave an assurance of power, and she +merely said:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed, I am glad of it. Where does Mr. Stone live +in the city? I mean, where is his place of business?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>John gave the required information. She thanked him +with an air of sorrowful abstraction, and turned into a +little sitting-room that opened alike from the hall and her +bed-chamber.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VI.<br> <span class='c011'>EUNICE HURD.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>In this pretty room Mrs. Lander found a woman who +had for years acted partly as her maid, partly as a general +superintendent of the household. This person was some +years older than herself, with plenty of gray in her red +hair, and a greenish tinge in her eyes, which had all the +watchfulness of a cat’s without the slumbrous softness +peculiar to that animal.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>The woman had no sign of grief on her hard face, but +turned upon her mistress with the sharp vigilance of a fox.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it true?” she said. “All sunk or buried—is it +true?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Eunice, it is true,” was the faint answer.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dreadful death! No wonder you look white,” said the +woman with curt sympathy. “What’ll become of us, I +should like to know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I listen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Put on your bonnet and shawl, then walk to the telegraph +station just as fast as you can.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What about, Eliza Landers? I ain’t used to being +sent on errands, and won’t agree to it, nohow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It must be done; I can trust no one else just now. +Got your things. It is only a message that I must send to +New York.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman arose and went out. Mrs. Landers sat down +to her writing table and wrote this message for Eben +Stone:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Get me all the facts of this terrible disaster. Learn +everything, and come to me at once. A messenger has +gone to you, but in my grief I gave him no instructions. +If it is true, be here to-morrow at the latest. I can do +nothing without you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take this,” she said, when Eunice returned, “and tell +them to send it at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice took the paper and went out, reading it as she +walked.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Make out that word for me—she writes like spider +tracks—what is it?” she said, addressing John, whom she +met on the stairs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>John read the message, and went away heartily ashamed +of his suspicions. Eunice threw a glance at him over her +shoulder and proceeded on her errand smiling grimly. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>That woman understood her mistress thoroughly, and served +her well.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This will give me time, which is everything,” reflected +the widow as she saw Eunice crossing the lawn with her +quick, springy step. “He cannot go about town, gather up +facts and reach this place before to-morrow. That secures +twenty-four hours. If I could but force myself into composure +now. This tremor is what men call nervousness, I +suppose. How it shakes one! But an iron will should +make iron nerves. I cannot afford to be weak; but when +I think of my girl—my bright, proud girl, how I long to +lie down and moan the pain out of my heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She looked out of the window, pausing there in her restless +walk, and saw Eunice coming up from the station with +the straw bonnet pushed back on her head and walking forward +with great, rapid strides. How coarse and vulgar she +looked with the velvet grass and the glow of richly grouped +flowers all around her. It was the wonder of Mrs. Lander’s +friends that she had kept this woman about her person so +long. Without taste in dress or kindness as a servant, +even, she had for years and years managed to make herself +of consequence to this luxurious woman in a way that no +one could understand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While Mrs. Lander stood by the window, Eunice came +into the room, treading down the moss-like pile of the +carpet with her heavy shoes. The widow was singularly +fastidious about these things, but she never rebuked +Eunice, who just then flung off her shawl with a jerk that +swept a Parian vase, all frosted over with snow-flowers, +from a console close by, and dashed it into fragments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That comes of crowding up everything with trash +that’s of no more use than moonshine,” she snarled, casting +vicious glances at her mistress. “I wish you’d call +somebody to sweep up the splinters—I’m out of breath, +and won’t.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>Mrs. Lander stooped down and began to gather up the +fragments herself. If she intended a rebuke by this +action, it was a failure, for the woman shot one of the +largest fragments toward her mistress with the toe of her +shoe while untying her bonnet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As well you as I,” she muttered, trampling another +fragment to white powder in the carpet. “I sent your +message, and all the house knows that I’ve done it—a +thing that you’d never have thought of with all your +brains.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That was well. I am glad of it,” Mrs. Lander answered, +apparently unconscious of her servant’s insolence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You want something else of me, I suppose, by the +meek way you take things,” continued the maid. “What +is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, what is it, I say agin?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have not practised writing much lately, I suppose?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a bit—who accuses me of it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you have not forgotten how, entirely, have you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That depends on how much on it is to be done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You can write your name, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Which name?” questioned Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The name you are known by here,” answered Mrs. +Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never signed it more than twice in my life—felt like a +thief—if the old folks had been alive wouldn’t a done it. +But, after all, a woman must earn her bread and butter in +some way, now what was that you wanted. Now come to +the mark—what is it you’re driving at?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, you have always been faithful to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course I have—why not?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the secrets we have had together were nothing +compared to this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>“Well, out with it. Don’t beat this bird around the +bush—it’s of no use.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander took the will from her bosom and held it +open before her maid.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You can read writing, I know. Try and understand +that,” she said, in a hoarse whisper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice read the paper from beginning to end twice over +with the carefulness of a lawyer. Then she dropped the +hand which held it to her side and looked into the white +face of her mistress, which was half averted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I understand it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are no coward, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; but here are three of these catecornered bits of +paper. Who does the other belong to? A good deal depends +on that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your brother—is he about the stables now?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I reckon so, his supply of whisky has been kept up +regular as you ordered.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But is he sober?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He’s always sober when his drink comes regular. I’ve +told you so fifty times.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, can we trust him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can, and that’s enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will speak to him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s what you haven’t done these three months, and +Josh feels it awfully, I can tell you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it so long? But he never comes near the house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because his business is in the stables.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, bring him here this evening after the rest are in +bed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No I won’t; he stomps like a horse, and they’d hear +him stombling up the marble stairs. Go into his room +yourself. It’s over the carriage-house; he sleeps there +alone. You walk like a cat, and I’ll try the pussy-dodge +for once in a pair of your quilted silk slippers. My feet +<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>are small as yours, if I have got sandy hair and high +shoulders.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander mused deeply for a minute, during which +she took the paper from Eunice and folded it again, then +she said, with a strange oblivion of her servant’s rude +speech:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps you are right, Eunice; Joshua so seldom +comes to the house, that it might cause remark; but you +must see him first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course I must.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will never forget this act of devotion,” said the lady, +with feeling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t mean that you shall,” was the curt rejoinder. +“But I want to know one thing before we go a single step +further. Is there such a thing as a genuine goose-quill +pen on these premises. I wouldn’t use one of them steel +or gold things to save—no, I don’t think I’d do it to save +myself from getting married, or you from being just as +poor as I am, lady as you are. And as for Josh—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is not a pen of the kind in the house, Eunice, I +am sure.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then we may as well shut up shop. If there was a +goose on the premises, now, I’d soon manufacture a pen +worth while. Goodness, now I’ve just thought of it. +There’s my white fan, that I’ve had ever since you got—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True as the bible. Well, as I was saying about the +fan—it’s got enough quills in it for a dozen pens; so that +hash is settled. Just hunt up that little gimcrack knife +with the gold handle, that you keep in what you call the +dressing-case, and sharpen it up well before I come back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander opened her dressing-case and let out a +bright glitter of gold from its scent bottles and pomade +boxes, while she took out a little knife and began to +sharpen it, obedient as a child to the curt directions of her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>own servant. Her hand trembled a little in the operation, +for she was a woman and a mother, after all—terribly +bereaved, and, though intensely selfish, not altogether +without natural feeling. Eunice came back directly with +an old fan, which had once been white, in her hands. This +she tore apart with something that sounded almost like a +sigh.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He gave me this the day you bought him off with a +hundred dollar bill and sent him arter that other girl. +I’ve kept it nigh upon twenty-five years, and now it’s got +to be torn up for you agin. It had a pink ribbon in it +once, but that consarned young-un of yours tore it out for +a doll’s sash—the little—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Eunice, Eunice!—Don’t, don’t!—She is dead, she +is dead!” cried the mother, with a sharp outburst of +anguish.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So she is,” answered Eunice, pausing in her work of +destruction on the fan. “I’d forgotten that. Well, don’t +shiver and shake so. I didn’t mean it. Here now, try +and see if you can make a pen worth while, and do stop +taking on—it fidgets me like anything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The quill which Eunice held out was a forlorn looking +thing, pierced with a wire which had left its rust behind +and moth-eaten in its plumage, but the heart of that +strange creature yearned after it with coarse tenderness, +for it had been a keepsake from the sole lover of her long +barren life—the only possession she had connected with a +sentiment. When the pretty knife in Mrs. Lander’s hand +rasped its way through the quill, the pang of regret which +rose in that hard bosom ended in a growl, half rage, half +pain.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give it to me,” she said, “you cut like a butcher. +That’s no way to make a pen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice snatched the quill and knife—crowded herself up +close to a window with her back to her mistress, and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>fashioned a rude pen, which was pointed on her thumbnail.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There,” she said, locking both pen and knife in the +dressing-case, “that job’s done. Now I’ll go and find +Josh. But do chirk up a little, that tallowy face fairly +makes me sick. Take something, now do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She searched among the crystal toilet bottles in the next +room for some restorative, for her mistress was faint and +exhausted, but found nothing to satisfy her, and went to +her own room for a huge bottle of camphor, which was the +only stimulant she had faith in. When she returned Mrs. +Lander lay back in her chair, with closed eyes, lips perfectly +bloodless and quivering with distress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This won’t do—so just come out of it,” cried Eunice, +in a rage. “I scorn and despise a person who gives up +half way. There, there, if that don’t bring you right up +to the mark, nothing on earth will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice dashed a quantity of camphor into the hollow of +her palm as she spoke and held it under Mrs. Lander’s nose, +spite of the faint struggles made against it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Fainting away—I never saw you mean enough for that +before. What has come over you?—getting childish in +your old age?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Eunice, don’t reproach me. Just that moment I +realized so keenly that she was dead, and I all alone in the +world,” said the poor mother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All alone; ain’t I with you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A broken sigh was all the answer Eunice got for this consolatory +suggestion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, thank you, I am better now, Eunice. Take the +bottle away, it strangles me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course, but it has brought you to just as I expected. +Now lie down while I go and have a talk with Josh. If I +find you in that way when I come back, don’t ask me to +help you out, for I won’t.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VII.<br> <span class='c011'>BROTHER AND SISTER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Eunice found her brother Joshua in his room over the +carriage-house, busy with a harness which he was putting +in order. This man was a heavy, shambling fellow, +younger by ten years than Eunice, and every way unlike +her in person, save that he had the same sandy complexion. +His limbs were short and stout, his countenance sullen, and +his movements sluggish. He looked up as Eunice entered +and nodded his head, but fell to work again without +speaking.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua,” said Eunice, “you have heard of what has +happened, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, the coachman was telling me of it. But it won’t +hurt us, will it? The place is left all the same.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it’s ten chances to one if <i>she</i> stays in it,” said +Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ha! what’s that? If <i>she</i> goes, why what’s to become +of us?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s what I come to talk about, Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Josh-u-a! Well, now, what has come over you to be +so polite? Want something, I know, but what?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She wants something of you, brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brother! How loving we are all at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come this way, Josh, if you like that better; see that +no one is about, first. There, sit down close by me on +these carriage rugs, and speak low.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua sat down on the pile of rugs where Eunice had +placed herself and prepared to listen, with his legs +stretched out and the soles of his coarse shoes turned toward +the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>For the first time almost in her life Eunice spoke low +and in cautious words. It was a long time before she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>could make herself thoroughly understood, and after the +sense of her conversation had settled on that sluggish mind +moments of sullen hesitation followed, which aggravated +the hot temper of the woman almost beyond endurance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it sartin that the gal is dead?” he muttered at last.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certain. No woman was saved. Some got into the +boats, but they were all swamped.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And <i>she</i> will be turned out doors.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, a brother’s wife isn’t a natural heir, you know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t know nothing about it—but it’ll sarve her right—hang +her, what kind of feeling has she got, cutting down +a feller’s licker and stinting off his wages. That wasn’t +according to promise; darn her, she needn’t come to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you and I will have to go, or work like dogs for +what we get. You don’t like hard work more than I do, +Josh; but we shall get enough of it if she’s driven out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua fell into thought here, and, dropping his chin on +his chest, pondered over this rather unpleasant aspect of +his affairs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will she stop interfering with my drink?” he said at +last.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I promise that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And give me a decent bed. I’m tired of sleeping on +horse blankets.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will send a mattress out this very day, with plenty +of bedding and a carpet, if you want one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Which I don’t—wasn’t brought up on one; but the old +folks did somehow or other make out to give us beds to +sleep on.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you shall have everything. Would you rather be +coachman or wait in the house?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Neither one nor t’other; shouldn’t I make a figger +with them fancy coats on, stuck up on a high seat like—oh, +git out with yer nonsense! As for the house, you’d a been +a tarnal sight wiser if you’d kept out of that. Why, there +<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>ain’t no more gentility in one of us than you’d find in a +bush fence. It’s like putting young crows in a brown +thrasher’s nest. No, no, I’ll stay where I am, and potter +about just as I’ve a mind to. She needn’t talk about permotion +to me. It’s too late, I’m Josh Warner—beg your +pardon, Josh Hurd—and nothing else can be made of me. +She must let me alone, give a little extra chink when I +want it, and never put no more of her restrictions on the +licker.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will promise all you want of her own accord, +Joshua, and I will see that you get all that she promises,” +was the conciliatory reply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her come then,” was the sullen answer. “But +send out a lamp of some kind; she ain’t used to seeing +candles stuck in a blacking bottle, and might turn up her +nose. Let her come, Eunice, and I’ll make my own bargain—consarn +her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua scrambled to his feet with this concluding speech, +and fell to work on the harness. Eunice watched him for a +moment in grim displeasure, but gathered herself up and +went away not altogether satisfied, for she saw that Joshua +understood the situation and was disposed to make the +most of it. Up to this time both she and her mistress had +underrated his stupid cunning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Eunice returned to the house, she found her +mistress prostrate on the bed with the curtains gathered so +close that the vague outlines of her form and a wild glitter +of the eyes were all that could be seen through them. She +lay like a wounded animal in its lair racked with anguish +but vigilant for her own safety. The closing of a door or +a heavy footstep threw her into a trembling fit, but her +thoughts were keenly at work all the time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice had no mercy on a state of feelings of which she +was and ever would be profoundly ignorant. So she swept +the volumes of lace aside and looked down upon the +suffering woman with harsh contempt.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>“Well, sob away; I suppose you will cry it out sooner +or later,” she said. “I’ve seen Josh; he’s growly, as I +expected, but I talked him over, and if you promise fair +he’ll be on hand.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What time is it now, Eunice?” asked the suffering +lady.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nigh upon two o’clock, I reckon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Eunice, I should so like to be still a little while!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, why don’t you? There is nothing to be done +afore dark, when everybody is abed. Stay alone and cry it +out, if you want to, I shan’t interfere.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you Eunice,” said the mistress, meekly. +“There is such a struggle here, and here, that it kills me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The wretched woman laid a hand on her heart, then +touched her forehead, sighing heavily as she spoke.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take one at a time, that’s my advice; give up the +head and tussle it out with that tormenting thing you call +a heart. Thank goodness, I never felt nothing there worth +crying over. But to-night, when the time comes, just shut +down the water-gates and give that head of yourn a +chance. Grief is grief but business is business; mind +that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice dropped her arms, and the curtains settled over +her mistress with the pliant fall of new snow. Seized by +a vague instinct of humanity, she closed the blinds and +filled the room with merciful twilight, then stole out on +tiptoe with a caution that made her shoes creak dismally, +and sent a shudder from the bed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hour after hour Mrs. Lander lay upon her bed praying +for a moment’s sleep, which would not come. Her first +passion of tears had, as Eunice predicted, set her mind free, +and it came out of her great burst of grief hard and sharp +as steel. Shall I tell you how this woman reasoned there in +her solitude? Do not think it unnatural, for such things +may exist in human nature—up from her worldly heart +<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>came consolation in this form, even when she was weeping +for her lost daughter:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Had she lived, I must have been dependent still—worse +off than ever, for even as a child she was haughty and +selfish—and he was generous as the sun. But—but she +<i>was</i> my daughter, my only child—my hope, my beautiful, +beautiful darling!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here came a great flood of anguish, which proved the +natural motherhood of the woman, but directly her keen +selfishness broke through.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mistress of all this—unrestricted and young enough to +think of a future—no, no, I could not give it up. What +do these half-cousins, to whom the law awards it, know of +wealth and its uses? Besides he wished it. The will is +every word in his own handwriting; never was a man’s +desires made more positive. Then, I shall do so much good +with the money. Let it pass from me, and the poor would +be great sufferers. But above all, he wished it. He gave +it to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus the woman reasoned in her tears and wept in her +reasoning. She would doubtless have given up the property +could that sacrifice have brought his child to life. But +with the certainty of her death, the possession of wealth +was a consolation the sweetness of which she began to taste +keenly even at this early moment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Toward night Eunice came into the chamber with a cup +of strong tea and some toast, of which Mrs. Lander partook. +After this she became restless and walked her room +to and fro, watching the crescent of a new moon which +just smiled on the lovely landscape and died out pleasantly, +like the dimples on an infant’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last the door opened and Eunice threw a black shawl +into the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cover up that white dress from top to toe,” she said. +“They are all hived up for the night. Come along.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>There was no sound upon the stairs—scarcely the rustle +of a dress, to tell when those women went out or came in. +Two waving shadows flitted across the grounds, followed by +the sound of a deeply-drawn breath, as the stable door +opened and closed with noiseless caution. Then a rough +head appeared at the window a moment, and the light +seemed to go out. Some thick, dark substance had been +drawn over the glass.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this precaution seemed useless. No one was watching. +The grounds lay shadowy and quiet in the calm +night. The slow sweep of the river rose above the sounds +of wakeful insects that chirped their tiny music in the +leaves. All at once the roar and rush of an engine thundering +along the road startled the two women, who had left +the stable and were creeping through the shrubbery on +their way back to the house. The sound frightened them, +neither could have told why, and they ran forward breathlessly. +The front door being farthest from the household, +stood open, but there was a long stretch of the marble +pavement which they were compelled to pass in reaching it. +Before leaving the shrubbery, they paused to listen to the +tread of feet coming up a flight of steps cut along the face +of a stone precipice which lifted the lawn above the river. +Two men were evidently coming up from the railroad, +which wound along the foot of this precipice, and a few +moments would bring them in sight of the house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is David and that man,” whispered Mrs. Lander. +“They will find the door open. What shall we do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Run for dear life,” answered Eunice, and gathering up +her skirts, she made a vigorous rush for the portico.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander followed close, keeping inside of the pillars, +and scarcely allowing her feet to touch the marble pavement.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There they come,” whispered Eunice, pausing for one +instant to reconnoitre. “I can see their heads—now for +it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>The next instant both the women stood in the entrance +hall, clinging together and panting for breath. Eunice +shook off her mistress, closed the door with noiseless +slowness, drew a bolt and turned the key in its lock.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now get rid of that and go to your room. It’s natural +that I should be up,” she whispered. “I give you ten +minutes to get all right. Hark!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two men were outside the portico, walking across +the terrace. Eunice took off her blanket shawl, and groping +her way to the rack at the lower end of the hall, hung +it up with other out-door garments, and stood in the dark, +waiting.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The sharp ring of a bell sounded through the stillness of +the house. Another and another peal. Then Eunice came +forward and called out to know who was there.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is I—David and Mr. Stone,” was the reply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice struck a match, lighted the hall lamp, and then +deliberately opened the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is fortunate I was up,” she said. “The Madam has +been taking on so, I was afraid to go to sleep. Have you +any news, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing more than the papers give,” answered the +lawyer. “Poor lady, it must be a dreadful blow for her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Awful,” answered Eunice. “She hasn’t lifted head +from the pillow since morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The faint sound of footsteps and the trail of a dress +came from above just as Eunice uttered these words. She +caught a quick breath and went on:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear me, that must be her! She’s heard the door bell, +and guesses that it’s you. It’s enough to break one’s heart +to go up and tell her there’s nothing to hope for; but it must +be done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Say that I will see her in the morning,” said the +lawyer, placing his hat on the hall stand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ll go to her at once and have the worst over, or she’ll +<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span>be wandering through the house all night. David, you +take Mr. Stone to his room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With this Eunice went up stairs abruptly, leaving the +two men to take care of themselves.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER VIII.<br> <span class='c011'>FINDING THE WILL.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>There was a heavy rain falling the next morning, and +the whole house took a dreary aspect, spite of the fragrance +that came up from the flowers with every light gush of +wind, and the cheerful adornments of the breakfast-room, +which overlooked one of the loveliest pictures that domain +could produce. At another time there might have been a +pleasant variety in this stormy day, for the shifting clouds +were beautiful, and gleams of sunshine now and then +struggled through the trees, bathing them with light for +an instant, then throwing them back into the mingled fog +and glitter of a fresh burst of rain.</p> + +<p class='c013'>One grand old willow stood out on the lawn just before +the bay window, with its great boughs dripping down to +the grass a mighty fountain of leaves, and the window +itself was curtained with crimson, flowering honeysuckles, +threaded about the lower sash with white jessamines, over +which ten thousand rain-drops trembled and fell away, +dashing the broad window-panes with little rivulets of +brightness. The room itself was both elegant and comfortable. +Fruit and flower paintings in harmony with the +scene without hung from the walls. The table itself was a +picture, with its delicate china, its cut crystal and +frosted silver. Yet the lawyer who sat there alone took no +heed of these things. His mind was on the ocean with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>that burning ship, for Mr. Lander had been his friend, +and he had regarded that bright-haired child, the daughter, +with no common affection.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The only picture in the room was a portrait of this girl, +taken when she was perhaps ten years old. It was larger +and less childish than the picture which hung in Mr. Lander’s +office, but there was no mistaking the identity. She +sat with her arms folded on a desk, looking wearily at an +open book, which contained, no doubt, some hard lesson; +other volumes lay scattered on the desk, which added to her +disquiet; tears were brimming into her eyes, and you could +almost fancy the lips beginning to quiver.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Stone looked at this picture now and then as he made +a pretence at eating breakfast. The sight of it saddened +him to the heart, and more than once he rested his forehead +on one hand, sighing heavily as if the child had been +his own. He sat in this position when a low, female voice +disturbed him. Mrs. Lander drew towards the table and +took a seat, not as if she intended to partake of the breakfast, +but with the dreary air of one who forces herself to +perform a painful duty.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Stone lifted his massive forehead from the hand +which supported it and turned his eyes kindly upon her. +She was very pale, and her face presented the washed-out +appearance of a woman who had cried all night.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You were looking at her picture,” she said. “It is +like her, poor child. You will find one in every room that +her father occupied much; he doted on her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She was a fine child,” said the lawyer, gently. “They +tell me that you also have lost a daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My only child,” answered the mother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And who are the nearest relatives?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The children of Mr. Lander’s cousin, who died long +ago. They are somewhere out West.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Farmers?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>“I believe so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This will be a fine property for them to fall into—a very +fine property,” said the lawyer, gradually gliding into the +spirit of his profession.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” answered the widow, faintly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you any knowledge of a will, Mrs. Lander?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I—have heard of one, or that he was about to make +one before he went over the seas after the girls; but he +might not have done it. There seemed to be no occasion. +He was not a very old man, and worshipped his daughter, +whose health was perfect. I thought of this yesterday, +and went into his study to look for something of the kind, +but my heart gave way; I could not force myself to touch +his papers, and sent for you. But it is doubtful—very +doubtful if anything is found.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We will have a search. You eat nothing, madam.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot taste a morsel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I have got over what little appetite this news has +left to me; so we will go to my poor friend’s room at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, I would rather not. The very sight of his chair +and desk made me faint when I went in yesterday. Here +are the keys; this, which belongs to the safe, has some +mysterious combination which no one but David comprehends. +But he will go with you—a more trusty creature +never lived.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can believe that,” said the lawyer. “He seems a +smart, honest fellow enough. Let him show me the +room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Stone had arisen by this time and rang the bell. The +sadness which hung around him when alone had vanished +entirely. He took out his watch like a man impatient to +proceed to business. Mrs. Lander kept her seat by the +table and said nothing. She did not seem to know when +David came in and the lawyer followed him from the room. +Eunice entered the breakfast-room soon after, and began to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_78'>78</span>replace some silver on the sideboard, casting sharp glances +at her mistress as she passed to and fro, but there was no +talking between them. Eunice trod softly, and her mistress +seemed to listen with a strain of the senses.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last a slow, heavy tread came down the stairs, and +Mr. Stone entered the breakfast-room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam,” he said, with a distinctness that made the +widow start in her chair, “had Mr. Lander, among the +people about him, any such persons as Eunice and Joshua +Hurd?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“One of them names belongs to me, I calculate,” said +Eunice marching up to the table like a grenadier.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To you, eh? Well, where is the other witness?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The other what?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This Joshua Hurd?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where should he be but somewhere about the stables? +Show me where a hoss is, and I’ll show you Josh Hurd. +Why the critter’s my own brother. But what do you want +of him, if I may be so bold?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he and you sign a paper for Mr. Lander just +before he went away?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest afore he went away. Well I reckon it must a +been nigh on to a week or ten days afore.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you did sign one?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In course we did. I happened to be going by his +office door and he called me in—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He was a writing fast, and kept me till he got through. +I looked on till I got a tired out. Then he signed his +name to the paper, and told me to write mine too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you did?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course I did; then he told me to call John or some +one of the servants, but John was out and I ran across to +the stables for Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you know what this paper was?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span>“Yes; Mr. Lander told me that he was willing away his +property.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer was not quite satisfied, clear and simple as all +this appeared. One of those inexplicable feelings that are +beyond all reason had seized upon him, and unconsciously +he fell into a spirit of sharp cross examination.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Can you find this man, Joshua Hurd? I would like to +speak with him,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In less than no time. He’s always on hand about the +stables,” answered the woman, and she marched off with +an air of relief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander had not spoken during this examination, +but her eyes were bent anxiously on the lawyer, and he +could see that some hard strain of the nerves was harassing +her. This was scarcely more than natural, considering her +position in the family. Still the lawyer watched her with +vague doubts, which he could not himself have accounted +for.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it true? Has a will been found?” she asked, after +a pause which seemed unnaturally long. Her voice was +low and hoarse, her eyes downcast, she did not lift them +fully to his once while she was speaking.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, a will has been found in Mr. Lander’s safe, witnessed +by the woman and a man who is her brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh!” exclaimed the widow, and she fell into silence, +leaning her elbow upon the table and shrouding her face +with one hand. She evinced no curiosity to know how the +property had been left. Was it because she had no hopes +in her own behalf or from the reticence of fore-knowledge?</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer asked himself this question as he gazed at +her from under his heavy eyebrows. The woman seemed +conscious of his scrutiny, and moved in her seat; then her +hand dropped and she lifted her eyes clearly to his.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To whom does the will relate? Where does the property +go?” she asked.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_80'>80</span>He did not answer her; for that moment Eunice came +in, followed by her brother, who seemed restless and uneasy +as the lawyer turned upon him. First he buried a huge +hand in his pantaloons pocket, then drew it out with a jerk +and took off his cap in hot haste, struck with a sudden +remembrance of some early maternal lesson on the subject.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He grew red and sallow under the keen eyes bent upon +him beneath Lawyer Stone’s heavy brows. Indeed, in all +respects, this man, Joshua Hurd, was a remarkably uncouth +specimen of a down East ignoramus—an animal possessed +of appetites and plenty of that low cunning which is +sometimes more than a match for absolute wisdom. To use +his own term, endorsed by the more acute sister, Joshua +knew as well as another man “on which side his bread +was buttered, stupid as he seemed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here, my good man, into Mr. Lander’s office, I +want a little talk with you,” said the lawyer.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua, who had been standing with one foot planted +hard on a cluster of flowers glowing in the carpet, and the +other raised upon the square toe of his shoe, like that of a +tired horse, settled down into a walking condition and +shambled out of the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sit down, Mr. Hurd, sit down,” said the suave lawyer, +pointing to a rotary chair near the desk; “I want a little +talk with you about the paper you signed for Mr. Lander. +When was it? I forgot the exact time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was jest afore the Gov’ner went away from home +last time,” answered Joshua, with the dogged air of a +stupid schoolboy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But when was that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Last spring.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you remember the date?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was it morning or evening?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Can’t remember.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>“Which signed the paper first, you or your sister?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was Mrs. Lander present?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Had Mr. Lander signed it when you came in?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Unsartin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did Mr. Lander say anything?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Said it was his last testament.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was that exactly what he said?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest that. I looked round for the book, but there +wasn’t none there, nor Bible neither; but he said it was a +testament, consarned if he didn’t.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you tell any one of this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; ’twasn’t none of my business what the old chap +wrote about his testaments.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer was puzzled. It certainly was strange that +Mr. Lander, with two intelligent and tolerably educated +retainers in the house, should have selected this boor for a +witness to his will. But there was nothing to be gathered +from the curt answers that had followed his investigations. +So far, the will seemed legal in all its forms, and Mrs. +Lander was, by its provisions, sole legatee of all her +brother-in-law’s wealth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Stone went into the breakfast-room again and found +this lady gazing fixedly on the carpet at her feet, so lost in +thought that she sprang up and uttered a little scream +when the lawyer addressed her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam, the will we have found is entirely in your +favor.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was no surprise in her face; no outburst of satisfaction. +Her eyes were turned wildly on the lawyer, her +lips moved, but she did not speak.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The news overcomes you, madam!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, yes—I—I am a little faint—thank you, I am only +a little.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>The woman gasped for breath and pressed one hand on +her bosom. She did, indeed, seem ready to faint.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice Hurd came into the room like a grenadier and +swept off with the widow, almost carrying her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She’s tired out, and talking ain’t good for her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice flung the words over her shoulder, looking back +upon Lawyer Stone with a defiant air which he could not +understand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer sat down dissatisfied, and taking out the will, +read it over again. It was certainly in his friend’s handwriting, +and he was made joint executor with Mrs. Lander. +Why was it that a sense of mystery and wrong-doing clung +to him?</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER IX.<br> <span class='c011'>THE BILL OF EXCHANGE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>A young man entered an eminent banking house in the +lower part of the city, with the air of a stranger, and presented +a bill of exchange so large in amount as to occasion +some surprise, for he drew the heavier portion at once in +gold and carried it off in a leathern satchel which he +carried in his hand. The strain upon his arm denoted no +ordinary amount of the precious metal; though he carried +it with assumed ease, the blood rose to his pale face with +the exertion. This circumstance, and something in the +appearance of the man, drew the general attention upon +him as he passed out of the bank. There was scarcely a +clerk in the room who did not follow this stranger with his +eyes and comment upon his elegance of manner and person. +His air and dress were foreign, his beard black and bright +as the plumage of a raven, was trimmed with great neatness, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>and magnificent black eyes completed the manly +beauty of a face which no one could have looked upon +without admiration.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There goes a fellow that ought to be a lord, from the +cut of his figure,” said one.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Or a government speculator, by the pile of gold he +carries away,” answered another. “Only he looks too +modest and walks too quietly for that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some English nobleman going out to hunt on the +Plains, travelling <i>incog.</i>, no doubt—that sort of thing is +getting very fashionable of late,” observed a third. “Stylish +fellow, anyway.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>More than one person who met this man in the street +made the same observation. His quiet, yet lofty carriage, +joined to a style of beauty which was both statuesque and +manly, singled him out from the crowd. Both men and +women turned to look at him as he passed, wondering +vaguely about him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The stranger walked on, apparently unconscious of the +general regard, but his observation was keen, notwithstanding +this seeming indifference, and a smile curled the lips +beneath the shadow of his black beard as he entered one of +the up-town hotels and proceeded to a suite of rooms +taken that morning an hour after his arrival in the steamer +from Europe.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When he entered the Fifth Avenue hotel, the stranger +had carried a leathern box in his hand, such as statesmen +and persons travelling on business sometimes use for convenience +when papers are to be transported from place to +place. This box stood on a console in the parlor when he +entered that room on his return from the banker’s. He +drew an easy chair toward the console, sat down in it and +unlocked the box, in which were some papers and small +packages, which might or might not contain valuables.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He pressed these papers down with his hands, then +<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>unlocked the satchel and poured a steady stream of gold +into the box till it was even full, and the satchel scarcely +lightened of one-third its contents. Then he dropped a +handful or two of the coin into his pockets, locked the +satchel, and flung it with a heave and a crash on the top of +a wardrobe, which stood in the bed-chamber opening out of +the room where he sat. A massive cornice of carved rosewood +formed a hollow which would have concealed a larger +package, and in which this sunk completely out of sight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After the exertion of hiding away his gold, the man sat +down, brushed some particles of dust from his coat and +took a package of letters from his breast pocket. These +he examined with great care, and seemed to be taxing his +memory severely regarding the writers, for he muttered +more than once, “Well, I never saw this man,” or, “I +wonder how the fellow looks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The letters were directed to some of the first statesmen +and merchants in the country. One, which bore the name +of Lander, he singled out and examined carefully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They never met, I feel quite sure they never met,” he +muttered, smoothing his jetty beard with one hand as he +read. “I wonder how near the old man lives. But I +forget, the luggage will soon he here, and I have made no +preparation.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour, for by that name the man registered himself, +arose suddenly, took his hat and went out. He was a little +bewildered now, and seemed to be looking for some place +which he was reluctant to ask for in words. A moment he +paused before the windows at Tiffany’s, and seemed tempted +to go in, but turned away, crossed the street and stopped at +Morley’s, where he lounged away half an hour examining +specimens of antique furniture with the air of a connoisseur.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A dressing-case, richly appointed, and a desk of ebony, +mounted with silver, seemed to strike his fancy. These he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>put aside for purchase, inquiring first if the cases that +belonged to them could be found, if the mountings could be +brightened and the whole put in order at once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man paid for these articles in gold, and the only +remarkable thing about his purchase was that he ordered +both desk and dressing-case to be carried to an express, +from which they would be delivered at the hotel. The +stranger left his name in full; Horace Seymour, and gave +the number of his rooms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next remarkable step that this man took was to +wander on and on till he came to a pawnbroker’s shop with +a host of miscellaneous articles hanging at the window. +He went in and inquired for second-hand watches, something +unique. If one could be found with the letters H. +S., or even S., singly upon the case, he would not mind the +price; a crest, too, might enhance the value of the article.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The pawnbroker’s sharp eyes brightened at this. Some +imprudent Smith, called Henry, Horatio, Horace or Hector, +perhaps, had left his unfortunate initials tied up unredeemed, +on the back of a fine hunting-watch, worn just +enough to become highly respectable. This Horace Seymour +purchased without demurring at the exorbitant price +which the pawnbroker instantaneously put upon it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the watch was transferred to his pocket, he desired +to examine any other curious things in the way of jewelry +that might happen to remain on sale. Directly a case of +trinkets was brought forth, out of which Seymour selected +a seal ring whose value even the pawnbroker did not know, +for it was an antique head, exquisitely cut, and almost +worth its weight in diamonds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour’s eyes brightened slowly as he saw this gem, but +he examined half-a-dozen uninteresting articles before he +touched it. Then he carelessly asked the price, paid it +without comment, slipped the ring on his finger and walked +away, leaving the pawnbroker almost in tears because he +<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>had not asked an additional ten per cent. on the articles +that had just left his den.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I’d only known how much he would bear,” lamented +the man to himself. “Why the fellow never once attempted +to beat me down, and wouldn’t if I’d asked double. +But I always was a coward—a mean coward—afraid to set +a price on my own soul. What’s the good of these ten +twenty, thirty gold eagles, when it might have been twice +as much and something to drink thrown in. Oh, the gentleman +has robbed me with his still manner and thoughtful +face. It might have been double! It might have been +double!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Meantime Seymour had walked quietly up Broadway +toward his hotel, making his own combinations. Two +express wagons stood in front of the office, and porters +were busy carrying up his trunks, while the dressing-case +and desk were brought in. Everything was in order. His +rooms would soon have a homelike appearance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the chandelier was lighted over his head that +evening, an ebony desk, mounted with silver, and filled in +all its compartments with papers, stood open on the table +before him, and in the shaded light of the bed-room beyond +was a dressing-case, with all its toilet paraphernalia laid +out ready for use.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour rang the bell and desired that some person +should be sent to him from the office. That personage +made his appearance and stood some minutes at the door, +while his guest was busily writing. At last Seymour +looked up.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, I beg pardon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Step in if you please. Is there a person in this +establishment who would take charge of my things and +help me a little about dressing?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is, you want a servant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not exactly. In this country the best servant that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>ever lived would be spoiled in a month. But I should like +to have a person generally at my command.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That class of men are not abundant in our cities, sir, +but I have a needy chap now and then hanging about the +office; one was there this morning wanting to do odd +jobs.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“An American?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I did not take the trouble to inquire; but he may be +there yet. He seems a bright boy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Send him up, if you please.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The clerk disappeared.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After a time a knock at the door aroused Seymour again, +and a young man, scarcely more than a lad, came in. He +was very thin, rather untidy, but had a look of quick intelligence +that pleased the traveller at once. With a single +glance of his great bright eyes, the lad took in every object +the room contained.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You sent for me, sir,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You? Oh yes; you are the person I desired to be +sent up. Well, what can you do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Almost anything, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you know the city?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can find the way anywhere,” answered the lad, +evasively.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you ever been in service?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never; but I know what a gentleman wants, and can +do as much as another.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I might want something out of the common way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not knowing exactly what the common way is, that +would not trouble me much.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What wages will you want?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Whatever you are willing to give.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Very well, we will settle that after I have learned something +of your capabilities. But your clothes are not +exactly suitable for a gentleman’s attendant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>The youth looked down on his coat, which was wrinkled +and clouded in its color.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They have been in the water,” he said, with a shiver. +“No wonder.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you no others?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I have nothing else.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here; go out and buy a neat outfit. I suppose the +shops are open yet. It must have been a heavy storm that +drenched you so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man reached forth his hand for the gold +which Seymour held towards him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was a shipwreck—a hard choice between fire or +water, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed! Some other time you shall tell me about it; +but just now I am anxious to see you in neater trim. +Those things smell of sea water.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No wonder. But—but, sir, can I spend a little of this +money for food?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Food! Why, man, you don’t mean to say that you are +in such a strait as that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am nearly starved.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour started from his chair and rang the bell +violently. The youth had made a step forward to render +this service and came into the full light. Then, for the +first time, Seymour saw how meagre and white his face +was. The wonderful brilliancy of his eyes sprang from +protracted and ravenous craving for food.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor fellow!” said Seymour, “poor fellow! I did not +dream of it! Wait a minute.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A servant entered, answering the bell promptly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Bring up something to eat, and a bottle of wine, at +once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What will you order, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Order? Why everything; beef steak, birds, chickens, +turkeys.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>“Sir!” exclaimed the servant, opening his eyes wide, +and stepping back with great dignity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, say beef steak and plenty of potatoes. Are you +Irish, my good fellow?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I am Irish,” answered the youth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Plenty of potatoes then—boiled, fried, stewed, with +anything else that takes no time in cooking.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The servant bowed and went out somewhat astonished. +Seymour laughed lightly and turned upon the youth, who +met his look with eyes full of tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir, you are too kind,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a bit, my good fellow; nobody on earth can be too +kind, it is not the fault of human nature. I’m not quite +brute enough to see hunger like that in a fellow creature’s +eyes and not try to feed it. But no one shall say that I’m +not hard-hearted for all that, especially if any one offends +me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall I go down stairs, sir?” asked the youth, who +was shaking with an eager hope of food. “Will they give +it to me in the kitchen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, here. I want to see you eat. Jove! how I envy +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The youth drew back and leaned against the wall, clasping +his hands hard, as if imploring the minutes to pass +quickly. At length a sob of joy broke from his lips. He +could hear a jingle of crockery coming up the stairs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour started up, removed the desk from his table, +and ordered the waiter to place his tray there, directly +under the chandelier. The man obeyed, and lifted the +cover from a noble beef steak, which soon filled the room +with its appetizing flavor.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is right. You can go now,” said the young man, +pointing to the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man withdrew.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come,” said Seymour, “come along. What’s your +name?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>“Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian—Brian! But I suppose you’ve got another +name?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour spoke with a touch of impatience. The boy +lifted those great bright eyes to his face for one instant, but +turned them eagerly toward the food.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The other name, I meant—the other name first,” cried +Seymour.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It’s Nolan, Brian Nolan, sir,” answered the lad, with +an eager catch of the breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nolan,” muttered the young man, “Nolan!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy did not heed him, the pangs of hunger were too +keen; he quivered all over with impatience.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s right, my poor fellow; that’s right, fall to without +mercy. Sit down, sit down and be comfortable.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour rolled up his own soft Turkish chair to the table +and patted its crimson cushions enticingly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Truly his good nature must have been genuine when he +could so far forget the niceties of refinement. The lad +required no second bidding. His eyes took fire as they +devoured the smoking food. With the craving of a wild +beast, he crept slowly toward the table, evidently striving +hard to control himself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour stood with his elbow on the mantelpiece, watching +the poor fellow with a glow of satisfaction as he +devoured the steak. A dish was yet covered, he stepped +forward and removed the lid, revealing a mound of potatoes, +deliciously mealy, cracking the tawny skins in which they +had been boiled.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother of Heaven, this is too much!” cried the youth, +dropping both hands upon his lap. “Oh, sir, I haven’t +tasted one since I left home.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go at them, then, they’ll taste so much the better,” +cried the young man, laughing and thrusting a fork into +one of the potatoes, which he held up and examined admiringly. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>“By Jove! I didn’t think these things could be +such a luxury! It makes me hungry to see you eat them. +Here, give me a knife and a little salt. By the way, stop +a minute, my good fellow; it just strikes me that too much +isn’t good for a person in your condition. The half of that +steak is a rather powerful allowance, and that is the third +potato.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let me finish this,” pleaded the lad.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Couldn’t think of it,” answered the young man, +replacing the covers on the dishes with decision. Then he +rang the bell.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lad, with his hunger but half appeased, dropped the +knife and fork, closed his eyes and fell back in the easy +chair, sighing heavily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take the things away,” said Seymour, when the +waiter came in, “and tell them down in the office to find a +bed somewhere for this young fellow. He’ll stay with me +for the present.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man went out, closing the door behind him. Seymour +stood watching the pale face of the lad with a feeling +of singular interest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is what money can do,” he thought. “Cheap too—cheap +as dirt, and yet how much happiness. Why, that +one meal was like a fortune to him. But to be kind, to +give real happiness, one <i>must</i> have money.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While these thoughts passed through the young man’s +brain, two great tears stole through the closed lashes of the +Irish lad and rolled slowly down his cheeks.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s the kind of diamonds I’ll buy with the money, +if they’ll only let me,” continued Seymour, still gazing on +the lad. “It isn’t just to enjoy things myself that I want +it, but—but—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With the gesture of a man who finds his reflections +beginning to grow troublesome, Seymour dropped his hand +on the lad’s shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>“Come now, wake up and get to bed, Brian,” he +exclaimed, cheerfully. “We will let the clothes go till +morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian looked up, and Seymour saw that his great black +eyes were full of tears, while his face quivered all over with +grateful emotion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir, how I thank you—how good you have been to +me! What can I do for you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go to bed now, and forget the last hour, if you can. +It has been a little irregular as between master and +servant, and may put false notions into your head.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, no. You have been kind—so kind, I can +remember nothing but that. God bless you, sir, and prosper +you in everything. I’d rather be your servant than +another man’s king.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy attempted to rise, but Seymour pressed a hand +on his shoulder, detaining him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So your name is Nolan, and you came from Ireland,” +he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, sir; oh yes!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What part of Ireland, my fine fellow, what part?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“On the Blackwater, near Waterford.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man was disturbed; he walked the room once +or twice, then bent over the lad again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And your father, what is his name?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“John, sir; John Nolan.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of Rydehurst?” said Seymour.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy looked up quickly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, that was the name of his place, when he had one,” +answered the lad.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And how did he lose it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He sold it, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sold it—sold it! Why? How?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would rather not talk about that,” answered the boy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But where is your father now?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>“Dead.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour sallied back and clenched one hand with a +sudden spasm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And—and your mother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man’s voice shook as he asked this question, +and he was pale as marble.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is dead too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This single word was uttered almost with a cry of +anguish. The young man’s head fell upon the back of the +easy chair, and he grasped at the cushions nervously with +his hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are all dead—one after another they went down,” +said the boy, in a plaintive whisper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was it in the shipwreck?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The steamer was on fire.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And they jumped overboard?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“None saved—not one?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I alone—I alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go,” said the young man, “go sleep, if you can.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-night, and thank you again and again. I hope +you will never be so hungry or so lonesome as I was.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-night—good-night, boy.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER X.<br> <span class='c011'>MRS. LANDER ENTERS ON HER FORTUNE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Mrs. Lander had taken possession of her brother-in-law’s +estate under the will, and for the first time in her life +began to enjoy the power of wealth, the sublime egotism of +possession. True, all this fortune gave her no additional +<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>comfort, nor insured to her a luxury not hitherto her own, +for since her husband’s death she had been denied nothing +by his generous brother. But this, to a nature like hers, +or indeed to any nature capable of ambition, was the +smallest result of wealth. She wanted its power, its influence +among men—the reputation it conferred—the envy it +created. Having been dependent all her life, these things +took a mighty value in her estimation, and no queen ever +mounted a throne with more pride than this woman felt in +seizing upon the estate which seemed to have fallen into +her possession by a miracle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Up to this time, Mrs. Lander had been very liberal in +her social ideas and luxuriously extravagant in her personal +habits, having gorgeous tastes by nature, and that +coarse hankering for display which women of low birth and +inferior associations in early youth are liable to acquire. +Beyond this the woman could not go, and a vast capacity +for intrigue lay useless and buried in her life which was +likely to find room for display now. She was not very old +either; the years that carried her beyond forty were hardly +worth mentioning. A fresh complexion, robust but symmetrical +form, and rather juvenile carriage, made her +seem even younger than that. With great wealth added +to these attractions, there was much in the future for a +woman like that to expect and hope for.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander went into deep, deep mourning at once. +Crape folds a yard in depth covered the skirts of her bombazine +dresses; crape veils, with hems that made them +almost double, fell from her bonnet; not a gleam of white +was allowed to appear about her person. The very handkerchiefs +wetted by her tears had a black border one-fourth +of an inch wide running under the broadest of broad hems. +She stripped her fingers of their jewels, and sent to the +city at once, for chains and bracelets and lugubrious +brooches of jet, which gave a shimmer of brightness to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>volumes of English crape that clouded her mournfully from +head to foot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman mourned for her daughter, undoubtedly. +This elaborate show of grief was not all pretence. She +would have been delighted to hear that Cora had escaped +the shipwreck on any terms; doubly delighted if the +rescue of her child could have been achieved without disturbing +the will which made her mistress of everything. +No doubt she would have been a generous and munificent +mother in that case, proud of her child and ready to push +her interests to the utmost; but she would have shuddered +a little at the thought of depending on Cora Lander for +subsistence, though a thought of this kind never took force +with her now. Poor Cora was gone with the rest, and ten +thousand perfections hovered around her memory. Still +the wealth was a consolation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Five or six weeks after the sad news, Mrs. Lander sent +for Joshua Hurd, who came in from the stables walking +after his usual heavy fashion, and seeming half ashamed of +a new suit of clothes, which gave a certain appearance of +neatness to his ungainly person. Joshua’s manner was a +little singular when he came into the presence of his mistress. +He looked around for his sister, and seemed relieved +that she was not there. Then he sat down on the very +sofa which held Mrs. Lander and her voluminous skirts, +planting his heavy shoe on the crape folds of her dress, and +sat still, looking stolidly into her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander did not rebuke or attempt to repulse this +familiarity, but she gently extricated her dress from his +foot, and smiled sweetly in doing it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua,” she said, “I have been thinking a good deal +about the horses.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s exactly in my line,” he answered. “What +about ’em?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The pair of chestnuts don’t exactly suit me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>“They’re splendid critters as ever drew a carriage,” interrupted +Joshua, bluntly. “What on arth can you want +better?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are too bright—too showy for my mourning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mourning! Why, who ever hearn of putting hosses +in mourning, I’d like to know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But they disturb its sad harmony.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never was a better or a purtyer team of hosses druv. +Darn’d if I believe you know what a good hoss is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But they put me in mind of him—of them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In course they du! Why not?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The truth is, Joshua, now that I’m mistress here, I’d +like to choose my own horses and carriages, and everything, +and have the credit of good taste in myself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua lifted one foot, laid it on his knee and nursed it +for a whole minute in thoughtful tenderness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I reckon that’s nat’ral,” he said at last. “So +you want ter sell them chestnuts? How much do you ask for +’em?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is what I wanted to talk to you about. Of course +I shall defer to your judgment.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua dropped his foot cautiously and drew himself up, +blushing to the temples.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ll sell ’em or trade ’em off for you—but what kind of +critters du you want now?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Black—I think we will have black.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not one of them ’ere Black Hawks?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, nothing of that kind, but a pair of fine, well-matched +blacks, if they can be found.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Just then Eunice came into the room, excited, fiery, and +dressed with incongruous magnificence. She saw Joshua +sitting close by her mistress, and pounced upon him with a +vengeance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You dolterhead, get up. How dare you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She seized Joshua by the collar and almost lifted him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>from the sofa, gave him a vigorous pull and planted his feet +in the middle of the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ll teach you!” she cried, shaking her fiery locks at +him. “How often I’ve told you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Look-a-here,” said Joshua, dashing the cap on to his +head, “it won’t be worth your while to do that ’ere agin! +I ain’t a going to stand it; so you look out!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Be quiet, both of you,” said Mrs. Lander, with dignity. +“I cannot be annoyed in this way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You sent for me, or I shouldn’t a come,” said Joshua, +sullenly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I wanted you, Joshua, not only to consult about +the horses, but to say that hereafter the entire control of +the stables shall be yours. You shall account to no one +but me, now that I am mistress.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s something like,” said Joshua, brightening up. +“When that critter lets you alone, you’re a trump, and no +mistake. But that evil spurret that went down into the +swine and druv them into the sea wasn’t nothing to her. +She’s wuss than a hull drove of hogs, if every one on ’em +had a spurret of his own.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Josh!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now jest you keep away, Eunice Hurd. I’m a speaking +to her, and not to you by no manner of means. Don’t +come anear me, I warn you, or I’ll bust right out afore +everybody. You’ve trod on me long enough. Now I mean +to stomp on you if you don’t behave yerself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice, who had been threatening violence, drew back in +blank amazement; her face grew red in spots, her eyes +flashed strange light, like the green tints in an opal. She +was quivering from head to foot with a vicious desire to box +her brother’s ears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! you snake you—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, I will have no more of this. You must learn +that I am mistress here,” said Mrs. Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>“You!” exclaimed Eunice, turning upon her mistress +with intense scorn. “You, and setting there side by side +with Josh!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander took no heed of her insolence, for she was a +woman of wonderful self-possession when the occasion +required it. Her voice was quiet and calm as a summer’s +morning as she once more addressed Joshua.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You can sell the chestnuts and buy the blacks, as I +directed. Use your own judgment in the whole matter,” +she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So you are a going to buy black horses, are you?—Deep +mourning, animals and all,” said Eunice, spitefully. +“Hadn’t you better have a span of white ones ready for the +half-mourning. It ’ed be mighty handy—or grays, to +shade off into white. I hate such airs!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That would be a contrast worth thinking about—I am +much obliged to you, Eunice. I will take day to consider +it. White or black. Go now, Joshua, and remember that +hereafter you are master out yonder.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And who mistress in here?” demanded Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am,” answered Mrs. Lander, with calm firmness, +“and this scene must never be repeated, Eunice. Understand +me clearly—must never be repeated.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest say that agin!” said the virago, going off into a +fit of hoarse wrath. “I understand you; you want to get +the blind side of that soft-hearted creature, and so be one +too many for me if I should cut up rusty. But let me +ketch him in here agin, or you in there, and I’ll show you +what’s what!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was very pale; every vestige of color left +her lips, they were pressed so firmly together. She seemed +about to say something defiant, but the strain upon her +nerves had been too great, and she fell into a chair, faint +and trembling. What was she, with all her wealth, but a +slave?</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XI.<br> <span class='c011'>SALE OF THE CHESTNUT HORSES.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The next day Joshua went to the city with the chestnut +horses, proud of his commission, and resolved to stay a +week in town rather than return without the animals his +mistress had expressed a fancy for. He drove directly to a +large public stable well known as a sort of horse exchange, +and at once put up his chestnuts for sale.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While he was hanging about the stables, a young man +drove up in a hack and entered the office, followed by a lad, +who jumped down from his seat by the driver and lingered +near the door, as if afraid of losing sight of his master.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In a place like this, Joshua Hurd felt perfectly at home; +he went up to the lad and spoke to him good-naturedly +enough.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is that ’ere young man arter horses?” he questioned. +Brian Nolan answered that he thought so, but he was +not quite sure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Got a smashing team in there that I’d like to sell +him,” said Josh. “What’s his color?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t know,” answered Brian; “but there he comes, +and you can ask him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua saw that the young man was entering the stables +with the proprietor, and sauntered after them, whistling in +an undertone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ve got the prettiest pair of chestnuts that you ever +set eyes on; just come in. You’re fortunate in your time, +sir. Those animals won’t stay on hand long, I can promise +you. The gentleman who owned them was the best judge +of horse-flesh that ever visited my stable, or rather his +man was, and that’s the same thing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why does he sell them, if they are so perfect?” inquired +the stranger.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>“They’re splendid critters,” said Joshua, cutting into the +conversation without scruple; “not a fault. The person +who owned ’em is dead, and the lady thinks that the color +is too gorgeous for deep mourning. She wants black +hosses, or if them ain’t ter be got, white. Them latter +she’d trim about the heads with crape rosettes, I reckon, +for she’s a hull team and a hoss to let on mourning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man took little heed of this speech. He was +busy examining the horses, and the proprietor saw at once +that he had no ordinary judge to deal with.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can offer you nothing better than these if you fancy +the color,” he said. “They are noble animals.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are noble animals. But why does the owner sell +them?” repeated Seymour, going back to his original question.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He was lost at sea—the steamer that was burned, you +remember.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man shrunk from the subject, which sent the +color from his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have heard of it,” he said, hoarsely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Terrible thing, wasn’t it?” rejoined the horse dealer. +“Such a fine old man, too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was he alone?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; that is the most horrible part of it. His only +daughter and his niece went down with him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But there must be a survivor—or is there no one to +claim the service of these noble beasts?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The property goes by will, I am told, to some widow up +the river.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is a fortunate woman,” said Seymour, absently, +“that is, if young enough to enjoy her money.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This did not seem a leading question, yet there was +something like interest in the traveller’s eyes as he waited +for the answer. He could not have accounted for this feeling +himself.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>“I don’t know her exact age, but she is a handsome, +stylish woman, with a good deal of life in her. I took +these very horses up myself when the owner bought them, +and gave her the first drive. Smart woman, I can tell +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wall, I reckon she is jest that,” interposed Joshua, +arousing himself to animation. “Sharp as a steel trap, +and harnsome as a race hoss. It’ed take two of your city +gals to hold a candle tu her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are her servant, I suppose?” said the young man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Her sarvant, her sar—. Yes, yes, I am that, only the +name don’t suit me. In New England, where I was born, +they called us hired men. But if she wants to call Josh +Hurd a sarvant, so be it. I ain’t a going to complain.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This conversation had drawn the young man’s attention +from the horses, to which he now turned, but with something +of decision in his manner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have them put in harness,” he said, “and let us take +a turn in the Park. I should like to try their action. I +will drive them myself, and this fellow shall go along.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The horses were attached to a light wagon, and Seymour +took his seat with the ease of a man accustomed to the +position. Joshua climbed up to his side, and they were +about to drive on, when Seymour remembered Brian Holan, +and bent over the wheel to address him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Stay about the stables, and find out all you can regarding +these horses,” he said, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lad answered with his eyes, which were full of +intelligence. Seymour tightened his reins and drove on in +splendid style.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Park was beautiful that day. It was too early for +the regular exhibition there, and the chestnuts had a fine, +free sweep along the avenues, delighting their driver and +almost giving animation to Joshua. By the delicious little +lakes, whitened with flocks of graceful swans—across arched +<span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>bridges and around Prospect Hill they swept making the +air eddy as they went. The breath of ten thousand flowers +came up from the hollows and down from the broken +uplands, sweeping fragrance all around them. But Seymour, +keenly as he relished the beauties of nature, scarcely +regarded the sweet air he breathed or the lovely objects +that surrounded him. A strange feeling of depression fell +upon him. He drove the horses splendidly, but with a +grace and ease that was purely mechanical. At last he fell +into conversation with Joshua, not about the horses, as was +most natural, but dwelt with a sort of weird fascination on +the fate of their former owner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Was he certainly dead? Yes, there could be no doubt +of that. And the young ladies, was it positive that they +had perished too? Yes, all had gone down—the old man +without a struggle, but the girls had managed to get into a +boat, which was swamped after they almost felt themselves +safe. How long had they been abroad? Why full eight +years. They had been like sisters all their lives, took the +same lessons, wore the same clothes, and were allowed the +same spending money. In fact, you could hardly tell them +apart when they were little girls; but eight years must +have changed them a good deal. Joshua would always +know them by the temper, if nothing else, for the niece +had that, and no mistake, while the other was like an +angel. But they were both dead now, and no harm was +done since the brother’s widow had got the money. What +had they been doing abroad? Why going to school to be +sure, what else could girls of that age be expected to do? +For the last six months they had been travelling about in +what people called the Holy Land, which Joshua supposed +was just the thing to do if they had got to die so soon.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this time the names of these persons who interested +him so much had not been mentioned. For some unaccountable +reason Seymour had shrunk from asking it.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>Vague fears were creeping over his heart, and his voice was +husky when he at length forced himself to say:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the name—you have not yet told me the name.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The name, sir—why Lander, of course.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That instant the chestnuts gave a wild leap and strained +hard upon the reins, that had been sharply tightened, till +one of them began to rear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua turned, looked into the deadly white face of the +young man, and snatched the reins from his hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What on arth are you about? Sich driving would put +wolfishness into a pair of lambs! So, so, old fellows—easy—easy, +that’ll do. There, sir, you see how easily they are +managed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Home, home,” said the young man. “I am satisfied. +Drive back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What’s the matter?” inquired Joshua, bluntly. “Did +the horses scare you so? Why you’re white as a sheet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man was trembling from head to foot. His +face was contracted like marble, his very lips were bloodless.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Home, home,” he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua drove to the stables in wondering silence. The +color had come slowly back to Seymour’s face, but there +was a look of suffering on it that startled the proprietor of +the stables as he drove up. Had anything happened? +Were the horses restive?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua shook his head. Seymour did not seem to hear +him, but stepping from the wagon, walked away. The +proprietor followed him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he not like the horses?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Like them? oh yes—oh yes,” said Seymour, slowly +retracing his steps. “Put them up on my account, and +send to my hotel for the gold.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this was said in a calm, low voice: but it seemed as +if a statue were speaking. No price had yet been named +for the horses, and he had forgotten it entirely.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>“But we have not agreed on the terms,” said the proprietor, +glancing at Joshua.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” said the young man, absently. “What are +they?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The proprietor named a tolerably reasonable sum.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will do. Take good care of them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But your address, sir?” said the proprietor, taking up +a pen from his office desk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour took the pen and attempted to write, but his +hand shook upon the paper, and after he left, the address +could hardly be made out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian Nolan followed his master in silence. He saw the +look of pain in those dark eyes, and the young heart ached +in his bosom with a rush of keen sympathy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They went into the hotel together, and passed into the +ladies’ entrance hall. Coming down the long passage on +the second story was a hunchbacked girl, who seemed to +have lost her way, for she was looking anxiously at the +numbers over each parlor door. Brian caught hold of his +master’s dress, and the violence of this action drew the +young man out of himself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is it, Brian, are you ill?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lad held him fast. His pale lips were parted, but +he could not speak. His eyes followed the hunchback +almost in terror.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor fellow! the old suffering has come back,” muttered +Seymour, laying a hand kindly on his shoulder. “Brian, +my boy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is her! Those are Ellen’s eyes. I know her! I +know her! she is my sister!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your sister!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lad uttered a cry and darted away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen! Ellen! oh, Ellen, it is me! It is me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girl started, turned her great stag-like eyes on the +boy, and came towards him with both hands extended.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>“Alive! alive! you and I!” she said, clinging to him, +while tears rained down her radiant face. “Is it, is it +you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir! it is my sister—my own sister Ellen, that I +told you of! She jumped overboard with the rest, and is +saved. I know you will be glad for me,” cried Brian, +drawing the girl up to his master. “See how helpless she +is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor thing! dear little girl! I am glad to find you +here—glad for his sake. He is a good boy,” said Seymour, +with great feeling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He always was a good boy, sir,” answered Ellen +smiling through her tears. “Oh, so good!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And she, sir,” joined in Brian, “she, sir, for all her +size, and—and—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He means this, sir,” said Ellen, gently glancing at her +shoulder. “It makes me ill sometimes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is brave as a little lion, though, and kind—kind—yes, +she would be just as kind as you are, sir, if she had +anything but her two hands.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let me look at you, dear,” said Seymour, laying one +hand on her forehead and bending her face back. “Yes, +you have the family look. These are Brian’s features—softer, +though, as a girl’s should be.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do I look like him—do I, really?” cried the girl.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, child, I think so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then people must like my face, at any rate,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour smiled faintly and moved a little way from +them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Brian, we went through so much!” said the girl, +“so much!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you are saved!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They clung together in newborn joy, closer and closer, as +if some one threatened to tear them apart. The young +man looked on from the distance, interested.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>“But how came you here?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, an angel brought me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girl spoke earnestly, and her eyes filled with eager +warmth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“An angel!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So beautiful, Brian! so good! so full of courage! She +helped me through the water. I pulled her down, but she +would not let go of me. There! there she is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A parlor door had opened as Ellen uttered her shriek, +and two young women looked out, wondering what the +sound could mean. Ellen led her brother toward them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Miss, forgive me for screaming out. It is my +brother. I thought he had gone down with <i>them</i>, but it is +he. Don’t let anybody take him away from me again—oh, +don’t! don’t!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>One of the young ladies stepped into the hall and laid +her hand kindly on Brian’s shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So you are her brother?” she said, in a sweet, sympathetic +voice. “I am glad of that. How were you saved?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Somebody flung a chair over, and I got hold of it till +one of the boats picked me up.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What if some of the rest were saved?” said Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! it seems to me as if an angel had taken care of you +too!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young creature lifted her eyes to the beautiful face +of her mistress, smiling gratefully, though tears were again +streaming down her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let us hope for the best,” said Virginia Lander. “But +tell me, my lad, how did you reach this place, and what are +you doing here?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A vessel that picked us up brought me. I was sick +and almost starved, looking for work, when a gentleman, so +kind and good, hired me to wait on him. He is here, I +just came in with him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment a form glided by the little group and went +<span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span>swiftly down the hall, so swiftly that no one saw more than +the flutter of Cora Lander’s black garments as she swept +down upon Seymour, her eyes wild with delight, her hands +held out eagerly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, my God, be thanked!” cried out the young man. +“My love, my darling, I thought that you were dead!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You here! you here!” she answered, giving him both +her hands. “And I felt so wretched a moment ago.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora! Cora! I shall go mad with joy! Not an hour +since, they told me that you had perished at sea.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you had but just heard of it. You believed me +lost? Was that why you looked so sad?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Judge for yourself. I have followed you, at what sacrifice +no human being will ever know. Everything that a +man holds dear I risked rather than lose you. My sole +object in coming to America was to win you, claim you, +love you forever and ever. An hour ago they told me you +were dead; my life seemed to go out then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you mourned, Horace?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mourned! Great Heavens! can you ask me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But now—now that you see me alive and well—yes, +yes, I think you are glad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Glad!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know you are. Oh, Seymour, I do think you love +me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Better than my life—better than my own soul! There +is nothing on earth that I would not do for you, nothing a +man holds dear that I have not sacrificed for you already.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not understand.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps not—you never may. But who is that lady +with hair like yours?—That form, the face too?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is my cousin. Some day I will introduce you—not +now. She is but just come on shore. We shall start +up the river this evening or early in the morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to-night; let it be to-morrow. This evening I +must see you again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_108'>108</span>“I shall abide by my cousin’s decision.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Abide by her decision! Does this cousin control you, +then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Control me! No; she hasn’t the spirit to control a +mouse.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you win stay?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, if you desire it so much; but—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora broke off abruptly. Seymour was looking at Virginia +Lander, who that moment was listening to Brian and +looked that way, interested in the man of whom he spoke +so gratefully. The expression of her face was beautiful +just then. Sympathy with those two helpless creatures +had filled her eyes with compassionate tenderness. A +sweet smile hovered about her mouth, and all her face was +bright with feeling. She did indeed look like an angel +rejoicing over the salvation of two innocent fellow beings.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man himself, unnoticed by Virginia, gazed +upon her, fascinated; he had not even heard Cora’s last +promise. A shadow, which was almost a frown, swept over +the girl’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How very lovely she is. True, there is a wonderful +likeness, but—but such a difference. I never saw a sweeter +smile on human lips!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora swept by him with angry scarlet burning in her +cheeks.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Virginia, does it strike you that we are getting up a +scene here?” she said. “Let these two strange creatures +go up to Ellen’s room. It will not do for us to form interesting +tableaux in the hall. Hear how they laugh and +sob! Go, Ellen, go and take your brother away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen and Brian started off, clinging together and smiling +in each other’s faces, but crying all the time. Virginia +withdrew into the parlor, delighted with this one gleam of +happiness, coming as it did out of the awful catastrophe +which had made her an orphan. She had been so occupied +<span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>with the brother and sister that the meeting between Cora +and Virginia had passed unregarded. After Virginia had +gone, Cora stood in the hall, proud as Juno, waiting to be +conciliated. Seymour drew close to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So this is your cousin,” he said. “I never thought +that any human being could mate you before.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora answered him with a haughty lift of the head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If you think so now, I am glad to hear it in time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The pique and jealousy which embittered these words +were manifest and genuine. Seymour was a man of the +world, and had read many a woman’s heart before that day +to the owner’s cost, perhaps.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are angry with me. For what?” he questioned, +in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Angry? No, no; but my cousin will miss me and +wonder that I stay so long with a stranger.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A stranger, Cora!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is what she thinks you, and what you in fact are. +How much do I know of you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Everything; I wish no concealment. Grant me one +interview where we can converse in quiet—when shall it be, +and where?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora started; her cousin was standing in the parlor door +looking for her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This evening, come to our parlor. She will retire +early.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour bowed and walked away, smiling over his +success. Cora joined her cousin.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is the boy’s master,” she said carelessly. “A fine-looking +young man—don’t you think so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, very. Did you speak with him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Only a few words—but tell me, dear, had we not better +rest where we are to-night? Think how great the shock +would be at home if we go, unexpectedly there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is true, in my haste to get home I forgot that; +but we can telegraph before the train starts.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>“That would bring our arrival close upon the telegraph. +Give a night to think of it. At the best, our return home +will be painful enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia looked down at her black dress and thought of +her father with a pang of sorrow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Arrange it as you please, Cora. Heaven knows, I +shall not be happy anywhere.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XII.<br> <span class='c011'>MEETING OF THE LOVERS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Joshua Hurd went down to the hotel where Seymour +was staying to get the gold for his horses, and chanced to +pass up the hall just as Cora and her cousin were standing +within the parlor door. The beauty of these girls would +have been striking anywhere, but, in deep mourning and +saddened by misfortune, the effect of their appearance was +calculated to excite something deeper and purer than +admiration. Joshua was not much given to emotions of +taste or feeling, but he stopped short in his quick, plunging +walk, and stared at them with doubt and astonishment in +his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“By goram, if grown folks ever looked like children, +them gals belong to the family somehow. Sich hair as +that doesn’t crop out on any other heads that I know on. +What if it was them? All her bread ’ed be dough mighty +quick.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While he stood muttering these words to himself, Virginia +Lander came out of the parlor and passed him. Her +long black dress swept across his heavy shoes, and her side +face was turned toward him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Marm, marm—I say is—is—it you, or ain’t it nobody +as I cares about? My name is Joshua Hurd.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>“Joshua Hurd!” exclaimed Virginia, turning back. +“Oh, I am so glad you are here!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And it’s you, and t’other one tu; I saw you a standing +together, and my heart riz right up inter my mouth. But +the old gentleman, is he on hand? Thought you was all +gone to smash at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia turned her face away, not in anger at the stolid +creature, but the pain at her young heart was terrible.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We come back alone,” she said, with tears in her voice. +“Do not let us talk of it. My cousin and I are all that +you will ever see!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s tough,” answered Joshua, really disappointed. +“Good gracious! who’d a thought of finding you here arter +we’d all gone into mourning for you, and got kind’er pacified +about so many going down at once. I only hope <i>she’ll</i> +take it mild.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We have just been speaking of that—my cousin and I. +No one must be taken by surprise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I reckon I’d better go right hum my own self and +kind’er break the news to her easy. She’s got sort a used +to the property, you know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia smiled faintly at this and said, in her innocence, +“Oh, she will never think of that. It will make no difference +to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who is this?” exclaimed Cora, joining them. “What, +Josh! dear old Josh!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes mam, it’s me, sure enough. But you—by jingo, I +can’t tell which is which. How you have grown, both on +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you cannot tell us apart, Joshua?” said Cora, +smiling. “Try! try!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Couldn’t du it to save my life,” was the puzzled answer. +“Defy <i>her</i> tu tell which is her own darter and which isn’t.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What nonsense, Joshua! Why I have ridden on your +shoulder a hundred times.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>“And so has both on ye, that’s nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia, who was falling back into the sadness which +had become habitual to her, seemed distressed by the light +tone of this conversation, and asked Joshua if he could go +up the river by the first train and carry the news of their +arrival to the home which they would be sure to reach in +the morning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” Joshua said, “he was on hand for anything, and +would make a straight line for the depot the minute he’d +secured a bag of gold a young chap in the hotel owed him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will write a line and have it ready,” said Cora, exhibiting +a good deal of nervous excitement. “Are you going +up stairs, cousin?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” answered Virginia, sadly. “Even this meeting +troubles me more than I expected.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A strange light came into Cora’s eyes; she was evidently +glad to be alone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>For ten minutes after she entered the parlor, Cora Lander +walked up and down the room, at first rapidly, like one +whose thoughts were in a tumult; then with measured +paces, as she collected those thoughts out of chaos and +planted them in her mind. She took up a pen to write at +last, but flung it down again, having formed a quick resolution.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let him go,” she said, beginning to pace the floor +again. “It is better not. I will neither send note nor +message, but let me be certain.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She rang the bell, and when the servant answered it inquired +what was the latest train up the river. The man +answered that one would leave a little before eleven. She +dismissed him and gave herself up to anxious thought +again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Joshua came down for his instructions, Cora was +sitting in the parlor alone, grave and apparently composed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She had changed her mind about writing. Indeed the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>effort was too much, but Joshua could tell all that was +necessary. Her cousin and herself had escaped and were +in New York. A vessel had picked them up at sea when +almost starved, and in her they had gone back to England, +but these things would all be explained in due time without +burdening his memory with them. Tell the people at +home that he had seen them, that would be enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This she said very quietly, looking in his face all the +time, as if to challenge close observation. As he was going +out she called him back and said, with a smile:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So you cannot make out which of us belongs to the +lady up yonder, or which is the orphan and heiress?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I’ll be hung and choked to death if I can.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, you are dull, Joshua; but there will be plenty of +the people who can tell us apart, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a critter, without it’s our Eunice. She might.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Aunt Eunice, as we used to call her. How cross +she was,” said Cora, holding up her hands in mock terror.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cross! Wall I reckon she is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But she was always devoted to—to Mrs. Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And is yit; but natur is natur, and Eunice’s is awful +sometimes. Now Mr. Lander was a good man, but +she e’enamost hated him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But his daughter, she was a favorite with Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, she wasn’t. If you’re her, you must have found +that out. She took to the other gal mostly, and so did I.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed! Well, well, you will think better of it when +we get home. Go now, Joshua, or you will be too late for +the train. By the way, had you not better go early in the +morning? It will give you plenty of time. We shall not +start before ten.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua gathered up the end of a shot bag, which he had +brought from the stable to carry his gold in, and resting it +on his knee, tightened the string with both hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest as you think best,” he said. “Shouldn’t wonder +<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>if the madam ’ell be disappointed when she finds out that +this isn’t all hern,” he muttered. “It’ll come awful tough +for her to give up. Jest as you think best.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora arose, and, in order to hurry the man off, tied up +the bag with her own hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go now; go, my good fellow, or you will get but little +rest,” she said, taking his cap from the marble console and +putting it on his head. “Be sure and start very early in +the morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua lifted himself heavily from the damask chair on +which he had been seated, and moved away with the bag of +gold grasped tightly in his hand, muttering to himself:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ll make sure of that by going up to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The moment he was gone, Cora went up to her cousin’s +chamber, and flinging herself on a couch complained +bitterly of a headache, which she said was torturing her. +But she declined Virginia’s offered help, and lay with her +face to the wall, apparently asleep, but buried in deep +thought. At dark some tea and a light supper was sent +up, of which they both partook with considerable appetite, +Cora observing that a headache like that was sure to make +her hungry, while her cousin suggested that they had eaten +nothing since morning—an unwise thing when they had +both so much need of strength. After a little, Cora arose +and proposed going to bed at once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We have had a weary day,” she said, “and you look +very pale, dear; besides I am so depressed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; it is a sad return home. I do not feel as if I +should ever sleep sweetly again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you must. I will not go to my own room till you +are safe in bed; you would sit up crying half the night if +I left you alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, my heart is too mournful for tears.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still you must try for rest, or no sleep will come to +me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>“For your sake, then, I will go.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia arose with a weary look and prepared herself for +bed. Cora helped her to undress, and with a gentle hand +brushed out the masses of chestnut brown hair which +glowed with a ruddy tinge in the light as she braided it +loosely in one massive cable. These pleasant feminine +attentions were rather unusual to her, and Virginia received +them gratefully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! what a mournful day we shall have to-morrow,” +she sighed, wearily taking off her dress. “You have something +to look forward to, Cora, but I—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The unhappy girl turned away her head, and lying down +half undressed, with her cheek to the pillow, began to cry.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t, don’t give way so,” said Cora, bending over her. +“Remember, to-morrow we shall be home.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia sobbed still more piteously.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At home, without him! Rich, helpless, oppressed with +cares. How shall I ever fill his place?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A strange look swept Cora’s features. She almost smiled, +yet a hateful expression mingled with the smile.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do not think about that now, but put on your night +dress; you will take cold.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia arose and invested herself in the full white garment +which gave her a nun-like purity of look. She +dropped on her knees, and with her face buried in both +hands, prayed meekly for several minutes. Then she +arose with a heavy sigh, and kissing her cousin good-night, +lay down, turning her face to the wall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-night, dear; rest well,” said Cora, smoothing the +counterpane with her hand. “Now I can go content. +Good-night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With these words, Cora stole softly out of the room, murmuring +good-night as she went.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Instead of going to her own chamber, the girl turned +toward the staircase and swept down to the broad hall on +<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>which their parlor opened. At the lower end of this +passage she saw Seymour walking up and down, on the +watch. The moment her dark garments fluttered into +sight he came forward and followed her into the parlor. +She closed the door and drew a bolt, so gently that he did +not detect the action.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now, now tell me everything,” she said, seating herself +on a couch and motioning him to a place by her side. +“I am anxious, eager to know what brought you here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why ask that?” cried the young man, bending his +radiant eyes upon her, while her hand was pressed between +both his so ardently that her fingers unconsciously returned +the clasp. “Why ask? You brought me here. I could +not live with the Atlantic between us—death seemed better +than that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you love me so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Love you! Don’t ask me how much, or I might tell +you what I have done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What you have done? But I do ask.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ask what, dear one? There is nothing to tell. I +have moved Heaven and earth to reach this place—to +obtain the means without which you would not be yourself. +I have money now, brightest and dearest—ready gold and +plenty of it, at least for the present; enough in fact, to +give us a fair start in life. Only say that you love me +dearly as I love you, and a glorious future is before us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have said it a hundred times, Seymour,” she answered, +bending fondly toward him, but remarking, even in +this rush and glow of affection, that he looked wild and +spoke hurriedly, with his eyes bent downward.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But again, and again I want to see love-light in your +eyes and passion on your lips every moment of my life. It +is my food, my drink, the air I breathe. Oh, girl! girl! +how I love you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He threw his arms around her and strained her to his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>bosom with a vehemence that frightened her. She was +ardent and given up to her own wild will like himself, but +there was something beside love in all this, and she felt it +with a thrill of terror.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are cold; you shrink from me, after all that I have +done to win you—while my heart is struggling so madly to +find yours.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No! no!” she protested. “I love you—I love you—ten +thousand times over I love you! It may be folly, it +may be madness, but I <i>do</i> love you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My darling! my brave, bright, beautiful love! Now I +am no longer afraid. I regret nothing. There is no +treachery, no wrong that love like this would not sanctify. +Let me look at you. Heavens, how beautiful you are! +These little, warm hands, how they cling to mine! how +white they are! But I will make them rosy with kisses. +Oh, girl! girl! I thought you were dead, that this glorious +form was weltering in the deep, torn by sharks—lost! lost! +The thought was driving me mad. But you are here! you +are here! I can see your heart beat and your cheeks flush, +and these dear lips parted with smiles as you listen. Tell +me! tell me once more, how much you love me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why ask me again?” she said. “Did I ever deny my +love when you were penniless?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, girl, no; but you refused to share that penniless +state.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because I hoped for something better. My—my relative +was then alive. He was generous, and loved me. +When we reached home, I intended to appeal to him. It +would not have been in vain.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was this your real intention?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I had no other—you would have heard from me. I +might have asked such letters as would satisfy him of your +honorable position, nothing more. But he is dead.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And so we must fall back on my little hoard of gold. +Will that be enough for you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>“It would be difficult to say how much would be +enough,” answered Cora, with a bright smile. “Plenty +of property is necessary to make love like ours perfect. I +should perish, body and soul, without objects of beauty all +around me. Is it because you are so handsome, so peerlessly +graceful, that I can think of no one else? I often +ask myself, if you were plain and insignificant, even common +looking, would not my pride sweep you off among the +herd of ordinary men?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I never thanked Heaven for good looks before,” said +Seymour with genuine warmth. “In fact, I never thought +of it; few men do, I fancy. Then, if I had been good and +great, and all that men study and strive for, you might +never have thought of me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, I would have everything, but I shall make you +vain; your eyes flash with triumph already. See how +easily a woman loses her power when she says honestly, ‘I +love you.’”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; she exalts herself. Would that I had millions +to lavish upon you instead of twenty paltry thousands.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Twenty thousand! that is not much,” she said, growing +thoughtful for a moment. “But what then? We shall +not be without resources; I have ideas, and courage and +will enough for anything. What if I were richer than you +think?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So that you loved me still, I should rejoice—but only +for your sake.” The young man spoke honestly, and with +a tone of sadness in his voice. “Could I have been sure +of you, poverty would have been nothing. Oh! how much +better to work for you! But all that is over, and I am +brave enough to be glad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We must not talk of work—I hate it,” said Cora, +smiling brightly upon him. “To me the world is divided +into two classes—those who work and those who enjoy. +Had I been of the working classes, the very loathing of it +<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>would have driven me to struggle upwards, as both men +and women can in this country.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! if we could have had patience to wait for that!” +said Seymour, with sudden passion. “To work alone even, +hoping for you in the end, would have been Heaven to me; +I could have served any hard task-master, like Jacob, for +seven long years.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And in the meantime I should have grown old and +ugly—you, round-shouldered, perhaps,” said Cora, laughing. +“No, no; let us have all or nothing. The world is +before us—Fortune has always been true to me. Like the +lilies of the field, I have neither toiled nor spun, and it will +go hard if fate puts me to it now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour looked at her animated face in thoughtful +admiration. Truly she was very beautiful. All the love +she was capable of feeling flooded her eyes and burned on +her cheek. She seemed supremely happy, and the young +man believed that affection for himself alone kindled her +features into superb loveliness. They sat in silence awhile. +He was thoughtful and grave, though her head rested on +his shoulder and the perfume of her hair swept across his +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wonder if any one ever can be perfectly happy?” he +said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think so,” was her soft answer. “I feel so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When you are mine—all mine—when fate itself cannot +wrest you from me, I shall know,” he murmured. +“When shall it be? There is no cause for delay.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will tell you after to-morrow,” she whispered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you leave the city then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is only a short ride on the railway.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“May I come there?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, but not directly. There may be reasons against +it that I do not know of. But close by the depot is a +public house, where you can be comfortable for a few hours +<span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>or days. On the third day from this you will find me in +the grounds. There was formerly an odd little summer-house +up a ravine which opens to the river; you can almost +see it from the depot. Wait for me there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall have but one thought till then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And now good-night!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will not send me away yet?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I must. My cousin is ill and may want me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, this is cruel!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To myself most of all. She does not know of your +existence, and might find you here. There! there! you +hurt my hand. We shall meet again very soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to part—say that, dear girl!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I hope so—I think so. But be prudent, and if necessary +patient. Remember we have a whole life before us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A Heaven, you should say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled sweetly, gave him for the first time her lips +to kiss, and went to the door with his arm around her +waist. With a dexterous touch of the finger, she shot the +bolt and let him out, almost delirious with mingled feelings +of joy, pride, shame and regret.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIII.<br> <span class='c011'>THE MIDNIGHT HOUR.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora remained in the room some time after Seymour +left it, walking up and down, sometimes slowly, sometimes +with the quick, impetuous tread of an empress whose power +was threatened. Her heart was in a tumult of passionate +feeling. The wild rush of joy that had overwhelmed her +when she first saw Seymour still beat in her bosom and +crimsoned her cheeks. So far as love is a passion, she felt +<span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>it deeply toward that man—felt it with that blind impulse +which would have overmastered any obstacle and rendered +her capable almost of goodness, if that alone could have +united them. She would not have married him penniless +because self-sacrifice was not in her nature, but she possessed +force of character to surmount any difficulty which +lay between them, and all her love and ambition craved.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is young, accomplished, ambitious, splendidly handsome,” +she said to herself. “What more can I ask. One +thing, and that I will procure. It requires courage, +audacity, an iron fixedness of will, almost impossible self-possession; +but I have all these things. This thought has +been in my mind too long for failure. Once it was a +dream, now a fixed purpose—a purpose that cannot fail unless +she has grown generous or cowardly—no, she is not +old enough for that. I know all her weak points—a love +of display, luxurious habits, a hatred of the class from +which she sprung. No, I cannot fail with her. Well, the +others? This man, for instance, he is easily managed; +but then Aunt Eunice, that sharp, hard old Yankee woman, +who never forgets. Well, I have courage even to defy +her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora took out her watch, started on finding how +late it was, and hurried up to her room. Without a moment’s +delay she changed her dress, enveloped herself in a +water-proof cloak, tied a thick veil over her bonnet, and, +locking the door after her, went down to the street, passing +unobserved as some sewing woman going about her ordinary +business. She beckoned a carriage which stood near +the entrance, ordered it to be driven to the Hudson River +depot, and in half an hour was seated in the remote seat of +a car, ready to start up the river.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The train started slowly from the depot, and went with +some caution through the streets, seeming to scatter back +stars along its path as it passed lamp-post after lamp-post, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>linking them as it were in a swift chain of fire. At last +the engine plunged into the country, lighting up the +track and the shadowy trees in its swift progress. Cora +sat still, muffled close in her cloak of dull gray, and with +her brown barege veil drawn close over her face. She had +no luggage, not even a travelling basket or satchel, and sat +motionless, looking out of the window as if something +enthralling lay in the dark rush of the river and the +broken shore along which she was whirled.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At the nearest station to the Lander’s dwelling she arose, +softly gathered the cloak around her, and, without speaking +to the conductor, stepped out upon the platform. She was +not the only person set down at that point, but a few moments +found her standing there, as she supposed, quite +alone, while the train rushed up the river bank panting +under every impulse of its fiery heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the train had disappeared like a huge black serpent +scaled sparsely with spots of fire, this young girl +turned and walked hastily toward a flight of steps which +led up the terrace and would conduct her at once to the +lawn in front of the late Mr. Lander’s dwelling. Even in +the darkness, she could detect the gleam of white marble +pillars and a lofty façade breaking through the night, contrasted +with the huge trees that encompassed them with a +world of black shadows.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was a weird picture of home to which the young girl +came, like a thief and with the thoughts of a robber in her +heart. If the darkness had permitted it, her face would +have shone out white and hard almost as the marble on +which her eyes turned with such burning greed. She +stood a moment on the verge of the terrace regarding the +building, which soon outlined itself in the sable cloud +which surrounded it with vast spectral indistinctness. +Even thus, it was a noble pile, appealing grandly to the +imagination, and her heart swelled with rapacious satisfaction +as she gathered its value into her mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>After a little, she began to regard the house with other +thoughts. Her eyes wandered over the building in search +of a light, which she hoped to find shining through some +of the windows. But none appeared, and she walked on, +burying her footsteps in the crisp grass of the lawn, for it +was too dark for any hope of finding a path. There was +no wavering or hesitation about her. Swiftly as a human +being could walk, she passed through the shadows and +turned an angle of the house. In the window of a second +story room, which overlooked a portion of the lawn most +thickly planted with flowers, a faint light was burning +behind curtains of white lace, which softened it as clouds +envelop a star.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is her room, I know,” muttered the girl; “she +never slept without a light. But she has changed apartments +with her new fortunes. That used to be a guest +chamber.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>As she spoke the light seemed to waver as if some one +held it unsteadily. It was only the curtain stirred by a +gentle wind, for the sash was open that pleasant summer +night, and Mrs. Lander, being an epicure, loved to have +perfume from the dewy flowers wafted to her as she slept.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank Heaven for that coward habit of a night lamp,” +thought the girl, stealing softly around the house in search +of some unbolted door through which she might let herself +in. She tried the back doors first, but to no avail. Then +searched for an open window, but Eunice had taken care +that no means of entrance should be left exposed. On the +ground floor every point was locked and guarded.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After satisfying herself of this fact, Cora went round to +the flower garden again, resolved, by some means, to reach +the window which had at first occupied so much of her +attention. Sharp and vigilant as a fox, she searched the +wall for some means of ascent, but the white marble was +smooth as snow-crust and nothing but a vast rose-bush +<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>broke its polished surface. This hush, however, hung +loosely on the wall, and its branches swayed to and fro in +the flickering light. Cora was seized with a wild impulse +to climb up this uncertain support, and thus, if possible, +reach the window. She seized the rose-bush by the stem +and brought it down violently, with all its blossoming +branches trailing on the grass. In starting back, Cora +trod upon something hard, which almost threw her down. +She groped in the grass at her feet and found that she had +stumbled against a ladder, which lay half-buried in the +grass where it had been thrown by the gardener; who had +been busy about the climbing roses the day before and had +left his work unfinished. Cora lifted the ladder, with some +difficulty, and planting it against the white wall found that +it reached the open window. Light as a bird, she climbed +from round to round, till half her form and her entire side +face was framed, like a picture, against the faintly illuminated +sash.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The stillness within the room fell upon her with a sudden +check. She leaned forward, holding her breath, and looked +in. A bed stood in a corner of the room clouded with +volumes of white lace, through which the outline of a +female figure could be seen slumbering in the soft radiance +which stole like moonlight from a lamp that seemed shaded +with transparent snow. All the while Cora Lander remained +as it were framed in by the window, a stout man +stood beneath that great willow, which drooped over him +like the curving waters of a fountain, and watched her +movements curiously. But when she disappeared through +the window he moved towards the stables a muttering,</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, it aint none of my business as I know on, but +that is a mighty queer way for any gal to come home. I +wonder which on ’em it is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander, all unconscious of this scrutiny, paused a +moment to listen before she crossed the room and drew +<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>the lace curtains back from the bed. Mrs. Lander lay +sleeping upon her pillow, frilled, laced, and embroidered +with that excess of ornament which those who come suddenly +into the possession of riches are apt to indulge in. A +quantity of Valenciennes lace lay softly around her forehead +and temples. The plump white hands crept out from +double frills edged with the same rich material, and the +bosom of her night dress presented one mass of insertion +and embroidery. She was a tolerably handsome woman +and these things became her well, though a close observer +would have understood something of the suddenness of her +late good fortune by those elaborate appointments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander’s proud lip curved, and a gleam of malicious +humor shot into her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Upon my word, she dashes into the thing with a will,” +was her first thought, “No fool like an old fool! All her +toilet bottles mounted with gold. Both hands loaded with +diamonds even in her sleep! How self-satisfied she looks. +No wonder—no wonder! A property like this might make +any one rest sweetly. The more she prizes it, why the +easier my task.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIV.<br> <span class='c011'>THE TEMPTER AND THE TEMPTED.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander bent close to the sleeping woman’s ear, +and uttered the word “mother,” in one of those sharp, +sudden whispers which thrill the heart even in slumber.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander started up with a faint cry, and pressing one +elbow into the down of her pillow, gave a wild stare at the +face bending over her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who is this? What are you?” she cried, in sudden +terror.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>“Mother! mother! surely you know me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Know you! know you! I was dreaming of those eyes, +but not of you. My child was younger, frailer, lovelier. +She is drowned! She is drowned! What do you want of +me? I do not know you. How dare you call me +mother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman spoke wildly, almost with defiance. Her +hands quivered under their lace ruffles; the embroidery on +her bosom rose and fell with a sudden spasm of dread.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother, you know me well enough; I am Cora Lander, +your own child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My own child?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You thought me dead, I dare say. But here I am safe +and well. Touch my hand—that will prove it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But—but you are taller. You are a woman!” gasped +the mother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A girl grows taller in eight years. But look close, +mother—you would have known me by daylight.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, I shouldn’t—I don’t. The hair is like, but +darker—the eyes—the mouth—that smile. Cora! Cora +Lander! my child! my child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>All the motherhood of the woman sprang into action +then. She seized the young girl in her arms, drew her +down upon the bed and rained kisses upon her, sobbing, +laughing and shivering under a rush of natural tenderness +that swept all other feelings out of her heart. At last she +pushed the girl back from her bosom and examined her +face line by line.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you have come back—my child! my darling!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush! hush! we are having too much of this,” said +the girl, sitting down on the bed. “Some one will hear +us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, why not? They will all know in the morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think not, dear aunt!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear aunt! What is this for? But it reminds me +<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>that perhaps you and I are paupers. What has become of +him? Is he alive too?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, thank Heaven! he is safe, fathoms deep in the +Atlantic.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander drew a quick breath. “Oh! dear, it seems +terrible to hear you say this!” she said, with a frightened +look. “But if he were alive what <i>should</i> we do? Poverty! +poverty! poverty! I shouldn’t endure that after +having so much!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it may come upon us yet,” said the daughter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How? how? Oh! I remember—that other Cora, the +girl they called Virginia. But she is fathoms deep too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is alive and well, down in New York, this +moment,” said Cora, drily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What? what?” cried the woman, strangling with a +hysterical rush of feeling. “She alive! Then we are a +thousand times worse off than if Lander had lived. He +was kind and generous enough. But that child, with her +soft ways, and that smile, acting always as if she had been +born a lady, while you would let the old Adam out—I +would rather starve than take my bread from her! Oh! +what will become of us?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is what I came up from New York in the dead of +night to talk to you about. No one knows that I am here—no +one must know anything about it. Do try and be +calm; everything depends on that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, child, I am calm. Despair has this one good +quality—it brings dead repose with it. After a little, I +shall find strength to look this thing in the face. But it is +hard.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know that, mother; you have not tasted the bitterness +of dependence alone. I know what it must be to give +up a fortune like this. But how came you with it? Did +my uncle make a will? The man you sent to New +York with a pair of horses told me so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>“Yes, he made a will—all to no purpose now. Oh! it +was to no purpose!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And how did this will read? Tell me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It gave everything to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Everything! And you blundered like that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Cora. He wrote it with his own hand. Upon +my life and honor, it was every word in his own handwriting!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But was that all? The law would have given it to +her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, yes, I know; but the law, instead of giving you +and I a chance of the whole, would have scattered it among +those country cousins. That was what made Lander’s will +valuable. If she died without children, you came next, +and I after.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed! Then it was under this that you took possession. +It is hard on you that we turn up alive—hard on me +too, for Cora may marry and have half-a-dozen children to +cut us out. Will do all this, certainly, if we are fools +enough to let her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how can we help it? What have we to do but +sink back into our old dependence?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother, listen to me,” said Cora, in a hard, firm voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I listen,” was the wondering answer. “But how +hard your face looks—there is no childhood left in you, Cora +Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I hope not, for the thing I came to talk about is no +child’s play. It needs firmness, courage, audacity even. I +fear that you will be wanting in these qualities when the +test comes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, do you fear me because I am taken by surprise, +when roused out of a sound sleep, to find you at my bedside—not +white and dripping, as I have seen you so often in my +dreams—not the child whose brightness I was so proud of, +but a calm, hard woman, taking the lead even with me, +your own mother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>“True, true, there is something in that. The surprise +was enough to stagger any one. I might have bent under +it myself, especially after tasting the sweetness of such +wealth. But what I am thinking of requires the most consummate +coolness, nerves of iron, a face of marble. It +requires that determination which enables a man to commit +what the world calls crime quietly, firmly. You could +never do that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander looked at her daughter half in triumph, +half affrighted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You say this to test me, Cora—to make yourself certain +that I am incapable of wrong. You suspect me, perhaps?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; I wish that were possible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What were possible?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, that you had the courage to reach forth your +hand for this noble inheritance.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I have the courage. You do not know—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes the courage to submit.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, to struggle—to fight. Only all struggles are +hopeless now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you have not the courage, I repeat, to commit what +men might call a crime even to make your child, and +through her yourself, heiress of all this wealth.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What—what is it you mean? Are you setting up an +inquisition over your own mother? Of what can you suspect +me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was deadly pale, her mouth contracted +itself, her eyes gleamed with apprehension.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girl looked into that craven face with keen inquiry. +It puzzled even her penetration. If the mere thought of +wrong had so disturbed her mother, there was little hope +that the scheme which had brought her there could be carried +out. But her searching eye soon discovered more than +the mere revolt of innocent conscience in this strange +<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>agitation. There was actual guilt in that face. What +could that guilt be? Quick as lightning that sharp intellect +ran over all possible causes for this singular agitation, +and settled on the will.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I only suspect, mother, that you tampered with Uncle +Lander’s will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander fell back upon her pillow, white and breathless.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The will! the will!” she whispered. “Who told—who +has dared?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Be tranquil, do be tranquil, mother,” said the girl +taking the trembling hand put forth to repulse her and +kissing it tenderly. “All this makes our way clear; I do +not blame you. What else could you do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It would have gone to those stupid cousins,” pleaded +the woman. “Besides, the will was his, every word—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Except the names,” said Cora, gently. “I understand. +Well, after all, that was risking a great deal, while my +plan has positively no danger in it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But will it secure the property?” asked the mother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To me, just as it is now—and without danger?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to you; that is impossible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander’s face contracted with disappointment, +while her daughter went on:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But through me your only child, everything can be +done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander did not speak, but her eyes asked eager +questions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What matters it,” said the girl, “which is absolute +owner here? Are not a mother and daughter one?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it seems most natural that a mother should +possess the power,” faltered Mrs. Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And so you shall in everything but the name. Only +aid me in getting possession, and there will be no dispute +about power between us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>“But how?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is easy, mother, and perfectly safe. To-morrow, +when we come home, forget that I am your daughter, and +in my place accept the girl called Virginia Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander rose to a sitting posture in the bed, her eyes +were full of wild light, her lips parted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora answered this sharp exclamation very calmly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We two girls are so much alike that people take us for +twins. We have been away from the country eight years. +No human being is qualified to contradict you when you +claim Virginia and disown me. No other evidence of +identity will be needed, even if it comes to a court of law. +I shall support you—from the first I shall recognize you +only as my aunt, claim Amos Lander as my father, and +quietly take the position of his child. By what force can +she dislodge me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander sunk back to the pillows, astounded by the +bold scheme which was to deprive her of a daughter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let me rest—let me think,” she said; “the audacity +of this thing appals me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do think—reflect; nothing can be safer. It is simply +to say a thing and persist in it.”.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the people abroad—those who knew you both at +the schools—should there be a contest, they will be called +as witnesses.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What then? They know nothing. We passed as Mr. +Lander’s children; no distinction was ever made; I doubt +if any one knew that we were not sisters. Thanks to Virginia’s +sensitive generosity, she never spoke of my dependent +position, and as for Uncle Lander, he always introduced +us on shipboard and elsewhere as Miss Lander and +Miss Cora Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander drew a deep breath; the anxiety was dying +out from her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>“And this would make you heiress of everything?” she +said. “But where would my claim be?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In your power to dispossess me by a word. That would +make you, in fact, mistress here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True, true; but they might force me to swear that you +were not my child; then my power of retreat would be cut +off.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander could be sweet and affectionate enough +when it pleased her to put forth these gentle qualities. She +stooped down to her mother, threw one arm caressingly +over her and pressed half-a-dozen soft kisses on her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is for us both—for you, dear mother, more than myself. +I am ready to risk something rather than see you +cast back into poverty. Think how hard it will be to give +all this luxury up to another—think of my fate, compelled +to take every mouthful of bread I eat from her bounty. +Mother, if you prove coward and force me to this, I shall +hate you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If we could share it together, I would not hesitate, but +the wrong and falsehood will be all mine, the reward +yours.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Only in name, sweet mother—only in name. The +wealth and power you shall possess alike with myself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But this girl, this poor Virginia, whom we are wronging +so—what will become of her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her stay here and learn the bitter lesson she has +taught you and me—that of a poor relative subsisting on a +rich man’s bounty. We must change places. I will be +gracious, kind and killingly generous to her, as she has +been to us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But she will protest, appeal to the law.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her; without proof against that best of evidence, +the woman who claims to be her mother, what will her +protest amount to?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>How well this young creature had considered her plans; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>not a thread of the web was wanting; even the law itself +seemed powerless to break into its meshes; never did a +fraud seem more certain of success. The widow had +yielded herself to Cora’s blandishments; they seemed to +insure her a splendid future. With a creature like that, so +beautiful and bright, wealth would have tenfold value. +The joy of her child’s return was mingled with all this. +She loved the fair young creature with newborn affection. +Her voice was sweet, her smile persuasive. The very crime +that she proposed assimilated so well with that already committed +by herself, that it broke down the barriers of reserve +which long absence and the change from childhood to +womanliness would naturally have produced. Sympathy +either in good or evil draws hearts close together. Cora +leaned toward her mother and kissed her cheek, which was +scarlet and hot with struggling emotions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Say, now,” she pleaded, “if you and I are to be mistresses +of this noble property, this house with all its luxurious +appliances, or beggars again?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora, I never could endure that. Possession has been +too sweet. This broad, free sense of independence has +expanded my whole life. I love to give orders and receive +the homage of those whom money has made the slaves of +my will. I love to feel that the marble under my feet is +mine to tread upon or tear up as I will; the fruit and +flowers growing around me are mine, mine, mine to give, +keep, sell or leave on the boughs. Cora, I never knew till +now the entire bitterness of poverty, the abject humiliation +of dependence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But all this must come unless you act as I wish.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I see; I see. But to give up my own fair child +and take another in her place, one too whom I have wronged +so, that too seems impossible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know, I know; but in secret I shall still be your +child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>“But I shall be nothing, not even mother to the heiress.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will be her aunt. The most loved and honored +relative that ever controlled a household. Besides, pray +remember, a few months will put this entire property into +my hands, then I can divide it with you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will you? She too can be provided for, and it +will not seem so hard.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We will think of that—but tell me now, are you prepared? +Will you promise to be firm? In a little time +the train will come down; I must be assured of my position +before I go.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wish Eunice were here!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, the hard-faced woman with the red hair? +Surely you do not trust people like her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is—” Mrs. Lander stopped suddenly, checked +herself, and added, as if from some after-thought, “She is +faithful and devoted to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother,” said Cora, with great firmness, “this secret +rests between us two. On your life, I charge you, share it +with no other living soul! That would be to make ourselves +slaves indeed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not with Eunice? Not with Eunice?” almost pleaded +the widow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother, a secret shared is an object lost. What is this +iron-faced woman to us, that we should take her into our +souls?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice—Eunice. Oh, nothing but a faithful old servant, +who loved me well before I became rich.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her remain a faithful servant, nothing more,” answered +Cora. “I want no confidants bred in the kitchen, +no love from any quarter which cannot be paid for with +money. So let her pass, for we have but little time. I +hear a clock striking, or rather giving out fairy music. +What sumptuous tastes you have, mother! It would be a +pity to give all these pretty things up to my cousin!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span>“That I never will—never! never!” cried Mrs. Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then be firm and prepare to receive that other one as +your daughter. Good-night, I must go now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-night! With these words we are torn apart +never again to be mother and child! God has given you +back to me, and in your place I take money got by crime.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander spoke low, but with deep, passionate feeling. +She was not hard by nature, like the fair young girl who +looked down upon her, beautiful as Lucifer and almost as +wicked.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is sentiment—nonsense—and such things are out +of place when an object like this lies before us. We can +love each other and live together. Why not? Aunts are +often very, very fond of their nieces. It excites no wonder.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; crime strangles love.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not with the strong and bold. Take courage, you have +little to do; I am not afraid to lead the way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora turned toward the window, gathering her cloak +tightly around her. Mrs. Lander sprang out of bed and +followed her with both trembling hands held out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“One embrace, Cora! Let me feel you close to my heart +before you go! Call me mother again!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, mother, am I close enough? Why how you +tremble!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There! there! kiss me a hundred times if you like; +but when that little clock chimes the quarter I must be +gone. Why, how foolish you are! how weak! We shall +meet again to-morrow or next day, and there will be no +more parting.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Crime parts everything, Cora; I have learned that +already. Heaven help us! it had almost reconciled me +to your death, and now that you have come back, awaking +my heart to its old tenderness, you would pile up barriers +<span class='pageno' id='Page_136'>136</span>between us. No! no! let us be poor again—very poor! I +shall not care, so long as we are innocent and love each +other.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I should not love you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t say that! I could give these things up, indeed +I could!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And repine over it forever after. Know yourself +better; but this argument would last forever. Once for all, +will you act as I desire?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes! yes!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is right. Now I love you dearly. You shall be +the grand dame of the establishment.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know that you will be kind, dear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Trust me. There goes the quarter—good-bye! good-bye!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the last word left her lips, Cora was outside upon +the ladder, with her beautiful face uplifted to the light. In +an instant she glided downward into the darkness. The +ladder was drawn after her and fell softly to its old place in +the grass. A branch of the rose-bush swayed back, as if +something had dragged it out of place, and that was all.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XV.<br> <span class='c011'>THE DISTURBED CONSCIENCE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Mrs. Lander sprang out of bed and ran to the window, +resolved to call her daughter back and revoke the evil +promise she had made. She leaned out into the chill air, +careless of the wind, which stirred her night dress as if it +had been snow, searching for her child in the darkness. +As her eyes got accustomed to the gloom, she saw what +seemed like a deeper shadow fluttering on the edge of the +terrace, but that was all.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>The rattle of a coming train in the far distance kept her +at the window. The noise grew louder, wilder and more +impetuous. Then a great burning eye, fiery and seemingly +bloodshot, glared out from the blackness of crowded trees, +lighting them up like the smile of a demon, and a shriek, +horrible in its shrillness, cut through the night, making the +woman’s heart quake in her bosom as if a fiend had mocked +her. Then came the sharp clang of a bell, the rattle of +iron, and the train swept away again, rushing off like a +storm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander listened to its receding noises with absolute +terror. It seemed as if some awful visitation had left her +there trembling and helpless. Such dreams had visited +her before. Mr. Lander himself had swept down upon her +from mountainous waves, dripping wet, and with his gray +hair turned to icicles, clamoring for his property. Her +daughter, too, had haunted her sleep, crying for help from +some yawning gulf of waters, and she had seen Lander’s +heiress dancing fantastic flings on the surface of a calm +ocean, bright as quicksilver. All these apparitions had +demanded a restitution of the property she had just begun +to enjoy with such zest. The struggle to retain it, and yet +allow them to come out free from their prison in the great +crystal deep, had often sent her out of these dreams +sobbing with dread and bathed in cold perspiration.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But hard as these dreams had been, nothing could equal +the scene that had just swept past her. Was it real? +Could it be a vision, like the rest, tormenting her sleep? +She pressed her bands on the marble window-sill and +leaned out into the night, searching it wildly for some trace +of the presence that had seemed so real. The slow rush of +the Hudson, sweeping toward the ocean just below the +terrace, and a soft shiver of leaves, was all the sound she +heard. Nothing was visible save the outline of the flower-beds +and groups of shrubbery merging dimly into the pale +grey light which was just beginning to dawn in the east.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>The woman drew back with a sob of grateful relief. A +new class of demons had begun to haunt her. Fiery +trains, trailing smoke as they went, out of which came her +daughter, more beautiful than she had ever dreamed of, to +tempt her into new crimes, had been coursing through her +sleep. This vision had driven her out of bed into the +chilly night air. All about her shoulders and bosom the +linen robe she wore was wet with dew. She was shivering +with cold in all her limbs. For the world she would not +encounter another vision like that. Such things were +getting to be frightfully real. Eunice should sleep in the +next room and that would be a protection hereafter. She +withdrew herself from the window and crept into bed, +shuddering with cold, but rest was impossible; she had +been too severely shocked; all that she could do was to lie +there with her eyes wide open and watch the daylight as it +crept across the window. At last a sunbeam shot through +the lace curtains, silvering them like a cloud and filling her +room with light.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was very strange, but the brilliancy and stir of morning +only made that vision more definite and certain. +Before this her dreams had vanished with the darkness, +but this—its distinctness terrified her. She reached forth +her hand, it fell upon a hollow place on the counterpane. +Lifting herself up from the pillows, she examined the spot. +It was pressed down as if some person had been sitting +there. She remembered that figure in the gray cloak with +its hood falling back, and a sick feeling crept over her. +Was it reality? Could it be that Cora, in her natural person, +had occupied that place? She started from the bed, +resolved to search for other traces of the strange presence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander left her bed, she leaned from the window, +looking forth upon as bright a sunrise as ever blessed the +earth. A shimmer of dew lay upon everything—grass, +leaves and branches, were bright with it. A rain of diamonds +<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>trembled on the great drooping willows, and the +flowers knew a double brightness, for the sunshine turned +the moisture in their cups to a living fire. All this dazzled +the woman without satisfying her. She leaned out of the +window, searching the grass beneath it. A ladder lay half-buried +in the grass, but near it, slanting down one side, +was the print of all its rounds and supporters pressed into +the turf like a material shadow, if that could be. Straggling +out from under this ladder was a broken rose branch +full of sap and fresh at the splintered end. Away from +that, crossing the lawn, a trail of small footprints was +plainly visible leading to the terrace stairs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The faintness of slow fear fell upon Mrs. Lander as she +saw all this. She could not yet realize that her child was +alive, the impression left by her presence was still so weird. +But she knew that the vision of that night could never +be shaken off—that, as a blessing or a curse, she must meet +it with all her intellect and all her strength.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman did not go back to her bed. Those wild, +bright eyes were too widely open for that, but she dressed +herself in haste, stopping in deep thought sometimes with +the comb drawn half through her hair, and gazing on herself +in the glass, as if that image had been her enemy, +for minutes together; then she would hurry on her garments +with sudden impetuosity and drop into thought as +before. The woman had no object in this; for when she +was dressed the whole effort ended in a hurried walk up +and down the room with an energy that was almost appalling, +for her feet gave forth no sound from the moss-like +carpet, and the workings of her face took unnatural force +from the stillness, as if the passions within her were +smitten with dumb agony.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus it was that Eunice found her mistress when she +came to her chamber, late in the morning. No, not exactly +thus, for, at the first sound of a step in the hall, Mrs. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>Lander drove the trouble back from her face, and quietly +asking if breakfast were ready, passed down stairs. She +had resolved to keep her own secret, had forced herself to +<i>wait</i>, the hardest lesson an ardent nature ever learned.</p> + +<p class='c013'>During the first hours in which this woman was mustering +her strength, Cora Lander, who had haunted her like a +ghost, was being whirled toward the city in the remotest +seat of a car filled with passengers, sound asleep or too +drowsy to notice her. There she sat folded in her cloak, +vigilant and thoughtful. So far, her proceedings had +passed unnoticed, but it would be daylight when she +reached the city, and great caution might be needed on +entering the hotel. When the train reached its depot she +entered the hotel coach, pausing by the steps a moment to +observe if any passengers were bound for the same destination, +and was relieved to find that half-a-dozen persons, two +of whom were ladies, came crowding in after her. The +coach thundered rapidly through the still streets, and in a +brief time sat down its occupants before the hotel Cora +went with the rest to the reception room, but while the +travellers entered she glided away up the stairs to her own +chamber, and no human being save one ever knew positively +that she had left it.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XVI.<br> <span class='c011'>KINDRED LOVE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>That night, while Cora Lander was working out her evil +plans and Virginia had fallen asleep, with tears in her eyes, +thinking of her loneliness, Brian Nolan and the hunchbacked +girl sat in a little upper room of the hotel, talking +together in that sad, hopeless way which is most likely to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>follow a great misfortune. The light was dim, for Brian, +with that sensitive delicacy with which a refined nature +strives to throw a veil over deep feeling, had turned down +the gas, and in this semi-obscurity held his sister close in +his arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t cry so, darling, don’t. It breaks my heart to +feel you shake and sob in this way,” said the boy, trembling, +himself, as he spoke.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I was thinking how many of us went on board that +ship, Brian. Now you and I are left alone! all are gone! +all are gone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know! I know!” answered the boy. “Oh! my poor +mother! my grand, strong father!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy shook and trembled as he spoke, and the girl +clung to him more tightly, sobbing with half-suppressed +bursts of grief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He looked so grand—just as Abraham must have stood +when his boy lay on the altar. When I mounted the bulwark, +I knew it was death; people were sinking all around +the ship—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t, Brian! don’t, or my heart will break!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor sister! poor Ellen! I am sorry! But these things +are always in my mind. Only a few days ago I prayed +God to take me where they have gone. I was all alone—hungry, +oh, <i>so</i> hungry!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor Brian! I never was that since we left the boat. +<i>She</i> has fed me as if I had been a bird that she loved.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God bless her sweet face! But tell me how it all happened. +I know that she swam to the boat with you hanging +about her neck, but that is months ago. Where have +you been ever since?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We floated about for three days, cold and hungry, till +some of the strong men prayed to die; but she was patient, +and tried to make them hope for the best. It would have +made you cry to hear her comforting that other proud girl +<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>when she gave way and would sit moaning and wringing +her hands like a crazy thing. <i>My</i> lady was calm and still +as an angel. Some of the men had tossed some bread and +a keg of water into the boat before she put off, and that +kept us from quite starving. My lady only ate half that +was given to her and would have divided the rest between +her cousin and me. I would not touch it—no, no, I would +have starved to death first—but Cora, that hard, beautiful +Cora, devoured it all without a single thank. Oh, Brian, +my lady is so good!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it, darling; she looks good. But you were +taken up at last.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Brian, a ship bound for South America hove in +sight. Oh! what joy came upon us! Then it was, brother +that my young lady gave up and burst into tears. Her +white face was so beautiful then. She snatched me close +to her bosom and kissed me, thanking God with every kiss. +I clung to her; I laughed—I cried—I shivered with joy. +The other girl stood up in the boat and beckoned the great +ship with both her hands. She was eager as a hawk, but +never spoke one word of thanks or seemed to care whether +the rest were saved or not. Why, brother, the tough old +seaman were on their knees with great tears rolling down +their cheeks, sobbing like babies and blessing the ship, as +if she had been a living thing that could feel their thankfulness; +but her face was one white glow. She looked +ready to trample us all down just to get into the ship one +minute before us. Once the boat gave a lurch and almost +flung her overboard. Then she caught hold of my young +lady with both hands and sunk down on her knees, but not +to pray. ‘Those horrid men wanted to kill her,’ she said, +‘and tried to throw her into the sea, just when life was so +sweet and she was so near being safe.’”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you, my poor little sister, were taken on board +with the rest and treated kindly?” questioned the lad, +kissing that eloquent face with tender sympathy.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>“Me? oh yes, everybody was kind to me, you know, for +I never left her side, and she was like an angel among +them. I wish you could have seen her talking to the men +who were very downhearted after the first few days; for +they had not a cent left in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you, my sister, had nothing?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes, I had everything, for I had her! She took +great care of me, and loved me dearly; and I—oh, Brian, +I am afraid it’s a sin to worship anything as I worship +her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, Ellen; such feelings as you and I have for +those who saved us are not wrong. It would be wicked if +we did not almost worship these people.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I do; I do—my lady had rings on her fingers +worth a good deal of money, and the other one had just as +many, so there was no want when they set us on shore. +But she pined and grieved for her father. I never saw +anybody so troubled and so still. The other was always +brooding, brooding, brooding—I didn’t like her—I never +shall like her, Brian. When she touches me only with her +dress I start as if a snake were creeping by.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, dear, this will never do. It is the old trouble +coming back. I can remember, when you were a little +child, these fits of dislike coming over you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But they were always true, Brian; I never shudder so +at the sight of a good man or woman. When the snake +fear comes on, I know that it is to warn me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All this is because you are what people call sensitive, +Ellen, and that will never do for a poor girl who has her +way to make in the world,” said Brian, tenderly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how can one help such feelings if God has given +them? You might as well attempt to straighten this poor +back as ask me not to shrink when anything bad comes +near me. I feel it in the air. It troubles me like a fever. +It seems as if nightshade and henbane were growing all +<span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>around me. But goodness—oh! that is so different. When +my young lady comes near I grow strong, and seem to +stand up straight like other people. The air is full of +bloom—roses and lilies seem breathing through the light. +I long to fall down on my knees and thank God for something.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, Ellen, my poor sister, all this makes you unhappy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; I am very, very happy sometimes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But not generally.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How can I be, and they all gone?” answered the poor +girl, plaintively. “Still, when I think how grandly he +died—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t! don’t let us talk of that!” cried the lad, with +an outburst of passionate grief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen lifted up her mouth and kissed him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, dear, I won’t—only it is a comfort to me sometimes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Ellen, if he had but lived!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, dear; but God wanted our father. Grand angels +like him do not often enter Heaven, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian held her in his arms, and, bending his face, was +about to kiss her forehead.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not there,” she said, with sweet solemnity. “Don’t +touch my forehead. <i>He</i> kissed it—so did <i>she</i>—all the salt +waters of the ocean could not wash those two kisses out. +Her poor lips trembled, but his fell upon my forehead like +a seal. Was it to make me gentle and sweet, like her—or +great and strong, like him, I wonder?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian looked down upon his sister and smiled through +all his sadness. The idea of strength, connected with a +creature like that, struck him as almost ludicrous. She +smiled also, but with a sort of confidence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I were tall, and large, and grand in my person, you +would believe in me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I believe in you now, dear; people can be loving and +good without being very powerful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>Ellen shook her head, and her fine eyes shone with +sudden light.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if <i>she</i> were in trouble, they would find me powerful, +feeble as I am. Sometimes I think she will want me, +and then I am so thankful for the education our father gave +us. It is ignorance that makes a soul weak, I think. They +would not believe, Brian, that you and I have been brought +up a gentleman’s children.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he was a gentleman.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush, dear, he told us to forget that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know, I know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I want to forget it. Let that proud girl think me +ignorant and low-bred; let my lady think so too, or they +might both suppose me unfit for a servant, and that I must +be, if anything. You and I will take our places low down +without fretting about it, Brian. They don’t want education, +but faithfulness. Brian, there is something wrong +about Miss Cora, I am positive. But the gentleman, who +is he?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not know, Ellen, only when I was hungry he fed +me; when I was tired to death he gave me a bed to rest +in.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Bless him for that!” said Ellen, with deep feeling. +“He laid his hand on my head and looked into my eyes +just as <i>he</i> used to look.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And did the snakes creep then?” inquired Brian, with +a faint laugh.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, Brian; but there was something that troubled +me. I wanted to throw both arms around his neck and +cry.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That was gratitude. That is the way I felt when he +first spoke to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, it is not gratitude, brother; I think it is pity, +sorrow—a wish to help about something.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how could you help him?” asked Brian.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>“I don’t know, but it will come clear yet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I love him dearly,” said Brian, with tears in his eyes. +“Ellen, I would die for him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, that girl knows him; I saw it in her eyes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps; but what then? He has been a great traveller.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But my young lady did not know him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wish she had; he is splendid, like herself,” said +Brian.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t she lovely?” Ellen broke forth. “And he too, +Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, sister?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“His eyes are like father’s.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dark and large—gray when he thinks, black when he +talks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have such strange fancies, sister. It is because +<i>his</i> looks is always in your mind—that look when he +blessed us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is burned into my heart,” said Ellen, in a low voice. +“I see it everywhere.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Even in the eyes of my benefactor,” replied Brian, +with a faint smile. He liked this fancy in his sister, and +provoked her to express it again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It <i>is</i> in his eyes,” she answered, in solemn earnest. +“Not always; but I saw it once when you told him who I +was. He looked at me then with such tender pity. Brian, +I love that man.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So do I, with all my heart and soul.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I pity him too,” said Ellen; “more than he pitied me. +But why?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because your heart is so kind, little sister,” said Brian, +pressing her to him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, it is not that. He is rich, handsome, grand. +Why should any one pity him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>She spoke thoughtfully and as if questioning her own +mind. Brian sat with his arms around her, and softly +smoothed the beautiful hair back from her head, which lay +upon his shoulder. She had a fair complexion and a grand +cast of countenance, delicate and yet powerful. The forehead +was not remarkably high, but broad and almost +massive. When she spoke earnestly it expanded over two +large eyes, bright with a deep illumination. When she +was wounded or perplexed, two faint lines defined themselves +between the brows, which would have been rather +heavy had her hair taken a deeper brown. This was not a +beautiful face, perhaps, but it was one to enter a true soul +and picture itself there forever.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What will they do with us? Where is your friend +going?” she said, clinging to him. “Will they separate +us?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A faint shudder passed over her frame as she asked the +question, and she laid her face, which seemed chilled, close +to his.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not know where he is going,” answered the lad.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will stay here, or up the river a little way. If +your friend lived in New York we could see each other +very often,” Ellen continued.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps he will—I hope he will!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will pray for that,” said Ellen, whispering softly to +herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her head fell more heavily on his shoulder. This trustful +whisper set her soul at rest. She was very weary and +feeble yet from previous suffering. He saw the broad +white lids droop slowly over her eyes and a smile crept +around her mouth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How tired she is, poor soul,” thought the brother, looking +down upon her face. “I love to feel her so near me! +How sweetly she sleeps—how still it is—Ellen, dear, dear +Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>His head sunk downwards, his cheek touched her hair. +Her soft breath floated across his lips—his eyes grew heavy +and he began to dream of wandering off in the fields hand +in hand with a baby sister who insisted on filling her tiny +apron with the blue violets and golden cowslips which grew +along the path they had taken. Near them a little woodland +stream laughed, and rippled, and dimpled around the +roots of some crooked old hawthorn trees, which loomed up +through his dreams, white with blossoms. Above these +towered a clump of elms, cumbered with innumerable +rooks’ nests, which they lifted into the sunshine and half +concealed amid a green abundance of foliage. How pleasant +and still it was—how softly the waters sung under the +bending rushes—how meek and pretty that little sister +looked with those blue and golden flowers in her lap.</p> + +<p class='c013'>What was that? Had one of the elm trees broken from +its base and thundered to the earth? How dark it was—where +was his little sister?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen! Ellen!” he cried out, in bewilderment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here I am, Brian. Don’t be frightened, it is only +some one at the door.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How long did I sleep, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, a long time; it was a sweet sleep; I was dreaming +of the Hawthorn hollow, where all those violets grew.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I was sure that you dreamed of something pleasant—but +they are knocking again. Yes, yes; Brian will +come down in a minute. He hears you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian kissed Ellen tenderly and turned to go.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am happy now,” he said, “quite happy. God himself +has brought us together, little sister. We cannot lose each +other again. Good-night. He is wanting me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-night, Brian. How sweet it will be to wake in +the morning and know I have a brother.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XVII.<br> <span class='c011'>DREAMS AND STRUGGLES.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Eunice Hurd was almost invariably out of sorts when +in her normal condition. The particular morning when +we join her again she was unusually crabbed, and disposed +to be rather loud in her ill-humor. No person in the whole +household had changed so much, after Mrs. Lander’s good +or ill fortune, as Eunice Hurd. From a gaunt, hard-faced, +rigid female of few words and no pretension, she had +graduated suddenly into a fine lady of wonderful experiences +and ridiculous proportions. Hitherto the grand +aim and object of her life had been to hoard up her liberal +wages, wear out as few dresses as possible, accumulate +second-hand bonnets, and cover all the old parasol skeletons +in the house with brown muslin and checked linen, which +material sometimes formed a ridiculous contrast to handles +of carved ivory, or ebony tipped with cornelian. In fact, a +more prudent, economical, not to say parsimonious woman, +than Eunice Hurd had been up to this point, was not to +be found in a ride of ten miles.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But a sudden outburst of prosperity had fallen on the +woman whose patronage had hitherto kept her rather above +the level of other servants in the house, and Eunice had +been among the first to profit by it. When Mrs. Lander +went into the gloom and solemn magnificence of deep +mourning, Eunice pounced upon her previous wardrobe like +a kite upon its prey. A cheap dressmaker was called in. +Velvets, moire antique, and silks of various shades and dimensions +were let out, taken in, tucked, puffed, trimmed +and vulgarized generally into so many grotesque forms +that poor Mrs. Lander failed to recognize any of the +elegant garments of which she had once been so proud. +Nor is this wonderful. Eunice was at least four inches taller +<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>than the widow, and her gaunt figure possessed no more +proportions than a broomstick; whereas Mrs. Lander was +symmetrical, rather plump, and walked with the dignity of +a Juno, notwithstanding her years.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Beside all this, Eunice had no idea of fitness. To her a +handsome dress was proper for all occasions. She rather +affected an elaborate toilet early in the morning, and sometimes +appeared with the breakfast in silks rustling like a +forest in the wind. Eunice had another peculiarity, which +rather impaired the full splendor of her appearance. After +living so many years on the hoarding system, it was impossible +to come out at once into the magnificent disregard +of expense which she considered necessary to her advent as +a semi-lady. The old leaven was working in her nature +continually, and it fairly broke her heart to leave the +prodigal length and breadth of Mrs. Lander’s dresses in +their original amplitude. So, as each garment came under +her manipulation, she bethought herself of aprons, saques +and other minor articles of dress which might be “got +out,” as she called it, by subtracting a breath here and +there. For these she told the dressmaker to “skimp out” +sufficient trimming, and the result was a wardrobe of +marvellous variety and picturesque scantiness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The morning after Mrs. Lander had been so strangely +disturbed, Eunice came rustling into her bed-room in a +purple moire antique, short enough to reveal her ankles in +front, and fluttering out in a train behind, rendered sparse +and scant by two missing breadths, which were that moment +at the dyer’s with various other strange abstractions +of like nature. A cap of rich but very dirty blond fluttered +on her head, and the deep ruffles of heavily-embroidered +under-sleeves fell over her bony, red hands, giving +double effect to their coarseness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Goodness gracious, if you haven’t got up once in yer +life without calling!” she cried, on finding Mrs. Lander +<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>seated in her easy chair, pale and quiet, but with a strange +look of unrest in her face. “How long have you been up? +Gracious knows, this is a new streak! The window +wide open, too, and the lace curtains streaming through, a +ketchen and tearing in the rose bushes! Well now, I +never did!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice! Eunice! did you hear anything in the +night?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hear anything!—sakes alive, no; how should I? +Nothing but the river, that’s al’ays sounding like an +etarnal troop of hosses that never will hold up, and the +yell of a railroad whistle, which sometimes makes me +e’enamost think the judgment day has come on arth, when +it wakes me up sudden out of a sound sleep. Well! what’s +the matter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing—nothing at all, Eunice,” said the widow, +rising and walking across the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know better. Don’t try to cheat me; I ain’t a bird +to be catched with chaff, nor a hoss that can be bridled +with a halter nohow. Once agin, what’s the matter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, only I must have had a strange dream last +night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Like enough, or you wouldn’t a been up this morning, +sitting like a ghost in that blue chair, huddled up in your +shawl. It’s enough to give you yer death of cold I tell +ye!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander went to the window and looked out. A +bright morning sun was slanting warmly across the turf, +which looked fresh and crisp under its dew. The ladder +lay half-buried in the grass which had regained its elasticity +and did not seem to have been moved for days. A +branch of the rose-bush lay trailing along the stone-work +of the house, but that might have been left there among +the gardener’s uncompleted work. No other trace of the +midnight presence that was preying on her mind presented +<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>itself to Mrs. Lander. She drew a deep breath, and turned +toward Eunice with a look of doubtful relief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you ever have a dream that was absolutely like +reality, Eunice?” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, I? Yes, I have, and sich dreams! Once I was +a married woman, and hated my husband like pison for +whipping three tow-headed young-uns that was the torment +of my life. That ’ere dream was enough of matrimony +for me for a hull lifetime. Real! I should think it +was!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But did it seem as if you touched the person—kissed +him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, I? Eliza Lander, I never kissed nothing whatsomever +to the best of my knowledge and belief, sence I +was a nussing baby. It isn’t in me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But did you converse? Did the words seem clear and +real after you awoke?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t kind’er remember about the words, but the +blows did, orful real. I must have hammered away like all +possessed at the bed-post, for my knuckles were sore as if +they’d just come out of a hard day’s work on the washboard. +As for the man—well, it’s of no use talking—I’ve +hated him like henbane ever since. He’s jest as real to me +as you are, though I never saw him in my born days.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice,” said Mrs. Lander, impressively, “I had a +strange dream last night—a dream so like reality, that +even now I believe in it—almost.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What was it all about? Now don’t tell me that you’re +old fool enough to have got a husband into your head! I +wouldn’t put up with it, asleep or not.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No! no! It’s not that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wal then, what is it? Do speak out, it riles me to see +you standing there, shivering and white, like a woman +kneaded out of snow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, I saw, or thought I saw, my daughter last +night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>“Like enough—you’re al’ays dreaming about her—it’s +to be expected; poor gal, I’ve dreamed of her myself +more’n once. Woke myself up scolding at John for not +letting her in only yesterday morning! Nothing in that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I held her in my arms. She talked with me—reasoned +with me—kissed me—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is wonderful! Cora wasn’t much given to making +fuss over you—no better proof of its being all a +dream than that. She took after me a little in the way of +grit.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, she did kiss me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t tell me that, without she wanted something +awful bad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She did, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What was it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, nothing; I talk such nonsense. What could +the shadows that haunt our dreams ask?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well,” said Eunice, maliciously, “if any of ’em took +to coming back, I shouldn’t wonder if it was the old man; +he might feel kind’er uneasy about that will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he made it! He made it, Eunice!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know that well enough. But he might take it into +his head that the thing wasn’t signed according to order. +Still he’s never troubled me about it, and won’t, I reckon, +afore the day of judgment, when I mean to give him a +piece of my mind for not finishing up his work like a man, +afore he went to sea. I’ve no patience with him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The shrill cry of a railroad whistle near the station +stopped Eunice in her denunciations. Mrs. Lander started +up with a half-terrified look, and went to the window in +breathless haste.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who is it—who can it be? This train does not usually +stop here,” she said. “Has it stopped?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice came up, stood on tiptoe, and stretched her long +neck over Mrs. Lander’s shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>“I don’t see nobody coming up from the station. But, +as true as I live, there is our Josh a standing in the stable +door. I suppose he’s swapped off the hosses and come +home to brag about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Only Joshua!” exclaimed Mrs. Lander, with a sigh of +profound relief. “I’m glad he’s come. I thought—I +feared—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing—nothing, only that dream was so real—so +very, very real,” said the widow, drawing a hand across her +eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Josh Hurd is a good deal more real, and here he +comes, large as life and twice as nat’ral. Why, the feller +is coming right up stairs! What’s got into him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The tramp of heavy feet made itself heard despite the +thick carpet on the stairs, and directly a clumsy knock +sounded from the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come in!” shrieked Eunice, in dire wrath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Josh opened the door and strode into the room with his +cap on and both hands in his pockets.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They’ve come, both on ’em,” he said. “I’ve seen ’em +with my own eyes. Got here too late to tell you last night, +but it’s so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander fell back into her chair and gazed wildly on +him, without the power to speak, while Eunice drew close +to her brother, flaming with indignation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who’s come, Josh Hurd? Who’s come, I want to +know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The two young gals, Cora Virginia Lander and Virginia +Cora Lander. I’ve seen ’em, I tell yer, and talked +with ’em both, face ter face, and they’re proper purty, I +can tell yer, both on ’em.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua Hurd, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice seized her brother by both shoulders, and gave +him a vicious shake as she shrieked this question in his +ear.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>“I mean ter say that both gals are alive and ki—. Well, +I won’t say that, because they are both on ’em so +genteel. But in about an hour, when the next train comes +in you’ll hear thunder, that’s all!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander had arisen and came close to Joshua. Her +hand shook like a leaf as she laid it on his arm, and her +white face was full of pitiful anxiety.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell me,” she said, “tell me all the truth! Is my +daughter alive?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; and Mr. Lander’s daughter’s too. They are both +of ’em down in York.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How—how were they saved?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In a boat. It was another boat that sunk. They +floated, and floated, till a ship picked ’em up. There is a +good deal more to tell, but that is the long and the short +on’t.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice pushed Mrs. Lander away, and seized upon +Joshua a second time with two or three rough shakes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Josh Hurd, you’ve been a drinking! This is what +they call delirious tremars. I knew you wasn’t ter be +trusted! I told her so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua shook himself loose, growling like a Newfoundland +dog with a terrier at his throat.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hands off! hands off, I tell you! or I’ll pitch in, +woman or no woman, jest as sure as you live.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Speak, then! speak the truth, or I’ll shake it out of +you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have spoke the gospel truth. What more do you +want, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I want ter know what you mean by saying that them +two gals are alive. It’s a trifling with Providence to lie so, +Josh Hurd!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest you wait and see, then,” said Josh, shaking himself +slowly back into his coat.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice! Eunice!” said Mrs. Lander, in a low voice. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>“It is true, they are alive, both of them. I felt almost +sure of it this morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t believe it—I won’t believe it! Eliza Lander, +that chap’s lying like a Connecticut trooper; I see it in his +face.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait till the train comes in,” growled Joshua.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am satisfied that he speaks the truth,” said Mrs. +Lander, faintly. “I felt it—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, that dream;” sneered Eunice. “Eliza Lander, +you are a bigger fool than I took you for!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander arose, pale as snow, but with resolution in +her voice and air. A gleam of wild, unsatisfied joy began +to deepen in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go down, Eunice, and prepare everything. My daughter +is alive—my niece is coming home to take possession +here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take possession!—She! I’d like to see her try it! +What’s to become of the will, then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That leaves the property to her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So it does!” groaned Eunice, dropping into a chair, +while both arms fell heavily downward. “Our cake is all +dough, sure enough! Why it’ll be wuss than it was afore +the old man died! Oh my! isn’t this a blow right on the +head!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You forget that my child is alive,” said Mrs. Lander. +“This is a joy to compensate for all loss.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s true; but then I ain’t her mother, and everything +was going on so pleasantly. Now all is to be given +up! It’s enough to grind one’s soul out! I shouldn’t +wonder if she begrudged me these clothes, and everything +I’ve got. I tell you, Eliza Lander, I’d show fight! She +isn’t your daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She’s a mighty purty gal now, I tell you,” Joshua cut +in “and I’m glad she’s got it. That tarnal will won’t set +heavy on my stomach any longer. When that harnsome +<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>critter comes into her own, I shall be an honest man again +in spite of you, Eunice Hurd.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You never had sense enough to be anything else!” +sneered Eunice. “Don’t talk to me, I’m sick!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was walking up and down the room, wringing +her hands and tearing them apart in great excitement. +She was certain now that her midnight visit was a reality, +and the great struggle, which was to leave her guilty or +innocent, commenced then. Her first meeting with the +child, whom she had so honestly believed dead, was to +leave her an impostor or a beggar. She had been poor, +and knew how hard poverty was; how it ground down the +soul and palsied the pride within it; how men, even +good men, despised it as a proof of incapacity. No one +living, perhaps, had felt the bitterness of these facts more +keenly than the woman who paced that sumptuous chamber, +which now belonged to another. No creature living +could have found more exquisite enjoyment in wealth. +For itself and for the power it gave she held it as the great +good of life—yesterday it had been hers, untrammeled, +unquestioned, almost unlimited. In her domestic life she +was a Sybarite. Every enjoyment of sense was perfect in +her organism. Her taste in matters of beauty was perfect. +Even now, when she thought of her daughter, it was to remember +with a glow of pleasure how exquisitely lovely she +was. Already she disliked that other girl, the rightful +owner of all the wealth which lay around her. Could she +surrender everything and take up her dependent life +again? The very thought was hateful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She had but an hour to decide in—one little hour, and +half of it was gone already.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What shall I do? What can I do?” she cried, appealing +wildly to Joshua, who sat upon one of the silken +chairs, watching her with kindly interest in his rough face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t know what you are thinking on, or what you +<span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>could do, if you wanted to,” he answered, honestly. “But +do just what’s right, that’s my advice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man spoke clearly, earnestly, and with something +impressive in his manner that arrested Mrs. Lander in her +walk. She looked him steadily in the face a moment, drew +a deep breath, and her eyes fell under his honest gaze. +She did not look in Joshua Hurd’s face again for many a +day after that.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Slowly and steadily the woman paced up and down the +room; she had evidently arrived at some resolve; her step +fell firmly on the carpet; her face settled into hard composure. +Her bosom no longer heaved with sighs or struggled +with irresolution. She was mistress of the occasion, +and for good or evil had made up her mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice watched her with sharp, searching glances. +What was the secret of her emotion? This was not the +joy of a mother who first hears that her child is safe, nor +was it altogether distress. Some struggle was going on +which racked the woman’s whole being. What could it +be? Eunice was herself greatly disturbed; if Mrs. Lander +had reigned in the hall, Eunice had been even more +powerful in the basement. How would this change effect +her? Would the second-class sceptre be wrested from her +hand by this young girl? Not without a fight for it. +Eunice was decided on that. As she came to this conclusion, +a railroad whistle cut to her ear.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XVIII.<br> <span class='c011'>WHICH WAS THE DAUGHTER?</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Mrs. Lander drew slowly toward the window. Eunice +Hurd followed her, and behind the cold, hard face of the +mistress, peered the sharp, anxious features of the servant.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>“There they come, three of ’em,” snarled Eunice, laying +her bony hand heavily on Mrs. Lander’s shoulder. “Who’s +the other?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She turned sharply to address Joshua, but he had left +the room. Mrs. Lander did not move, but spoke to her +servant in a forced, husky voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go down to your place, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go down stairs and see that the preparations are complete. +I shall meet my child and niece in the hall.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice hesitated, and stood in the middle of the chamber +eyeing her mistress venomously; one would have supposed +that the lady had deprived her attendant of some great +fortune by the anger she betrayed. Mrs. Lander took no +apparent heed of this, but swept slowly across the room, +down the marble stairs, forcing a smile to her white face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They stood in the hall, forming a little group on the +tesselated floor—Cora, Virginia and the hunchback, whose +face alone was bright with generous exultation. The two +girls were pale and troubled; Virginia trembled visibly, +but Cora was firm as granite.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Mrs. Lander reached the bottom of the staircase, +she paused a moment, reached out her arms, and, looking +at Cora, cried out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My child! my child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander drew back of her cousin, meeting that wild, +motherly impulse with icy looks. Virginia cast an astonished +glance back on her cousin, and, filled with pity for +the mother, whose arms had dropped like lead, went up with +tears in her eyes and embraced her. Those arms were +lifted heavily and wound over the young girl’s shoulders. +Kisses fell on that white cheek, cold and sharp, like hailstones +on snow. Twice the woman attempted to utter a +welcome but the forced voice rattled in her throat, and at +last broke forth in a hoarse cry that made Virginia start +from her arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>“My child! my daughter!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young girl looked into the hardening face turned +upon her one instant in profound astonishment. Then the +warm, true heart swelled in her bosom, and she reached +out her hand to Cora.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not your daughter. It was kind to mistake me so +tenderly, but this is your child, dear aunt.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora stepped back and waved her hand with a gesture of +dissent. Mrs. Lander looked from one to the other with a +searching glance, then threw her arms around Virginia +again, crying out, still hoarsely and in an unnatural voice:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; an attempt at deception at this moment is +cruel! Do I not know my own child?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, Aunt, you <i>are</i> mistaken. Cora—Cora, you can +satisfy her. A mother’s heart must leap to the touch of +her own child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But this lady is not my mother,” answered Cora Lander +in a clear, ringing voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia released herself forcibly from Mrs. Lander’s +arms and turned upon her cousin in dumb amazement. +Cora was calm and cold; her lips parted firmly, her eyes +were bright, but all the rest of her face bespoke simple surprise, +merging into displeasure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is a strange time for joking, cousin,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wonder that you can trifle with feelings that should be +sacred. You might have known from the first that she +could not be deceived.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia stood dumb. She could not comprehend the +enormous fraud being practised upon her. Once more Mrs. +Lander embraced her. Again those cold kisses fell on her +forehead. She shrunk from them, shuddering.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam! madam! you should feel—you should know +that I am not your child! She stands yonder. I will be +no party to a mysticism so cruel. Cora! Cora, I entreat +you, put an end to this!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“What can I do? How can I act? If you persist in +disclaiming your own mother, I can only denounce it as a +great cruelty whether done in jest or earnest. In my +father’s time you would not have ventured on a piece of +pleasantry like this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora Lander!” cried Virginia, aroused to indignation +by this cool speech. “Cora Lander! is this a farce, or +some horrible fraud?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not understand you, cousin,” said Cora, with a +gentle lift of the eyebrows. “It seems to me that all this +is at least in bad taste—I will not say unfeeling. Remember +you find a mother overjoyed to receive you, while I +have left the kindest and best father that ever lived buried +in the ocean, and return to my own home wholly an orphan. +Aunt, forgive me if this feeling has made me seem less +glad to see you than I am. Believe me, if your child seems +unkind, it is not in her nature to be so in reality. As for +me, all the noble generosity which you and my cousin have +received from my father shall be renewed in his child. +You shall be to me as a mother; your child has always +been my sister. There need be no change.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia Lander drew slowly toward Ellen Nolan, and +there she stood, lofty, pale, statue-like. The audacity of +this scene kindled all the energy of her fine nature into +resolute resistance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora Lander,” she said, “there is either a terrible +crime in your thoughts or this is a joke so coarse and ill-timed +that I can never forgive it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen Nolan had been vigilant during this scene; her +eyes turned sharply from Cora to Mrs. Lander, and she +observed that these women never once looked each other in +the face. She saw, too, that Mrs. Lander trembled violently +and shrunk away from Virginia even while embracing her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear lady,” she said, in a voice so sweet that it sounded +<span class='pageno' id='Page_162'>162</span>strangely in that atmosphere of discord, “come away—do +come away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will,” answered Virginia, casting a look of affection +on her attendant; “I will. When I am gone, these people +may come to their senses. Eunice Hurd, I am glad to see +you—very, very glad to see you. Is my old room ready?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; the room is ready exactly as you left it, Miss +Lander. I have kept it in order, but haven’t changed a +thing. Mr. Lander wouldn’t have that altered.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander turned sharply upon Eunice, and the widow +lifted an imploring look to her face. But Eunice gave her +head a fierce, angry toss, and marched up stairs, muttering +defiance as she went. Virginia followed her, treading the +steps firmly as a queen enters her palace. But for the +strange obstacle which she had encountered, this poor girl +would have shrunk from entering the rooms which the +presence of her father had once made so homelike; but now +all the energy of her being was up in arms. Her cheeks +were flushed; her eyes burned blackly. Never in her life +had such anger filled her heart. She did not yet comprehend +the magnitude of the wrong intended her, but the single +fact that some mysticism had been practised upon her in +the sacred moment when she entered her home, an orphan +and a mourner, revolted her whole being. The tears which +she would have shed for her father were turned into angry +fire by this insult offered to his memory.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come, Ellen,” she said, “from this hour you are my +cousin and friend.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice turned sharply and looked at Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Humph!” she muttered. “Sharp and honest! No +place for her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A shade of feeling crept over that hard face when Eunice +turned the key in one of the chamber doors and stepped +aside that Virginia might pass her. Ellen lifted her eyes +and caught the expression.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span>“Be good to her,” she said, in her sweet, low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice started and looked down upon that upturned face +with the shadow of a smile on her thin lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go in, both of you,” she said, “and take the key inside. +I say nothing, because nothing has been said to me; but +just now I’d like to wring that white neck, gold chains and +all—not yourn, I don’t mean yourn,” she added, with a +swing of the hand. “Go in; go in, you’ll find your things +right, letters and all. I took care that nobody should get +nested here. There, that’ll do, turn the key. Sure bind, +sure find, as the Bible says.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia stood in the midst of her own room, half terrified, +and feeling painfully strange, while Ellen softly +closed the door and turned the key. She, poor girl, felt +like a deer hunted into its lair by an unexpected rush of +hounds. She looked around—old memories came back—there +was her little writing-desk, ebony, encrusted with +gold, where many a hard lesson had been conned under the +loving eyes of her father. Close by stood a low chair, covered +with rich embroidery entraced by the hands of a +mother she had never seen, save as a shadow hovering over +her first idea of life. The colors were faded, the delicate +tints of the blossoms had long since been drawn out by the +light, but it was still the dearest thing in that exquisite +little chamber—that and the desk, which had been one of +the last gifts of her father before he took her and her cousin +to Europe.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Everything reminded her of that good man; his taste +had selected all the ornaments of the room. The carpet, +composed of a single medallion, in which masses of blooming +flowers seemed to have been cast on newly fallen snow, +framed in with arabesques of dove-color and delicate blue, +knotted together with garlands of roses, had been of his +selection. The walls, so delicately frescoed that the +designs seemed like tinted shadows, were more his idea +<span class='pageno' id='Page_164'>164</span>than the artist’s. The great carved easy chair in which he +had spent so many hours, while she was sitting at his feet +with her little porcelain slate studying out one of the problems +he delighted in teaching her. The very books that +lay on that pretty table of Oriental alabaster, inlaid with +golden beetles, spoke so clearly of him that she gave one +broken cry and fell upon her knees by the great chair, convulsed +with a storm of grief which shook her from head to +foot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, my father! my father!” she cried, “help me! +help me! for it seems as if I must die!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A pair of feeble arms were softly flung around her, a +little crooked form crept in by the side of her superb +beauty, and a voice that seemed that of an angel pleaded +also.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Father! my father! help! help! for she is alone, with +no one but me—no one but me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>For some moments these two voices blended in one +prayer, then the sobs that filled the room grew fainter, and +the stillness of an exhausted tempest fell upon them. Ellen +was the first to move. She arose, and going to a broad +window which opened on a balcony, saw two women standing +together and conversing earnestly. They had paused a +little way from the front portico, and by the gestures of +the younger person she judged that some stormy debate +was passing between them. As she looked, Mrs. Lander +held out her arms with a gesture of imploring tenderness, +and would have flung herself upon the bosom of the proud +girl who stood before her. But Cora took a swift survey +around, caught a glimpse of Ellen’s face at the window, and +pushed the woman away so impetuously that she reeled +back against one of the marble pillars, and thus saved herself +from falling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen turned away from the window, convinced that some +great wrong was being done to the young creature who lay +weeping, half upon the floor, half on the great easy chair.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>“Lady,” said the hunchback, “do stop crying so, and let +us think what is best to be done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can be done? He is dead—my poor father is +dead, and I am so helpless.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps I can think a little for you,” said Ellen, with +tender meekness. “You, sweet lady, were strong enough +to carry me safely through the deep ocean. Now let me +help you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how, Ellen? What help is there for me?” cried +Virginia, lifting her beautiful face, wet with a rain of tears, +to meet the kind eyes of her attendant. “Astonishment +and grief bewilders me so! What can they want? +What do they mean? They cannot be in earnest, Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, lady, I am sure they are in earnest.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he was my own father. They know it—that +woman was present when I was born.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still they mean what they say, I am sure of that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it is impossible. They cannot carry it out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; there must be plenty of people who know +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Plenty who know me—yes, yes; but we are so alike. +We have been away eight years. If her mother does not +recognize the difference, who will?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But her mother does recognize the difference,” said +Ellen, quietly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I have nothing but trouble before me!” said +Virginia, sitting down in her father’s chair and dropping +both hands into her lap in an abandonment of sorrow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What <i>can</i> I do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait, and God will show us the way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I am so helpless—more helpless than you were +when I found you in the water, poor little friend! Until +my father was taken from me, I never knew what trouble +meant. Oh, Ellen! <i>can</i> my cousin be so wicked?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think she is a very wicked person, hard as rock. But +<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>God is above all. Let me take off your bonnet, sweet lady, +and smooth your hair. Don’t, don’t shiver so—poor little +hands, how the cold strikes through your gloves! Let me +kiss them warm. That’s right, lay your head on my +shoulder, it’s broad enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here the kind hunchback gave a short, sobbing laugh, +and searched for an answering smile in the beautiful face +of her mistress. But Virginia shook her head, and replied +tenderly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Ellen! you should not do that. This honest face +and true heart is worth a thousand straight forms. How +miserable I should be without you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then there is Brian, my brother, who has such a grand +heart; besides he is sharp and bright as a lawyer. Think +how many friends you have close by.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will—I will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s kind—that’s nice! Look out and see how +brightly the sun shines. That is the way God smiles when +he wishes to cheer us in the midst of a great trouble.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It does not seem bright to me. This is a sad return +home—if it is my home!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia fell into despondency again. She really was +very helpless, but Ellen brightened up and prepared herself +for usefulness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is your own room, so here we stay; but the closets +are locked. Must I ask them for the keys before I can put +away your bonnet and shawl?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia started from her seat. “No, no,” she said, +taking a gold chain from her neck, to which was attached a +small master key. “My father told me to lock everything +up, and promised that nothing should be touched till I came +home again. The keys are in that Malachite box on the +table. He gave it to me just before I went away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen unlocked the box with the tiny key, half gold, half +steel, which Virginia had worn suspended from her neck +many a year.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>“Here is a bunch of keys, a package of letters, and some +jewelry,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are my father’s letters and birthday keepsakes,” +answered Virginia, turning pale with a sudden rush of +memory. “My poor mother’s jewels, too, should be there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen closed the box and stood with her hand on the lid, +quietly thoughtful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“These things belong to you, sweet mistress. There +may be proofs here of the truth. Let us make sure of +them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, child! do you think they would rob me of +them?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are robbing you already. Please open this desk +and see if anything is here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia unlocked the desk and Ellen swept out its contents +into a corner of her shawl, which she gathered up in +one hand for the purpose. There was a quantity of papers, +jewel cases and one or two books. One of these cases fell +out of her dress and broke open on the floor, revealing a +necklace and bracelets of large pearls, rolling away from +their purple satin cushion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They belonged to my mother. She wore them on her +wedding day—that once, but never again,” said Virginia, +with tears in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen snatched up the case, huddled the pearls into their +purple bed and thrust them back among the papers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where can we put them? I forgot to think of that,” +she said, appealing to her mistress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait a moment—I know of a place,” answered +Virginia, drawing back the drapery from an arched recess, +fluted from roof to floor with light blue satin. Under this +was a pretty, snow-white bed, clouded in from the chamber +by curtains of lace delicate as the frost-work on a window, +and so voluminous that it seemed like sweeping back a +summer cloud from the blue of Heaven when they were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>thrown aside. Close by the bed stood an exquisite little +toilet table surmounted by an oval glass, in a frame that +seemed woven from the most delicate golden spray, over +which a dove, cut from mother of pearl was flying with a +mass of filmy lace drapery in its bill. An ottoman of +amber colored damask stood before the toilet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here, here,” said Virginia, dropping on her knees by +the ottoman and flinging the top back, which opened on +hinges.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A moment after, a peremptory knock was heard at the +door. The two girls held their breath an instant, then +Ellen ran to the desk, threw the bunch of keys into the +Malachite box, and locking that, flung the chain and key +over the neck of her mistress exactly as she had been in +the habit of wearing it.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XIX.<br> <span class='c011'>THE AUDACITY OF CRIME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Aunt Eunice had gone off to the back regions of the +house with her nose high in the air, and her thin lips +pressed together in fierce wrath. There was something +going on of which she had been kept in ignorance. Even +Joshua seemed to have a share in this something, and took +airs upon himself accordingly. Did they think to cheat +her? Did they fancy that she was likely to sit still and +have sand thrown in her eyes? Did they, indeed!</p> + +<p class='c013'>Aunt Eunice gave her head a magnificent toss as she +asked these terse questions of herself, and fell to berating +the servants in the kitchen till the red of her face seemed +born of brick-dust, and the fire in her eyes grew venomous +as a wild-cat’s. They absolutely blazed when she saw +<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>Joshua striding cheerfully towards the stables, more upright +in person and free of mind than he had been for months.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Meantime Mrs. Lander and Cora were left together, +standing face to face in the hall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora opened the drawing-room door and went into the +room. Mrs. Lander followed more slowly. There was +sorrow and hesitation in her heart, but the younger woman +felt nothing of this. Her face wore a triumphant smile as +she looked around the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Splendid draperies, and walls tinted like opals,” she +said, looking around. “Upon my word, madam, you display +magnificent taste, and have lost no time. A Turkish +divan along the end of the room yonder, with plenty of +Oriental cushions, might be an improvement—though I am +not quite certain. What a lovely break in the trees that is +we see from the window. It gives one such cool glimpses +of the river. Oh! Aunt, this is a place worth having.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Aunt!” repeated Mrs. Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Aunt now, Aunt always. That other word is +forgotten.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, Cora, we are alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>These words were uttered in a pleading voice, through +which tears were breaking.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That young girl, so hard and self-possessed, had no +patience with the woman whose heart was not all base. +She sat down in one of the most luxuriously cushioned +chairs and motioned Mrs. Lander to take a seat close by.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let us understand each other thoroughly,” she said. +“We have made the first plunge hand in hand, mother +and child—I find the water exhilarating—you feel it cold +and begin to shiver already. This will never do! We are +in the depths, and must swim out boldly or drown. A +little firmness, a little of that self-abnegation which is +expected from a mother who has her children’s advancement +at heart, will secure everything. If you falter, madam, we +are lost.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>“Madam! Madam!” exclaimed Mrs. Lander with a +sharp pain in her voice. “You call me madam!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A little more of this, and I shall call you coward!” +retorted the girl, starting up from her chair with angry +vehemence. “Are you tired of all these things, that you +falter so at the first step?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I did not think it would be so terrible that I should +hate myself as I do!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Terrible! Why, Aunt, we are triumphant! I am +mistress here—absolute mistress—nothing on earth can +dispossess me so long as you stand firmly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The grim housekeeper—what of her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, nothing; only she knows so much.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can the tigress know? and what do I care for +anything she can say? Does a mother’s knowledge of her +own child require the confirmation of a servant? Let us +have no weakness of this kind, madam! We want no +confidants, and will have none. If this red-crested serpent +attempts to bite, I will crush her under my heel. Such +people are to be defied, not conciliated.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you do not know her. She is sharp as steel, sly as +a fox.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her search and prowl—I fear nothing but the +weakness which makes you so white and woebegone. Remember, +the worst is over. Every hour will harden your +resolve and sweep away these puerile emotions. Come, +come, I love you so dearly that all this suffering recoils on +me. Let us work together, support each other. It was for +your sake I did it—or mostly that. What a paradise you +have made of this place! Could you give it up?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It would be like death, I know, child; but this sense +of crime takes away all sweetness from possession.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sense of crime!” answered Cora, drawing the words +out with a prolonged sneer. “Was it your fault that my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>father happened to be miserably poor and his brother rich? +Was it mine that this poor man chanced to be my father? +After all, possession is but an accident. Am I not more +capable of appreciating all this wealth—more willing to +distribute it than the creature up stairs? Sense of crime!—I +wonder at the words! Much more at the feeling. It +is only weak people who condemn themselves, even in +thought. But, if you must have them, money will supply +an antidote—you shall have no stint in your charities. I +will build a church somewhere on the grounds, and you +shall own the minister, pay his salary, have lectures six +times a week, and be the Lady Bountiful of this neighborhood. +There, you almost smile. Let us take a little walk +in the grounds while my cousin and namesake reconciles +herself to my old position; I am dying to look over the +place. The grounds extend ever so far, I believe, and +beyond them are any number of farms that bring in money. +Who is executor under the will? Oh, I remember. To-morrow +we must go to the city—you and I alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come out on the grass before you talk of this,” said +Mrs. Lander, looking suspiciously around the room. “With +so much drapery hanging loose, there is no certainty +against listeners.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are right; this thoughtfulness looks well. Ah! +here is a window unfastened. This way. What a lovely +scene it is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander swept back a mass of lace and rich amber +damask from one of the windows as she spoke and stepped +through, pausing under the marble colonnade till Mrs. +Lander followed her, and closed the window. Then the +little scene Ellen had witnessed transpired, and they +walked together into the centre of the lawn, where a bed +of standard roses was cut into the sward, and Cora pretended +to examine the flowers as she talked.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The conversation was but a sequel to that which had +<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>passed in the drawing room, but, in the open air and free +from all chance of listeners, Mrs. Lander spoke more freely +and entered into her daughter’s wicked plans with greater +boldness. Cora was bending over a splendid rose and +inhaling its perfume with keen relish, for so keen was this +girl’s zest for pleasure that, with her mind thus sharply +occupied, she could pause for a sensuous enjoyment and +receive it to the full, but a sudden exclamation from her +companion startled her away from the flower.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is it?” she inquired, sharply, following the wild +glance which Mrs. Lander fixed on one of the windows, +and seeing the face of Ellen Nolan looking out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I see nothing but that tiresome little hunchback peering +at us still.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But she is in that room—no one has entered it since +my niece—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam, that is not a title to use applied to that young +lady, even in this solitude,” said Cora, sharply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the room contains all her things—her letters, her +papers, her mother’s trinkets. I never thought of that till +now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What folly! what madness!” cried Cora, twisting the +rose she had inhaled from its stalk with a violence that +half uprooted the plant. “That room, and all its contents, +belongs to me. Do you understand?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, yes: I comprehend all the mischief that may +spring from this; but it was Eunice! I am sure it was +Eunice!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Whoever has done it, there is a remedy,” replied Cora. +“Come with me—or, rather, stay here. I am mistress of +the house, and will arrange the rooms as I please.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This idea, false and mean as it was, seemed to have +filled Cora’s whole being with pride; she lifted her head +with the poise of an empress, and giving a wave of the +hand, intended to keep Mrs. Lander back, passed into the +house.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>Ellen Nolan opened the door of her mistress’ chamber, +and stood back from the threshold, looking quietly in that +hard, beautiful face. Virginia had seated herself in the +easy chair and sat with her anxious face turned on the +door, waiting for what might come.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cousin, I am very sorry to disturb you, but the housekeeper +made a mistake in sending you here. This room +has always been held sacred to myself. Your old room +shall be prepared at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She said this firmly, almost quietly, but there was a hard +metallic tone in the voice which betrayed something of the +wonderful self-restraint which kept her apparently so calm. +“You can have more rooms if you want, but not this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia arose from her seat, pale and firm, but with the +pain of a wounded spirit in her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora,” she said, in her soft, clear voice, “Cousin Cora, +if this is a joke, it is a very, very cruel one! Remember +how mournful this coming home is—no father, no mother +to receive me—no relatives in the wide world that I have +ever seen except yourself and my aunt. Cora, my father +was always kind to you, considerate and generous to your +mother. Think how unseemly a joke of this kind is from +her child, under his roof.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia paused a moment, wiped away the tears that +were filling her eyes, and went on with a passionate outburst.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Or is this real, Cora Lander? That look almost warns +me that it is. But pause—pause while there is yet a +chance of retreating from a fraud so black that it must +bring exposure and bitter punishment upon you and your +mother! Do not think that I shall submit; that would be +to share the infamy. Oh, Cora! Cora! remember what we +have been to each other, how dearly I have loved you! I +was thinking, cousin, to make you independent the moment +I had the power. There is enough for both—enough for us +<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>all. That hard, hard look yet! Oh! cousin, will nothing +move you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The color had once or twice swept like flame across Cora +Lander’s face, but it settled back instantly, leaving it of a +cold, grayish white.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not understand all this, cousin. That horrible +fright which drove us from the burning ship must have left +your brain disturbed. It shocks me to think so, but this +scene almost forces the belief on me. For your own sake, +try to drive these strange ideas from your mind; they distress +me, indeed they do!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia stepped a pace back and fixed her gaze on that +immovable face. Every feature seemed cut out of stone. +The eyes alone shrunk and fell under that calm, rebuking +scrutiny.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall not speak to you again, feeling as I do how +deeply-laid is the evil in your heart. But I will at once +take such steps as must ensure my legal rights,” said +Virginia, in a low, still voice, that contrasted strangely +with the grating hoarseness which broke through the forced +composure of Cora’s speech. “Heaven knows, I wished to +be good to you! It was in my heart to deal with you as if +we had been what so many take us for, twin sisters; but +you will not have it so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s eyes filled again and her voice faltered. She +cast an imploring glance on that hardened girl, and, with +an impulse of generous tenderness, held out her arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let it be thus, Cora. I have no craving wish for all +this property—cast this demon thought out of your soul, +and let us be as sisters once more. Half of all that I have +shall be yours, only lift this awful feeling from my heart +and let us be friends again! Oh, Cora! you never will +know how dearly I have loved you! Take half—I will +gladly give it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While she was speaking, the form of Aunt Eunice darkened +<span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>the door, and behind her stood one of the housemaids. +Cora recognized their presence at once, and quick as lightning +turned upon them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You hear her—you hear this magnificent proposition? +She will give me a clear half of my own property! You +will bear witness that she makes this offer—she, who never +had a cent on earth that did not come from my poor, generous +father!” she cried, appealing to them, and fastening +Ellen with her eyes. “She will compromise for half my +inheritance, and condescend to become my co-heiress with +all the glory of a generous act upon her! This audacity is +beyond belief!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia sat down speechless and pale. The reality of +this wicked design fell upon her with appalling force.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take my poor cousin to some other room. In her present +state it is impossible for me to have her here,” said +Cora, addressing Eunice. “The chamber she occupied +before is ready, I suppose. If not, ask my aunt to take +charge of her daughter till some better disposition of things +can be made. I much fear it will be impossible to keep her +in the house. I have seen this coming on for a long time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice Hurd strode into the room, swept by Cora with a +sniff and a toss of the head, and went up to Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here, child,” she said, almost kindly. “They +have determined to drive you out of this room, and will do +it anyhow. But I’m in the house yet, and know a thing +or two that they don’t maybe give me credit for. As if +my eye-teeth wasn’t cut afore she or her mother either were +born! So she is Mr. Lander’s daughter, is she?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia recognized the rough kindness conveyed in these +words, and clung to the hard hand extended to her with +gratitude.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I will go with you, Eunice Hurd. You knew me +when I was a little baby, and used to be kind. Surely you +remember me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>“No matter whether I do or not. I’ll stand by you now, +if it’s only to learn that self-sufficient gal not to try and +cheat me! Pshaw! it ain’t to be done! Come along; +I’ve got a room ready for you—purty as a picter and neat +as wax. Let her bustle about here if she wants to; but I +tell her here to her face, she can’t trample me under foot, +nor her mother neither, till I make up my mind to let +’em.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Tortured and astonished as she had been when wounded +by grief and saddened by this mournful return home, Virginia +turned gratefully toward the only friend who had +received her with kindness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I <i>will</i> go with you, Eunice Hurd—Aunt Eunice +we used to call you, I remember.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course you do; and as for her—well I say nothing +as yet—but, Jerusalem! won’t she cuss the day she ever +attempted to do her tall walking over me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Woman, be quiet, and take your charge from the room. +To-morrow we will have a physician. Just now I wish to +be alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hoity-toity! Who was your servant last year?” cried +Eunice, putting her red arms akimbo and shaking her fiery +locks till the comb rose from them like the crest of an +angry cockatoo. “How much wages have you ever paid +me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All that you will receive under this roof,” answered +Cora, with a dry laugh. “From this moment, I discharge +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This time Eunice gave her head a sudden jerk, that sent +the comb flying half across the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You dare attempt it! you she im—, but I say nothing; +only try it, if you dare!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia, shocked and trembling under all this rude +violence, arose from her seat and walked toward the door. +Eunice darted a venomous look over her shoulder and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>marched after her, followed by Ellen, who looked as if some +sudden blow had fallen upon her head, bowing it down +upon her chest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The moment the room was cleared, Cora Lander locked +the door and began a search for such objects as might prove +of value to her. But the drawers were all locked, and, +save the pretty ornaments about the room, nothing of +interest to her black scheme presented itself. At last she +recognized the Malachite box, and remembered for what +purpose it had been used. That was locked, but she broke +it open with a wrench of her hands, took the keys, +unlocked the desk, and found it empty.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XX.<br> <span class='c011'>EUNICE HURD EXASPERATED.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Eunice Hurd was in a state of fierce indignation when +she left that girl in the chamber which she was morally +certain belonged of right to another. So fiery and intense +was her feeling, that she passed by that wing of the building +where her own empire was established, and began +marching up and down the green sward close to the house, +shaking her head viciously and flinging out her hands, as +if the very atmosphere were an enemy which she longed to +grapple with. After awhile her natural strong good sense +conquered all this turbulence, and she began to think and +calculate on the existing state of things in that dwelling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“One thing is certain,” she reasoned. “Something is +going on which they haven’t let me into, and don’t mean +it. Well, that’s good for ’em. I ain’t by no manner of +means the person they can depend on to cheat a young +critter like that out of home and name. Them country +<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span>cousins was another thing. Who cared for them? But +when it comes to a choice between these ’ere two gals—one +of ’em as good as pie and better, while ’tother al’ays was a +sneaking, selfish, foxy critter, jest calcerlated for this kind +o’ business, and nothing else—why it isn’t in me to take +up that side. Besides, one is liberal as all out doors, and + ’tother, consarn her! never was ginerous to anybody but +herself since she was born, and never will be. So I’ll +stand up for the right. They’ve got me to tussle with, +let me tell ’em, and they’ll find out that Eunice Hurd isn’t +a baby, by no manner of means!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice paused as these thoughts filled her mind, and +then went on, sweeping the grass with the train of her +purple dress, which at length caught on something and +dragged at her unmercifully. She turned with a snarl and +seized upon the branch of a rose-bush that had fastened its +thorns in her dress, and wrenched it away, flinging it to a +distance. Again she moved on, and once more a long, +thorny branch rasped the rich silk, tearing it in places.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What on arth is this rose-bush down here for, ripping +away at my dress like all possessed? I saw the +gardener nailing it up yesterday with my own eyes, yet +here it is, trailing off yards and yards in the grass, or at +any rate half of it. How came it here? There was no +wind last night to tear it down.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While asking herself these questions, Eunice stepped +backward, and was nearly overthrown by a ladder, which +lay on the sward behind her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She turned with a fresh snarl and examined the ladder. +It lay almost directly under the window of Mrs. Lander’s +room, holding down a straggling spray of the rose-bush, +which had annoyed her so.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Somebody has been here—somebody has done this,” +she muttered. “That ladder has been moved since the +dew fell, just as sure as I’m a sinner! There’s fresh sile +<span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>on the end. The gardener hasn’t been here since yesterday +forenoon. Who has?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice folded her arms here and fell into thought for a +full minute. Then she stooped down, lifted up the ladder +and set the rose branch which it had imprisoned free. It +swayed back against the wall of the building, and then +Eunice saw that at least half the bush remained firmly in +its place.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Somebody has been here. What for?” she muttered. +“What for, I should like to know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment her eyes caught two stains of fresh earth +just beneath Mrs. Lander’s chamber window—exactly such +stains as the supporters of that ladder would leave on the +white marble.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some one has been up there,” she thought. “In at +the window, as true as I live! Jerusalem and California! +that was the dream she had! They made up this wickedness +in the night, the foxes! But Eunice Hurd is peeping +into their hole, she is. That’s why the window was so +wide open and the curtain streaming out—that’s what made +her snivel and shake so—as if she could do anything in +earnest without me to back her. What’s that? Jerusalem +and so forth, what is that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice saw a fragment of cloth fluttering from an upright +branch of the rose-bush just below the window. +Snatching up the ladder, she dragged it forward, planted it +against the wall, mounted it with the agility of a cat, and +came down with the fragment grasped in her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is blue merino; is it like her dress? I’ll go in +before she has time to take it off, and make sure,” she said, +in high excitement. “They mean to cheat me, do they? +Let ’em try it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Meantime Virginia and her little maid locked themselves +in the chamber which had been forced upon them, and +there, like two caged birds, they stood and looked at each +<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>other in pitiful helplessness. At this time Cora was ransacking +the closets and forcing the drawers in that other +chamber, which contained all the young creature’s household +treasures.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can I do? What ought I to do?” she said, +leaning her fair forehead down on Ellen’s shoulder. “This +is terrible! Only half an hour ago I was thinking all this +mine—thinking how to share it with them in a way that +might not wound their pride. Now—now, oh Ellen! I feel +like a beggar! They would rob me twice. My inheritance +and my faith in the goodness of God’s creatures they have +swept off at a single swoop.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, do not think that, lady. Some of God’s creatures +are very, very good.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are good, Ellen; I know that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And so are many, many persons that never will be +known. I have heard my father say that half the generous +deeds and noble sacrifices of the earth are such as will only +be recognized in Heaven.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your father had great faith in humanity, then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes; he was so patient, so forbearing. He never +believed that any one could be entirely depraved, but hoped +for the best and did for the best.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah me! only yesterday I thought of the best. How +everything is changed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it only because these people wish to wrong you and +steal your name?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought yesterday,” continued Virginia, “that +mourning and the sadness which springs out of bereavement +were the worst of sorrow. But now that the bitterness +of wrong has come, I know better. This lost love +and lost faith in the living is worse than death. It seems +to me as if the cousin I loved so had passed into another +being. My heart aches with bitter pain when I think of +her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>“I heard my mother say this once when we had a sharp +sorrow to bear, but <i>he</i> soothed her and told her in his deep, +calm way to leave the wicked with God, who sometimes +permits wo and strife in nations, sin in households, that +some evil may be driven out, some wonderful good secured +to the great bulk of mankind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I never thought much of these things, Ellen,” said +Virginia, gently. “Indeed, I never had a trouble till +now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I am older and wiser in this way than you. I +knew what hard, hard trouble was when a little girl. It +was because you suffered that I loved you so from the +first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And have you been always in trouble, my poor girl?” +said Virginia, smiling sadly on that earnest face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I was happy once; but that was long ago.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Long ago, and you so young.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Am I young?” said Ellen, lifting her stag-like eyes +innocently to her mistress. “It never seemed to me so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia sat down and drew the hunchback close to her. +There was a comfort in this, and a sense of protection, +feeble as the little creature was.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, tell me what this trouble was. You and I are +alone in the world; I would like to know all that lies back +in your life, because I love you and trust you, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Tears rose thick and fast into Ellen’s eyes. She sunk +down upon the floor, half kneeling, half sitting, and uplifting +her honest young face so that her eyes looked straight +into those bent upon her with such sympathetic earnestness, +smiled as people only smile when ready to make a +painful sacrifice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I will tell you everything, and would if death had +not swept all away. My father was what they call a +gentleman once. You saw him and know that he was one. +He was married very young indeed, and his wife died, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>leaving a little boy behind her that my father loved dearly; +so dearly, that he gave up everything and lived almost +alone on a pretty place he owned near Waterford, in Ireland, +in order to bring the boy up under his own care. For +twelve years my father kept himself out of the world and +gave up his life to the child. Alfred had no other teacher, +and scarcely any other companion. He loved my father +dearly, I think, and I know that my father’s love for him +was like worship.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At last Alfred was sent to Heidelberg, in Germany, +where a great many young men are educated, and my +father went into the world again, commencing life as it +were then. He had some property, enough for all their +wants, and more; but went to work in earnest at his profession, +ambitious for his son. After a year or two he saw +my mother and married her. More children came—first a +son, who died; then my poor self; afterward Brian, but +even Brian, bright and handsome as he is, was not to be +compared to Alfred. This must be true, for all the people +about our place agreed in saying that he was the most +splendid young man that the sun ever shone upon. He +came home once when I was a little child, but I can only +just remember how magnificent he seemed. My father +was expecting him to come back to Waterford and join him +in the business of his office; but he wanted to travel, and +my father felt it a happiness to work that he might enjoy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think Alfred was in Paris a great deal and sometimes +in London, for my father went three or four times to both +these places in order to meet him. I was a sharp child; +people like me often are, I am told; and though my mother +never spoke of it, I saw that these visits were always followed +by seasons of anxiety, and that men came more frequently +to talk with my father about loans of money. +Then came discussions about household expenses, and care +on every side. So our home grew darker and darker year by +<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>year. If Alfred had seen this, and heard my father walking +to and fro in his chamber till after midnight, as I often did, +he might have been more thoughtful. But he never came +home. When he wrote, the shadow of some great trouble +always followed his letters. I used to watch my father +when he received these letters, and could see his hands +shake and his lips turn pale as he opened them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At last a letter came which took my father suddenly +from home. We children knew nothing of his business, +but the wistful sadness in our mother’s face made us +thoughtful, even to the youngest, for there were five of us +then, not counting the splendid young fellow whom my +father loved better than us all.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When my father came back he looked thin, and his +hair had grown white—very white for a man of his age. +He was terribly cast down, and for the first time in my +life I saw tears in his eyes when he took us one by one +into his embrace. It was a miserable greeting, and we +children sat down and cried together when he took my +mother into a room alone with mournful solemnity, as if +they were going to a funeral.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When they came forth again, my mother was white as +death, but there was something in her face that told us that +she was ready to make a great sacrifice. Through all the +gloom of my father’s sorrow there shone out a grand and +settled love for her. Something that she had done or consented +to do seemed to have anchored her into the very +depths of his heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Virginia interrupted the girl.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How strangely your words sound, Ellen. They are +those of a woman, not to say a poet. I cannot realize that +you are little more than a child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nor I; but I was almost always with my father, seldom +with the children—and he <i>was</i> a poet, though I think he +never wrote a word of verse in his life. That, perhaps, is +why I speak words that seem strange and out of place.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>“Strange child—strange child,” said Virginia, tenderly. +“I think we do sometimes entertain angels unawares. +But go on, I did not mean to interrupt you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That night my father gathered us all into the library +for family prayers. He did not read the service—I think +his heart was too full for that—but his prayer to God, as +we all knelt around him, was like the pleading of a sinner +for mercy. It was not for himself, we all knew that, but +some thought deep in his soul broke forth in a wail of pain +that made even the little children look around upon his +quivering white face with tears in their eyes. This passionate +cry of sorrow merged itself into a swell of mournful +thanksgiving for the love and comfort which God had +bestowed upon the darkness of his life, even in that black +hour. When we all arose from our knees and gathered +around him, weeping in blind sympathy, he blessed us with +a smile upon his lip.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Children,’ he said, ‘this is not our home. I—I have +sold it and spent the money. We are very poor people now; +scarcely a family in all Ireland is so poor.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Father, father, shall we live in a cabin and have a nice +white pig to sleep in the corner and play with, like Michael +Croft?’ asked one of the children. ‘Oh, we shall like +that!’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A faint smile quivered over my father’s mouth. He +patted the little one gently on the head. ‘Yes, child, we +will live in a cabin, but it shall be far away from here, with +wild woods and green prairies to look out upon; where no +one will ever learn that we have been better bred than our +neighbors. There shall be plenty of white pigs too, little +Willie, but they must have a cabin of their own, and you +shall own a young fawn to play with.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘That will be brave!’ said little Willie, clapping his +hands and laughing through his tears, while the younger +ones brightened up and scattered off into the next room, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>eager to talk the thing over, leaving Brian and myself sitting +together, sorrowful with thoughts that they were too +young for.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Is it to America we are going?’ inquired Brian looking +wistfully at his father.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Yes, my son—does the thought frighten you?’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘No, father. But must you work there—till the soil +like a peasant?’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘And does my son fear that?’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘For my father, yes. He was born a gentleman,’ +answered Brian, ‘for myself, no.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘That is bravely spoken, my boy! Fear nothing for +me. The education which unfits a man for any duty that +lies before him must be imperfect and, in so much, unworthy. +You and I will take our first lesson at wood-chopping +together, while Ellen here shall help her mother +with the housework. We may be very happy in the far +West. No one will think of inquiring there how much or +how little we have worked before.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He spoke cheerfully, and looked at my mother, who +put her hand softly into his and smiled upon him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘You see this is not so terrible, after all. I knew the +children would not complain,’ she said, in her low, tender +voice. ‘We shall only love each other the better in a +strange country. <i>He</i> may yet join us there.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My father turned a grateful look upon her, but gave +no answer in words, though a gloom slowly gathered over +his face and he sighed heavily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian went up to him and rested one hand on his +shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Father, I will be a good son, and if ever the time +comes that he wants kindness from a brother, let him try +me.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then my father burst into tears. I had never seen +him weep before; but now he sobbed like a child.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>“‘Who told you anything of this?’ questioned my +mother, fluttering like a wounded dove around its mate. +‘Why does a child of mine speak in this way?’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘No one has told us anything,’ answered Brian, ‘but +we feel, and our hearts speak.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘See how you have hurt him,’ she said, still dissatisfied.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘No, no; I am not hurt. This is gratitude. Why +should we hold aloof from the sympathy of our children? +It needs no words. Brian, you and I will be fellow-workers—fast +friends—we understand each other.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘I wish you could feel in earnest how much I love you,’ +said Brian, standing up proudly, like a man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘I did not know myself till now. Here is Ellen, too, +with such sorrowful eyes—’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘It is because I am so helpless,’ I answered, when the +great swell of my heart would let me speak. ‘Because I +can do nothing.’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Is it nothing that you can be your mother’s comforter +and mine?’ said my father, gathering me in his arms. +‘What could we do without you, my Ellen?’</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In this mood we broke up that pleasant old home—sold +everything, and with a little money—so little that we +could not afford a first-class passage, even for my mother—went +on board that steamer. You know the rest, but you +do not know how often I stood on the verge of our limits +on the deck watching you as you read or talked. Dear +lady, my heart went towards you at the first glance: I +longed to throw myself at your feet as you lay on that +white rug, to kiss the hem of your dress. When the fire +broke out—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia lifted both hands to her face and shrunk back in +her chair, moaning with pain of that awful memory.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wanted to tell you something more about my father,” +said Ellen, in a low, penitent voice. “I did not mean to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>hurt you so. When the fire raged fiercest, and there was +no longer a hope, my father gathered us close to the bulwark—all +but Brian, who had gone to the other side of the +deck, where a boat still swung with its tackling half +burned away. While they were trying to right it, all the +cordage parted and it plunged into the ocean stern foremost, +almost carrying Brian with it. A great body of +flame burst up from the deck, separating us with a storm +of fire. Then my father turned away with his face to the +water, and said to my mother and myself what he had +wished to say to Brian.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘My wife—my child—some of us may be saved. There +is no torture in drowning. Fear nothing worse than death. +They have flung spars and planks into the water; one of +you may reach them, and so float till a ship comes up. +Should this happen to either of you, remember the charge +I give. Some time in life you may meet him—I mean my +eldest son, Alfred Nolan—keep nothing back, tell him all +that you have seen, all that you have thought. Say to him +that the last words of his father before he went into eternity +were these—remember them well, there may be a soul’s +salvation in them—say to him: Your father dies blessing +you, praying for you, rather than his own life. Say—and +mark the words well—that his father would gladly +die this horrible death even of fire, if its agonies could +redeem his son. Tell him that you saw the flames swooping +toward me as I said this—that the fire was roaring +under my feet and leaping into the sky, leaving only a moment +of life, which I used for him. Tell him that the +innocent children that will go down with me into eternity +are less dear to me than the one guilty son for whom my +last breath of prayer shall be given. Say that I perish +believing that out of my fiery grave will come repentance, +regeneration, and perhaps a useful future to him. Will you +tell him this, my child, my wife?’</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>“‘We will! we will!’ cried out two voices, blending in +a solemn promise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother stood by, white and trembling, with the little +ones clinging to her skirts. She looked down upon them +with low moans of pain, and on her part clung to the garments +of my father. I think if the fire had leaped upon +us then we should have perished embracing each other. +The fire did leap upon us, and went roaring after us foot by +foot till we were driven to the bow, where you stood +crowded close with that good man. Then Brian came +through the flames, determined to die with us. We two +were saved, and these last words of our father are all that +we brought with us out of the deep. Some day, lady, I +shall see and know my brother Alfred.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was an awful scene; my whole being shudders +when I think of it!” cried Virginia, quivering with the +terror of her own memories. “We are here—you and I, +safe; but, ah! me alone! Ellen, I am glad you told me +about this noble father. I saw him then, and the very remembrance +fills me with a solemn trust in the eternal +justice of God. Let us watch and be patient. One person +we can trust, and that is your brother. He has a bright, +honest face, like yours, dear—only—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“More life in it; and his figure is so straight and tall. +What a man he will make!” cried Ellen, brightening all +over. “You would not think it, but he has the pride of a +nobleman. That is why he will not acknowledge to the +education which cost his father so much trouble. He does +not wish to be thought a gentleman’s son. As for me, no +one would ever suspect good blood or gentle breeding here. +So I pass without question. The first sight decides my +claims to notice. Even that red-haired woman settled me +with a sweep of her hand into something more insignificant +than a servant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let them think what they will, Ellen. It is enough +<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>that I know and love you as a dear friend,” said Virginia, +smoothing the waves of lovely hair that shaded that earnest +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush, some one is coming,” said Ellen starting to her +feet; “they must not find me here leaning on my mistress. +Shall I open the door?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was a knock and the jingle of china in the passage.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is Eunice Hurd, I think,” said Virginia, trembling, +for the scene of that morning had shaken her nerves sadly. +“Let her in; she seemed friendly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The door was opened and a servant came in with a great +silver tray between her outstretched arms, on which was a +delicate tête-à-tête set of Sèvres china, some glittering +silver, and all the paraphernalia of an epicurean breakfast.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought I’d bring it up here, as you didn’t seem to +hitch hosses with them people down stairs,” said Eunice +Hurd, marching after the servant. “They haven’t taken +a morsel yet. Other things to think of, I suppose. How +do you feel now, Miss Lander? Chirker than you did, I +reckon. At any rate, here’s a briled chicken and some biscuit, +and <i>sich</i> butter. Remember the cheny, I calculate?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While she was speaking, Eunice, opening out a rosewood +card-table, spread a damask cloth upon it with both her +large, red hands, while the purple moire antique shook and +rustled under her quick motion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Reckoned you would,” she muttered on. “Twelve +years old the day he brought this set of china home. +Thought it was for the big wax doll at first. Mercy on us, +how he did laugh! Most people would have let ’em all +been broken up, but I ain’t of that sort. There, marm, is +a cup of coffee smoking hot, and plenty of cream to settle +it down—and sich cream too! The cows have grown so +dainty that they won’t touch any thing less than white +clover, with nipping from the rose leaves and apple +<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>blossoms when they flutter into the grass—queer critters, +them English cows are; and sich milk as they give! The +calves had a nice time of it this spring, I can tell you. +There’s a snow-white one, with a black spot shooting up its +forehead like an Injun arrow, Joshua wouldn’t have it +killed nohow till you got home. It’s a beauty, I tell you! +anything more, Miss? I’d stay and hand the things my +own self, only Miss What’s-her-name will be prowling +inter the kitchen, for anything I know. Make yourself to +home, for it <i>is</i> home so long as Eunice Hurd is under this +roof.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice gathered up her purple dress with both hands, +and was marching out of the room, then she turned back +and added:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If the little flippertegibbet has a mind to, she can +come down any time and tell me if you want anything—wouldn’t +go near the madam or that gal, if I was you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice retreated with these words, sniffing the air as +she went.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXI<br> <span class='c011'>MRS. LANDER AND CORA VISIT LAWYER STONE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Eben Stone was in his office, sitting at a black walnut +desk, honey-combed with pigeon-holes and bristling with +papers, given endwise to the light. He occupied the most +remote of three rooms, all carpeted, with green; along +each carpet, from door to door, a footpath was trodden +into the fabric revealing its hempen foundation, as grass is +worn from a meadow track. This footpath bespoke many +clients, and the whole surroundings a prosperous business. +Indeed few lawyers of the city boasted a larger practice or +higher standing in the courts than Eben Stone.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>It was not often that this man lost his equanimity, but +he was a little astonished when a clerk from the front +office came into his room, followed by the widow Lander +and a young lady, so like Lander’s daughter, as he remembered +her, that the resemblance really startled him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The widow sat down in a chair placed for her by the +clerk, but did not lift her crape veil, though the young +lady put hers aside with a rather defiant sweep of the hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mr. Stone, I have come to you at once,” said the +widow, moving nervously in her chair; “something so +strange has happened. Please to look on this young lady +and tell me if you know her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer, who was a handsome man for his years, +which had numbered at least fifty, turned his fine gray +eyes on the girl with a look of puzzled recognition.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But that I am certain it is impossible, madam, I should +say, allowing for growth and time, that this young lady +might be Lander’s daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have remembered rightly, sir,” said the widow, +starting up with nervous eagerness. “She is Mr. Lander’s +daughter, saved from the wreck almost by a miracle—restored +to us only two days ago.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And Lander—my friend Lander!” exclaimed Stone, +eagerly. “What of him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The widow shook her head, and her black veil waved +mournfully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is dead, sir; my brother and benefactor went down +with the steamer.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And your own child?” inquired the lawyer, in a +restrained voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander’s black-bordered handkerchief went up +under the veil, which was mournfully agitated again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not dead, I hope,” exclaimed the lawyer. “Dear me, +that is terrible!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not dead, but so much worse. Oh! Mr. Stone, I fear +she is insane!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“Insane!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Stone turned his eyes on the young girl as he said +this. He saw nothing in her handsome face but a look of +gentle concern.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was the exposure,” she said in reply to his look, +“the horrible scene of the fire, that drove her out of her +mind, sir. She is not violent—far from it—but I sometimes +think it would have been better if she had never been +picked up. Why, sir, she does not know her own +mother!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She does not, indeed, Mr. Stone!” cried the widow, +sobbing out the words from behind her veil. “Refused to +own me from the first—fancies that she is Mr. Lander’s +child, and sets herself up for the heiress! You have no +idea how painful it is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was evidently in a sad, nervous state; she +began to sob piteously, and trembled so much that the +young lady put one arm around her and made a gentle +effort at consolation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is so disappointed—so sadly harassed by her +daughter’s reproaches, sir! You can imagine what it is!” +she said, turning her beautiful face on the lawyer. “My +heart aches for them both.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a mournful state of things, certainly,” said the +lawyer, with earnest sympathy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can be done—what steps shall we take regarding +my poor cousin? I would give half my father’s estate to-morrow, +sir, if that would restore her mind. Oh! sir, you +have no idea what a lovely character she is—or was before +this horrible calamity fell upon her. So fond of me, so +grateful to my father. Indeed that she might well be, for +he made no difference between us. Pray tell me what can +be done for her—you are my father’s old friend—point out +some way for us. My poor aunt, here, is breaking her +heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>The impetuous feeling with which these words were +spoken carried the sympathies of the lawyer with it. The +bright, generous glow of that face made even his practised +heart beat quicker.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot advise, I cannot even judge correctly,” he said, +“without having seen the young lady. It is a hard case—a +very hard case.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Mrs. Lander bowed her head gloomily and sobbed +out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! sir, you cannot think how I suffer! How sadly +all this has shaken my nerves!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But your daughter is not dangerous. I think you told +me that she is never violent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not exactly violent as yet. But her conduct in the +house is very distressing. She has locked herself into her +old room with a little deformed creature saved from the +wreck, and refuses to come out. But the servants get +access to her, and she talks to them as if she were mistress +of the house. As for her cousin and myself, she seems to +hate us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is no unusual thing with insane people,” said the +lawyer. “It often happens that they take dislikes to those +nearest and dearest; but this may only be temporary. +Has any physician seen her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No one has seen her,” answered the widow. “We +came to you, as her uncle’s old friend, first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still, I think a physicians’s opinion important.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What physician would you recommend?” inquired +Cora Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Any respectable practitioner. There must be one in +your neighborhood. Indeed, if it should become imperative +to shut her up, two would be necessary.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, don’t! don’t speak of that!” exclaimed the young +girl. “The very thought wounds me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>“Still it may become necessary,” said the lawyer. “In +what way was she first taken?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can hardly tell,” answered Cora. “At first she was +terribly depressed, and mourned continually over the loss +she had met with in the death of my dear father, whom +she persisted in calling <i>her</i> father. At first I did not correct +her, for sometimes she had, in a caressing way, called +him father on board the steamer. But when I heard her +constantly doing this—with such deep earnestness, too—I +spoke to her about it, when she flew at me like a fury, told +me that I only wanted to cheat her out of the property and +take her birthright from her. From that day she has been +possessed with this wild idea. When she came home, after +all our troubles, and found her mother yearning to receive +her, she absolutely pushed the dear lady aside, and refused +to recognize her. Dear, dear aunt, don’t look so sad! it +breaks my heart! Indeed, sir, you cannot blame her if she +does give way. Oh! Mr. Stone, it was a terrible disappointment! +Poor mother! poor, dear aunt! why how you +shiver!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was indeed trembling, and her pallid face +looked frightful through her crape veil. She had told no +more than the truth; her nerves were dreadfully shaken.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can endure this no longer!” she exclaimed, starting +up in wild haste. “It wrings my heart to hear you say +these things, Cora Lander!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora broke off in her speech and looked steadily in Mrs. +Lander’s eyes. They were wild and impatient. The conversation +had evidently overtaxed her strength.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, dear aunt, we will drop the subject,” she said, +sweetly. “It is painful to us all. Mr. Stone understands +how it is with my cousin, and will think for us. We are +so helpless, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was a quick decision in all this which did not +strike that keen lawyer as so very helpless. But he made +<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>his observations and said nothing. Once, Mrs. Lander +lifted her veil and turned a long, wistful look upon him, as +if there was something she wished to say, but the veil +dropped again, and she went out, following Cora Lander to +the carriage.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXII.<br> <span class='c011'>ANOTHER STRANGE VISIT.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Mr. Stone sat a long time after the two women left +him, playing idly with his paper-knife, dissatisfied, he could +not tell why, and restless even to irritability. Why was it +that, from the very beginning, he had been possessed of +unreasonable doubts and suspicions, so vague that they +melted into nothingness when questioned closely by his +reason? Why was it that he could like neither Mrs. +Lander nor her Beautiful as the creature was, she +utterly failed to touch one chord of his heart or charm one +ray of his intellect.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has the Lander look and the Lander voice,” he +said. “I felt the tones as if my old friend had been speaking, +but the air, that one glance of the eye, those never +belonged to my friend Amos.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>While Stone was thus thoughtfully playing with his +folder and frowning heavily over it, the young man from +the outer office broke in upon him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Two more ladies, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Two more, James!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Lander and Miss Nolan. They want to speak +with you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Send them in—send them in.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again the bachelor office was darkened by two females in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>deep mourning. One, the tallest, struck him so completely +as the girl he had just parted with, that he started up in +astonishment and stood gazing upon her with softened feelings, +for the expression he had not quite liked was gone, +and a sweet sadness, such as he had often seen on Amos +Lander’s features in his hours of grief, had taken its place.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sir—sir, you were my father’s friend, I know,” said +the young lady, but with more impressive earnestness than +had marked the conversation of his other visitor. “I have +come to you in my distress—in my utter, utter helplessness!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell me first exactly who you are, young lady,” said +the lawyer, nervously laying down and taking up his paper-knife. +“Have I seen you before to-day?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am the daughter, the only daughter of Amos Lander, +an old friend and client of yours, if you are Mr. Stone. +No, we have not met in eight years.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am Mr. Stone, undoubtedly, and knew Amos Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know, I know; I ought to have remembered you +anywhere,” said the young lady, seating herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“His daughter and his brother’s widow were here only a +few minutes ago,” said the lawyer, fixing his keen eyes on +that lovely face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia met his glance with the earnest, grieved look of +a child innocently maligned.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That cannot be. I am the daughter of Amos Lander,” +she said, with gentle dignity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer looked at her earnestly. Surely there was +no insanity in that face. Truth itself was not more pure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I almost believe you,” he said. “I almost believe +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! believe her quite, for all that she says is true,” +cried the young girl who stood by her chair, advancing +close to the lawyer and lifting her honest eyes to his. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>“There is some great wickedness here, sir. That hard, +bad young woman, who looks so like my lady, is determined +to drive her from her own home, to take all her money—her +name—everything—and send her out to die. Here—here, +where my young lady had a right to expect friendship, +she has been robbed of the last friend her father had! +It is a terrible, terrible thing they are attempting to do, +sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And who is it that talks so boldly, and so well, I must +say?” questioned Stone, more and more bewildered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I, sir—I am only a poor girl whose life she saved—a +helpless creature that can do but little good in the world—God +help me—but so long as I can speak, or think, or look, +I will protest against the wrong these bad, bad women are +doing to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You speak of the widow Lander and her niece, I +think.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I speak of the widow Lander and her daughter—the +two persons who have just been here. They are in a plot +to rob my young lady—I have watched them, sir, with all +my heart and all my brain, for both belong to her. This +is what they are doing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sit down, young lady, and let us talk more calmly; +these are strange things you are telling me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will help her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would help Amos Lander’s child in any way. Only +let us understand each other.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is little to explain,” said Virginia, putting aside +her veil and drawing close to the table, on which her arm +rested. “You know that my father, Amos Lander, had +but one child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I, sir, am that child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer bent his head, but made no observation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My father was lost at sea, you know how.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>“Yes, yes; no need to pain yourself with the story; I +know about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You know as well as I do that he took the widow of +my uncle into his house—her only child was made one of +the family, and in all things treated as a daughter. Eight +years ago we went to school in Europe, studied together, +and in all things continued to be as sisters. We had the +same name exactly, Cora Virginia Lander. She, being a +little the elder, was named after my mother, who afterwards +gave her name to me on the very day of my birth. Thus +we were scarcely to be distinguished from each other. True +she took the name of Cora, and I bore that of Virginia—after +we went to Europe, reversing what had been before. +But we looked so much alike that there was constant confusion +in the names, and our signatures were exactly the +same. We liked this; it pleased us to be mistaken for +each other, especially as Cora loved people to think her the +heiress, and I cared nothing about it. I remember when +my father came she saw him before I did, and tried to make +him believe that it was his child who claimed the first +kisses. But she failed. He knew the difference at once, +and was angry with her for trifling with him. I never saw +him so much excited before or since.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was any one present when he rebuked her?” asked +the lawyer.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; we were alone. I think Cora was offended at +this, for she was sullen and unkind for days and days after +that. But we soon went on our travels and it all wore off +for a time. Papa was known to a good many persons on +board the steamer when we returned home, and they made +a distinction that wounded Cora dreadfully. It was not +our fault. Papa was kind as kind could be to her, but he +had not seen his own child in so long, and loved her so +dearly, that he also seemed to put Cora aside. It was not +intentional, and she carried herself proudly under the pain +<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>but I knew that it was there. Then came that awful, +awful day.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And how did she behave then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sir,” broke in the hunchback, “she saw a boat putting +stealthily from the steamer and plunged into the sea, +screaming to be taken in—not one word to the old man +whom she now claims to be her father—not one look on her +cousin. She left them like a coward and saved herself—I +saw it all, I saw it all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you saw her abandon Amos Lander and seek her +own safety?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I did. I saw also this lady, his child I know, +stand between him and the flames till her garments were +scorched. I saw them driven inch by inch before the howling +flames, till they leaped together, clinging to each other +from the bow. He begged her to go first, but she would +not. Even in the water, she went swimming to and fro +searching for him, and crying out to know if we had seen +him. Then she saved me; bore me through the water +when she was herself sinking—and that wicked girl sat in +the boat watching us. I tell you, sir, she would not let +the men come to our help. One of them told me so afterward. +She wished them to see her cousin die that she +might claim her inheritance. I saw this from the first. +When my lady was taken, senseless and white, into the +boat, that girl felt for her heart, and almost laughed when +she found how cold and still it was; but when those poor +lips moved and the dear eyes opened, Cora Lander’s face +grew deadly. It was like that of a fiend. Oh! sir, she is +a wicked, wicked girl!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen spoke with the energy of truth. Her fine eyes +filled with light, every feature of her face beamed with +honest indignation. She swept away even the cool reason +of the lawyer with her enthusiasm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go on,” he said; “tell me all that passed after this. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>You have been with these two ladies ever since the shipwreck, +I believe?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, always,” answered Ellen. “With all my brain +and all my heart, I have been watchful over the lady who +saved my life. I felt that some evil thought slept under +the frowns that girl could not invariably conceal. I have +spoken again and again of the wealth which would belong +to my lady, always to see that curved lip grow white over +the set teeth, and an evil fire flash into those eyes which +could not be concealed even by the drooping lashes. That +girl, sir, from the very first had resolved to personate my +lady and thus rob her. How she came to an understanding +with her mother I do not know; but of one thing I am +certain, they met before that morning. There was mutual +trust and mutual dread between them. The girl had mastered +her mother. From the first moment of our return +she has ruled her with a rod of iron. She is fearless, unscrupulous—terribly +wicked.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen broke off and began to pace the floor, clasping and +unclasping her hands in her unexhausted excitement.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a base, wicked, deep design,” she said, “and they +will succeed—they will succeed!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have an ardent friend there, and it may be one +who can return the debt she owes you,” said the lawyer addressing +Virginia. “Now tell me, if you can, how far your +own impressions go with hers. Tell me all that has passed—do +not allow yourself to be excited—try and speak +calmly, I have plenty of time and will listen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, I am not excited. This trouble seems so small +after the terrible sorrow of his death, that I am likely to +give it less importance than it deserves. Ellen has spoken +the simple truth in every particular. She has been with +me all the time, and having her suspicions excited, has +observed keenly. She is not generally uncharitable, and +has no cause to judge my cousin harshly. One thing is +<span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span>certain, Cora has assumed my name, my identity, and will, +if I have no power to check her, despoil me of my father’s +property. She has even attempted to confine me in my +own house. Ellen and I escaped from it as if from a +prison.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did she give you no reason for this attempted confinement?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“None; in truth I have not seen her since she drove me +from my old room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Drove you from your old room! But give me all the +particulars. Let me know everything that passed—I +would rather hear the facts from your own lips.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia obeyed him quietly, and with less betrayal of +excitement by far than Ellen had exhibited; her voice was +clear, her narrative connected and her language temperate. +Tears came into her eyes once or twice as she spoke of her +keen disappointment on returning home, but there was not +a trace of mental derangement in anything she said or +connected with her manner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The lawyer watched her keenly as he possessed himself +of the facts. Every instant he saw some trait in her face, +some tone of her voice, which reminded him painfully of +his old friend. These shades of expression he had not +remarked in the other face. In features the two appeared +so completely alike that the resemblance was startling; but +that which impressed the lawyer most forcibly was an indefinite +air—a shade of the soul which no court of law +could ever be made to recognize.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is Amos Lander’s daughter, and she is sound of +mind as I am,” he thought, “but how to prove it—how to +prove it. If that woman persists in claiming her and +renouncing the other, what evidence can be brought to +refute the perjury? Who shall claim to know more of a +child than its own mother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then the lawyer remembered what had been said of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_202'>202</span>Virginia’s insanity. What was the object? Did they +intend to make this an excuse for getting her out of the +way? Such things had been, even in the close neighborhood +of New York, and in the nineteenth century. This +case, take it for all in all, was the strangest and most +incomprehensible that had ever came within the lawyer’s +practice. How was he to unravel it?</p> + +<p class='c013'>For some time, Stone remained pondering over these +points of the case, that seemed most complicated, and the +two girls sat by in silence, waiting for him to speak. At +last he looked up.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did this woman know that you were coming here?” +he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, she left in the early train; they both left. Then a +woman in the house, whom they seemed to have offended—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice Hurd?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Eunice Hurd came, unlocked our door, and told us +to go out and get some air. She was mistress just then, +and didn’t mean to make prisoners of us or let anybody +else. We put on our bonnets and went out to the terrace. +A train was just that moment in sight. It stopped—we +sprang in and were on our way here before any plan of the +kind had been thought of.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is well. Now take the next train back. It is +possible that you may reach home before Mrs. Lander and +her companion. Say nothing of your excursion. Do not +mention my name, but if they bring any strange men to +see you, let me know at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I had thought that you would perhaps advise me to +leave the house,” said Virginia, “it is so very painful +living under the same roof—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Leave the house, and so give them possession—nine +points of the law flung up at once—not a bit of that—stay +where you are—keep together and give them a free rope. +That is my advice. But if they make any desperate move, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>send for me. If possible, make friends with that hard-faced +termagant with the red hair. She may be useful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has been kind to us—very kind in her way,” said +Virginia. “I think she knows me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Heaven send that they exasperate her—but they will, +she is forever on an edge, and this successful audacity will +be sure to turn the girl’s head. That is the way crafty +persons usually defeat themselves. It is the small people +whom we despise too much for conciliation that play the +mischief with us. This girl will run into some mistake of +the kind, be sure of that; but we must give her time, +plenty of time. Things will all come out right, I dare +say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The power of justice lies with God,” said Virginia, solemnly. +“Why should we fear to wait?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait and work—wait and work, my dear child! Never +trust entirely to the Lord while you can work for yourself. +Remember he has given you energies to use, and these are +his instruments. I do not know what your clergyman +might say on the subject, but that is a lawyer’s opinion.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot realize that my cousin really means to defraud +and displace me. It seems like some hideous dream,” said +Virginia, sighing heavily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Make up your mind to that, young lady. She is in +deadly earnest, and the Evil one seems to have helped her. +Never in my experience have I seen a fraud so thoroughly +hedged in. The mother is her tower of strength. But +they will quarrel. Wait awhile and they will be sure to +quarrel. The elder woman has some conscience; as for +the other—well, it’s hard to think a creature so rarely +beautiful has no soul, but, upon my word, all this seems +like it! How cool she was—how thoroughly self-possessed—and +yet there is fire and all sorts of passion in her eyes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will my young lady be safe under the same roof with +her?” questioned Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>“Safe?—Yes, I hardly think the creature would commit +murder, at any rate as yet. Young lady, I repeat my +advice—return to your father’s house and rest there for a +few weeks, or months if it seems best; at least till I can +thoroughly look into this case. No harm can reach you +there. Accept the position she forces upon you—be +vigilant, and let this young person keep her wit sharpened—we +have a difficult game to play and must use all our +resources.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia gathered the dark drapery of her shawl around +her, and prepared to go. The interview had depressed her +greatly, and everything seemed surrounding her with +gloom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wanted rest so much—so much,” she said, mournfully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will come—only be hopeful and patient,” said the +lawyer, kindly. “Meantime you have a good friend in +this girl, and in me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I trust you, sir; you were his friend—I trust, and will +obey you as if it were himself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is well—that is well. Now hasten back, and let +no one learn that you have been here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia clasped the hand held out to her and went away +very sorrowful. Everything confirmed her deepest cause +of grief, the utter unworthiness of the cousin she had trusted +as a friend and loved as a sister.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two girls reached the railroad depot and took seats +in the returning train, depressed and so weary that neither +of them spoke until they came within view of that white +marble building which was Virginia’s home. How +strangely it had altered since she had looked upon its +Grecian pillars and sculptured façade the day before. It +was no longer her home—no longer a place of hoped-for +rest, but its white walls loomed before her like those of a +prison. The hot atmosphere of strife had poisoned all its +<span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>flowers and darkened the very sunlight which fell around +it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and Ellen wandered awhile among the shrubbery +before they entered the house. Virginia was depressed and +so heavy-hearted that even the beautiful world of blossoms +that surrounded her failed to brighten her face or win an +admiring glance. For the time her soul fell into a depression +so mournful that she longed to sink down among the +flowers and die there. The two beings she most loved on +earth were dead. One had gone into eternity through +those terrible gates of fire which seemed forever burning +before her. The other—ah! more painful still—had sunk +into those black depths of sin, shame and dishonor into +which her pure soul could not look without shuddering.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The grave consecrates its dead—but sin embalms the +soul in eternal poison.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXIII.<br> <span class='c011'>THE WAYSIDE TAVERN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The railroad depot, which we have had occasion to mention +more than once, stood a little in advance of a small +cluster of houses which occupied a space of flat ground +lying between it and the river. Among these houses was +a small hotel, or tavern, at which travellers going back into +the country sometimes stopped, and which frequently held +guests from the city weeks together for as a transient +boarding house, it was well kept and pleasantly situated. +This hotel and the surrounding houses were completely +shut out from the white mansion by the fine old grove we +have described, which swept up to the last slope of the terraces +and ended there in a beautiful wilderness, through +whose cleft heart came a bright gush of running waters.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span>Of all the lovely nooks which made that domain almost +a paradise, this piece of wildwoods was the most beautiful. +But it lay some distance from the house, while some of the +great trees that grew upon its outskirts almost sheltered +the little hotel, and the inland stream rushing by one end, +gave it a rural aspect which can seldom be attained even +from a union of trees and running water.</p> + +<p class='c013'>To this hotel, a few days after the Miss Landers returned +home, came young Seymour, quite alone and with +only a small valise by way of baggage. A handsomely-mounted +fowling piece, some fishing tackle and a basket, +that seemed never to have been used, were left at the +depot, for which the landlord sent his boy at once, for the +young man, after an examination of his room and some +general inquiries, expressed himself delighted with the accommodations, +and determined to stay some days, weeks +perhaps, and see what sport could be found in the neighborhood.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The landlord was delighted; never had his door been +darkened by a presence so imposing. The extreme beauty +of this man’s face, his manners, at once dignified and +cordial, charmed every one with whom he came in contact. +He was delighted with the room assigned to him, remarked +pleasantly on its white bed and the muslin curtains which +let in such lovely glimpses of green shadows and sparkling +water, and expressed general satisfaction. It was a lower +room, and a quaint affair, half door half window, opened +from it to a little verandah. Below this balcony the brook +went eddying and laughing till lost in the darkness cast by +a plank bridge which crossed the highway and hushed it +into stillness for the space of thirty feet or more, when it +broke forth in a riot of sweet sounds and went dancing and +sparkling off to its death in the vast sweep of the Hudson.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After giving orders about his gun and fishing tackle, +Seymour looked at his watch and inquired what he could +have for dinner.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>“A broiled chicken, would that do—with splendid +potatoes fresh from the garden, custard and apple pie?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Add materials for a salad and exchange the pie for +a ripe peach, and nothing could be better,” Seymour +answered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The landlord went out delighted. He had a private +understanding with Mrs. Lander’s gardener, and made +himself sure of such peaches as the young gentleman had +seldom eaten before.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There,” muttered Seymour, as the man went out, “this +broiled chicken will help me through an hour, then give +ten minutes to the fruit, and a cigar or two will bring me +close upon sunset. I wonder which way the house lies +from here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He took a note written on paper of a faint violet color +from his bosom and murmured softly to himself as he read +it:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is a room on the ground floor which you must +secure if possible. It opens on an old-fashioned verandah, +but little used, from which steps run down to a footpath +which leads along the margin of the brook, till it ends in +the strange summer-house I have described. There, my +beloved, I shall be waiting for you with an impatience +which swells my heart and burns upon my face even as I +write, hours and hours from the time when I can hope to +see you. Do not fail, the disappointment would kill me if +I should go to that place and find it empty. I will not go +till the very hour—to wait would be an agony of suspense. +I must find you watching, impatient—counting each +moment which keeps me from you as an enemy to be +wrestled with and hated. But I might keep on forever and +say nothing that will satisfy the heart which struggles and +swells in my bosom in a wild effort to reach yours. At +sunset, remember—at sunset.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man kissed this impassioned note more than +<span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>once before he placed it near his heart again, for with all +his wayward soul he loved the young creature who wrote it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Remember the sunset—as if I could forget! Oh! she +is a glorious creature, full of genius, ardent, earnest—a +woman to live for and die for! How her thoughts leap to +mine! I could be the hound, the slave of a woman like +that and feel it no degradation, for she loves me—she loves +me, and I adore her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour walked the room to and fro with restless impatience. +The note had broken up all the listless placidity +of his manner. He longed to tread the hours under his +feet which lay between him and his love. To most men +the unwomanly warmth of that note would have brought +something like repulsion; but Seymour only loved her the +better for this abandon. Fresh from Southern Europe, he +brought with him its fire and its intensity of feeling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The dinner was brought in at last and placed upon a +round table, covered with a cloth white and glossy as +crusted snow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>With all his sentiment, Seymour was hungry but fastidious +as an epicure. He sent the broiled chicken back to be +kept warm while he used up a little time in mixing a salad +to his taste. That was so much gained. He was fifteen +minutes nearer the sunset and had produced a delicious +salad before the covered dishes were brought in again. +Everything was well cooked and delightfully fresh. Simple +as the meal was, he ate it with exquisite relish, finding this +a pleasant way of passing the time. The landlord came in +at last and inquired if his guest was satisfied with his dinner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour had just taken a peach in his hand and fastened +his white teeth in its crimson side. He took the peach +from his lips with a sigh of sensuous enjoyment, and +answered in a single word, “Delicious!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is indeed a glorious fruit,” he said, eyeing the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>juicy pulp and crimson coat of the peach he had half eaten +with intense admiration; “and seems fresh from the tree. +Not of your own growing, surely?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” answered the landlord, with a bland smile, “they +were a present from Mrs. Lander’s gardener. Wall peaches +sir, and picked ones at that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And who is Mrs. Lander?” asked Seymour with +apparent unconcern. “Some Lady Bountiful of the +neighborhood?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is—or was the lady of the white marble house +which you passed a quarter of a mile back—but I really do +not know who it belongs to now. Mr. Lander’s daughter +has come back and everything is claimed by her, I am +told.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And is it a large property?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Immense, and falls, every dollar of it, to that young +girl.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed!” said Seymour, pushing the plate of fruit +from him. “And the other—I beg pardon, but did not you +say that there was a relative?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, sir, I don’t remember mentioning it. But there is +a cousin, brought up in the house, the very image and picture +of the young lady, but poor as a church mouse—hasn’t +a dollar that I know of independent of her rich cousin. +Besides she’s said to be—I don’t answer for it remember—but +she’s said to be a little wild, wrong about the +head, you know. The fright of that awful shipwreck +unsettled her; but it’s to be hoped that it will go off. +Quiet and her native air will do wonders the doctors say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour was puzzled and a good deal mystified, but he +did not venture on questioning the landlord too closely. +“There must be some mistake,” he thought; “both the +young ladies were bright as larks ten days ago. This must +be village gossip, but at nightfall I shall learn everything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The landlord, finding the conversation droop, went out, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>and a servant came in to remove the table and set the +room to rights. Seymour stood by the window while this +was going on, and smiled as he noticed how the shadows +had lengthened, and that faint gleams of violet and rose-color +were giving an opaline tint to the west.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the servant disappeared with the last vestige of +the meal he had enjoyed so much, he had still half an hour +to dispose of, and spite of his impatience, was not altogether +inconsolable that it was so. Under all circumstances, +Seymour was a man to make the best of his surroundings, +and never failed to snatch the blossoms from each hour +as it passed him. The room was scantily furnished, and he +looked around for a couch to rest upon. No such luxurious +convenience presenting itself he drew a heavy chair, large +enough for a modern pulpit and draped with white dimity, +up to the window, stretched himself almost at full length in +it, and selected a cigar from a case richly mounted and exquisitely +embroidered, probably by some lady. This he laid +daintily on the arm of his chair, and searching in another +pocket, drew forth a small box of enamelled gold, from +which a waxen match soon flashed fire in answer to a quick +motion of his hand. Then igniting his cigar, with an indolent +motion of his red lips, he fell into a reverie, looking out +upon the sky with his half-shut eyes and sending up dainty +curls of blue smoke at intervals of indolent animation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus he watched the sky till its delicate opal tints +turned into seething scarlet, broken up with great ridges of +gold, which sunk, and changed, and floated in a deep sea +of purple lanced with flame and fringed with living fire. +The last sunbeams broke against the window where the +young man sat, like a handful of golden arrows. Then he +started up from his reverie with a thrill of life that completely +transfigured him, flung the end of his cigar out of +the window, and opening the lower half, which was of +wood, stepped out upon the verandah. The trees above +<span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>him, were all ablaze with dying sunbeams, but soft purple +shadows were gathering in the ravine, and the brook +laughed out fitfully through the beautiful gloom which fell +upon it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A footpath ran along the margin of this brook, to which +the wood moss crept, tufting its edges with velvet. Spotted +ferns and delicate sarsaparilla brushed against his boots as +he passed into the woods, walking rapidly and smiling as +he went.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All at once a bend of the path brought him upon a tiny +log cabin, which stood upon an embankment of the brook +just below a rustic bridge, half stone, half logs, which +spanned one of its deepest parts. It was a lovely spot, +sheltered by tall chestnuts and a single hemlock, which let +in a glow of the red sunset through the dusky green of +their branches. In the door of that miniature cabin stood +a female, leaning out, with a hand shading her eyes and +searching the footpath with eager glances. She had come +first, notwithstanding her promise to the contrary, and, +while her whole soul went out in longing for his presence, +was angry that he should have made her wait.</p> + +<p class='c013'> He saw her from the margin of the brook, cleared its +highest embankment with a bound or two, and stood beside +her beaming with happiness. Her anger fled at the first +touch of his hand; not a gleam of it was left in those deep +blue eyes; a tremor ran through her frame, but it was not +one of rage or resentment even. She loved the man—yes, +at the time she loved him honestly, devotedly, with a wild +vehemence that might have made her his slave; and he +loved her ardently, madly, with a better love than she +could ever give in return. He was not a good man, as our +readers will know, but the depth and earnestness of his +affection for this girl gave a grandeur even to his most wayward +nature.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXIV.<br> <span class='c011'>LOVE IN A LOG CABIN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The door in which the lovers stood was darkened by the +hemlock; so Seymour drew the young girl into the cabin +close to a little window that looked out upon the rustic +bridge. It was a lovely object to gaze upon, splendid ferns +fringed all the margin of the brook and rooted themselves +in the stone-work of the bridge, pluming its mosses with +tufts of green; ladies’ ear-jewels, wild asters and scarlet +cardinal flowers tangled themselves in garlands of gold, +blue and red over the water and round the ends of the +bridge, massing their rich foliage up the embankment till +some of the ear-jewels trembled, like bells of gold, under +the cabin window.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, how beautiful the earth is!” said Seymour, bending +to look into her eyes. “Great Heavens! it almost +frightens one to feel so happy. Is it so with you, darling?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am very, very happy,” she answered, with a sigh that +seemed to bring up fragrance from the depths of her heart. +“It rejoices me to know that you think this so beautiful—for +it is mine, all mine!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man did not take in her meaning, but drew +her close to his bosom and answered, with passionate tenderness:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you, Cora, when shall I say that you are mine—all +mine?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>His tenderness, the impatient trembling of his voice, +made her bold, and she answered him with kisses, for his +lips had sought them even as his words claimed her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I love you—oh! how dearly I love you!” she murmured, +forgetting for that one moment her wealth—her +crime—everything but the passionate tenderness which +swayed her whole being.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>“Then why should we wait? Come with me, darling—who +on earth can love you as I will? I possess money +now, we need have no fear of poverty—full twenty thousand +dollars—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She interrupted him with a ringing laugh, and throwing +her head back, looked triumphantly in his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I, Seymour, I have fifty times as much—more +than that—more than you and I can spend, let us be ever +so extravagant. Throw your paltry gold into the river, or +give it to your servant; with me you shall have everything, +for I am rich—you can hardly imagine how rich.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man dropped his arm from her waist and +looked wildly into her flashing eyes. He was deadly white, +even to the lips. Her news seemed to have frightened +him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A shade of terror came into her face, and she seized him +by the arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is the matter?—how pale you are! Why, Seymour, +you are trembling from head to foot!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He broke away from her, folded his arms against the logs +of the window-frame, and bowing his face upon them, burst +into tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! my God, my God!” he broke forth, “if I had +but known this before—if I had but known it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girl was astonished. She had thought to complete +the triumph of his happiness with her news, and there he +stood trembling like a culprit—weeping like a child.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Seymour! Seymour, tell me the reason of this! I +thought my news would make you so happy,” she cried, +partaking of his terror, for a painful suspicion had seized +upon her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he know? Did he suspect?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her hands shook like wounded birds as she lifted his +head from the logs, and the face she bent upon him was +ashen with dread.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>“Are you an angry? Does it make you so wretched because +I am rich?” she said, shrinking from the mournful eyes he +turned upon her. “Speak to me, Seymour! What have I +done to wound you so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing,” he said, wearily; “nothing—you are everything +that is beautiful, good and generous, while I—oh, +Cora! Cora! I am not worthy of you! A beggar, and +worse than a beggar, how dare I mate with a creature so +beautiful, so bright?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She drew close to him, for the moment generous and +womanly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I owned the whole world, Seymour, and had the +beauty of an angel, all should be yours; I only ask that +you love me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Love you, girl! This is the very madness of love. If +you only knew to what it has driven me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If you love me so, it is enough. There, now the color +is coming back to your lips. I felt mine growing cold, as +if your kisses had frozen there. Come, come, smile again. +You frightened me terribly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did I?” he answered, with a forced smile. “I did not +intend it—but you took me by surprise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it such a terrible calamity to be worth oceans of +money?” she answered, a little proudly. “Does this +wealth make you love me less? This poor little twenty +thousand dollars you would have divided with me, whom +you thought penniless.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This poor little twenty thousand dollars!” he repeated, +bitterly. “Girl! girl! do you know what it cost me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again she was terrified by his pallor and his vehemence, +and answered, trembling:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No matter what it cost you, I will repay it. There is +nothing that love and power like mine shall not redeem.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! if it could—if it could!” he answered, sorrowfully. +“Why did you tell me that falsehood? Was it to test +<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>me? Did you doubt that I loved you? Why not say +then, I am rich and will divide these riches with you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because my father was living and the wealth was his, +not mine,” she answered promptly. “That was worse than +poverty, for I knew he never would consent to our union.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But why not say that you were his daughter and +heiress? Why pass yourself off on the man who loved +you as a dependent niece?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Forgive me! forgive me! I was wrong not to know +you better; but the deception sprang from a wish to be +loved for myself alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, Cora, had you but told me then!” he said, with a +piteous smile. “But let it pass. What a brute I am to +frighten the color from your face in this way. Come closer +to me, love. Do not look so terrified—nothing is wrong +between us in reality. There! there! don’t tremble so, I +am not angry with any one but myself. We were talking +about—about the time when we need never separate again—oh! +that blessed time for which any sacrifice is not too +great. When shall it be, love? In a week? to-morrow?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So soon—oh, no! how impetuous you are! Days—weeks—why +it must be months before I can even lighten +my mourning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your mourning! What is there in a few yards of +black crape more or less that should separate us? Must +you necessarily mourn the dead less because we love each +other?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; but there exist reasons which force me to be +careful of appearances. My cousin, the girl I represented +myself to be when you first knew me, threatens to contest +my right to the property.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how can she?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How can crazy people do any wild thing? The poor +creature is insane, but only on this one point. She is so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_216'>216</span>rational and even cunning, in other matters that astute +lawyers may be won to take up her cause.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But why should this affect our marriage, Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are a foreigner and cannot understand the senseless +etiquette which makes deep mourning and solitude +imperative in this country after the loss of a relative. +Were I to abandon this mourning for a wedding-dress, the +world would hold it as strong evidence in favor of my +cousin. No daughter could so forget the respect due a +deceased parent, it would insist.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you would have me wait the tedious result of a +law-suit—cast me back from my happiness because people +might cavil about time and place. Cora Lander, this delay +will prove an eternal separation!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no it cannot—it shall not! Only wait patiently a +few months!” cried the girl, with a burst of alarm. “My +heart has nothing to say in this, it pleads for you—for +myself—that alone knows how I love you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yet, for the sake of this money, you kill me with +delay.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I wound myself in doing it. Be patient, do be +patient!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Patient, girl! when any hour may take you from me,” +cried the young man, with a despairing gesture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No power on earth can do that, Seymour. I would +perish rather than give you up. Trust me! trust me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But can I trust Fate? You have no pity, Cora Lander!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are excited—wild. There is no such serious matter +in a little delay,” she answered, soothingly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is! there is! You cannot understand. How +should you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is there, Seymour, that I do not understand? +Have you secrets?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora turned white as marble, and the glitter of steel +<span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span>came into her eyes as they searched the pale face turned +away from her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Has some other woman claims upon you?” she added, +in a low, husky voice, that made the white lips quiver as it +passed through.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, on my honor, on my soul, no!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This exclamation was full of passionate truth. The +young man turned his face full upon her now. Slowly the +color came back to her cheek and lips, and her heart flung +off the pain that had seized upon it with a throb of relief +such as she had never felt before. It seemed as if she had +wrenched herself free from the grasp of a demon, that +pang of jealousy had been so sharp and bitter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora,” said the young man, with emotion, “since the +day I saw you, the image of no other woman has entered +my heart—scarcely reached my thoughts. I have loved +you devotedly, entirely—do not trifle with me now!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not trifle with you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you prefer the opinion of a crowd of men and +women, whom you do not even know, to my wishes or my +happiness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I must live among these people, Seymour. They +compose the world in which men and women must work +out their ambition.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My only ambition is your love, Cora,” said Seymour, +with great tenderness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And mine is for you,” she answered, kindling with +enthusiasm. “When we are married, Seymour, I would +have the whole world look on and know that it is my hand +that endows you with wealth—my love which chooses you +from among all other men. There can be nothing costly +or rare with which we will not surround ourselves. Love, +to be complete, should envelop itself in purple, bathe itself +in the perfume of flowers and be lulled to sleep by sweet +music.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_218'>218</span>The young man smiled to see her eyes kindle and her +cheeks burn. This material picture fired his imagination, +but failed to satisfy that deeper feeling which in reality +lifted him above the woman he so worshipped.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Love like mine craves none of these things,” he said, +almost reproachfully. “With you, Cora, I could be happy +in a log cabin less pretentious than this little rustic nest—away +from the world, away—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora interrupted him, a little scornfully, with a laugh +that thrilled him half with pain, half with pleasure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I would lavish everything beautiful and precious +in the world on you,” she said, resting her head against his +shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will not give up any of these things for me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would give up everything for you, if that were needful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then brave the opinion of these people you call the +world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Had we not better evade it?” said Cora, drawing her +face nearer to his and almost whispering in his ear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Evade it; how?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why need any one know till all these vexatious +questions about the property are settled?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A sudden joy flashed into the young man’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And would you, would you?” he questioned, girding +her waist unconsciously with his arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will you wait patiently for the time of disclosure to +come? Will you keep it secret?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will be anything you wish.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And not urge me to declare our marriage till it is +perfectly safe?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why should I—you will be mine?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then be it next week—nay, to-morrow, if you like.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her cheeks were one flush of roses, her eyes became +flooded with misty softness, over which the white lids +<span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>drooped, for she was ashamed of her own eagerness. +Though perverted and wicked, she was yet a woman, and +trembled a little at the great venture she was making. +Seymour did not speak at first and his arms released its +fond hold on her waist. She looked suddenly in his face +and blushed red when she saw a sort of wonder in his +eyes rather than the great joy she had expected. Quick +as thought she understood this delicate revulsion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then next week, to-morrow, if you like, we will talk +the matter over more dispassionately,” she said, drawing +gently away from him. “We have many things to reflect +on. Even now it would be better to wait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A flash of eager fire in the young man’s face proved the +sudden reaction caused by her words. The pride of his +manhood, faulty as it was, recoiled from an offer even of +the happiness he craved when it came so readily from those +crimson lips. But her retreat, which seemed to spring +from delicacy, was made with such dexterous craft that it +swept this feeling away, and he became an eager suppliant +again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a week—not a day—not an hour—if I can help it, +shall this great happiness escape me,” he exclaimed, with +passionate warmth. “I feel as if each moment might +snatch you from me, and tremble as it passes. Let us go +at once; there must be a clergyman somewhere in the +neighborhood.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora gave one of her clear, ringing laughs, and patted +her hand with a light caress upon the curls on one side of +his head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What an impetuous, rash creature it is who has made +me love him so,” she said. “Why we might as well summon +a regiment to see us married. No, that country +clergyman will never do. Let us think—let us consult. +This thing must be secret as the grave.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The grave, Cora? That is an ugly word to couple with +our love.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>“Well, then, secret as the fruit that lies hidden in the +heart of a blossom. Will that do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Anything that is sweet and lovely will do. Well, we are +to be secret. I consent to that, if it brings no delay.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We must go to the city. My un—, my father had a +house there, which he occupied in the winter of late years; +a gem of a residence, I am told. That shall be our home.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Admirable! But soon—let it be soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To-morrow I will go to the city alone and make all +necessary preparation. Next week—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, what shall come next week!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The clergyman, as you are determined to have it so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her eyelids drooped as she spoke, and fringes, of a rich +golden brown, curled over the passion of love that slept in +her eyes. This was not all unreal; she was womanly for +the moment. He thought her the very incarnation of pure +loveliness, and trembled with a joy that was almost pain +as he gazed upon her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I am determined to have it so. In one week I +will bring the clergyman who is to make you my wife to +the place you speak of. But your aunt?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She must know nothing. Her heart would be with us, +but she is weak and irresolute. The shock of her +daughter’s insanity has unnerved her. In all things I am +independent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will let me go with you to the city?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No. You can follow me and I will manage to see you +at the hotel just once during the week.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This week—this one week, and then you are my wife. +Oh, Cora! this happiness seems too great. I am not +worthy of it; yet if deep, pure, overpowering love could +make a man worthy, I might claim something from that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man—earnest and true, most surely, for the +moment—held her by the waist as he spoke and looked tenderly +into her free. She met his gaze smiling, and with a +warm red, which was not blushes, on her cheek.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>“My wife,” he whispered; “my wife! That is a dear +word. Great Heavens, how dear it must be to a good +man!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A sensitive woman would have been troubled by these +regretful exclamations, and felt in her heart that there was +something wrong under them. But with so many passionate +and ardent feelings mingled with the selfishness of her +nature, Cora was neither a sensitive nor really refined +woman. She scarcely heeded the expressions of self-reproach +that escaped him from time to time, and if she +did, imputed them to the humility of a man whom she was +lifting from poverty to an equality with herself one of the +most beautiful and wealthy women of the land.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now, good-bye, it is growing dark inside the cabin, and +they will miss me at home.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet, darling; not yet. The stars are trembling +down through the leaves with a tender light. See how the +purple shadows are deepening along the hollows of the +brook. Directly the moon must begin to shine, and that +will give a holier beauty to your face. Does not this remind +you of that sunset among the hills when I first saw +you wandering along, left behind by your friends, and +searching for the path which you never would have found. +With what a gentle radiance the moon arose that night! +Ah, I was free and happy then!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And now your voice is sad, tears tremble in your voice. +Why is this, Seymour?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He bent his face to hers in the purple dusk of the twilight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you never heard of happiness so great that it +trenches on pain?” he said, evasively. “But, look, the +moon is rising; you can see its dancing silver on the water. +Ah, my beloved, now your face returns to me as it did then, +dear and delicate, like a soul imprisoned in marble. I remember +well a sadness fell upon me when I left you, so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>deep and strange that it seemed like the shadow of some +dark fate. It is creeping over me now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora broke impatiently from his arm; she had no +sympathy with the sadness of his thoughts, and strove to +win him from them by trivial questions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I remember,” she said. “There was a gentleman with +you then, and you would not tell me his name; it is very +cruel, for, from the distance, he seemed both elegant and +handsome. Who was it, tell me now?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Even in the moonlight, Cora was surprised to see how +white and stonelike Seymour turned. He was silent half a +minute, then roused himself abruptly and answered her in +a voice that seemed sharp with pain:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will answer that question, but on condition that you +ask no more regarding that man now or ever. He was my +friend and he is dead.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The moment he had spoken, Seymour bent down, pressed +a cold kiss upon her lips that clung there like ice, and left +the cabin. Cora found him outside the door, leaning +heavily against the logs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come,” he said, in a troubled voice, “we are getting +sad, and that will never do. Which way is your house, +along this path?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it is dangerous—you may be seen. I must return +home alone,” Cora protested.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will retreat when we get to the edge of the wood, +from thence I can watch you,” he answered, supporting her +along the path.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora allowed the escort in silence. She was depressed +by his unaccountable sadness and disappointment in the +termination of an interview from which she had promised +herself unmixed joy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They reached the edge of the woods, and then he took +her in his arms again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will you always love me?” he said, with pathetic +earnestness. “Can nothing turn your heart from me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>“I will always love you, Seymour. Nothing on this +earth can ever turn my heart from you,” she answered, +almost in tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In sorrow—sickness—poverty?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“These things are nothing that I should shrink from +them,” was her reply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In disgrace?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He asked that question in a whisper that crept through +her with a chill.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That can never reach you while I am your wife,” she +said, proudly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if it should?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I, your wife, would sweep it away from you, or—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Or what?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Share it with you. But why ask such questions? Is +it to try me? That is ungenerous. Have I not promised +to many you unquestioned, scarcely knowing or caring if +you had prince or peasant for a father?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What if he were low-born?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Low-born—that is, a man who worked for his living? +Well, what do I care for that? In this country work is +the foundation of greatness, statesmen tell us. If you +have nothing more serious than low birth and poverty to +frighten me with, pray compose yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if it were crime?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She started, for that word lay buried deep in her own +heart, and the husky slowness with which it was uttered +seemed searching it out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sometimes a great motive, an overpowering ambition, +almost ennobles crime itself,” she said. “If the object +were sufficient, even that could not conquer such love as +ours.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He snatched her suddenly to his heart, kissed her two or +three times upon the eyelids and lips and let her go. Cora +found herself out in the moonlight and alone before she recovered +from the surprise left upon her by this action.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>Seymour drew back into the shadows, from which he +watched her as she crossed a meadow separated by an invisible +fence from the lawn. When she disappeared among +the shrubbery, he turned, walked hastily back along the +narrow footpath, and entering the log cabin, threw himself +prostrate on the floor, with his face buried in his folded +arms. There he burst into a passion of tears that filled the +little building with such sounds of grief as had never +visited it before. At last the violence of his emotion exhausted +itself. Then the sweet hum and flow of the brook +stole in through the open door and swept away his sobs +into their own music, soothing him, unconsciously, till the +wet lashes closed over his eyes and the moonlight streamed +in upon his sleeping face, giving it the rare beauty of some +sculptured ideal. Had you looked upon him then you +could have thought nothing that was not bright and good +of the young man; grief and that gentle sleep had purified +his nature for the time, and no dark passion left its shadow +upon that face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hour after hour the young man slept with the scent of +ferns and ripening leaves sweeping over him hushed into +sweet rest by the chime of waters, the rustle of forest +boughs and the far-off flow of the Hudson, which came up +from the distance like a voice from eternity sweeping +through the night. All at once the cry of a whip-poor-will +from the hemlock, whose branches swept the cabin roof, +aroused him. He started up, felt the sublime stillness of +the night like one in a dream, and at last began to realize +where he was and what had happened.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Fortunately the young man had but to follow the footpath +which brought him to the tavern stoop into which his own +room opened. He had purposely left the inner door locked, +and that which he had unfastened remained partly open. +So he made his way to bed in the dark, satisfied that his +absence had been undiscovered.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXV.<br> <span class='c011'>CORA LANDER AND EUNICE HURD IN COLLISION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>In the morning Cora Lander went to Mrs. Lander’s +room, which that lady seldom left now, and told her +abruptly of her intended trip to New York.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am weary of this great gloomy place,” she said; +“the presence of your insane daughter oppresses me; I +wish to be alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! if I could be alone!” said the poor woman, +smoothing the crape of her sleeve with a nervous hand. +“If I could ever be alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why if this eternal room, with its stifling perfumes +and endless clouds of lace, isn’t being alone, I should like +to know what is,” said the girl, with careless disdain. “I +should die shut up so; but every one to her taste.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I had no fancy for being shut up, Cora, till you came +with that cruel temptation. Now it seems every minute as +if that poor girl would break in and reproach me. I do +not hear a step on the stairs that it does not bring the +heart into my mouth, or see her shadow in the garden that +it does not make me long to throw myself out of the window. +But what are you going to the city for?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I must find another lawyer, and be near him for consultation. +Stone is not more than half in our interest; I see +that plainly enough, and if this troublesome creature +should go to law with us—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh Heaven, forbid!” moaned the widow. “If they +take me into court I shall die!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nonsense, aunt, don’t talk in that way; it makes me +angry! You were a woman of resolution and power once—what +has become of your courage?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It went out when she entered this house. I shall never +be myself again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>“Come, come, this is puerile, I am weary of it! Say, +will you go with me to consult these new lawyers? We +can stay in the town house when we desire it, and they can +come to us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, the lawyers? No, no, I will not see any of +them again, if I can help it. Better stay here a thousand +times, even with her and that little hunchback prowling +about. I would like to get away somewhere but not among +the lawyers.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was said in a pleading, piteous tone, which almost +made Cora smile, for she had no wish to take the widow +with her and only proposed it in the deep craft which +marked all her actions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, aunt, if it troubles you so, I will not press your +going, though it is important. But you must not be surprised +if I should fail to come back for some days.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If you could only take <i>them</i> with you,” she said, +brightening perceptibly. “It was so pleasant before they +came. The mourning did not seem so very bad; what with +buying dresses and planning out bugle trimmings, one +found enough to occupy the time. But now nothing but +this room seems to belong to me. The servants don’t mind +my orders.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There cannot be two mistresses in a house, aunt.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There it is, ‘Aunt! aunt!’ I’m not your aunt, and I +won’t be called so when we are alone, understand that; and +I tell you another thing, Cora Lander; the time will come +when I shall tell the whole world of it, if you don’t treat +me more as a daughter should. After I have made so +many sacrifices, too, given up everything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mother!” said Cora, in a low, threatening voice, that +made the poor woman shrink back in her chair. “If you +ever threaten this again, I will put you into an insane +asylum. It will be the only way of saving you from State’s +prison.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>“State’s prison! Cora Lander, how dare you use that +word to me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The widow started up from her chair with all her old +haughty grace, and stood tall and erect before her child, +stung into active resentment dangerously menacing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not use it unkindly, mother, but in necessary warning. +You cannot turn back or unsay that which makes me +heiress of this property. To admit your part in this would +inevitably lead to a prison, and to prevent that, I solemnly +assure you, I would find means of putting you in some +asylum.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, that is where you wanted to put <i>her</i>, but I would +not permit it—we have done her wrong enough. I sometimes +lie awake all night thinking of it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you did not lie awake when you held possession +under that will,” said the daughter, with deliberate cruelty.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; why should I? No one was wronged then. +Those distant relatives never expected a dollar of his +money. Besides he intended it to be so, I am certain he +did. Then I was my own mistress, and should have sent +those fourth cousins money from time to time, when I +haven’t a cent now, only what you choose to give me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you shall have plenty so soon as things are settled. +Do be patient and a little reasonable. Now tell me about +the house—is it furnished and in order?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I suppose so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are any servants in charge?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, one; an Irish woman I placed her in the house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still,” said Cora, with sudden caution, “I had better +go to a hotel. That house would be so lonely without you, +and I shall probably want to stay in town sometimes for +days together, the house will be out of order, I’m sure of +it. You are certain that it would be unpleasant to go with +me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I should like the change, Cora, but those lawyers would +be my death in a week.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>“Well, then I will try and do without you; take good +care of yourself. Now kiss me, mother, and good-bye.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander received Cora’s embrace, but she returned it +with little warmth; the harsh words she had used still +ranked in the mother’s heart, and, as usual, mutual crime +was fast corroding mutual love both in the parent and the +child.</p> + +<p class='c013'>As Cora was going out, Eunice Hurd came into the +room, carrying a china plate with some fruit on it. She +swept by Cora with a sniff and a toss of the head indicative +of unmitigated hostility, and went up to her mistress with +something like tenderness in her manner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here now, poor soul, do try and eat one of these +peaches, they’re mellow as sunshine can make ’em, and red +as a baby’s cheek. Then here’s a bunch of grapes with the +juice just ready to bust the skins, took right from the +vines, and a pear that’ll melt in your mouth; just let me +cut one in two.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you, Eunice, but I do not want them just now; +perhaps Miss Lander would take one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice made no answer to this suggestion except to turn +her back square upon the young lady.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It ain’t of no sort of use,” she said, almost with tears +in her sharp voice. “You don’t eat enough to keep body +and soul together, but you shall or I’ll know the reason +why. You’re pining to death—eat jest the wing of a +chicken this morning, and didn’t half pick that. Strong +coffee, morning, noon and night, and nothing can be wuss +for you. Shake your narves all to pieces. Come, now do +take one of the peaches, it’s ripe enough to melt in your +mouth.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander reached forth her hand languidly and took +the peach Eunice held toward her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, that seems something like,” cried Eunice, in +triumph, as the widow began to eat the fruit with forced +<span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>relish. “If they’d leave you to me, I’d bring you round in +short order, but where weeds are rank flowers won’t grow.” +Eunice gave a vicious look over her shoulder at Cora as +she spoke, which terrified Mrs. Lander and brought that +angry steel gleam into the young lady’s eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Aunt,” she said, with haughty emphasis, “I am very +reluctant to interfere in any way with the servants you +choose to keep about you; but this person I really must +dismiss. Her ill-breeding and studied rudeness is unpardonable.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander started half up from her chair, agitated and +frightened, as nervous persons will be at any sudden proposition.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Cora—Miss Lander, don’t—don’t, I beg of you, +attack Eunice. She is strange—she is odd—but she is +my—my—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m her old, faithful servant and friend, Miss Cora Virginia +Lander,” said Eunice, snatching some word from her +mistress before it passed her lips, and turning boldly upon +the young lady, “and it’ll take more than you, or fifty just +like you, to send me away from her. Try it, and see.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I repeat it,” said Cora, passing by this covert threat +with the disdain of a strong character, “that you must +leave this house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora! Cora Lander!” exclaimed the widow, with passionate +protest, “she has lived here ever since you were a +little girl. Mr. Lander always was kind to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“For my father’s sake, I would do anything but keep an +insolent servant in my employ.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Father’s sake!” burst forth Eunice between a snort +and a sneer, which left Cora pale as death and sent Mrs. +Lander off into a fit of hysterics that really threatened her +life.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Just clear the room and leave me to take care of her,” +commanded Eunice, with a sweeping wave of her hand. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>“The sight of you’ll only make her worse, and I can’t +stand it; pison’s nothing to it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora still white with wrathful fear, obeyed the woman, +only pausing to say, “I am going to the city for a few +days; when I come back I shall expect that my aunt will +have discharged you. Under this roof you cannot stay!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>I think the girl would have said this if her own life had +depended on silence. Yet it was done with a secret trembling +of the heart, which imperceptibly stole into her voice. +Eunice, who had a sharp ear, understood it, and, uttering a +contemptuous “Oh, now don’t,” raised Mrs. Lander up +with both her powerful arms and helped her to the bed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, now lie down, that’s a good soul, and don’t fret; +so long as Eunice Hurd is under the same roof with you +nobody shall tread on you, niece or child, I don’t care +which. What’s this stuff in the cut-glass bottle? There’s +opium in it, and you oughtn’t to take it. Nothing is the +matter with you but worry. Never was a woman that eat +and drank with better relish till these girls came to turn us +all out of doors. I’d like to see ’em try it! Well, just +take a few drops. Has she gone out? Yes, and joy go +with her. Shut the door? Of course I will. Now we +are alone—I have turned the key. Yes, lay your head on +my bosom, poor dear; there isn’t one that loves you better +in these United States. Don’t take on—don’t cry so, now +don’t. That’s right now, put your arms around my neck +and hug me close if you want to; I’m crooked as a sassafras +root with you sometimes, I know; but, mercy on us, I +love you all the time, and would lay down my life for you. +What was you saying? Wal, if you are sot on it, I’d try +and mollify the stuck-up critter, but it goes agin the grain. +Still I’d do anything on arth for you, and allays would, you +know that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>By this time Eunice had her weeping mistress gathered +up in her arms, and was rocking her head and shoulders +back and forth on the bed.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>“Couldn’t you just taste some of the grapes now, that’s +a dear soul? You can see right through the white ones.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice,” said Mrs. Lander, when the roughly kind +woman had laid her back on the pillow. “Promise me one +thing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course I will. What is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No matter what any one says to us, do not leave me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Leave you, Eliza Lander! They shall tear me limb +from limb first! As for that girl, she’s brought a curse and +a mildew into this house; but God is just, and she will +suffer for it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh no! no, Eunice! Do not say that! It kills me to +hear you say that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well then, I won’t say it. Only remember this, +while I live, neither she nor any one else shall put upon +you. There she goes traipsing off toward the depot, and +there go the men lugging down her trunk. One would +think she was going to stay a year; I wish to gracious she +was!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does she look back? Is her face sad? I was very ill, +you know, when she left the room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sad; no, she steps along like a young colt. Now she’s +stopping to pick her hands full of them everblooming roses +that you think so much of. Wal, never mind, more will +blow out by to-morrow, and she won’t he here to grab +them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She knows how I love them, and picks them for my +sake,” said Mrs. Lander. “Oh, Eunice! isn’t she graceful? +Isn’t she very, very handsome?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I reckon most people would think so. But I like +the poor critter up stairs best, that no one ever seems to +have any motherly feeling for. You couldn’t tell ’em apart, +sure enough, but there’s something in her eyes that this +one will never have. You can’t tell what it is any more’n +you could make out where the smell of a rose comes from; +but it’s there, and that is what I call being handsome.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>“Have you seen Vir—have you seen my daughter +lately?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I see that poor motherless child every day, and that +crooked-backed angel that is with her—but it is enough to +break one’s heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is she so very unhappy then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Unhappy! I should think she would be. But I have +no patience to talk about it. It riles me up awfully, till I +am amost sot agin you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Against me I what, you also, Eunice? Don’t say that! +I am unhappy enough already.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, then, lie down and go to sleep; I won’t say +another word to worry you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander closed her eyes wearily, then opened them +again and looked with frightened earnestness into the grim +face bending over her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Something in those eyes answered the question she dared +not ask, and with a faint moan she turned her face to the +wall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment a light knock came to the door, and +Eunice, thinking it a housemaid called out sharply, “Come +in.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXVI.<br> <span class='c011'>THE FIEND AND THE ANGEL.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The door opened and Virginia Lander passed through. +Her face was sad and pale, violet shadow lay faintly under +her eyes, and the long, sweeping folds of her black dress +trailed upon the carpet. How like she was to the haughty +girl who had so lately left that room. The face, the hair, +the carriage the very bearing of the head seemed hers. In +<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>everything but the soul which gives vitality and expression +the two girls were identical. In certain moods, Cora was +like her cousin, for at times she could be sad, regretful, and +given up to tender thoughts. Then again, on rare occasions, +Virginia could be indignant, proud, almost imperious; +but that was always under a keen sense of wrong. +Then it was that you could not have told the two girls +apart. True, Cora had her own harsh individuality. The +sneer that sometimes curved her red lips downward was +never seen on the sweet mouth of Virginia, and her eyes +never knew the steel-like glitter which sometimes shot +through the sleeping venom of her cousin’s deadly glances. +But these startling expressions came but seldom even on +Cora’s face, and it required a sharp observer to mark the +difference. Eunice Hurd <i>was</i> a sharp observer.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I heard that you were ill, Aunt Lander, and came to +help you, if I can be of use.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her voice was low and calm, but no trumpet ever thrilled +human nerves as it disturbed those of Mrs. Lander. A +sudden trembling seized upon her which shook the whole +bed. But she made an effort to meet this kindness with +answering affection, and struggling up from her pillows, +held out one shaking hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you—thank you, my—my—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She could not utter the lying word. Her teeth began to +chatter, her lips turned white.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are ill—you suffer—let me bathe your forehead.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; do not touch me. It is very kind of you to +come, but I am well, I need no help. Eunice, tell her that +I—I—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here the wretched woman fell upon her pillows and burst +into tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You only make her worse,” said Eunice, with strange +gentleness. “It’s her nerves, they’re all shook to pieces. +Jest go out, that’s a good soul.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>“Let me say one word to her,” persisted Virginia, with +sweet firmness. “Aunt Eliza, do try and compose yourself, +I will never harm you; I will try not to blame you very +much. Do not let my presence disturb you so—I shall +never forget how good you were to me once. Look up and +see how much happier I am than—than—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was about to say, “than you are,” but checked herself +and changed it into “than you might suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, God help us! Can any one be happy in this +house?” exclaimed Mrs. Lander, in an outburst of bitter +grief. “I cannot! I cannot! everything is dust and +ashes!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! I fear we shall none of us be happy again,” said +Virginia, filled with commiseration by the evident distress +of a woman she had once loved tenderly. “But God is +just, and we can trust in him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander started up in her bed. “Do not say that! +You intend it as a reproach, and reproaches are cruel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; I did not mean to reproach any one; only to +comfort you a little if I could. I saw <i>her</i> go down to the +depot, and thought that you might be alone and suffering. +But I have only disturbed you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Disturbed her! I should think you had!” answered +Eunice, sharply. “Everything disturbs her, poor cretur. +Jest go out, that’s a good soul; she ain’t herself nohow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia went softly out of the room, sad and heavy-hearted. +What but misery came out of the vast property +that her father had left? Those who held it seemed +scarcely less unhappy than herself. Through that spacious +mansion, bedded in flowers and swept by perfumed winds, +the different members of the family wandered like unquiet +spirits. No one was really at rest; no two of the Lander +blood thoroughly loved each other. Distrust, and that +hatred which springs from suspicion, poisoned the life that +might have been so sweet and luxurious there.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>Ellen Nolan met Virginia as she came from Mrs. Lander’s +chamber.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You look ill, dear lady,” she said, lifting her fine eyes +to the disturbed face of her mistress. “Why is it that this +sin, in which you have not participated, should trouble you +so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come with me, Ellen—come with me. The very +atmosphere of these rooms oppresses me. The woods out +yonder look so cool and green: there is a log cabin within +them, that I once used to play in. Cora and I have spent +many a happy day there keeping house with our dolls. It +is a quiet, pretty place, and my father loved it. Let us go +down there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen was ready to go anywhere with her mistress, and +glad to feel the entire freedom promised by those distant +woods. So the two girls, in reality companions rather than +lady and servant, went together across the lawn and into +the woods, where the brook made its sweet music under the +rustic bridge and the sunlight came in a maze of golden +green through the hemlock boughs. Virginia entered the +log hut and looked around with a sad, wistful expression of +the face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How many times <i>he</i> has been with me in this little +cabin. It was here he first taught me to read.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let us sit down and think how he would have wished +you to act in this hard strait,” said Ellen, drawing a splint-bottomed +chair to the window and unfolding a camp-stool +for herself. “Surely, if the spirits of the dead even can +visit us, his will be near to guide his child when so terribly +beset!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think he has guided me, Ellen. All the time something +whispers me to wait and let God himself unravel the +iniquity which surrounds me. I have seen Lawyer Stone a +second time, and even his sharp intellect fails to discover +any means of redress so long as my aunt persists in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>statement she has made. It seems like madness when I +contradict this statement without a single witness to sustain +me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your aunt is not bad enough to persist in this forever. +In her sense of justice there may yet be hope. She looks +miserably, and the servants tell me is in no respect the +woman that she was,” said Ellen. “Necessity, in this case, +may prove the best wisdom. You can do nothing but +wait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Ellen, my life in this house is one torment. But +I cannot leave it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But where can you go, if it becomes unbearable?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Anywhere, so that you and I are alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But we have no money!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, in the drawer of that desk was a box with some +gold in it; not much, but enough to keep us a year or two, +with economy, I should think. Then the pearls and other +bits of jewelry are worth something. My poor, dear father +gave me the gold, piece by piece, all through my childhood, +and the box we called my bank. He little thought how +precious it might become to me. But in what way to use +it—where to go—Ellen, you are wise, and have learned +something of the world—what could you and I do? We +will live very humbly, work hard, if that is needful. I can +do embroidery and fine needlework.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen shook her head and sat in restless thought awhile +then she looked up brightly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will never do; thousands of women are dependent +on needlework and starve on it. But, lady, I can work.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You, Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, lady, I am weak and crooked, and seem very helpless, +but God, in compensation, my father used to say, has +given me a strength here and here, out of which you and I +shall win bread and that independence you long for.” +Ellen touched her heart and her forehead lightly as she +spoke.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>“What do you mean, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can think—feel—dream—write such things as men +and women will take joy in reading.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This you can do, Ellen; I see it in your face, I read it +in your words; sometimes they thrill me with all the +sweetness of poetry. Yes, Ellen, you can write a book—but +what can I do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sing like an angel, dear lady. In all my life I never +heard a voice like yours.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But to make that available I must be seen and take +rank with opera singers. There would be no privacy for +me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True, true; and that would be terrible. Well, you +were not born to work. Your gold shall keep us a little +while independent if you are compelled to use it. When +that is gone, I will do the rest. God will help us, for he +always aids those who try for themselves. While I write +you will sing, thus making a noble voice richer and sweeter. +Then, if my poor effort fails, you will be prepared to make +sacrifices. Besides, God will not drive you to the last resource +unless it is good for you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How wisely—how like a woman you talk, Ellen. If +we could only go at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What prevents us, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This, Ellen; Lawyer Stone does not sanction our +leaving the house. While we stay here, he says, the right +to possession is a disputed question. If we go away, it is +to surrender all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And we must live here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is my duty, Ellen. The rights which my father +gave me must not be abandoned weakly. As I would be +in duty bound to protect another, I must protect myself. +The property which my father left is a sacred trust to be +used for the good of mankind, as he used it. In her hands +it will be perverted; humanity will gain nothing by it. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>Even now it gives neither comfort nor content to any one. +Wealth is a wonderful power, Ellen, either for good or evil. +I have thought a great deal of this in our lonely sea voyage +after the ship rescued us. It was a weight upon me, Ellen, +and I prayed for strength to bear this noble responsibility +as he had done. But it is wrested from me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not altogether, sweet lady. God is just.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But for that belief, we should be helpless indeed,” said +Virginia, smiling kindly upon her humble friend. “Ellen, +yours is wise counsel; we must not waste our lives in vain +regrets or idle dreaming. That which is in your brain and +my voice shall be worked out faithfully. In this large +house we can live almost solitary lives—you and I. That +strange woman, Eunice, will, I think, help us in this. We +will study, practice and wait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have often heard my father say that the great secret +of success lay in knowing how to wait and when to act.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your father was a wise, good man, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen Nolan’s eyes filled with tears, and in her sweet +humility she took Virginia’s hand and kissed it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hark, I hear some one coming,” said the young lady. +“Look out, Ellen, and see who it is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen looked out of the little window and saw a man +coming up the path by the brook. He stood in the shadow +of the bridge a moment, cast one glance at the cabin, and +retreated hastily. Ellen did not see his face clearly, but +the figure was that of a young person, tall and elegant.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is some traveller from the tavern below here, I +fancy,” said Virginia when Ellen told her what she saw. +“We must go away; this place was solitary enough while +<i>he</i> lived, but everything is changed now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen looked a little anxiously after the man. His air +and figure seemed familiar to her and brought the brother +she loved so much to her mind, by some unconscious train +of association.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>“Yes,” she said at last, with more cheerfulness than was +usual to her, “let us go now. But what a lovely place this +would be to write in, so cool and shadowy, it seems almost +like the green light of a wilderness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia smiled and shared the poetic love of nature +which beamed in those honest eyes with that kindred sympathy +which makes letters and music twin arts.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How I wish we could gather up the murmurs which +come up from the brook and the mysterious shivering of +the leaves in one melody,” she said. “I have tried more +than once and failed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Try again,” answered the hunchback, hopefully, “over +and over again; that is the way in which genius accomplishes +itself, my father often said. If you have an idea, +work it out. When God gives a thought, he gives the +capacity for developing it. Gold never comes from the +mine without hard labor. Toil and thought go hand in +hand.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your father must have been a strangely thoughtful +man,” said Virginia, looking with tender affection on the +hunchback.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He was—he was!” answered Ellen. “I love to think +his sayings over in the night; I love to feel them starting +up like blossoms in my own heart. He was a good man, +was my father. I know how he lived—you saw how he +could die.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The inheritance he has left you, Ellen, is better far +than gold.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, because it is a part of himself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still he was, from your account, a practical man.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think that genius which is not practical may be called +by some other name—insanity perhaps. He used to say so, +and I believe it. The great geniuses of the age, those who +will live and breathe through all time, are, at least in this +age, eminently practical men. It is small minds that affect +eccentricity.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>It was a study to watch those young lips uttering +thoughts and sayings that seemed so much beyond her +years; but Virginia was right, Ellen had received an inheritance +of thought from her father with a memory which +treasured every saying of his as a miser hoards his gold. +What seemed to be precocity in her sprang out of the intense +love she had borne for him. When she spoke of him +or his thoughts the light would deepen and kindle in her +eyes; her white forehead expanded and the expression of +her mouth grew beautiful to look upon.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How deeply you have thought of these things,” said +Virginia, stealing an arm fondly over Ellen’s shoulder. +“Sometimes it seems to me as if nothing could make you +unhappy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is any one in this world altogether unhappy, I wonder? +When God has made the earth so beautiful and filled it +with so many sources of comfort, no human soul should be +really miserable. Then the thoughts of that other world, to +which your father and mine have gone, fills the future with +noble sources of aspiration. While love exists in this +world and travels on through eternity, linking humanity +with the divine, what present trouble should rob a firm +heart of its energies and its hopes?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I love to hear the father’s thoughts on the child’s +young lips, but it makes me almost afraid of you, Ellen,” +exclaimed Virginia, smoothing the bright hair of her protégé +with a kindly touch of the hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not of me, lady; you cannot be afraid of me while I +love you so dearly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Speaking thus lovingly to each other the young girls left +the cabin and walked slowly towards the house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is strange, but this seems really like my home, now +that she is away,” said Virginia, looking towards the house, +whose pillars rose white and symmetrical from the green +of the lawn and shrubbery. “I breathe more freely.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>“Carry out your idea of living by ourselves, and this +nervous feeling, which holds the very breath in one’s bosom, +will pass away. This life of ours gives too much time for +thought.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, yes, we will go to work,” answered Virginia, +made cheerful by the idea. “There is music in my throat, +and thought in this brain of yours.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“These are our mines, and we must work them,” said +Ellen. “Perhaps it was for this God allowed that wicked +girl to steal your inheritance. Who knows?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>By this time the two girls had reached the house and disappeared +behind the white pillars with their arms around +each other, happier than they had been for months.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXVII.<br> <span class='c011'>PREPARING FOR HAPPINESS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The town house which had once been the property of +Amos Lander was a small building, old in itself, but to +which modern improvements had given an air of elegance +more than in keeping with the times. It was in the heart +of the city, and surrounded by a small garden overrun with +a luxurious variety of roses, so rare and well cultivated that +they sometimes outbloomed the summer. The house stood +back from the street, directly in this nest of flowers, which +climbed up its walls, hung a living drapery around the windows, +and made the verandah in front a perfect mass of +rich leafiness. Since Mr. Lander’s death these roses had +been permitted to run riot in their rich blossoming. Great +branches of the running species broke loose and shook +themselves free of restraint, dashing showers of leaves and +petals about whenever a high wind swept over them. The +<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>verandah, which was a delicate network if iron, had a +straggling, neglected appearance, and many a flower-loving +child peeped with longing eyes through the iron fence at +the beds of heliotrope and verbena that were half-choking +up the little yard in front.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This semi-desolation prevailed when Cora Lander unlocked +the gate and passed through, holding up her black +dress from the tangle of scarlet verbenas that had crept +over the pathway.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora cast a disapproving glance at all this neglect and +rang the bell, which required some effort, for the wire was +getting rusty. After awhile the door was opened and an +Irish woman, evidently just from an ill-kept kitchen, asked +abruptly what the lady wanted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am Miss Lander,” said Cora, sweeping past the woman +and entering the house with a haughty feeling of +proprietorship. “My aunt told me that some one was left +in charge here. Are you the person?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I suppose so, marm,” answered the woman, distrustfully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where is the key to this room?” inquired Cora, shaking +one of the parlor doors, which was too closely fitted for +any effort of hers to open it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The door is locked—where is the key, I say?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In my pocket, marm,” said the woman, thrusting one +hand into the pocket of her dress and doggedly holding it +there. “How am I to know who you are? Miss Lander +was drounded with her father, how can you be her then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I tell you I am Miss Lander, the owner and mistress of +this house. Open the door, I say?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Still the woman hesitated; imperious as the command +was, it failed to intimidate her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have seen Miss Lander,” she said, “but it was nigh +upon eight years ago. How can I tell, especially as she +was drounded with her father, to say nothing of being +burned up?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>“If you have seen Miss Lander,” said Cora, who was +anxious to take possession without disturbance, “you will +remember something about her. Was she at all like +this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora took off her bonnet, pushed the masses of ruddy +hair back from her temples and turned her face on the +woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I—yes—yes, she did look like that as much as +green apple can look like a ripe one; but it isn’t a handsome +face that I would give up my keys to. But that ring +on your finger, I’ve seen that many and many a time on the +old gentleman’s hand. He left it with the madam, I know, +and if she could give it to you, I can open the door, and +will, right or wrong.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman unlocked the door and flung it open with a +bang.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go in,” she said, following Cora into the darkened +room. “Go in, and I’ll open the shutters.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Directly a flood of light was let into the room, subdued a +little by the thick leafiness of the verandah, but quite +sufficient to reveal a dusty parlor, well furnished, but with a +good deal that was old-fashioned and faded about it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will do,” said Cora, casting a half-scornful glance +around her. “Unlock the other rooms, I must see them +all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman obeyed, for, with her bonnet off, Cora had +enough of the Lander in her face to satisfy a more careful +person of her identity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They’ve been shut up a good while, and ain’t in over +good order, I’ll own up to that,” she said, as Cora took up +her lace parasol from the piano, where she had laid it, and +brushed the dust away. “But madam hasn’t been here +since the old man died, and it’s of no use fixing up for +people if they won’t come. This room is the back parlor, +half full of books, for Mr. Lander dearly loved reading. +That’s his picter over the fire-place.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>Cora started as a stream of light poured through the +window close by her and fell on the portrait of Amos Lander, +whose eyes seemed bent mournfully upon her. Something +like a pang of remorse seized upon the girl for a +moment, and putting one hand to her side, she uttered a +faint cry of absolute pain. Those mild eyes seemed to follow +her with reproaches which she could not bear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Close the shutters,” she cried out, sharply, “you throw +in light enough to blind one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman fumbled awkwardly at the blinds, and +secured them at last, slowly gathering a sinister light over +the picture, which took a stern, threatening aspect from the +change. Cora Lander felt a cold chill creeping over her, +and the sensation made her angry.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will you never have done?” she said, leaning over the +woman and sweeping the dusty slats up with her hand. “I +have seen enough to know that everything shall be changed +here. Now lead the way up stairs.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is a dining-room, and—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know, I know, but the air is oppressive. Up stairs it +may be more cheerful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora shivered as she thus abruptly broke in upon the +woman, and when she went into the hall her very lips were +cold and pale. That picture had reached even her heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The chambers, like the lower part of the house, were +furnished after the fashion of years ago. She remembered +each object, and to her own surprise felt a sort of terror at +approaching them. They had been so closely associated +with the man whose only child she was wronging that each +article seemed an embodiment of her crime. After passing +through the upper stories in quick haste, she came +down again, and pausing in the hall, addressed the woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have a room made ready; I shall sleep here to-night. +Get a cup of tea, and anything else you like, ready for me +a little after seven. If there is anything in the house that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>you fancy, set it aside and have it for your own. But make +your selection at once, for to-morrow I shall order all this +old-fashioned furniture moved out and new put in. Don’t +be modest and open those eyes so. Take what you want +and as much as you care for. Have your wages been +paid?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes marm, up to this week.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you live here alone?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My husband comes home at nights.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will do. Tell him to look out a residence of some +kind for you. The furniture is already provided. I will +pay a year’s rent in advance and give you a month’s wages. +Stay to see all this trumpery removed; then go to your +new home. I shall not want you an hour after that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, Miss, consider. Who will take care of the +house?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No matter about that. I may sell it—rent it, or shut it +up entirely. At all events no one will be wanted to keep +watch and ward.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear me, what a change!” exclaimed the woman, lost +in astonishment. “This comes of the old going out and +the young coming in their footsteps—I’m much obliged for +the furniture—much obliged—but it does seem strange!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t trouble yourself about that. As I estimate it, +you have no reason to complain. Take what you want for +this new home of yours—call in a second-hand furniture +dealer to buy the rest—he can give the money to you for +anything I care—But have the house empty by to-morrow +at noon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Everything—must I take everything, Miss?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, everything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, Mr. Lander’s picture—must I sell that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora hesitated, turned pale, and then, with an air of +desperation, answered:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, that above all things.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>“What, sell your own father’s picture, Miss!” said the +woman, looking at Cora with new distrust.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora shrunk back as if the woman had given her a blow. +She had not been sufficiently on her guard with this low-bred +woman, who could feel what she had forgotten. A +cloud of scarlet swept over her face at the thought. Then +her quick wit asserted itself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is not a good likeness; I do not prize a portrait +which distorts its object. That is why I wish it taken +down.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh!” said the woman. “His daughter is the best +judge, but it seemed to me natural as life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora swept the subject away with a motion of her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I saw a little room over the hall,” she said, “with +things in it that seemed newer than the rest: at any rate +there is nothing that I remember; have that ready for me +to sleep in. Tell your husband to find out some good +gardener and have all these straggling vines and bushes +tied up, properly cut and roll what little grass there is and +trim the flower-beds. There is a marble fountain in the +yard, dry as a desert. Have the water thrown in and order +the gardener to bring some aquatic plants.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some what, marm?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Plants that live with their roots in the water—some of +those broad-leaved Ethiopian lilies, and—and—. He will +know best what to bring—I want mosses, too, and plenty +of fern roots—but I will speak with the gardener myself. +Let your husband find one to-day, I will give him my +directions in the morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman, still half bewildered, promised all that she +required, but she did it like one in a dream. She could +hardly believe it a reality when Cora entered the hired carriage +she had left before the gate and drove away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It is true money can almost annihilate time itself. By +the terms of that will found in Amos Lander’s room his +<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>daughter came into full possession of her property, with all +its uses, at once. The will had been admitted to probate +without question, and a large sum of money was found in +one of the city banks subject to her order. Never in her +life before had she possessed personal control of large sums +of money. Like most other young persons under the protection +of their elders, she had found all her wants supplied +without much responsibility. Her dependent position had +made this irksome. From day to day she had longed for +the independence which money gives—thirsted to spend +gold without a thought of economy or fear of questioning. +Virginia had never known this feeling, and her indifference, +no doubt, sprang out of a position directly opposite to that +of her cousin. She would have felt no pleasure in the +excitement which burned in scarlet on Cora’s cheek and +made her eyes sparkle like stars.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The first thing that Cora Lander did was to search for a +fashionable intelligence office and inquire for servants of a +certain class, peculiarly difficult to obtain. A woman of +education and some refinement, not very young nor really +handsome, but to a certain extent a gentlewoman, was particularly +wanted. Her duties would be manifold, but then +there was no trouble about compensation to a person that +suited. She would be expected to act as housekeeper for a +very small family, as lady’s maid when such services were +required, and, indeed, make herself generally useful, but no +really hard labor would be required of her. Did the gentleman +at the desk know such a person?</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man shook his head. He knew plenty of housekeepers, +and ladies’ maids without number; but the exact +combination of qualities desired by the young lady was not +easily found.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But when I tell you that wages are of no consequence, +that I am ready to give any premium for the woman I am +in search of, will not that secure her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>The gentleman at the desk removed the pen from behind +his ear, ran it down page after page of a book he opened, +paused, looked up, then shook his head, answering Cora’s +eager question if he had found what she wanted, despondently.</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was a person that might have answered, perhaps, +only she was a foreigner, just come over.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That would answer. Was she lady-like? Did she dress +well? Was she a trifle ugly?</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young lady had almost described the person in his +mind. She was lady-like, about thirty-five, and dressed +neatly, as a lady should, but there was one fatal drawback, +she spoke no English.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Spoke no English, there was no objection to that; indeed +it was rather a recommendation—but what language did +she speak? German and a little French. Better and better. +Where was the person? She would be wanted +immediately. In the neighborhood—how fortunate! +What was her name?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Alice Ruess.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Married or single?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Indeed the gentleman behind the desk could not tell, but +she looked like a woman who had known trouble, so he +took it that she was or had been married.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Would he send for this person at once?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A boy had already gone—would the young lady sit +down and wait?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora sat down within the sacred enclosure which held +the desk and its proprietor, who was averse to losing time, +and so turning easily on his stool, made some professional +inquiries regarding the other servants that had been inquired +for.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A good laundry woman and the best cook that could be +procured for money. There might be a little time given for +a first-class chambermaid, but these two were indispensable.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>“The man at the desk had his eye on exactly the persons +wanted. Would it be any objection if the laundry woman +was black?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No, that would be an advantage.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then there would be no trouble about the matter. A +cook and laundry woman would be on hand—but what +name? Where should they be sent? Mrs. Seymour, No— street—all +right. Just in time—here comes the German +woman, all in black and neat as a new pin. Cora half rose +from her seat and saw a well-formed, light-haired, and blue-eyed +woman, neither handsome nor ugly, but with a worn +and rather sad expression, coming into the office.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, madam, we are in luck; hadn’t an idea we could +get you a situation, and here it is dropping into your lap, +like a ripe peach; just have a little talk with this lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man spoke in execrable French, and opening the +gate of his enclosure, let the woman in as an especial +recognition of the style and beauty of the fair lady who sat +there scrutinizing the stranger through her veil. Alice +Ruess passed through the gate and Cora addressed her at +once, but, a little to the man’s disappointment, she used +neither French nor English, but spoke to the woman in +German.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The conversation was not long, half that Cora wished to +say was left for another time; but she studied that face +well, and drawing her own conclusions therefrom, hired her +at once, depending rather on what she supposed than on +anything she knew of her fitness for the place.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the preliminaries were arranged, Cora gave a satisfactory +examination of the dress worn by her new recruit, +and without farther ceremony requested her to step into +her carriage, which stood at the door. A morning of tiresome +shopping was before her, and she wanted a companion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice Ruess was ready. She was afraid her alpaca +<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>dress was not quite good enough, but if the lady did not +object to that, nothing would give her more pleasure than a +ride. So the two went out together, followed by the proprietor +of the office, who opened the carriage door for them, +leaving a twenty dollar bank note, his share of the transaction, +on his desk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Feeling for the first time all the importance of a large +bank account, Cora drove from warehouse to warehouse, +giving prodigal and almost unlimited orders for the adornment +of a house not yet divested of its costly old-fashioned +furniture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She made all her purchases in the name of Mrs. Alice +Ruess, who was a stranger in the city, she said, and speaking +no English, had entreated her aid in furnishing a house +she had taken. Her friend was wealthy—very wealthy, she +asserted, and cared little for prices. She only, stipulated +regarding the time—that was important to her—everything +must be done at once. Three days was the latest moment +she could give.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This Cora said as she went from store to store, buying +costly hangings, carpets, china, linen, pictures, statuettes +bronzes, and all the multifarious articles that go to make +up a sumptuous establishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Crowd the house with as many workmen as you +please,” she said; “my friend does not care for the confusion, +but in a week her house must be in order. Beyond +that time she cannot wait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The dealers promised, one and all. A customer who +gave such unlimited orders, and was so indifferent to +prices, did not often fall in their way. Of course everything +else must be put aside for her accommodation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice Ruess behaved beautifully, taking just as much +interest in these proceedings as seemed becoming, and +giving a quiet attention to what passed, which convinced +the dealers that she was not altogether indifferent to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>value of their goods or an incompetent judge of their qualities. +Indeed, she once or twice prevented Cora buying an +inferior article, for, with all her prodigality, that young lady +was rash and inexperienced, as youth will be, and really +required the quiet counsellor who moved at her elbow. Of +course all the conversation which passed between these two +was carried on in French, and, pleading her friend’s ignorance +of our currency, Cora paid the bills in money as she +went, sometimes joking gracefully about the pleasure of +handling so much money, though it did belong to another +person.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus Cora Lander went on with the sad-faced German +woman by her side, receiving what seemed to others the reflected +homage of her friend’s wealth; but knowing that it +was all her own, she enjoyed it to the utmost. Never in +her life had she felt the power of property so exultantly. +Truly, if crime produced such results, she was content to +be criminal.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Among other things, Cora purchased such dresses as +could be worn indoors. She hated the deep mourning, +which was in fact a part of her fraud, and resolved to cast +it off in the privacy of her married life. If she could help +it, no one thing should remind her of the days that were +gone, or the man whose wealth she was squandering. +Among dressmakers and milliners, as with the rest, money +proved itself omnipotent. There was no danger that Cora +Lander’s nuptials, private as they must be, would cloud +themselves with mourning. It was dark when Cora returned +to the house, which seemed gloomy as a sepulchre +to her, for, with all its memorials of the past, it was in +truth a dreary place for one who knew its history, and +sometimes felt the weight of a perpetuating sin on her conscience. +She had left Alice Ruess at her boarding house +and was quite alone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She found the woman and her husband ready to receive +<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>her. “Those movables” had at last settled themselves +upon their conviction. They only feared that she might +change her mind and withdraw her promise, which would +in fact, secure a little fortune to them. Hoping to please +her, they had lighted up the dining-room and spread a +somewhat dainty repast there; but she could remember sitting +by that table with her uncle and mother, when they +were all a united family. Then the widow and her little +girl were grateful for the shelter that good uncle had so +kindly given them, and opened their hearts to his daughter +with maternal and sisterly affection. The very last time +she had been at that table Mr. Lander had given her the +watch she wore, with words of such gentle affection that +she remembered how gratefully tears had crowded to her +eyes. Now she was in that room again, and how? An +imposter, a swindler, an ingrate. For the moment she +became conscious of all this, and saw herself as she was.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The chandelier burned brightly over her head, revealing +familiar pictures on the wall and pouring a flood of light +on the silver, glass and delicate china, which had been +hastily brought forth and polished for her use. A faint +cloud of steam came from the silver tea-pot which stood +upon the tray, hot from the kitchen fire. A nicely cooked +and well-selected repast stood temptingly ready. Near the +table waited the woman who would be enriched on the morrow. +She bore the consciousness of this on her smiling +face. Before the waiter a large, cosy chair had been +drawn, tempting a weary guest with its crimson cushions. +Cora was tired and hungry, for she had eaten nothing since +morning. She threw her crape bonnet and black shawl on +a sofa, pushed the hair away from her temples with both +hands with a feeling of relief—for she had worn the bonnet +since morning—and sat wearily down in the chair.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman came forward and poured some tea into the +china cup, with its exquisite whiteness enriched by a deep +border of gold and purple.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>“I hope the tea will suit you,” she said, obsequiously, +for the promise of to-morrow was still in her mind. “It is +hard to get cream in the city; but my old man found some. +Take a waffle; I wasn’t exactly the cook, but as a little +girl you used to like my waffles.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora helped herself to one of the waffles and began to +drink her tea with a relish. She was far too weary for conversation, +and allowed the woman to talk on, scarcely heeding +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I suppose you remember the silver,” said the woman, +coming gradually round to a question she was longing to ask.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” answered Cora, glancing wearily at the tea-set, +“I remember when my aunt bought it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your aunt, Miss!” exclaimed the woman. “Why she +never brought the value of a silver thimble into this house. +That tea-set was made especially for your mother not a year +before she died.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A faint crimson dashed over Cora’s face but she answered, +quietly enough:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did I not say my mother? Surely I could have mentioned +no one else; though I am so weary that the words +change on my lips.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You said aunt, young lady, and seemed to connect her +with an idea of silver plate, a thing I’ll be bound she never +saw till she came to this house. I’m poor enough, goodness +knows, but, if folks tell true, that lady, with all her airs +didn’t begin to come up to me in the way of property, and +never would have done if it hadn’t been for your father. +Dear old man he was as good to her as good can be, to say +nothing of her daughter, who was the spitefullest, worst +tempered young ’un that I ever waited on. Has she got +over them tantrums of hers, Miss, I’d like to know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She—my cousin—of whom are you speaking, woman?” +cried Cora, flashing an angry glance over the table.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>“Dear me, how much you look like her this minute!” +replied the woman, laughing nervously. “That was where +it lay—nothing on earth could be more lovely than your +disposition. I never saw that look on your sweet face before +in my life. It’s got by living with her so long, I suppose. +When she was good-natured, no one could tell you +apart hardly; but when she got the evil one agoing, you +were no more alike than chalk’s like cheese. I could always +tell you apart by the temper.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Before the woman ceased speaking, the angry flash had +been forced back from Cora’s face, and a smile stirred her +lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I loved my cousin very much,” she said, sweetly. “She +was a little quick at times.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It wasn’t exactly what I should call quick,” said the +woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, perhaps not; but I am sorry to tell you she is +not altogether right in her mind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well now, did you ever—I shouldn’t wonder. She had +a sort of disposition that never suited me, and then her +mother made it worse and worse, indulging her so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was injudicious, I dare say; but Aunt Lander suffers +for it now,” answered Cora, leaning her head sadly on +one hand. “It is a terrible thing to see a young creature +like my cousin out of her mind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Speaking about the silver,” said the woman, coming +desperately around to her personal interests again. “I +suppose you would like that to be kept back—not thrown +in with the rest, I mean. Then there is the china, and +glass, and ivory-handled knives. Shall I keep them back +too?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What are you saying—what is it about, the silver?” +inquired Cora, starting out of her amiability a little too +abruptly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I was asking if you wished to keep that and the—”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>“Keep that, no! Glass, china, knives—have I not told +you to sweep everything out of my sight? They take +away my appetite—they torment me! If I hadn’t been +hungry as a wolf, I could not have endured them, even for +one meal.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She spoke with startling emphasis, and was pale to +the very lips with some suppressed feeling. The woman, +though well pleased with her words, stood gazing upon her +in dumb surprise. What could have angered the young +lady so?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again Cora caught that look and saw danger in it—the +great danger of perfect recognition. With a power of +self-control that crime had taught her, she gradually softened +down from the perilous vehemence which she felt to be +so unwise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have a detestation of old things,” she said; “silver +among the rest. Besides, it was my father’s wish that the +furniture of this house should be changed entirely. I but +carry out what I know would have been his wishes when I +give them to a faithful servant like yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman’s face brightened and her voice bespoke the +contentment that had come upon her with this understanding +of all her anxieties regarding the smaller valuables of +the establishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m sure, so long as I and my husband live, we shall be +grateful to you, Miss, and the good gentleman who is gone, +for all your kindness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora laughed, a light, half-mocking laugh, which stung +the woman, who was proud in her way.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, I did not do it out of kindness, and don’t want to +be troubled with gratitude, if such a thing exists in the +world. I have deprived you, or shall deprive you of a good +place, and mean to pay you well for it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But your father, if he wished us to have the things, was kind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My father—I had forgotten.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>“Forgotten your own father, and sitting in the chair he +used at this very table! I placed it for you on purpose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora dropped her knife so suddenly that it broke a piece +from the plate she was using. She turned in the chair, +saw its heavy oak carvings and its crimson cushions as she +had seen them a hundred times when her uncle’s form +rested against them. She turned very faint, and starting +up, pushed the chair away with all her strength. It +seemed as if she were beating her hands against a tombstone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is the matter, Miss? What is it frightens you +so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora forced a smile to her white lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing—nothing—I think your tea was strong enough +to make me nervous. Good-night; if my room is ready, I +will go to it at once.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXVIII.<br> <span class='c011'>THAT BIJOU OF A HOME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>It was finished. Money, the great magician, had done +its work, and a prettier place than that modernized little +house in the heart of a great city could not well be met +with. The grounds were all in order—the straggling rosebushes +were confined to their trellises and supporters once +more—the great mound of heliotrope and verbenas was +trimmed at the edges, and its glowing crimson and purple +filled the eye with beauty and the air with perfume. The +fountain was in full play; its bright waters cooled the air, +and its basin was garlanded two feet deep with plants +massed in rich combinations of color. Green mosses drank +in the sparkling waters and covered the pots which contained +<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>the plants so richly that the whole great wreath of +blossoms seemed to take life from its greenness. It was +late in the season, but spring time, summer and autumn +seemed to meet in that little nook of a garden, turning it +into a Paradise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Back of the house was a high iron fence, over which a +Virginia creeper swept in and out, forming draperies inexpressibly +graceful, which the first breath of autumn had +turned crimson at the edges, where the leaves were most +exposed. This background of green and crimson foliage +framed in the house like a picture. The burning red more +than replaced all the flowers that had perished.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Indoors the change was even greater. Upholsterers, +painters and artists had done their work well. It seemed +impossible that so much could have been completed in three +days. But many hands had been busy on the ceilings, the +walls and the floors—all that money, taste or labor could do +had been forced into that young creature’s service, that her +wedding might combine everything within the reach of a +sensuous imagination. It was finished now—complete in +all its appointments. Not a vestige of the old furniture +remained; everything was new, fresh and the most exquisite +of its kind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That day week two servants came into the house—a +man who scorned to speak any language but the French, +and a woman who could converse with him brokenly, but +her native tongue was German. Later in the day another +woman came, broad African in every line of her face and +curve of her body. On this woman the other two looked +with supreme contempt.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In the basement these three persons assembled for the first +time. They had been engaged in different points of the +city, and no two of them had ever met before. As for the +African, she could not understand a word that the others +said, but she was shrewd enough to understand the sneers +<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>and contempt exhibited in their lifted shoulders and mobile +eyebrows. Her heart resented these gestures, calling her +fellow-servants poor white trash in the depths of her soul, +which epithet, in its supreme contempt, was a full equivalent +for their shrugs and sidelong glances.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When these three had looked on each other sufficiently, +they felt a desire to investigate such appointments of the +household as belonged to their individual callings. The +man-cook fell to a critical examination of sauce-pans, +kneading-boards, jelly moulds and freezes. Everything was +there, and the most perfect of its kind. The smaller sauce-pans +were all lined with silver; the flour-dredge, the nutmeg +grater and spice boxes were altogether of that precious +metal. In the drawers were piles of kitchen napkins, fine +as those in general use at any gentleman’s table. The cooking +apparatus was perfect, and covered with ever-so-many +patents attesting the fact. Limpid water flowed abundantly +through silver faucets, and light came in from the +most desirable point.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At first the Frenchman was a little disappointed. He +had hoped to find some deficiency to shrug his shoulders +and spread his hands over in horrified refinement; but the +perfect arrangement of everything took him by surprise. +His hands and shoulders were lifted in astonishment. His +admiration was uttered in bursts of French quite unintelligible +even to the German woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Great heavens, what perfection! and here, too! In +Paris it would be nothing, but outside, across the Atlantic +it is wonderful! This lady must be a genius; I am honored +in serving her; she will appreciate the delicate aspirations +which I shall give to her palate. There will be pleasure +in exercising my art for her. Heavens! I have +dropped into Paradise!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman sat down, smiling complacently on his +little kingdom. He longed to share his exultation with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>some one, and looked around for the German woman, who +had, however, left the room. But Hagar, the black servant, +was there, standing in the door of the laundry, where she +had been to inspect the stationary tubs and water-faucets. +Their completeness brought a smile to her broad face and +revealed a row of teeth, white as ivory in themselves, and +rendered whiter still from contrast with her black skin.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman was willing to put up with this auditor +if no better could be found. He burst forth in a torrent +of French, broken up in ejaculations, which drove the smile +completely from Hagar’s face. She thought that he was +scolding her, and grew frightened. Seeing that this was +the result of his eloquence, he subsided into gesticulations +and grimaces which made the negress laugh till her sides +shook. She was a plump, comely African, and the laugh +that heaved her full bust had all the mellowness of a deep +contralto voice just as it bursts into tune.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman was in despair. What was the use of +being supremely satisfied if no one would sympathize in +that satisfaction with him? That sort of mellow laughter +was not sympathy. He might as well have iron as silver +in his utensils for any heed she took of the subject.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Just then the German woman came back to the kitchen. +She had been up stairs to examine the chambers and the +toilet arrangements. They were superb. Bohemian glass, +mounted with pure gold; a dressing-box of malachite with +<i>such</i> appointments! gold, gold, gold—nothing but gold—all +contrasting so richly with the clouded green of the malachite; +she had never seen anything more superb—she, +who had possessed the honor of waiting on many a lady of +rank in her time. In this country it was wonderful—beyond +belief! She could not understand it! The lady +they were to serve must be some princess to whom privacy +was an object. What would be her own situation; until +positive of that she would be watchful and silent. So she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>came down quietly and asked what it was which had excited +the contraband, for with that word even she had become +familiar,—who could help it in those times? At any rate +they had all been very fortunate.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hagar caught the word contraband, and understood that +if nothing else.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” she said, coming eagerly forward, “I is contraband, +driv clar away up Noth by de war. Sot free when +Mars Sherman march by old Mars’ plantation. Don’t +know what yer sayin more en dat, but Ise contraband, and I +glories in dat truf, Hallaluyah—thar!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Having uttered her manifesto, Hagar retreated into a +corner of the kitchen and sat down triumphant. If those +two people didn’t understand her, she couldn’t help it, “dey +was poor white trash anyhow, and de berry next time dey +looked at her so she’d sing ole John Brown right in dere +faces. Bressed be de Lord, she could sing!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman and the German woman looked at each +other in amazement, then, after a volley or two of French +exclamations, they began to laugh, for Hagar’s gesticulation +had been more effective than her words. Then Hagar +caught the word, put her threat in force, and broke forth +defiantly into “Old John Brown,” a gentleman with whom +her auditors were entirely unacquainted, both in fact, and in +history. But they had heard good singing enough to understand +the superb fullness and depth of that voice which +defied them with all its force, and stood listening, surprised +and charmed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Hagar finished with an angry motion of the head, +which seemed to shake the last mellow notes up from her +chest, the Frenchman came forward, bowing and smirking, +with his hand extended.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam, or perhaps it is mademoiselle, permit me to +offer my homage. That voice is one grand success. I give +you my honor it is one grand success, madam. I am +<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>charmed; mademoiselle, here, is charmed also. The air is +superb, the words must be what we call stirring—they +reach one’s heart—upon my honor, they reach the heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hagar saw that he was complimenting her, and showed +her teeth liberally through the broad smile that swept her +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dat ar music brought him plump on em knees—taut it +would. Dat old John Brown took him right off en his feet. +I ain’t nuffin but a contraband, sure nuff but Ise done it +for <i>him</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With this comfortable self-assurance, Hagar folded her +arms over the broad chest, which still seemed heaving with +unexpressed music, and closing her eyes, pretended to sleep.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two persons, thus left together, sat down and held a +few words of conversation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mademoiselle—is it Mademoiselle or Madam?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam,” answered the German woman, giving a +guttural sound to the word which made the Frenchman +shiver. “Madam, if you please.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The French cook seemed disposed to press her confidence +further; but that moment the door bell rang and brought +Hagar to her feet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It’s the young missus!” she exclaimed, going up stairs +in haste and opening the front door, where she dropped a +low courtesy as Cora Lander walked through, clad in rich +mourning, so heavily trimmed with bugles that it swept the +marble pavement like a hail storm, as she moved.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have the other people come?” she inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, missus, dey am here. Shall I call dem up?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; I will go down to the basement.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora swept through the hall and down the stairs in haste. +She had only seen her new servants at the intelligence +offices, and wished to give them directions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Frenchman and his companion both arose as she entered +the kitchen. Since they had seen the house the new +mistress had become an object of great curiosity to them.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>“Your name is Alice Ruess, I think?” she said, addressing +the woman. “Step into the servants’ parlor, I +wish to speak with you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice arose and followed her mistress into the front basement, +which was more expensively furnished than most +gentlemen’s drawing-rooms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sit down,” she said, addressing Alice. “Understand, +I look upon you as half mistress of this house; in fact no +other mistress must be known, at least for the present.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam!” exclaimed Alice, surprised out of all composure, +“I do not understand.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you must understand. I shall live in this house, +be its mistress and your mistress in fact, but it is a fact +that must not exist outside these walls. To the world +you are Mrs. Ruess, the lady of the house. Your name +will be upon the door. When the mistress of the house is +inquired for, you must present yourself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, madam, I have no money—no means.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I find the money and pay the bills that are made out +in your name.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, very well, that makes it easy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, remember, there must be no company.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a soul, mademoiselle.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“After to-morrow you will call me madam.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam—is my lady married then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will be after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, I begin to comprehend. It is a secret marriage.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Alice Ruess, this marriage is to be kept so secret that +it will be almost a fortune to any one who keeps it safely +for me—ruin to the creature who betrays it. To-morrow +night I shall be married in this house—your house, remember.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall not forget, lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your house, not only to the outside world but to the +other servants.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>“I understand. Madam or mademoiselle shall be +obeyed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It must be understood that we board with you—that is, +my husband and myself.” Cora felt a warm flush spread +up to her face as she uttered the words “my husband,” +and a sigh, of such exquisite pleasure that it seemed almost +like pain, broke up softly from her bosom. Alice Ruess +smiled covertly, and felt a sort of envy creeping through +her heart, of the beautiful young creature who was just +entering a life in which she had been shipwrecked. “It +must be also understood that we have just come from +abroad, which is the truth—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, forgive me, but I thought so!” exclaimed Alice, +interrupting her. “Such taste, such grace, were never +born or fostered in this country.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora bent her head in reply to this intended compliment, +and went on:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You—pay strict attention to this—knew us in the old +country—came over in the same steamer—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed I did.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And for that reason—being too wealthy yourself for +the need of such means—you took us as inmates.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady, I am listening.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To-morrow the bills for all that has been done here will +be sent in. You must pay them—they are made out to +Mrs. Alice Ruess—here is money. I have made a rough +computation; there will be plenty left for the household +expenses for weeks to come. Take it, and remember to +keep a strict account. I can be generous, but no one must +cheat me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is mademoiselle afraid to trust her money with me?” +said Alice, turning red with anger. “Does mademoiselle +mean that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I mean nothing of the kind. Were I afraid, you +would have no opportunity to cheat me. I only wish to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>draw a line clearly between that which I will give and that +which I place in your hands for specific purposes. Be +faithful, and we shall have no reason to complain of each +other.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady, I will be faithful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Alice Ruess, I believe you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora arose as she spoke, all her other directions she gave +standing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The cook—can you judge, Alice—is he what they +recommend him to be?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady, I think so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The supper to-morrow night must be perfect.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Supper for how many, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Two.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, no more?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Only two—us two, alone,” she muttered in English, +while a gleam broke through her half-closed eyelashes as +she looked modestly down.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A little supper, very perfect, for two. That man will +prepare it—I answer for him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As for the rest, let the lights be shaded, get flowers the +choicest and sweetest—you should have taste, I see it in +the kindling of your eye—yes, I will leave that with you; +see that they are not gathered before sunset, we must have +no wasted perfume. If I could rifle sweetness from the +flowers of Paradise for him I would do it—I would though +they never bloomed again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora spoke these last words in English, but the woman +read them in her face, and hers clouded over. Once she +had felt like this herself. How had it ended?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora shook out the folds of her heavy silk dress and prepared +to go.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Be sure and have nothing wanting,” she said; “I +depend on you entirely.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will not mademoiselle stay all night?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>“Not for the world. I might dream, and that would be +a terrible beginning. No, it is almost time for the train, +and I have a carriage at the door.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the name, lady? I have not as yet heard your +name.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True enough. Well, it is no matter about that just +now—to-morrow evening I shall be Mrs. Seymour. A +pretty name, don’t you think so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, lady, a very pretty name; may you be happy in +bearing it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Happy!” cried the girl, almost clasping her hands. +“Nothing shall—nothing can prevent that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again Alice looked away, and again her face clouded +over; she almost hated that radiant young creature, because +of her faith in the man she loved and in the destiny which +united them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is almost time for the train,” said Cora, taking a +watch from her side, glittering with diamonds that formed +a raised monogram on the back—<i>his</i> initials and hers, for +Seymour had given it to her out of the paltry thousands +which she had considered as hardly worth mentioning. +“It is almost time—let me think—I have said everything; +you understand my wishes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Trust to Alice, lady, she will not disappoint you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well then, good-night; I hope those people in the +kitchen will suit; they are highly recommended.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, highly recommended. What, will you go out this +way?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certainly; it does not matter,” said Cora, opening the +basement door and drawing the thick crape veil over her +face, but she came back again with some anxiety on her +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The dresses, have they come?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, lady, you will find a pile of paper boxes in the +dressing-room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>“That is pleasant. How prompt these people have been. +I never knew what a glorious worker money was before.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young girl said this half aloud as she mounted the +steps and stood in the flower garden. They had obeyed +her well. She felt the freshness given to the air by the +play of the fountain. Some drops fell upon her veil and +trembled there like lost diamonds. The perfume of late +roses swept over her. Again that delicious sigh rose and +swelled in her bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All this—and he loves me. Was the love of Venus +herself ever more richly surrounded? I have beautified +this place for him. It is my taste, my wealth, my great +love for him, that has done it all. I give him love, gold, +beauty, and by-and-by position. He should have had all +at once—everything I have on earth—if he would but have +waited. Waited, no, he loved me too well for that; and I +loved him a thousand fold better because he won me from +all my strong holds with such impetuous affection. It is, +like being carried off by violence, forced into such happiness +as the soul grows faint in thinking of, and this will +endure for a lifetime. I wonder if it will. Can such love +die? How empty and blank my heart would be without +it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>These were the eager ejaculations and broken questions +that chased each other through Cora Lander’s mind as she +drove to the station and took her seat in the cars. She had +seen Seymour in the city, a few moments, three days before, +but fearing that he might prematurely guess at the exquisite +home she was preparing for him, had sent him back to +the country tavern, promising to meet him at the log cabin +that night and arrange for the future. It was scarcely dark +when she reached the station, for a fine round moon was +just rising, and by its light she found her way into the +grove and along the footpath which led to the cabin, certain +that she would find him there, waiting for her with all that +ardent longing which filled her own heart.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXIX.<br> <span class='c011'>THE WEDDING TOILET.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>It was not exactly a dressing-room, nor was it a boudoir, +in which Cora Lander stood robing herself for that secret +marriage, but one of those elegant snuggeries which bespeak +unbounded resources and a taste so luxurious that +it almost revolts the imagination.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A toilet table was there, standing against the blue of the +wall; its tall mirror framed in with a sumptuous enwreathment +of gilded flowers, drooping lilies and clustering roses. +From the bell of each lily a slender jet of gas shot forth +and lighted up the whole toilet with quivering fire, indescribably +beautiful. Above the mirror, and floating down +each side of the table, was a cloud of filmy lace, grasped in +the hands of a flying Cupid that seemed to float in the air +and bathe itself in starlight, so adroitly were the wires hidden +that connected it with the ceiling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The table beneath the glass was an elaborate combination +of ivory, satin-wood and gold, which stood upon a low +platform of the same delicate workmanship, curved back at +the sides just far enough to support two figures carved in +ivory, with bands of gold about their heads and touches of +gold gleaming along the draperies. These figures seemed +to have just seized upon the floating lace flung to them by +the Cupid, with uplifted hands and with feet advanced, +gracefully poising themselves to dance off with it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Upon this table the malachite dressing-case lay open, +with all its crystal and golden equipments flashing in the +light, and close by was a jewel-box, with the lid flung back +from which came the flash of diamonds through a rope of +pearls that coiled over the edge and trailed half across the +table.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Beyond this superb article of furniture there was little +<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>indication that the room was used for anything but a place +of rest. All the more commonplace appointments of the +toilet were contained in the spacious bath-room, seen +through an open door, which had evidently just been used, +for the bath of snow-white marble, lined with some silver-plated +metal, was half full of water that sent a faint perfume +of roses into the dressing-room. The fur of a white +bearskin rug, which lay on the marble floor, had been +lately trampled on by wet feet, and on a marble slab, +beneath a mirror let into the wall, lay combs and brushes, +with a crystal array of pomade boxes, perfume bottles, +carafes of water, all in confusion, as Cora Lander had left +them ten minutes before, when she entered the larger +dressing-room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A dress of white silk half covered the blue damask of a +couch that stood in the room, and over a large Turkish +chair close by the delicate frost-work of a Brussels veil was +thrown out in exquisite relief by the richer color of the +damask.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice Ruess stood near her mistress, who was surveying +herself in the glass, well pleased with the effect of her own +work. Never had Cora Lander appeared more beautiful +than she looked that night, even before the bridal robe had +fallen over that cloud of muslin skirts and the delicate +Valenciennes edging that cast its almost imperceptible +shadows on her arms and bosom. The hair was rolled back +from her forehead in rich folds, ending on the left side in a +single long heavy curl, which fell in coils of ruddy gold on +her white shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is beautiful,” said Cora, turning toward Alice and +taking up the rope of pearls; “shall we twist these around +the back hair?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not for the world, mademoiselle is lovely as it is. The +veil will be enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora relinquished the pearls with evident reluctance; +<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>but she recognized a genius in the woman before her, and +was wise enough to submit.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What will you fasten the veil with then?” she inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“These, mademoiselle; they are fresh as May dew and +white as snow, just one little blush of pink at the heart—no +more.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice went to an alabaster vase that stood in a corner of +the room, and took from the flowers crowded in it a handful +of white roses, warmed, as she said, with blushes at the +heart. These she laid carefully upon the dressing-table +after pulling away all the green leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then there was a rustling of heavy silk, delicate satin +gaiters laced over symmetrical ankles, and at last what +seemed a shower of frost-work cast over a dress white and +shimmering like crusted snow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>No wonder the waiting-woman stepped back and surveyed +her mistress with clasped hands and exultation in +every feature. Never had high art a lovelier object to +exhaust itself upon. Some sweet, womanly feelings had +crept into that young heart, spite of its ambition. The +long, curling lashes swept a cheek brighter than any +damask rose that ever bloomed; a smile parted those red +lips. When she looked up the love-light in those soft +almond-shaped eyes made the heart yearn toward her; for +the time she was natural, womanly, almost good.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have made me beautiful, for that creature in the +glass is beautiful,” she said, flinging some jewels out of the +box and searching for a roll of bank-notes it contained. +“Take this—and this. I hope you are poor, that it is the +first money you have possessed for a long time; I would +have it a surprise, for I must make some one happy to-night, +or this feeling here, so sweet, so sacred, so holy, +would kill me. Oh! if I were worthy of it!—Oh! if—. +But I will think of nothing but him. Neither angel nor +<span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>fiend shall drag my thoughts back to the old subject. In +an hour, <i>one</i> little hour, I shall be his wife. Heavens, how +I love him! And he loves me! I know it! I feel it here, +deep, deep as my heart can feel! Oh! if, like Cleopatra, I +could melt all that I have into a single pearl, he should +drink it and I would smile as it touched his lips. If this +wealth has cost me my own soul, so much the better—it is +for him—all for him, and cheaply bought. But why am I +thinking of that? He will never know. Heavens! must +this subject forever crowd upon me? What business has +it here? I, who have commanded wealth almost unlimited, +should know how to crowd back my own thoughts. +Oh! if I could! if I could!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had been speaking all this, wildly, brokenly, in +English. Alice could not understand the language but +she saw the color come and go in that beautiful face till it +became pale as death. Then the features began to quiver, +and tears rose slowly to those eyes so full of sparkling +happiness a moment before. Spite of her resolve, the fiend +and the angel of her life were having a sharp struggle that +evening. She fell down into the Turkish chair, and grasping +a fold of her veil in both hands, pressed them to her +eyes. When her hands fell away, the lace was wet and +Cora Lander’s lips were quivering. She would have given +the world that moment could she have flung all her hideous +wealth away and gone to her husband with a pure heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is mademoiselle displeased with her dress? Would +she prefer the pearls?” inquired Alice, troubled by this +new display.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Displeased—no, no—what a child I am! The roses +are lovely as innocence itself. When little girls are confirmed +they wear white roses. Who shall forbid me to loop +them in my bridal veil? I will not have the pearls, Alice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If mademoiselle pleases, I can clasp one string about +<span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>her neck and twist the other about her arm. Let me try +them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As you please,” answered Cora rising to survey herself +once more. She bent her stately head before the glass and +held forth her arm firmly while the woman wound the +string of pearls over it serpentwise, and clasped another +around her neck.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, mademoiselle, your toilet is perfect. There is +your handkerchief. Now sit down awhile, it is so fatiguing; +you look pale. Let me open the window, this +fresh air, cool with drops from the fountain, will bring back +all the lost roses to this pretty cheek. Ah, I thought so—they +come back all at once. It is a footstep on the gravel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora started to her feet: a smile just parted her lips; she +seemed inspired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does mademoiselle expect company to the wedding?” +inquired Alice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a soul, Alice. My happiness is so complete, I +would not share it with an angel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought, from the grand toilet, the quantity of flowers +and the little supper, that Monsieur would bring some +friends, perhaps.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, the clergyman will come, perform his duties and go. +We want no strangers—nor must you ever mention to a +human being what you witness here to-night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady I never will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The time may come when I shall call upon you; till +then promise that you will be silent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I promise; on my honor I promise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Truly,” said Cora, smiling at her image in the glass, +“we have made a grand toilet; we have a profusion of +flowers, and this new French cook has promised wonders +for the supper. What then? A bride should dress for her +husband, not the crowd that choose to follow her to the altar. +Should I make this evening less splendid because he alone +<span class='pageno' id='Page_272'>272</span>will enjoy it? No, no; love, to be perfect should be nobly +surrounded. It shall be—it shall be so with us!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mademoiselle, some one rings at the door.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is my husband!” cried Cora, radiant. “Go down, +Alice, and—stay, stay. I will go myself. Hark! there is +no footstep but his?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“None, lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I knew it. I felt sure that he would come alone. +Heavens, how my heart beats!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXX.<br> <span class='c011'>AFTER THE WEDDING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander ran down stairs into the parlor, whose +frescoed ceiling, dove-tinted walls and thickly carpeted floors +were lighted up for the first time, and there, standing as it +were in the midst of an enchanted bower, was Seymour, +her bridegroom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Great Heavens, how beautiful you are!” he exclaimed, +coming forward with both hands extended. “So radiant +and so lovely, all for me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She placed her two gloved hands in his, and stood before +him blushing and with downcast eyes. Her hands shook +and quivered in his like young birds caught among the +roses.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Seymour, <i>do</i> you love me? Shall this last +through our whole lives?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So long as we live, Cora Lander, I will love you for +better for worse, in good or evil, in holiness or sin. You +and I belong to each other. <i>Nothing but death shall part +us, so help me God.</i>”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Why did her hands cease their happy flutter and grow +<span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span>cold in his clasp? What was it that sent the blood +from her face and neck till they were white as the pearls on +her bosom?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, love, how white you are!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your love is savage, Seymour. It half frightens me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My love frighten you! What have I said, dearest, +only that I would love you forever and ever?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you spoke sternly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Solemnly, sweet one, not sternly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am very foolish to let the tone of your voice wound +me so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, darling; but it is over now. There, there, lean +your head on my shoulder, so; and let me kiss the roses +back to these lips.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They sat down on a sofa near the window. Her lips had +got back their redness; her cheek, warm with a flush of +happiness, lay close to his. She half clouded him with her +bridal veil.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you, Cora, will it be always thus with you?” he +whispered. “Will my love content you forever?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It contents me now, Seymour—I am supremely happy—nothing +comes between my heart and yours. In this +place we can be happier than mortals ever were before.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And is this to be our home?” said Seymour, glancing +around the sumptuous room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, it is our home; I give it to you. Thank Heaven, +my love does not come empty handed!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour gently released her from his arm, and moving +to a window, looked out. The little garden in front was +flooded with moonlight; drops from the fountain were +shooting through it in bright flashes and raining back upon +the flowers, which repaid them with perfume. It was +indeed a little Paradise that his bride had created for him. +There every sense could be gratified. The most refined +<span class='pageno' id='Page_274'>274</span>idea of beauty must be satiated in a place like that—a +creation of love itself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Was he satisfied? I think not. This man, with all his +faults—and he had more than the reader yet knows of—was +proud in his way, and it is in the nature of proud men, +good or bad, to give benefits to the women they love; to +receive them entirely wounds all sense of manhood. In +the first abandon of her love, Cora had felt great pleasure +in the idea of bestowing benefits on the man who was to +be her husband. In her short-sighted egotism, she expected +every new benefit conferred on him to add another +link to the chain of flowers which was to bind their lives +together. She was generous to him, because at that time, +she considered his destiny as her own, and it was simply +being generous to herself. She made no calculation for +change, either in herself or him. The rash, impetuous +passion that carried her selfish nature out of itself she +really believed would last forever. It pleased her to be +munificent with him—to make his life one dream of +Paradise was her ambition. But it was to be a Paradise +she was to give him and share with him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Did she expect gratitude for this or a greater harvest of +affection? Yes, in simple truth, this was what lay in her +heart. With all her ability, her craft and daring, the +young girl sitting there in her bridal dress knew little of +human nature, or she would not have attempted to humiliate +the man she loved with obligations with which it was his +place to endow her. From every point of earth she, with +her money, had gathered materials of enjoyment for him, +exulting in the power of thus proving her love. The result +was that he stood there by the window, moody, and with a +clouded brow. Was he, too, an appendage? Did she wish +to overshadow him with her wealth—crush him down with +her munificence?</p> + +<p class='c013'>She came to the window where he stood and laid her +hand on his shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>“You look sad, darling. Why is it? I expected to see +you all joy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And so I am, dearest girl. Why should you think +otherwise? No woman ever gave her pet macaw a more +glittering cage.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He spoke with something of bitterness. She had been +too lavish of her superior gifts, and he felt it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have taken a dislike to my house—our house—and +I—I thought it so beautiful,” she said with tears in her +eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was keenly disappointed. After all, objects of +material beauty are very uncertain things when we depend +on them to perfect our happiness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He looked down upon her and relented. Other and +deeper causes of regret lay in his heart; but he crowded +them back and allowed all the warm tenderness of his love +to answer that tearful look.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is beautiful,” he said, “but how can I think of that +with you by my side? Come closer to the window, love, +and let us watch for the man who will make you my wife.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She drew close to his side and allowed him to circle her +with his arm as they stood looking out upon the moonlight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How lovely and how still it is,” she said; “we can +almost hear the bell-like tinkle of those water drops as they +fall back into the fountain. Softer and sweeter music +never heralded in a wedding. Will you accept the omen, +Seymour?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can accept nothing that does not promise happiness +with you so close to my heart, Cora.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A sharp click of the iron latch startled them both. The +gate fell to with a clang that struck those two young creatures +like a blow. Then, like a spectre, came the dark +form of the clergyman, sweeping the moonlight from the +flowers with its shadow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is coming,” whispered Cora, chilled, she knew not +why.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>Seymour did not speak, but be strained her to his bosom +so violently that she gasped for breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you no fear of me—no questions to ask? It is +not too late.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Fear of you,” she answered, clinging to him tenderly +when his arm would have released her. “Fear of you—I +should as soon fear the flowers around that fountain. Questions—why +should I ask questions just as our two lives are +trembling together? Hark, he is ringing the bell!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They left the window and sat down upon the couch, +waiting for the clergyman. He came in, after some delay, +smiling blandly and rubbing his white hands over each +other, while he paused on the threshold and cast a wandering +glance over the room. Then his observation fell on +the young couple. He moved forward and greeted them +cordially.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then it is to be a wedding, after all,” he said, glancing +at the costume of the bride. “I was not prepared for +that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” said Cora, blushing under his gaze. “There will +be no one present but ourselves.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The minister smiled, glanced at her a second time, with +a look that bespoke as much admiration as clerical eyes are +ever permitted to express, and answered still more blandly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And the witnesses, dear lady—we must have witnesses.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young people looked at each other in dismay.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Alice Ruess might do for one,” said Cora, in a low voice. +“But the other?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My boy, Brian Nolan; I wish I had brought him; he +might be of use, he is sufficiently intelligent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is he trustworthy?” asked Cora, in a whisper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would trust him with a secret that held my life, if +needful,” answered Seymour. “But we have no one to +send for him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>“No,” said Cora. “But the Frenchman—he will do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A few minutes after, Alice Ruess and Lubin came into +the room and stood near the couple while they were married.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then the clergyman kissed the bride on her burning cheek, +shook hands with Seymour, pledged them in a glass of +amber-hued wine, and went away for richer than he had +expected to become that night, leaving a wedding certificate +behind, and any amount of warm congratulations. +The name of the bride written on that certificate was Virginia +Cora Lander, and the bridegroom’s name was written +out in full, Alfred Nolan Seymour.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora scarcely stopped to read the document, but put it in +her bosom, afraid to trust it away from her own heart, so +precious did it seem to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour did not think of the fact then, but he afterward +had cause to remember it. The clergyman was an utter +stranger to him. Alice Ruess had employed a friend to +engage him, and so he came personally unknown to them +all. His name was signed to the certificate, but no one +cared to examine that just as the man was going away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That little supper had been served in the dining-room, +and Lubin, the French cook, was in an ecstasy of impatience +lest his favorite dishes would be spoiled. The clergyman +had been a little late, having met with some difficulty +about finding the house. Then he had lingered awhile +after the ceremony, charmed by the sprightliness and beauty +of the bride, lured, as even clergymen will be sometimes, +by the sparkle and flavor of rare wines, taken in moderation, +and therefore slowly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus it happened that Lubin’s supper was put back, and +Lubin himself almost driven to despair. He stood ready +to serve out his own rich viands—for, to secure that pleasure, +he was willing to give up any amount of dignity—waiting +for some signal of the clergyman’s departure. But, +as I have said, the good man was in no haste, and Lubin +had plenty of time to survey the round table, rich with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>gold and silver plate, glittering with cut crystal and +crowned by a swelling mound of flowers covered by a glass +shade, so transparent that it seemed a film of woven air. +Thus the poor fellow stood with a snow-white vest contrasting +with his black clothes, kid gloves, spotless as the vest, +half broken-hearted and ready to cry with vexation. The +chandelier over his head was one blaze of gas; the ceiling +to which it hung was aglow with flowers, that seemed to +burst into fresh bloom under that blaze of light and open +out new folds of beauty. A carpet, thick and soft as forest +turf spread away from the table and met the edges of the +room in a heavy rope of flowers that coiled all around it, +chaining in a broad medallion in the centre.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this was new, and thus had a claim on the Frenchman’s +imagination; but he had neither heart nor eye for +anything but the dishes left under black Hagar’s care, +which he knew were losing something of their perfection +every instant. At last he heard the front door close, and +Alice came into the dining-room to say that Madame and +Monsieur were ready for supper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Into this blaze of lights and glory of flowers the young +couple came and seated themselves at their first home +repast. In his travels, once, Seymour had passed through +a forest twenty miles deep, haunted with birds and full of +wild deer that had never heard the crack of a hunter’s gun. +In the very heart of this forest, close by the corduroy road, +stood a log cabin, so newly built that tufts of hemlock and +pine still clung to the green bark of the logs. Two or +three acres of land were cleared around this rude dwelling, +but a great walnut tree had been left to shelter it, and +morning glories were already creeping toward its tiny +windows. The door of this dwelling was open as he rode +by, and at a small table, covered with a cloth white as +snow, he saw a young couple eating bread and milk. +Seymour thought of that picture and sighed as he sat down +to the exquisite little supper with his wife.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXI.<br> <span class='c011'>THE AUDACITY OF CRIME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>It was October now—gorgeous, beautiful October. All +the trees on the Hudson felt the ripeness of the year in +their foliage, which had taken rich gleams of crimson into +its greenest masses, and was just beginning to throw out +flashes of gold where the maples grew thickest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In September Mrs. Lander had consented to accept +Cora’s invitation to stay with her awhile at one of the +fashionable hotels in the city. A splendid outfit of second +mourning had been the principal inducement held out for +this temporary change of residence, and this important +business occupied the widow almost exclusively.</p> + +<p class='c013'>As for Cora, she took little interest in all the details of +dead silk, gray silk, bugle trimmings, or black ribbons. +Indeed she was seldom at her rooms twenty-four hours together. +The first year of her mourning had not yet expired; +she made this an excuse for avoiding all society and +living a secluded life, which even her reputed aunt could +not understand. There was neither sympathy nor confidence +now between these two women. Cora held her +mother at arm’s length and kept out of her society as much +as possible. She gave no explanation of her own mode of +life, but came and went as it pleased her, answering to no +person for her movements. At first there was a glow and +enthusiasm about her that forbade all thoughts of wrong or +sorrow in her life. If she was reticent, it was easy to see +that intense happiness was all that she had to conceal. She +absolutely lived away from every friend, in a world of her +own that became more and more secret every day.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last Mrs. Lander grew weary of shopping, and more +weary of the strange isolation which Cora’s retired life +forced upon her. She demanded more money and a broader +<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>range of social life in the hotel, both of which Cora refused. +So, one day when Cora was more insolent than usual, Mrs. +Lander packed up her things and betook herself to the old +home, where she threw herself upon Eunice for sympathy +and protection.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the evil spirit of the family was gone, something +like tranquillity settled upon the household. Eunice, who +controlled her mistress with an iron hand, broke up the +old habit of staying in her chamber by main force. The +family meals were served in the dining-room, she said, and +were not to be scattered all over the house in trays, as if +they kept a tavern, as it was when that other highflyer was +at home. If she was expected to superintend things, every +soul under that roof would come down to regular meals in +the regular place. She was tired of seeing such goings on, +and meant to take the reins in her own hands, just to see +how it seemed after being put down and rode over, as she +had been for ever so long.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She said this to Mrs. Lander when she came back from +the city with her intense mourning softened by gleams of +jet, and her neck surrounded by a rope of great black +beads, to which a good-sized cross was suspended.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander might not have yielded to this dictation in +Eunice, but for the trouble that had arisen between her +and Cora at the hotel, which had at length aroused all her +temper and her old pride. Mrs. Lander never gave even +Eunice the details of the quarrel which had preceded her +exit from the hotel. But it had arisen in this way. After +spending large sums of money on her wardrobe, Mrs. +Lander had asked for more, and was put off grudgingly +with a small sum, and in a manner that drove all the +woman’s smothered temper into revolt. “She wanted +more,” she said, in hot anger, “five times as much—ten +times—twenty times. The money belonged to her a great +deal more than it ever did to her daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>“Your daughter,” said Cora, rolling up the rejected +money and crowding it coolly back into her purse. “Never +call me by that name while you live, unless you wish to be +arrested as a perjurer. You have rejected me and claimed +that other creature over and over again, and I, for one, believe +you. I am no more your daughter than you are mine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora Lander, are you crazy or a fiend to say this?” +cried the woman, appalled by an audacity she had never +dreamed of before.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am simply in earnest, madam.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Madam! and we alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No child can be sure of its parentage. We must take +the word of some one. A mother’s word is held as the +most sacred evidence. That you have given, society has +accepted it. The Probate Court has accepted it. I accept +it. The thing is decided.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it was not true—the falsehood was of your own +contriving, wicked, wicked girl!” cried the astonished +woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Falsehood! I will not permit you or any one to use +such language to me. I had long been troubled with suspicions, +and did what I could to get at the truth. It came +from your false heart with a pang, I dare say; but it was +the truth, nevertheless.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora Lander, this is too much! Are you my child or +a demon?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would certainly rather be a demon than your child, +provided demons could inherit. As it is, I prefer to be +as I am, the child and heiress of Amos Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That young girl looked in her mother’s face with cold +audacity as she uttered this speech. It was evidently premeditated +and the result of deliberation. Did she wish to +drive the poor woman to extremities? One would think +so. Mrs. Lander’s passion was completely subdued by this +unheard-of assurance. She began to doubt her own senses. +Was that creature really her child?</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>“Do not go too far,” she said, standing up with some of +Cora’s own stony resolution in her face. “If you treat me +in this way, so help me Heaven, I will retract and expose +everything!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do,” answered the wicked girl. “Try that, and so +surely as we both live, I will ground a charge of insanity; +on that very confession, and shut you up in a mad-house. +Remember, madam, it was your lips that first proclaimed +the fact that insanity was a family inheritance on your side +of the house—that it had already appeared in your daughter, +the young woman who has driven me out of my own +house by her crazy vagaries. What is more natural than +that you, my poor aunt, should give way to the malady +that you assert has existed for generations among your ancestors—such +ancestors?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora Lander!” cried the wretched woman, coming out +of her amazement pale and stern as the bold creature who +taunted her, “be careful how you gibe at me and mine! +Whatever I am, you came of the same stock.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is exactly what I deny, and am prepared to deny +before the face of the whole world. My mother was a +Ravensworth—a nice old family, that never had a blemish +were the Ravensworths—I will not hear a word against +them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora smiled as she spoke, the very insolence of her +words made her lip curve. Mrs. Lander saw this, and +was seized with a new idea. She came eagerly forward +and threw her arms about the girl.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! now I understand it all. You are only teasing me—saying +all these horrid things to see if I mind them. +Of course I did a little—who could help it? But it is all +over. Give up the money, dear, and we will have no more +of these cruel jokes—they hurt me, indeed they do. +There, now kiss me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora kissed that poor, quivering face with lips of ice.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>“I will give you the money, aunt, of course. I have +always wished to be liberal, both with you and my cousin; +but there is no joke in what I have been saying.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, how can you, child! This is too cruel!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cruel! no, it is a fixed truth, Aunt Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Aunt Lander! I will <i>not</i> hear that!” cried the woman +bursting into a passion of sobs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will and must,” answered Cora, in a low resolute +voice, “for never on this earth will I recognize you by +any other name.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I will compel you,” said the desperate woman, in a +hard whisper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush! this white rage will make you ill. Here is the +money, take it and let us be at peace.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She took the roll of notes a second time from the reticule +purse still swinging from her wrist, and held it towards +Mrs. Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No!” said the outraged woman, dashing the money +from her, “I will perish first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora picked up the money with a forced smile, and +would have offered it a second time, but Mrs. Lander had +left the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Half an hour after this scene, the widow Lander came +from her room with her mourning shawl on and a thick +crape veil drawn over her white face. She shivered as if +an ague fit had seized upon her, and went back for her furs, +thinking, poor woman, that they might drive off the cold +that was freezing her heart. But even under that thick +cloak of Russian sables she shook with that inner cold which +seizes upon the very life.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora stood at the window as her mother went out, and a +cloud swept over her face. With all her iron courage, she +did not feel altogether secure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let her go,” she said at last, turning from the window. +“This money will soon draw her back; she cannot live +<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>without it. Why on earth did I refuse all she wanted? +Why—because having decided on being mean, I must have +it out. It’s my fate, when a thing is to be done I must +rush at it; there is no patience in my whole nature. It +was a dangerous move, though! How she turned upon +me. I had no idea that she had so much iron in her composition. +What if she should really revolt and do what +she threatens? But she will not do it. If she did—well, +my threat might soon be a reality—I would fight it out to +the bitter end.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora left the window and sat down near the fire, hardening +her heart; for some natural relenting did force itself +upon her. After all, the woman was her mother, and had +been an over kind one all the early years of her life. But +the crime which she had been tempted by her very affection +to commit stood between them, till the girl began almost to +hate the mother who knew how wicked she was. In a little +time she reasoned: “<i>Our</i> life must begin, and I want no +incumbrances—Seymour and I are enough for each other. +We must become leaders in the world—I in society, he in +political life. Whatever he wants, that my husband shall +have. With wealth, beauty, talent like mine, it will be +easy to give him any position he may desire—I will obtain +it for him—I will subdue men and women in his behalf—when +I am ready to take his name he shall soon stand highest +among great men. Talent; oh, yes, no one can question +that! Thank Heaven, he has the ability to back up all my +exertions to hold place with the strongest and the proudest!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Foolish, vain woman! did she not understand that a man, +to be great must work out his own greatness? That he +despises the ladder erected by other hands than his own, +though he may mount it to the topmost round. She was +thinking of ambition now. Before it had been all love, +that wild impetuous love, which is sure to end in some +other selfish passion.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>Months had gone by, and her great love had already +come to this. She thirsted now for her days of mourning +to be over, that she might come forth into the world hand +in hand with her husband, and astonish it. But exactly +as she had prepared that exquisite home for her married +life, she would burst forth upon the great world and dazzle +it. When she presented herself to society as an heiress, a +bride and a beauty at the same time, it must be surrounded +with even greater splendor than she had already secured in +her secret home. Until all this was arranged and her +mourning thrown off, that home must be enough for them +both.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Was Cora, in fact, beginning to weary of it? Had the +first bloom of her love gone off? Did she find constant +companionship sometimes a little oppressive? Better +women might have done so without blame. Men worth +having do not care to be caged with their mates eternally, +like singing birds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had not come out of that cruel scene with her +mother anywhere near so calm and unhurt as she seemed. +The widow’s resolution had startled her. There was something +in her conscience, too, that disturbed her temper. +She was surprised and fearfully anxious; that sudden +departure annoyed her exceedingly. The presence of her +aunt, as she introduced the woman, was a necessity for her +at the hotel. Perhaps she might come back again—time +would show. She would say nothing of their separation, +but go for a time to her own house, leaving every one to +suppose that aunt and niece had gone up the river together, +meanwhile.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora went to her own house. Seymour had gone out, +his servant said, but would return soon, he was quite sure. +Cora was ill at ease; the little drawing room, with its +closed curtains and maize-colored furniture, was overheated, +and oppressed her. A certain feeling of satiety +<span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>made her turn palled from the costly things which she had +deemed indispensable to her wedding. “I will have them +changed,” she said. “The same thing for ever and ever—how +it tires one!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Up the stairs she went into her own bed-chamber; there +the heart would be less oppressed. That day the room did +not look exactly the same to her. The lace curtains, falling +like sifted snow over the bed, had lost their first crispness; +the silk, of a faint rose-color, with which the walls were +fluted from floor to ceiling, was beginning to fade to a dull +white where the sun had touched it. The alabaster vase +which stood close to her pillow was full of dead flowers. +Here, too, a faint betrayal of disgust came into her face. +The dead flowers made her angry—knowing how keenly +she loved flowers, he might at least have kept them fresh +even with his own hands. It was not much to expect in +return for all she had done.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hah! woman, had it came to that? Are you beginning +to count obligations? Better not let your husband know it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The trouble was in Cora’s heart, not in the rooms; but +she would not look there, fearing to discover something +worse than dead flowers, no doubt. Sweeping her long, +black dress over the carpet, she entered that little snuggery +that I have told you of. The toilet table was littered with +ornaments just as she had left them. A wreath of artificial +daisies hung over one of the gilded lilies, and a lace handkerchief, +more than half soiled, was thrust beneath another.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It seems like the room of a broken-down actress,” she +said, looking around, bitter at heart. “As I can flee to no +other place, this shall at least be made tidy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She rung the bell and Alice appeared, calm and quiet as +ever. What did madam please to want?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Why everything; but first, she would like to see that +table cleared off, the wreath flung into the fire, and the +handkerchief—that might as well be sent to the laundry. +It had cost thirty dollars or so, and was worth keeping.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>Madame should be obeyed; if Madame remembered, she +had requested that the things on that table should not be +disturbed. What dress would madame prefer?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Madame was out of temper, and answered sharply that +she did not care to change her dress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice looked at the black bombazine, trimmed knee-deep +with crape, and shook her head. Madame knew best, she +said, but it seemed strange to see her sitting in that chair +which had relieved the whiteness of her bridal dress so +beautifully, in such gloomy mourning. But Cora had a +little satisfaction in keeping on her sable dress—had not +Seymour neglected to put fresh flowers in that Hebe vase? +So she sat still in her mourning, angry with herself, angry +with him—out of humor with all the world.</p> + +<p class='c013'>An hour went by—another—and still Seymour did not +come. This was strange. The young man had few acquaintances +in the city, and nothing was likely to delay +him long. It was dusk before Cora heard his step on the +gravel. She had become nervous with anxiety, and sprang +up with a feeling of relief, followed close by a flash of resentment +that he had caused her so much pain. She stood +in her bed-room window and saw him pass the fountain. +He walked hurriedly—wildly—like one in a dream, or like +a ghost just freed from the grave; for his face was deathly +white and his eyes were full of terror. She heard Alice +tell him that she was up stairs, and listened for some exclamation +of pleasure, but a single sentence escaped his lips, +which fell upon her ear like living fire;</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Great Heavens, I hope not!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The blood sprang up from her heart hot as venom. She +bit her lips till they grew white under her teeth. How she +was thoroughly angry.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXII.<br> <span class='c011'>A WEEK OF LOVE LIFE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Seymour waited awhile in the hall, afraid to present +that scared face before his wife. He turned to Alice, and, +lifting the hat from his head, questioned her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do I look ill? Do I look wild?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead and +upper lip; his whole face was fearfully pale, his eyes unnaturally +bright.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, monsieur,” answered the woman. “Monsieur is +pale and wild. Let me bring monsieur some wine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wine!—No, no, bring me brandy. Tell Lubin to send +the decanter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour went into the parlor and threw himself on a +couch, wiping the moisture from his face as he waited for +the brandy. It was the couch on which he and Cora had +seated themselves after the ceremony that had made them +man and wife. This came to his mind, and tears sprang to +his eyes. “Poor girl—poor, unhappy girl—had I known +this, I would have died rather than drag you down with +me,” he muttered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice came in with the brandy and a goblet. Seymour +seized the decanter and filled the glass half full, dashing +the brandy over his unsteady hands as he did it. He +drank eagerly, set the glass down on a Mosaic table, leaving +a broad stain, and starting up, would have gone in search +of his wife, but she met him at the door with a white heat +of anger on her face and a smile upon her lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>By this time Seymour’s face was flushed with color, and +a gleam of red stained the pure white of his eyes. She +thought that he was intoxicated, and for the moment +loathed him; for Cora was as fastidious as she was unprincipled. +Drinking was sure to imperil the grace that she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>was so proud of and stain the noble beauty of his features. +This was why she recoiled from it with such terror.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is the matter, have you been ill?” she demanded, +in a low, constrained voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, darling, I have been very ill.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In the street?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, something seized me in the street—a vertigo.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It seems more like a panic,” she said, looking keenly +in his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—yes, I suppose it must be like a panic. Being so +ill, I was afraid of terrifying you—the very thought made +me a coward.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was that all? Well, you see that I am not frightened.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is a brave girl. Kiss me, dear, for I am almost +heart-broken.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She kissed him upon the forehead. His lips were moist +with brandy; she could not have forced herself to touch +them, with all her self-control.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is it about, Seymour? What is it that is +breaking your heart?” she asked, softly, thinking of her +own secret with dread.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Breaking my heart? Did I say that? What nonsense! +I was only afraid that you would think me worse +than I really was. See, I am well again; give me a few +moments to dress for dinner, and I shall be gay as a lark.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He ran up stairs laughing rather loudly, and, entering +his dressing-room, fell upon his knees by the couch, and +struggled with his grief till the frail structure shook under +him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can I do? What shall I do? No deer was +ever run to covert so closely as I am. She will hate me, +or it will be her death. Better the last—better death a +thousand times! One look of hate on that face would be +such punishment as no other human being has power to +give. Oh! my God! my God! how I love her! Will she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>believe it? Can I convince her that it was this craving +affection, this intense love that drove me on? Oh! if I had +told her that day in the little cabin, when the subject came +up so naturally! She would have forgiven me then, I am +sure of it—forgiven me and saved me—but now I dare not +tell her. There was something in her eye and the touch of +her lip that froze me. Can she suspect?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He started up while these thoughts were flashing through +his mind, bathed his face in cold water over and over again, +and began to brush his hair violently. The exercise did +him good; he tore away at his black curls like a tiger.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I could tear them out! If I could only change this +mass of black waves, all might yet be saved. But with +her eyes upon me there can be no change. Oh! if she +would but go away for a month or two, or let me. Perhaps +she will. Yet how can I live without her, my wife—my +dear, dear wife!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He sat down on the couch now, with the hair-brush in +his hand, gazing past it on the floor, in deep thought. All +at once he started up and began to dress himself more rationally. +His face cleared, his lips parted and lost the +iron tension of nerves that had strained them together +when he attempted to speak cheerfully. An important +idea had come into his mind—an idea that drove away all +the excitement from his brain and left him with the face of +a man who had indeed been ill.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Seymour went down stairs all the wildness had +left his eyes. He was calm and thoughtful, but apparently +suffering from past or present pain. He went up to Cora +and kissed her tenderly upon the forehead; she had shrunk +from meeting his lips with hers once, and he would not +offer them again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did I frighten you, darling?” he said, smoothing the +bands of her hair with one hand. “Forgive it; I was +really ill. But for the brandy, I must have fainted—see +how my hand trembles now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>She looked up at him,—the beautiful dissembler—and +touched his trembling hand with her lips very lightly, but +the gesture was playful, and she smiled one of her sweetest +smiles.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am so unaccustomed to sickness that it frightens me. +Come, now let us go to dinner—I, for one, am hungry. +Aunt Lander has gone up the river, and I shall be my own +mistress till she chooses to come back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour tried to express his happiness, but the words +stopped in his throat. She looked at him earnestly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My husband does not seem so glad as I had expected,” +she said, laughing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not glad, Cora! If there is a joy on earth for Alfred +Seymour, it is the presence of his wife. Never on this +earth was a woman so beloved—so worshipped.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is this real, my friend? Am I indeed so dear to you +yet?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ask your own heart, Cora. It shall answer you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It did answer her, and truly. Yet she was not satisfied. +What was it that had begun to alienate her from the man +she had loved so passionately? Who can tell the exact +time when the ripe leaves change and fall? When I say +that Cora Lander’s love for her husband, from the first, had +been an unreasoning passion, those of my readers who +know anything of the human heart must have expected the +change that was creeping upon her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall I drink wine?” said Seymour, laughing pleasantly. +“Or will you shrink from the flavor on my lips, +Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wine—oh, I will pledge you in champagne with all my +heart,” she answered; “but brandy, I detest that; you +never drank it before.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because I was never so ill before, Cora.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And now, dear, you eat nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have no appetite.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>He did indeed seem ill, and it was true that he could not +taste the food she placed before him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do try something; I have a horror of sickness. It +puts me in mind of death,” she said, seriously disturbed. +“I would not have you really ill for the world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour leaned back in his chair and covered his face +for a moment with one hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is this confinement, Cora. What if I take a little +trip somewhere? That will set me up, I dare say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She looked at him a moment, and then answered in her +usual clear, calm voice:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It may come to that, but let us hope not. I cannot +spare you yet, Seymour.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The words were affectionate enough, but there was something +in her manner which broke the harmony.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well,” he said, “we need not talk about that just now. +I am already enough of an invalid to keep me indoors for +some days.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had spoken the truth; she did hate sickness, and +had no patience with it in any one. Her own abounding +health was perfect, and she was always tempted to consider +indisposition in others a pretence. That Seymour could be +feverish and complain took away from his perfection with +her. The man she loved should have been lifted far away +from infirmities like that. But she had some sympathy in +her nature, and was just then disposed to take a romantic +view of any question that presented itself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will not be so very unpleasant,” she said; “you +shall lie upon the couch and listen to me while I read.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will you stay with me, Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>His voice trembled with tender thankfulness, which surprised +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why that was exactly what made me rejoice when my +aunt took her departure. It left me at liberty. The people +at the hotel think that we have gone up the river in company.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>“So my bird of Paradise has flown to her cage.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>His words were forced, and she felt it, but answered +lightly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To find her mate sick on the perch.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They both laughed at this, and she arose from the table. +“Come, Alfred, if you are going to play invalid, let us +begin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He followed her up stairs wearily and with an oppressive +weight on his mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lie down upon the couch, I will search for your +dressing-gown and slippers. Here they are—now see what +a capital nurse I shall make.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He took the dressing-gown and put it on, thrusting his +feet at the same time into a pair of Damascus slippers +which she had given him. Cora brought a pillow from the +bed and laid it on the couch.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, everything is ready. Lie down and tell me +what book I shall read.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Anything you like, Cora.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He lay down wearily on the couch and curved one arm +over his eyes, as if the light disturbed him. Cora got a +book and began to read, but his immovable position annoyed +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does you head ache badly?” she inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, it aches; I ache all over;” he replied, turning his +face to the wall; “but go on, I am listening.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora went on with her book, and Seymour lay perfectly +still. At last a slight noise, something like a broken sob, +disturbed her. His hand was over his eyes, but she saw by +the crimson strain on his forehead and the quiver about his +mouth that he was crying.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, Seymour, what on earth is the matter with you? +This is intolerable! I hate tears; especially in a man.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He dashed the drops from his face and turned suddenly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will soon begin to hate me—I feel it—I know it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>Cora looked at him steadily. It was true she had no +sympathy with grief. What business had he to bring sickness +and tears into that chamber?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do not let your prophecy work out its own fulfilment,” +she said. “The great charm of our love was that no disagreeable +thing ever came near it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He lay quite still, gazing at her from under those long, +moist eyelashes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In sorrow or humiliation you would not love me, +then?” he said, with a keen interest in the question that +convulsed all his features.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t know,” she answered thoughtfully, as if the +question had presented itself for the first time to her mind. +“To me love is only perfect with pleasant surroundings. +Now, sorrow and tears are not pleasant, take them from any +point of view one will; and sickness—when real and in +earnest, is simply revolting.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour got up from the couch with a pitiful attempt at +playfulness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I must be making myself very disagreeable,” he +said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You might be, Seymour, if the fever did not make +your cheeks so red, and if that quick fire had not driven +the tears from your eyes. So lie down again. I rather +like you in that dress, it puts me in mind of the Orient.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour lay down again with a heavy sigh, and she +went on reading. After awhile her voice became low and +drowsy; she read on brokenly, then making long pauses. +At length the book fell into her lap, and, with her red lips +parted as the last word had left them, she fell into a slumber +so profound that she scarcely seemed to breathe.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then Seymour turned upon his couch and gazed upon her +with indescribable mournfulness, which changed after +awhile to an expression of such pain as seldom visits an +innocent man’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>“It is enough,” he thought, “she would not overlook it. +That which wounded her delicacy or stung her pride would +kill all love. She has no patience with sickness or sorrow. +Well, be it so; I can bury my secret here like the Spartan +boy, till it eats my heart out. Expose it, I never will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour arose carefully from the couch and went into +his own room. With eager and trembling hands he put on +his coat and boots, brushed his hair and went softly into +the next room. Cora was sleeping sweetly, and dreaming +of something very pleasant. Her lips parted in a smile, +and her cheeks were two sleeping roses. Seymour loved +the woman and could not keep his lips from her forehead, +but they touched it lightly as rose leaves fall, afraid that a +touch would disturb her, and stole out of the room again, +holding his breath as if it had been sacrilegious to kiss his +own wife in her beautiful sleep. It was dark now, he +looked out of the window to make sure of this, and left the +house, with the latch-key in his pocket.</p> + +<p class='c013'>First he went to the hotel, where Brian Nolan still kept +his room. Brian met him with an anxious face, for he saw +at once that there was something wrong. With him +sympathy was intuitive; he could not look on his master’s +face without knowing of the pain that was consuming him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian,” said Seymour, sitting down on the boy’s bed +panting for breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sir, I am here,” answered the boy, lifting his great, +loving eyes to the young man’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour drew Brian close to him and took his head +between both his hands. Thus holding him fast, he looked +earnestly into that young face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, do you love me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Love you?” answered the boy with a quick heave of +the chest. “Yes, I do love you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if I were a bad man—if I were wicked, could you +love me then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>“I don’t know, because that would make you another +person.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if I had, under great temptation, done a wrong +thing, could you love me then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; it would break my heart, but I should love you all +the same.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Tears stood in the boy’s eyes; he looked wistfully in +Seymour’s face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are only saying these things to try me, sir,” he +faltered out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I am saying them to try you, Brian. God forbid +that I am ever compelled to put such affection to the test. +But it is a great thing to know that it exists; I shall not +feel quite friendless or alone in the world now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, sir, how can you be alone?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour smiled but gave no answer. He could not tell +that boy of the speeches his wife had just made, and of the +anguish with which they had filled his heart. He had evidently +called on the boy with some definite purpose, but a +change had been wrought by those few words of simple +affection, and requesting Brian to be sure and keep within +his room all the evening, he let the boy go.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; better run some risk myself than mix him up +with the affair. Danger—I cannot avoid that, but it must +be braved rather than imperil him. What a grand heart the +lad has. Let me get through this tight place, and he shall +be lifted out of this menial position. It is a shame to keep +a lad of his parts among such associations, but at present I +can do no better. When our marriage is made known, +then indeed—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour was in the street as these thoughts ran through +his mind. Whatever enterprise had brought him forth, he +was evidently resolved on pursuing it alone. Following a +well-formed purpose, he entered a hair-dresser’s establishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>Wigs—certainly. Light brown—then the gentleman +did not want one for himself?</p> + +<p class='c013'>No, it was for a friend—an actor going his theatrical +rounds in the west. A moustache too—his friend would +want a moustache certainly, something heavy, to match. +Were they certain to compare well by daylight? No, he +would not have time in the morning, they must be ready +for the express.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So the wig was purchased, and on the next block a pair +of light steel glasses, fanciful affairs, such as young men +sometimes wear who effect short-sightedness. With these +done up in a parcel and held tightly in his hand, Seymour +walked home in haste, hoping to find his wife still asleep. +Cautiously he turned the latch-key in its lock—more +cautiously still he went up stairs, thankful for the thickness +of the carpet, which rendered his footsteps noiseless. Cora +was asleep exactly as he had left her, except that the heavy +hair at the back of her head had partly broken loose and +coiled down to her shoulder. He had walked rapidly, and, +though it seemed an age to him, the real time of his +absence had been brief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour was scarcely a minute changing his dress and +locking up his purchases. The gas had been lighted early +but burned low; he turned it on more powerfully under its +Parian shades, flooding the chamber with moonlight. Still +Cora slept, enjoying her slumber, as she did every other +physical indulgence. In her very dreams she always had a +glowing sense of life, which made her sleep delicious. +Sickness really would have been a terrible calamity to this +woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour kissed her upon the lips now, and attempted to +twist her hair into place. This awoke her, and she started +up, rubbing her eyes open with both hands, like a sleepy +child. Then she opened them wide and wonderingly on +her husband.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>“Dear me, I must have fallen away reading; and you, I +will wager anything, dearest, that you set me a naughty +example. After all, this ‘Enoch Arden’ does not stand a +second reading; the story looms out of the verse a little +too broadly after you have had time to think it over. +What business had this Enoch to let his wife live with +another man? It made him the chief sinner.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You would have had him claim his wife, then?” said +Seymour.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; was not his happiness worth as much as that of +the other man? She was his wife.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, but she was prosperous and happy with the other +man, innocent of all wrong.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What then? He, her husband, was miserable, and +had a right to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You would not have given her up, then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not if I loved the woman still—that is, supposing myself +a man. Could you have given me up so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She asked this, laughing; but he answered in fiery earnest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give you up, Cora? No, no, a thousand times no! +The man who takes you from me must give his life or take +mine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But if I loved him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I would kill you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear me, what a blood-thirsty old darling it is,” cried +Cora, who had just re-arranged the hair in a sumptuous +twist behind her head. “But it is very pleasant to be +loved in this brigand fashion, so long as one loves back, +you know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You speak as if change were possible, Cora.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, all things are possible in this world, I suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She said this roguishly, looking at him over her shoulder +as she thrust a golden arrow through her hair.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>“Don’t speak so—I am loving you desperately this +minute; only don’t talk of being sick again and spoil it +all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But one cannot always be well—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What nonsense! of course you can. Come, take your +place again, and I will go over that scene in the woods +where the children go a nutting. That is beautiful!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXIII.<br> <span class='c011'>THE FIRST CLOUD.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora arose the next morning with a delicious sense of +home-life upon her. She entered her dressing-room in a +pretty morning robe, looking fresh as a flower, and informed +Alice that she wished to have her breakfast served there, if +Mr. Seymour would take it with her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Monsieur had eaten his breakfast and gone out,” Alice +said. “It was past ten o’clock, and he had been gone half +an hour at least.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was vexed. Why should he have gone out before +she was awake? Then, eating his breakfast alone, as if he +were a business man, and had any excuse for neglecting his +wife. She would take no breakfast; he had broken up all +the happiness of her morning by these strange actions. +Indeed, she would go back to the hotel and stay there till +he knew how to appreciate her company.</p> + +<p class='c013'>These were the first thoughts that flashed into her +mind. Her life with Seymour had been one of perpetual +adoration. No man ever loved a woman more sincerely, +but it must be wonderful genius which can perpetuate +through all married life the devotion of the lover or the +bridegroom. Having created her Paradise and chosen her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>husband, Cora expected the first passionate homage which +he lavished on her to last forever. Without knowing it, +she held him as a sort of splendid vassal conquered by her +charms and bought by her munificence. This act of leaving +her alone was his first offence, and she resented it as a +great wrong. A little persuasion from Alice, however, induced +her to taste some breakfast, which was placed temptingly +before her on a sofa-table; but she was really too +much annoyed for any relish of the meal. The tête-à-tête +set of snowy Parian provoked her with its one empty cup. +Lubin had done his best with the little breakfast, looking +upon her visit as a sort of gala season in the house. Everything +was perfect; the biscuit white as snow, the butter +absolutely tasted of the sweet grasses upon which the cows +were fed, coffee that filled the little room with its fragrance. +But he was not there, and this very perfection +stung her with fresh anger.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have a great fancy to go up the river,” she said, +pushing the cup from her after taking one sip of the coffee.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It would serve him right; I really seem to be in the way +here in my own house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><i>Her own house!</i> She was beginning to remember that +everything was hers. How much love can rest in a woman’s +heart when such thoughts become familiar to it?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who is that? Go look, Alice; I heard the gate close.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice went to one of the front windows and saw a tall, +fine-looking man, with light brown hair and a pointed +moustache, walking toward the house. She returned to +the boudoir and told her mistress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who can it be, Alice, we have no visitors?” said Cora, +a little disturbed. “Some one to see Lubin, I suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, madame, his air was too gentlemanly for that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It can be no one else, that is certain,” answered Cora. +“Besides these French artists—Lubin is one, I am sure—sometimes +look like gentlemen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span>The mistress and servant were so deeply engaged in this +discussion that they did not hear the faint click of a latch-key +or the footsteps of a man as he ascended the stairs and +entered Seymour’s dressing-room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The first thing that the young man did on entering the +room was to lock himself in. Then he took the wig from +his head and the moustache from his lip, and crushed them +both into a drawer, which he locked with force. While +doing this he panted for breath, and drops of perspiration +stood thickly on his forehead. But now he took time to +bathe his face and hands, change his coat and brush his hair +with scrupulous nicety. After thus refreshing his toilet, he +took a package from an inner pocket in his vest, opened it +and counted fourteen bank-notes of five hundred dollars +each. These notes he secured in a travelling-belt and laid +upon the bureau, while he counted what might have been +some thousands of dollars in gold in a hurried, breathless +manner, as if the task was one which he longed to get +over. Both the gold and the notes he crushed into the +writing-desk we have seen him use for the same purpose +before, which he locked with care.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now,” he said to himself, wiping the moisture away +which would keep gathering on his forehead; “now I can +go to her with a lighter heart. Great Heavens! that man’s +eyes are on me yet! I wish there was brandy or wine up +here. He has driven all my strength away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was no brandy or wine, so he poured out some +cologne water from a bottle on the dressing-table and drank +it off eagerly. Even that did not give him strength to +appear at his ease before his wife, but he heard her voice in +the next room and entered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This is what Seymour had been doing that morning. +While his wife was asleep he had gone into his dressing-room +and carefully put on that wig with its light, curling +hair, and the moustache with its curved points turning +<span class='pageno' id='Page_302'>302</span>upwards after a fashion that changed the entire expression +of his mouth. Then the glasses were put carefully over his +eyes, and a coat of pinkish drab cloth replaced the quiet +color that he usually wore. This disguise he completed +with a stove-pipe hat, so new that it shone like satin, and a +little rattan cane.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus, entirely changed in his appearance, Seymour went +softly down stairs, a little before ten, and let himself into +the street. He hailed an omnibus at the next corner, and +rode down Broadway, with some ten other persons, all going +to the lower part of the city on business. One of these +men was the person of whom he had bought those chestnut +carriage horses. He resolved to court this man’s attention, +and thus test his disguise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I beg your pardon, sir, but permit me to open the +window, it seems a little close.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man of horses looked at him indifferently, moved, +and allowed the window to be opened. Seymour drew a +deep breath as he sat down. The man had not recognized +him in the least.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He entered the bank where some of his money was still +on deposit, and where his bills of exchange had been +cashed; after a few moments’ delay he quietly presented a +draft at the desk, and to the very clerk who had done business +with him before, signed by Alfred N. Seymour, with +Philip Ware’s name on the back. The clerk examined the +signature, compared it with one in his books, took a quiet +survey of the person who presented it, and counted out the +money. There was still a balance left in the bank.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where is Mr. Seymour just now? I see this is dated +at Quebec. On his way home, perhaps?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was exactly what Seymour wanted. He had been +all the way fruitlessly studying how to open a conversation +that should lead to the answer he was ready to give.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“More than probable. He was intending to sail from +Halifax the week after I left Quebec.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>“Well, I suppose we shall hear from him when he wants +the rest of his money,” observed the clerk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour smiled, lifted his hat and walked out of the +bank. On the steps he almost ran against a man, who +came up so suddenly that he sallied back with a sharp +recoil, as if the stranger had struck him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I beg pardon,” said the stranger, lifting his hat. +“Did I run against you, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is I who should beg pardon, I fear—pray excuse my +awkwardness,” answered Seymour, in a voice so hoarse and +changed that his best friend would not have recognized it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two men bowed politely to each other and Seymour +passed on, hurrying to the nearest omnibus, which he +entered, trembling from head to foot and pale as agitation +could make him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus it was that Seymour returned home. No wonder +he wanted a few minutes rest before he entered the presence +of his wife.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Am I late, my angel?” he said, drawing a chair to the +little table. “Is there not at least one cup for me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour took up the little silver coffee-pot, and lifting +the lid, looked in.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why it is almost full,” he said. “Waiting for me? +How good you are. I had almost given up the pleasure of +our breakfast in this pretty nest.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But why—why did you go out this morning, of all +others?” said Cora, rather sharply.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why because my head ached fearfully, and I hoped to +drive it off before you awoke to be annoyed with it; but, +unhappily, I got into the wrong omnibus, and it took me +out of the way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Smiles began to hover about Cora’s mouth again; she +filled one of the Parian cups and gave it to him, resuming +her own breakfast with fresh appetite.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The air does not seem to have given you much color,” +she said, looking at him earnestly.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>“No, it must be change of air, I fear, Cora, before I am +quite myself again. It enervates one to be idle so long, +even with the sweetest and dearest woman that ever lived, +coming to one like an angel now and then. You must let +me take flight for a week or two, Cora; after that I will +come back to my birdie the happiest fellow alive.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are very anxious to leave me, Alfred.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, dearest, since you have told me how unpleasant +the presence of a sick man is to you, I dread being taken +down. Really, love, I am no fit companion for you. An +excursion West among the prairies will send me back to +you healthy as a crusader.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I could only go with you, Alfred.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But that is impossible. We must not be seen together +until all the world knows of our marriage.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have a great mind to proclaim it to-morrow,” +answered Cora. “Only I do want all my affairs settled +first and out of the executor’s hands. When he once +renders up his charge we need not hide away in this stupid +place. I am tired of it already.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I like its solitude. It is a little romance we are +living out here, Cora. The very secrecy is charming.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will leave it and me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Only because I must, or you will cease to love me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But not yet—a week from now, say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Very well. Only you must nurse me, pet me, read to +me, swear to love me forever and ever, let what will befall +us. That will make this one week a heaven.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are not content with that, but spend the whole +morning no one knows where, and leave me to eat my +breakfast alone,” she said, with a look of pleasant reproach.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah! yes, I must atone for that. Not one step will I +walk from this house till the week is up. Will that satisfy +you, Mrs. Seymour?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>“Are you in earnest? Is this a promise?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A solemn promise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I must forgive you; but it was a little hard.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour arose from the table laughing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now let us begin our week,” he said. “That at least, +we will snatch from fate itself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora took no heed of the significance of these words, +though they came from a heart heavy with foreboding.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now what shall we begin this glorious week with? +Let it be music—how you did love music in those old days.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And now as well as ever—better, if you are the musician. +Come, the piano has not been opened yet—your +hands shall consecrate it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora looked into the glass, pushed the hair back from her +temples, shook out the lilac-tinted folds of her morning +dress, and swept on before her husband into that gem of a +drawing room. There stood a grand piano, and close by a +music stand, for nothing had been omitted in that establishment. +Seymour opened the instrument, drew an easy +chair so close to the music stand that the flow of her dress +fell over his knees, and, leaning back, prepared to listen or +think such thoughts as make men grow old in their youth. +Heaven help the man! Such was his strait that he was +thankful to be silent and reflect a little—thankful to shield +his agony of apprehension under the sweet storm of music +that soon broke over him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus the young couple spent the week, all alone, surrounded +by splendor in every form, loving each other and +putting that love into language sweeter than poetry, but +which did grow just a little tiresome from eternal repetition. +Cora brought forth all her accomplishments to charm him +with. When she sat down to the piano, people in the street +stopped to listen, and wondered who and what the family +were that had surrounded itself so richly, and from which +such music came floating like strains from Paradise.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>Sometimes, in her more fanciful moods, Cora would take +her guitar from its case and sing ballad after ballad with a +sprightliness which would have brought any man to her +feet. They played chess in her boudoir, arranged flowers +in the vases, watched the fountain throw up its waters in +the moonlight—in fact lived out the picture which +Claude Melnotte placed before Pauline as his bright ideal +of a love life. Yet something was wanting. Those young +hearts, so close together, were far, far away from each other +at times, each busy with its own hidden secret, and each +tempted almost beyond endurance to own everything, and +thus get rid of the one hindrance to a happiness which +might have been so complete.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At times, during that week, Cora had almost wished for +some change. She was not satisfied that Seymour had +kept his promise so faithfully, but would have given anything +to see him go in and out as if occupied like other +men. Sometimes she would shut herself up for hours only +that she might feel the pleasure of welcoming him when +her door was opened. After all, I think this one week of +unbroken happiness had more effect on the after fate of +these two persons than any one reading this history will +admit. Satiety is a worse evil to deal with than want itself. +Love is sometimes smothered under too much luxury, +as honeysuckles and roses strangle each other when they +grow close together.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour was saved from this by his own troubles. He +had an inner life of apprehension and regrets which lifted +him out of the enervating effects which fell upon his wife +so imperceptibly, that she was all unconscious of the change +as the bough from which a ripe pear has fallen. Cora told +the truth, she began to feel a loathing for the home which +her taste had made so beautiful. I think a week, at this +time, in the log cabin, which Seymour could not keep out of +his mind, with prairie chickens cooking by an out-door fire, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>and fresh water brought from some spring under the rocks, +would have been far better for those two young hearts. +Under the blue sky, with God’s grand old wilderness shading +them, they might have found out the secret of making +love immortal. As it was, they were about to part—he for +the woods and the prairies, and the woman for her ill-gotten +home and crime-stricken mother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They stood together that morning in the little room of +which both would have been weary but for the anticipation +of this parting hour—stood together with arms interlaced, +looking into each other’s faces till tears blinded them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We have been so happy here,” she sobbed, looking +around with new interest on everything. “Oh! Seymour, +Seymour, will this ever come to us again!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man commenced trembling, and could only answer +her with passionate kisses. With that cloud over his head, +how dare he reassure her?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will not forget me?” she pleaded, clinging to +him. “Nothing shall drive me one moment from your +heart?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing but death can drive you from this heart, my +wife—nothing but death.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can I do for you? I would give the world to +work for you, suffer something for you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Rather be happy for me, sweet wife.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot be that, and you gone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It will not be for long—I pray to God that it may not +be for long,” he said straining her to his heart. “Do you +doubt it; is there a single fear in your heart that we shall +meet again and that speedily?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, darling, no. I talked at random. Now farewell! +Kiss me once more, again—again! God bless you, Cora. +Think kindly of me. Love me, let what will come. Nothing +but death can really part us, remember that, for you +are my wife—no human power can change that. Once +more, farewell!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>“Seymour! Seymour!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was no answer. The door closed and he was +gone.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXIV.<br> <span class='c011'>EUNICE HURD FINDS HER MATCH, AND SO DOES THE HEIRESS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora went up to the house on the river, heavy-hearted, +but with a certain sense of relief which she could not quite +understand. The parting scene with her husband had +exhausted the sensibility of her nature. She really thirsted +for change. This working out of a secret romance was getting +a little wearisome. Unless she could exhibit this handsome +husband and glory in him, as her own property, with +all the rest of her possessions in full and imperious ownership, +marriage seemed to her almost a failure. In fact it +would be the same to any other woman if she attempted to +shut herself out from the world and live to the music of +sweet lutes and all that sort of thing. One might as well +expect to feed on Hymettus honey and May dew gathered +from opening violets and not be ravenous with keen, wholesome +hunger in the process.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Now if Cora’s love for that man had been anything but +a willful, selfish passion from the very first, she would have +come out from this paradisiacal experiment weary of that, +certainly, but not of him; she had not reached this state +exactly, but was open to any temptation or circumstance +that might end in utter distaste for the life she had so +rashly entered upon. With all his faults, Seymour possessed +the better nature. He at least loved her honestly, +madly—it might prove fatally.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>Once at home and in her own dominions, the heiress +assumed her old position with all the insolence of a woman +whose authority had slept for a season, only to assert itself +with increased vigor on the awakening. She was a woman +who forgot nothing which affected her own interest or +pleasure, and who never forgave the person who once +offended her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora’s first object, on going home, was to dismiss Eunice +Hurd from her household. That woman had tacitly repudiated +and defied her; she had become a partisan of the +cousin whose very existence was hateful to herself—for on +this earth there is no antipathy equal to that inspired by a +person whom the hater has wronged.</p> + +<p class='c013'>On the very day she reached home, Cora sent for Eunice, +and, in a few cold, quiet words, gave the woman her discharge.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice stood stiff and upright, with her nose high in the +air, and her greenish eyes regarding the young lady with a +sidelong, sneering expression, which made Cora’s nerves +creep in spite of herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here are your wages for the full year, exactly what my +aunt has always paid you. As I give no warning, and +expect you to quit the house at once, it is but fair that you +receive full pay for the year. My aunt will write you a +recommendation.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<i>Your aunt!</i>” sneered Eunice, with a long-drawn +breath. “<span class='sc'>Your aunt!</span>”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora turned cold, but kept her eyes unflinchingly on the +woman, knowing well that a contest almost of life and +death was before her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I said my aunt. Always having been known +as the head of this house, her recommendation would be +better recognized than mine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora spoke calmly and without a quiver in her voice to +betray the dread that had seized upon her like a vulture +<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>with the first look of those eyes. She never took her gaze +from the woman’s face either. Yet Eunice saw her advantage +and took it, for no self-control could conquer that +shrinking of the person which is the result of sudden fear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall take no recommendation from her or you,” said +Eunice, slanting her head from the right shoulder to the +left.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And why?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Never was a question asked with an appearance of more +innocent surprise, and never did forced composure effect +less.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because I don’t intend to leave this house, Miss Cora +Virginia Lander, till its owner tells me to go, which she +isn’t likely to do in a hurry.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It took strong nerves to suppress the trembling which +seized on Cora, or force a natural voice through that contracted +throat, but the young impostor accomplished it, and +answered, with a laugh:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have already told you to go—foolish woman, are you +waiting for a second dismissal?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I’m not waiting for anything from you, or the like +of you; but I can’t but just keep my hands off you. Who +was it sent that poor cretur home, crying like a baby? +Who was it that refused to give her money, to buy dress +with and threatened her with an asylum?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And my aunt told you that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<span class='sc'>Your mother</span> told me that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora arose fiercely—her forehead, her lips, her very +hands were whiter than whiteness, but she confronted her +enemy bravely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Woman, who put you up to this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who put me up to it? The great God, who will, +sooner or later, punish you for your cruelty to the weak, +foolish woman who is crying her life out up stairs. Don’t +speak to me—take your eyes off from my face, they have +got rattlesnakes in ’em!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>“Woman, are you mad?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I am mad as blazes—don’t provoke me! don’t I +say, or I’ll tear the nest you have feathered so cunningly +all to flinders!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed!—How?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was cool and resolute now. In this struggle she +was careful not to lose a point from weakness. She was +pale yet, and her eyes glittered like steel; but she had full +control of her voice. Eunice had prepared her for the +worst, and knowing the danger she had to meet, the girl +grew brave and cautious as a tiger.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You want to know, do you? Well, I’ll tell you, up +and down is my fashion. You’re a cheat—a humbug—a +mean, cruel cheat, and I can prove it—yes I can! you +needn’t widen your eyes at me, I <i>can</i> prove it, and if it +wasn’t for the poor creature up stairs, I’d do it too once. +Attempt to abuse her again, only just look sideways at her, +and I’ll pull the pillars out from under your temple, as Job +did in the Bible. You had her for awhile, but I’ve got her +now. When she haint got no one else to go to she comes +to me—I’ll stand by her, never fear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What has my aunt told you, pray?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was cautiously drawing out all the power Eunice +possessed, but the woman was not deficient in her own +craft.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I didn’t need her to tell anything; I have got my own +eyes and ears; I can ask questions, if I ain’t over quick to +answer ’em. The man who came up on the same cars with +you that night is on hand when I want him—oh yes, that +makes you hop, does it—kinder stirs up the rattlesnake in +them eyes. But that isn’t all. That man was used to +climbing ladders, and he did it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Woman, you lie!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The words broke from Cora’s lips sharp and venomous; +she shook from head to foot with mingled rage and desperation.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>“You wore a blue merino dress and left a piece on it +behind you. That dress you was kind enough to pitch at +me one day. It was torn and you was too much of a lady +to mend it. That accounts for my having the dress, but it +don’t account for the piece that you left sticking to the rose-bush +under Mrs. Lander’s bed-room winder, which piece I +took oft that morning, and which piece I matched with the +dress after you pitched it at me over them bannisters; it +was an awful scragly tear, and it fitted to a T. I’ve got +the dress and the piece safe and sure.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Fool! I have not worn that dress for ages—I am in: +mourning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Of course, and for that reason didn’t wear black that +night, but put on the only other dress you had, the one you +had jumped overboard in. It smells of salt water yet. +That’s another clincher! Besides there’s a place in the +front breadth which that little humpbacked girl up stairs +darned for you after you got a shipboard again. I know all +about it. Old moles are as cute as young ones any day.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This dress is nothing to me; I have not worn it since +we went on shore from the wreck—no creature on earth has +ever seen me wear it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, wasn’t there? What was the conductor a doing +when you opened that gray cloak to take out your ticket? +What was the man a doing who knows how to climb ladders +when he sees ’em at a lady’s winder? What was the +other conductor a doing who took up a passenger who wore +a blue dress and gray cloak after midnight at the station +down here? Wimmen in these parts don’t start on +journeys often after midnight, and when they do the conductors +are apt to eye ’em sharp. That one did eye his +passenger with the blue dress very sharp, for he saw her +get into what they call a hotel coach and that went to the +very place you was all putting up at. Oh! I am nigh +upon as wide awake as you are, Miss!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>A gleam of sharp intelligence shot over Cora’s pale face; +while the woman was talking, a smile of assured triumph +came to her lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is all this to me, woman? I know nothing of +the matter. If any one came here that night, it was my +cousin. From the first she was resolved to claim my inheritance. +What more probable than that she should have +stolen away and attempted to gain her mother over to the +plot. Now that you tell me these things, I have no doubt +of it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice stood aghast; her mouth fell, her eyes fairly +quivered with astonishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“For her sake we had better say nothing about it,” +resumed Cora, blandly; “it would throw discredit on the +family were it known that a person so young, and always +respectable till now, had contemplated so base a fraud. Of +course her mother will keep the secret, and, in pity for my +cousin, you must be silent, Eunice. There is no sacrifice +that I would not make to protect her reputation. The +knowledge of this unhappy attempt to defraud me of my +birthright gives you a hold upon the family, Eunice. +Remain with us, if it pleases you, and keep that dress in +your possession; it may be wanted as proof yet. I remember +now, it was in my cousin’s trunk when we came ashore. +There does seem to be something providential in your having +found the piece. Take especial care of it, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice Hurd was not altogether subdued, but she stood +her ground like an Indian woman from whom the enemy +has stolen a quiver of arrows. She was defeated but not +convinced. This permission to remain was, after all, a +kind of triumph, and she was preparing to withdraw her +forces in tolerable order, when Cora spoke again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are right, Eunice, I should have been more liberal +with my aunt; the knowledge that her daughter entertained +this nefarious design—”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>“Ne—ne—what?” interrupted Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nefarious—it means wicked, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh,” ejaculated the old maid, “that’s it, is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As I was saying, Eunice, you have been a trusty servant +in the family for years, and are no doubt almost indispensable.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Inde what?” questioned Eunice again, growing snappish +as Cora became blander and sweeter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A person that she cannot do without; that is the spirit +of my word, Eunice, and I dare say you and I will get +along very nicely together after we know each other +thoroughly. Now that I have learned the secret cause of +my aunt’s irritability, I would not deprive her of your services +for the world. Are we friends now, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora held out her white hand with the most winning +grace imaginable, but Eunice clenched her bony fingers +and put the hand behind her, angry at herself for being +so tempted by that smiling manner.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We are friends, Miss, just so long as you treat that poor +lady, for she is a lady, well and with kindness. She has +always been mistress here, and I won’t obey nobody else. +She’s always been used to having plenty of money, and +that she’s a going to have.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, Eunice, what do you think of me? Am I a +tyrant or a miser, that you insist on these things? Was +not my father always generous to her and my cousin? +Was not that ungrateful girl educated at my father’s cost +exactly as I was educated? I know he loved these two +helpless women, and, notwithstanding my cousin’s attempt +to wrong me, I am anxious, in all things, to carry out my +father’s wishes. When the estate is settled, my aunt and +cousin shall each have a fixed income. I promise it on the +honor of a Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You mustn’t stint her now. She’s got to have all she +wants.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>“Of course.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nor the young creature up stairs. It’ll be dangerous, +now I tell you—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you think her so insane as that, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Insane! stuff! She is no more crazy than you are!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am sorry to hear that, Eunice. It would have been +some excuse for her conduct.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Her conduct?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes. That midnight visit to the house seems very like +the freak of a crazy person. I hope it was! In charity, I +hope it was!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had controlled herself wonderfully through this +scene; she carried everything before her so adroitly that +her spirits rose almost to elation at its close. For this once +she had escaped and forced down the peril that threatened +her, but she felt the necessity not only of conciliating this +shrewd woman, but of obtaining in herself a reputation for +great liberality and kindness. The generous nature of +Amos Lander’s child was too well known for an abrupt +change of character to be accepted readily. This sudden +fright, brought on by her first effort to play the despot, had +warned her of the peril in time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander had returned to her home almost broken-hearted. +It was with great difficulty that she kept back +her secret from Eunice, who might have won it from her +had she not already gathered it up by her own ingenuity. +But this interview with Cora had so completely demoralized +her facts that Eunice resolved to win more positive knowledge +from the lady herself. But even here the young +woman had been too quick for her. Scarcely had Eunice +made what she considered a victorious retreat, when Cora +went to Mrs. Lander’s room, for the first time since her +return home. She found that lady seated by the bed in her +room, looking over a quantity of mourning dresses, rich in +themselves, but from which the first freshness was gone. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>The sight of those crape folds, crumpled and taking a +brownish tinge from use, filled her heart more than a thousand +harsh words could have done, with a sense of her +daughter’s cruelty.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! it is dreadful,” she exclaimed, looking at the +dresses through her tears. “They are absolutely growing +foxy, and she won’t permit me to get all the new ones I +want nor to freshen them up with jet. I proposed that, +and she said no, as if I had been a child or a servant. <i>He</i> +never did that by me—oh, my good, kind brother! I +thought it hard not to control everything when he was +alive, but what was that compared to the life I lead with I +her?—and she my own child, to whom I gave everything—cursing +myself to do it. These old things, she said were +quite good enough to last the year out. She had heaps of +new dresses, to my knowledge, at the dressmaker’s at the +very time. An English crape, worth all these together, +covered with such a lovely pattern in bugles—silks that +would stand alone—grenadines, and I don’t know what. +<i>She</i> must brighten up her mourning, indeed, but as for +me, old bombazines and alpacas are good enough!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander was giving way to thoughts like these +when Cora entered the room. Mrs. Lander uttered a little +scream, and started from her chair, feeling strangely guilty, +as if the thoughts she had just indulged in had been made +known to her daughter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Cora, is it you at last?” she exclaimed, turning +away her face to hide the tears that stained it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A white arm stole caressingly around her neck; two +warm lips were pressed to her cheek. She turned and +threw both arms around her daughter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Cora, Cora, how could you be so cruel to me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear mother, I am <i>so</i> sorry.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander burst into tears and fell to raining kisses on +that upturned face, which looked to her so beautiful with +that expression of penitence upon it.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>“Darling mamma; so you have been fretting over my +crossness—thinking me stingy, and that hatefullest of all +things, a miser—have you? Stingy to you, above all +creatures on earth! How could you believe it? Something +had gone wrong with me; I was vexed, and you, +mamma, were just a little unreasonable. I had been spending +so much money—and so had you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, not so very much for me. Cora, those crapes +and things were very expensive, I know, richer by half +than mine—but the cost was nothing to you, with so much +money in the bank.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes, I know all about that. It wasn’t so much the +money, but other things. Besides, you went off on a tangent +and hurt my feelings so. I waited and waited, thinking +that you would come back, but love for the dear cross +mamma was too strong. I had to follow her at last. Now +kiss me and let us be friends.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The heart of that poor woman rose and swelled with +such tenderness as only a mother can feel. She kissed the +fair face lifted to hers over and over again. She took it +between her hands and gazed fondly upon it through the +happy tears that would come rushing to her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Cora, you do love me a little,” she said, in her +pathetic longing for the affection so long withdrawn from +her. “We might be so happy if you only loved me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We are—we will be happy—I have come here determined +on it. Come, come, forget and forgive! How long +it seems since I have seen you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miserably long, my child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still, it is only a week—such a week! One sometimes +crowds so much happiness into a week that it answers for a +lifetime. Don’t you think so, mamma?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Happiness! You mean misery, child. Neither of us +can have been very happy the last week, I am sure.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Happiness—did I say that, and you with tears in these +<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>dear eyes all the time? Of course I meant unhappiness, +but one does drop syllables so when the heart is full.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander laughed, and smoothed Cora’s hair back +from her forehead.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What are you about here?” inquired the daughter. +“What a pile of dresses!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are my old mourning. I was just ready to send +for Eunice and see if they couldn’t be freshened and +pressed out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora gave the pile of dresses a push with her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give them away. Eunice will look lovely in black—give +her your whole wardrobe. To-morrow we will go to +the city and get an entire outfit. The dressmaker is working +for you now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Second mourning—shall it be second mourning, +Cora?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Just as you please. Yes, for my part, I should much +prefer that. By the time the estate is settled entirely, we +can come out in white and silver gray.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lavender for you—it will be lovely with your hair.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you think so?—Oh, Eunice, is that you? Come in +and carry this pile of dresses away. My aunt will not +wear them any more. She has had enough of bombazines, +and is coming out with something brighter. My cousin, +too, we must order new dresses for her—she will never do it +for herself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was a gleam in Cora’s eye and a mocking smile on +her lip, which informed Eunice that she had just came too +late if she expected to take advantage of the quarrel which +had sent Mrs. Lander home half distracted. So, with +answering self-composure and craft, she gathered up the +dresses in her arms and carried them away. On her progress +down stairs, she met Ellen Nolan and stopped to +speak with her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell Miss Virginia to come down to her meals as usual—I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>don’t want no change,” she said. “Miss Cora promises +to behave herself, and I guess she will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My lady has decided how to act; she will come down. +She, at any rate, has nothing to be ashamed of.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus a sort of hollow truce was arranged, and, by mutual +consent, all subjects calculated to create discord were +avoided.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXV.<br> <span class='c011'>CLARENCE BROOKS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>A stranger arrived by the railway and came up from the +river hotel to pay his respects to the family. He had been +a travelling companion and old friend of Amos Lander in +Europe, who had so earnestly invited him to visit the family +should he come to America, that he was searching the +neighborhood for that purpose, where he had first heard of +Mr. Lander’s death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The card which the man sent up to the mistress of the +house bore the name of “Clarence Brooks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora received the card in her room, and went down to +meet her guest sedate and thoughtful, as became an only +child within a year of her father’s death. She found a tall +young man—that is, a man of some two or three and thirty—standing +by one of the reception-room windows, looking +out upon the prospect. The scenery was beautiful from +that point, for a group of the Highland fountains rose +above each other along a sharp curve of the river, which took +the appearance of a mountain lake so completely that it +was impossible to believe there was a broad inlet or outlet +in that green entanglement of hills. The railroad, running +under the terrace, was entirely concealed, and, with the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>exception of a mansion just visible on the opposite shore, +everything beyond the house seemed wild as it was beautiful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora, whose footsteps were lost in the moss-like thickness +of the carpet, walked quietly up to the window and spoke.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will find nothing more beautiful on the Rhine,” +she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nor anywhere else, so far as my experience goes,” +answered the gentleman, turning one of those clearly cut +manly faces upon her that impress you with a sense of +greatness at the first sight, and regarding her with two fine +gray eyes, that smilingly searched her through and +through.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a lovely scene.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She stood by his side and looked out upon the landscape +he praised. It was autumn now, and all those hills broke +up in one wild flush of dying colors, the crimson and golden +maples—the deep purplish red of the oak—the soft, pale +maize-color of the ash, and spotted red of the gum tree +mingled and massed their sumptuous foliage together so +richly, that the waters of the river, as it weltered under the +shadows at sunset or in the morning, seemed filtering +through broken jewels and sands of gold. It was near +sunset now and the effect was beautiful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have never seen anything so strikingly beautiful,” he +said, turning so slowly from her face to the scene, that she +was puzzled to know which he was really praising.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is nothing like our woods in the autumn, when a +sharp frost comes suddenly. We had one last night, and +you see the result.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is worth coming across the Atlantic, if only seen for +an hour,” he answered, again falling to the perusal of her +face, which wore its most delicate bloom that day.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I, for one, am grateful to the frost if it makes you so +in love with my country, Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>“And I am a thousand times grateful that it is seen in +its richest beauty by the side of my old friend’s daughter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora started and her color changed; she never could +hear Amos Lander’s name with composure; it seemed like +calling upon her judge to come out of his watery grave and +denounce her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The stranger saw this sudden change in her face, and remembering +how her father died, fell into deep sympathy +with her grief at once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have a letter from your father, Miss Lander, written +only two days before he took passage on that unfortunate +vessel. It contained an invitation to this house. Will +you read it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was glad to take the letter, and thus get back her +self-control. She reached forth her hand, but drew it +back again, shuddering as the paper touched her fingers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It seemed as if her crime must be written out in a letter +sent so near upon her uncle’s death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Brooks observed this movement, and, mistaking its +meaning, unfolded the letter before he offered it to her +again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It may give you pain, dear lady, but as you are mentioned +in it so lovingly, the pleasure will overbalance all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora took the letter, and read it through in the light of +the window.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“<span class='sc'>My Dear Brooks</span>,” it commenced, “we sail for my +own blessed land in three days from this—that is, I, a niece, +who has been at school with my daughter, and the dear +child herself. I wish you had seen her, my friend. Never, +I do think, was a father so blessed in his child as I am, and +ever have been. I do not know as you will think her beautiful; +to my eyes she—well, I will not say all that a fond +old man may think of his only child—besides, in this +respect, my niece shares admiration with her. Strangers, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>I assure you, can hardly tell them apart. But to me the +difference is as great as that which lies between sunshine +and gas-light. Not that my brother’s orphan is an inferior +girl—far from it—but my young wife’s spirit does not look +out of her eyes, and the sweet, gentle, yet exalted nature +of my young wife does not dwell in her heart, at any rate +for me.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come to us, my friend. I am your senior by many +years, it is true, but we have enjoyed life together before +now, and will again, God willing. That which we were +talking of must be kept a secret between us. The dear +child must not be influenced even by a shadow of suspicion +that her father wishes her happiness in that form. But +come, and we two will watch for the first blush that gives +us hope. This idea has been the one dream of my life—in +all other things I am a practical and commonplace moneymaking +man. But, where she is concerned, I am romantic +as a poet. Am I praising her too much? Will this enthusiasm +of a worn-out old heart lead your imagination astray? +No, it is impossible—never on this earth was there a better +child. Remember, I do not dwell upon her beauty—of +that I am no judge. They tell me she looks like the Landers,—that +is, the women of our family,—and this must +be true or people would not so often mistake her for my +brother’s orphan. But, in the soul, the expression, there is +no shadow of resemblance—there, as I have said, my girl is +her mother over again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come to us, my friend, and see what a grand, noble +country you were born in. Make my house your home. I +only wish fortune had not dealt so bountifully with you; +for then I might hope that some commercial advantages +that I can control would keep you near me, even though—. +But that subject is too sacred for a letter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are going East, the last letter tells me—up the +Nile and over the Holy Land. I hope your travelling companion +<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>will prove all that you think him, but sudden fancies +of that kind sometimes prove dangerous.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God bless you.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Amos Lander.</span>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The blood had receded from Cora’s face when she first +took this letter; for she would rather have strangled an flip +in her hand than touch the writing of a man whose child +she had sacrificed; but it came back hot and red long +before she had concluded the reading. Clarence Brooks +saw this and smiled softly; he thought those bright blushes +came from a consciousness of Amos Lander’s meaning, so +vaguely expressed in the letter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was the last letter he ever wrote, I feel quite certain,” +he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora could hardly refrain from crushing the paper in her +hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He does not speak over kindly of me—my cousin, who +was an orphan and at his mercy,” she said, in a voice that +trembled more with anger than grief.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Lander!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The voice in which this name was uttered put her on +her guard at once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I loved my father dearly—dearly,” she said, with quick +moisture in her eyes. “But this young girl is so helpless, +so dependent. His brother’s daughter, too—with all her +faults. But he was wise—he understood her better than I +can. Oh! father, father, forgive me if, for one moment, I +thought you a little unjust and forgot all that has happened +since!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She kissed the letter in what seemed a passion of tender +remorse, and flinging herself in a chair, turned her face to +the cushions and sobbed audibly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks walked to a distant window and looked +out, a little disturbed by this scene. He rebuked himself +for the tone in which he had addressed her, and was anxious +<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>to make some apology. In a few moments Cora came +toward him, wiping her eyes with a tiny handkerchief bordered +with black an inch deep.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Forgive me,” she said, “I did not mean to give way +but the sight of his dear handwriting was a terrible shock. +Then so many things have conspired against my cousin, +and those who cannot love her as I have will not take the +charitable side of this question. No one but her poor +mother and myself—but I forget, you are a stranger to us +all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, not quite a stranger. One who knew the father so +well and loved him so entirely cannot be considered in that +light, surely, where the daughter is concerned.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed, you seem to me like a friend!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That I will be, Miss Lander, if you permit it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled through the tears that still hung on her +lashes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I permit it? He loved you; that letter proves it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, he loved me well enough—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks paused, colored, and added, “well enough to +invite me here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There was something else to which my father seemed +to allude, as if there existed some plan, some hope?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No lamb that ever followed its mother with his mouth +full of white clover ever looked more innocent than Cora +when she asked that question. Clarence Brooks felt the +blood mounting to his face under those wistful eyes, but +answered, evasively:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, that was nothing—only a little plan we had in +common.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Commercial?” she inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps it might be considered so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certainly, I remember that last sentence. Poor papa +never could quite give up business.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some time, perhaps, I shall desire to explain his plans +<span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span>more fully,” said the gentleman; “when you are more +composed and I shall have been fortunate enough to obtain +your confidence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled sweetly upon him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have no talent for business,” she said; “still his +wishes, I think, would come to me by heart. But I am +very thoughtless. My aunt will fancy that I am assuming +her prerogatives; she does not know that you are here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora rang the bell, gave directions to the man who presented +himself to inform Mrs. Lander that a gentleman +was waiting to see her, and then she resumed her seat +again, breathing a little quickly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander came into the room sweeping her black +garment slowly down its whole length, and looking a little +terrified, as had become her habit now when any person +called upon her unexpectedly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Aunt, dear aunt, this gentleman, Mr. Clarence Brooks, +brings a letter from my father.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your father, Cora?” cried the widow, beginning to +tremble. “Why he has been dead years and—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not quite a year yet, dear aunt,” said Cora, with a +quick catch of the breath. Then turning to Brooks, she +added, in a low voice, “The shock affects her yet; she cannot +hear his name mentioned without this confusion of +thought.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was he a friend of Amos Lander’s?” questioned the +widow, looking from the stranger to Cora.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, aunt, a very dear friend.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And he has a letter from him, written by his own +hand? How can that he? The dead do not write.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was his last letter, lady, written just before he +sailed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“On that fatal ship—for fatal it has been to me—fatal it +will prove to us all, I solemnly believe! Did you also +escape?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_326'>326</span>“No, Madam, I never was on board. Some months +before Lander sailed, I had turned to the East. His letter +followed me into the Holy Land.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where none of us will ever follow him!” muttered the +widow, seating herself drearily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks did not catch her words, but he was struck by +the singular manner of the woman. There was absolute +terror in her eyes as she turned them upon him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It must have been a terrible shock to affect her so,” he +thought. “Even the daughter, who shared his danger, +bears it with more fortitude.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you wish to see my father’s letter?” said Cora, +gently.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander made a sudden gesture of repulsion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It will be a pang at first, but—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Cora, I will read it. If he has left a wish that I +can fulfill, weak and hampered as I am, I would give my +life to accomplish it. That would be something to show +how sorry I am for—for—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear aunt, we know how much you regret his death. +Take the letter to your room and read it there—Mr. Brooks +will excuse you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander took the letter and went out. Cora excused +herself with a gesture and followed her into the next room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you wish to ruin me, and yourself also, that you +take that paper as if it were a rattlesnake, and talk like an +insane person? I tell you this gentleman must be received +cordially. He knew Amos Lander well, and is a man of +mark, or I know nothing about it. Invite him to remain, +and enforce the invitation by something like cheerfulness. +It is my wish!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then, if I must be cheerful, take the letter; I won’t +read it!” answered the harassed woman.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, there, take it to your room and do as you like +about reading it, though I think you will find something in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>his last words to rouse your pride a little. For my part, I +am glad this gentleman brought it. If I had one scruple, +it has vanished now. Read it, read what he says about us +and about her. It will bring the color to your white face, I +warrant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will read it,” answered Mrs. Lander. “After all, it’s +nothing but writing. That cannot kill one.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXVI.<br> <span class='c011'>A LETTER FROM THE DEAD.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Mrs. Lander went up to her room and read the letter +through. It brought the blood to her cheek and the old +pride into her heart. “Did he think her everything, and +my child the dirt under his feet—and this to a stranger? +Well, we shall see how it works now that my girl stands +first and foremost! As if his child was the only person +worth speaking of! Cora is right. I do feel as if it wasn’t +so very wrong—as if she was born to the place. Isn’t one +Lander as good as another? Was Amos one whit better +than his brother because everything turned to gold for him +and iron for my husband? Cora is right; property belongs +to those who have the power to hold it. That was the +origin of all property; why should the rule be changed +now? As for Virginia, she never would have made anything +of it all; she has not even the spirit to fight for it. +Cora, now, would have done that, and conquered too. But +she must be very, very good to Amos’ daughter—that I will +<i>insist</i> upon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>In her indignation, Mrs. Lander had flung the letter on +a table, and was walking up and down the room firing her +resolution with thoughts like these, when Eunice opened +the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>“What’s the matter now?” she said, in her curt, dry +way. “Some highflying feller has come, so the men tell +me, and acts as if he was going to stay all his life. Now +I want to know the truth on’t.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, a gentleman has come, Eunice—a very fine-looking +man indeed. He brought a letter from Amos Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Amos Lander! Well now, that heats me! Has Amos +Lander come to life as well as the rest on ’em? I’m glad +on it. Now we shall see who’s who!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice Hurd, how can you talk so wickedly? Amos +wrote the letter before he sailed on that terrible steamer. +Of course he’s fathoms and fathoms under water.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, he is, is he? Well, dead men tell no tales—I wish +they did. Anyhow, who is this feller, and what does he +want?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He’s a gentleman Amos knew abroad, Eunice. I can’t +stay to tell you more; my niece will expect me back—I +only came out to read the letter. Is my hair all right—does +this dress sweep gracefully? Do, for once, be good-natured +and tell me. I declare it seems like old times to +have company in the house!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Away Mrs. Lander swept with something of her old +spirit and grace, leaving Eunice standing in the middle of +the room, struck dumb with astonishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well!” she ejaculated, “well, this does take me right +off from my feet! Hoity-toity, how we do spread our +feathers! That Eliza Lander is enough to tire the patience +of Job and all the other Bible folks that were sot up for I +patience. Now, this morning she was broken-hearted, +ready to go into a Methodist class-meeting and confess +more sins than the class-leaders could listen to in a week. +Now she’s all ago putting on airs like a girl, and ready to +stand by that young serpent to the last. I can see that in +her eyes. I wonder what has done all this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The open letter offered a solution of these doubts. Mrs. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>Lander, in her haste and excitement, had forgotten it on +the table. Eunice seized upon it and soon mastered its +contents, spelling out the words aloud and making her +comments as she went on.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes, his daughter is all in all. Well now, she was +a purty cretur, and kind as kind could be. Of course +Eliza’s girl was no more to be compared to her than chalk’s +like cheese—a hateful, stuck-up cretur, that hadn’t heart +enough to be grateful, though Amos Lander did treat her +as if she’d been a princess instead of—well now, I mustn’t +talk about that out loud, if I am alone.” Eunice muttered +all this over to herself, then fell to reading the letter with +earnestness, and went on with her comments. “I didn’t +think Amos Lander was <a id='t329'></a>’cute enough to find out the difference +between them two girls. He allays treated ’em so +much alike. I saw it clear enough. They didn’t seem +scarcely a bit alike to me. When nobody else could tell +’em apart, I knew which from which by the look of the eye +and the bend of the head. That’s a thing one isn’t always +free to swear to, but it satisfies me. Oh! if Eliza Lander +wasn’t what she is, I’d set things to rights in less ’en twenty-four +hours. I wonder if they’ll let her see this—poor thing. +It’s the last line her father ever wrote, I’ll be bound. She +shall have it—they shan’t keep this from her with the rest.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice obeyed this impulse, and took the letter up to +Virginia, who was practising her noble voice in the remote +room assigned to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here, take this and just tuck it in your bosom if you +want to keep it,” she said, flinging the letter down upon +the piano. “It may be a comfort to you, and it mayn’t—I +don’t know, but if anybody in this house has a right to +read it, you have.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia took the letter and read it through. Eunice +stood by and watched her with interest. She saw the color +retreat from that beautiful face as the poor girl recognized +<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>the handwriting; then it came back, swelling the delicate +blue veins and flushing the whole face with a pressure of +tender weeping.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! how he loved me—how he did love me!” she cried +pressing the paper to her lips with mournful rapture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, had you given me back every dollar my father +was worth, I should not have been more thankful. Who +was the letter written to? How came it in your hands? +Be kind, dear Eunice, and tell me all about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now don’t be making an old fool of me—don’t now, I +can’t stand it. The letter was sent to a man that is in the +house this minute—a first-rate looking chap, with an air as +if he was President of the United States and King of the +Sandwich Islands thrown in. He was an old friend of +your—of Amos Lander—and I like his looks, what I saw +of ’em through the door.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia was reading her father’s letter a second time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What does he mean? Is it something that relates to +me, I wonder?” she thought. “But all the letter is about +me. How the gentleman will be disappointed. Who ever +will regard me with my father’s eyes? Alas! alas! and he +is dead! God help me! if I could have gone down in his +arms, what a mercy it would have been! This great crime +would have been spared to Cora, and I should have been so +much happier.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hope the gentleman won’t be disappointed in Mr. +Lander’s daughter,” broke in Eunice. “She’s making herself +agreeable now, I tell you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia looked up wonderingly. For the moment she +had forgotten that Cora was in the house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will she take my father’s friend from me? The +man he seems to have loved so dearly?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t see how you are to help it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will go down and speak with him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And what will you tell him? That letter musn’t kick +<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>up no row. It isn’t the time, and I won’t have Eliza +Lander thrown into hysterics, if I can help it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will tell him that I am Miss Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you won’t be particular about the which Miss +Lander, will you now, that’s a good girl?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have no fear about that—I shall provoke no dispute. +But the man who was my father’s friend I must and will +welcome under my father’s roof. It matters very little +whether he thinks me the mistress or a guest here. My +father wished me to know him, and I will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I reckon I’d do purty much the same thing; +your—that is, Amos Lander did intend you to know one +another, I’m sure of that from the letter—that is, supposing +you are—mercy on me! one does get tangled up so, it’s +dreadful talking at all!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen Nolan was sitting in another part of the room, +writing with such earnestness that she did not heed what +was passing near the piano; but she heard Eunice now, +and looked up.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here,” said Eunice; “tell her not to go down and +raise a muss. That’s a York word I despise, but it will get +into one’s mouth unawares. But don’t let her raise a muss +with a stranger in the house. It’s none of his business +which is which.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I don’t intend to make a disturbance, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, then don’t go down. It’ll make me sick as rank +pison to see her a introducing you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are right, Eunice; I will not take any part in the +imposition which places me in a false light before this man +or any other person. At first I was excited and rash. To +present myself in any other character than my own would +be to sanction a fraud.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If the gentleman is worth knowing, he will not like +you the less because you can not present yourself as an heiress,” +said Ellen, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>“True, Ellen. I will take no part in his reception.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s a good girl. Give out rope—give out rope—if +she’s wrong. I don’t say she is, though; but supposing +she’s wrong, she’ll hang herself at last. Be sartain of +that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice went out with these words on her lips, leaving +Virginia and her companion together. Virginia gave her +father’s letter to Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<i>He</i> so wanted me to know this gentleman,” she said, +regretfully. “I have heard him speak of Mr. Brooks a +hundred times on the passage, and before that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who is Mr. Brooks, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is an American by birth, the son of a banker who +spent his life in London, having moved there when this +young gentleman was a lad. My father knew his father +before he left this country, and has always considered the +younger Brooks almost as a son. I think there was some +unusual friendship between the families while our parents +were young men together. At any rate they were fast +friends for life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you ever seen this Mr. Brooks?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; my father said that he had written to invite him +here, and seemed to think much of it. He described him +to me as good and noble—a man among men. He appeared +to wish that I should consider him as a brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen read the letter seriously.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He seems to have some unexplained idea here—some +hope only hinted at.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, they had business together; I think there was +some talk about establishing a banking house in New York +to co-operate with that in London.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen smiled faintly, but kept her eyes on the letter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think Eunice was right,” she said at last. “Yes, she +is right.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia sighed heavily, the oppressive weariness of that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>most wretched life was beginning to tell upon her. It was +hard to turn aside from the closest friend her father had. +But that, like the rest, she must give up or enter upon +a contest from which humiliation or sure defeat might +follow. For half an hour she walked up and down her +room feverish with anxiety. No poor fly in the net of a +spider ever felt the thrall of its imprisonment more keenly +than she did. She could have given up the property with +but little regret. Never having learned the power or value +of money, it was of minor importance to her. But to +remain under that roof, to live with the woman who had +so wronged her, and not exhibit the slow indignation that +crept upon her stronger and stronger every day, was fast +growing into a torture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What have I done—how have I deserved this treatment?” +she cried out at last. “Am I or am I not Amos +Lander’s child? How can a wise and just being look on +and see such terrible iniquity prosper?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush, lady! this does not seem like yourself. The +Being you speak of bides his own time. Wait patiently.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And see my patrimony taken from me—know that my +father’s dearest friend is to be swept from the lowly path +she has doomed me to tread—alone. Oh! it is beyond belief—beyond +bearing! I <i>must</i> do something, or go mad!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, dear lady, you will not go mad; that is exactly +what they want.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia listened angrily. She was indeed out of all +patience. The life that lawyer Stone recommended had become +unendurable. Must she wait forever in that dull +agony of living? Shut out from friends—forbidden to +make acquaintances by her false position—a prisoner, +chained down by circumstances more potent than iron +shackles? Better break through it all—give up everything +and strike out boldly for a new life.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen looked up as her mistress paced the room to and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>fro with fire in her eyes and defiance on her lips. “Now,” +she thought, “Not even I could tell her from her cousin. +That very tread is alike; with what imperious pride she +walks. How the color wakes and trembles in her face. +Thank Heaven, it cannot last.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment Virginia sunk to the music stool, dropped +her folded arms on the instrument, and her face fell upon +them, half smothering the burst of tears that shook her +from head to foot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, it is cruel! it is cruel!” she moaned. “If I only +knew how to act!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen’s arms were around her in an instant, gentle kisses +stirred her hair and fell upon her neck.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Be patient—oh! be patient,” whispered that sweet +voice. “God <i>is</i> just. Wait and see.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia lifted her head and swept the hot tears from her +eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, I—I—really think this is jealousy. How +foolish! I never saw this gentleman in my life; but the +thought that she assumes my place with him hurts me +worse than the loss of all this property. There, you see +how weak I am!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen answered with a kiss so fervent that it was far +more eloquent than words.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A servant knocked at the door. Miss Lander’s compliments—there +was a gentleman below who had known Mr. +Lander, and would like to see Miss Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Say that Miss Lander is not well, and desires to be +excused,” answered Virginia. “Heaven knows it is the +truth,” she said as the man closed the door after him. +“I have worried myself into a headache, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The poor girl laid herself on a couch and quietly wept +herself to sleep. Never since her father’s death had she +been so disturbed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went on with her writing, and in a few moments +<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>was so lost in her subject that she did not hear the long-drawn +sighs that came now and then from that dear slumberer +on the couch. This power of concentration it was +which constituted the force of Ellen’s genius. She literally +lived and breathed in the ideal life her mind created. This +it was which gave the girl that untiring industry without +which the brightest genius in life must die out in flashes of +poetry and broken efforts at prose. Those who reach the +temple of fame, in these latter days, must work their way +to its very portals, and toil harder and harder after they are +reached, for that which is won by toil must be by toil +maintained.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks excused himself from accepting the +invitation that Mrs. Lander pressed upon him, to take up +his quarters at the house. He had left his portmanteau at +the little hotel just beyond the station, he said, and would +remain there for the present. He should even then claim +hospitality of Mrs. Lander to an unreasonable extent. If +he did not really sleep in the house, they might expect him +there half the time, as he was sure to get terribly weary of +his own society. There seemed to be pleasant drives in the +neighborhood; and shooting—he should think there must +be shooting in the back country. Did Miss Lander ride?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Yes, Cora admitted that she had a tolerable seat on horseback, +but since they had been in mourning she had scarcely +cared even to take the air.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, that must be remedied,” the gentleman said. +“He must run down to the city and look up a good saddle +horse. Was the lady provided with one?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes; two ladies’ horses were in the stable—one +black as jet, the other white as snow, which Mr. Lander +had himself selected for herself and his niece before he +went abroad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>By the way, Mr. Brooks wanted to know if he was not +to have the pleasure of seeing this niece who was in her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>person so complete a counterpart of the lady before him. +He had heard of such resemblances; but really, in this +case, could hardly think it possible that two persons so +entirely beautiful could exist.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here it was that Virginia was sent for. There was no +possibility of keeping her in the background after this, +and Cora submitted with charming grace. Her cousin was +just a little peculiar sometimes; but, for all that, one of the +most interesting characters in the world. Mr. Brooks +would be charmed with her—everybody was.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here the servant came in and received his orders. Mrs. +Lander swept after him into the hall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell her she must come, I insist upon it,” she whispered. +“This gentleman must see our family circle complete.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was some time since any of the servants had cared +much about Mrs. Lander’s wishes. They were the first to +ascertain who was in fact mistress of the house, and veered +round accordingly. Before he had taken three steps this +eagerly-given message was forgotten.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Meantime Clarence Brooks and Cora were talking by the +window; for the gentleman never seemed to weary of looking +out upon the soft, smoky air, and rich coloring of the +trees.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Black or white—which should it be? His saddle horse +must match one of the young ladies’ ponies. Might he +choose at a venture with fair hopes of adopting her color? +Then it should be black.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora’s eyes sparkled as she lifted them to his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ah! he had won. Black was her color. Well, his steed +should be coal black and not too large. He did not wish to +be overpowering. A ride under those superb trees would +be delightful; he was almost tempted to run down to the +city at once. A day lost that fine weather would be a misfortune.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here the servant came in and delivered Virginia’s message. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>Cora shook her head, cast a deprecating glance at +her guest, and allowed a gentle sigh to escape her lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is one of her nervous days,” she said, “I am so +sorry.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is your cousin apt to be nervous?” the gentleman +inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is a little—just a little excitable, as you may guess +from my father’s letter, but a dear, sweet creature. I am +so sorry she is ill!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I have great compassion for illness of all kinds. +My own experience in that line has been terrible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed! and you look so thoroughly well!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, you will hardly believe it, but not a year ago the +best physicians of the East gave me up for dead. It was +when I lay ill of the Syrian fever, in Damascus. I must +have been in some sort of a fit, for the natives were urgent +to have me buried, and even the physicians were about to +give way, when I came to life again. It was the crisis of +my disorder, and I ran a narrow chance of being buried +alive. It isn’t a pleasant thing to remember even now, I +assure you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It must have been terrible! I have heard of such +things, but always accepted them with some unbelief,” said +Mrs. Lander, joining in the conversation. “Were you +conscious?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; that was the most awful part of it. With every +nerve stiffened to iron, and all my senses acutely awake, it +was the most exquisite torture to hear those about my bed +discussing my funeral. With closed eyes and everything +but the brain spell-bound, my hearing became unusually +keen. I even heard the rustle of paper two rooms off, +when a person I thought true as steel was searching for the +letters of credit I had taken out for America and carried +with me. The sound, to me, was like the shiver of leaves +<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>on a breezy day, yet it must have been faint enough, fer the +man had a light touch.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he leave you?” asked Cora, suddenly interested.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; but I do not wish to think of that. There might +have been extenuating circumstances, and I loved the fellow +so thoroughly that even now it is a pain to think ill of +him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora could not press the subject beyond this point; but +she was seized with an eager desire to learn more, and +resolved to question her guest some other time and learn all +that there was to know of this singular event.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Two days from this, Virginia and Ellen went down to +the grove. It was a lovely afternoon, made brighter and +more exhilarating by a sharp frost that had brought whole +rainbows of color in the woods the night before. The roses +were all gone now, but many of the bushes were flushed +with berries red as coral, and a rich variety of chrysanthemums +still brightened the lawn and garden.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“After all it <i>is</i> a beautiful world,” said Virginia, pausing +in her walk. “One looks at this scene in amazement after +being abroad so long. I wonder how an American can +ever content himself in any other land when this is his +home. Look at the hills, Ellen—have you genius enough +to describe what you see there?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who has?” Ellen replied. “No pen can do it—no +pencil can copy it. After all, God is the great artist.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am glad the frosts have been so sudden and sharp; +they have found enough sap in the leaves to make them +vivid. Look here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia sprang up, snatching at a twig of maple, broke +it off with her hand and held it towards her companion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here is the most perfect green, fringed so vividly with +red that each leaf might have been traced with vermillion. +No painting was ever half so beautiful. Ah! here comes +one quivering down from some tree far off; deep red, veined +<span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>all over with maroon color so dark that it looks black at +first sight. Oh! Ellen, no pen of yours or pencil of mine +will ever equal that. Come away, it makes me envious.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thankful, rather, dear lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, thankful. So I am, Ellen. While God surrounds +us with so much beauty, we ought to be full of gratitude, +and so happy. Come, come, let us go down to the +grove, the leaves are thick there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girls walked on, chatting cheerfully together; both +were young and full of healthy life. No crime or sense of +evil-doing touched the conscience of either. The very day +was enough to make them happy, spite of their present +position—spite of the bereavement which usually overshadowed +them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know of a chestnut tree that must hang full of burs; +the frost last night has let the nuts out—suppose we go +look for them. It makes one feel like a child again to get +into the woods. Oh! there is Joshua Hurd, coming up the +carriage road with two splendid horses! The white one is +a beauty! See how she shakes her mane, and dashes the +gravel with that delicate hoof! Oh! Ellen, I should so +like to have a gallop!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would have one, if I were you, lady. Ask Joshua to +saddle that white beauty. Why not?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia shook her head, but that moment Joshua came +up, riding the black horse with a dash and leading the +other, who curvetted and danced over the gravel like some +beautiful child tossing her hair to the wind; the sweeping +whiteness of its tail and the mane flowing free, like floss +silk set in motion, gave an air of superb grace to all the +creature’s movements.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua drew up the black horse and challenged the girls’ +admiration of the creature by his really fine horsemanship.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t she purty as a blackbird, Miss Ellen; jest let me +lay my hand on your head and she’ll whirl round you like a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>top; never saw the heat of these ’ere two animals for +ladies’ hosses. Which on ’em do you like best, Miss?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The white one, I think, Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Josh began to whistle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There’s gumption,” he said, patting the white horse +with his great rough hand. “She would have the black +one. Wanted to know which Mr. Lander bought for his +own daughter. I told her black was his choice—no lie, +neither, but then he chose it for t’other one—and black she +would have. Why Snowball cost a hundred dollars the +most! I sarched her out myself, and know all about it. +She’s yourn anyway, for the other gal pounced on the black +’un like a hawk on a spring chicken. When do you want +to ride her, Marm?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m afraid I shouldn’t he permitted,” said Virginia, +speaking to Ellen in an undertone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’d like to know who’s a going to stop you when Eunice +Hurd says it’s got to be done, or while Josh Hurd takes +care of the hosses? Jest give the order, and I’ll have her +saddle on in no time. Now do, I want to see this animal +on the road dreadfully!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will think of it, Joshua; thank you very much—another +day will do. Are you sure, old friend, that my—that +Mr. Lander bought that horse for me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m sure he bought it for his own child, and jest as +sartin that the other one never will ride her. I’d drive a +nail under her huff if she was to ask for her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But why, Joshua, if you recognize her as the mistress +of this place?” asked Ellen, very quietly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Because I aint a heathen, neither am I a justice of the +peace. What belongs to hosses I know all about, and will +stand up to like a sojer; but property belongs to the courts; +I may feel bad to see things going on so, but it’s none of +my business. Besides I couldn’t go agin my—my old mistress; +what she says is right. I’m bound to say is right so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span>long as Eunice don’t go agin it. But bosses is bosses, and +no one touches this white beauty but you, Miss; you may +depend on that as sure as your life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua rode off after this speech, scattering the gravel +right and left as he went.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That looks well,” said Ellen, turning to her mistress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It proves that I have one humble friend that I did not +count on,” answered Virginia. “Now for the woods—I +long to be in action. Can you climb, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Me!” said the hunchback, looking mournfully down on +her person.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! forgive me, dear; I am in such spirits to-day, that +I talk at random.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can pick up chestnuts as fast as any one,” answered +Ellen, laughing. “I can run too—come along.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXVII.<br> <span class='c011'>TELLING WHAT VIRGINIA AND ELLEN FOUND WHILE LOOKING FOR CHESTNUTS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Virginia and Ellen had reached the edge of the woods, +and ran like children down a footpath which led to the little +log cabin. On the other side of the bridge stood a huge +chestnut tree, heavy with brown burs, opened like stars by +the frost. Some of its branches overhung the bridge, +which was now bereft of all its ear-jewels and asters, which +had perished long ago with the first cold turn. But quantities +of ferns clung about its arches yet, shedding that delicate +perfume on the air which is only exhaled after a frost +has revelled among their long feathery leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and Ellen ran along the bridge, laughing joyously +as the chestnuts rattled over their heads. Virginia +<span class='pageno' id='Page_342'>342</span>gathered up the skirt of her black dress and began to pick +up the nuts, sweeping the beautiful leaves away with her +hand as she searched for them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Ellen, I remember doing this so often, when Cora +and I were little girls. She was wild as a bird then, and I +loved her—you have no idea how I did love her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen drew close to her mistress, and, holding out her +skirt, exhibited the nuts she had gathered about the +bridge.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So many!” exclaimed her mistress. “Why, Ellen, +you beat me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come to the bridge, they lie thick among the fern +leaves.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia left her place and ran down to the bridge, over +which a great gnarled branch stretched itself horizontally, +bristling all over with burs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I had a club, or something to beat them down with,” +she cried out, “what quantities we might gather. Stay, I +can climb up the sides of the bridge and shake the bough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Pray, let me do that for you, Miss Lander,” said a +voice from the log cabin. “You would stand a fair chance +of being thrown into the brook.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia started, dropped down from the side of the +bridge, up which she was clambering, and stood looking at +the cabin window thoroughly abashed. Who was there? +What man had been listening to them?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Forgive me, I did not intend to listen,” said Clarence +Brooks, coming through the door, “but really it is dangerous, +Miss Lander, and I must be permitted to help you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia guessed who it was, and make an effort to resume +her tranquillity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are not so angry at this intrusion that you will +not bid me good morning, I hope?” he continued, gaily. +“If so, I shall regret my good fortune in seeing you again +so soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span>He paused all at once, and stood on the bridge regarding +the young girl with a puzzled look. Virginia dropped the +skirt of her dress and allowed the chestnuts to rattle over +the bridge.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think—I fancy perhaps—that you have mistaken me +for my cousin,” she said, advancing toward him with her +hand extended. “If it is Mr. Clarence Brooks, this is the +first time that we have met.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I beg ten thousand pardons, Miss Lander, but the +resemblance is so—so very remarkable—yet when I look on +your face there is a difference, which one feels rather than +sees. Now that I have been so careless or so rude as to +force myself upon you, pray let me attack this great bough. +It would have proved too tough for a lady’s management, +believe me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks sprang upon the parapet of the bridge, and +seizing the huge chestnut branch, shook it with so much +vigor that a storm of nuts came rattling over the bridge +and splashed into the brook on either side. Here the wavelets +seized upon them and went dancing on their way, +laughing, chasing, jostling each other and sending out a +ripple of music all the while.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girls darted back and forth, picking up the nuts in +wild glee. Virginia, all careless of the effect, gathered up +her skirt again and dropped nut after nut into it with joyous +rapidity. The frills of her white underskirt fluttered +around her daintily clad feet, relieving the general gloom +of her dress. Her straw hat, with its knots and streamers +of black ribbon, had fallen off, exposing a head of hair that +would have driven Titian wild with a wish to paint it +exactly as it was done up in a sumptuous coil back of the +head, and rippling in wavy folds away from the forehead. +There certainly was feminine grace and pure guilelessness +in this girl, which Cora never, in her most amiable moments, +could hope to possess.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>“<i>She</i> is what Lander describes. They are alike, yet how +unlike,” thought Clarence Brooks as he grappled the bough, +for another hard shake. “The heiress has dash, brilliancy, +self-possession, but this girl is pure, womanly. How could +Lander be so blind? Even a father’s partiality must have +seen the difference.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>As this thought flashed through his mind, Virginia +looked up and laughed; the supply of nuts was nearly exhausted +on the bridge, but overhead yawned hundreds on +hundreds of great clustering burs, to which the ripe fruit +clung in rich abundance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Mr. Brooks, they are getting scarce down here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The voice was cut short by a tornado rushing over the +great chestnut bough, and such a storm of nuts came +pattering around her that she cried out for mercy, as well +as she could for laughter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Down he sprang from the side of the bridge and began +scattering the gorgeous drifts of ripe leaves about with his +hands, shaking out the nuts and filling Virginia’s skirt +with such perseverance that she soon began to feel +oppressed by the weight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come this way and empty your nuts on the cabin floor; +we must not leave these for the squirrels,” said Brooks. +“Take my arm and I will help you up this rough slope. +Here we are, with room enough for a dozen bushels. +There, now you are free to begin again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia laughed and dusted her hands, knocking the +rosy palms together in childish glee.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What a quantity! and we so little time about it! Why +the old monster must have bushels and bushels on its +upper branches. Would you believe it, Mr. Brooks, we +used to climb ever so high in that chestnut tree when we +were girls. It was great fun, I can tell you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Suppose I climb it now?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, if you like it; I’m sure there is no danger. But +where is Ellen?—we have run away from her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span>Brooks leaned out of the window.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” he said, “she is down among the fern leaves. +What a strange little creature it is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sir,” answered Virginia, “she is an angel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shouldn’t exactly look for an angel in that form.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you would. Her face is splendid when she thinks +brightly or feels deeply. To me, that girl is beautiful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Love makes all things beautiful. It even made your +uncle think his daughter more lovely than his niece.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The light went out of Virginia’s face instantaneously, +and her eyes filled with a rush of tears, so sudden and +impetuous that they startled even his composed nature.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, he never did. I beg pardon, Mr. Brooks, but +upon this subject I am a little sensitive.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He saw that she was trembling all over in the sharp +struggle she was making against her tears. Just then +Ellen came up to the cabin with her contribution of nuts. +She saw that Virginia had been crying, and guessed the +cause.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Please not to speak with her about—about Mr. Lander; +it breaks her heart to hear him mentioned,” she said, in a +low voice, that sounded severe to the man, who was feeling +like a culprit. But instantly her voice changed—she +poured her nuts into the general pile and called out cheerfully:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There’s plenty more, Miss Lander; the fern leaves +under the bridge are thick with them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia leaned out of the window to hide her tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will gather no more,” she said; “the childish spirit +has left me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have I driven it away?” said Brooks, leaning against +the window-frame, really troubled. “If so, sweet lady, one +sob from those lips has been punishment enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She drew her head in from the window and met his look +with a smile which made the tears flash as if they had +leaped up from her heart perfect diamonds.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>“I am very foolish, and should ask your forgiveness. +Now, if you have the nerve for a climb, which is an undertaking, +I can tell you from experience, Ellen and I will do +the work below—won’t we, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed we will,” answered the hunchback.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks caught a glimpse of her face as she spoke, and +admitted in his mind that it was one not easily forgotten, +for never in this world did spirit master the material more +thoroughly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come then,” he said, throwing himself down the acclivity +which lifted the cabin from the bridge. “Now give one +leap, and I will help you down.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen came forward first, looked him steadily in the eyes +a moment, and said, gently:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I can trust you,” and sprang into his outstretched +arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia hesitated one instant, but made her leap, and +for one instant the strong man held her in his arms. It +was but an instant—still the blood thrilled in his veins and +his heart gave a bound that startled him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now,” he said, dashing over the bridge, “let us go to +work in earnest. I never went a chestnuting before in my +life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nor I,” said Ellen, kneeling down among the leaves, +“but it is pleasant, <i>so</i> pleasant!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed it <i>is</i>,” he answered, “I shall never forget this +day. It is like working out a dream.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Or a fate,” muttered Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia leaned against the great, rough trunk of the +chestnut, and watched Brooks as he swung himself upward +from one huge limb to another. Her father had done the +same thing for her hundreds of times in his younger days, +but she had never looked upon the process with anything +like terror till then. Was it that she had grown older and +understood the peril as she had never done before? Before +<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>he reached the topmost boughs she was pale as death, and +stood trembling at the root of the tree like a frightened +child.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, come down, come down, there is peril in it!” she +cried out when a limb swayed and cracked under his feet. +But he had swung himself out of danger and sent back a +laugh from among the leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Keep from under,” he called out, “for now comes the +deluge.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and Ellen ran down under the bridge and +waited among the ferns. Directly it seemed as if a hailstorm +were rattling over them heads; now and then a nut +dropped down to their hiding-place and rolled into the +brook.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Once—twice—three times, and I am coming down to +help pick them up,” called out a voice high in the chestnut.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear me, how high he is!” exclaimed Ellen, shading +her eyes with one hand. “The limb he stands on bends +like a whip-stick. I wish he would come down!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ask him! oh, ask him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s hand trembled as she seized Ellen by the arm. +Her voice was low and hoarse. How could she have +tempted a fellow creature into such peril?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Call to him, Ellen! Why don’t you call, when I ask +you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is coming down, dear lady. There is no danger +now. This is the fourth volley of nuts. How fast he comes—don’t +you hear the leaves rustle? There, he has swung +himself on to the side of the bridge and is looking down at +us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you sure—are you quite sure?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Look up and see.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia lifted her eyes and saw the head of Clarence +Brooks, splendid with excitement, bending over the arch.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come and see how thickly the earth is covered with +them—or shall I jump down there and rest awhile?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>He swung himself over an end of the bridge, and with a +leap landed in the bed of ferns.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, how pleasant it is,” he said, lifting the light hat +from his head and allowing the wind to sweep over it. +“The air is more bland than spring time. If this is what +you Americans call chestnuting, I would not mind gathering +nuts forever. What do you say to that, little lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He spoke to Ellen, who had fixed her large eyes on him +in undisguised admiration. She laughed and said that +hour in the woods had been like Heaven to her. But she +crept away as she spoke, and going down to the brook, +walked a little distance up its bank, apparently enticed +by its murmurs. She did not go out of sight, but the +young couple were not the less isolated. Yet they both felt +themselves alone, and possibly it was a consciousness of +this fact which kept them so silent. But the silence itself +was full of exquisite pleasure. He sat by her side, pulling +up tufts of the frostbitten ferns and flinging them lazily +into the brook, which laughed, and sparkled and carried +them away, as it had before rippled off with the chestnuts. +She was thoughtful and dreamy, but tranquil as a breath +of Heaven. It seemed as if she had known that man all +her life—as if she were stronger, wiser, infinitely better, +when he was by her side. She, too, began to tear the fern +leaves up by the root and cast them after his. Sometimes +the leaves united and floated off together, mingling so +closely that all proprietorship was lost. Then these two +people, so lately thrown together, would look at each other +and smile as if some mutual hope had been fulfilled in the +companionship of those dim leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why would you not come and see me when I inquired +for you?” he asked at last, struck by a sudden thought.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do not ask me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia spoke in a low voice, but it was serious as death, +and he could not press a subject that had begun to trouble +him.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>“But you will not refuse yourself to me again?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, up yonder I must.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And why? Have I been unfortunate enough to have +offended you unseen? Have I an enemy?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, it is not that. On the contrary, I never heard +anything that was not good of you; never had a thought +of you that was not pleasant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you have thought of me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh yes, with <i>him</i>, you know, I could not help it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I was in good hands. Your uncle thought far +better of me than I deserved, but charity was in his +nature.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia was silent; she could not speak of the dead as +her uncle. Then Brooks spoke again:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you have not told me why you will refuse my +visits.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will you not accept the fact without explanation?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She turned her eyes on his face with a look of such entreaty +that he had no heart to press her farther. But she +seemed to have formed a sudden resolution, and spoke +again, more frankly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My cousin and I are not good friends—I cannot meet +any one with her on equal terms or without pain.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks grew thoughtful. He would not ask +any explanation of the estrangement she spoke of; but the +fact of its existence struck him unpleasantly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But she spoke so affectionately of you,” he said at last.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia looked up wistfully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did she?” was all her lips uttered, but there was +deeper meaning in those eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Her father always spoke of his daughter as royal in +her generosity.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir, you do not understand—you never will understand!” +the poor girl cried out in her anguish.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I can understand, dear young lady, that you at least +are blameless, let the cause of this trouble be what it may.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>“I am blameless, do believe that—neither in thought, +word or deed have I ever wronged my cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You tremble. This agitation will hurt you, Miss Lander. +As her father’s friend, I may have some personal +influence with your cousin. Be sure it shall be used in +your behalf.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No—no, I beseech you, sir, as his friend, I beseech you +not to intercede for me or even speak of me to her. Our +difficulty is one which never can be reconciled by human +means, I solemnly think. Let it alone, sir—let it alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“On one condition, I will. If you ever discover a way +in which I can interfere with any hope of success, call on +me. Promise this, and I will be silent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do promise it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“With all your heart?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“With all my heart and soul.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then it is a compact.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” she answered, smiling sadly enough, “it is a +compact.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I must see you again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not know how,” she answered, drearily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I must and will, unless you hate me for this first +rude intrusion.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hate you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her eyes opened wide at the idea. She reached out her +hand, then drew it back, blushing red, and strove to conceal +the action by tearing up a little wild vine that grew by the +stone on which she sat, fiercely as if it had done her some +harm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks smiled. He had gathered up some +experience of the better sort of women in his lifetime, and +understood an innocent impulse better than most men. He +took the hand quietly which she had withdrawn, and +pressed his lips upon it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Think of me kindly, at least,” he said, with more tenderness +<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>in his voice than he was conscious of. “Heaven +knows, I shall think of you often enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia arose.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are weary, you will gather no more nuts to-day?” +said Brooks, reluctant to part with her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to-day,” she answered. “Some other time, perhaps. +They are safe in the cabin; no one ever comes there +in these days.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But to-morrow?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, to-morrow we will come,” she answered, with shy +frankness. “I shall be glad to see you again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No one shall gather our harvest of nuts. Meantime I +take it on myself to guard this part of the woods till you +come again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen saw that they were both standing, and came up +from the brook side.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you going, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Remember Miss Nolan, you are to help finish our work +to-morrow. We have a large crop to gather in, and must +commence early—say just after dinner.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If Miss Lander pleases, I shall like it; one so enjoys +running wild in the woods,” answered Ellen, brightening +all over. “See what a color it has given the lady!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It is true Virginia’s cheeks wore a rich flush. This idea +of another day’s meeting had set her heart in a pleasant +tumult, and every pulse sent up a glow of wild roses to her +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I hope it will be a pleasant morning,” she said. “Now +good-bye till we meet again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks walked with them till they reached the edge of +the woods. Then, seeing a look of anxiety on Virginia’s +face, he lifted his hat and returned along the footpath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When they were alone, Virginia turned and looked +earnestly at Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have we done right? Was it well to encourage this +gentleman in all his kind attentions as I have done?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>“Lady, I think it is right. He was your father’s fiend. +It was certainly his wish that you should know each other. +Nothing could be more clearly expressed than that was in +the letter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is strange, I cannot lose my identity for a moment, +but he looks upon me as the niece my father mentions +with such wonderful sagacity. I wonder how he came to +understand her so well? How I trusted her then! how I +loved her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She fascinates all who meet her for the first time,” said +Ellen, drily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you think he is pleased with her?” asked Virginia, +in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At first—yes. The glowing affection expressed in that +letter being applied, as he thinks, to her, will draw him +toward her. She is beautiful, has many accomplishments, +converses well, and, worse than all, has a triumphant sense +of success. This may please him for a time, but he is no +common man, lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed I think so, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“His keen penetration will not long be at fault; the +true nature of your cousin will sooner or latter appear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sooner or later—sooner or later. Oh! there lies the +danger. What if he too were shipwrecked? He speaks +of having influence with her already.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear lady, can you trust nothing to this gentleman’s +penetration? Can you trust nothing to our God?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But we do fall victims to craft and wickedness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“For a time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Ellen, I never felt my helplessness or the wrong +that has been done me as I do now. This man was my +father’s friend.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will be yours. The high nature must assert +itself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At any rate, I am powerless as a child. Were I to tell +<span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>him the truth he would not believe me against a mother’s +assertion. Then the very distrust that my father expressed +of her, will, in this gentleman’s mind, apply to me. Oh! +Ellen, is it not terrible that, in defrauding me, that +wretched girl should find the power to make me responsible +for all the wrong acts of her own life. It is I who abandoned +my benefactor and left him to perish, while saving +myself! It is I who attempted to claim the patrimony of +his child! These thoughts are driving me mad. In wresting +away my fortune, she has left me a burden of reproach. +This is how I am placed. Never was a poor girl so fearfully +beset. If I dared to take fate in my own hands, to +change my name and escape from all this, life might become +endurable again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet, lady. Do not abandon the home which is by +right yours, while it can be held with self-respect. My +father used to say that difficulties change or disappear when +firmly met. We have but to watch and be ready when God +opens the path for us. When everything seems dark and +you are afraid to move in the gloom, rest quietly and be +hopeful. There will be a break in the clouds somewhere, +and light must shine through. This was my father’s +method of reasoning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True, Ellen, but he went down with that burning +wreck.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it. There was a glorious opening in the clouds +that beset his path. He lacks no enlightenment now. He +believed then that God’s justice was eternal; he knows it +now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The two girls had been walking slowly with downcast +eyes, not heeding the surrounding objects, but they both +started when a horse came sweeping down the carriage +road, and the skirt of a long riding-habit flaunted by.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXVIII.<br> <span class='c011'>BREAKING IN THE BLACK HORSE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander curbed in her black horse and called out, +with radiant good humor:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, out walking? What a glorious day it is! But +what has become of you, cousin? I missed you at dinner +yesterday and at breakfast this morning. Do be a little +more sociable—I so long to hear you sing again. So, so, +Blackbird!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The horse was purposely rendered restive by a tight curb, +and was tossing his lovely head impatiently, while the +gravel flew from under his hoofs.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Which way have you been?” she inquired, slackening +the curb.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Into the woods,” answered Virginia, gravely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Into the woods—why that is a long walk.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We did not think it so when we were children together.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora curbed her horse sharply again. He reared to his +hind feet, shaking his head and arching his neck till the +jet black mane streamed on the wind; then, seizing the bit +in his teeth, he dashed away, plunging forward like a +prairie horse in the lasso.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, he will hurl her from the saddle! Great Heavens, +how he plunges!” exclaimed Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, he won’t—she wasn’t born to be killed by a critter +like that, I answer for it,” broke in Joshua Hurd, coming +upon them from behind a thicket of almost leafless rose +bushes. “Never you fear about her; she’s got grit enough +for that animal. Look at her now. Golly, ain’t she a clipper?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had turned her horse off the road and was riding +him furiously over the lawn, lashing out with her whip and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>beating his side with her heel till the foam flew over his +chest like massed snow flakes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She’s a darned sight more likely to <a id='t355'></a>kill the hoss than +he is to throw her. Consarn the critter! don’t she know +the natur of a dumb beast better than that! Why, you +should see this identical animal in the stable, he’s playful +as a kitten. Snowball herself ain’t playfuller.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That instant Cora flashed by them like a comet; her hat +had been blown from her head; her face flushed with wild +excitement. She took a swift circuit on the lawn and +reined up the quivering beast upon the carriage road again, +drooping and panic-stricken.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua Hurd, come take this brute,” she cried, leaping +from the saddle. “I think by this time he begins to know +who his mistress is—I’ll teach him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He’s teached a ready, marm,” answered Joshua, catching +the bridle she flung to him. “But we hain’t got a +feller in the stables as could find it in his heart to treat a +critter so, if he was ever so contrary.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are not pleased, Joshua Hurd?” she cried, turning +sharply upon him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I ain’t!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you can call up at the house and get your wages; +I keep neither refractory men nor beasts in my employ.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes you do. ’Cause I’m ’fractory as all possessed. +Ask Eunice, if you don’t believe it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She flashed a fierce, baffled look upon the man, and biting +her lips till they turned white under her teeth, she struck +the skirt of her riding-habit five or six times fiercely with +her whip, as if that allayed her fiery resentment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go back to your lair in the stables, I will attend to +you,” she said, trembling with passion or dread, for it galled +her that Virginia should hear this. “While I am mistress +of this establishment, those who receive my money must be +obedient and respectful.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>Joshua drew close to her, grasping his oilskin cap in one +hand fiercely as she held the whip. He trod upon her +skirt, thus holding her prisoner with his feet, and placed +his mouth close to her ear. What he said no one but herself +could tell, but she turned ghostly white and attempted +to step back, but his heavy shoes were planted so firmly on +her skirt that she was held face to face with him till the +twinkle in his small eyes drove her frantic.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Stand off my dress, sir, and begone, or I shall forget +myself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The whip quivered in her hand, specks of foam flew from, +her white lips. She seemed absolutely about to strike him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua kept his position just long enough to provoke her +beyond bearing, then moved away, muttering as he went, +and leading the horse loosely by its bridle. Cora watched +him with flashing eyes until he disappeared behind the +stables—then she turned upon Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I suppose you envy me this pleasant position,” she said, +with a sneer in her voice. “Give me joy of the happiness; +it brings! There is not a servant about the house your +mother has not spoiled.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The quiet contempt with which Virginia heard this was +just visible in her face; but she said nothing, merely passing +her cousin in silence. Cora followed her, still fiercely +grasping the whip and dragging her long skirt over the +crisp grass, stirring up a little winrow of red leaves as she +moved.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have put him up to this,” she said; “your underhand +cunning is demoralizing my servants.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have the goodness to take your hand from my +shoulder,” answered Virginia, in her clear, low voice. “If +you will usurp a lady’s place, at least attempt something of +her good manners.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora’s hand dropped as if an arrow had pierced it. The +calm dignity of this rebuke struck her dumb. Long before +<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>her usual audacity came back, Virginia and Ellen had +entered the house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was standing mute and angry as her cousin had +left her, when a servant, coming up from the post-office, +gave her a letter. It was from Seymour; she knew the +writing at once, but held it in her hand a full minute +unopened. In the days of her eager courtship, she would +have torn the envelope into shreds in order to seize upon +the precious words it covered. But now she pulled it open +at the ends bit by bit, hesitating as if the act were a task +she had rather not perform.</p> + +<p class='c013'>One of the gardeners came loitering that way as she was +slowly opening her letter. So she thrust it into the corsage +of her habit, and gathering up the heavy folds of cloth +falling about her feet, hurried to the house and into her +own room. Here she cast off her riding-dress, flung it in a +heap on the carpet, and locked the door with great caution. +Even then she did not read her letter, but pushed back her +hair before the glass and put on a fanciful loose-dress of +white alpaca, brightened with bows of lilac ribbon—for +Mrs. Lander was right, she had begun to soften the rigor +of her first mourning to a considerable extent.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a lovely tint,” she decided as the ribbons fluttered +around her; “I will venture on it to-morrow!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last she sat down on a lounge, drew her feet up under +the snowy dress, arranged a cushion back of her head and +took the letter from her bosom, where it had been lying +close to her heart without stirring a pulse there. This was +the letter she read:</p> + +<p class='c012'>“<span class='sc'>My Darling</span>:—Oh, that some dearer and sweeter +word might be found which could leap from my heart to +yours, carrying with it some faint idea of the love that fills +my being. I long for a new language of the heart which +can at once thank you for the happiness I have known and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>the hopes which live in my heart continually as fire once +kindled on a vestal altar never goes out. Do believe it, my +wife, you are the first woman I ever loved, the only woman +on this earth that I ever can love. The happiness you have +given me makes me so restless in my absence that I sometimes +grow desperate and resolve to come back at once. +But I cannot, I cannot. It is necessary that my original +idea should be carried out. My health is a little better, +and the invigorating air of these vast prairies brings spirit +and life back to my frame. Unless you send for me and +command me to come back—unless you say that this separation +makes you wretched as I am, my reluctant face will +be turned westward till I reach the Rocky Mountains.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do I wish this, or do I dread it? Both, my beloved. +The message which says that my love is necessary +to your happy existence would bring me to your side though +death itself lay in wait for me there. But it is better—far +better that I should go forward; therefore I dread the +sweet temptation which would lie in your recall. Do not +be unhappy, love—yet I would not like to think of you as +content, or really capable of enjoyment, now that I am +away from you. This is egotism, and I know it; but such +egotism springs out of a soul that would sacrifice itself a +thousand times over rather than give you an hour’s pain.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you love me after this fashion, my wife? Sometimes +I ask this question aloud in the depths of the night, +with nothing but a thin canvas between me and the arch of +Heaven; for then a yearning desire seizes me to read your +soul and know, of a certainty, that it answers mine in all +the sweetness and depths of its requirements. But nothing +answers me, not even my own intelligence. I would +give the world, if it were mine, to have this question put at +rest in my heart. Cora, I would live for you in any stage +of poverty and never feel it a sacrifice to be poor or lowly +for your sake. I would die for you, my wife, if that were +<span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>needful to your comfort or your happiness. To die <i>with</i> +you, my beloved, would make death sweet to me. Can anything +ever part us, my wife? My wife! that is the holiest +and sweetest word that I know of in any language. I +think this over sometimes and wonder that I am so blessed, +that you could have chosen me, given yourself to me with +such generous inconsideration. I was not worthy of you; +I had neither position, wealth nor any of the great advantages +which make you the ornament and glory of social +life. But if love is a merit—if capacities of affection can +make a man worthy, then am I fairly matched, even with +my peerless wife. No other man living—or that will ever +live—could have loved her more devotedly. Believe that, +oh! do believe it; let what will come in the hereafter, there +is not a pulse of my heart that is not yours. What I am, +good or bad, this great love has made me. Have I no other +object in life? you will ask. I answer, none. From +the first hour that I saw you in that beautiful Italian sunset, +like a lost angel searching for its fellows, my life had +no hope or thought stronger than that one keen wish to see +you again. I left study and ambition to those unhappy +men who had not seen a woman like you capable of absorbing +a whole life and making these things as nothing. +I took you into my thoughts and brightened them with +your goodness, your genius and your beauty—for you are +beautiful, my wife, so beautiful that I close any eyes at +night, and, folding your image in my heart, wonder if the +angels are more lovely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yesterday I took the tress of hair that you gave me +from my bosom for the first time. I had not the courage +to look at it before. Did you know that it was tangled in +with a ring of gold, a plain hoop like the marriage ring I +gave you, with the date of our wedding day? Was it +really that ring? or another, by which you thought to +remind me of an event I could no more forget than a happy +<span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>spirit can forget when the gates of Paradise opened for +him?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the ring troubled me a little. It had become so +tangled in the hair that I was compelled to use some force +before it was extricated. It was a singular idea, wasn’t it, +darling? but it seemed to me as if even that light force +was hurting you. I had not injured the tress, which now +lies in a coil of dusky gold in the palm of my hand, bright +and silky as when it was shorn from your head—that head +which rested on my bosom with all its wealth of hair +thrown abroad that I might cut the richest tress. Oh! my +beloved! my beloved! shall we ever meet again? Can +any calamity tear you from me? What if you were to +die? What folly! Hebe herself never had fresher roses +or more perfect health. What if the very intensity of my +love should weary you?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is how I torture myself with questions. I know +they are absurd, that devotion like yours should meet with +perfect trust. But there is something in my bosom that +will torment me forever and ever, I fear—a sense of +unworthiness—a dread that some time you will discover to +how many faults a most generous love has blinded you. I +wish you had not left that ring so knotted up with the lock +of hair. If it was our wedding ring, you should have kept +it sacredly on the finger where I placed it, swearing to be +faithful, solemnly promising my God to strive hard and lift +my imperfect nature up to yours. It was in this way I +circled your finger with that gold, my beloved. Is it possible +that you have cast it back upon me?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I met a company on the Plains, going forward to the +new Territory of Montana. They are full of hope and +eager for enterprise. The mines there are said to be wonderfully +rich. How I wish the great wealth you possess +had fallen to your cousin, and that you were penniless as I +first thought you. Then we would go together into this +<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>new country and I would work for you, think for you, gather +up wealth which should be doubly ours, because the energies +of affection had won it from the earth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What scope and purpose there would be for our energies +in this new world. How completely we should live out our +youth to ourselves and by ourselves. Say, Cora, is not this +possible? Sometimes I have thought that the possession +of so much property has cast shadows of care over you +which seem unnatural. Is it so, my angel? I would to +Heaven you could say yes, and cast the burden of all this +money aside. It oppresses me and shames my manhood to +feel the overpowering weight of another man’s money +choking up all aspirations for well-earned success. Cora, +Cora, if we had never given undue value to riches how +happy we might have been—you and I in the mountains of +Montana! I have been looking my past life in the face, +dearest, and wonder that the possession of money should +ever have been important to me. I think of our life in +that exquisite little house which your taste made so beautiful, +and ask myself if a log cabin in some western nook, +with morning glories running up to the eaves and wild +roses in front, would not have witnessed a happiness as +sweet and pure as that we knew there. Love like ours +needs no luxurious accessories to make it perfect.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My wife, if I possessed the whole world, and you +wished me to give it up that your happiness might be more +complete, I would do it. Will you give up this property, +which somehow seems at times to weigh you down, and go +with me into a new existence beyond the mountains? I +ask it in all seriousness. What has this wealth done for +us? Shadowed our first union with secrecy—a delicious +secrecy, it is true, which had something of Heaven in it, +but which is sure to detract from the dignity of a pure love. +Sooner or later, we shall wish that our marriage had been +open as the day.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>“Why will my pen refuse to quit the paper? Because +it is writing to you, my wife, and finds the thoughts that +turn to you inexhaustible. But you will weary of me, and +I force myself to say good-night.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you thinking of me now, as I think of you, with a +yearning tenderness that fills the eyes with tears? Good-night, +my bride—good-night, my dear, dear wife!</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Alfred N. Seymour.</span>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>She read this letter stretched luxuriously on that couch, +with the lilac ribbons fluttering around her, and her foot +dropping in and out of the kid slipper into which she had +thrust it after taking off her riding-boots. She was not +much affected by the reading. The impassioned language +sometimes brought a gleam of gratification to her face, and +she more than once muttered, “Poor fellow—poor fellow! +how he does love me!” But when she reached the latter +part of the epistle, her face utterly changed—a cloud came +upon her forehead which deepened and deepened as she +went on, till she laughed out in her scorn.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s splendid! So he really tired of my pretty box, +as I did. That <i>is</i> delicious! He would have preferred a +log cabin with morning glories. Well, I’m not sure about +it. A grand passion might last three or four weeks longer +perhaps, in a breezy new country, with plenty of wild game, +and so on. I did rather overdo the thing, but no one can +say that it was not regally done. I wish somebody would +buy up the whole affair at half-price, I really am afraid it +was a failure.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She read on after this, and came to the proposal about +Montana, which brought a storm of scornful wrath to her +face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, I! I, Cora Lander, with money enough to purchase +all Montana—with this form and face, bury myself +in the gold mountains, fling away what I have and trust to +<span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span>chance and his energies for getting more! Why, the +idiot! He really has not the capacity I gave him credit +for; I should make a pretty figure in the gold regions. So +that is the length and breath of his ambition. I am glad +he enlightened me in time. Secrecy, indeed! That becomes +more and more important to me every day. What +fools women do make of themselves while the first grand +passion lasts! I wonder if I ever shall be really in love.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman started as this question sprang to her lips. +It had been coiling in her heart like a viper for many a +day, but she was shocked at herself when it crept forth and +shaped itself so repulsively.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I must answer this letter,” she said, turning the +key of her desk upon it. “That will be a safe way of +keeping his face westward. I wish he would go on to that +gold country; it would be spring before he could come +back. Yet after all, I should rather like to see him. It is +something in a woman’s life to be so completely adored. +That Montana business has put me out of sorts, I suppose, +or I should not feel so indifferent. Of course I am fond of +him. There never was a creature so blindly in love as I +was. But one cannot hold to the exaltation of any +feeling forever; I suppose that accounts for it all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Having pacified an easy conscience in this way, Cora +turned her thoughts on the scene which she had just gone +through in the grounds. She remembered the unseemly +passion into which the horse had thrown her, with bitter +humiliation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am mad,” she thought, “to give way in that fashion. +This temper of mine will certainly betray me, while she is +cool and crafty enough to take advantage of it. But it +really is hard to keep up such a reputation as the creature, +somehow or other, managed to get for munificence, +amiability and so on. Then they all were really kind to +me, and I cannot order her out of the house without betraying +<span class='pageno' id='Page_364'>364</span>the contrast. She never would have whipped that +horse so. It was well they were my only audience. Then +that brute of a man—it is clear that both he and that red-haired +virago know more than I dreamed of. Can any +intelligence they have shake my mother’s evidence? There +again what a fool I was to refuse money for her eternal shopping! +After all, conciliation is the only safe course. But +so many secrets irritate the best of tempers, and I am +afraid mine isn’t quite that. I will have a little talk with +this Eunice; as I cannot get rid of her, she must be +appeased.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora rang the bell and gave orders that Miss Hurd, +the housekeeper, should come to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice was informed of the exact words in which this +message was given, and gave her head a proportionate lift in +the air as she marched up to obey the summons.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What do you want of me, I’d like to know?” was her +first curt salutation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing very particular, Miss Hurd; but you know I +have been spending a little money down in the city. You +have been in the family a long time?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ever since you was a year old, Miss.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was a point that Cora was anxious to avoid, so she +said, hurriedly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never mind about the exact time; you have been a +faithful housekeeper, and, under a false impression, I was +about to act unjustly by you. In proof that you have forgiven +me, pray, accept this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora took a piece of heavy moire antique from a +drawer and placed it in the housekeeper’s hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice turned the rich material over and let it fall in +glossy folds from her arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now if this isn’t worth while. I never had a right +down new moire antike afore in my life. Well, I don’t +know how to thank you, never was good at thanking people +all my life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>“Never mind that, Miss Hurd, I am glad it pleases you. +Some time next week I will pay your expenses down to the +city, and a person that occasionally makes up things for me +shall fit it for you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I hope she’ll make it long enough to sweep like anything. +It does one good to hear sich silk a rustling and +sweeping along the floor. How many yards may there +be?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, you will find plenty for a long skirt, and to spare. +The dressmaker may trim it prettily, as you like it best; I +wish it to be complete.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice stood with her head on one side, feasting her eyes +on the silk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mercy on me! how do they contrive to catch the lightning +so nateral? It seems to be blazing away all along +the breadths. Well, Miss, I’m much obliged. Gracious! +don’t it glisten!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will secure her brother’s silence,” said Cora, as +Eunice closed the door, but the words were scarcely out of +her mouth when the housekeeper returned and flung the +silk in her lap.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Put it up; I’m not going to take it,” she said, bluntly. +“If either I or Josh hold our tongues, it’s for Eliza Lander’s +sake. It’ll take a stupendouser silk than that to buy us +up, if it is skiltered over with chain lightning. Treat her +well and don’t bear too hard on Amos Lander’s daughter, +and I’ll stand by and grit my teeth while this inikety goes +on, but no silk can buy me up.” While Cora sat dumb +with astonishment, Eunice left the room.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XXXIX.<br> <span class='c011'>THE FISHING PARTY.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora’s motive for trying that black pony on the lawn +was explained the next morning, when Clarence Brooks +came riding up the carriage road on a horse that might +have matched that spirited animal in everything but size. +Before he reached the house, Cora came forth, equipped for +the road and looking bright as the morning. She stood +leaning against one of the marble pillars when Brooks +came up,—the long skirt sweeping far back on the white +pavement and her lithe figure defined by a closely-fitting +habit, to which a profusion of gold buttons gave dash and +character. The tiny cravat about her throat, and piquant +hat curled up at the sides, gave graceful dignity to what +might otherwise have been masculine in this costume. +But now, from the gauntlet gloves on her hands to the +riding whip, mounted with a thick branch of blood-red +coral, her appearance was exquisitely complete.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks must have been less than a man—or more—had +he not checked his horse a little, that he might leisurely +admire that beautiful woman, posed so gracefully against +the marble column. It was a sight which brought the +breath quickly to his lips. She saw it all, the sudden +check, the look of intense admiration, that touch of the +spur which brought the horse so near that she could almost +lay her hand on his neck.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So I find you ready and waiting, five minutes before +the time,” said Brooks, dismounting and looking at his +watch. “What a glorious morning!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Too bright for me to remain indoors one moment after +my habit was on,” she answered. “Oh, here comes my +demon of the stables with Blackbird. I gave him—the +horse, I mean—a trial yesterday on the lawn, and he nearly +mastered me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>“I hope he is not vicious,” said Brooks, casting a sharp +look at the horse.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I think not. After our little encounter, I fancy he +will be gentle enough. Hold him firmly, Mr. Hurd. He +seems in capital condition this morning—does you credit.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She came down to the side of her horse, and lifting one +hand to the saddle, placed her foot in the hand which +Brooks presented to her. In one instant she was seated +and arranging the folds of her skirt.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now,” she said, drawing the curb, for she had no +objection to a second exhibition of the animal’s spirit, so +that it was not too violent. “Now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The horse shook his head, gave a leap, and came into +subjection gracefully after the first minute.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t he a beauty?” she cried. “But I need not ask; +I see by your eyes how much you admire him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If my eyes express so much, I must be careful in your +presence, Miss Lander, or they will tell secrets I would +rather keep to myself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She laughed, blushed a little, and busied herself with +the button of her gauntlet, while her horse struck into an +easy canter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was indeed a glorious day, the softest and brightest of +a long Indian Summer; the scent of ripe leaves and +such flowers as give their best perfume to the frost floated +on the air; great forest trees, blazoned like war banners, +waved above them, and their horses sometimes waded fetlock +deep in the floating leaves, dyed richly as the garments +of an Eastern Satrap. Through these gorgeous woods, up +the sloping hills and along the river, they rode at random. +Wherever a picturesque curve or tempting by-path presented +itself they explored it, conversing seriously or laughing off +the rare exuberance of spirits that a ride so pleasant and a +morning so lovely were sure to produce in two healthy +young people disposed to be pleased with each other. Still +<span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>any one who had observed Brooks closely under the chestnut +tree and on horseback would have seen a difference, too +subtle perhaps for words, but marked and easy of detection +for all that. With the girl riding so masterfully on her +black horse, this man of the world exerted all that was +brilliant and superficial in his character; compliments such +as only very clever men can utter fell easily from his lips. +With Cora he was gay, careless, full of graceful badinage. +He saw that she wished to be admired, and fulfilled all her +desires in that respect to the utmost, no difficult matter +where the woman was so handsome and matched him so +nearly in the character of her wit. With Virginia he had +been no less cheerful, no less gallant—but underlying all +was that impulsive respect and tender sympathy which +draw noble hearts close together. He was playful with her, +but never extravagant; if he felt the general effect of her +great beauty, the feeling was not once expressed in words. +In fact it would have been difficult to define what it was +that distinguished the loveliness of these two girls. +Certainly form or color had but little share in the difference.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Well, that ride through the autumnal beauty of the +woods was a success to be remembered for many a day +after. But Cora was dissatisfied when she laid her hand +on Clarence Brooks’ shoulder, and leaped from her horse on +the marble pavement where she had waited for him that +morning. Again she posed herself against the pillar and +watched that noble figure as horse and man swept out of +sight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will the man never act earnestly? Does he think I +am worth nothing better than the froth and foam of his +mind? Who is he saving the wine for, I wonder? He +trifles with me. Does he think I have no ideas, no feeling? +Seymour at least let me look into his soul. But this man—why +his very carelessness defies me. Such a morning—such +opportunities, and not a word spoken beneath the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>breath or with real seriousness. Yet these careless outflashes +of a superior intellect sicken me with all other +homage. The man shall love me, though it breaks his +heart. He shall love me!” The woman checked herself +an instant and sneered inly at her own wickedness. “Me, +another man’s wife!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She went in then, and, as a panacea for such thoughts, +read over her husband’s letter with the image of a tall, +gray-eyed man on horseback between her and the writer, +shutting out all that wonderful beauty of person which had +enthralled her so only a few months before.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Why did Brooks keep his interview with Virginia a +secret? He told himself that she had requested it, but it +is very doubtful if he would have said a word about it even +if no hint had been given him on the subject. This +encounter in the woods was to him a bit of romance which +would lose its charm if talked over in commonplace words +with any one. He had found the cabin by accident, having +discovered the footpath which Seymour had trodden along +the brook while smoking a cigar on the back porch, to +which his room opened by the door, half sash, half panelling, +which had proved so convenient in another romance +that we know of, but which was so carefully kept out of +sight at this period. Springing over the low railing of the +porch, Brooks had sauntered up the path, smoking as he +went; now and then he stooped to watch the eddies of the +brook and wondered if any of its sparkling pools covered +trout worth the trouble of catching; then he looked upward +into the gorgeous roofing of the trees which let glimpses of +the blue sky in here and there, with stray gleams of sunshine +searching for the rainbows that seemed to have got +entangled in the leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Of course all this threw the man into a certain train of +thought which had both sadness and poetry in it. He +muttered to himself: “The melancholy days have come, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>the saddest of the year.” Then walked on again, thinking +of his friend, whose terrible fate haunted him at such +times, and wondering if he ever should love the young +woman he had seen well enough to make her his wife, for +this had been the romantic wish of the man whom he had +regarded almost as a father. A heavy sigh answered this +question, or rather left it unanswered, for the heart that +sent it forth was disturbed by many doubts in which the +lady was concerned.</p> + +<p class='c013'>For a long time the young man sat down on a curve of +the bank, opposite an elm tree, over which a frost grape-vine +had wound and crept, and thrown itself in such leafiness +that it flung a broken arch across the ravine; along the +drooping boughs long slender clusters hung profusely, with +the frost, that alone ripens them, covering their purple with +its own shimmering bloom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks flung away his cigar and began to sketch this +pretty object on the back of an envelope.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now, if I were an artist, like that young Howe, whose +sketches of bits like this have made the English fellows +look about them in astonishment, this tree with its trailing +fruit and leaves, would make my reputation. It really is +exquisite!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>After working away with his pencil awhile, he became +dissatisfied with his effort, flung the envelope into the +brook and sauntered up the path till the cabin and bridge +came in full view, with the huge old chestnut tree spreading +its boughs over one, and that group of hemlocks embowering +the other.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Upon my word, here is something like rustic taste!” +he exclaimed, in a burst of surprise. “Why the bridge is a +gem; as for the cabin I must explore that; what a fanciful +mockery it is!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The bank was steep and the path rough, but Brooks was +no holiday man to dread a little exertion. So he caught +<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>hold of a branch, lifted himself upward, and reached the +cabin with his breath coming a little quicker from the exertion. +Not three minutes after, Virginia Lander and Ellen +came down the bank and showed themselves under the +chestnut tree.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was the morning that Brooks was contrasting with +his ride that day, as he walked his horse toward the little +hotel.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wonder if they will really care enough about the +chestnuts to think of gathering them,” he thought, when +an early dinner had been disposed of. “At any rate I +may as well take a walk up the ravine. It is a shame to +waste one moment of all this delicious weather indoors.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was no loitering along the path that afternoon. +Even the frost grape-vine, bending the stout tree under its +tendrils, as love bows a strong man, failed to win more than +a passing glance from him. The most beautiful thing, to +him, in the woods was a huge old chestnut tree, bristling +all over with open burs, its enormous limbs stretching far +and wide, and the ground under it thick with long yellow +leaves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He came in sight of this tree, uttered a quick exclamation, +and hurried on. A basket stood on the stone-work of +the bridge, and two girls were busy among the leaves picking +up chestnuts.</p> + +<p class='c013'>I cannot permit any one to say or think one word against +Virginia or Ellen for thus deliberately meeting this gentleman +that afternoon. It was not the careless act of two +thoughtless girls, ready to amuse themselves at any cost, +but a thing they had both considered over and resolved on. +To Virginia, her father’s letter was almost a command. +He expected her to see and like this man, who was his +bosom friend, and this out-door acquaintance was all she +could offer him without openly accepting the false position +given her in that house. That she could not and would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>not do. But chance had thrown this man, whom her father +loved, into her companionship. Without formal introduction, +they had met, conversed, and fallen into cordial relations. +Why should she refuse to see him again? Why +deprive herself of the only happiness that had crossed her +dreary path since that terrible shipwreck? To her there +seemed to be something providential in the accident that +had thrown them together. She felt it a sacred duly to +know and like the man who seemed to come to her with a +message from the dead. Of course Virginia did not understand +the full meaning of that letter as Brooks understood +it. To her those hints and broken sentences, which he +connected with previous conversations, were vague and +might have applied to fifty things of which she was ignorant. +They really made no impression on her mind more +than the rest of the letter. Cora had understood everything +at the first glance, but the purer and better girl +never dreamed that her father had for years selected Clarence +Brooks as her husband.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So there really was nothing unmaidenly in the fact that +she went, deliberately and with throbs of pleasant expectation, +down to the woods that afternoon. She had seen +Brooks riding off with Cora in the morning from her chamber +window, and a strange feeling of sadness came over her +at the sight. It was hard to know that another person was +usurping her place—harder than she had ever felt it before. +Cora’s clear, ringing laugh came back to where she stood as +she rode gaily down the drive. They were splendidly +mated, she could not deny that, and a finer couple could not +have been found within a hundred miles. But her heart +sank and a sense of the wrong done her grew bitter as death +in her bosom. She was restless all that morning, and when +she spoke the tears rushed so close to her eyes that Ellen +grew sad at heart every time she looked up from her +writing.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>So the two girls kept their promise and went down to +the stone bridge, innocent as birds, and came back almost +as happy. Such a day for nutting did not often present +itself, yet so little had been done in reality. There had +been another long conversation among the ferns and a visit +to the frost grape-vine, which Virginia sketched on a bit of +Bristol board taken from her memorandum book, with a +touch and finish that made Brooks doubly ashamed of the +scrap he had thrown away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Would she give it to him? Why, of course, that was +what she had taken it for. Not worth offering, but if he +liked it, she would bring down materials to-morrow and +sketch the bridge and cabin, with that dear old chestnut +tree, just as it was. Some time, perhaps, it would serve to +remind him of her and Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So, in this innocent fashion, a meeting was arranged for +the next day. It took a long time, I must confess, to +gather up all the chestnuts, though the pile in the log +cabin grew larger and larger every day for a full week. +Then work grew rather dull in the woods. The frost +grapes were a resource, but grapes would not last forever, +deliciously ripe as the clusters were, and when they gave +out, what was to be done? Brooks bethought himself of a +pic-nic for three, all the preparations to be left for his superintendence, +and some fishing in the brook the day after, +for he solemnly believed that trout were to be found higher +up the ravine. At any rate, it was worth trying. On +second thought, they would have the fishing first, and after +that the pic-nic; the trout would be so nice cooked by a fire +in the woods, that was, if they caught any. Virginia +scarcely believed that there was trout in the brook. But +then, to be sure, she had been away for so many years that +some change was to be expected.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Well, the next afternoon was devoted to exploring the +brook; poles had been provided, and a case of flies quite +<span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span>enchanted the girls as a matter of high art. So away the +trio went up the banks of the brook, casting out their lines +and dancing the flies about after a fashion that would have +fascinated the most wary trout to his undoing, if any fish +of the kind had taken shelter in those bright waters. But +coquettes without beaus, and artistic flies in a stream which +produces nothing but shiners and pin-fishes, must necessarily +be at a discount. Still it is hard to discourage a man +who in his heart expects nothing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks expressed himself as hopeful that plenty +of trout could be found higher up the stream, and the girls, +having great faith in his judgment, acquiesced. If they +caught nothing at last, it was no fault of his. Besides, a +fine, breezy walk, with bright, ripe leaves showering over +them at every step, was compensation enough for any +fatigue they might have felt. So, after all, the fishing +excursion was not exactly a failure. Indeed, but for the +shame of it, Virginia would have pronounced the whole +affair a brilliant success.</p> + +<p class='c013'>As for Brooks, he went home that night and instead of +going up to the house, where Cora sat ready to charm him +with unlimited music, such music too! he spent the whole +evening alone on that back stoop, so lost in thought that +the cigar went out between his lips, and it was midnight +before he became aware of it.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XL.<br> <span class='c011'>CLARENCE BROOKS TALKS CONFIDENTIALLY TO CORA LANDER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Seymour—we cannot honestly call her Lander, +though others did—had her fit of abstraction also. She +<span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>had been in the drawing room all the evening, anxious, +feverish, indignant. In all those days she had made no +head way with this strange man, Clarence Brooks. Their +morning rides had been bright, cheerful, exhilarating as +ever. He had spent almost every evening in her company, +when she had charmed him with the brilliancy of her music +and fascinated him by her conversation. Still the man’s +heart seemed no nearer to her than ever. She did not +want his admiration, that was not enough, but his whole +being—that intellect which so overmastered her own, compelling +such homage as she had never given to human being +before—the heart, proud, tender, honest. She wanted +absolute power over this man, to enslave him with her love, +tie him down with ten thousand meshes woven by her +crafty mind and burning heart. She cried out to herself +as Cleopatra questioned her handmaid:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did I ever love Seymour like this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her imperious nature answered exultantly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never, never; that was not love. The mad passion of +a mad heart lifted him to my level for a brief time, but had +no power to hold him there. He is coming, I hear his step +on the gravel. No, no, it is the heavy animal, Joshua +Hurd. How I loathe that man! He will not come to-night. +But to-morrow we ride again. How his absence +stings me! I asked him to come—implored him! He +only smiled, but promised nothing!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She walked that spacious room hurriedly up and down, +round and round, like a wild leopardess in its den. Fight +against it as she would, the knowledge that she was a married +woman tortured her. A hoop of diamonds concealed +her wedding ring; even in her waning love some romantic +fancy had induced her to put it’s duplicate with the lock of +hair which she had given her husband when he set forth on +this journey westward—a journey for which she could find +no reason. He was not well, certainly, but that offered no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span>excuse for this prolonged delay. A sort of vague respect +for the sanctity of her marriage vow had kept the ring on +her finger, but this evening she took it off, guard and all, +and, darting through the French window on to the colonnade, +hurled them both into the night with a gesture of +absolute loathing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was ten o’clock now, and there was no hope that +Brooks would come, so her heart leaped forth to the morning, +when she was sure to see him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Once in her own room, she locked the door with an angry +twist of the key, and sat down by her desk with hot red +upon her cheeks and hot fire in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She wrote a letter to Seymour—a harsh, cruel, bitter +epistle—reproaching him for the advantage he had taken +of her youth and inexperience. She told him, in sharp +words, that she did not love him, never had loved him, and +from the depths of her heart hated the idea of ever seeing +him again. “Go,” it said, “go to Montana, to Oregon, to +the Indies, any place where the English language is not +spoken or civilized rites recognized. I will send you money +for this purpose to an unlimited extent, make you rich +enough to satisfy the ambition of any man, but never on +this earth let me hear your voice again, never take the +name of wife, as regards me, between your lips, for I will +perish rather than recognize myself as your wife.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The letter was entirely in this strain. All the disappointment +and venom of a bad heart she threw upon the +paper, blindfold as to its consequences. For the time, the +cunning and craft of her nature were swept away. This +man was an impediment; he had snared her in the first +wild impulses of her youth, and she found a keen pleasure +in hurling defiance at him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The letter once written she treated it like an enemy, +struck its folds down to the table with her clenched hands, +then dropped burning wax upon it, which she stamped +fiercely under a seal ring which he had given her.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>When all this was done, the cold craft which underlaid +the rash passion asserted itself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet,” she muttered, “but it shall be, though it +were like tearing shackles from my wrists with red-hot +pincers. It shall be done, but warily, warily. With gold +and courage I shall find my way out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She closed her desk and locked it, first securing the compartment +in which the letter was placed with a tiny key, +which formed an ornament to her chatelaine.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After this the woman went to bed, and lay awake all +night planning such plans and thinking such thoughts as +take all the youth out of a human life.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks came at his usual hour in the morning. +He was graver than usual, and placed the woman, whose +eyes were fixed upon him with such earnest meaning, in her +saddle without looking in her face. For a time they rode +on in silence. There might have been some cause for this +depression in the heavy air and clouded sky which overshadowed +the beautiful woods and crisp fields with a gloom +which took away half their brilliancy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You seem depressed this morning,” said Cora, reining +her horse up to that on which Clarence Brooks sat, upright +and thoughtful, looking straight before him. “Is it this +dull sky, or has something happened?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is not exactly the sky, though we have ridden under +those that were brighter—nor is it that anything has happened; +but I received a letter this morning which has set +me to thinking of unpleasant subjects.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are they such as a very sincere friend may not share?” +she asked, sweetly. “I am low-spirited enough myself to +sympathize with anything sad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think it is the saddest thing in the world to meet +with ingratitude where one has loved, and treachery in reward +for honest confidence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And is this your case?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span>“I will tell you, Miss Lander, for it is a thing that has +troubled me not a little, and I am in doubt how to act. +You remember something that I told you about my illness +in the East?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I remember every word you ever said to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She spoke impressively and with a slight tremor in her +voice. He turned on his saddle and looked at her earnestly +a moment. She felt the blood rising to her cheeks, and, +with a sudden impulse of that modesty which springs +from genuine feeling, made her horse wheel half round, +thus taking her face out of view.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I remember about the illness, certainly. It was +strange enough to fasten all its details on the mind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will then recollect that I spoke of hearing the +rustle of papers.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes. It was very singular.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Those papers were bills of exchange on America to the +amount of twenty thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Twenty thousand dollars, just that sum?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This was how they happened to be with me in the +East. I had intended to go directly to America, but learning +that your father had come to Europe, changed my +plans and set forward to the Holy Land, without disturbing +the bills of exchange, which I determined to use at a later +period. These bills were taken from my desk when I was +supposed to be dead, by a young man whom I had loved +and trusted as a brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your servant?” questioned Cora, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; I had never in my life considered him in any light +but that of a friend and travelling companion. He was +introduced and recommended to me by a person in whom I +had perfect trust. Handsome, accomplished, genial in his +character, I had no reason to doubt him, though, from his +own confession, he had been a little wild in early youth, +which he seemed to regret sincerely. He was, in fact, a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>petted favorite, and we travelled together as friends; but, +in spite of all that, he abandoned me on what he believed +to be my death-bed, plundering my desk of these bills +before he went.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was an ungrateful act,” said Cora; “an unaccountable +act in the man you describe.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The more so,” answered Brooks, “because he always +had charge of all the money intended for our travelling +expenses, and was never questioned regarding it. That +money was left. Yet there was enough to have tempted +his cupidity.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Can you account for this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In no way but one. From the time we left Italy the +aim and hope of his life seemed to be a voyage to America. +He spoke of it incessantly, and made various efforts to +break up our trip to the East, that we might go earlier than +I proposed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You spoke of being in Italy with this ungrateful man. +In what part?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We were staying at Sarento; I was not well, and liked +the place. He was much at Naples, and spent some time +in the neighborhood of Gaeta, where he met a party of +interesting strangers, some of them American ladies, I +fancy, for after that he became wild to visit that country.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At what period was this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I remember the date well, for I started with him and +went up to Rome in advance. He did not join me till six +weeks after. It was on the first of June, 18—.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora’s horse swerved from the road. She struck him +violently; so violently that he reared and came down with +a force which would have thrown a less firm horsewoman +over his head. Brooks dashed up, and, seizing her bridle +at the curb, brought the horse’s head down upon his chest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you hurt? What started him? Don’t be frightened, +he seems quiet enough now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>She was white as marble, and her eyes were turned away +from him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am neither hurt nor frightened, thank you,” she +answered, in a voice so deep and husky that he could not +believe her words.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am afraid—I am sure you deceive yourself, Miss +Lander. Why there is not a gleam of color in your face!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is nothing. He startled me a little, I confess. It +was the suddenness. One is not prepared for everything, +you know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She laughed a sharp, ringing laugh, that cut to his ear +like an arrow, and turned her white face full upon him, as +if to brave the severest scrutiny.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He shook his head and looked more and more anxious.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This sort of thing makes one a little hysterical, I suppose,” +she said, more quietly, “though I hate to own it. +Come, let us ride on; we are losing the best part of the +morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks loosened his hold on the bridle, and patted the +pony’s neck as he arched it again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He does not seem in the least vicious. What could +have frightened him so?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No matter,” she answered, moving on; “I am not to +be surprised again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They rode on in silence some ten minutes, then she was +the first to speak.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You did not tell me all. Have you ever seen or heard +of this man who robbed you since?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I have seen him twice, and heard news of him +only this morning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, that seems interesting. When was it that you +saw him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some weeks ago. He was in the Central Park, driving +as handsome a pair of chestnut horses as I ever set eyes +on.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>“Alone?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, he was quite alone, and driving himself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And the next time? You see I am getting quite +curious about this handsome culprit. I think you said he +was handsome?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Very. I think, in my whole life, I never saw a more +perfect specimen of physical beauty. He was clever, too, +in a certain way—had a great deal of fanciful taste, and all +the telling accomplishments which take so with ladies. +But, to do him justice, he seemed to regard these things +very little, and rather avoided the popularity they gave him +with the sex.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He must have been a singularly interesting person.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He was; I loved him almost as if he had been my +brother. Even now I find myself making excuses for him. +Some powerful temptation must have possessed him—of +that I am certain.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think you said that you had seen him twice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, but it was under very doubtful circumstances. A +person who had loved and observed him less might have +been deceived. I was not, though he was carefully disguised. +The next morning after seeing him in the Park, I +almost ran against him while entering the bank on which +my letters of credit were drawn.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed! when was that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Just six weeks ago to-morrow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In the morning, did you say?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, not half an hour after the bank opened. He had +just presented a draft and drawn out most of the funds +that he had left on deposit. The date and signature of the +draft and its regular endorsement would have convinced +ordinary observers that he was far away from New York, +but I was sure of my man.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you follow him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; the carriage which brought me was at the door; I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span>got into it at once and kept my friend in sight. He +entered an omnibus, left it and took another, got out and +walked, then suddenly entered a singular house in —— +street, using a latch-key. It must have been his home.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you had him in your power.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I knew where he was, certainly, for I took the number.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And made no use of the knowledge.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How could I? the man had been my friend, I had +aided him, liked him. He had some fine qualities. Was +I to degrade him forever for a few thousand dollars?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are a generous man!” exclaimed Cora with quick +admiration. “It is the grand character, after all, which +wakes up all the homage of one’s nature.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>After her first exclamation, she had spoken like one in a +deep reverie.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There was no great generosity in leaving this man to +his fate. I had no purpose of revenge to gratify.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you have no thought of arresting him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I had, the thing would be easy enough, for I know +where he is at this moment.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A party of my friends are going out to the great +prairies, buffalo hunting. This man joined them at St. +Joseph, in Missouri. They mention him in their letters as +the pleasantest fellow in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you certain it is the same man?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Quite certain; he wears a seal ring that I gave him, +an antique that I got at Thebes, which one of my friends, +who has a fancy for such matters, describes to me minutely. +There is not another ring like it in America. Besides, +there is no mistaking the account he gives of the person. +Then, again, I have reason to believe he went West. +When I was in town searching for a good saddle horse, I +came across the pair of chestnuts that I had admired so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>much in the Park. It was these horses which first drew +my attention to the man. They were at a livery stable; +the keeper of the stable said that he had just received a +letter from their owner, who wrote from the West, ordering +them to be sold and the money transmitted to St. Joseph.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They had been walking their horses while this conversation +was going on, but all at once Cora drew her bridle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you for the story,” she said. “Notwithstanding +your rare magnanimity, the fellow seems but a very commonplace +plunderer after all. Now, I would have gone to +you at once, thrown myself on your mercy and given up all. +But such courage as that belongs to great manliness, and +that the creature never had.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, Miss Lander, he never would have had courage +enough for that, though I cannot exactly see how you +should understand him so well.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why all that you have said proves it, Mr. Brooks. +But we are allowing this very worthless person to abridge +our ride. See, the sun is breaking out. Let us try this +stretch of level road and have a race for it. A pair of +gloves that Blackbird wins!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Away she went, challenging him with a clear, silvery +laugh, that seemed never to have known what a spasm of +the throat meant; but there was what seemed to her an +absolute girdle of iron around her chest when that laugh +broke from it, and nothing but fierce motion kept her from +crying out that this pain was killing her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There,” she said, five minutes after, drawing Blackbird +up so suddenly that he staggered backward on his haunches +with his chest flecked with foam and drops of blood about +the bit, “I have won the gloves. Now let us ride along +like Christians.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She reeled upon her saddle as the last words died on her +lips, and would have fallen, but Brooks pressed his horse +close to hers and supported her with his arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span>“I—I am faint—it was imprudent—let us go home,” she +faltered, leaning her head against him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Rest a moment as you are,” he answered, gently. “I +feared this spirited creature would tire you out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She closed her eyes, and up through all the anguish in +her bosom a soft smile came trembling to those pale lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you better, Miss Lander?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She neither answered nor moved her head, but the smile +died out. His position was an irksome one, and there had +been a shade of impatience in his voice, which she felt +keenly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, thank you, I <i>am</i> better,” she said, after a moment. +“The air is very close—this swift motion has made me +giddy. How far are we from home? I have not noticed +much.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Four or five miles, perhaps. Have you strength to return? +I will ride close to your horse and keep him +steady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you—oh, yes, I shall be able to manage the distance. +If I only had a glass of water now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We passed a house a quarter of a mile back; I will get +you a glass of water there. Come, Blackbird.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora slowly wheeled her horse around, and in a few +minutes reached a little one-story house close by the road. +Here a glass of water was obtained, and after that they returned +home almost in silence. Brooks asked if she felt +better, now and then, with that tender sympathy of manner +which made a strong contrast with his sterner qualities, +and she answered him gratefully, as proud women sometimes +will when doubtful of their power.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When they reached home, Brooks lifted Cora from the +pony, and, throwing an arm around her, almost carried her +into the drawing room. There he placed her in a curve of +one of the broad couches and arranged the cushions for her +to lean against.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_385'>385</span>She accepted these attentions with a wan smile, and +taking his hand as it was withdrawn from the cushions, +held it close between both hers, looking at him with a mute +appeal as if claiming some deeper sympathy than he had +yet given her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall I ring for wine, or anything?” he said. +“Perhaps your aunt had better be called?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“By no means; I am well enough,” she answered, rising +slowly from among the cushions. “You are in haste to +be gone, I see.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not if I can serve you in anything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you cannot; I have only to rid myself of this +heavy dress and lie down awhile. Good morning, and +many thanks. Shall I see you this evening?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall certainly come to inquire after your health.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was gone. Cora ran up stairs, fell upon the bed and +lay there motionless.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLI.<br> <span class='c011'>WOMANLY FASCINATIONS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander lay still a full half hour. No sob stirred +her bosom, not a tear reached the feverish hotness of her +eyes. Her very hands thrown upward above the pillows +were white and still. But for this death in life—this +stupor following suppressed excitement, the woman must +have gone mad or died.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last she started from the bed, threw up the window +and let the cold air blow over her neck and bosom, tearing +her habit open with both hands to give it free course. +There was hail in the air, which fell cold and hard as shot +on her delicate skin. But she received it with a sob of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_386'>386</span>satisfaction. It cooled the fever of her blood. How she +had struggled against herself—how she had endured—it +made her faint to think of it. But she had performed that +awful task bravely. He guessed nothing, dreamed of +nothing that was going on in her heart while they were +talking so quietly. Still he seemed to pity her, thinking +that she suffered only from paltry fright brought on by a +restive horse. What would he have thought or felt had he +known the miserable truth?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he never shall! he never shall!” she exclaimed, +holding fast to the window-sill and leaning out into the +storm. “I will keep the disgrace close as death, secret as +the grave; no human being shall ever know what a fool I +have been. I will break this thing off, crush it under my +feet, tear it out of my life! The villain, the double-dyed +villain! The weak, miserable cheat! Great Heavens! +and I am that man’s wife! His legally wedded wife!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She drew her head in from the window. Beads of hail +lay thickly in her hair and melted on her neck. She shook +with cold now, and threw off her wet habit. Wrapping +herself in a zephyr shawl of soft white wool, she crouched, +like a wild animal, in a corner of a tête-à-tête, and strove +to gather up her thoughts.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall I let him know? Shall I load him with the +scorn and hatred which makes me despise myself? Shall I +forbid him ever to look upon me again? He loves me +madly, more madly than I ever thought possible. It might +drive him to suicide—I think it would. But the letter +found upon him would betray all. I am hampered on +every side. What can I do? How free myself? If I +could see him once, and kill him with words I dare not +write. Yes, that is it—I will do nothing. When he waits +day after day, and receives no letter, this mad love will +bring him back, spite of everything. Then I will see him—oh! +yes, I will see him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_387'>387</span>The cruel scorn that stirred within her broke forth in +words here and lifted that beautiful upper lip from the +white teeth as a wild animal shows its instinct of hate. +She arose from the tête-à-tête, unlocked the desk and took +out the cruel epistle written, to her shame, before the +knowledge of that day came to her; lighting a small lamp +that stood upon her desk, she held this letter over its flame +till it shrivelled up and fell in a shower of black flakes from +her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was a relief to write it,” she muttered. “Oh! how +I wish it were not madness to send it! Sitting still and +doing nothing is the hardest of all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>After this, Cora became more calm, and, huddled in the +soft network of her shawl, held counsel with herself. On +reviewing her position, she found less cause for regret in it +than a first passionate view had revealed. So long as +Clarence Brooks was in the neighborhood of New York, +Seymour would never return unless some overpowering +inducement drew him into a place full of danger. But, +with no letters from her, he might return any day. How +was she to act then? Break him down with the weight of +her own indignation—overwhelm him with scorn—convince +him so thoroughly of her loathing, that he would have no +heart or power ever to seek her again. She remembered +then that the marriage certificate was in her own possession, +and, better still, the name and residence of the clergyman +only known to herself and Alice Ruess, to whom was consigned +the duty of finding him. The cook, Lubin, was not +informed in this matter. Seymour, she remembered now, +had never looked at the certificate.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora thought over all these points with deliberate coolness, +and asked herself how it had happened that all the +proofs of her marriage lay so completely under her own +control. Had some latent caution been at work all the +time under the overweening passion that had expired so +<span class='pageno' id='Page_388'>388</span>soon and so entirely? Had she ever thought of repudiating +him in those days?</p> + +<p class='c013'>No, there had been no absolute design in the girl’s +mind; she was too madly infatuated for that. But, crafty +by nature, she had acted with unconscious craft even then, +and fairly hugged herself when the memory of all the precautions +she had taken presented itself. There was one +person who must be got out of the way—two, in fact—Alice +Ruess and Lubin. She would attend to that; no +time should be lost.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After pondering these things over in her mind hour after +hour, Cora prepared to dress for the evening, when Clarence +Brooks had promised to come. The dinner hour had long +since passed, and it was getting dusk. Hail was rattling +against the window, and a mournful sound of dead leaves +came up from the grounds, carried off by the wind, which +seemed to moan over them. All this made her shudder. +She rang the bell and ordered a strong cup of tea. That +would give her strength and brilliancy. Brilliancy! She +felt a thousand years old! Would a feeling of true youthfulness +ever come back to her? A mirror stood opposite +her seat, swinging between two gilded figures that seemed +to hold it in place with their hands. Did the thoughts +which shook her so belong to that beautiful girl, with +all her rich hair loosened into sumptuous disorder, and +the weary young face resting on that small hand, which +the waves of hair half concealed? How delicate and pale +and wild-eyed the girl in the glass looked. There was +something weird about her which a man like Brooks would +shrink from. Yes, a cup of strong tea would change all +that; if not, there was plenty of champagne in the cellar, +and that always invigorated her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A dress of purple silk hung in a wardrobe in the next +room, she would wear that—nothing should induce her to +put on black for that one evening. Everything, out doors +<span class='pageno' id='Page_389'>389</span>and in, was gloomy enough without that. This purple +dress had the bloom of a ripe plum rippling over it in +waves. She would wear some delicate lace about her neck +and run a white ribbon through the folds of her hair, with +a blush rose in the knot. He might think strange of it, but +she was weary of presenting herself before him in eternal +black.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It is wonderful how soon the thoughts of a young person +can be diverted from all sources of annoyance by pretty +trifles of the toilet. Even a woman like this gives way to +such weaknesses quite as readily as the innocent of heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will think of him no more,” she said, pushing back +her hair with both hands; “‘sufficient to the day is the +evil thereof.’ When the time comes for action I will act; +I shall find myself sufficient for the occasion when it +arrives. After making myself mistress here, unquestioned +almost, there is little that I need despair of doing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With these thoughts floating in her mind, she folded her +arms in the shawl, fell back against the cushions of her +seat and was soon in a profound slumber.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A servant came up with some tea, but, seeing her position, +went away again, walking on tiptoe.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks came later in the evening, and found +Cora radiant. The purple dress seemed rippling with chain +lightning as she passed under the chandeliers; the sparkle +of champagne was in her eyes; the glow of almond flowers +suffused her cheeks. Brooks had never seen her in colors +before, at least by gas-light. She was indeed a creation of +rare beauty.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I need not ask if you are suffering—never did I see an +appearance of health more perfect,” he said, taking the +hand she held out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She drew him toward the couch, where the cushions he +had brought for her still lay in confusion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sit down,” she said, seating herself in an easy chair +<span class='pageno' id='Page_390'>390</span>close by the couch. “It is chilly this evening; you will +not find a hickory-wood fire oppressive. No, indeed, I will +arrange the cushions for you now. Do I look like a +patient?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Like an houri, rather. What a strange girl you are! +Why, this morning, I really thought you would be ill.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” she said, leaning her arm on the head of his couch +and dropping her hand carelessly downward till the fingers +touched his hair, “my sympathies are troublesome enough, +but in your case they shall not make me ill.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You felt for me, then, in my bitter disappointment regarding +this man?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Felt for you! Did I seem to feel? But we must not +talk of it. I am resolved that nothing sad or grievous shall +come between us to-night. Every thought given to this +miserable person is a jewel thrown away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He felt her hand upon his hair; he felt her breath floating +over his face. This man was not very much better or +worse than other men of honor and culture; all this had +its effect upon him. The night was stormy and disagreeable +outside; hail was beating upon the marble of the colonnade, +and gushes of rain swept across the windows. +The contrast with all that warmth and silken elegance, full +of comfort as it was, made itself felt luxuriously.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That white hand dropped lightly as a snow-flake from his +hair and fell down to a level with his mouth. He turned +his head suddenly and kissed it. I think almost any other +man would have done the same thing, tempted so; but +instantly a rush of color came to his face, he started up +from his lounging position and begged her pardon with +great earnestness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled sweetly, looked down upon the flush of red +his lips had left on the whiteness of her hand, and pressed +her own lips upon it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is how I forgive you,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_391'>391</span>He looked at her a moment and sat down suddenly as if +he had been shot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have I shocked you with the punishment?” she +questioned, shrinking back timidly. “Do you think the +worse of me for that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Think the worse of you—Heavens, no! Why ask the +question?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You looked so serious.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Would you have me look triumphant?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I have been very much to blame.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Tears stood upon her eyelashes. She was really distressed. +He saw this, and strove, with delicate chivalry, to +reassure her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does the daughter of Amos Lander regret that she has +been kind to his friend? Does she fear that he will presume +upon it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She fears nothing on this earth so much as losing his +good opinion,” she said, in a soft, low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That she never can. It is too firmly rooted. Why, +you are trembling, dear child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Am I?—not much—it is very foolish. Will you have +some music—some battle-piece to harmonize with the +storm?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; let the tumult without take its own way. We +will have nothing that is not sweet and pathetic. Shall I +open the piano?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; I will bring my guitar.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She went out of the room, ran up stairs, and came down +again with a guitar in her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I must have a low seat,” she said, drawing an ottoman +close to the head of his couch and resting herself upon it +like a Bird of Paradise. Her purple draperies swept far +out on the carpet; the rose in her hair sent its perfume +across her auditor’s lips. There was no use in resisting the +charm of her presence; he gave way to it, especially as she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_392'>392</span>did nothing to challenge admiration, but sat with downcast +eyes and a sweet seriousness of demeanor, tuning her +guitar.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She played a slow, tender little air at first, and after +awhile joined in with her voice, which was sweet and sympathetic +without being powerful. There was no attempt at +anything superior. She played and sung naturally, but +with such feeling that Brooks felt tears stealing into his +eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is too sad; the guitar is best for lively airs,” she +said, lifting her humid eyes to his, questioning him with +them rather than with her voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet; do not make the transition too abrupt; the +charm would be broken. What a sweet, plaintive voice +you have.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She answered him with a grateful look. The desire to +please was so intense that it absolutely made the haughty +creature humble as a little child. Had this feminine spirit +been upon her from the first, the struggle that had been +going on in the heart of Clarence Brooks would probably +never have existed. Be that as it will, for the time he +yielded unresisting to the sympathetic feeling which her +gentleness and grace excited, and listened to her music with +half-closed eyes, doubting if he really knew his own heart, +and had not done grave injustice to the lovely creature at +his feet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was not unobservant. From under those fringed +eyelids she cast many a look at the noble face, which the +fire-light shone upon so fitfully, and felt that her hour of +triumph was fast approaching. What would she do with it? +Of what avail the conquest she was almost sure of? +Was she not that other man’s wife? “No, no, no, a thousand +times no!” she said in her heart. He had committed +a gross fraud in marrying her, had made himself amenable +to the law, degraded himself forever. She had been infatuated, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_393'>393</span>insane, but not in love with him. All that was a +delusion. How could it have been love when she hated him +so now? When this new feeling was so different?</p> + +<p class='c013'>This new feeling! Alas, alas, had it come to that? +Yes, the haughty creature had found her master passion +when it was all too late. She would not believe it, but +hoped yet to wrest happiness out of the future, reasoning, +as wicked women will, that the one great fault in her +husband absolved her from all the obligations of her marriage +vow—obligations that the world should never know. +This woman, in the grander and nobler passion, as she +deemed it, which possessed her now, found excuses for +treachery, injustice, and even crime. Had he not deserved +all this? Was Alfred Seymour worthy of a moment’s consideration? +How had he dealt with her?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Exactly as she had dealt with him in her rash, passionate +selfishness—if she could only have seen it. But vanity +and arrogance would not permit her to look clearly on her +own conduct.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was singular that, in the intense scorn that she really +felt for her husband’s crime, her own more deadly offence +never once presented itself as far outmatching his. She +was a usurper in that house; an impostor; a woman who +made her beauty the accessory of a fraud whose least crime +had been greater than his, because unrepented of, yet she +dared to arraign and despise him. The creature was +sincere in all this; her crime seemed only the action of +great ability—the proof of an intellect born to control circumstances. +The woman almost turned her fraud into +poetry and gloried in the genius that carried it out. She +was thinking these things over as that soft music flowed +from her lips.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_394'>394</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLII.<br> <span class='c011'>A AUTUMN PIC-NIC IN THE WOODS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>On the next day, that pic-nic in the woods came off, and +a pleasant affair it was. The brook that filled the ravine +with its music found its source in a spring that came from a +ledge of rocks, high up on a slope of the hills, back of the +Lander grounds. This ledge was one broad table of granite, +sloping inward some ten feet, where a shelf of stone +shot out, cleft by a fissure from the upper rock, and from +that long break in the stone the spring leaped forth and +poured itself over the granite shelf in one transparent sheet +of crystal. These bright waters were gathered below the +ledge into one of the loveliest little rocky pools you ever set +eyes on. Soft sand with pebbles, white as snow, gleamed +up from the bottom, and jagged points of rock held it in, +covered with that delicate moss which finds its highest +green in the crystal of ever-falling water drops. Here the +sheltering banks and overhanging trees had kept away the +frost, and all the pool was bordered with tall ferns, spear-like +rushes and broad-leaved water plants, turning red about +the edges. Some lily pads, too, floated like sheeted +emeralds on the water, and the ledge above the little cataract +was fringed with maiden-hair, sarsaparilla and other +rock-clinging plants, which sent their trailing vines now +and then to the very outgush of the waters, rippling them +into ridges of silver as they prepared for a plunge into the +pool.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A perfect bower of hemlocks, pines, and feathery larches +bent over and twined themselves about this ledge, so completely +closing it on all sides except the one which opened +to the ravine, that twenty people could have taken shelter +there undiscovered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Into this delicious retreat Clarence Brooks came with the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_395'>395</span>two girls who had so often been his companions of late, +after a long ramble through the woods. There really was +no tiring youth out in a day like this, for the sky overhead +was blue as blue could be, and the clear, silvery sunshine +gave it a luminous softness never witnessed in the hot summer +time, when out-door excursions are most in vogue.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They came up to the ledge, these three persons, and sat +down on its brink, very cheerful and happy, but rather more +silent than usual. The truth was, Clarence Brooks had lost +a good deal of his playful self-possession since that first day +under the chestnut tree. Many things troubled him, and +for some days a struggle had gone on in his life which no +one dreamed of but himself. It was over now and his resolution +taken. But he was anxious, and so grave that Ellen, +who had won a high place in the general companionship, +asked him more than once what it was which made him so +serious. He answered with some light evasion, but soon +fell into his quiet mood again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was thinking of a downcast face drooping with such +feminine modesty over a guitar, which uttered its sweet +complainings under a hand that had half challenged half +repelled his kiss. He was thinking, more seriously yet, of +the dear old friend whose most sacred wishes he was about +to sacrifice. Was it right? Was it generous? Did the +girl really love him, as every look and word that evening +seemed to imply?</p> + +<p class='c013'>He remembered the look, so full of gentle love-light, +which she had lifted to his face at parting—the pressure of +her hand, which had nestled itself like a bird into his. He +remembered, too, how wistfully she had gazed after him +when he went out into the storm. He could see her yet, +standing in the French window, purpling the golden light +behind her like a cloud, the masses of ruddy hair sweeping +back from her head, bent slightly forward as it peered into +the darkness. Why would this picture haunt him so? On +<span class='pageno' id='Page_396'>396</span>that day, too, when he had determined on a step which +should drive all such thoughts from his mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>These reflections had possessed him as he waited for the +girls under the chestnut tree and amused himself with +flinging clusters of the open burs into the brook, which +bore them onward as if the rough things were a burden. +He could not shake them off after those young creatures +came, looking bright as flowers and happy as birds. The +spirit of Amos Lander seemed to reproach him for the +purpose that lay in his heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was the reason of the seriousness for which Ellen +half rebuked him. He threw it off with the vigor of a +strong mind giving itself to an honest idea and was himself +again as they came out upon the ledge. Here some moss-cushioned +stones had been rolled into place, forming seats +around a broad, flat stone, which had fallen from the embankment +above, and answered capitally for a table.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Under that broad hemlock branch which sweeps so +close to the ground you will find a basket, with lots of +things which belong to the housekeeping,” said Brooks, +looking around well pleased. “My duties lie somewhere +back of this pile of rocks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The girls laughed, and began to loop their dresses high +up on their snowy skirts and roll the sleeves back from +their white arms ready for work.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That broad hemlock branch, which spread itself along +the earth like a banner, concealed a world of choice articles. +First came a basket, which gave out a warning rattle of +china striking against silver or steel, all buried under a +table-cloth and a pile of napkins. This was soon disposed +of, and directly that great flat stone loomed up from the +centre of the ledge, like a snow-drift, and the girls were +busy as bees laying plates, arranging knives and forks, +opening little jars of jelly and pickles, unrolling biscuits +and discovering little pats of butter stamped with tiny +<span class='pageno' id='Page_397'>397</span>birds, and all sorts of dainties that were constantly taking +them by surprise and bringing forth exclamations of +delight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When all was arranged, the girls began to wonder what +had become of Mr. Brooks. They had heard the crash of +a breaking stick now and then, denoting his presence somewhere +in the neighborhood, and now a curl of blue smoke, +floating in and out of the hemlock branches, excited their +curiosity. They stole to the verge of the table rock and +looked over. Nothing but a silvery flash of water met the +view in that direction, but to the right, standing before the +hollow of an old oak, whose half dead branches stretched +far and wide, bristling through the pines and hemlocks like +broken spears, they saw Mr. Brooks. He was hard at +work before a fire made of chips and dry branches, turning +half-a-dozen lengths of twine attached to a horizontal +branch overhead, on which as many woodcocks were spinning +round and round, raining drops of gravy on the yellow +leaves underneath at every turn. He looked up and +saw the girls watching him from the ledge.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t be impatient,” he called out; “they are almost +done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then he gave a twirl to the threads of twine all round, +and fell to his task again. The girls enjoyed the sight +amazingly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wouldn’t it be delicious to spend one’s life so,” said +Virginia, pressing her hands softly together. “I wonder +if we shall ever be so happy again?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who knows?” Ellen answered, smiling in her usual +quiet way, which was at all times a little sad. “But why +not? Nature is the only thing in creation that eternally +renews itself. So long as the world lasts she will prove the +same.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, how gravely you talk, Ellen! It is not Nature +which makes us so—makes everything so pleasant. These +<span class='pageno' id='Page_398'>398</span>woods are gloomy enough with the rich leaves all turning +brown as dust, if a weary heart goes with them. You +remember the first day we came here, how grandly all the +foliage was colored, how warm and bright the sunshine was. +Yet we were very sad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen looked up with a bright smile in her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is it then that makes the change?” she asked.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A vivid blush rose to Virginia’s face; she looked away, +far down a vista of the wood, and answered softly that she +was sure she did not know. Then Ellen dropped her eyes +and sighed very faintly. This love was a mournful study +for her, poor thing. She might witness it, feel it, dream of +it, but who was ever known to love a girl deformed as she +was? Who could understand the true, warm heart and +great brain fettered to a form like that?</p> + +<p class='c013'>No wonder Ellen sighed and longed to go away into the +woods and sit alone when the happy face of her mistress +brought reflections like these into her mind. But why did +the heart in her bosom grow heavier and heavier day by +day? God help the girl! Did she too love the man who +had come so strangely into their lives? or was it only the +yearning of her woman’s nature for a little of the affection +which she saw lavished upon others?</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will some one bring me a plate?—I cannot leave the +birds,” called out a voice from the fire.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen started to her feet, and, snatching a plate from the +table, ran down to the oak and received the woodcocks upon +it as they were cut loose from the twine that held them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Splendidly done—now carry them up, while I go after +the fruit and wine,” cried Brooks, gaily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went up to the rock, carrying the plate of birds +steadily between her hands. Brooks went down to the +little cataract, and, from under the broad leaves of some +water plant that grew among the ferns, brought forth a +basket of grapes and delicate lady-apples, with a long-necked +<span class='pageno' id='Page_399'>399</span>bottle, capped with tin-foil. The spring water had +acted like ice upon them, and the first rare bloom lay on +the grapes like a frost.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had sent a quantity of cut flowers from the greenhouse +to the little hotel that morning, and Brooks had garlanded +the basket with them, after his own taste, mingling +the scent of roses with the rich odor of the grapes. Perhaps +Cora might not have liked this, had she known it, but +the party on the ledge considered that basket a crowning +glory of the feast.</p> + +<p class='c013'>That was a delicious meal—sharp appetites, the clear +autumnal sunshine and soft air of a genial Indian Summer +made it perfect. Three children at play in the woods could +not have enjoyed themselves more naturally. Even Ellen +Nolan came out in force and astonished them with her rare +flashes of wit. Brooks was getting to think the world and +all of Ellen Nolan—there was something so fresh and sincere +about her. Then the bright things that fell from her +lips were coupled with words of absolute wisdom, such as +only come from keen observation and deep thinking. +Sometimes the little creature positively startled him with +her sayings.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After the feast was over, and all its fragments packed +away except the basket of fruit, which they carried off +into the deeper shadows of the rock, Ellen stole off alone, +and, letting herself down to the edge of the pool, on which +the sunshine shimmered bright as quicksilver, fell to throwing +leaves and fragments of wood into the water, giving +herself up to gentle thoughtfulness. She had got into her +ideal world, and was fashioning a romance out in her mind, +smiling or frowning to herself as the scenes she imagined +pained or pleased her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The other two had found a seat far back on the ledge, +sheltered by the boughs of a hemlock, that curved over +them like a tent. Some conversation had already passed +between them, for Brooks was speaking earnestly.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_400'>400</span>“If you can love me, Virginia, as I love you with all my +heart and soul and strength, say it to me in words. I must +feel the assurance thoroughly before the exactions of this +heart will be satisfied. These blushes are sweet, dear +child, and I love to feel your form trembling against my +arm. But my love craves something more. Tell it me in +words, darling. Can you love me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do! I do!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She clasped the hands in her lap and lifted them up as a +child does in prayer. Her eyes sought his and fell again, +but half veiling the light that filled them; then her face +fell forward, and she burst into a sweet passion of tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He drew her close to his bosom and kissed her for the +first time in his life, gently as a mother kisses her first +infant, almost doubting if it yet belongs to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then they sat together in silence, or only uttered such +broken words as great joy uses in expressing itself. After +a time she drew herself softly from his arms and said, with +a little anxiety:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have no property; you will marry a penniless girl.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So much the better. I would far rather have it so than +join poor Lander’s vast wealth to my own. We shall not +need it, dear child; I have enough.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And you have chosen me, knowing how worse than +penniless I am.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have chosen you with all my heart and soul, thinking +and caring nothing for the rest. It was your uncle’s wish +that I should marry his child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“His wish! Indeed—indeed!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia was greatly excited. It seemed as if, that moment, +her father was close to them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And he wished it—he wished it! His blessing reaches +me in spite of all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks remembered the vague distrust in Lander’s letter, +and applied this speech to that.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_401'>401</span>“If the departed really do know what passes here, my +child, Lander has read your heart with a juster knowledge +than he had on earth. Do not let it grieve you that great +affection for his daughter blinded him a little.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, he never was unjust. He was good, wise, +generous—the best man, I do think, that ever lived. You +did not half know him, Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He certainly did not know you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed—indeed he loved me dearly—I cannot talk of +it now, the subject is too sad; but some time, when I can +have the power—when we are away from this place—I will +tell you everything—you will believe me—I know that you +will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Believe you! yes, against the angels themselves.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then he drew her close to his heart again and soothed +the agitation that seemed to have frightened all the joy +from her heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was a full hour before Ellen came up to the ledge +again, but the lovers felt her presence as an intrusion, and +would not believe it when she told them that the sun was +almost setting. They went down the ravine almost in +silence, and parted under the old chestnut. A few whispered +words passed between the two, and he kissed the +little hand she gave him while Ellen was looking over the +side of the bridge to see if the ferns were all quite dead. +When the two girls reached Virginia’s room, Ellen found +herself all at once held in a close embrace.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My friend, my friend, thank God with me! It is for +myself—my own, own self—that he loves me! Had I +possessed my father’s wealth there might have been a +doubt. Now there is none. Oh! Ellen, how can I make +you as happy as the last hour has made me? Child, child, +tell me it is all real! Does it take you by surprise? Did +you think for a moment that he loved me like that when +we saw them riding out so gaily, morning after morning? +<span class='pageno' id='Page_402'>402</span>Tell me the truth, Ellen, did you not think it was her he +loved?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, dear lady, I felt from the beginning that it was +you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I never would have met him so—why did you not +tell me? It was like putting myself in his way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As he did not seem to feel that an impropriety, we need +not grieve over it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Grieve! Why, Ellen, it seems to me as if there was +no such thing as grief in the world. She has got my +father’s wealth, child, but, oh! how much richer I am than +that can make her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you tell him the truth, lady?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, about the property? No; it will be time +enough by-and-by, when we have nothing pleasanter to +talk about. But you look grave—troubled. What is the +matter, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, lady; I am a little thoughtful, that is all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, Ellen, there is something more than that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does Mr. Brooks intend to tell your cousin of this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps it was mentioned. But why should he wish to +conceal it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady, I think Cora Lander loves Mr. Brooks herself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is the common talk of the house. But that is nothing; +I have watched her closely, and have watched him +too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is a girl of subtle power.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know that well, but what then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She loves this man, and love with her will be stronger +than ambition. If she knows of this engagement, evil will +come of it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia turned deadly white.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What could she do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_403'>403</span>“How can an honorable person tell what an unscrupulous +one will do to accomplish a purpose?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen! Ellen! you have hurt me! My heart was so +light, and now it feels like marble. How can I protect +myself from this girl?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Keep your engagement a profound secret.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how can I?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Easily enough. There is the old way of meeting every +morning, if you like. For some cause, she never goes in +that direction now. That cause will probably still keep her +away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he will see her in the morning; for some reason, he +seems anxious to inform her and have everything settled. +They are to ride out again to-morrow, and he will tell her +then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Write him a note—ask him to delay it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, Ellen, I cannot do that without giving a reason. +Besides, what have I to fear? He will protect me. His +love is enough for me to shelter under. Let us think no +more of it; your great affection for me makes you over +cautious, my friend.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It may be so,” Ellen said; “at any rate we must not +keep ourselves miserable with doubts. I have made you +look serious.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, a little; I cannot help it. Yesterday I had nothing +more to lose; now I have nothing to gain. In his love +God has given me back everything.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And if she deprived you of that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t, Ellen; I cannot think of it. That would be +death.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you love him so entirely?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Ellen. I would not have told you so yesterday, +because I did not know. I thought perhaps that it was +her, and was ashamed of the feeling that is my glory and +blessing now. Like the poor Spartan boy, I should have +<span class='pageno' id='Page_404'>404</span>let my heart be torn in silence, and even you would never +have guessed. But now I need not blush, though blushes +will come in spite of one out of such feelings, just as perfume +steals from a lily. But I need not blush with +shame, at any rate, when you ask me this question. Yes, +Ellen, I love him better than anything in the world; to me +there is but one man on earth. But I am extravagant—words +sound coarsely here. Yes, Ellen, I love him: our +language can express no more.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then, God make you happy,” said Ellen, solemnly. +“Guarded by His love and this other love, all must be +well.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and Ellen usually took tea in their own room +when Cora was at home. Indeed, at such times, they seldom +appeared in the lower part of the house at all. Eunice +had fallen into this arrangement, and, as neither Mrs. Lander +nor Cora made objections, their isolation from the family +had become almost complete. That evening they ate +very little; Virginia, spite of the doubts that had been +forced upon her, was far too happy for any thought of refreshment, +and Ellen had evidently something on her mind +which made her very serious. She went out with Eunice +when she carried off the tray, whispering good-night to the +happy young creature, whose greatest wish was to be alone +with her memory and her dreams.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLIII.<br> <span class='c011'>ELLEN NOLAN VISITS CLARENCE BROOKS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Ellen Nolan was prompt, both in action and thought. +Virginia, in the full security of a first passion, believed +herself safe in the shelter of her lover’s strength, but with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_405'>405</span>a presage of evil which sprang out of her own quick intelligence, +and would not be shaken off, her friend resolved +to meet the question herself. Putting on her black bonnet +and shawl, she left the house, and, following the railway +soon reached the little hotel where Clarence Brooks found a +temporary home. Some men belonging to the station sat +in front of the house. To avoid these persons, Ellen passed +down on the opposite side, keeping in the shadow, crossed +the road at the bridge, and came in sight of the little porch +to which the sitting-room Clarence Brooks occupied opened. +She drew nearer, saw him walking to and fro in the parlor, +and, running lightly up the steps, knocked with her finger +against the sash-door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks saw her through the glass, and opened the door +at once, wondering what could have brought her there.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have come,” said Ellen, breathing hard, for she had +walked rapidly; “I have come to ask a favor of you, Mr. +Brooks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is nothing on earth that I will not grant you, +Miss Ellen,” he said, cordially; “but first sit down and let +me offer you a glass of wine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen took the wine and drank it. She was a brave little +creature, ready to go any lengths for the right; but Nature +had left her feeble, and, at times, she felt this a great drawback +on her exertions.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mr. Brooks, my young mistress has told me of—of—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has told you that I love her, and hope to make +her my wife. I suppose there is no secret in that; so you +need not hesitate.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is what I come to ask, Mr. Brooks. Will you let +it be a secret?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you come from her? Does the lady wish it?” he +questioned, in some surprise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; I asked her permission; rather, I urged her to +make the request, but she declined.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_406'>406</span>“Then why do you ask it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot explain, Mr. Brooks, and you would not understand +me if I did; but I ask this favor of you nevertheless, +believing that your happiness and the welfare of Miss +Lander depend on it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Ellen, you surprise me a little I have never +known any good come from a secret yet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed,” answered Ellen. “What has this whole +attachment sprung from but a succession of secret meetings?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks laughed. He rather enjoyed the sharp wit of +Virginia’s friend, and trusted her integrity entirely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But there was a reason for that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What was it pray, only that it was impossible to +receive you at the house, without giving offence to her +cousin?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, that was reason enough; but I do not fear to +give offence when my honor requires it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Miss Cora Lander has no right to your confidence. +She is not her cousin’s guardian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True; but Miss Virginia has a mother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Mr. Brooks, I implore you, let this thing rest a +secret, as it has done. Mrs. Lander is a weak, selfish +woman, in every way under the control of Cora. She +would only do mischief. Believe me, when I solemnly tell +you that the secrecy I ask is both honorable and wise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it must be made known. I really would be glad +to oblige you, Miss Ellen; but there are reasons why Miss +Cora Lander should be informed of my engagement with +her cousin at the earliest moment.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I understand the reasons, Mr. Brooks.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; and that is one motive for my coming here +to-night. This much I may speak, Miss Virginia has been +cruelly treated by her cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_407'>407</span>“About property?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In every way. She dislikes her—hates her is nearer +the truth. When she learns that her own hopes or fancies—call +them as you like—have been thwarted—in secrecy +too—by the person she has so wronged, her resentment +will be terrible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We shall not fear it,” said Brooks.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will feel it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Ellen, I think you are a little hard on Miss Cora +Lander. She never has spoken a word to me about your +lady that has not been more than kind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir, do not believe in this; it is a part of her character.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush! hush! Remember this lady is the daughter of +my old friend. There has been some trouble, I know, +between the cousins. Those things are common enough +when great estates are settled, but they all come right in +the end; at any rate, in this case, they are of no importance. +I never wanted a dollar of Amos Lander’s property, +and, thank Heaven, do not want it now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen arose to go, sorrowful and disheartened.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought it best to come,” she said. “Knowing the +truth myself, I hoped you would believe it: but I have only +done mischief—God forgive me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t look so sorrowful, child. At the worst you have +done no harm. How earnest you are about this strange +request.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will not grant it?” she said, looking wistfully +into his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would, child, but that I think it wrong to pass, in the +household of my old friend, as a free man, when I am absolutely +engaged to a lady under a roof that was once his. +It seems like social treachery.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mr. Brooks, believe me, I entreat, when I say, that +neither in honor or courtesy are you bound to reveal your +<span class='pageno' id='Page_408'>408</span>real position to either of these ladies. Had Miss Virginia +thought so, she would never have accepted you unconditionally, +as she has done. Do you hold her sense of honor as +less delicate than your own?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was something peremptory, and yet so respectful, +in this speech, that Brooks, spite of himself was impressed +by it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, well, I will think the matter over, and speak with +your lady about it. We shall meet to-morrow. Be sure +and take your usual walk.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen took his hand, tears arose to her eyes, and brightened +them into absolute beauty. He wondered that her +face had never impressed him so before.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, if you would only believe in me!” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do, child. It is impossible to help it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will not speak of this to-morrow, when you ride +out with Miss Cora Lander?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No. I have promised that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you. My young lady is very happy now, and +happiness drives all sense of wrong out of the heart. She +may not look on this matter as I do, who have plenty of +time for cool thought. That is what brought me here to-night; +forgive it, if I have done wrong. Good evening.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks seized his hat and overtook her on the stoop.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will see you safely home,” he said; “rough men occasionally +hang about the depot.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would rather go alone,” she said gently; “not by the +railway, that does frighten me a little. But I know the +footpath by the brook and will take that; enough moonlight +will come through the branches, now so many leaves are +gone, to show the path. I don’t want any one to know +that I have been here, so shall be safest alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks saw that she was in earnest and let her go, but +he stood on the stoop and watched her little figure till it +was lost in the duskiness of the woods.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_409'>409</span>Ellen walked up the path rapidly, holding her breath +with a vague sense of awe, for the noise of the brook and +the shivering of dead leaves filled the night with that +weird music which makes the silence beyond it so impressive. +The moon gave down a fitful light, exaggerating +the shadows and throwing fantastic gleams through the +half stripped branches. All at once she stopped and gave +out a sharp cry. The figure of a man stood before her in +the path, just below the rise of ground on which the log +cabin stood. At first she thought it one of those heavy +shadows thrown by the body of a tree; but the figure +stooped and rose again—a spark of fire seemed to float +upward with the motion. Then the blue light of a match +revealed, for one instant, the handsome face of her brother +Brian’s benefactor. All was dark again in an instant, save +the glow of a cigar which the man had evidently just +kindled.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen hastened forward, sweeping back a branch that +had fallen across her path, so eagerly that it swayed into +place again with a loud rustling noise, enough to startle +any one desirous of concealment. The branch had brushed +her face, blinding her for the moment. When she looked +for the man he was gone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She stood a full minute, searching around in blank +amazement, then hurried away, fairly panting for breath, +and so frightened that she ran at full speed across the lawn, +and sheltered herself in the house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>What was that man doing in a place held so sacred to +the Lander family? Was he staying at the hotel? Did +he know any one in the neighborhood, or was it a myth +that had startled her into such abject cowardice? No, she +had seen the face plainly, for that single instant it was +illuminated in all its features; but why had it gleamed +upon her so strangely in that place?</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next morning Cora carried out a plan that had been +<span class='pageno' id='Page_410'>410</span>arranging itself in her mind, and went down to the city. +She had engaged to ride with Brooks that day, and the +sacrifice which she made in giving up this pleasure was a +great one; but a feeling of insecurity troubled her, and she +resolved to make her future secure at once. She arose +early, took her breakfast alone, and went away by the first +morning train, leaving a note of apology for Brooks behind +her, which she ordered Joshua to deliver before ten o’clock.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was wonderful the restraint which that girl’s absence +took off the whole household. No sooner did Mrs. Lander +learn that she was gone, to be absent some days, perhaps, +than her spirits rose far above their usual languid pitch. +She refused to have breakfast sent to her room, and took +something of the old liberty on herself, in assuming the +head of the family table. Eunice, in high good humor, +went up to summon Virginia, carrying Mrs. Lander’s compliments +with her, in place of the usual great silver tray, +with its elegant equipments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Both Virginia and Ellen were glad to accept any change. +Indeed, the former, in her great happiness, could have +refused Eunice nothing, for the woman, in her brusque way, +had been very kind to her. So they went down to the +breakfast-room smiling, and so cheerful, that Mrs. Lander +became unusually social. Eunice herself waited on the +table that morning, and a sense of domestic comfort prevailed +in that well-appointed breakfast-room, to which it +had been a stranger for months.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now, I tell you what it is, girls, jest take the bits +atween your teeth, while <i>she’s</i> gone, and have a good time +of it. Miss Virgie, I want to see you a riding on that +white pony, that’s been a spiling in the stable, till our Josh +is getting savage about it. So jest put on your habit after +breakfast, and let us see if you can’t set a side-saddle as +well as other folks. It’s a burning shame that you hain’t +been out afore.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_411'>411</span>Eunice shook her head, like a vicious horse, and crashed +a plate of toast down upon the table, with a force that +cracked the delicate china. She was always violent, even +in her fits of good nature, and spoke now, in a state of apparent +indignation, about somebody, looking fiercely at +Mrs. Lander all the time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear me, Eunice,” said the lady, coloring crimson +under the greenish deepening of those eyes; “it isn’t my +fault that Virginia hasn’t ridden every day of her life. Is +it, my dear?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is no one’s fault, I fancy,” answered Virginia, smiling—(the +happy girl could not speak without smiles that +morning)—“only I, I don’t care much about riding.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It’s no such thing. You know better. But that white +animal has got to be brought out this very morning, or I’ll +know the reason why.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, Eunice, I have no habit.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There goes another. Wasn’t you measured, with +t’other one in Paris, and wasn’t the habits and whips, and +them side-saddles, all sent over together, long afore you +started? Trust Amos Lander for that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice! Eunice! how can you?” cried out Mrs. Lander, +white with the sudden shock which that name was +sure to produce. “Have you no feeling?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ve got a good deal of feeling for <i>her</i>,” answered +Eunice, who was ready to show fight on any subject just +then. “She’s been hived up here long enough, and you’ve +stood by and seen it done without a whimper. Some folks +are afeared to say their souls are their own; but I ain’t one +of that sort. Come now, Miss Virgie, jest to please me, let +Josh bring out that white critter. <i>He</i> bought it for you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s eyes filled with tears. Eunice saw it, and +drew the back of her bony hand across her own eyes, sniffing +violently.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s right! that’s right! I thought his name would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_412'>412</span>do it!” she exclaimed. “The habit is all laid out on your +bed, gold buttons and all. There’s a soft hat, too, with a +feather as long as the foot-post. He ordered ’em jest alike, +all but the hat and feather. He never made no difference +between girl and girl, only as one looked better in a thing +than t’other.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A still more vicious look at Mrs. Lander destroyed all +that lady’s appetite, and, with genuine tears in her eyes, she +besought Virginia to oblige her and take a ride. The +happy girl would have done anything that morning, to +please even her worst enemy, so she made the promise, at +which Mrs. Lander arose from the table and kissed her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice stood by, smiling grimly at all this, with the feeling +that she was fast getting up a happy family, which +would some time be sheltered under her own wings.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLIV.<br> <span class='c011'>THE WHITE HORSE DISTANCES THE BLACK ONE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>In the exuberance of her spirits, Virginia was delighted +with this idea of a ride, the first that she had thought of +taking since her return to America. So, later in the day, +she put on her habit with its garniture of gold buttons, and +the hat with its trailing feather, which made her resemblance +to Cora absolutely startling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua Hurd brought out the horse, washed white as +snow, with his mane shining like floss silk and his eyes +full of genial fire. Proud as a lord, he lifted Virginia to +her saddle, and stood, with his stout arms folded complacently, +and a broad grin on his face, watching her as she +rode off. Every time that beautiful animal tossed his head, +or began to curvette the gravelled road, Josh would +<span class='pageno' id='Page_413'>413</span>give out a mellow chuckle of delight, and move his great +feet on the ground, in an ecstasy of admiration.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia had refused the escort of a groom. She longed +to enjoy her freedom without even that restraint. As for fear, +the girl had scarcely a remembrance of the time when she +had not ridden on horseback. Besides, who could be afraid +of that beautiful animal, whose wildest movements were full +of playful grace without a touch of viciousness in them. +So away she rode, coming out of the grounds at the broad +iron gate, just above the hotel, after which she took the +road at a gallop.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks had received his note just before the +hour appointed for his morning ride with Cora. Joshua had +been busy preparing his favorite for the road and sent the +note by another servant, who loitered on the way, so that +Brooks got it just as he was prepared to mount. He went +back into the house and seated himself in the stoop, half +resolved to give up his ride when Virginia went by on her +white horse, casting one shy glance toward the hotel as she +went.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Up Clarence Brooks started, knocking over his chair, +seized the riding whip and gloves he had flung aside, and, +leaping to his saddle, put his impatient horse to the top of +his speed at once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia heard the clattering hoofs behind her and spoke +softly to her horse.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Steady, steady, Snowball; not so fast, not so fast.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Snowball arched her neck and began to amble, as if she +understood the beating of that young heart and was +resolved to humor it, irksome as the restraint was.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So I have overtaken you at last,” cried out a happy +voice, just behind her. The next instant that black steed +came neck and neck with her white one, contrasting finely, +like the two riders. “Oh, Virginia, this is too great a happiness! +What a glorious day we will make of it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_414'>414</span>“I thought you would see us pass; Snowball, here, +almost wanted to stop. I think the creature knows more +than she ought—indeed I do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>How well she rode; not with the dash and conscious +power of Cora. But with so firm a seat, and that gentle +touch of the bridle, there was little danger that any horse +would rear and plunge with her in the saddle. Away they +went, riding off the first glow of animal spirits with a dash. +When the horses took their own course, Brooks rode so +close to Virginia’s bridle rein at times that his hand +touched hers, while their horses walked lazily forward or +absolutely stopped under some cool shade, seeming to know +how pleasant the whole affair was to their riders.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In the fullness of their contentment these two people +talked of a thousand things which drew them closer and +closer into sweet sympathy every moment. He told how +his heart had gone out to her on that first day when they +met under the chestnut, how he had struggled against the +feeling, which grew stronger and stronger every hour, because +it seemed like treason against the wishes of his +friend, whose great object had been for a union between +himself and the daughter he so devotedly loved. She was +beautiful, he said, and accomplished beyond most women. +At first he had liked her, notwithstanding a shade of disappointment, +for Lander had prepared him for something +more feminine—at any rate less pronounced. Perhaps, had +things gone on as they commenced—had he never found +that log cabin in the woods and looked from its little window—Amos +Lander’s last wish might have been carried +out. But that day of chestnuting had played the mischief +with all such ideas. He had found the niece all that the +daughter had been described to him—all that he had loved +before seeing either. Still the contest had been a hard +one. Death had sanctified his friend’s wish, and the feelings +that were so surely arising to oppose it seemed to him +<span class='pageno' id='Page_415'>415</span>almost as a crime. He resisted them bravely for a while, +gave himself up to the society of Lander’s heiress, strove to +force his heart into loving her—had admired her greatly, +and did then. But the heart in his bosom was not to be +controlled. Cora Lander was beautiful, brilliant, talented, +noble; but he did not love her, for heart and soul, body and +strength, he loved her cousin.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this was heavenly language to the fair girl who +listened. She longed, in the fullness of her confidence, to +tell him everything, but the truth was so painful that she +put it off. Why dash their happiness with a subject like +that? He loved her, and that was enough. Poor, wicked +Cora, she was welcome to the wealth—welcome, to all the +happiness that could be wrested out of a fraud. Why +should she feel a pleasure in destroying the respect he felt +for her? It might be necessary for her to tell all the truth +some time—would be, no doubt—but why trail the serpent +over their flowers just then?</p> + +<p class='c013'>So they talked of nothing that was not pleasant and +hopeful. Brooks told her of Ellen’s visit the night before, +and of her strange request, which he could not yet understand. +Virginia listened, smiling—what had she to fear +with this lordly man by her side? Still she had compassion +on Ellen’s terror, groundless as it seemed, and said: +“Perhaps it would be as well to gratify her. Dear girl, all +this fear grows out of her great care; besides, their secret +way of love had been so bright, she, for one, would rather +keep in it a while longer.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But your mother, dear girl, we must ask her sanction +of our love.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia started at this, and a revulsion swept over her +fair face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No,” she said, “not yet; I cannot consent to that. +Do not ask me why, but it is impossible.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks was disturbed by her perturbation, and wondered +<span class='pageno' id='Page_416'>416</span>at it. He saw the color come and go in her face, leaving it +unusually white and serious. This look of distress, devoid +as it was of all temper, touched him with compassion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, how have I managed to drive the color from your +face like that?” he said, with a broad smile, which was +like sunshine to her. “We need ask no one’s consent to +our love because that cannot be helped, try as we will. +As for your mother—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t, don’t, I cannot bear to hear you speak of her +in that way!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, you sensitive darling, what have I said disrespectful?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, nothing; this shade chills one. Shall we +ride on?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>For half a mile they went forward at a gallop. When +this hot speed was checked, Brooks turned toward her and +said, very gently:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So, I am not to tell!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give me a little time to think what is right and best,” +she answered, in a low voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will—I will, an eternity, if you ask it. Now smile +upon me once more. I feel like some poor fellow in a storm +while you continue to look so troubled.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She looked up and smiled upon him with such sweet +trust, that his heart yearned toward her with a tenderness +almost paternal.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now,” he said, “we have a fine piece of woods to ride +through—on the other side is the neatest little country +tavern you ever saw. There we will dine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia brightened instantly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You and I alone,” she said, radiant with the thought. +“Oh! that will be happiness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They made a short passage of the woods, sending back +storms of dead leaves along the road, and at length came +in sight of a long stone house, nearly overrun by a Virginia +<span class='pageno' id='Page_417'>417</span>creeper, blood-red, and half bereft of its foliage, which +make the grass around one brilliant carpet of crimson and +green.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This creeper curtained the windows of a little sitting-room, +with a home-made carpet on the floor, a wooden +settee with a green cushion, along one side some upright +cane-bottomed chairs standing like sentinels against the +wall, and a round table with a faded cloth in the centre. +I do not think those young people gave much heed of the +hardness of that settee, or were very impatient because +that choice little dinner took some time in the preparation. +They took pleasantly to the steel forks and coarse napkins, +for both were exquisitely clean. As for the broiled +chicken, mealy potatoes and home-made bread, I had rather +say nothing about them, because the fragments taken out +were by no means so many as very sensitive people might +expect from two persons so thoroughly in love with each +other. A long ride on that glorious October morning had +really deranged the usual course of things, and the +romance of eating their first meal together was scarcely +equal to the reality.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They left that shaded room reluctantly after all, and +Virginia cast a wistful look behind her as she passed its +threshold. What a happy hour it had been! Even the +rag carpet and that stiff settee looked beautiful to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The ride home was quieter but not less delightful than +the morning had proved. The deep contentment which +settled upon them was the delicious repose which follows +joyous excitement. These young persons loved each other, +and every phase of their growing passion was a delight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia would ride home alone. She was not prepared +to brave the questions and criticism which would follow a +bold dash up to the house with Clarence Brooks by her +side. He protested and threatened to rebel, but she was +firm as a little tyrant, and rode away from him before the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_418'>418</span>argument was half closed. As for the people at the hotel +and along the road, the affair made no comment, for Virginia, +in the same style of dress, was so like her cousin that +people only observed, in a careless fashion, that Miss Lander +had changed her horse that day, and, with a feather in +her hat, looked more beautiful than ever. Somehow the +black horse had given her a dashing and fierce air, which +did not appear at all on that snow-white beauty. No wonder +Mr. Brooks was in love with the lady. What a match +it would be; both so rich and good-looking—in fact, they +were the finest couple that was ever seen in those parts, and +worth millions between them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua Hurd was waiting for his favorite when she came +up, in a high state of enjoyment. The white horse had, +for once, been fairly placed upon the road, and the neighbors +had been given a chance to see what sort of animals +were kept in the Lander stables; people did not know it, +but Snowball was a full-blooded Arabian, and had been +purchased in Egypt for Mr. Lander’s daughter. Cora had +made the wrong choice that time, and Joshua Hurd +chuckled over it. What did she know of a horse?</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLV.<br> <span class='c011'>GETTING RID OF WITNESSES.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora went directly to her house the moment she reached +the city. She hated the place now, and nothing but an +important purpose would have induced her to enter it. The +servants were in possession, all except Lubin, who, loving +his art better than money, had left a place where his talent +had so little chance of appreciation. The week before, he +had discharged himself and sailed for New Orleans. This +<span class='pageno' id='Page_419'>419</span>was good news for Cora; it relieved her visit of half its +difficulty. This man had been present at her marriage; +he knew of her domestic life, and was therefore dangerous. +But he was removed from her path now, and the only +person left whose evidence would be fatal was the woman, +Alice Ruess; she it was who had gone after the clergyman; +she had witnessed the marriage ceremony and held +the whole secret in her possession. This woman must be +disposed of—but how? Could persuasion or money do it? +That was what had brought Cora to the city. Mrs. Lander +believed that the trip was taken in order to superintend the +new dresses which had been purchased with such liberality +for her own wardrobe. But dressmakers were very little in +Cora’s mind just then, and while her mother thought her +busy with lavender and purple silk, she sat quietly in that +little room, conversing with Alice Ruess in the most kindly +and social manner. Cora had long noticed that there was +something on her humble friend’s mind—not that she +called her humble—Cora had too much tact for that, under +the circumstances. Indeed, did Alice suppose her so entirely +taken up by her own affairs that she had no sympathy +for others? On the contrary, she had come now to learn +if there was nothing that she could do which might alleviate +the sadness that really was mournful. What was it +that preyed upon Alice Ruess with such depressed effect?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice Ruess had her troubles, poor thing—and very +serious ones they were. After a good deal of persuasion, +and more caresses than Cora usually bestowed on any one +from whom she wanted nothing, the unhappy woman was +prevailed upon to admit that she was a married woman +and had a husband in California, whom she had not seen in +three years. He had left Germany, promising to send for +her the moment he was settled in the gold region; but year +after year had gone by without bringing the promised summons. +So she had saved a little money by hard work and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_420'>420</span>paid her passage to New York, where she was compelled to +remain for want of means to go farther. But she was +hoarding her wages, every cent of them, and in the course +of another year hoped to have enough to pay her passage +to San Francisco. It was a long time to wait, but necessity +knew no laws; she had been compelled to patience +before, and must endure it again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then it was that Cora came out in a new and beautiful +character. Why had she never been applied to before? It +was cruel, it was unjust. Did Alice consider her the most +hard-hearted creature in the world? Of course she should +go at once to California. In the very next steamer if +money could do it. What, separate a husband from his +wife for the want of a little money, the thing was barbarous! +Alice was in an ecstasy of gratitude. She loved her husband, +and was dying to proceed at once on her pilgrimage +in search of him. This munificence in her employer +brought genuine tears into her eyes. She fell upon her +knees, buried her face in Cora’s lap, and called down blessings +upon her, such blessings as a good woman would have +felt to the core of her heart. Even this calculating creature; +took a sort of glory to herself when the grateful voice, +broken with sobs, told how happy this goodness had made +her. She had so long pined in silence for the means generously +offered now, that it was a benefit beyond her realization.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was glad to know that the means she was using for +her own safety had given so much happiness. She liked +Alice, and was grateful to her for asking so few questions +and receiving all her sympathy with such genuine good +faith.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora slept at the Fifth Avenue Hotel that night; she +still retained rooms there, expecting to return in the winter. +As for sleeping in that house, her very soul recoiled from it. +She shuddered when Alice proposed it, and put the woman +away from her with both hands.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_421'>421</span>“Not for the world!” she said, breaking into a passion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She checked herself instantly; it was no part of her +purpose to inform Alice of her discontent. Her tools must +be used blindly. No old diplomat was ever more reticent +in his craft than this young woman, to whom duplicity +came by heart. She could not always restrain those outbreaks +of feeling which belonged to her double character. +But her mind, ever on the alert, had explanations and excuses +ready for adroit use on such occasions, and her resources +were always sufficient for the occasion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You forget,” she added, with a saddened face, “he is +not here, and without him I think my heart would break, +surrounded by these precious associations. Alice, you know +what it is?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice began to cry from tender sympathy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Monsieur will return, he has not gone for long,” +she said, with a kind effort at consolation. “The great +God is good, he will not allow Madame, who is so generous, +so munificent, to suffer a long separation, such as has taken +away all my youth.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was a splendid actress. When she entered into a +part like this, it was with all her soul. She put a handkerchief, +made of filmy linen and lace, to her eyes, and shook +her head mournfully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a long time even now, Alice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But Monsieur will return. He will shoot many birds, +grow tired, and come home. Oh, Madame Seymour, I will +pray very much for that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora started as this name was uttered. A gleam of +pleasure came to her face, which Alice thought had sprung +out of the comfort given by her assurances. But Cora +remembered that his name of Seymour was the only one +that even Alice ever had known her by. Here she was +doubly guarded.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I see Madame will take hope,” said Alice, cheered by +her fancied success.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_422'>422</span>“But I am so young—so foolish, Alice! To me weeks +seem like years when he is away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah yes, I understand. My years have been so long—so +long!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But there shall be only weeks now between you and +your husband. By the very next steamer you shall go.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ah, Madame, you are so good!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will send down, get your ticket and arrange about +the state-room this afternoon. Now I think of it, get into +the carriage and we will drive to the office at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The grateful woman put on her bonnet with trembling +hands, and throwing a mantilla over her shoulders, stood in +readiness to go, more glad at heart, than she had been for +years.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They got into a carriage, which stood at the door, and +drove down to the Bowling Green almost in silence. Both +were cheerful—Alice, because she was going to her husband; +Cora from a consciousness that, one by one, the +shackles of her married life were giving way. When they +reached the office, Cora gave Alice her purse.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Get the ticket, arrange everything, and keep the rest, +you will want it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Madame!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There, there; go at once or the choice of berths will be +less,” said Cora, waving aside the poor woman’s gratitude, +which, being thoroughly genuine, began to rebuke her a +little.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice went into the office, and came out with her ticket, +smiling gratefully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When does the steamer sail, Alice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In three days, Madam.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, I will drive you home; you must begin to pack +up at once, three days are soon here and gone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In a month—in one little month, I shall see him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And this makes you so happy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_423'>423</span>“So happy—oh, <i>mon Dieu</i>, so happy!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, here we are. Be ready in time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the house, Madame—what shall I do about that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Leave it with that stout black woman—I forget her +name—but she seems honest.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“As madame pleases—Hagar is very good negar.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice got out of the carriage and Cora drove away, well +pleased with her morning’s work. She did not inform +Alice Ruess where she was going, but promised to call +again or send for her; so the woman was well content.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After driving a block or two, Cora pulled the check-string +and ordered the coachmen to return. Alice saw the carriage +and came out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here, close to the door,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Alice obeyed, and Cora whispered to her:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If my husband should return, tell him I have gone up +the river, and do not speak of my coming down again, that +might keep him here and I should lose so much time, you +know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I shall see you again, Madame?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes; oh yes, I shall see you off, never fear. But remember +what I have just told you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certainly, Madame.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>After this, Cora drove away for good, and actually did +go to Mrs. Lander’s dressmaker and torment the poor +woman terribly with a confused discussion about trimmings—white, +lavender, purple and gray—with which the second +mourning was to be illuminated into a phase at once sorrowful +and desponding. The happy medium in such cases +is difficult to reach.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Three days from that, Cora drove to the door of her own +residence and took Alice into the carriage. The luggage +was already on board, and Alice Ruess had no friends to +weep over or bid farewell. When once seated in the carriage, +she said:</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_424'>424</span>“Oh, Madame, Monsieur came last night.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, my husband?” Spite of herself Cora’s voice +was sharp and startled.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Madame, Monsieur Seymour. He was grieved—very +sad indeed, when I told him Madame was up the +river.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I have missed him—of course he took the train at +once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps. He went away but said nothing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora looked at her watch.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The steamer sails at twelve, I have plenty of time. It +is only a few hours delay.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She spoke carelessly, but her face was like ashes in its +paleness. They drove down to the wharf, crowded with +drays, carriages, wheelbarrows, and swarms of people of all +grades and character, from the rich aristocrat to the humblest +orange woman. Men and women crowded the deck +and swarmed up the gangway, jostling each other, some +carrying carpet bags, some holding great bouquets, and +others, who came late, dragging valises and trunks desperately +upward by one handle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was a scene of wild confusion. Women leaned down +from the deck, searching for those they loved and were +leaving among the crowd; some with a last gift of flowers +in their hands, others flinging kisses from lips quivering +with grief, others again weeping piteously.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Through this crowd Alice Ruess made her way with a +little satchel in her hand and a look of touching joy on her +face. She had nothing to leave, but all the world to follow. +In a few weeks she would see her husband. This was the +happy thought that went singing through her mind as she +was hustled up to the deck and stood there, eager for the +bell to ring, for she considered every minute lost which +was not bearing her onward.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora leaned out of the carriage, interested in the woman +<span class='pageno' id='Page_425'>425</span>she had helped. Indeed she felt almost the sensation +which springs from a generous action. The poor creature’s +intense gratitude seemed to make a virtue of her +selfishness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Finally the bell rang, the great cable was uncoiled and +followed the heaving vessel like a huge snake till rough +hands drew it up, wet and dripping. The ponderous wheels +began to buffet the waters; the great vessel swept out into +the river and the boom of a gun sent back her last farewell. +Cora saw the slender figure of Alice, waving a handkerchief, +through the smoke, and drew back into the carriage +with tears in her eyes. Whatever her motive was, she had +done good to that helpless little woman, and loved her a +little as we all love those we have benefitted. But the +words she said five minutes after had little of goodness in +them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank Heaven, that possible danger is escaped. This +change of name will be like a tombstone on the woman +should he ever attempt to search her out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>In going down to the office that day, Cora had suggested +that Alice should take out her ticket under a changed +name. “It will give your husband a pleasant surprise,” +she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will have the happiness of seeing his heart leap +into his eyes. But the commonplace warning of a passenger +list would spoil everything.” Alice acquiesced. She +would have done almost anything at the bare suggestion of +a lady who had so generously befriended her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was the reason that Cora congratulated herself with +such earnestness. All traces of Alice Ruess were lost when +that California steamer left the harbor of New York.</p> + +<p class='c013'>From the wharf, Cora drove to a law office in Nassau +street. The man she went to consult was a perfect stranger +to her, and she seemed resolved to keep him so, for, on entering +his office, she carefully drew the thick crape veil +<span class='pageno' id='Page_426'>426</span>over her face, and her figure had been as much as possible +enveloped in a large mourning shawl. She had only a few +words to ask of the gentleman: “Would he give her his +attention just for one moment? A friend of hers had +been unfortunate in marrying a man afterwards condemned +to a term of service in the State’s prison, would that fact +relieve her from all marriage obligations?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had been a little unfortunate in her lawyer, who +happened to be a clerk in the office. Seeing a stylish-looking +lady come in, who evidently mistook him for the superior, +he assumed the position and gave his opinion with confidence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No doubt of it—no doubt of it. My dear Madam, the +lady is free as air. No marriage ceremony can bind any +woman to a convict.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You are quite sure of this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The impromptu lawyer smiled in a superior way, and +gently waved his hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Those who know me, dear lady, would not find it +necessary to ask that question.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Excuse me,” answered Cora from behind her veil, “but +my friend is naturally anxious to be certain. Her position +is a very delicate one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No doubt of it; but the question is a very simple one +and easily answered. Why, common sense teaches one +that it must be an unjust law which ties an innocent +woman to her guilty husband when crime itself separates +them. What if a man is condemned for life?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The petty impostor seemed disposed to enter into an +argument on the subject, being rather anxious in his own +mind; but Cora was only too glad that his convictions +were so positive, and, taking out her porte-monnaie, she +handed him a bank bill of considerable value, scarcely +heeding the amount.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man took it, cast a sharp glance at the face, which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_427'>427</span>only gave an imperfect outline beneath that provoking veil, +hesitated and said, “Madam,” as if she had spoken.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She turned away, impatient of his scrutiny.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hem, hem, Madam, perhaps you will expect some +change?” he said, folding the bill and leisurely placing it +in his pocket-book.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is no matter,” she answered, moving away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But, Madam, Madam, I insist.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The fellow was closing his pocket-book all the time. She +saw the action, and turned away, despising him in her +heart. There is, after all, an aristocracy of crime in this +world. This woman, whose life was one great fraud, dared +to look with contempt upon the man who could commit a +petty offence against herself. She did not regret the money +he had pocketed so adroitly, for the information he had +given her was worth ten times that amount, but her lip +curled with contempt of the man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To the Hudson River Depot.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was eager to reach home now—eager to commence +the contest which lay before her. No, she thought better +of it. Seymour would never venture to come into the +neighborhood of her residence while Clarence Brooks was +there. She would drive to the house in town and make +sure of an interview with her husband, should he have returned +to it. Her haughty spirit was now prepared for the +issue—prepared to repudiate and defy him, if that course +seemed best to her. She drove up to the house and entered +it, almost expecting to meet the man who had been all the +world to her only a few months before in deadly enmity. +Whether the contest would be one of force or craft she had +not determined, but she was resolved that it should be final +and decisive.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was not there.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_428'>428</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLVI.<br> <span class='c011'>THE BROTHER’S CONFESSION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>That night, a little after dark, Alfred Seymour came to +that almost deserted house, and, letting himself in with a +latch-key, walked directly up stairs, not with his usual +elastic tread, but heavily, like a man borne down with age +or fatigue. He entered Cora’s chamber and looked around, +his eyes heavy with such bitter wretchedness that his most +fiendish enemy would have pitied him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! God help me! God help and forgive me!” he +cried, in a dry, feverish voice. “I cannot find her. She +avoids me, and I love her so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The unhappy man threw himself on that sumptuous bed, +soiling its whiteness with his dusty clothes, and crushing +one of the laced pillows against his face, kissed it with a +wild passion, that seemed almost like insanity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Her head had touched it—her warm cheek lay here, +and here the breath from her sweet lips floated over this +lace. If she shed tears during my absence, they fell upon +this linen. Oh! if I knew—if I only knew!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The terrible sway of his grief shook the bed till all its +frost-like draperies trembled above his prostrate form.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She loved me once. She did love me—but now, when +I come home famishing for a sight of her, she is not to be +found! Does she know that I am here? I told that +woman to tell her, but find the house dark and empty as a +grave. I have been to that house. In my disguise I +ventured into the very stables. The stupid man I found +there told me that she had not yet returned from the city. +I saw <i>him</i> too, looking calm and noble, as he always did, +riding as I have seen him a hundred times in the desert +and on the plains. At first I thought she was with him. +The very fear made me faint. Thank God, it was not her, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_429'>429</span>but so like, so like! Can two women on this earth be so +beautiful? I would have sworn not till yesterday. Another +man might have been deceived; but I was her husband, +and after that one look felt the difference. What an angel +that girl on the white horse looked. He will marry her; I +saw it in his face, in the movement of his stately head as +he bent toward her. God bless him! God bless the woman +who makes him happy!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>These were the thoughts which tortured that wretched +man as he lay there bewailing the past, half frantic with +fever, the most pitiable object that the darkness of that +night closed in upon.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Later in the evening a slender figure came through the +gate and went down to the basement, where a few words +were exchanged with the colored woman. Then Brian +Nolan sprang up the stairs, mounted both flights like a +deer and knocked at the door, from which low sounds of +grief reached him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour got up and opened the door. Brian almost +threw himself at the young man’s feet in an ecstasy of joy.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! Mr. Seymour, you have come back at last! I +have waited, and waited—longed for you till the loneliness +made me ill.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank God, there is one human being that loves me!” +cried Seymour, straining the lad to his heart with an +embrace that would have pained him at another time. +“You are glad to find me, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Glad—only feel how my heart beats!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is a good, faithful heart, and beats honestly, I know,” +said Seymour, kissing the boy’s upturned forehead. “Ah! +if you were a little older, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am old enough to love you dearly and do anything on +earth for you that a strong man is capable of. God will +give me strength, and love will make me wise when +strength and wisdom are needed to prove how grateful I +am.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_430'>430</span>Seymour looked wistfully into that eager face. He felt +so friendless that the boy’s ardor comforted him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know you love me, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Indeed I do; try me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall, perhaps, Brian, and that before long. Look +me in the eyes, boy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“See, I do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is an honest look.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am honest, Mr. Seymour.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And for that reason would have no charity for dishonesty +in others.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian bent his head a moment in thoughtful silence; at +last he looked up brightly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My father used to say that good people were always the +most charitable.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your father was a good man, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The words were spoken so impressively that Brian felt +his heart swell with a strange, new feeling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you ever know my father, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, boy, I knew him well.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, my own, own father, who is now a grand +spirit among the angels?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, sit down here—not here, I forget. Come into the +next room, it is my own.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With his arm about the lad, Seymour went into another +room and closed the door, shutting out the light of a small +lamp filled with perfumed oil, which was always kindled at +sundown in the chamber they had left. They were altogether +in the dark now, save the moonbeams, which flung +a belt of silver half across the carpet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour sat down on a sofa and drew the boy to his +side. Throwing one arm over his shoulder, he sat for some +time in silence, sighing heavily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian,” he said at last, in a voice so changed that it +made the boy start, “Brian, I am going to tell you a great +<span class='pageno' id='Page_431'>431</span>secret, and trust you as grown men seldom dare to trust +each other.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You may—I will keep your secret; trust me, I shall be +proud of that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour tightened his arm around the lad, and Brian +felt that it was trembling violently.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, I was not good, naturally, as you are.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian interrupted him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, I’m not so very good after all. Ellen could tell +you that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I was not good at all in comparison. My boyhood +was full of faults—I did my father great wrong—injured +his children—almost broke his heart—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor man,” said Brian, tenderly. “And he must have +loved you so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He did love me—never on this earth shall I be so loved +again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will love you dearly, Mr. Seymour.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I did worse than this in the end; I almost ruined +my father and his whole family.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That was very sad; but I suppose he forgave you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, thank God, he did!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour’s voice was choked with emotion, for some moments +he had no power of speech.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“At last I went into the world alone. I meant to act +rightly; I had a great many accomplishments, and made +friends wherever I went. There was a man among them +who took to me, whom I loved devotedly—as you love me, +Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian’s eyes shone like stars in the moonlight, and he +drew close to Seymour, murmuring:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Almost, perhaps.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I was poor and he was rich. He wanted a travelling +companion, for he was going across the desert to Jerusalem +and up the Nile—farther than travellers usually explore—and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_432'>432</span>wanted companionship in his adventures. First +we went into Switzerland and Italy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Seymour stopped, and his heart swelled against +Brian’s side with painful throes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In Italy I met and loved a lady you have seen once at +the hotel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I saw that you loved her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is our secret, Brian—keep it sacredly. I have +married that lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will keep the secret.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought that she was poor—that poverty would keep +us apart forever. It was this thought which ruined me. +You are young and cannot know what power love holds +over a heart which gives itself for the first and only time +to a woman like her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I can imagine it,” said Brian, softly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We parted. She went one way and I another, following +my friend and benefacter—for he was that to me—into +the far East. This man was rich and had no relatives that +he cared for. Once he said to me, ‘If I should take the +fever or be flung from a precipice, it will be a shame that I +did not make you my heir, Alfred, when we had lawyers in +plenty around us.’ I laughed at this as a joke at the time, +but it afterwards suggested a great temptation to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again Seymour paused. His voice was becoming more +and more husky.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My friend was taken ill. This was on our return from +the Holy Land. He had what is call the Syrian fever, and +I nursed him faithfully. God is my judge, I loved that +man as if he had been my own brother. Night after night +I watched by his bedside, trying to pray for him, when I +had almost forgotten to pray for myself. One night the +coldness of death came upon him—the stillness of Death +in all its ghastliness. The people took charge of him then. +I will not speak of my grief—that would seem like a +mockery after what I must tell you. Brian, when I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_433'>433</span>thought that he was dead, lost to me forever, those words +about the heirship of his property came into my head, +haunting me with temptations. I knew that he had bills +of exchange to a large amount in his travelling-desk. +Those bills were enough to make me comparatively a rich +man. His relatives would have the great bulk of his +wealth, while I, his best friend, beloved more than them all, +was left penniless.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, I took these bills from his desk, leaving all the +money there, which was no inconsiderable sum, that nothing +might be wanting, and came away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian had been gradually shrinking from the arm that +held him, but he gave no other sign of the shock that +seemed to freeze the heart in his bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I came to this country and found the lady for whom I +had done all this, so wealthy that all the gold for which I +had cursed myself was nothing to her. She never knew +how it had been obtained—I pray God that she never will. +But I know it, Brian, and this knowledge makes a coward +of me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian sat perfectly still, with his eyes and his hands +hanging listlessly downward. The boy had not expected +this. He was prepared for trouble, humiliation, anything +but crime. Seymour sat speechless for a moment, waiting +for some sign of the feeling his story had excited.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am so sorry—so sorry,” said the boy, drawing a deep +breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And hereafter you will hate me,” answered the young +man, in a voice so mournful that it brought tears into the +lad’s eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; it makes me sad. I love you better than ever, +but with a trouble in it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear, dear boy! But I have not told you all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian shuddered. He thought some deeper crime would +be in the next words.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_434'>434</span>“Do not shake so, boy; I cannot bear to make you suffer. +What I have more to say is this. The man I supposed +dead is alive and in this country.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian started, and grasping Seymour’s arm, looked wildly +in his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then you are in danger, sir?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, great danger; that is why our happy home was +broken up. I dared not face the man I had so wronged; +for <i>her</i> sake, I fled like a coward; for her sake, I have come +back again. Her letters have not reached me. I find this +house desolate; for we lived here, Brian, so happy—so +happy! That man is in the very neighborhood with her. +What if she knows the truth?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If she loves you there will be pity and forgiveness.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But a consciousness of shame and disgrace. My proud, +beautiful angel, I would rather die than see scorn on her +lips.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But this gentleman is brave, you say—generous, kind. +Go to him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Heavens! I cannot do that! One glance of his eye +would kill me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would do it,” said Brian, gently. “Indeed I would.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If I had used none of the money—if I could replace +it—that would be possible. Indeed I have thought of it, +but I have already spent three thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian was thoughtful a moment. Then he started to his +feet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But the lady—she is rich. Ask her for these three +thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She would give it to me if I dared but ask. Still, +what reason can I urge for wanting it? She knows that I +have this money.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell her the truth!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Boy, boy, I would die first!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! if I only had so much money!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_435'>435</span>“You would give it to me, I know; but for a friendless +unknown man to raise even three thousand dollars is +impossible. In a wild hope that it might be done, I sold +my horses and all the valuables in my possession. Everything +has been turned into money, but that is all I can do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian sat down again and laid both hands on Seymour’s +arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let me try and help you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man looked into the boy’s face, which was +singularly pale and earnest in the moonlight. Then, in a +voice that trembled with tender gratitude, he said:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If you only could! If you only could!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Even a boy like me can try.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How much this is like your father, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, yes, I remember. The other terrible thing drove +it out of my mind, but you have seen my father.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, he was my father, as well as yours. I was his +eldest son.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With a wail of such exquisite pain and pleasure as goes +well nigh to break a young heart, Brian threw both arms +around his brother’s neck, sobbed out some inarticulate +words, and lay still as death upon his bosom. The boy had +fainted.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLVII.<br> <span class='c011'>LISTENING AND PLOTTING.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The moment Cora returned home, she sent a note to +Clarence Brooks, challenging him to ride that afternoon as +some compensation for the one she had so unexpectedly +deprived him of. With all her anxiety this strange being +<span class='pageno' id='Page_436'>436</span>had been restless with a feverish desire to see Brooks and +hear more distinctly than he had yet spoken the wishes +that she believed burning in his heart. Throwing off her +travelling dress, she put on her habit, and, ordering Blackbird +to be saddled, was ready to start long before the man +returned with her note unopened.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mr. Brooks had gone out to ride early in the afternoon,” +the people at the hotel told him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What road?” she asked.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man believed it was the river road. At first they +were not quite certain that he had not taken his usual walk +up the ravine.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Up the ravine. What ravine?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That in which the pretty log cabin stood. Mr. Brooks +spent a great deal of time up there, chestnuting and making +pictures on scraps of paper. But he wasn’t doing anything +of the kind this afternoon, for one of the boys had +seen him riding across the little plank bridge below the +railway.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A wild, fierce pang shot into that woman’s bad heart. +She knew that Virginia made frequent visits to the ravine, +and her suspicions took fire at once. She turned her +stormy face on the man and pointed sternly with her whip +toward the stables.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go tell Joshua Hurd to bring my horse out at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man obeyed, and five minutes after his mistress was +galloping up the river road with fire in her heart and a hot +red on her cheeks. She had ridden perhaps three miles +in this way, when a rise in the ground gave her command +of a cross road which led through a maple grove on the +right. With a sudden jerk of the bridle, she checked her +horse, and a spasm of pain closed the teeth upon her lips, +which grew white under the pressure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was what she saw—a black and a white horse +drawn close together under a huge maple tree, which was +<span class='pageno' id='Page_437'>437</span>raining its golden leaves all around them—a gentleman +stooping toward a tall, slender girl, who wore a riding-dress +almost exactly like her own. These two persons seemed to +be talking earnestly, but after a few moments they prepared +to move on. There was something wrong about the +lady’s bridle, evidently, for the gentleman dismounted to +arrange it, and snatching the hand which was extended to +receive the reins from his, pressed it to his lips more than +once. Cora not only saw this, but she observed that there +was no glove upon that hand, for the lady drew on her +gauntlet as she rode along.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Fierce as war, and hard as iron, that woman wheeled her +horse slowly around and rode home. She made no remark, +and avoided all questions, but seated herself by a window—massing +the curtains into a safe concealment—and +waited till her cousin should appear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia came at last, walking her horse up the carriage drive; +she stooped forward more than once and patted the +pretty animal’s neck, as if, in the supreme contentment of +her heart, she must caress something. Cora remarked the +bloom of happiness in her face and the cheerful leap with +which she sprang from her horse. The sight was poison to +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen met Virginia at the door of their parlor, looking +anxious and disturbed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has come—Miss Cora is in the house,” she said, as +if announcing some great calamity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia laughed. What had the beloved of Clarence +Brooks to hope or fear from Cora Lander? Let her come +and go as she pleased; a little time would separate them +forever. But there was one thing she was anxious about. +Could Eunice be persuaded to let them have the tray sent +up a little earlier? The ride had given her an appetite, +and then she had promised to bring Ellen to this little cataract—it +was a shame to call it a cascade—to watch the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_438'>438</span>sun set. There was a pile of clouds in the west, which +would fire up beautifully.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen undertook to propitiate Eunice, with whom she +had become a great favorite, and Virginia, after taking off +her habit, nestled herself into an easy chair and fell to +dreaming, as innocent girls will when love throws a rosy +bloom into the atmosphere around them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The promise held out by that embankment of clouds was +brilliantly kept; floods of rosy light floated through them, +touched at the edges with fringes of living flames; opaline +seas and lakes of amber hue broke out from their depths, +surrounded by embankments of living gold, flashes of green +and purple shot in here and there, as if the angels had got +tired of weaving rainbows and flung their overplus of colors +into one gorgeous sunset. As usual, Ellen wandered off by +herself and drank in the glory of the scene with thrills of +such delight as genius alone can feel. Even those two +lovers, happy and refined as they were, failed to reach the +exquisite pleasure that stirred her heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When did sunset or landscape ever draw two lovers out +of their own lives for any length of time? Before those +noble colors had begun to melt into that soft purple which +precedes the night, the young couple had become, as usual, +absorbed in each other. They spoke of their loves—of the +bright future which lay before them—of the long, long life +in which they were never to be parted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It seems too blessed; sometimes I am frightened lest all +this should fade away,” murmured Virginia as she saw that +vivid tumult of colors melt tint by tint into a soft purplish +blackness. “What if it should all break up like that?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The heavens themselves shall pass away first,” said +Brooks, with solemnity. “The man or woman does not +live that could separate us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A rustling of dead leaves, as if a sudden wind were +whirling them up from some hollow, followed these words +<span class='pageno' id='Page_439'>439</span>and out from behind the rock against which they sat +started a tall figure, wrapped in a large blanket shawl.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks heard this sound of whirling leaves and wrapped +Virginia’s cloak more closely around her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The wind seems to be rising,” he said. “I must not +keep you out in the cold.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She thanked him with a smile, and, all unmindful of the +evil thing that had crept so near them, they went down the +ravine together for the last time.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next day it rained heavily, and with the rain came a +high wind, which swept the woods of all their foliage and +filled the air with whirling leaves. It was a sad, gloomy +day, such as only the late autumn can bring, and no human +being, save those compelled to brave the storm, thought of +venturing out of doors. This gloomy weather answered to +the dark thoughts in Cora’s mind, as nature sometimes will +aid evil passions. The woman had not closed her eyes all +night—had not even undressed herself or gone to bed. +Wrapped in the dull red of that great shawl, which had so +well covered her movements among the perishing leaves, +she huddled herself in a corner of her silken couch, and +sat there like some wild animal waiting for its prey—fierce, +watchful, poisoned with bitter thought—till the dawn +looked in upon her. Then she arose and stood before the +mirror, breathing heavily, as if, soul and body, she had +been laboring in some oppressive atmosphere.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is well this rain has given me a few hours to myself,” +she said, looking at the haggard face that seemed to +threaten her from the glass. “I must have time to get +smiles and color back to that miserable face. So beautiful +as it was, and yet fail to keep that one man. What was +nature doing, to match her features with mine? To make +her slender, lithe, graceful as I am? It is like rivalling +one’s self if it were not for this and this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora touched her heart and her forehead, while a look of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_440'>440</span>triumph swept over the pallor of her face, changing it so +that its resemblance to Virginia’s almost entirely disappeared. +She had so many secrets, preying upon her like +vampyres, that it was a relief to lock herself in that room +and talk to her own image in the glass, or answer to the +thoughts that haunted her through the darkness when she +could not sleep. This expression of feelings which she dared +not expose to any human being was like letting in fresh air +on a poisonous atmosphere. It became a relief and habit +to her at last.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This quick intellect, this fiery heart—that tact which +some people might spend a life time and never learn—she +will no more acquire than she will get back the property I +am enjoying. After all, compared to these advantages, +beauty is a small thing, well enough in its way, but one +could afford to dispense with it. Still, in a contest like +this, everything counts.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Thus this young woman gave forth her wicked thoughts, +that were echoed back by her own heart only as rocky solitudes +receive sound. She had formed her plans during the +night, and began to work them out at once. Opening her +door softly, she stole down a long passage leading to that +end of the house where Virginia’s apartments lay. These +were composed of two sleeping rooms and a small parlor, +which Eunice had insisted on arranging for her occupation. +Since her plain talk with Cora, this hard-faced woman had +exercised her own will in the house with more despotism +than she had ever used when Mrs. Lander was mistress. +She seemed to take a pleasure in defying the person who +had once attempted to drive her from the house. This +defiance was most generally exhibited in some act of devotion +to Virginia or Ellen, whose noble character had made +itself felt even by her rough nature. She saw that it +offended Cora to have this unfortunate girl recognized by +the servants as their superior, and exalted her accordingly. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_441'>441</span>The other retainers followed the housekeeper’s example, and +no person in that mansion was treated kinder or respected +more than Ellen Nolan.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Towards the rooms thus independently appropriated by +her cousin, Cora made her stealthy way. She remembered +that a narrow passage connected one of these rooms with +the chamber that Amos Lander had formerly occupied, and +which had been shut up since his death. Did this passage +lead to Virginia’s sitting-room or had her sleeping chamber +been arranged next that of her father? This was a question +she had stolen forth in the early morning to satisfy +herself upon. Treading softly, and holding her breath, she +paused by a door, which might lead into Virginia’s sitting-room, +or, quite as likely, into the chamber where she lay +sleeping. With a silken touch, she turned the silver knob +and cautiously opened the door just far enough to look in. +With a sense of relief, she saw that it was unoccupied and +evidently used as a parlor. A piano stood opposite the +door, which she knew to have been removed from the drawing +room to give space for the grand instrument Mrs. Lander +had ordered during her brief season of extravagance. +Books lay upon the tables, flowers drooped in the vases. +Standing against the door, which Cora surveyed with eager +scrutiny, was a desk, littered with manuscripts, some of +which had fallen to the floor.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora advanced on tiptoe and took up one of those loose +sheets. They were not in Virginia’s handwriting—nothing +of her graceful elegance was there. The manuscript was +hasty, erased, interlined and blotted as if a hand, stirred +by strong feelings, had seized upon the pen in a passion of +thought, and left almost illegible traces on the foolscap.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, has that crooked thing turned author?” she +thought. “I should not wonder, there was always something +of that kind in her eyes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She let the paper flutter down from her hand, observed +<span class='pageno' id='Page_442'>442</span>that the door against which the desk stood opened inward, +and was thus blocked up. She was going out with another +sweeping survey of the room, when her eyes fell on an +object which made her heart stand still. It was the portrait +of Amos Lander, hanging above the piano—a picture +which, up to that season, had always hung in his office or +private study. Struck with awe, breathless with vague +terror, the woman could not turn her eyes from that face, +which seemed to look down upon her in calm confidence +that justice would reach all those evil deeds at last. She +strove to wrest her eyes from the glance that held them, +but could not, and walked backward, holding her breath, +till she reached the door. She closed this and fled along +the passage, seeking shelter from that face in her own +room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Some weeks before this, duplicate keys of all the rooms +in the house had been brought to her, for she had begun +with an elaborate display of housekeeping, which was an +unforgivable cause of offence with Eunice Hurd. These +keys she now searched over, and taking out the one which +unlocked Mrs. Lander’s chamber, put it in her pocket.</p> + +<p class='c013'>By this time the household was astir, and she commenced +her morning toilet, touching her cheeks with rouge for the +first time in her life, for that picture had driven the last +vestige of color away from them, and no effort of hers could +bring it back again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They shall not see how haggard I am,” she muttered, +sweeping the rich hair back from her temples and coiling it +on the back of her head. “If I could get ten minutes’ +sleep now. But that is hopeless. I can understand how +Lady Macbeth felt when she prayed for sleep and only +found dreams. But dreams that come when you are wide +awake, as I was last night, are the worst of all when you +are forced to work them out. Right or wrong—right or +wrong I will accomplish mine.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_443'>443</span>Cora met Mrs. Lander at breakfast, as had become her +habit of late, with those hollow expressions of affection +which appease rather than satisfy a loving heart. She +went into an elaborate detail of the dresses which she had +seen in progress; suggested more expensive trimmings for +some, and took an interest in the whole affair that charmed +her mother into a season of absolute forgetfulness of the +sin she had committed. While they still lingered at the +breakfast table, a servant came in with information that a +boy had come up from the city on the early train, with a +letter to Miss Lander, which he was directed to give to her +in person.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is something from the dressmaker, I fancy,” said +Cora, rising with every appearance of tranquillity from the +table. “I told her to leave the silver gray satin till we +sent farther directions. I thought lace would be lovely for +the body and sleeves, but she objected on account of the +mourning.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m afraid, dear,” said Mrs. Lander, “that the dressmaker +was right. Even satin may be considered an innovation. +Dead silk is really the thing. I am <i>so</i> sorry, but +we must give up the lace. People are so censorious you +know. Plain, with pipings of black, was what I had settled +on. But I will see Fanchon’s messenger.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That will do no good; just write your directions and +send the note down to me. I will add all that is necessary. +She has my general orders to make everything as beautiful +as possible and spare no expense.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What a dear, kind, liberal creature you are—no mother +ever had a more generous child.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Dear aunt, have you not always been treated exactly as +if I were your own child? I’m sure it was my father’s +wish.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora looked steadily into her mother’s eyes as she said +this, and walked quietly out of the room. There was no +<span class='pageno' id='Page_444'>444</span>danger that the widow would follow her after this covert rebuke.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora found, as she expected, Brian Nolan waiting in a +small reception room which opened from the library. She +had never seen this lad but once, and that was at the hotel +the day after her arrival in New York. She took the letter +that he gave her and looked at the address, which was a +simple name, with some evidence of surprise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is for my cousin,” she said, “I will take it to her. +Wait for the answer here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If you please, there is a young person living here that +I should like to speak with,” said Brian, glad to have +accomplished his task so easily. “Her name is Ellen—Ellen +Nolan.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She shall be sent for at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora rang the bell and told a servant to inform Ellen +Nolan that a person from the city wished to speak with her. +Then she left the room with a quiet, leisurely air, as if the +paper in her hand could be of no possible consequence, +though it was making her tremble from head to foot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wonder if his wife is so very handsome,” thought +Brian, watching her as she moved through the library. +“This is the lady Ellen loves so much. She speaks softly +and does not look unkind, but I should hate to ask her +myself. What a slow, proud walk she has.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen Nolan came like a bird into the room where her +brother sat. She knew that it must be him, for, in all that +strange land, there was no one else who had the slightest +interest in her outside of that house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“O, Brian, Brian, how glad I am!” she cried, throwing +her arms around him, and kissing his hair and mouth and +eyes with indiscriminate affection. “I have so longed for +you—so pined and prayed for a sight of you. Don’t think +it strange, dear, if I do act like a crazy thing; in the wide, +wide world you are all I have, except my lady. God forgive +<span class='pageno' id='Page_445'>445</span>me if, in my joy, I forget her for one moment. O, +Brian, she is an angel!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am glad of that,” answered Brian, returning his sister’s +embrace with ardor, and giving back glad tears in +exchange for her kisses, “for I have a great favor to ask of +her. Something that will frighten you at first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A favor to ask of my lady, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, I have come to you for help. The best friend I +ever knew is in trouble.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, the good gentleman?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, dear. Bend your head; we are alone, but I dare +not speak out loud.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen bent her head, but, in an instant, started back +with a cry of such wild surprise, that it was clearly heard +in the library, where Cora was reading that letter. She +lifted her face and listened.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What <i>can</i> it be about?” she thought. “Surely he +has not entrusted that boy with our secret.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She arose white with dread, and, stepping through one +of the library windows, regardless of the drifting rain, +which wetted her slippers through in an instant, softly +opened the blinds of another window, over which she remembered +the silken drapery of a curtain was falling loose. +The reception room had been occupied late the evening +before, and the curtain let down, to shut out all sounds of +the storm, which was beating against that side of the +house with violence, from which another window, opening +to the west, was protected. No servant had entered the +room that morning. Thus it remained, with the drapery +sweeping over one window and looped back from the other.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Taking advantage of a gust of wind, that came sweeping +around the house that moment, Cora softly pushed the unfastened +sashes back to the places made to receive them, on +each side of the deep recess, and, drawing the blinds after +her, sat down on an ottoman, which always occupied the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_446'>446</span>space shut in by the curtains. In this position <a id='t446'></a>she heard +all that Brian Nolan had to tell his sister, except those +words which he could only force himself to utter in a +whisper. This much, however, she did learn. Seymour +was making strenuous efforts to repay the money <a id='t446a'></a>he had +taken, and Virginia was to be importuned in his behalf. +Out of this came glorious materials for the web her crafty +mind was weaving. If she could only bring Seymour and +her cousin once into companionship, the task she had imposed +on herself would be of easy accomplishment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian kept his benefactor’s secret well. Not even to his +own sister would he whisper the secret which had been entrusted +to himself alone. That which related to himself, +Seymour had permitted him to tell their sister Ellen, who +sat listening, half in joy, half in bitter grief, but the words +of her father still whispering in her heart. He was her +brother—with all his faults he was her brother! He had +been so kind to Brian, who came to him miserable and +utterly unknown. There must be some nobility of heart +in a man who could be so generous to a helpless fellow creature. +She would see him, help him, toil for him, if the +way could be pointed out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian told her of his hopes that her friend and mistress +might be induced to let their brother have the money, +which would save him from eternal degradation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen shook her head. “Her mistress was not the rich +one; she had the heart of an angel, but—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Ellen paused, sprang up, and clasped her hands +with passionate force.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! it might be—it might be! God grant it! That +would, indeed, prove the happiest moment of her life. +Brian must not ask her what it was yet; but she had +hopes. Only wait a little, and she would soon test her +ability.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this was incoherent enough; but there was something +<span class='pageno' id='Page_447'>447</span>so earnest and hopeful in all the girl said and did +that Brian had that faith in her which singleness of purpose +always inspires.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will ask this good lady to help us, Ellen,” he said; +“we are so friendless that no chance must be neglected. +If you only knew how he suffers.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But he shall not suffer long. This will be working out +my father’s wishes. O, Brian, he loved his prodigal devotedly!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it, Ellen; but love for a man like that is so natural. +It seems to me that he is younger than I am—as if +you and I must be strong for him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I remember him, Brian. His face was beautiful. His +eyes—yes—yes—his eyes are like our father’s, so deep, so +mournfully deep.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The listener in that window heard nothing of this. Having +mastered the substance of their conversation, and discovered +their object, she left these affectionate nothings to +their speakers, and, opening the letter which Seymour had +sent her, began to read it by the bars of light that fell +through the shutters.</p> + +<p class='c012'>“My wife, my own beloved wife,” it began—“I am here +in the house, which was our Paradise, but now seems deserted. +Without you, every place is like a desert to me. +With you, I desire no better heaven. Come to me, +my beloved. Do you know that it is weeks and weeks +since I bade you farewell in this room, with your dear +head on my bosom, and your trembling lips pressed to +mine? That was a moment of anguish unutterable; but, +compared to this dull waiting, and the baffled expectation +that tortures me, whenever the gate opens, or a +carriage turns the corner, it was happiness, for you were +with me. I know it is very foolish, but sometimes a fear +comes upon me that—No! I will not put into language the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_448'>448</span>apprehensions that harass me. Your presence will drive +them away, as sunshine turns the blackest clouds into embankments +of luminous snow. Did the woman tell you +that I had returned? I am sure she must have forgotten +it, or I should not now be sitting among our ‘household +gods’ alone. But you will get this. I send it by one +who is trustworthy, and who loves me. Give him a few +gentle words for my sake. Above all, give him an answer +to this. Tell me what hour and minute I may hope for +you!</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Alfred.</span>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora read this letter from beginning to end, without a +quickened breath or a flush of the face. She had prepared +herself for anything he might say, and no granite was ever +harder than the heart which beat in that young bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let these young fools talk out their dreams. I have +the pith of all they know or intend,” she said, inly. +“Innocent as lambs they will be working for me. I cannot +exactly see how as yet; but this brain is ready to mould +events.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She moved from her place of concealment, closing the +blinds carefully behind her as she went out, leaving wet +footsteps on the marble pavement in her progress.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLVIII.<br> <span class='c011'>HOPES OF REDEMPTION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>When once in her own room, Cora Lander read Seymour’s +letter again, pondered over it darkly for a time, then +threw it on her desk with a burst of sudden animation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have it—I have it,” she said, aloud. “We must +have no quarrelling, no reproaches—that pleasure I must +<span class='pageno' id='Page_449'>449</span>forego. It will rack me, but a love like his is not to be +trifled with. This man, if I turn upon him, may prove +dangerous; despair is always powerful. The strong man +who has nothing to lose becomes a giant.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She sat down and began to write, taking a letter from +her desk and laying it before her, which she examined +carefully from time to time as she proceeded. This was +what the letter said:</p> + +<p class='c012'>“<span class='sc'>My Own</span>:—I am afraid to leave home just yet, for +reasons which I will explain when we meet. About five +miles from this, on a cross road leading from the river, is a +long stone building, which you will recognize by the sign +as a country inn. You will know it by a grove of maples, +through which the highway leads a mile or so after you +leave the river. It may be dangerous and difficult, but I +will certainly meet you at this place to-morrow evening.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora made an effort to give something of her old +passionate tenderness to the note, but her hand refused the +task, and she added:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I dare not use the language this heart prompts, lest it +fall into hands that might make an evil use of it; but in all +things believe me unchanged and unchangeable as when we +met so often at the log cabin. Do not, I pray you, venture +there again, it is dangerous.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>V. C. L.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora compared this note carefully with the open letter +she had laid on the desk, and which seemed to have been +written long ago, for it bore a foreign post-mark and was +worn about the edges. The handwriting was that of Virginia +Lander, and that of the note was almost a <i>fac +simile</i>.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This note Cora locked in her desk, hastily writing +another in her own natural chirography, which she placed +in an envelope and left without address.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_450'>450</span>When all this was done, she put the note in her pocket +and opened the door of her chamber, knowing that Ellen +must pass by it on her way to Virginia’s apartments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She had not long to wait; Ellen came along the hall, +walking quickly, and apparently much excited. The +moment she was gone, Cora went down stairs and gave her +note to Brian, who was looking out of the window in order +to conceal the traces of tears that stained his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My cousin desires me to say that she wishes you to be +careful of this. Upon my word she has forgotten the +address, but no matter, you will know how to deliver it, I +suppose.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian took the letter from Cora’s hand. For a moment +he stood irresolute, looking wistfully in her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen is my sister,” he said. “Thank you very much +for being so kind to her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora smiled blandly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen is a good girl; one deserves no credit for being +kind to her,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will ask a great favor of you before long, lady—a +very great favor. Do not refuse her—it will break a kind +heart if you should.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She need not fear that I shall refuse any reasonable +request.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it may seem unreasonable.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, even then you may be sure that it will be kindly +considered.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian looked into her face; brightening with hope, he +took her hand and touched it reverently with his lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lady, I thank you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment a railroad whistle seemed shrieking for +Brian to be in haste. He snatched his cap and was gone +in an instant.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If it were another cause and for another person, I would +give the money he asks, if it were only to see his face light +<span class='pageno' id='Page_451'>451</span>up so pleasantly. How that man makes everybody love +him! How I loved him once!—No, no, that was not love; +but such delusions take the bloom off a woman’s life. I +almost wish it could have lasted.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora smiled in calm scorn of her own thoughts as they +turned to Clarence Brooks, with his grand presence and +self-centred manliness. She asked herself if the same +woman could have loved two men so opposite—one so inferior. +Yet this one was her husband. All at once she +remembered that Ellen would be opening her heart to Virginia +just then, and it was important that she should know +exactly what passed between them. Ten minutes after, +she was in the passage between Virginia’s parlor and the +room that had been Amos Lander’s sleeping chamber.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen Nolan was seated at the desk, which, as I have +said, stood across the door. She was busy gathering +together the sheets of manuscript that lay upon the desk +and had fallen over the carpet.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora remembered that a pile of books lay on the desk in +front of the keyhole, and fearlessly pushed back the porcelain +shield which guarded it, thus letting in every word +that could be uttered in the room. She could hear Ellen’s +quick breath distinctly as it came in eager gasps from her +lips while the manuscript rustled like dead leaves in her +hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then she heard Virginia’s voice; she had just entered +the room from an inner chamber, and, seeing her favorite +with a red flush about her eyes, handling her papers with +such eager haste, came up to the desk and began to question +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is the matter, Ellen? What are you doing?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Counting the pages, dear lady; thinking how I had +best head the chapters. It is almost done, and I want to +sell it at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you have no great need of money just yet, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_452'>452</span>“Oh! yes, I have the greatest possible need. Do you +remember, Miss Lander—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Call me Virginia, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will! I will! But you remember, I told you of a +brother—an elder brother—whom my father loved so dearly +and suffered for.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Ellen, I remember everything about him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Virginia, that brother is in New York; you have +seen him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, I?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That splendid man—so handsome, so elegant—Miss +Cora spoke to him in the hall. You remember it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I remember him; he was very handsome in a certain +way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia was thinking of Clarence Brooks, and rather +resented the idea of any other man being considered preeminently +handsome by a person who had seen him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In every way—at any rate Cora Lander thought so. +He was the one who took compassion on my younger +brother. You remember Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, dear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, this man is my brother; I have a message for +him from my father given to me on the deck of that +steamer when the flames were all around us. That message +will be his salvation, I am sure of it. He has fallen into +error and great difficulty again, and is breaking his heart +over it. Oh! Miss Lander—Virginia—I do so want +money! They talk about the misery of slaves, but I would +sell myself on a plantation—yes, I would—to pick cotton +for three thousand dollars!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Three thousand dollars, Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, that is the exact sum I want. Some writers get +thousands on thousands for a novel. Do you think the +men who buy them would give me three thousand dollars +out and out for mine? You shake your head—you don’t +<span class='pageno' id='Page_453'>453</span>know anything about it. But I read the papers, and they +tell of such prices. After all, Miss Virginia, three thousand +dollars isn’t so very much for one’s soul—for that is really +what a book means when it is worth anything. Dear me, +how many tears I have shed, how angry I have been, how +sad and mournful. If people want to buy your thoughts +and your feelings, why—why—oh! Miss Virginia, <i>do</i> you +think any one will buy this book and let me redeem my +poor brother? My father loved him so—my father loved +him so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen’s head fell forward upon the arms which she threw +over the desk, and her excitement burst into a passion of +tears that shook her little frame like a storm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, dear, dear child!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen lifted her head and pushed back that splendid hair +from her tearful face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You think they will not buy it? Perhaps you think it +good for nothing?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, Ellen dear, I think nothing of the sort. But +the sale of a book, however good, takes time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it, I know it, and he needs the money at once. +What can I do? what can I do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is what I was thinking of, dear child. I have +those pearls and some diamonds, with the other jewelry +that was my mother’s. We will sell them, raise money on +them or something.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen lifted her head suddenly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But those jewels are all you have when we go away +from this house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it; but we shall not want them. Oh! Ellen, I +am provided for so richly! so richly!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s face was scarlet with innocent shame as the +fullness of her joy broke into words.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In a few days we shall be married.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen’s tearful eyes opened wide, and her lips parted with +sudden surprise.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_454'>454</span>“Are you not glad, Ellen, that it is to be directly?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>One great throe of pain set that generous heart free.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Glad? yes, I <i>am</i> glad.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That little frame was shivering all over. The wild eyes +filled with a light so deep and holy that Virginia unconsciously +dropped to her knees, and, drawing down that broad +forehead, kissed it almost reverently, she could not for her +life have told why.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In a few days, you said,” Ellen whispered, holding that +fresh young face between her two shivering hands, looking +into it tenderly, and smiling as noble women alone can +smile when their hearts are breaking up.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, he will not wait longer. This very day he is coming +to tell my cousin and my aunt. You see how little +need I shall have for money.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But they were your mother’s jewels.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is an angel now, and knows what I am doing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen looked wistfully at her manuscript. She so thirsted +to redeem this fallen brother with her own work! It would +be a consecration of the genius which burned within her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You shall do it,” she said, with a heavy sigh.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia understood the feeling of disappointment, which +another might have mistaken for ingratitude.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It shall be you, after all,” she said. “We will not sell +my mother’s jewels outright, but raise money on them. +Such things are done, and we will find out the way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then, after my book is published, I can get them back +again. Oh! lady, that mother you love so is not more of +an angel than you are!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The sound of a soft kiss checking the next words was all +the answer that reached the woman listening so intently +close by them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We will consult him, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! no—no, that would be to expose my brother!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Forgive me, I did not think of that. We must manage +this business alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_455'>455</span>“Yes, all alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still I must see him before we go to the city.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will you go?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certainly. Why not?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To him—will you go with me to comfort him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will go with you anywhere in so holy a cause.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot thank you, lady; my heart aches to express +its gratitude. But the words—the words!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush, dear, it is a great mercy that the means are left +to us. But for you, these jewels would have been swept +away with all the rest.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That thought was an inspiration from God, I do believe, +lady. He knew that a soul was to be saved, and gave +you the means—making three people happy at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! if I could make all the world as happy as I am!” +said Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall we go in the morning?” questioned Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, in the morning. This terrible storm will not keep +him away; I will send him a note this evening, after he +has seen them, saying that I must go to the city for a day +or two. Mr. Stone will help us. I think he is a good +man, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! lady,” cried Ellen, with a sudden outburst of +gratitude “I really believe the world is made of good +people.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora had heard enough and stole back to her chamber, +resolved on two things, not to see Clarence Brooks that day, +rain or shine, and to search Virginia’s rooms thoroughly for +the jewels which were to wrest Seymour from the fatal +power she held over him. With the knowledge she had +just gained to work upon, Cora fell to reweaving the crafty +details of a plot which had been forming in her mind, as +the web of a spider grows thread by thread.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Before noon, Clarence Brooks called, and was refused. +Mrs. Lander was ill, the servant said, and Miss Lander +<span class='pageno' id='Page_456'>456</span>was so anxious that she did not like to leave her aunt’s +room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks was half tempted to ask for Virginia, but remembering +her position in the house, forbore until he should +have obtained a right to see her when and where he +pleased. Cora saw him from her window as he walked +down the carriage drive in the rain, with the wind sweeping +over him and almost wrenching the umbrella from his +hold.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Let him struggle!” she said, bitterly. “He will have +a harder contest than that before the week is over.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That evening Virginia sent her note to Clarence Brooks, +informing him of her intended absence. It was a delicate, +modest little note, full of shyly-worded regrets, and such +hints of love were more expressive to a refined man than +any passionate protest could have been.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The difficulty was about obtaining a messenger. In a +household of servants devoted to her cousin, Virginia did +not know whom she could trust. Ellen would have gone, +but it was raining harder than ever, and Virginia would +not permit the exposure.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will manage it—let me have the note, I will find a +safe messenger,” said Ellen, thinking of Joshua Hurd. +She threw a heavy shawl over her head, slipped her feet +into a pair of overshoes, and ran down to the stables. A +light over the carriage-house guided her to Joshua’s room. +She found her way up the narrow staircase and knocked at +his door.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_457'>457</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER XLIX.<br> <span class='c011'>JOSHUA HURD PROVES HOSPITABLE AND KIND.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>“Come in, if it’s you, Eunice,” said a voice from within, +“only don’t go to pitching in about the whisky; I mean to +drink a hot punch every night of my life—two on ’em—three +on ’em—four on ’em, if I’ve a mind to. The kettle’s +on now, I give you fair warning. Come in, if you’ve a +mind to, but none of your tantrums. Josh Hurd is Josh +Hurd, and he ain’t to be trod on.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It isn’t Eunice—only me,” said sweet-voiced Ellen, +coming into the room, where Joshua was hard at work, +with his coat off, crushing an unfortunate lemon in a huge +wooden squeezer, which he held at arm’s length, while the +juice ran into a tumbler of generous dimensions, in the +bottom of which a liberal supply of sugar was fast melting.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait one minute, till I get the licker mixed and the +bilin water turned in, and then if I don’t show you a punch +wuth while for a rainy night, set me down for a fellow that +don’t know what’s what. This ’ere punch will be a +sneezer, now I tell ye, Miss Ellen. But hitch your chair +up to the stove; no need to be afeared of the tea kittle; +I’m going to take that off right away. Golly, don’t it steam +up splendid!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen sat down by the little stove, on which a small iron +tea kettle was puffing steam from its nozzle with great +commotion, and watched Joshua compound his punch with +considerable interest. Like the bird that has a nest to +build, a mind like hers is forever gathering up materials, +rude or beautiful, as circumstance or nature presents them. +So Ellen warmed her feet by the stove and looked on, smiling, +while Joshua brewed his punch with as much pride as +some artists feel in composing a picture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the punch was complete, all but the water, Joshua +<span class='pageno' id='Page_458'>458</span>took the kettle in one hand, a spoon in the other, and stirred +his beverage into perfection, tasting it from time to time +from the spoon, fearful of getting in too much water. At +last he took a spoonful in his mouth, held it there, deliberated +over it, and swallowed it at once with a sigh of infinite +satisfaction; then he exclaimed, exultantly: “That <i>is</i> +punch!” with a nod of the head that seemed to be intended +for the tea kettle, which was fast subsiding from a rampant +little humbug of a steam engine into a harmless shell of +iron; for the steam had concentrated itself into a single +drop of water, which trembled meekly on the end of the +nozzle, as if afraid to fall at the moment of Joshua’s +triumphant exclamation.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then Joshua went to a cupboard, devoted to bridles and +small articles of horse furniture in its lower compartment, +and in the upper part to such odds and ends of crockery +as he had been enabled to pick up in the kitchen. From +this miscellaneous assortment, he brought forth a pretty +amber-hued glass, with a frost-like pattern of grape-leaves +cut around it, but broken off at the stem. This he filled +with punch from his own tumbler and presented to Ellen, +tasting it with a delicate sip on his way from the table to +the stove.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen took the glass and tasted the hot punch, while +Joshua stood rubbing his huge hands, delighted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t that the clear stuff, now?” he said. “Lifts ye +right out of your bo—yer Ingin rubbers, now don’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t it a little—just a little strong, Mr. Hurd?” +Ellen suggested, strangling in spite of herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Strong!” exclaimed Joshua, in supreme contempt. +“Strong! why a nussing baby could drink that and think +it was fennel-seed tea. Strong!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Perhaps it was from being so hot,” said Ellen, coughing +the next strangle down resolutely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, mebby! that tea kettle does spout the hottest I +<span class='pageno' id='Page_459'>459</span>ever saw—blow it and shake it up a little, and you’ll find it +scrumptious enough. There’s one good thing about boiling +water, it will cool off, and then the whisky comes uppermost.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen followed his directions, and at last managed to +empty the tiny glass, which, being without bottom, she was +unable to set down.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have another?” said Joshua, reaching out one hand +while he lifted the tumbler to his lips with the other. +“Speak right up, if yer do, for the supply’ll give out +mighty soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No more, Mr. Hurd. It’s as nice as can be, but my +head isn’t used to it, you know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nice! why of course it’s nice! Didn’t I wash the +spoon and glasses myself? But if you won’t take any +more, here goes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua emptied his tumbler and set it down with a deep, +deep breath. Then he drew a chair close to the stove.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now what is it yer want of me, Miss Ellen?” he said, +confidentially. “Whatever it is, I’ll do it, for if there’s a +gal on arth that I set store by, it’s you. Next to the +hosses, Miss Ellen, I’d do more for you than anybody, not +to say our Eunice. She thinks you’re awful smart, and I +usuerly think as she does. Now what is it yer want?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I want you to carry a letter down to Mr. Clarence +Brooks and bring an answer back, if there is one, without +saying a word about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your letter? ’Cause if it is, I won’t do it, nor tech it. +That proud chap’ed only make fun of you if I did.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it, Joshua,” answered Ellen, sadly; “I shall +never write letters to gentlemen, like other girls. No one +will ever ridicule such things in me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I should like to see ’em try it!” exclaimed Joshua, +clenching his huge hands. “But if the letter ain’t from +you, who’s it from?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_460'>460</span>“I will tell you, Joshua; but, remember, it is a secret +between us. Miss Virginia wishes to send this note.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua unclenched his fist and uttered a low whistle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, both on ’em—both on ’em!” he exclaimed. +“But I’ll do that for her, or anything else. Hand over the +letter.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen placed the note in his hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You’ll want an answer—I’d better not bring it into the +house; jest you stay here till I come back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen promised to wait where she was till he returned. +Joshua put on his cap, wrapped an india rubber horse-blanket +around him and went down stairs. Ellen, being +left alone in the room, fell into thought which was only interrupted +by the storm, which pelted against the windows +and absolutely raved among the tall elms that overhung the +stables. All at once she started up; a thought had come +into her head which threatened to destroy all her hopes for +the morrow. The jewels which were to redeem her brother +had been left in Virginia’s room when Cora Lander took +possession of it. How were they to be obtained? Cora +always locked the door leading to her suite of rooms when +she left them, if it was only for an hour.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This thought, added to the gloom of the place and hour, +completed the feeling of depression that had for some time +been creeping over her. She was sad, too, from other +causes. It was hard to feel that she—so full of thought, +young, talented and rich with feelings that few women ever +possessed—should be shut out of all the sweet hopes that +were making Virginia’s life so bright. Joshua’s speech, +rude and uncouth as he was, had wounded her deeply. She +could not drive it from her mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen arose from her chair and began walking up and +down the room. Sometimes, she paused to look out upon +the storm, which beat heavily against the windows. It +seemed to her that Joshua had been gone a long time; she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_461'>461</span>listened for his footsteps on the stairs, and peered impatiently +from the window. Once she thought that he was +stumbling up stairs, and opened the door to listen. It was +the horses stamping in their stalls, and she went back disappointed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At length footsteps plainly sounded from the room below—they +mounted the stairs and paused. Ellen flung the +door open to give Joshua light, and found herself face to +face with Eunice Hurd, who strode into the room flushed +red with surprise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What on arth brought you here?” she demanded.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I came to see Joshua Hurd,” faltered Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Came to see our Josh, what for, I want to know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wanted him to go a little errand for me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“For you—a rainy night like this—well, I never did! +Where has he gone to? What has he gone after?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Eunice began to sniff suspiciously. A new idea had +come into her head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Isn’t that a smell of licker? If this isn’t a lemon-squeezer, +I don’t know what is. What on arth—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Eunice thrust her long forefinger into the tumbler, +and scooping out some sugar from the bottom, tasted it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Licker, and strong as Jehu—if he was strong, which +it ain’t no proof of because he driv hard. This ere tea kettle, +too, hooked out of the kitchen! That feller has hot +drinks here every night of his life, I’ll take my Bible oath. +Have you seen him a doin ’on it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’m afraid I have done worse than that. He gave me +a little, and I drank it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You did!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, he was very earnest about it, and—and—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice had drawn her chair in front of the stove and +planted her feet on the hearth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now tell me, Ellen Nolan—honestly—does that critter +know enough to make a decent punch?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_462'>462</span>“Oh, Joshua knows enough for that and a good many +other things.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now, do you think so? Josh is a good soul as ever +lived.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is indeed; but, Miss Eunice, I want to ask a great +favor of you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, what is it?” asked Eunice, drawing close to the +stove and lifting the skirt of her dress a little, that the +genial heat might fall on her ankles, a sure sign of good +humor with her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Eunice, there is something in Miss Cora’s room +that I want.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, what is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In the recess is an ottoman, something that has strayed +into the room, for it does not match the furniture. May +we have it in our parlor? I do not suppose she will miss +it, or care if she does.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice turned her face square on the hesitating girl, and +searched her through and through with those scintillating +eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen Nolan, you are asking one thing and meaning +another.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know it, Eunice; but that is all I want.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell me all about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I cannot, Miss Eunice. It is my young lady’s affair.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice turned round and planted her feet on the floor +with emphasis.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen Nolan, you may believe it or not, but Miss Virginia +Lander hasn’t, on this arth, better friends than I and +Josh are to her. If we could do what we want to, she +would be—no matter, I’m ready to help her do anything +that won’t hurt Mrs. Lander.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This will hurt no one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell me what it is? Trust me—you may. I’m bitter +as gall sometimes, but I’d amost lay down my life for that +poor gal.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_463'>463</span>Tears actually came into those changeable eyes. The +bony hands which Eunice clasped around her knees shook +visibly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I <i>will</i> tell,” said Ellen, feeling how sincere the woman +was. “When we were in those rooms, the first day we +came here, Miss Virginia hid her mother’s jewels in that +ottoman. It is hollow, and closes with a spring.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice burst into a chuckling laugh.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That’s where they was, is it? <i>She</i> knew about them, +and has searched all the desks and drawers over and over +agin. She seemed to hanker arter them pearls more than +anything. So she hid ’em—I wouldn’t a thought so much +cuteness was in the innocent critter. Only this very night + ’tother one was after me to know if I hadn’t seen ’em somewhere +about among her things. She’s jest crazy to get +hold on ’em.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But you will never permit it, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Permit it! I’d see her in—in Jehosaphat fust!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But how can we get them out of her room?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wait till to-morrow, and I’ll do it. If she keeps keys, +well I have to have ’em too.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen threw both arms around the old maid’s neck and +kissed her on the lips. A grim smile stole over that hard +mouth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I ain’t much used ter kissing,” she said, and her harsh +voice broke a little, “but sometimes it is a refreshment, +ain’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The loneliness that spoke out in these words touched +Ellen to the heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am so glad I trusted you,” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You might a done it always—I meant to have helped +that poor gal—for Josh and I knew how it was—and +thought I had it all worked out, but that young sarpent +was too much for me. The time may come yit. It’s only +on account of Mrs. Lander that I have grit my teeth and +<span class='pageno' id='Page_464'>464</span>kept in. She’s jest as near to me as Miss Virginia is to +you, and that critter has almost killed her. She began to +domineer over her as if she’d been a nigger slave driver, +and Mrs. Eliza Lander her personal property. But I told +her a thing or two and scared her out of that. She’s afraid +of me now, I tell you. If it hadn’t been for that, Miss +Virginia would a suffered more en you ever dreamed on; +she’d a been in an insane asylum now. It’s the gospel +truth I’m telling you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I believe it. Miss Virginia knows how often you have +befriended her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She don’t know, and she can’t know how hard it is for +me to do more or not to do more. If it wasn’t for Eliza Lander—well, +well, that young imp of Satan has got the better +of us all—tied us up by the heart. I ain’t a religious pusson, +Ellen Nolan, and I’ve done some things that I’m awful +sorry for, not meaning to do anybody one mite of harm, +but I’d no more change places with that splendid cretur +than I would with a rattlesnake carrying a string of rattles +that long. I hate the sight of her, and so does Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Joshua came in, dripping wet. He stopped a moment +on the threshold, astonished to find Eunice there and +embarrassed about the letter, but Ellen spoke to him at +once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you find Mr. Brooks?—have you brought any +answer?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua took a note from his vest pocket and gave it to +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is for my young mistress,” she said, addressing Eunice. +“We are going to New York just as soon as you can +help us about what we were talking of, and after that we +shall have some good news to tell you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What—she hasn’t found any new evidence? That +Brooks ain’t a lawyer nor nothing, that’s going to take up +her case, is he? If that’s so, I must have her word—no, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_465'>465</span>she must take her affidavit on it—that she’ll be a better +child to Mrs. Lander than that critter has ever been. If +she’ll take her Bible oath to that, I’ll do my best to help +her, and so will Joshua Hurd; I’ll answer for him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And he’ll answer for himself,” said Joshua, seating +himself on the table and pushing the tumbler behind him, +fully believing that Eunice had not seen it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You needn’t push it away, brother Joshua, I know +what’s been in it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brother Joshua! What was the world coming to? +Such words of endearment had not met the man’s ears for +so long a time that he could not remember back to them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is there any hot water in the tea kettle?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I—I don’t know, Eunice.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is there any licker in that long bottle there?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Eunice, I—I—shouldn’t wonder!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Lemon and sugar?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I sometimes make a glass of hot lemonade before I go +to bed on rainy nights like this, and try to keep them +things handy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Joshua, make me a glass of that hot lemonade, exactly +as you have made it once afore to-night; I feel kinder +chilly, Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest?” asked Joshua, looking wistfully at the table.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jest,” answered Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua made the lemonade, and the brother and sister +sat a long time with their feet on the stove hearth talking +in low voices to each other.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went away just as the kettle was put on the stove +again, and Eunice called after her not to fear about the +otterman, she would attend to that.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Virginia received her note, she hurried off to her +bed-chamber and read it on her knees by the little shaded +<span class='pageno' id='Page_466'>466</span>lamp, that seemed to fill the room with moonlight. It was +very short, but she read it over and over again, leaving +half-a-dozen kisses on the signature and sleeping with it +in her bosom that night.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER L.<br> <span class='c011'>THE FALSE STORY AND THE FORGED LETTER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Early in the morning, Cora sent a note to Clarence +Brooks, full of regrets that she had not been able to receive +him the day before. Her aunt was better, she said, and +she wished very much to see Mr. Brooks as soon as possible. +An affair, which she could not speak of except to a very +particular friend, who had been her father’s friend also, was +troubling her greatly; indeed, it had been the cause of her +aunt’s illness. Would Mr. Brooks come prepared to give +her his most serious attention and some little sympathy? +She was so young, the trouble that had come upon her +seemed worse than it might appear to his experienced judgment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>In reply to this letter, Mr. Brooks wrote that he had +intended to call that day, and would be most happy to +give her aid or counsel in any difficulty which beset +her. Indeed, as the daughter of his old friend, he +had an especial interest in her tranquillity and welfare +which no time or circumstance could destroy. He only +hoped that it would prove his good fortune to remove any +little unpleasantness that had for a moment distressed +her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora read the letter eagerly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is well,” she muttered; “before night he shall +share my troubles, I will pledge myself to that. If my +<span class='pageno' id='Page_467'>467</span>sweet cousin will only oblige me by going out now, she will +serve a double purpose; I must find those jewels. Where +can she keep them? Not a drawer, wardrobe or desk +that I have not searched. If she once gets the money for +that wretch I am lost. Let me think; a sharp intellect +and prompt action might turn even that to account. If +one could only be in two places at once now. In her conversation +with that little hunchback she will be sure to +betray the hiding-place of those jewels, but I cannot spend +my time there. He might call at any minute.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks did not call till afternoon, when Cora went down +to receive him in the little reception room, which looked +towards the woods. The curtains were all drawn back this +time, and the blinds open. She was determined to give no +chance for listeners in that interview.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My aunt is better, thank you, but not quite able to +come down,” she said, answering his polite inquiries and +seating herself on the sofa he occupied. “You must think +it strange that I should send that note, but—but—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora’s fine eyes filled with ready tears, and her +speech gave way for a moment. Brooks was surprised and +touched. It was not often that Miss Lander gave way in +this fashion. He reached forth his hand, laying it upon +hers, and felt the quiver that ran through her frame stirring +that.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I trust it is nothing serious; do not agitate yourself so. +Tell me what the trouble is and I may be of use.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I tried to keep it from you—I tried to keep it from +everybody, but now it is impossible; I must confide in some +one. So young and inexperienced, how can I help it? It +is cruel, so cruel in my cousin to drive me to this strait.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your cousin, Miss Lander—is all this agitation about +your cousin?” said Brooks, struck with sudden amazement.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Mr. Brooks, you never will know all that I am +<span class='pageno' id='Page_468'>468</span>suffering on her account. It is impossible for any one to +understand it who has not loved her as I did—and do, for, +with all her faults, I <i>cannot</i> help loving her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Pray, explain,” said Brooks, a little coldly, “I do not +understand.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How can you—oh, Mr. Brooks? But I will tell you +from the beginning. You know that my cousin and I were +educated together—that my father made no difference between +us. He was one of the most liberal men you ever +knew—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am aware of that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks was arming himself against this girl, and she saw +it. A stern, angry fire came into his eyes—he withdrew +his hand from the trembling fingers that clung to it, and +sat more upright, like a judge listening. He remembered +what Virginia had told him regarding the enmity of her +cousin, and took up her cause warmly in his heart. Cora +saw this with one of her side glances, and went on confident +of the result.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We were at school in Paris and in Brussels, and went +to Florence afterward to study Italian there. In this place, +attended by a governess and faithful old courier, we joined +a party of Americans and travelled over Italy some five or +six months before my poor father came to bring us home. +Up to this time, Mr. Brooks, Virginia and I had been like +twin sisters. We loved each other dearly, trusted each +other in thought and word—she was everything to me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Cora broke off with a sob in her throat. That +creature would have made a magnificent actress; she really +half believed the story she was telling, and wept as artists +shed real tears in their imaginary characters.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But in Italy, Mr. Brooks, all this changed. She kept +away from me, insisted on having a room to herself, went +out alone for hours and hours together, was unsettled in her +spirits—in short here she gave the first wound to a love +<span class='pageno' id='Page_469'>469</span>that had united us from the cradle. Some weeks after, the +old courier explained all this to me. Virginia had made an +acquaintance and formed an attachment, which she kept +from me and every one. Some strange young man, travelling +for pleasure or in pursuit of a calling I did not dream +of at the time, had won her heart from us. How or where +she first met him I do not know, but her first letter was +written from Florence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To whom and where was it directed?” asked Brooks, +sternly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not know. The courier spoke no English, and +could not pronounce the name intelligibly. Besides, I was +a mere school girl then and shrunk from prying into my +cousin’s secrets. I only know that several letters passed +between these two persons before my father came.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you tell him of this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It would have seemed like treason to my cousin. +Thank Heaven he was spared the misery of knowing how +his generosity had been wasted.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go on, I am listening,” said Brooks, in a cold, hard +voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora looked at him timidly, as if so ashamed of her +cousin’s conduct that it weighed her eyelids down, and went +on:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We sailed in that fatal steamer. The fire broke out +when my cousin and I were in the cabin; we both rushed +on deck, I to my father. She plunged overboard, abandoning +us both to perish, and was taken up, swimming for her +life, by one of the boats. I cannot describe the scene to +which she left us—the fire raging under our feet, the passengers +driven closer and closer together like wild animals +in the heart of a prairie fire. My father and I +together; he begged me to leap overboard alone and thus +save myself, knowing how well I could swim. But I would +not do it. Clinging to each other, we made the fearful leap +<span class='pageno' id='Page_470'>470</span>together. Others pressed upon us, tore us apart—I never +saw my father again. Around and around that burning +hulk I swam in search of him. At last the hot flames +drove me away. The boat in which Virginia had found +shelter was still in sight, lying motionless: I made for it, +fighting the waves with desperate energy. She saw me—I +know that Virginia saw me, but the boat never stirred. At +last the men seemed to rebel against the cruelty of seeing a +poor girl sink before their eyes and came toward me. I +was sinking, senseless, almost dead, when they picked me +up. In the boat with my cousin, was a little hunchbacked +creature who had fastened on her in the water and thus +saved herself. This girl, Ellen Nolan, became warmly attached +to her from that time, and has ever since been the +creature of her will. I think, at this moment, she would +work, sin or die for the girl who saved her life. I consented +that this girl should come with us to America when we +were at last rescued by a passing vessel. The secrecy she +maintained and her course in the shipwreck had disturbed +my confidence in her, but I loved her in spite of all and resolved +to deal generously by her and her mother, as my +father had done.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We reached home—my aunt had taken possession of +the property under a will found in my father’s desk: she +believed us all lost, and we took her by surprise. Mr. +Brooks, something transpired then which I will not dwell +upon; you would hardly believe me if I did. It has no +bearing on the point I wish to consult you about, and I +have little wish to prejudice you unnecessarily against my +cousin. But it created estrangements between us which +have, I fear, destroyed all my influence over her—a sad, sad +conviction when she stands so much in need of a firm +trusted friend.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go on,” said Brooks, still sitting upright, resolute in his +trust of the woman he loved. “Let me hear all—then I +<i>will</i> speak.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_471'>471</span>“Mr. Brooks, that man, the person she met in Italy, has +followed her here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks started; that shot told upon his armor, and Cora +knew it. She went on in a low and seemingly reluctant +voice:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is in this neighborhood; she goes out to meet him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again Brooks started, a flash of joy swept his face. She +had mistaken him for the Italian lover, who probably never +had an existence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He must have come about the time that we did, for I +know that she has met him, from time to time, in the +house where he lives, or it may he boards. Yesterday, just +before you called, a youth came here from the city with a +letter for Virginia. I was anxious about her, and went +down to question him. I wore a black dress, as she does +invariably, and people say that I and my cousin are so +much alike that a stranger might mistake one for the other. +I think the boy did take me for Virginia, for he gave me +a note, directed to her, and went on to state the urgent +need there was for action regarding a sum of money that +was wanted and must be obtained. He spoke of jewels +which were to be turned into money, and said, if everything +else failed, the rich cousin was to be applied to as a last resort. +All this was said as I stood with the note in my +hand. The lad was earnest and a good deal excited. I +found out afterward that it was his own brother he was +pleading for, and that both were the brothers of Ellen +Nolan.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks suppressed a start of surprise, and seemed to listen +as he had before; but there was a burning red on his +cheeks, and even his forehead grew dusky. He lifted his +eyes, that had a strange glow in them, and was about to +say, “Go on,” firmly, as he had before, when his voice +faltered and his hand fell nervelessly down from the back +of the sofa, where it had been resting. Directly before the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_472'>472</span>window, and half way through the flower garden, he saw +Virginia Lander and Ellen Nolan, conversing earnestly +together and walking towards the woods. There in his +bosom was the note, so modestly tender, which told him +that they were both going to the city early that morning. +Cora glanced out of the window, saw what it was that had +disturbed him, and said, very naturally:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is my cousin now, and Ellen Nolan with her. +You have never seen either of them, I believe.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks made no answer to this, but leaned back and prepared +to listen; she observed that his face had taken a +dead whiteness, and all around his mouth seemed chiselled +from marble.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I went away, as he thought, I suppose, to read the note +alone—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And did you?” asked Brooks, with sudden impetuosity.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled faintly and shook her head.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I could not have forced myself to obtain information in +that way.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“True—very true.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I sent the note to Virginia by a servant, and told him to +bring the answer back to me; but she came down herself +and gave her reply to the lad, with some whispered message, +which I did not hear. I have no idea what his reason +was, but this messenger, who seemed as much interested in +the affair as a principal, did not leave the house as another +person would have done, but went across the lawn, through +the thick wet grass, into the woods yonder. It was raining +hard, and I stood by the window a long time, wondering +what could take him in that direction, when I saw him +come out from among the trees, accompanied by another +person, who probably had been waiting there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did you get a full view of this person?” asked Brooks, +quickly. “Was he tall or short, light or dark?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_473'>473</span>“He was above the middle height and seemed young, +but a large Mackintosh concealed his figure, and I was not +near enough to distinguish his features. They went down +toward the road in company, and that was all I saw of +them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And what conclusion do you draw from all this?” +asked Brooks.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am unable to draw conclusions, Mr. Brooks, or decide +on what ought to be done; one thing is certain, my cousin +is in a dangerous position; she has been led into some +entanglement which will be her ruin. The brother of +Ellen Nolan can be no proper match for Virginia Lander, +and if he were, why this secrecy? She is under no guardianship; +my aunt loves her devotedly, and would interpose +no objections to a proper marriage. I stand ready—and +she knows it—to bestow the portion my father intended +for her—more, even. Why does she have concealments, +then, from her best friends? How am I to protect her? +What can I do? My aunt has fretted herself into a pitiable +state of nervous weakness since she obtained a knowledge +of this trouble, and looks to me for counsel and help. +I have tried to gain Virginia’s confidence in every way, but +she avoids me, scarcely recognizes her mother, and is only +intimate with this strange hunchback, <i>his</i> sister.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks shrunk from the recollection this speech brought to +his mind. Had not Virginia repudiated her mother even +to him? Had she not refused to recognize the maternal +right of consent to his proposal of marriage? He arose, +and, taking his hat, would have left the house without +speaking a word.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you no counsel to give me? Remember how +young I am,” pleaded Cora, following him. “Have I done +wrong in telling you this?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Wrong! who says you have done wrong? I have a +right to know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_474'>474</span>“Can you give me neither comfort nor advice, Mr. +Brooks?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He laid one hand on her arm and stood smiling on her +for at least a minute, but the smile upon a face so white +made her shrink.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In a few days, Miss Lander, I shall be better prepared +to advise you. It is a delicate matter, and must not be +rashly handled. Good afternoon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He seemed firm, but the hat which he had taken shook +in his hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This has been a painful conversation, believe me. I +tried to avoid it. If there had been any other person with +whom the family honor could be entrusted, I would not +have troubled you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There is no other person—there must be no confidences +with strangers on a subject like this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I felt that, oh! how forcibly.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She clasped her hand on his arm, thus mutely claiming +his sympathy. Tears stood in her eyes; she closed those +long silken lashes and crushed them back as if ashamed of +the sweet feminine impulse which had sent them from a +kind heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My father would have been so sorry,” she faltered.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks put her hand gently from his arm and turned +away; for the heart in his bosom began to swell, and he was +afraid of the passion that had well nigh outmastered his +manhood.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora watched Clarence Brooks as he went down the carriage +drive; her features did not change, she had acted her +part so well that it seemed absolutely real to her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What a grand heart is there—how good and kind he +is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She stood awhile by the window with those false tears on, +her eyelashes, wondering if he would follow Virginia to the +woods or go directly to the hotel. He went down the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_475'>475</span>terrace steps and took the railway track, which curved in a +circuitous bend there, making his walk twice as long as it +would have been by the carriage drive.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He will go there—it is only because he thinks that +some of us may see him. Ah! there they come; I shall +have time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia and Ellen came across the lawn, walking slowly +and with an air of depression. Cora watched them impatiently.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will they never go in?” she cried, stamping her foot +on the carpet. “Twenty minutes, I only ask twenty +minutes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She ran up stairs, put on the shawl which was so nearly +the color of dead leaves, and went down the back way. +Once out of doors, she took a path, well sheltered by shrubbery, +which led around the stables, and skirting the +grounds, mostly under the protection of a stone wall, +entered the ravine a little below the cataract. Here she +took the footpath, treading it like a panther, and sheltering +herself behind a clump of wild spruce trees, took an observation. +No one was in sight. The ravine was a solitude; +by this time the leaves were almost swept from the trees, +giving deeper gloom to the evergreens, which grew thickly +along the brook. After making sure that she was not +observed, Cora darted down below the bridge, dipped a +letter, which she took from her bosom, in the brook, and +climbed the bank again. Just where the path was broken +up by the roots and stones which formed an embankment +for the log cabin, Cora threw the wet paper down among +the leaves, partly unfolded as if it had opened in falling. +The leaves all around it were still moist and sodden from +the storm; she trailed a torn oak leaf half across it, and +made her way up the ravine, swiftly as she had entered it, +and went home, sheltering herself, as before, back of the +stone wall and in the thick shrubbery.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_476'>476</span>She was right, ten minutes after Clarence Brooks came, +with long, powerful strides, up the ravine, searching for +Virginia Lander. His strong spirit was determined to +throw off the doubts that oppressed it or learn the worst at +once. He had not seen her return from the woods, and felt +an almost savage wish to find her where he could wrest the +secret from her heart and crush her with scorn, or hear the +vindication which he still hoped, and almost believed that +she would be enabled to make.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But the woods was solitary as a grave; the foliage had +been so completely swept from the trees that he could command +a full view up the ravine from the stone bridge to the +cataract, that mocked him with a sharp pang of memory, +and he thought of that pic-nic on the ledge with a sudden +rush of feeling which absolutely brought hot tears to +his eyes. Virginia was not anywhere in sight; the whole +ravine was a solitude, all the hollows were full of dank +leaves, the forest turf was carpeted with them, not as they +had been, rich and gorgeous only a week before, but with +the colors all washed out, broken and sodden, decaying refuse +of the autumn. The naked boughs rose drearily against +a dull sky, sending forth that low metallic chiming which +is the winter music of the woods. The brook, bereft of +half its brightness, crept along, saddened, like a criminal +going to judgment. The chestnut tree was studded with +brown burs, open like stars, from which all the nuts had +fallen. A few long, ragged leaves fluttered on the branches +and from the topmost boughs two crows called to each +other gloomily.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will go up to the cabin,” that unhappy man muttered +to himself. “Possibly they are among the evergreens and +I can see them from the window.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>As he turned to mount the eminence that paper fell +under his observation. He stooped, picked it up almost +mechanically, and was about to throw it down again, when +<span class='pageno' id='Page_477'>477</span>something in the writing fixed his attention. The paper +was wet but not much blotted; with a little trouble he read +it from beginning to end, and, strange to say, a sensation +of relief succeeded the reading; that dead certainty which +follows suspense, though it amounts to despair, is always a +relief, for the tension of nerves gives way and a species of +rest follows.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is true! She loves some other man—she never +loved me. This beautiful creature, with her innocent looks +and frank speech, is one mass of deception. Amos Lander’s +letter warned me of this clearly as his generous +nature could warn the friend he loved against a creature of +his bounty. But I was wilfully blind, worse than blind, a +willing idiot. Still there was some excuse for me; a +lovelier creature than she seemed never possessed a man’s +heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks did not enter the cabin but turned drearily, as +men prepare to leave a grave newly filled, and walked +slowly toward the hotel, so wretched that he scarcely cared +to live, for if ever man loved a woman on this earth he had +loved Virginia Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Meantime Virginia and Ellen had returned home from a +dreary walk disappointed; Ellen had been writing hard +since the first break of day, writing as only one whose +genius is inspired by a noble purpose can write. Sheet +after sheet of manuscript she had flung from her, eager for +the next, panting to complete the work which would redeem +her brother from the peril that threatened him. But, with +the best of us, the spirit is sometimes willing when the +flesh is weak. Virginia saw that Ellen grew pale as she +wrote, that her little hand trembled to and fro on the paper, +leaving blots and erasures behind it. She went up to the +desk and leaned caressingly on the writer’s shoulder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come, Ellen, stop writing a little while.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen shook the arm from her shoulder and went on with +her work.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_478'>478</span>“No, no; God has given me these hours to finish in. +Do let me alone!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I am so anxious to go out. He will be regretting +our absence and go up to the cabin—I feel sure of it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<i>He!</i> oh, he cannot come here till my work has set him +above all fear.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I was not speaking of your brother, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen took her mind, with a wrench, from its subject, +and tried hard to understand what was wanted of her. +She had that essential qualification for an author, and that +rare thing among women, a power of strong concentration, +and it possessed her then entirely.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What—what is it?” she questioned, while the pen +quivered in her hand. “Afraid this will hurt me?—Not +at all. Fresh air?—We can have plenty of that by-and-by.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it is for myself I am so anxious to go out,” said +Virginia, partly in her own behalf, and partly because the +pallor on that thin face terrified her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You, yourself?” Ellen flung down her pen. “Well, +what is it you would like, lady? I—I am ready. A walk? +Of course, nothing better, only don’t let us stay out long. +You see, I am close upon the ending, and—and—my +things? Oh yes, I will have them on in a minute.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>In this state of bewilderment, Ellen went out, following +Virginia almost in silence to the woods. She had not entirely +gained command of her own mind, which would keep +turning back to the creation it had left with such reluctance. +They found the ravine solitary, and so changed, +that Virginia felt oppressed by everything she saw.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is not here. He will not come to-day. Why +should he, thinking us in the city?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With these words, she wandered on up to the little cataract, +which had lost all its crystal brightness, and was +swollen by the rains into a great outgush of muddy water. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_479'>479</span>Here she lingered about awhile, looking anxiously down +the ravine for the person who was listening with a burning +heart to Cora Lander’s falsehood.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He is not here! It is of no use waiting; the storm +has made everything so dreary that it chills one. Shall we +go back, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Back?” answered Ellen, eagerly. “Oh, certainly; +this air has done me so much good.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>So the two girls went home again, one sad and out of +spirits, the other eager for work. They saw nothing of +Brooks, who had just left the house, but went at once to +the parlor up stairs, where Ellen fell to her writing again +and Virginia sat down by the window, wondering why +Clarence Brooks had not yet come to the house as he proposed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was getting dark, when Eunice came into the room, +carrying an ottoman in her arms.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here,” she said, setting it on the floor, “take out what +there is in it quick! She’s gone down to tea, and I must +have it back again afore she comes up. The critter has got +eyes like a hawk.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia started from the window, touched a spring in +the wood-work and flung back the top of the ottoman, +revealing a miscellaneous heap of papers, jewel-boxes, pen-holders +and loose ornaments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice snatched Ellen’s shawl which had fallen back +from her chair, spread it on the carpet and emptied all +these things into it. Then she closed the ottoman with a +snap, and carried it away, muttering:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The Lord knows they’re your own property, and you’re +welcome to ’em.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen wrote on, she had neither heard nor seen anything +of this. Away in a world of her own, she was working out +a brother’s freedom. Once more Virginia aroused her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen! Ellen! we have got the jewels! See here! +<span class='pageno' id='Page_480'>480</span>these pearls most be of great value—and these, and +these!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen started and looked up, holding her pen suspended.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is it? Pearls, and such pearls!” she cried, as +Virginia laid the necklace of large strung pearls, with +seven pear-shaped pendants, on the paper before her. +“And diamonds too! We shall go to the city now. No +more delay. God bless you, dear, dear lady, for this! I +am so tired that thanks struggle in my bosom without utterance; +but I feel them. I wonder why Eunice don’t bring +in the tea, my throat is parched and my eyes burn—why +don’t she bring in the tea?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She brought it an hour ago, Ellen, and you drank two +cups.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did she? I knew nothing about it, a glass of water +will do just as well. These things, how beautiful they are! +Your mother’s too! It is cruel, but you shall have them +back again. I feel it in my heart that these sheets of +paper will redeem your mother’s jewels. Strange, isn’t it, +that these blotted pages should have gold in them? I cannot +comprehend it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here this strange girl fell to her work again, while +Virginia carried her treasures into the next room, where +she lay down on the bed, sad at heart and weeping softly +because of the loneliness brought on by two days’ absence +from the man she loved so devotedly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Between eight and nine o’clock that night, Virginia was +aroused by the tread of a horse passing by the house, and +going to a window, looked out. The clouds had all rolled +themselves away in billows of fiery gold at sunset that +night, and the broad, silvery radiance of a full moon fell +upon the earth. Virginia saw nothing, but she still heard, +the cautious footfall of a horse falling upon turf near the +house.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is one of the servants going on some errand,” she +<span class='pageno' id='Page_481'>481</span>thought, and went back to her half darkened room again. +Ellen wrote on, made restless for an instant by the strange +sound, but unconscious of it the next moment.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua Hurd, who had gone to bed very early that night, +heard a strange noise in the stables just as he was falling +asleep. He got up, opened the window and looked out. +The front of the stables was flung into deep shadow by the +drooping elm trees, but he distinctly saw a white horse +come out from the open door with a lady on his back.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What on arth does it mean?” he muttered. “That +is Snowball; but which of the wimmen folks is it, and what +is she up to?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That moment the horse came into the moonlight and he +saw the lady’s face, clearly as any face could be seen, with +a soft hat drawn over the forehead and shaded by a long +feather.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That long feather belongs to her, sure enough; that +she sarpent never wears one. What can she want a horseback +this time o’ night? If ’twas t’other, I shouldn’t +wonder, but her! Well, it’s all right, I haint no doubt. +She’s a good gal, if ever one lived, and I ain’t a going to +tell nothing about her even to our Eunice. Least said is +soonest mended. But where on arth can she be a going?”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LI.<br> <span class='c011'>THE MIDNIGHT RIDE.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Clarence Brooks sat on the stoop, into which his +room opened, that night, thinking over the last few weeks +in his mind. How could he have been so utterly deceived. +Why had this girl, loving another, engaged herself to him? +Was it in human nature to feign that purest and holiest of +<span class='pageno' id='Page_482'>482</span>all passions so thoroughly? No, he could not believe that. +Whatever had been, Virginia Lander loved him then—to +believe otherwise would be horrible. That she had fallen +into a serious, perhaps disgraceful entanglement with some +unprincipled man, it was impossible to doubt, but she was +young, inexperienced—no, no, he could not say that, remembering +all she had said to him—how earnest and true +she had seemed. The girl was artful, unprincipled, worthless. +Yet he could not fling her entirely from his heart. +Some designing man, with the aid of that singular little +hunchback, had perverted her into the thing she was. +What had they really intended? If she did not love +him, why—</p> + +<p class='c013'>He paused, angry with himself. The girl was not worth +thinking about. Yet if, by a miracle, she should prove innocent—that +was, of course, an impossibility. Cora Lander +had no motive for deceiving him. She did not know of +his engagement or dream of the secret meetings which had +so ensnared him. That secrecy, which seemed so pleasant +at first, veiling his love with a sort of romance—why had +he never suspected its true meaning before? She would +have married him; her earnestness on this point was +evident enough. But why?—Did she know him to be a +wealthy man? He had never told her so much till the +very day of their engagement, and she had no means of +understanding the fact. If money was not her object, +where was the motive for all this deception? That letter, +in the very handwriting which had been worn against his +heart, had method, decision in every word. It was not the +language of a young girl wildly in love. How far had +Ellen Nolan influenced the destiny of her benefactress? +Was it this strange girl who had led her into the meshes of +a deception so debasing? He remembered with what noiseless +facility she had disappeared whenever he wished to +converse with Virginia. Had this been a practice with +<span class='pageno' id='Page_483'>483</span>her? Was she indeed the crafty little thing such conduct +would bespeak her?</p> + +<p class='c013'>To these questions of the brain, Clarence Brooks’ heart +was constantly answering, “no!” But for the letter in +his pocket he would have cast off all that burning load of +suspicions and trusted to the simple denial of a young +creature, whose very presence was a contradiction of everything +evil. True, she had seemed willing to make an +unnecessary secret of her acquaintance with himself—had +met him over and over again in the solitude of that glen, +with no companion but that little hunchbacked imp, as he +called Ellen in his mind, for he remembered with bitter +disgust how she had pleaded with him not to speak of his +engagement that night when she came alone to his hotel.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will search this to the bottom,” he promised himself, +“and either rescue her from these people or force the man, +whoever he is, to come out openly and claim her. She is +lost to me, I know that,” he added, with a swelling heart, +“but having consecrated her with a love, pure as man ever +felt for woman, I will not abandon her to the fate which +may prove a terrible one.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks was thinking in this generous way when he heard +the sound of a horse coming along the road, evidently treading +upon the turfy border. His heart stood still; muffled as +it was, he knew the fall of those light hoofs, and listened +breathlessly. Directly a white horse, with a woman upon +its back, rode slowly over the little plank bridge. The +lady turned her face toward the hotel, looking partly backward, +and he saw the face plainly as clear moonlight could +reveal it. The long feather, which he had seen Virginia +wear so often, fell to the shoulder nearest him, but that +only established her identity in his mind.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Directly after she crossed the bridge, the lady evidently +put her horse to his speed, for the quick clatter of his hoofs +sounded distinctly along the road, beating down that noble +heart with every step.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_484'>484</span>As the noise died away, Brooks arose and staggered back +against the window-frame sick at heart. Up to this +moment he had not given up all hope that, by some miracle, +the woman he loved might be cleared from the suspicion +which wounded him so terribly. But now all was over. +His own eyes had witnessed what his heart ached to disbelieve. +She was lost to him forever, but he still hoped not +to herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He went into his sitting-room and paced it up and down +for half an hour, growing stern and resolute every minute.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will wait for her here,” he said; “as she crosses that +bridge I will stand before her horse and demand the truth +from her own lips; she shall not plunge over this precipice +without some one to hold her back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>His voice shook under the blow he had received. As the +poor artist picks up the scattered fragments of a statue +which he has just fashioned into beauty only to see shattered +at his feet, he resolved to rescue some peace of mind +out of the chaos of this ruin for the only woman he had +ever loved. With this generous resolve in his heart, he sat +down patiently and waited.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was between twelve and one o’clock when faint sounds +of a coming horse aroused him from the stupor of grief into +which he had fallen. He listened, stood up and looked out +upon the road. Surely there was more than one horse coming, +and at a sharp pace too. His chair stood in a shadowy +end of the porch, and he sat down again so far out of sight +that no one but a keen observer could have discovered his +presence there. That double sound of hoofs came along the +road so swiftly that two horses appeared above the bridge +with a suddenness that startled him. It was the white +horse with that lady rider, and a dark bay, ridden by a +man. The two came neck and neck on to the bridge, and +drew up there in the full sheen of the moonlight. The +man and the woman seemed to be conversing together in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_485'>485</span>low voices. As they talked, their horses veered a little and +backed toward the farther side of the bridge, turning those +two human faces directly toward the hotel. Brooks started +to his feet and leaned forward, struck with sudden panic of +suspicion, but as yet uncertain. The man took off his hat, +reined his horse close up to the lady’s, threw an arm around +her waist and kissed her, more than once, with what seemed +the passionate earnestness of a farewell.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was neither resented nor shrunk from by the lady. +To the reverse, when her companion put on his hat and +turned his horse, she wheeled after him, leaned from her +saddle and offered her lips to him again. Then the two +parted, one galloping up the road at full speed, the other +moving more cautiously toward the Lander mansion. Clarence +Brooks fell back to his chair, uttering a single sentence: +“That man!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next morning Virginia and Ellen started for the +city by an early train. At the same hour Clarence Brooks +was riding toward the Longstone tavern where he had +eaten that pleasant dinner, it seemed to him ages ago. The +landlord met him at the door, beaming with hospitality.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was it the gentleman who came day before yesterday, +the same that put up, for a week or two, in that second-rate +affair just above the lower depot, some time since—no +wonder he wanted a change for the better—was that the +man?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes,” Brooks replied, staggering under the new proof +which lay in the landlord’s speech. “Yes, it is that man I +wish to find.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, sir, he went away this morning, I took him to the +upper depot in my own buggy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Has he ever been here before? No, not even for a ride. +The folks down yonder say he kept mighty quiet, going a +trout-fishing up the brook that runs through the Lander +grounds, but never ketchen none. From something that +<span class='pageno' id='Page_486'>486</span>happened here last night, I reckon one could make a guess +about that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks turned away, heart-sick, but came back directly, +and asked if the landlord knew where his guest of the +night before could be found in the city.</p> + +<p class='c013'>No, the landlord could not exactly tell; but, from something +he overheard the young man saying to a boy that +came with him that rainy day, he thought it was —— street, +somewhere near Madison Avenue.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A flush of red came into Brooks’ face. He remembered +the locality of a house in that direction perfectly, a singular +house, with a back drapery of vines, and a fountain raining +water drops down among flowers in front. He thanked the +landlord, ordered a glass of wine as an excuse for leaving a +dollar behind him, and rode away.</p> + +<p class='c013'>An hour after, he called on Cora Lander, who came down +to meet him with an anxious face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has gone, and taken the hunchback with her,” she +said, in great seeming agitation. “The jewels, too, I can +find them nowhere; they belonged to my poor mother; but +for that I would not care.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Belonged to your mother, and gone with her! Why +this is—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush, hush—not that—I did not mean it. She claims +that my father gave them to her—perhaps he did. Aunt +Eliza thinks so. I only wish that they shall not go out of +the family. There is a double string of pearls, with pear-shaped +pendants, which has been in the family a long time. +If she will only give me a chance to buy them back, it is +all I ask. This wretched man may have their value and +welcome.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Lander, do you, know where your cousin will stay +while she is in town?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am not certain; she may go to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, +but I rather fancy she will prefer a house that my father +<span class='pageno' id='Page_487'>487</span>used to occupy winters, when we were at school. I have +not had the heart to visit it since we came home, but she +has been there often, I think.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Does any other person live there, Miss Lander?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, a servant; some one has always been left in +charge. It is a pretty place, and my father loved it so, I +gave my agent orders to keep it in good condition. Some +day I hope to find courage to visit it, but not yet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No violets after a rain ever looked more touchingly +beautiful than Cora Lander’s eyes as she said this.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What do you fear so much, Miss Lander? Is it that +your cousin will marry this brother of Ellen Nolan?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I fear that; she has not been kind to me, but I +could not hear to see her thrown away upon an adventurer +like him; for he must be an adventurer.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She shall never marry him. Leave that to me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“How kind you are—how—forgive me, I hardly know +what I am saying; this has made me so nervous; not to +tell any one that she was going—I have not deserved this. +Indeed, indeed I have not.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora turned away and wiped her eyes on a handkerchief +taken hastily from her pocket, but they filled again +instantly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you any idea to whom they would go with those +jewels?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is impossible to say; perhaps Lawyer Stone would +help them. He knows Virginia, and was my father’s lawyer. +In fact he is one of the executors of his will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is Mr. Stone’s address?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora gave the address, but added, with great feeling:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Don’t say a word, I beseech you, that will lead him to +think there is anything wrong. If we save my poor cousin, +it must be entirely without stain or blemish. So far, the +secret of her imprudence rests with us. It shall never go +farther if I can help it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_488'>488</span>“Have no fear, Miss Lander; you can trust this whole +affair safely with me. It is a sad, hard task, but I will perform +it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks was very pale that morning, and there was a +strange tone in his voice; but his eyes bespoke a steady, +firm resolution. He was going away, when Cora followed +him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When may I see you again?” she questioned. “I +shall feel so anxious, so lonely.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“When your cousin is safe, not before.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She lifted her eyes to his; he turned away, their soft +expression so resembled Virginia’s that it made him recoil.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Farewell, then, till you bring me good news.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Farewell,” he answered, and added as he went along, +“There will never be good news for me in this world again. +God is my judge, I only do this to save her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A down train came shrieking along as he descended the +terrace steps, and a boy met him at the depot with a small +valise. He took the valise, sprang into the car, and was +whirled off on his painful errand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The first person Brooks went to after reaching the city +was Lawyer Stone. He inquired of that gentleman if +Miss Lander had been there that morning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Lawyer Stone admitted that Miss Virginia Lander had +just left the office, with a very singular little friend, whom +she had saved from drowning, he believed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Brooks then observed, with great quietness:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I know, she came on special business, to raise +money on some jewels, I believe.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You seem to be entirely in the young lady’s confidence,” +said the lawyer, smiling.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So far that I know she is in want of money, and am +willing to advance all she may require—that is, in behalf +of Miss Cora Lander, who does not wish her cousin to +want for money, or anything else. As her agent, I am +ready to arrange this matter with you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_489'>489</span>“If Miss Lander is so generous,” answered Stone, drily, +“I wonder she did not prevent the necessity of this application +on her cousin’s part.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She was not informed of any necessity, and only heard +of it by accident. Even now I must stipulate that her +name shall not be mentioned in the transaction.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall respect the lady’s secret,” said the lawyer, coldly. +“When will it be her pleasure to pay over the money?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“On the day after to-morrow. Will that be time +enough?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am not sure, the young lady seems in great haste. +But I doubt very much if she could get it so soon from any +other source, so we must be satisfied. I am no judge of +this kind of security. You may not find these gimcracks +of sufficient value for the money.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If it is convenient, let me see them.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mr. Stone took an inlaid box from his desk and turned +several jewel cases from it to the table.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here is something she thinks very valuable,” he said, +opening a morocco case and revealing a double string of +pearls coiled around a red satin cushion.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They are of sufficient value, no matter about the rest,” +said Brooks, looking sadly at the pearls, but without touching +them. “How much money does she want?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Three thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It shall be ready at the time I mentioned. As for +these things, keep them in your own possession. Miss +Lander wants neither security nor repayment from her +cousin. But say nothing of this at present. We can trust +you to return them to her at the proper time. When Miss +Virginia comes, simply tell her that the money will be +ready at the time mentioned. Good morning, sir.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good morning,” answered the lawyer, sweeping the +jewels back into their box. “A good-looking fellow, and +came just in the right time, for I haven’t the least idea +<span class='pageno' id='Page_490'>490</span>that anybody else would have advanced half the amount on +these things. What on earth does the girl want with so +much money, I wonder? I would have refused to help +her, but I knew well enough that some one would direct her +to a pawnbroker’s, where Mrs. Lander’s pearls would have +cut a pretty figure. Who is this fellow? I suspect the +three thousand dollars will come out of his pocket. That +girl does not pay it, I’ll be sworn.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Muttering these words, the shrewd lawyer locked the +jewels up in his safe and was soon lost in a pile of papers +which lay, with a piece of red tape loosely twisted about +them, on his table, for he had been disturbed while untying +the parcels, first by Miss Virginia Lander and then +by Clarence Brooks, in a fashion which took him so completely +out of his usual routine that he found some difficulty +in getting into groove again.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LII.<br> <span class='c011'>ANGELS’ VISITS.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The first step that Virginia Lander took in the business +that brought her to town was, as we have seen, to visit +Lawyer Stone, who gave her some vague encouragement +about raising the money. He asked a good many embarrassing +questions, which she was not prepared to answer, +and which excited a little distrust in that acute mind with +regard to things that had gone before. Ellen had answered +for her once or twice, and that rather added to the general +bad effect of the visit. In fact, Virginia left the lawyer’s +office a little disheartened. This helping a fellow creature +out of the results of a crime is no easy matter, as she was +doomed to learn.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_491'>491</span>“Now,” said Ellen, “let us go to him. Oh! lady, my +heart aches with desire; I so long to look on his face +again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>They were near the Park now, and Virginia beckoned a +carriage. When she gave her orders to the driver, Ellen +interposed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to the house, lest we draw attention to it. Let +him stop at the corner.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia acquiesced, and they were set down in Madison +Avenue, where the man was ordered to wait. There was a +shade of mystery in all this which troubled Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When they opened the gate, Brian Nolan came to the +door and held it open, gazing at them wistfully as they +came up the walk. Ellen answered his look with a smile +which brought glad light into his eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Go up,” said Brian, “he is in the back room, close by +the stairs. If the lady pleases, she can wait in the +drawing room.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He opened the drawing-room door, and Virginia, amazed +by all she saw, went in. Was this the home of Ellen +Nolan’s brother, the man who was in such abject need of +money? For a moment all sympathy for him went out of +her heart. Those sumptuous surroundings revolted her, +for with all those changes the girl did not recognize the +house as one that had belonged to her father.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went up stairs, trembling in every limb. This +brother had been, since she could remember, the romance of +her family, the being for whom they had all made sacrifices +and endured those haunting anxieties which frequently knit +an offender closest to the family heart. To Ellen this +young man had been a sort of hero, splendid even in his +faults; she did not allow even the crime which she knew +of to shake her faith in his fine qualities, utterly. It +wounded her to the soul, but she said to herself, “He must +have been fearfully tempted.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_492'>492</span>Into the room she went, half afraid and so overcome by a +rush of affection that she could hardly stand. Seymour +was lying on the dainty couch where Cora had so often +idled her time away. His face was turned to the wall, one +hand was thrust under the silken pillow and the other lay +clenched upon his bosom.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen stole to the couch, and, kneeling down, took the +clenched hand between both hers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My brother!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour turned instantly, fixed his eyes on that face +and cried out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is it Ellen? Is it the poor girl he loved little better +than all the rest?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, brother Alfred, it is Ellen. He loved me better +than the rest because of this.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She touched her shoulder with a simplicity that was +more than pathetic.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He knew that I should have so much need of love,” she +added, answering the mournful glance of his eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who could help loving you, child?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was natural to call Ellen a child; everybody did it, +though in thought and feeling she was so old.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! if I could make you love me, brother!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do—I do; between us there is a terrible sympathy +which united us closest in our father’s love.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know what you mean!” said Ellen, with a smile that +brought tears into the young man’s eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That was nothing to the deformity which lay here,” +he said, with bitter emphasis, striking the clenched hand +against his heart. “You awoke all the tenderness of his +soul, I tortured him through his entire life, robbed his little +ones of their natural rights, and lie here accursed in my +own mind—little better than a convict, Ellen Nolan!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush,” she said, gently, “I will not hear you talk so. +This one act, which preys upon us all, can be retrieved. +She is below.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_493'>493</span>“She! Who? Not—not—Ellen, dear, tell me who it +is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My young mistress!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Which? Who are you talking of?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Virginia Lander!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour fell back on the couch, great beads of perspiration +started to his forehead. He absolutely panted for +breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I thought it had been—had been—but no matter, it is +before the time. I am mad to dream of it yet. This other +lady, what is she doing here?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has come to save you—to save us all. This morning +she has been to raise the money you want.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour started up wild and pale.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is my friend—she saved my life. She saw my +father when he prepared us all to die. Now she comes +here to save his son from something worse than death.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You know it—she knows it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, she knows it. I could not ask help without giving +confidence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will betray me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She would die first.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you sure—are you sure, Ellen Nolan?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, brother, you do not know her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And she will give me this money? Remember, it is +three thousand dollars.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know; that is what she asked for.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And will she get it? Are you sure?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I think so; the gentleman the same as promised.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour threw both arms over his head and burst into a +wild passion of tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Saved! saved! Oh, my God, I am grateful, so grateful!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>His whole frame shook. He clasped both hands over his +face and the tears streamed like rain from beneath them.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_494'>494</span>“She does not know all the good she is doing; she has +lifted a human soul out of a plight so desperate that he +was ready to kill himself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no! not that! You could not have thought it!” +cried Ellen, clinging to him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She has redeemed me—that which the prayers and entreaties +of a good father failed to do, this young girl has accomplished. +From this day, with God Almighty’s help, I +will be a good man.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was in earnest. Those clasped hands uplifted to +Heaven—those features, quivering with strong emotion, +bespoke the energy of a fixed resolution.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Our father knew that this day would come, and believing +it, sent you his last blessing,” said Ellen, almost in a +whisper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour turned his wet face and looked mournfully into +her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he? My poor father! my poor father!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“They were the last words he ever spoke.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I so unworthy! God forgive me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I knew,” said Ellen, speaking low and with tears in +her voice, “I knew, from that awful hour, how it would +end. The duties he laid down were given to me: I am +feeble and hardly worth the life she saved; but God sometimes +gives great purposes into weak hands.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You came here with a noble purpose, Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“<i>She</i> came with a noble purpose; this three thousand +dollars is all she has got in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And is ready to give it to a man she never saw?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She offers it of her own free will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, is this lady a woman or an angel?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Both, I think.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God bless her! God forever bless her! She has saved +me! she has saved me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God has blessed her, for she is dearly beloved,” +said Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_495'>495</span>The poor girl spoke very sadly. Seymour leaned forward +and kissed her forehead.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will love you dearly, little sister.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She lifted those wistful eyes to his.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You and I will be all the world to each other yet,” she +said. “I know it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The young man smiled for the first time that day. He +was thinking of another love which would forever stand +pre-eminent with him—of the sweet promises given during +that midnight ride. Now that his secret might be kept +from her and the whole world, there was love for him +deeper and far more precious than Ellen ever dreamed of. +In a week, a single week, he would stand without fear +before the whole world and openly claim Cora Lander, the +most beautiful woman and richest heiress in New York, as +his wife. The iron chain of his crime was about to fall +from him. As these thoughts passed through his mind, he +bent over Ellen with a pity in his eyes that almost broke +her heart.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Heaven so deal with me as I am kind and generous to +you little sister!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen arose; he also stood up, caressing her with his +hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wish you knew how happy I am! What a dead, +heavy weight has been lifted from my heart!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do know; it brightens all your face. I too am happy. +It is the sweetest thing in life to be grateful. Good-bye, +brother; we shall come again the moment that money is +paid. Then you will have cause for joy.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Are you going, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My lady is below, will you go speak with her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not now, dear; this news has unmanned me; I could +not thank her without making a child of myself. Say this +for me, Ellen, and say also that, while I live, I shall be +grateful to her. Some day soon I will prove it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_496'>496</span>Ellen went down stairs and found Virginia looking +through the lace curtains of the drawing-room window. A +close carriage stood on the opposite side of the street from +which a man was stepping to the pavement.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here, Ellen,” said Virginia, in a low voice. “It +is very strange, but I thought—you know it is impossible—but +a face like that of Mr. Brooks seemed to be taking a +survey of this house.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen caught her breath, but went up to the window and +looked out, with Virginia’s arm over her shoulder. They +did not know it, but that moment Seymour was looking out +of the upper window, just above them. He saw nothing +but a close carriage driving up the street. The man who +had stepped from it was walking quietly along the sidewalk, +but this conversation had passed between him and Clarence +Brooks, who had just driven away:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is the man, but do not arrest him while ladies are +in the house. When they leave, lose no time.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“All right. You can depend on it, I’ll make a neat job +of the affair. It isn’t often one has a chance at so handsome +and gentlemanly a fellow.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>So the man walked on in a careless, idle way, which disturbed +no one, until Virginia and Ellen left the house. +Then he turned and followed them to the carriage, doing a +little amateur business of his own, not set down in the programme.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now that the Canary birds have flown, I may as well +go to work in earnest,” he muttered. “What a jolly nest +the fellow has got into! Upon my word I hate to spring +the trap on him, and so did the gentleman, or I’m no judge +of a man’s face. How deadly white he was when that girl +came to the window. His jaw closed like iron—jealous, I +wonder? Robbed him double. I’ll be sworn. I may as +well begin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>With a soft step, the man paused at the gate, stopped at +<span class='pageno' id='Page_497'>497</span>the fountain, and, picking a sprig of myrtle from one of the +plants still left in the open air, fastened it daintily into his +button-hole. Then he sauntered leisurely up to the door +and rang the bell.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian Nolan opened the door with a frightened face. It +was not often that strangers called to see any one there, and +the least sound agitated him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was Mr. Seymour in?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man did not wait for an answer, but gently pushed +by the boy and entered the hall.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell him that I have a letter, or rather a scrap of writing, +from a lady who could not say all she wished when she +saw him. It is only a line, and in pencil.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give it to me, I—I will deliver it, should he come here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Beg your pardon, promised not to let it go out of my +hands. Up stairs—yes, I am sure she told me I would find +him up stairs.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Again the man pushed by Brian, who attempted to intercept +him, and quietly walked up stairs. Seymour heard the +sound of voices and stood on the threshold of the boudoir +listening. The hand with which he held the half open +door grew cold and white, and he was about to retreat into +the room, when some word about a lady’s letter brought the +blood again to his scared face. He took a single eager step +into the hall, hesitated, and was drawing back again, when +the strange man came swiftly up the stairs and laid a hand +on his arm.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Mr. Seymour, excuse the intrusion, but here is a paper +for you to read.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour reached out his hand slowly for the paper, looked +at the man for a minute, turned deadly white, opened it +with terrible quietness and read a warrant for his arrest.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I wish you had come two hours earlier, it would not +have seemed so hard. Give me a few moments for preparation,” +he said, after a little; “I will not keep you long.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_498'>498</span>“As many as you like,” answered the man, seating himself +among the silken cushions of Cora’s couch. “One +might find much more unpleasant places to wait in.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The man punched one of the pillows into a compact +shape and planted his elbow on it as he spoke. Seymour +saw the action with a dreary look of despair. At another +time he would have flung any man headlong from the +window for daring to seat himself among the cushions her +cheek had touched. But now—now he turned aside with +a groan and went into his chamber. With a slowness that +seemed like composure, it was so awful and still, he took +from one of his bureau drawers a revolver and examined it. +The barrels were all loaded, a single movement of the +finger and he would be far beyond the reach of that man. +He lifted the weapon to a level with his forehead, turned it +and placed the muzzle between his knitted brows. A hand +struck the weapon upward and wrenched it from his grasp. +Brian Nolan’s face, whiter than whiteness, looked into his.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Coward!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour shook from head to foot.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brother!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy flung himself upon that wretched man’s bosom +and cried out, in the anguish of his self-reproach:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, forgive me! forgive me, I did not mean to call you +that!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Anything unpleasant going on?” questioned a calm +voice close by them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, sir; nothing. I am his brother,” said Brian; +“pray, leave us alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, I understand,” said the man, glancing at the +revolver. “Often the case when one of my customers happens +to be a real gentleman. Rather unfair to me, though; +Coroner’s inquest, and all that, hurts a man in his profession. +Didn’t think of that, I dare say!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour turned his face all white, and withered, upon +<span class='pageno' id='Page_499'>499</span>the man; he was wondering how careless words could come +from human lips when he was in such mortal distress.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do go!” pleaded Brian, “you are killing him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And have that bit of tragedy over again? No, I must +not lose sight of him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I must speak with my brother!” said Seymour, in a +husky voice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Leave us! leave us, I beg of you!” added Brian. +“He shall not harm himself.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Give me that trinket, then,” said the officer, pointing +to the pistol.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian handed it to him, and once more the brothers were +alone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What shall I do? What <i>can</i> I do?” said Brian.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Keep it from her, for God’s sake, keep it from her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And from Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell her later, but not yet. Poor girl! poor girl! +better for her that I perish in prison unknown! Thank +God, our father’s honorable name has been spared!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Can I make no effort to save you, my brother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“None—listen. I <i>was</i> a coward, but it was only for <i>her</i> +sake. Save her from a knowledge that would break her +proud heart, and you shall see how much I can endure. +Come to me in the prison, Brian; I shall have plenty of +time for thought there. Oh! my God, my God, help me to +endure it!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I would suggest,” said the calm voice again, “that this +conversation is too exciting for any good to come from it. +Better take a night’s sleep on the gentleman’s affair. If +your brother is at all sensitive about appearances, I have +no objection to a carriage. Covered up my star on purpose +to make the whole thing as genteel as possible. In fact, +the gentleman who thinks himself aggrieved made that a +special request. He even left a sum of money in my hands +to buy up the reporters—not that I think it can be done +<span class='pageno' id='Page_500'>500</span>for money—most of those chaps are kind-hearted fellows as +ever lived, and are ready enough to spare a man. If they +all agree to it, he is safe.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ask them to spare me for the sake of—of my friends,” +said Seymour, in a low voice. “If death could do it, I +would die.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Never fear, we will arrange that. When all parties +agree upon one point, it is easily settled; never met with a +more amicable case in all my experience. Oh here is the +carriage; I will trust to your honor. You and I will walk +out of this house like two friends going for a sociable drive, +say in the Central Park. Lovely spot—think I have seen +you driving there—pair of chestnut horses, superb—always +alone, though—thought that rather singular, upon my +honor I did.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Chatting thus in an airy, pleasant fashion, the officer led +the way through the hall and into the yard, where the +fountain was still throwing up water drops like a child at +play.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Some people looking out of that window opposite; +suppose we gather a bouquet from these plants; looks innocent, +and will satisfy any curiosity that two carriages and +my walking up and down has excited among the crinolines. +Charming institution, but curious—very.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LIII.<br> <span class='c011'>THAT CRUEL LETTER.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>That great Egyptian monster, crouching like an embodied +pestilence in the heart of New York, concentrating +all the horrors of a prison with the awful solemnity of a +tomb, never received a human being into its portals who +<span class='pageno' id='Page_501'>501</span>gave himself up to despair more thoroughly than Alfred +Seymour. All night long he lay in that narrow cell—hard, +cold granite in the floor, the walls and the ceiling, cold +iron shutting him in at the narrow door, which opened and +closed with a clang that made him start and shudder from +head to foot—all night long he lay, thinking such thoughts +as might turn the hair on a young man’s head white as +snow and create little wonder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A gleam of moonlight pierced through a long, narrow +loop-hole that served as a window, cut so deep in the outer +wall that the radiance came through wedge-shaped, and, to +his tortured imagination, seemed solid in its whiteness. +No steel ever went more keenly through a human heart +than that mournful illumination penetrated his. Only the +night before, those self-same moonbeams had fallen like +shimmering silver along the highway when Cora rode by +his side, cheerful as a bird, animated as he had seldom seen +her before, talking so hopefully of the early day when their +marriage would be proclaimed and they need not steal forth +in secret or at night to meet each other. She had even +proposed to proclaim the choice she was so proud of and +end all secrecy at once. But he dared not accept this generous +proposition, though enforced by eloquence and such +affectionate caresses as nothing but a heart shackled down +by crime could have resisted.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was only one night ago. It seemed an eternity to +him, there in that prison, with the stillness of death all +around him. Thinking of her thus, generous, loving and +so beautiful, the unhappy man came to a solemn resolution. +She should never hear of his fate; they might bury him in +prison walls still more gloomy than those which seemed to +enclose him in like a grave, and he would make no sign. +To-morrow, perhaps, they would bring him into court for +examination. He would plead guilty there, and again +when they brought him before a higher tribunal for final +<span class='pageno' id='Page_502'>502</span>trial. No public journal should make a romance of his +crime or his misery. He would allow the law to do its +worst, and disappear.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This man had done wrong, but he was not a hardened +sinner; no creature who was ever wept as he did that night. +He had longed to make atonement for his crime, and struggled +hard for the power which was almost within his grasp +when this ruin came upon him. This nearness to escape +made his fate doubly bitter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A few hours—only a few hours, and I should have paid +all,” he said, aloud. Then, frightened by the sound of his +own voice, which seemed struggling up from a grave, he +drew the coarse, gray blanket over his head and lay moaning +out his grief at intervals, hiding away from the moonlight +which reminded him so keenly of all that was wrested +from him.</p> + +<p class='c013'>At last the dawn came struggling through that loop-hole, +filling the cell with gloomy light. Then a crash of locks +and the heavy swing of iron doors struck on his ear ominously. +The routine of that mournful tomb’s life had commenced, +and every new sound made him shiver beneath +that gray blanket like some wounded animal that hears the +hounds scenting out its lair.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After awhile the door of his own cell was flung open, a +heavy can was set down on the stone gallery close by, and out +of this grim vessel a tin cup half full of coffee was dipped, +this with a piece of bread, was placed upon his cell floor.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour drew the blanket from his face and turned his +bloodshot eyes upon this coarse breakfast. He was not +hungry, and would have rejected the most dainty food—this +he loathed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Hours went by and Brian Nolan came with his sorrowful +heart, and again craved to know what could be done for his +brother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Nothing. Seymour had fully made up his mind now. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_503'>503</span>The misery that Fate had in store for him he would accept. +Perhaps he would be so happy as to die. Then that noble +young creature who had loved him so dearly would have +freedom. She might—no, no, he could not think of a +second marriage. He was ready to die, and the rest might +follow, but it would be a long, long time—that grand-hearted +creature was too thoroughly his for any meaner +result. He said all this to Brian, and charged him, as he +hoped for happiness, never to betray the secret of his marriage +to any human being, not even to Ellen; never hint +at his knowledge of it to the woman who, in a fatal hour, +had become his wife; but, in every respect to guard the +confidence placed in him. Not content with a simple +promise, he went farther.</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was a cheap missionary Bible in the cell. This he +placed in Brian’s hands and bade him take an oath never +to reveal the secret of his marriage or hint at it to any +living soul.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian touched the book with his lips and took the oath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is hard to ask this of me. Your lady has money and +power enough to open these doors.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“To let the husband she knows to be a criminal out. +Brian Nolan, the first look of her face after that would kill +me. I shall plead guilty; there will be no trial. The +officer promises me that there shall be no publicity. When +all is over, I will write two letters, one to her, one to the +man whose vengeance is upon me. There is money belonging +to him which he must have—a favor which he will +grant if he is not a demon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The mention of money reminded Brian of that which +his sister Ellen and Miss Virginia Lander had promised to +bring.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What shall I say to them when they come with the +money?” he asked. “Is it altogether too late, if I appeal +to this cruel man with the money in my hand?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_504'>504</span>“Yes, too late. He has no power to save me if he +wished, I know that much of American law. Beside, you +cannot go to him. He, above all men living, must be kept +in ignorance that I ever saw one of the Miss Landers. +There is no appeal, no hope for me. Give up the thought, +Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian did give up the thought and went away broken-hearted. +Virginia and Ellen came to the house the day +after, radiant and happy, with the money which Lawyer +Stone had just paid over to them. Brian met them in the +drawing room, thanked Virginia with tears in his eyes, but +refused to take the money. His brother had settled all his +difficulties in another way. It involved a somewhat lengthened +absence from the city, he said, but everything was in +a sure course of arrangement. Mr. Seymour had charged +him to give a thousand thanks for her kindness, which he +should feel to his dying day.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Did he leave no word for me?” inquired Ellen, nervously. +“Not even a farewell?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He left you this, and this,” answered Brian, pressing +his quivering lips to her cheek and forehead.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen knew that there was some terrible sorrow under +those kisses, but the delicate intuition that impressed her +heart with the truth kept her silent. Virginia, who had +been so ardent in her desire to serve Ellen’s brother, was a +little disappointed by the result, as any generous person +might well have been. Still there was joy in the thought +that they were at liberty to return home—that within a +few hours she would meet Clarence Brooks.</p> + +<p class='c013'>They went up the river by the first train, Virginia grew +light of heart as she approached home. Would he expect +her just then? Was he disappointed because she did not +return the night before? Had he told Cora and Mrs. Lander +of their engagement? How would they feel about it, +glad or sorry? She almost wished that it had been done +<span class='pageno' id='Page_505'>505</span>before she left home. It would be very awkward enduring +their sneers or congratulations, as they might chance to +prove, with no one but Ellen to sustain her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>These thoughts brought a troubled joy with them, and +when the train stopped at the depot she had become nervously +anxious. Ellen’s grave face added to this feeling, +this return home really was a trying ordeal to a young, +motherless girl, who believed that the most precious secret +of her life had been given to her worst enemies.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice met them at the door; but no one else came with +smiles or welcome. Mrs. Lander was in her room, the +servant said, and Miss Lander had gone out to ride on +Blackbird. Ellen saw the question in Virginia’s eyes, and +asked if Miss Lander had gone alone.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, quite alone; there had been no gentleman in the +neighborhood to ride with her these two days; a groom +followed her, that was all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia went up stairs somewhat perplexed. Was Cora +so annoyed by her engagement that she would not ride with +Mr. Brooks? What could it all mean?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Just as the girls were taking off their things, a clumsy +knock sounded from the door, and Joshua Hurd looked in. +He beckoned Ellen and retreated into the upper hall. +Ellen went out to learn what he wanted, when he placed a +letter mysteriously in her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You jest give it to her. He made me promise to put +it into her own hands; but it’s the same thing, now ain’t +it, when I give it to you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The letter, which Ellen took, was directed in a bold, firm +hand, to Miss Virginia Lander.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Who gave it to you, Mr. Hurd?” she anxiously inquired.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He, Mr. Brooks; the chap I took your letter to that +rainy night. He came up here yesterday morning, and, +arter siting awhile with t’other gal, came out to the stables—a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_506'>506</span>thing he never done afore—and took a good deal of +interest in the hosses, ’specially Snowball, a critter that I +allays curry down myself. That morning he diskivered +that she’d been rid hard since any one dressed her down, +and was curous about the mark of a saddle that was plain +as could be on her back. You don’t know how that mark +came there nor nothing, do you now, Miss Ellen?” he +added, eyeing her keenly with his little, sharp eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Me?—No, indeed. How should I?” answered Ellen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jes so; thought as much. Nor she, nuther?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Joshua pointed over his shoulder to the room where they +had left Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, Miss Virginia? She hasn’t seen Snowball +these three or four days, I can answer for that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jes so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But what does all this mean, Joshua?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nothing, only he said the hoss must a been rid or else +I hadn’t took good care on her, which made me mad. Rid +or no rid, curry-combed or not curry-combed, it was none of +his bisness, and I e’enamost told him so.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Joshua, I don’t understand about that, but the +letter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, he gin me that arter I’d sot him down a peg +about the hoss, and a golden half eagle with it—none of +yer greenbacks, but gennine gold, woth amost double if one +specerlates on it, which I mean to. ‘Give that into Miss +Virginia’s own hand, don’t let any other person tech it,’ +says he. ‘I depend on you, Mr. Hurd.’ Well, he might +do that. If I haint gin it into her own hand, it was +because she was doing up her hair afore the looking-glass, +and that made me kinder skeery; but it’s all right now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen was turning away, when Joshua began again:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Ellen, what was the matter with Mr. Brooks? +He looked so down in the mouth that I raly felt sorry for +him; kinder locked up about the mouth and forrid.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_507'>507</span>“How can I tell, Joshua?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jes so. But you’ll give that ’ere letter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Certainly I will.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Jes so,” muttered Joshua, stumbling down the hall. +“Jes so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went into the room where Virginia was standing, +and gave her the letter.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“From him! from him!” cried the delighted girl, +snatching it between both her hands. “I will be back in +a minute, Ellen, and tell you all about it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She went into the sanctuary of her own chamber, pressing +the paper to her lips with both hands, as young girls +will when the sweet insanity of a first love is upon them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen sat down by the window, wondering why her heart +felt so heavy; she had fallen into thought about her brother, +whose present position seemed to be so mysteriously kept +from her, when a sharp cry from the inner room, and +directly after a heavy fall, made her spring from the chair +in sudden dismay.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next instant she was in the bed-chamber striving to +lift Virginia from the floor with her trembling arms and +crying out in her alarm:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My lady! Virginia! Virginia! won’t you speak to me? +It is Ellen, your own poor Ellen, who loves you better than +her life! What have they done to you, darling?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>In her distress, the poor girl broke into the pathetic terms +of endearment which are so touching in her countrywomen. +She kissed that pale face, dropping unconscious tears upon +its whiteness. She strove to warm the cold hand with her +own quivering palms. But all was in vain, Virginia Lander +lay motionless; her lips ashen, her eyes closed in deep +shadows. Ellen at last believed her dead, and shrieked +aloud:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice! Eunice! Oh! my God, will nobody come?”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <span class='pageno' id='Page_508'>508</span> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LIV.<br> <span class='c011'>IN PRISON.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>A person entered the room and stood close to Ellen. +It was Cora, just come in from her ride; she stood motionless, +grasping her whip tightly in one hand; masses of +heavy dark cloth fell around her feet, sweeping far out +upon the floor, and the black hat shaded a stormy brow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is hysterics; she had them frequently in Europe. +Go and call Eunice—this shrinking will do no good. Go; +I will take care of my cousin.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora stooped down to take the pale form from Ellen, but +the little creature laid her charge upon the carpet, sprang +upon Cora like a tiger and pushed her half across the room, +so tangling her feet in the riding-skirt that she almost fell. +There she left her struggling to retain her feet, and lifting +that pale head, laid a pillow tenderly under it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do not touch her; do not dare to touch her, unless you +wish Almighty vengeance to fall on you at once! It will +come—it will come!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Pale as death, and shaking her slender forefinger at the +half-terrified woman, Ellen went in search of Eunice.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The moment she was gone, Cora tore the skirt from +under her feet, ran to the door, closed it and shot the bolt. +Then she took up the letter, which had fallen from Virginia’s +hold, and tried to hold it firmly between her two +hands, but they shook so violently that she could hardly +see the writing. The struggle of an iron will soon conquered +this tremor, and she eagerly devoured each word as +it seemed to flash before her eyes.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No explanation—no loop-hole for her to creep through. +Quiet, gentle, positive! My Heavens, what a man this is! +How dare she worship him? Why he is the mate for an +empress!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_509'>509</span>She heard footsteps in the hall, flung the letter down +where she had found it, shot the bolt and flung the door +open before Eunice and Ellen came in sight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is getting conscious, I think. How she moans. +What can be the meaning of this, Eunice?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“The meaning—why the poor, sweet creature has +fainted away; but what do you care about that, I want to +know?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen! Ellen!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>These faint words came from Virginia, for into that +loved name the moans on her lip had shaped themselves.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is not Ellen, but your cousin, dear, dear Virginia, +what shall I do for you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not a thing,” Eunice broke forth, seizing upon Cora +and lifting her to her feet, for she was half kneeling, “not +a thing so long as I am here, and, so help me John +Rodgers, I’m not going away. Some one has e’enamost +killed this poor girl; I don’t know who it is, but <i>you</i> shan’t +touch her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Eunice lifted Virginia from the floor as if she had +been an infant, and laid her tenderly on the bed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now jest lie still and come to naturally, that’s a good +girl. No need of shetting them eyes like a scared baby. +She’s going out right away, knowing she ain’t wanted for +nothing. Here, Ellen, jest put your arm under her head +and yer cheek agin hern so—nothing but double-dyed +friends shall get near this bed now, I promise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen,” whispered Virginia.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What can I do?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What, the letter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here, here, I took it from the carpet. Let me put it in +your bosom.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, it would kill me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_510'>510</span>She pushed at Ellen with both her quivering hands, +stretched herself suddenly and fell into another deathly +swoon. When she awoke from that it was to the wild +unconsciousness which heralds in the first stages of a brain +fever.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next few weeks were full of terrible apprehension to +Ellen Nolan and Eunice. Joshua, too, hung about the +house night and day, anxious and downhearted, wanting to +help, but too awkward for any real usefulness. Mrs. Lander +shut herself up in her own room, and regarded Eunice +with a frightened look whenever she came in from the sick +chamber, but asked no questions. The woman was becoming +an abject coward, and had only courage to shut her eyes +at her only evil work.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Even in the insane ravings of that fever, Virginia never +mentioned the name of Clarence Brooks or spoke of Cora. +Both Eunice and Joshua believed that this fever had been +brought on by the wrong which Cora had done in usurping +her inheritance, a wrong in which they were compelled to +participate or expose their own benefactress. This thought +gave that rough woman many a sleepless night, and Joshua +felt compelled, through all that long winter, to take a +double portion of punch to keep away the dreams that +haunted him. He told Eunice, that nothing but the liquor +kept him from going into a consumption.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Eunice neither scolded nor sneered when he said this: +she was too sad for ill temper now. All her fine dresses +were packed away in the garret as a sort of self-punishment +for her own misdoing. She went about the house like a +ghost, and once, when Mrs. Lander questioned her face +with those wild, sunken eyes, as she came from the sick +chamber, the woman absolutely burst into tears.</p> + +<p class='c013'>How did Cora Lander act in this mournful state of +things? At first she was busy all the morning searching +the daily papers for a paragraph that never presented +<span class='pageno' id='Page_511'>511</span>itself. This made her restless and ill at ease. She wanted +some proof that her web, so artfully woven, had entangled +its victim. One day the express brought up a quantity of +dresses for Mrs. Lander, and, in the unpacking, Cora fell +upon a small paper which she had considered too insignificant +for her notice, and which had, in fact, been overlooked +by the officer with whom Clarence Brooks had left the task +of silencing the press when Seymour’s trial came on.</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was the paragraph. Her eyes seized upon it with +the greed of a famished hawk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“A young man, who gave his name as Seymour, was put +upon his trial for embezzlement, and pleaded guilty to the +indictment. His appearance and the frank avowal of his +guilt excited general sympathy in the court room. Even +the judge exhibited more than usual commiseration while +sentencing the poor fellow, who was condemned to seven +years at Sing-Sing.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was the paragraph which Cora seized upon with +such keen interest. She carried the torn paper to her room +and read it over and over again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It is done! it is done!” she cried, pacing to and fro in +her room like a panther, hugging the paper to her bosom. +“I willed it, and Clarence Brooks, the most splendid specimen +of manhood I ever saw, has been the instrument of +my freedom. I knew it would be so; but this game is but +half played out. The next move shall secure him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Even while she was speaking a knock came to the door, +and when she opened it, impatient of the intrusion, a letter +was placed in her hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“His writing, and to me. How dare the wretch presume +so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She tore the note open and shook it a moment at arm’s +length, as if his hand must have left poison in its folds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>I cannot give the contents of this letter, it would be too +painful; but she read it, from beginning to end, with dry, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_512'>512</span>hard eyes, that felt no pity; now and then a gleam of triumph +shot through them; otherwise, they shone with a +heavy glitter, like dulled steel.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The letter told her of the anguish her husband felt in +leaving her again, “it might be for years, and it might be +forever.” He went into no details. He was going far +away, he said, so far that she might not hear from him for +months together, but he would write whenever fate permitted +him. Something had happened, connected with his +life in the Old World, which compelled him to go—something +which even the great love which he felt for her could +neither overpower nor break through. His absence for a +time was imperative as his love for her would be immortal. +He besought her to have patience with him, to pray for +him sometimes, as he would ever pray for her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>More there was of such sad, pitiful pleading for continued +love as would have made any real woman’s heart ache with +sympathy. Even Cora Lander felt a touch of compassion +as she read the last lines of her young husband’s letter, +knowing where he was, who had sent him there, and how +he must suffer. She sat for a time with the paper in her +hand, conquering the last remnants of tenderness that evil +thoughts and evil acts had left in her nature. Then she +flung the letter into the fire and held it down with the poker +till it was consumed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>I do not know whether compunction or triumph kept the +woman in her room all the day after this letter was placed +in her hands, but she refused to come down and see Brian +Nolan, and when he sent to know if he was to wait for a +reply, she sent back a message that she was too ill for writing +just then.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian obtained an interview with his sister, who came +from Virginia’s sick room to see him, but it was a sad +meeting, for Ellen was borne down with apprehensions +regarding her benefactress, and Brian had a secret aching +<span class='pageno' id='Page_513'>513</span>in his heart which forbade him to give or claim sympathy. +So he went away heavy-hearted and so lonely that he longed +to creep off into some quiet place and die.</p> + +<p class='c013'>But he had another duty to perform, and that took him +to the hotel where Clarence Brooks was staying; for he +never returned to his rooms up the river, and few persons +had seen him abroad in the city.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Brian entered the room where Brooks was sitting, +there was bitterness in his heart which gave him both +strength and courage. He approached the desk where the +young man was writing and laid the letter he brought upon +it without a word.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks started a little, glanced at the boy and took up +the letter. He evidently knew the handwriting, for a stern, +hard look came over his face and he cut the envelope slowly, +like a man who has made up his mind not to be moved +from a settled purpose. If he had expected prayers or entreaties +in that letter, the contents undeceived him, that +was visible enough in the change of his countenance, for a +slow color came into his face and all its features softened as +he read:</p> + +<p class='c012'>“I have wronged you, have wronged myself more, in an +act which makes me seem ungrateful. I thought you dead—as +God is my judge and your avenger—I thought you +dead and mourned for you—I did! I did! You will not +believe it, but I would almost have given my own life if it +would have availed to save yours on the day I robbed your +desk. It was your heirs I wronged, not you, not you. +Remember how I watched your sick bed, how many sleepless +nights I spent—how tireless was my love. The temptation +was terrible; I cannot tell you what it was that made +me thirst so for money. I dare not, but it was enough to +outmaster stronger principles than mine. God help me!</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Clarence Brooks, I loved you even when I wronged you—no, +<span class='pageno' id='Page_514'>514</span>not you, but a memory that should have been sacred. +I love you now, though you have taken such vengeance for +my fault as crushes me out of the world. I do not understand +it—you never were hard of heart—never cared so +much for money as to ruin a fellow creature because he deprived +you of it. Something must have hardened you +against me before you could bury me alive in this terrible +place.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not complain. Having wrought out this fate for +myself, I will endure it if God gives me strength—perish +under it if that is withheld. Do not think that I write to +ask for mercy or excite the sympathy I have forfeited. It +is not that which forces me to brave the pain of writing +this; but I have a favor to ask—only one, so easy for you +to grant, yet so important to me. I have friends, a few +both here and in the Old World; the youth who brings +you this is my own brother; I have a sister, too, young, +helpless, sensitive, friendless save in the love of one person. +My fate is a secret to this poor girl, and to all that ever +loved me excepting my brother. He knows where I am +and how I suffer; poor lad, I have been his worst enemy; +yet he loves me, oh! how much better than I deserve! For +the sake of this friendless boy—for the sake of my sister +and of others not less dear—I ask you, Clarence Brooks, +my once friend, to be generous, and keep my misery, my +crime, and my disgrace a secret. Do not allow my name +to pass your lips to any human being. This is the only request +I shall ever make. Grant it, I implore you! Unless +you would torture me to death in my living tomb, this +small favor will not be denied.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Alfred Nolan</span>,</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c013'>“For Seymour was an assumed name.”</p> + +<p class='c012'>Brooks read the letter carefully, kindly; he had no real +vengeance to gratify here. What he had done was in behalf +<span class='pageno' id='Page_515'>515</span>of Virginia Lander, who had not only wronged him, +but was about to shipwreck herself forever. The reader +knows well that he never would have arrested this man +simply for his crime regarding the money. But the reasons +which had prompted the act held good yet; nothing but the +removal of this man from her path would keep a girl so infatuated +from rushing on to her own destruction.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian Nolan stood by the desk looking earnestly into the +man’s face as these thoughts went through his mind. +When Brooks lifted his head, those sorrowful eyes met his; +they were full of unspoken reproaches.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You will grant my brother’s request?” he questioned.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He need not have made it,” said Brooks, kindly. +“What I have done has been from a stern sense of duty—for +the world, I would not take one step beyond that. Say +this to your brother; tell him I have done nothing in +malice—that I have not an unkind feeling toward him.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here the young man’s voice faltered a little, and he +shaded his eyes with one hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Then I can carry your solemn promise back to my +brother in his prison?” said Brian, regarding this agitation +with something like wonder.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You may give him my solemn assurance that his wish +shall be carried out. Unless he sends a message to me, I +will never mention his name.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you,” said Brian Nolan, “thank you for him +and myself. There is another thing; my brother left above +sixteen thousand dollars. It is your money; he charged +me to pay it over. Here is a check for what there is in the +bank. The rest I can obtain. Shall I send it here?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brooks took the check and tore it in fragments.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will not take a farthing of this money. It was not +for that I arrested him—God knows it was not for that! +Keep the whole of it for him; he will need it when he +comes out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_516'>516</span>“He will not live to come out,” said Brian. “You have +broken his heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The boy passed out of the door as he said this leaving +Clarence Brooks alone.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LV.<br> <span class='c011'>THE SECOND CONQUEST.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The winter came, sharp and cold, while Virginia lay ill; +for the fever left her helpless as a child, and the physician +said that, without great care, she must sink into a decline. +This he suggested to Cora early in the season. Her +system, he said, had received some great shock and refused +to rally its strength again. Unless something could be +done to interest her, his skill would be of little avail. If +Cora was rejoiced by this intelligence, she took good care to +conceal the shameful truth, for no person ever seemed more +anxious than she did for the recovery of another. Indeed +she haunted that sick chamber with the pertinacity of a +professed nurse, though warned by Eunice again and again +that her presence was hurtful to the patient. Fortunately +for Virginia, this affectionate farce only lasted two or three +weeks, for after that time Cora persuaded Mrs. Lander to +go with her to the city, and took up her residence in their +old rooms at the hotel. She learned, with infinite satisfaction, +that Clarence Brooks had taken rooms there for the +season.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This was true, but Brooks had no idea that Cora had +made this house her stopping-place, and was surprised +when they met in the public drawing room one day, some +few weeks after Seymour’s trial. He strove to inquire after +the welfare of her cousin with composure, but his voice +<span class='pageno' id='Page_517'>517</span>shook in spite of himself, and he again thanked Heaven +that Cora was ignorant of the deep cause of interest he had +in that unhappy girl.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She answered him very quietly, and with every appearance +of unconsciousness that Virginia had been quite ill. +Some disappointment seemed to have thrown her into a +fever. Probably the person who had given them all so +much uneasiness had abandoned his pursuit of her after +attaining the money he wanted. She could only guess at +this. But her cousin had been taken much worse after the +boy who had been there once before came a second time +with a letter, and for a few days was confined to her room. +There was no doubt some tendency to insanity in all this, +for Virginia had taken the most unaccountable dislike both +to her and her mother. As for herself, it was not strange; +but a kinder mother never lived than her aunt Lander. So +bitter had this antipathy become at last, that the physician +made it a particular request that they should both leave the +house until some change took place. This was the reason +they had come down to the city. She wished people to +understand all this, because it might seem unfeeling in a +mother to leave her child in her sickness if all the facts +were not explained. The whole affair had been very painful +both to herself and her aunt.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks had no reason to doubt all this; he +believed that no human being but himself knew of the +identity of Seymour with the man who had robbed him. +He was also certain that Cora had no knowledge of his +engagement, or even acquaintance with Virginia; the manner +and conversation of Cora Lander convinced him of her +ignorance. In this respect, it was fortunate that Ellen was +so completely at variance with Cora and Mrs. Lander. +That romance of the ravine, the sweetest of his life while +it lasted, was sacred to himself, and shared only by those +two lonely girls. Of course Virginia was sad; of course +<span class='pageno' id='Page_518'>518</span>she must feel the absence or, if she knew it, the incarceration +of her lover with such anguish as might throw her on +a sick bed. But this was the natural result of her own +mad infatuation; no human help could protect her from it. +She had been wrested from this bad man by an act of legal +power that made his heart ache when he thought of it; yet, +under the same circumstances, he would have done it again, +even though the girl had never been dear to himself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora was very sweet and gentle when they met; you +would have thought Virginia had appeared over again from +her manners, for never on this earth was there a better +actress lost to the stage. At her instigation, Mrs. Lander +invited Brooks to their parlor. There was no visible reason +why he should not accept this invitation to intimacy with +Amos Lander’s daughter. The treachery of his niece could +not reach that fair being. Had not his dead friend warned +him against one and invited his love for the other?</p> + +<p class='c013'>He went to that pleasant parlor again and again. He +saw that singularly gifted being in all the phases of her +loveliness. There was no struggle in his bosom then; +never in this world was there a more willing victim. If +uncertain of his own feelings, he soon became vividly conscious +of hers, for, with all her art, the creature could not +conceal the absorbing passion that had entered her heart +with such irresistible power.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora Lander was right in one thing; she had found her +master passion in this love for Clarence Brooks. I have no +heart to give the details of that wicked courtship. The old +intimacy revived, those two persons spent half their time +together; for Cora still pleaded her mourning as an excuse +for avoidance of general society. She sent for Blackbird, +and almost every afternoon a pair of black horses, with two +of the finest-looking riders ever seen in those broad avenues, +were admired and commented on till it became generally +known that Amos Lander’s heiress was engaged to the distinguished-looking +foreigner who was forever by her side.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_519'>519</span>As the spring came on, this rumor was confirmed by the +dress makers and furnishing houses where the wedding +paraphernalia was being prepared.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this time Virginia was worse than an invalid; she +received no company, and heard nothing that was going on +in the out-door world; those who saw her believed that a +few months would end a life that, from no given cause, +seemed to have become wearisome to that fair young creature, +and a burden that she would not be long troubled +with.</p> + +<p class='c013'>One day, early in the last month of spring, Brian Nolan +went from New York to see Ellen, who received him up stairs +in Virginia’s parlor; she, poor girl, was lying feeble +and pale on the bed in her own room. But the door was +open, and the great house so still that almost every word +could reach her from the parlor.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen had finished her book during the winter and it lay +on her desk, sealed in a large package, which she was +anxious to put in some publisher’s hands. There was no +great vigor of life about Ellen in those days. Her slight +figure had fallen away with constant watching and severe +thought; her eyes were almost wild with anxiety, and she +was constantly giving little nervous starts, as if apprehending +some evil every minute.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You look ill, Ellen,” said Brian, sitting down by the +desk.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no; I am not ill, Brian, only it makes me suffer to +see her passing away so quietly and so surely.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is she no better, then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Worse, if anything, Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you know, Ellen—can you guess what it is that +preys upon her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian asked this under his breath. Remember, Cora had +denied her identity to him, and had sent down word that +she was ill on another occasion. He had seen Virginia at +<span class='pageno' id='Page_520'>520</span>Seymour’s residence, and fully believed her to be his wife, +pining perhaps to death under the unaccountable absence +of her husband.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, all that ails her is soon told. Among them, +they have broken her heart.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do you think she is so bad? Will the sweet lady +really die?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“God help us, I dare not ask the question, much less +answer it!” said Ellen, beginning to cry.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian could not speak openly, he was held down by that +solemn promise to his brother. He had just been to the +prison and came up to get news of the woman whom that +unhappy convict so thoroughly loved.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This will be sad, sad news for him,” was his silent reflection. +“Should she die, he will feel the shock through +his prison walls. O! if I dared say one consoling word to +her!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>These were silent thoughts; he would not have spoken +them for the world, shackled so with that oath of secrecy. +But one thing he could do. Seymour had not altogether +forbidden him to make a confidant of Ellen. He would tell +her, not about the marriage, but regarding his brother’s +unhappy condition.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen,” he said, after a prolonged silence, “will you +shut that door, I want to say something to you alone?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She is there, speak low, I think she is sleeping,” said +Ellen, closing the door softly and retreating to the farther +side of the room. “Now you can tell me, Brian. Is it +anything about our brother?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Ellen, I just came from him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Came from him? Where is he then?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Stoop down your head, sister.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen bent her head, listened, turned deadly white and +stepped back as if he had struck her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“In prison—sent there by Clarence Brooks—Brian, why +was this kept from me so long?”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_521'>521</span>“He forbade me to tell you, or any one. It would have +done harm.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I am his sister.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And for that reason have enough to bear. Even now I +tell you without authority. But for what I have heard to-day, +I would still keep silence.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And this was where he was—this was why he did not +need our money. Brian, Clarence Brooks is a villain, a +double-dyed villain! I detest him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So did I at first, but after seeing him—Ellen, there is +something strange about this. Mr. Brooks does not seem +vindictive. He would not accept any portion of the +money, though I urged it upon him. He seemed distressed, +anxious to make Alfred’s life easy where he is. +Ellen, at one time I saw tears in that man’s eyes.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Have you seen him more than once?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, but not to speak with him. Only last week I saw +him riding in the Park with Mrs. Lander and the young +lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What! Cora Lander?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, it is said about the hotels that they are going to +be married soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen flushed red and turned white again; thought +after thought flashed through her mind. Cora Lander had +known her brother. She remembered thinking so at the +hotel the first time they all met there. Had she instigated +Brooks to prosecute him as he had done?</p> + +<p class='c013'>There was no chance that an honest mind could follow +Cora Lander in her iniquitous scheming, but Ellen jumped +at the one broad conclusion that she was at the bottom of +all her brother’s trouble and of Virginia’s sad state.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That cruel wretch shall not break his heart!” she exclaimed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian thought that she alluded to Clarence Brooks, and +answered:</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_522'>522</span>“I do not think it was done from cruelty. This man is +not hard-hearted. Something that we do not understand is +at the bottom of it all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian, tell me more of our brother. How many years +is it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Seven!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“So many! Let me think—let me think! Oh! if she +were well now!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is it. You must keep this from her, of all persons +in the world.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“We must keep it from every one, though the secret +burns our lives out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“If she had not been in the danger you speak of, I +would not have told you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do not understand. My lady has nothing to do with +it; she would be sorry, of course, but I will not tell her or +any one. Our father left Alfred to us. To save him is the +duty of my life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I should like to see your lady.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No wonder, Brian; it would be strange if you did not. +She has the loveliest face. I hear her moving. Perhaps +she will come out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was right, the door opened and Virginia came into +the room, pale as a lily. Her white merino dress was +girded in at the waist by a black ribbon, and a string of jet +beads fell from her neck. She had heard his voice and put +these things on hurriedly, hoping something from his visit, +but without knowing what.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have come to see Ellen; I am glad of it,” she +said, gently, as Brian bowed before the frail creature whom +he believed to be his brother’s wife. “Is there any news +of her brother yet?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian’s face lighted up. Here was a chance of giving her +comfort without betraying his knowledge of her secret.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_523'>523</span>“Yes, we have heard from him; he is well, and thinks +nothing so important as his return to us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But when will he return?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not yet; he cannot tell. But this is certain, his heart +is with us.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She smiled faintly at his eagerness, and sat down wearily, +supporting her head with one hand.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I shall write, lady. May I tell him that you remember +him kindly?” said Brian, so agitated that his voice shook +while uttering words that seemed to him of great hidden +importance.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, say that, for I do remember him very kindly, +little as I have seen of him. Ellen’s brother, you know, is +almost my brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Thank you, he will be pleased! Sister Ellen, good-bye.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will go with you, brother. We must not say good-bye +so soon.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen walked with her brother down to the depot, conversing +earnestly with him all the way, and waited till the +train took him up.</p> + +<p class='c013'>About a week after this, Eunice intercepted Ellen as she +was coming in from the garden.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Come here,” she said, “I’ve got a letter from Mrs. +Eliza Lander. Read it, but don’t say a word to <i>her</i>.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen read the letter. It told Eunice, as a matter to be +kept secret in the household, of Cora’s approaching marriage. +“Everything is getting ready,” it said; “Cora’s +first year of mourning will be more than over in June, +when the wedding will take place at the mansion. She +wishes you to have the house put into perfect order. Hire +extra help, and tell the gardener to put on a double force +if the grounds require it. The wedding will be a large one +and some of the first people in the land will be present. +There is one thing that troubles my niece, and I share her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_524'>524</span>anxiety. What can be done with my—with Virginia and +her uncouth friend? If she would only consent to live in +the city. Cora has such a lovely house; it belonged to +Mr. Lander: she will give her a deed of it, if that will +suit her for a residence. She can choose her own servants +and have some nice elderly person to live with her. The +house has just been beautifully fitted up Cora tells me, +especially for her cousin. I have been over it, and it is +superb. There is a colored woman in charge now, but Cora +will send her off and let her cousin have full sway. I +think this very liberal—don’t you, Eunice? If you like +it, would you object to speaking to her about the arrangement? +Now that a strange gentleman is coming into the +family, it does seem best that something should be done. I +wouldn’t speak to her myself about it, nor would Cora, she +is so sensitive; but you will not mind it, I am sure, Eunice. +Do try and get that girl with the back to favor this measure. +She can do anything with Virginia.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>E. Lander</span>.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<hr class='c014'> + +<p class='c013'>“What do I think of that?” cried Eunice, when Ellen +had read the letter through. “Jehosaphat, Judas Iscarrot +and Nebbecudnezzer rolled into one heap of wickedness. +Eliza Lander’s getting to be disgusting! Don’t +look at me, I’m blushing all over for her. It’s scandalous!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Still my young lady must go. It would kill her to remain +here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it is turning her out of doors. This city house +that the critter has been a fixing up isn’t her home like +this, though it is a purty place.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She will not go there, Eunice, I am sure of that. But +she has some money. We raised it on those jewels—bless +you for getting them—and I can work.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Work! You! why you couldn’t iron a pocket hankecher +without being tired out.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_525'>525</span>“But I can write.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why that ain’t work.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I fancy you would think it was, Eunice, if you had it +to do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Why, you cretur you, I thought you was a doing it jest +for fun!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Fun,” answered Ellen, smiling wearily, for this hard +writing had worn her out, “see how my hand trembles, feel +how hot my head is. This a pretty severe fun, Eunice!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And what’s the good of wurrying yourself out so? I +hain’t seen nothing come of it but a heap of paper with +writing on it that Jehosaphat couldn’t read if he was to +come right out of the Scripters to do it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You may be right. After all my toil, it may be worth +nothing,” answered Ellen, who had arisen from the pile of +manuscript so depressed and exhausted that even such +criticism as Eunice gave discouraged her. “But I have +tried so hard! Besides she would be disappointed!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Will she? Well, cherk up, cherk up, if writing ever is +worth anything, yours will come up above the level. I don’t +know much about it, but I’ve seen your face kinder blazing +out and withering up over that paper day after day. There +must be something in it to make a young cretur work as +you have. Don’t let anything I’ve said put you down in +the mouth, for I don’t know no more about writing than a +swing fence. Gracious knows, I wish I never had learned, +so does Josh, though we ain’t either on us much to brag +of.”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LVI.<br> <span class='c011'>A NEW HOME.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Eunice was going into the house after this speech, but +Ellen followed her.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_526'>526</span>“Eunice, will you give me that letter?” she said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not to show her. I tell you that girl shan’t leave this +house without she wants to of her own self. Nobody on +this arth shall drive her away.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But she will not remain after this—after her cousin +comes back.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen Nolan, there’s a thing that sets hard on Josh’s +and my mind. You sent a letter once down to the tavern +from her, and that Mr. Brooks sent one back agin. Besides, +Josh says that the men about the tavern say that you was +down there one night to see him. Now was you?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, please don’t question me about that. It is all +over now.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, you’re a good girl, and I won’t. But tell me one +thing; you may, for I don’t know anything more about +love than I do about writing; but did he kinder make her +like him and then treat her bad, going over to t’other? +He’s a man, and it’s in ’em I know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eunice, please oblige me. Don’t talk of her, only to +decide what is for the best. She’s very feeble, and the +least excitement may throw her upon a sick bed again. If +nothing had happened, we should have gone away. This +life is terrible!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Not without she wants to; remember Josh and I +are agreed on that.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But it is impossible to stay—the—the—confusion would +kill her. Think of some quiet place that she can live in, +where no trouble can come.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I’ll think it over. But it’s a burning shame.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Somewhere in the neighborhood of Newburg or Sing-Sing, +if you can think of a nice family,” said Ellen, faltering +in the last part of her sentence, while the slow color +came into her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I know a widow woman about four or five miles on +this side of Sing-Sing, back from the railroad; she’s a New +<span class='pageno' id='Page_527'>527</span>England woman, and just as kind as kind can be. Sometimes +she takes one or two boarders. I’ll send Josh right +down to see about it if you want me to, and she <i>will</i> go.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do, Eunice, let him start at once.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It ain’t so far off that I can’t come and see you now +and then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I hope not, Eunice, for you have been a good friend to +her.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I haven’t—more shame to me—but I wanted to be. +You don’t know how both Josh and I wanted to be her +friend but couldn’t. Are you going? Do you want the +letter?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, I can tell her; it only takes a few words.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Half an hour after this Joshua was at the depot waiting +for a train, and Ellen sat in Virginia’s bed-room with both +her arms around the invalid, striving to arouse her from the +state of dead silence into which she had fallen.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! darling lady, make an effort and cry; just a few +tears will make your heart easier. Look up, look up, and +say I haven’t killed you with the news!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia heard this appeal through all her numbed +senses. She lifted her head and smiled in Ellen’s face—one +of the most pitiful smiles that ever parted human lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, you told me of this, but I would not be +warned.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Sweet lady—dear lady, cast him from your mind. He +is cruel, dishonorable, vile! Unworthy of your regret.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, Ellen; in that you wrong Clarence, wrong me, if +you think I can believe such things of him. It is my +cousin—I will not curse her, or blame him. Let us go +away, my friend. You are right, let us go away. She took +my inheritance and I was powerless to defend it. She +has taken the heart from my bosom now and crushed out +all its life. Still I am powerless. But some day he will +learn the truth, whatever that wicked truth may be; then +<span class='pageno' id='Page_528'>528</span>she will suffer as I do. I do not ask it—I do not wish it, +but God is above all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>A fortnight after Virginia Lander heard of the wedding +which was to drive her from under her father’s roof, a little +figure, whose deformed shoulders were but half concealed +under a circular mantle of black silk, entered one of the +principal publishing houses in New York, with a paper +parcel in her arms; for it was too heavy for her weak hands. +The vast room which she entered was lined with placards +of various publications—divided into compartments by +stands, crowded with specimen books, and scattered over +with desks, each of which represented a department of +that vast establishment. A large portion of the front of +this room was divided off from the stairs and main apartment +by a light wooden railing, which enclosed a well-trodden +carpet, with some desks and office chairs, all appropriated +by the heads of this great firm, which had existed +since the eldest partner was a little child. They were +kindly-looking men, who found their greatest happiness in +the brotherly society which was sufficient to themselves; +still they were at all times ready to give a cordial greeting +and kindly hearing to any one who came to them, either in +friendship or on business. It so happened that all of the +partners were present at the moment Ellen Nolan entered +the room.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Genius may be modest and shrinking, but it is seldom +at a loss for the best means of attaining a proper object. +These men were all strangers to Ellen, but her earnest face +and quiet movements won upon them at first sight. The +tallest and eldest of these gentlemen arose to meet her, +glanced at the parcel in her arms and directed her to +another pleasant-faced man, who sat by a desk, leaning +back in his office chair and calmly smoking a cigar, which +he flung through the window as she came up. This man, +with a smile that brightened Ellen’s face like a reflected +<span class='pageno' id='Page_529'>529</span>sunbeam, reached forth his hand for the parcel, simply +saying: “Is it a book?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen sighed heavily as she gave up her manuscript. It +had been so long a part of her life that she shrunk from +the separation when it came, as an artist hates to sell the +picture which is the embodiment of a beautiful idea.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, sir, it is a book—a novel.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He looked at her with kindly interest. Her bright face, +and, more than that, her helplessness awoke his sympathy. +The man of business saw genius in that face—and the +man of feeling pitied one whom God had so endowed and +yet left imperfect.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Your first, of course?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, the very first I ever attempted.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen was trembling all over now. It seemed as if half +her strength had been taken away with the manuscript.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Leave it, if you like. We will submit it to our +reader.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen, of course, supposed that her book would be given +over to the judgment of some great author, capable of +doing at least all that she could accomplish, and gave it up +with a sort of awe, for there is no reverence in life so +fervent as that which genius yields to genius.</p> + +<p class='c013'>I do not know how it was with this firm, but had she +guessed that, in a majority of cases, her manuscript would +have been given to some pretending school girl or favorite +friend of the publisher, she might have had less reverence +and more apprehension. As it was, she felt certain that +the ideas which had thrilled her whole being in the progress +of that book would meet with kindred appreciation in +some powerful mind, and was content.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So Ellen left her book and went back to the little stone +farm-house in a hollow of the hills, where Virginia was +longing for her presence as only the suffering and feeble +of health can long for companionship. The home which +<span class='pageno' id='Page_530'>530</span>these girls had chosen presented a great contrast to the +noble mansion they had left; yet it was a pleasant residence; +neat, old-fashioned, and shaded with a huge walnut +tree, which was just putting forth its most delicate green. +Quantities of daffodils, jonquils and snowdrops brightened +the front yard and the garden. Peach and cherry trees +were in full blossom, and the great lilac bushes under the +parlor windows were budding with a famous promise of +flowers. Humble as all this was, it seemed to those girls +far pleasanter than that marble house, with all its discord +and painful restraints. Virginia had brightened a little +under the comfort and freedom of her new home. The +wholesome scent of those garden flowers and walnut trees +awoke sensations of pleasure unknown to her former luxurious +life. She sought the open air now, and could ramble +off at will without fear of meeting her worst enemies. It +was a new life in which she was becoming interested; the +languor and illness which had kept her indoors all winter +became less and less apparent every day.</p> + +<p class='c013'>One morning Joshua came riding toward the house, +leading Snowball by the bridle.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I brought her down because the doctor ordered something +nice to be sent to you. ‘Sich as hosses?’ says I. ‘A +white hoss with a mane and tail like drifted snow, is that +the medicine you was thinking of?’ sez I.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Jes so,’ says he, ‘that kind of a hoss is jest what she +wants.’”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Side-saddle and all?’ says I.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“‘Yes,’ says he. ‘Side-saddle, riding-dress, hat, feather +and whip?’ says I agin. Then he laughed and told me to +bring everything, so I did. Besides, Eunice would put up +some jelly and sich like in this basket, and I put something +in for you, Miss Ellen. Remembered how you took to the +punch that rainy evening, and brought down some of the +licker—jest room for it in the basket. Writ out a receipt, +too, for the punch with my own hand. Here it is.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_531'>531</span>Ellen took the paper and thanked him cordially. Persons +like her are not apt to ridicule a kindness, however uncouthly +expressed. Virginia was looking out of the window +with something like animation. Snowball seemed an +old friend to her, spite of the memories she brought.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, Joshua, I promise to ride her; the beauty, see +how she paws the turf. Tell Eunice how pleasant everything +is here—how much we like Mrs. Rice. I am getting +quite strong, as you see.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, yes, you do look better, marm. But it’s getting +pleasant up our way too. I was down in the gorge yesterday, +setting things to rights about the little log cabin. +That big chestnut tree is putting out the heaviest grist of +leaves I ever saw, and the vines are all green about the +bridge. But what do you think I found in the cabin? +Nigh upon half a bushel of chestnuts heaped up in one +corner. Been there all winter and nobody teched ’em. +Curous, wasn’t it?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia’s animation was all gone; she sat down in a +chair by the window, panting for breath.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well,” said Joshua, unconscious of the mischief he +had done, “I suppose I must be a going. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Good-bye, Joshua,” said Ellen, following the kind +fellow from the room. “When is it to be?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Next month, arly, I reckon by the orders we get. +Eunice told me to tell you she thought so. A pair of stupendous +carriage hosses came up yesterday, and a new +barouche. The stables won’t hold ’em if she keeps on.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen went back to the house. She had not yet told +Virginia that her cousin’s marriage was so near at hand. +Indeed they seldom talked on that subject now. It was +too seriously painful.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen,” said Virginia, when her friend came in, “after +it is all over, tell me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>You would have thought from the quivering pallor of her +<span class='pageno' id='Page_532'>532</span>face that it was the execution of some friend she was +speaking of.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will,” said Ellen, in a low voice. “It is not yet.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia drew a struggling breath, and no more was +said. She had seen Ellen talking with Joshua, and guessed +at the subject of their conversation.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LVII.<br> <span class='c011'>PLEADING FOR A PARDON.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>The Governor of New York was alone in his private +office one day, when his Secretary came in, followed by a +little creature that would have appeared like a child but +for a face, which possessed a wonderful power of expression, +such as only thought and experience could give.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This young creature went up to the Governor where he +sat, and, leaning on the table with one arm, looked earnestly +into his face—so earnestly that the color mounted faintly +over it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have a brother,” said Ellen Nolan, “my eldest +brother; he has committed a crime, and they have put +him in State’s Prison. If he were innocent, I would ask +your pardon as a right; but knowing him guilty, I have +come up here to beg mercy for him. My father, sir, is +dead; he was lost in a steamer, burned on the ocean more +than a year ago. With his last words he bade me fill his +place to this unhappy son, and I promised. Sir, my brother +is ill; I fear his mind is becoming disturbed. He will die +if you leave him there.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That earnest face, those eyes so full of deep, deep feeling, +had more power upon the Governor than this broken speech +which seemed to come in gasps from her chest.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_533'>533</span>“Have you a memorial? Does the Judge or District +Attorney sign your petition?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have no petition.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No petition—no letters?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am a stranger, sir, and do not know how these things +are done. Yesterday I was in the prison for the first time; +for I had been again and again and they refused to let me +in. I found him alone in his cell, burning with fever, wild +with distress. The very sight of me drove him half crazy. +He is an educated man, who has committed one grave +fault, but there is no wickedness in him. If ever a man +was sorry for wrong-doing he is. I know he has done a +dishonest thing, but he says it was under terrible temptation, +and I believe him. You would believe him, sir, if you +had held his poor, shaking hands and looked into his eyes +as I did. Oh! sir, I wish you could see him. It would +melt your heart. My father loved him so dearly; knowing +all his faults, he could understand how a man might do +wrong and yet not be so very bad. This is all the plea I +have to make. If you keep him there he will die, and my +promise, given to a father who was just entering the gates +of Heaven, will go unredeemed.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The Governor, who was a kind and most just man, +listened to the girl with more than patience. Her energy, +that broken language, which was half explanation half +petition, all unstudied and earnest as a child pleads, took +him by surprise. He asked her to sit down, but she would +not. Supporting herself with one arm, she still kept her +eyes on his face, looking as it were deep into his heart. +The magnetism of a brain and heart like hers, united on one +purpose, is more powerful with sympathetic men than argument +or prayers; they troubled that man’s heart till it +stirred mercifully in his bosom. He took Ellen’s hand. +She seemed so small and helpless that it was like encouraging +a child. He asked questions, and listened to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_534'>534</span>whole story as she had told it to Virginia months before. +When she came to the robbery, her voice broke and her eyes +fell; that painful truth brought the crimson of deep shame +into her white cheeks. He was guilty, she owned, but not +so guilty as might be thought. He positively believed his +friend to be dead, and in a loose way that friend had almost +promised the money, and more than that to him. It was +all wrong—terribly wrong—but would the Governor forgive +him for her sake? She was so helpless and an orphan. +If he would, they two, with a younger brother she had, +would go out West, far beyond the Rocky Mountains, and +there work out a new life for him, such as her father could +look down from Heaven and ask the angels to witness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All this was touching and pathetic; but the Governor of +a State cannot always listen to the pleadings of his own +heart. He became restive under those wistful eyes, that +shed no tears, but was all the more powerful for that, and +at last broke off the conversation rather coldly. It was +imprudent, he said, to listen to a petition which had really +nothing but sisterly affection to recommend it. It grieved +him to say this, but it seemed to him impossible to act +otherwise.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He shook hands with the poor girl kindly, but chilled to +the heart by his words, she went away feeling like death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia knew nothing of this. She thought Ellen busy +negotiating for her book, and asked her about it when she +came home at night, looking so tired and careworn. This +reminded Ellen that the week was almost up. In her +anxiety she had forgotten the precious manuscript.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next day she went down to the city and came home +radiant. Her manuscript was accepted with warm praise. +In a few weeks it would be published.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Now,” she said, stealing an arm around Virginia’s +neck as she told her the news, “now we shall be independent.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_535'>535</span>“Ah, how happy you look, Ellen! No wonder! You +have done so much, while I have accomplished nothing and +have no hope. Oh! Ellen, I tried to sing while you were +away, and could not. My voice is gone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“That is because you have been so ill, dear lady. It will +come back sweeter than ever; if not, my book will sell. I +can write more, and that will be enough for us both. This +is independence, lady!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia returned her kisses with warmth. She loved +the generous girl well enough to take even money from her +without a sense of obligation wounding her pride, and that +is the greatest test of a magnanimous nature that a human +being is capable of in this degenerate age.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What is the difference?” said Ellen, brimming over +with gratitude that she could do something for her lady. +“Don’t I love to take everything from you? Oh! I’m so +thankful that it is my turn now!”</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LVIII.<br> <span class='c011'>DEATH IN THE LOG CABIN.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander had been a good deal into society during +the latter part of her season in town. With her great +beauty and reputation for enormous wealth, there was no +difficulty in taking her position in fashionable life. It came +and lay down at her feet. Hundreds of the highest among +the high followed her and her bridegroom to that mansion +on the Hudson, where the marriage ceremony was to be +performed with a splendor that had never been witnessed in +this country before. A glorious moon flooded that clear +summer evening with its light, and flashed, like rippling +quicksilver, along the river as the train tore along its banks. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_536'>536</span>The sound of laughter and low, sweet voices softened the +noises of the engine and the rattle of wheels to those within +the cars, as that wedding party was whirled onward +almost with the speed of lightning.</p> + +<p class='c013'>All at once that white house, with all its stately trees, +drooping shrubbery and clustering vines, illuminated as +with ten thousand stars, burst upon the view. The marble +colonnade shone out clear and white, all its fluted pillars +well defined, and the long white leaves of their Corinthian +capitals tangled in, as it seemed, with wreaths of fire. The +roses were in full bloom, loading the air with fragrance; +such fruit trees as grew near were lighted up, and their +blossoms fell around the hanging lamps like garlands of +snow.</p> + +<p class='c013'>From the terrace stairs to the front of the building, a +broad pathway of crimson carpeting was laid, bordered on +each side with greenhouse plants, massed till their blossoms +seemed one tangle of flowers from the steps to the colonnade.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Within, everything was in stately keeping with the exterior; +all the rooms, on which Mrs. Lander had lavished so +much money, were flung open. The air penetrated them +through clouds of lace. Some were brilliantly lighted, +others left in a soft moonlight obscurity, inviting repose. +The colors in each room contrasted or harmonized +with the next so imperceptibly that they could hardly be +separated in the mind, but composed one grand picture of +light, rich coloring and artistic effects.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When the company came pouring into these rooms, chatting, +laughing, brilliant with expectation, it only added a +movement of graceful life without in the least crowding +them. The beautiful women moving to and fro seemed +like lost Peris that had found a new way back to Paradise +and were rejoicing over it.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This crowd of gay people had come rather early, scattering +themselves about the rooms and the grounds, as previously +<span class='pageno' id='Page_537'>537</span>arranged. The ceremony would not come off before +eleven o’clock. Then the supper rooms would be thrown +open, and there would be dancing for those who liked it. +The whole affair was, in fact, one grand reception. Mrs. +Lander received the guests in a dress of silver gray satin, +clouded with Brussels point, that swept the carpet in a train +absolutely regal. She had cast off her nervousness and +threw life into a scene which was her highest idea of happiness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While all this fashion and beauty were passing in and +out of the lower rooms, Cora stood in the chamber of which +she had so ruthlessly defrauded her cousin, ready for her +second marriage. Excitement had rendered her more than +beautiful; her cheeks were burning with rose-tints; the +rich tresses, rolled back from her forehead, fairly flung off +the light. The satin robe fell around her as snow settles to +its place, and swept the floor in long, sumptuous folds. She +held the bridal veil in her hand and was directing the +attendant how to arrange it in her hair with perfect art and +seeming negligence, when a servant knocked at the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“See what it is,” she said, “surely it cannot be time!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman opened the door and brought back a note, +which the servant said a strange man had delivered, with +directions that it should be given into her own hands at +once.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora tore the note open impatiently; she was annoyed +by the delay it occasioned. This was what she read:</p> + +<p class='c012'>“I am at the log cabin waiting for you. If you fail to +come at once, I shall stand by your side at eleven o’clock.</p> + +<div class='lg-container-r'> + <div class='linegroup'> + <div class='group'> + <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Your Husband.</span>”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>Cora Lander neither fainted away nor uttered one sound +of the terrible dread that seized upon her. She folded the +note and held it firmly in her hand. Then turning to the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_538'>538</span>woman, she bade her unlace the corsage of her dress, it was +rather tight, and she would let the dressmaker, who was in +attendance from the city, alter it a little, there was plenty +of time. She took up her watch from the dressing-table +and made sure of this. It was about ten o’clock.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman obeyed, and in a few moments Cora came out +of those voluminous folds of satin as if she had just escaped +from a snow-drift.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Shall I carry the dress to Mrs. Green?” inquired the +maid.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, tell her to let it out the least in the world. Give +me that scarf, I will attend to something else while she +finishes it. These hair-dressers tire one to death. I will +ring when you are wanted again.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman went out, carrying the dress carefully on her +arm. The moment she was gone, Cora stepped into the +next room, snatched up the dress she had flung off before +commencing her toilet, and put it on. Across one of the +chairs hung a lace shawl, which she had worn in the grounds +that afternoon. She threw this over her head, gathering +it up in black folds about her bosom, which scarcely seemed +to rise or fall with human life. The last thing she did in +that room was to open a drawer of the dressing-table and +take out a small pistol, scarcely more than a toy, which had +been given her at the manufactory in Hartford as a beautiful +specimen of its workmanship, once when Amos Lander +had taken her and Virginia over the works there. It +was loaded, for one day she had given it to Josh Hurd to +put in order, and he sent it back ready for use. She put +this in her pocket, and now her voice was heard for the first +time since the maid went out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will kill him! If he attempts it, I will kill him!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>You would not have known that voice—you would hardly +have recognized the woman’s face as she went out of her +chamber and made for a flight of back stairs leading to a +<span class='pageno' id='Page_539'>539</span>passage-way near the kitchen. Once in the open air, she +paused, holding her breath, if indeed she could be said to +breathe at all. How she hated that bright illumination +which made the tiniest flowers in the thickets visible; for +it had filled the grounds with her wedding guests, who +were walking, chatting, or gathering roses in the beautiful +light which fell around them; half moonbeams and half fire.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman had no time to wait hesitating there. She +gathered the black lace over her head and took a somewhat +shadowy course by the stables. Then she skirted the stone +wall and ran toward the ravine; passing through the +shadows with swift stillness as if she had been a spirit of +the night; fleeing in search of perfect darkness. As she +went Cora tore her husband’s note into fragments and cast +it to the winds.</p> + +<p class='c013'>A man was waiting for her in the log cabin; the moonlight +lay upon his face as he looked out of the window, revealing +its fixed and terrible whiteness. Not twenty-four +hours before, he had been in one of the prison cells at Sing-Sing, +but the Governor was haunted by the words and +looks of that hunchbacked girl so persistently, that his +great, generous heart spoke out in spite of legal forms, and +a pardon set the young man free.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour went first to his sister, full of eager gratitude; +for had she not given him back to his wife and spared her +the misery of knowing how unworthy he was? Ellen told +him of the wedding, bitterly, for she almost hated Clarence +Brooks and the girl he was about to marry. But she did +not dream of the awful blow her words dealt on the unhappy +man who had just come out of his imprisonment; +indeed the resentment she felt towards those two persons +must have been overpowering, to break through the joy +that filled her heart when she knew of a certainty that her +brother was free, and through her intercession.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour left her without a word, looking deathly. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_540'>540</span>He had no time to lose; the sun was already verging +toward the west.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While Ellen stood where he had left her, lost in painful +wonder, Brian came up. He had gone to the prison, hoping +to see his brother, and there heard news of his pardon. +Knowing well where he would go first, the happy youth +followed him to Ellen’s residence.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Where is he? Has he gone in there—was she glad? +How, now, Ellen, she will get well again. It was only the +pining.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian was so full of joy that he forgot his promise—forgot +that Ellen was still ignorant of their brother’s marriage.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“What do you mean, Brian? What does all this +mean? Alfred came to see me, beaming with happiness, +and left me like a ghost when I told him that this was +Clarence Brooks’ and Cora Lander’s wedding day.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And he did not see her?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“He saw no one but me, and scarcely that. What does +this mean, Brian? He seemed turning to stone when I +told him of Cora Lander’s wedding.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, tell me one thing—did your lady know our +brother in Europe?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Has she ever been for days together in the city?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No; I have been with her every day, almost every +hour. No, I say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ellen, Ellen Nolan, is she—tell me truly—is she +breaking her heart for him?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“For him? No, no, a thousand times no. She has +never seen him alone in her life.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian looked around, frightened.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Which way did he go, Ellen?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Up the river, toward the depot. But what does this +mean? I will know.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_541'>541</span>“Hush, Ellen, I hear a train coming—kiss me—pray for +us—pray for him most of all.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was gone; she saw him fleeing down the cross road +in desperate haste, never looking to the right or left, but +straight forward, as if the race was for his life. She saw +him stop suddenly. The train was sweeping by—he was +too late.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Yes, he was too late. But the boy walked on, and in +a minute commenced running again. Something might +delay the train. Three minutes—he only asked three +minutes—no, it swept off like a serpent, coiling slowly +around a curve of the road, and no other train would stop +there before night. He walked on in the desperate hope +of being taken up by some miracle of chance, or of springing +on board a train at slow speed, for the boy was ready to +risk his life without question. He did get on that special +train full of wedding guests when it stopped a moment to +have the hot wheels examined.</p> + +<p class='c013'>This delay left Seymour to his own wild self till that +note was written, and Cora Lander came down to the log +cabin, where he stood waiting for her.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She passed in at the door and stood by his side in the +moonlight, throwing the lace shawl back upon her shoulders.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“You have sent for me under a threat. I am here to +listen, if you have anything to say.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her voice was hard and sharp as steel; her eyes glittered +in the moonlight.</p> + +<p class='c013'>He looked at her and reached out his arms with such a +cry of tender anguish as thrilled the very air.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh, Cora! Cora! this is not so! Tell me that is not +the truth!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She stood like a statue, neither repelling nor accepting +his embrace. His arms fell heavily downward, a groan +broke from his lips.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_542'>542</span>“Will you not speak to me, Cora?” he cried.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I have nothing to say, Alfred Nolan.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Alfred Nolan! Great Heavens! has it reached her at +last.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It reached me at first. Before you were put into the +prison, where you should have hid yourself forever had my +will availed anything, I knew all that you had done and +felt all the shame of having been your wife even for an +hour.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The poor man dashed both hands to his face and cried out:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! my God—my God, have mercy upon me!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“There shall be no mercy for you,” she answered, +hoarsely, “unless you quit this place at once and forever. +I came here to make this proposal: go to the Indies—go to +Australia—I will give you one half of all that I have on +earth; secure it to you with bonds that can neither be +violated nor evaded. Only go—go—go! and never let me +hear of you again!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>That wretched man shook from head to foot. She saw +the agony in his face clearly by the moonlight. That look +would have stirred even a hard heart to compassion, but she +had none.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Make up your mind at once. In becoming a convict, +you set me at liberty. The certificate of our marriage is in +my hands; the witnesses are beyond your reach; the grave +itself never closed over a dead man more firmly than that +disgraceful secret is locked up from all human knowledge.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Cora! Cora! was this done purposely? Was it in +your heart then? Did you never love me?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I don’t know what was in my heart, but supreme folly, +of which I repented. Yes, if you will have it—if it will +make you hate me—revolt at the sight of me—hear the +truth. I had ceased to love you before this infamy gave me +a reason for it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Oh! have mercy, have mercy! And I loved you so! I +loved you so!”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_543'>543</span>She took no heed of the anguish which broke out in this +cry, but went on ruthlessly:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Take my offer—it is a princely fortune, but I am +tempted to double it and make sure that these eyes will +never see you again. Not that I fear you. Refuse it, +come up to the house and claim me, as you threatened so +delicately in your note, and I will say, ‘this man is insane, +he is just out of the State’s Prison; I do not know him.’ +Where is your means of proving that we ever met?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She broke off, for Seymour seized her by both arms, and, +forcing her up to the window, looked wildly into her face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is this my wife? Is this the woman I loved; or some +fiend in her shape? Woman! woman! do not go too far! +I reject your money; it was for you—not that—I became +criminal. I will not permit the crime you meditate against +an honorable man. Tell me that it is a slander, a gross +falsehood—that you never thought of marrying Clarence +Brooks, or I will claim you before the crowd you have gathered +up yonder. There is evidence, at any rate, that you +lived in the same house with me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“And I will tell them as I told him, that it was my +cousin Virginia Lander who was domesticated with you +there—she who is so intimate with your hunchbacked +sister. They will believe that, and so will he.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour still held her arms; his dark eyes looked into +hers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Is the woman a demon?” he exclaimed, wildly. “Is +your love for this honorable man such as you gave to me? +Would you tear up his heart by the roots as mine is +torn?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I love Clarence Brooks, the man you robbed, with all +my heart and soul. Oh, that makes you writhe! Let go +my arms, you are pinching them black and blue, and I am +to be married to him this night. In defiance of your ravings +I shall. I did mean to shoot you; but, no, I have the +courage to dare the worst.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_544'>544</span>“No, madam,” said a deep, grave voice close by her, +“neither this night nor ever will you marry Clarence +Brooks. He has heard this conversation—your wicked confession +arrested him on the threshold of that door. He—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman started upright and turned her haggard face +toward him. The moonbeams lay full upon them both. +Her dress swayed and rustled as if she were grasping its +folds with a shaking hand. With a slow, almost stealthy +motion, the hand was lifted. The click of a pistol followed.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour uttered a cry and attempted to wrest the +weapon from her, but too late. The sharp sound of a shot +rang up the ravine. She fell forward into the arms thrown +out to save her, and lay on her husband’s breast, dying.</p> + +<p class='c013'>The sound of that shot reached the pleasure grounds +where the guests were wandering a little impatiently, for it +was full eleven o’clock, and as yet they had seen no signs +of the bride and bridegroom. The shot was followed by a +wild shriek, and up from the ravine came a boy, flinging up +his hands and crying aloud for help. There was a simultaneous +rush through the shrubberies. Men, seeing the +darkness into which they were going, snatched lamps from +the lower boughs of the trees and lighted their way down +into the ravine. The lad went before them, pointing out +the little log cabin, from which came heavy sobs and moans, +such as can be wrung only from the bosom of a strong +man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>It was a strange scene, those men and women with their +rich dresses sparsely lighted by the tiny lamps, crowding up +this broken path and stopping in dumb awe at the cabin +door. Brian went in advance. He too had snatched a +lamp from the branches and held it up, revealing a terrible +picture.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour was holding the woman, whom they had all +been so impatient to see in her bridal dress, in his arms. +He had been trembling, moaning and weeping over her in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_545'>545</span>a wild passion of sorrow. In the darkness he had kissed +her lips, her forehead and her half-closed eyes, calling upon +her to answer him, look at him, breathe so that he could +hear the life stir in that bosom. But when that frightened +crowd came up he hushed his grief and looked down upon +her, still as death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Clarence Brooks was on his knees also, pressing a handkerchief +to the wounded temple, which was blackened a +little and bled in slow drops, staining the linen deeper and +deeper.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Here is the physician,” said Brian Nolan, addressing +his brother.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Seymour lifted his haggard face, and a gleam of hope +came into it. An eminent physician, who had been invited +among the guests, touched Brooks on the shoulder, who +arose and resigned his place. There was no hope—the +lady might live through the night, but that would be more +than he could answer for. How had this terrible thing +happened?</p> + +<p class='c013'>The woman stirred, struggled and spoke:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I did it with my own hand. The pistol is mine, my +name is on it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Then the clergyman came into the cabin, his long gown +sweeping like night around him, as he had put it on for +the bridal ceremony. He too knelt by her side and took +the pale hand in his.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Was it an accident?” he said.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, I did it! I was alone—no one else.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Those white lips only uttered these words. Question +that dying woman as they would, she answered still:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I did it—I was alone—an accident.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Neither Seymour nor Clarence Brooks spoke. The +crowd held them no more responsible than the rest. It +was natural that the man who had first lifted that dying +woman from the ground should be pale and agitated—more +<span class='pageno' id='Page_546'>546</span>natural that the bridegroom, who stood before them in his +wedding garments still and stricken, would be almost paralyzed +by a calamity so dreadful. No one dreamed that +Seymour was not one of the invited guests; his air, his +face, everything about him carried out the idea. So the +pallor and the silence of these men passed as a natural +thing.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Cora’s lips moved, her eyes opened, and she fixed them +on Seymour. He bent down his head, and she whispered:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Be silent, I—I charge you.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He whispered back:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will, so help me God.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The clergyman bent over her with sorrow and compassion +in his face.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Poor lady,” he said, “tell us how this dreadful thing +happened. It may save great trouble.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She made a violent effort and spoke, so loud that they +heard her outside of the door:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I loved this cabin; we were going away in the morning. +I had time, and came down to take a farewell look. +The pistol was in my pocket, forgotten there; I came to +the window, the pistol struck against the logs; I bent down +to search for it, low, for it caught in my dress; I was drawing +it upward with force, when it went off. It was an +accident, I was alone.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The force of these words exhausted her; for a moment +she did not breathe. The doctor felt her pulse anxiously. +All at once she revived.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Doctor, must I die?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Yes, poor lady, I dare not say otherwise.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She made a painful struggle and turned her head, fixing +those eyes, heavy with coming death, on Brooks. The +clergyman and doctor saw that she wished to speak with +her bridegroom, and made way for him, drawing back to +those who stood around the door.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_547'>547</span>Brooks obeyed the sad appeal of those eyes, knelt down, +bending his head to hers.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I am not his child, but the niece he warned you of. +Virginia is his daughter. Spare my memory. Tell her it +was I, not my poor mother, who did it. He says I must +die; deal gently with me then.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“May God forgive you and pity you as I do.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She turned her eyes back to Seymour and faintly pressed +the hand which was shivering under the coldness that was +numbing her fingers. Perhaps some gleam of the old love +awoke in that death hour, for he remembered in after years +that it was his bosom she turned to at last.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Forgive me, Alfred!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I do—I do!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Do not let them hurl shame on my grave.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“No, no, I will perish first. Oh! Cora, my wife! my +wife! would to God I had died for you!”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Her hand fell away from his, those beautiful eyes turned +to lead, her limbs stretched out suddenly and the stillness +of death fell upon that log cabin; but outside, the breeze +was moaning in the hemlocks; and the low, sad chime of +waters came up from the depths of the ravine, answering +the shiver of the leaves and the rustle of flowers that trembled +beneath their night-tears, and seemed to whisper +mournfully each to the other as the death spirit passed over +them.</p> + +<div class='chapter'> + <h2 class='c006'>CHAPTER LIX.<br> <span class='c011'>CONCLUSION.</span></h2> +</div> + +<p class='c012'>A man lay sick almost unto death in that stone farm-house. +Hot fever was preying upon his brain; an awful +<span class='pageno' id='Page_548'>548</span>sorrow gnawed at his heart. He did not even know that +sweet-voiced, gentle sister, who watched over him so faithfully, +or the wild-eyed boy, who stood hours together at the +foot of his bed, praying for him as only good, true-hearted +youth can pray. Virginia Lander, too, came and went +among them with kindly soothing, though her own heart +was filled with gloomy anxieties; for she knew that an +inquest had been held in her father’s house, and that her +cousin, the young girl she had once loved so dearly, lay +cold and dead, shrouded in the marriage garments that had +been prepared for her wedding. She knew that Cora’s +own account of the death had been received unquestioned +by the jury. Indeed, what other reason could be given for +the violent death of a young creature, so richly endowed, +whose path of life seemed altogether of roses—a creature +who did not seem to have an enemy on earth.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Neither Clarence Brooks nor Alfred Nolan were questioned, +but the servants confirmed the account that unhappy +woman gave of her death. Having a little time, +while the dressmaker was letting out her wedding-robe, she +had put on another and gone out, doubtless, as she said, to +take leave of a place made dear by loving associations. +There she had met her death. It was a strange fancy for +a young bride to indulge in; but the evening was beautiful, +and she had loved that place from childhood, when it +had been her play-house. Some said it was in this little +cabin she had first seen Clarence Brooks. So, in place +of a scandal, the crowd of persons who had gone up to a +wedding and found a death-bed, went home weaving out +beautiful romances, which no one ever contradicted. Cora +Lander had besought those she had wronged to spare her +memory, and they did spare it, with religious sacredness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>While Seymour lay in his first illness, and Virginia +shared Ellen’s duties in the sick room, Lawyer Stone came +down from the marble house and besought her to go home. +<span class='pageno' id='Page_549'>549</span>The will, he said, left Amos Lander’s property to his niece, +after the daughter’s death, so there was no need of the +question of identity being opened at all. He had brought +her a letter from Clarence Brooks, the gentleman to whom +her cousin would have been married, but for the sad accident +which had sent her so suddenly out of life. Would +she read the letter before they started?</p> + +<p class='c013'>Virginia took the letter into her own room, and read it +alone, with tears and prayers and mournful thanksgiving. +It told her everything that the reader knows. It told her +more; though there was not one word of love in all those +closely written pages, she knew, as well as if it had been +printed there in letters of gold, that in Clarence Brooks’ +heart there had been no real unfaithfulness. He did not +say this in words; but it pervaded the whole letter as if it +had been lying close to his heart for a year.</p> + +<p class='c013'>So Virginia, feeling this her higher duty, went back to +the home which was now all her own. There Clarence +Brooks met her at the door. They looked into each other’s +faces in mournful silence, and, without a word, he led her +up stairs into the room from which Cora had driven her so +rudely, little more than a year ago. There, upon a bed +pure and cold as a snowbank, she found all that was left of +this haughty woman. The mother, ignorant of that other +marriage, which made the bridal dress a mockery, had +insisted that the satin robe, in all its rich amplitude, should +go with her down to the grave. She lay there, calm, and +still, like a young bride sleeping. The rich folds of her +hair had been drawn in waves over the wound on her +temple, concealing it entirely. The veil fell over her face, +like frost-work on the white rose. All that had been bright +and blooming about her had vanished into dead whiteness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Up to that time, a bitter sense of wrong still lingered in +Virginia’s heart against Cora Lander. But it melted into +tender forgiveness, when she saw her lying there in the +<span class='pageno' id='Page_550'>550</span>tired repose of death. She lifted the veil, which cast its +faint shadows over her face, and kissed the lips that had +wronged her so. When she turned away, holy tears trembled +in the network of that shrouding lace.</p> + +<p class='c013'>She was about to leave the room, when her progress was +stopped by Eunice Hurd, who came in, supporting Mrs. +Lander with one arm, and followed by Joshua, whose eyes +were red with weeping.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Virginia, we have come here to say how wrong—”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Hush!” said Virginia, pointing to the bed. “Spare +her; we know everything. Do not be troubled, Eunice; I +can never forget how truly you were my friend when I +needed one so much. Aunt Lander, for her sake let us be +friends. But we must not talk here.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Mrs. Lander looked piteously into that sweet face. She +saw nothing but forgiveness there, and the tears began to +tremble from her eyes. She cast a glance at the bed, and, +in a low, broken voice, tried to take blame on herself.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“It was me. My child! my poor child! It was for my +sake she did it.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Eliza, don’t say that; don’t say nothing. Let the dead +bury the dead. But there is one thing that she did not +know, and couldn’t have told. Miss Virginia, that poor +young cretur, that they seem to have buried in a snowbank, +is my own niece, and Joshua is her uncle. Eliza +Lander here, is our youngest sister, and she wants us to +say so. This awful trouble has took all the pride out of +her. She ain’t ashamed to own her poor relations now. +She wanted to live with us and we wanted to live with her, +but she was a lady born, though it was in a house where +you could see daylight through the clapboards, and we +wasn’t. But we wasn’t mean enough nuther to want to +mortify her amongst her husband’s connections, so we jest +came here and hired out. All she asked was that we +should take some other name, so that we shouldn’t be found +out; and we did it.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_551'>551</span>“Arter this, it’s sister Eliza Lander’s wish that we +should take back the old name, but I wont. She’s a lady, +and I’m proud of it. But I ain’t nothing of that sort, nor +is Joshua. We’ve told you the truth, because secrets in a +family lie awful heavy on the mind; but, as to the rest of +the world, it’s none of their business. So my name is Eunice +Hurd and his name is Joshua Hurd. Hers is Eliza Lander, +and we two are her servants. Where she goes we +mean to go, where she lives we shall be chasing after, and +we mean to be buried in the same graveyard with her, as +that young woman in the Bible said to her husband’s +marm. If she’s sent out of this house poor we’ll work for +her. She’s the only lady our family ever had in it, and we’ll +work our fingers to the bone, before she shall want her lace +cap and silk gown, jest as she allers had ’em when Amos +Lander was alive, and you two cousins little girls.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“She shall never want anything that I can give her, not +shall you my faithful friend. Aunt Lander, do be comforted; +it breaks my heart to see you looking so old and +worn.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She wiped away the tears from those heavy eyes, and +kissed that poor, grieving mouth, with more than a +daughter’s tenderness. “Take good care of her, Eunice, +and tell her that, while we can help it, she shall have no +more troubles.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Here Joshua came forward.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Miss Jinia, I can’t do much for you. It ain’t in me +but I’d—I’d die to please you. Yes, I think it ed come +tough; but, if you want me to, I’ll give up licker—never +taste another drop of punch in my born days, if you say +the word.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“But I wish you to give up nothing, Joshua.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well then, I’ll take sich care of Snowball; litter her +down with roses, if you say so. I’ll take good care of the +black horse too, for her sake, for, arter all, she was my own +niece.”</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_552'>552</span>When this conversation commenced, Brooks and Virginia +had quietly withdrawn from the chamber of death and +closed the door, but Joshua spoke low when he alluded to +the young creature lying within, and took off the hat, which +had been returned to his head, in that natural reverence +which even ignorant men pay to death.</p> + +<p class='c013'>After this, the group went down stairs, but directly +Eunice returned again.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“About the mourning,” she said. “Eliza Lander is +dreadfully anxious, and wants to know if anything has been +done.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Tell her to please herself. I have no need of change,” +said Virginia, almost smiling. “Take charge of everything, +Eunice, for, when all is over, I must go back to the farm-house. +Ellen has a brother there, very sick.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>He was indeed very sick, nigh unto death, and so he lay +for many a weary week. Ellen’s book came out, while he +was at the worst, and she scarcely knew of it, though its +fame went far and wide, reaching distant lands, and critics +on both sides the Atlantic pronounced it a work of wonderful +promise. She had no thoughts to give from that sick +bed, where the son her father had charged her to save, with +his last words, lay suffering. Clarence Brooks found his +way to that farm-house, and strove to comfort the young +man who lay there with more than his old friendliness.</p> + +<p class='c013'>One day when Alfred Nolan was in his right mind and +gazing with wistful observation in Brian’s face, the boy +crept close to his bed, and took the hand his brother held +out.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brother,” he said; “it was I who brought all this upon +you. I followed you up the railway—saw you go into that +cabin—saw her come down the ravine. This frightened +me. I was afraid that some trouble would happen. I +heard the threats in her voice and went after Mr. Brooks. +He was in a chamber of the house, ready and waiting to be +<span class='pageno' id='Page_553'>553</span>called by pleasanter messengers than I was. But, when I +told him that a man was in peril, he seized his hat and followed +me. If his coming caused what happened afterward, +I am to blame. Forgive me, Alfred, I intended no wrong. +Forgive me.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“My poor boy,” said the invalid, faintly; “there was no +fault in what you did. God was working out our punishment +and it came. It was better to have our lives end so +than in deeper sin. I thought these things over very solemnly +in the stone tomb down yonder. I have thought +them over here since our sister gave me, word for word, +that last message from our father. <i>She</i> is dead, but God is +merciful, and who shall say that the last moments of her +young life were not spent in asking for that Divine forgiveness +which is not limited by time or space.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>Nolan lay still, and with his eyes closed some minutes +after he uttered these words. When he spoke again it was +more calmly.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Brian.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Well, brother.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“This is no place for us. I could never be at rest here. +But far away, beyond the Rocky Mountains, lie vast countries, +rich in minerals, fertile in soil, and so far from what +we call social life, that a man can live by himself and learn +to grow strong. God is giving me back life, Brian. I am +young, and must no longer be an idle and useless man. +Will you go with me to this country, Brian?”</p> + +<p class='c013'>“I will go with you anywhere, brother,” answered Brian.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen came in just then bringing a cup of tea for the invalid.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Brian, with all a boy’s eagerness, asked her if she would +go with them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Nay,” interposed Alfred; “she is feeble. She must be +left behind.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>She looked at her elder brother, and quick tears came +<span class='pageno' id='Page_554'>554</span>into her eyes, while she repeated, with sweet, impressive +earnestness, the words of Ruth to her mother:</p> + +<p class='c013'>“Ask me not to leave thee, or cease from following after +thee. Where thou goest, I will go. Where thou livest, I +will live; thy people shall be my people; thy God shall be +my God; and where thou diest, there will I be buried.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>No more was said that day, for neither Alfred nor Brian +could speak, their voices were too full of tears. But it was +agreed that the brothers should go first, and prepare a +home for Ellen, who would get the money her book was +bringing in for their use, write another, and make arrangements +with the publishers for more, that were yet to come +out of her new life. She thanked Heaven that her work +could be done anywhere. Alfred wondered at the prompt +business way in which all this was said; but he had yet to +learn that real, absolute genius is comprehensive as Nature +itself. Those who confine it to simple romance dwarf +God’s greatest gift to man.</p> + +<p class='c013'>When Clarence Brooks heard what Alfred Nolan had +decided on, he resolved to go with him, for Nolan absolutely +refused to accept the money which Brooks had almost +forced upon him, and he resolved to invest it there, hoping +that it would at last find acceptance. So, after a few +weeks, these two men, who had travelled over the Old +World in company, bridged the awful chasm that had +separated them, and went Westward, taking Brian with +them. Ellen went back to the marble house, and joined +Virginia in the tranquil life she led there.</p> + +<p class='c013'>About a year from this time Brooks came back again, +strengthened and rendered cheerful by the constant change +and excitement of a frontier life. A month after that, +there was a quiet little wedding in that marble mansion, so +quiet that the daily journals brought the first news of it to +those who had been invited to that other sumptuous affair +which ended so fatally.</p> + +<p class='c013'><span class='pageno' id='Page_555'>555</span>At many a breakfast table that morning the news was +read aloud, and more than once it was followed by this exclamation: +“So Clarence Brooks has married Amos Lander’s +heiress, after all. So much alike, they say. The +bridesmaids—why, there was only one, the author of that +book everybody is talking about! Would you believe it? +She is a hunchback, but <i>so</i> talented and <i>petite</i>. Such lovely +eyes and hair too. Mrs. —— had it from her publishers.”</p> + +<p class='c013'>The next month Ellen Nolan went West with her +brother, who had used his scientific learning to great purpose, +and was opening sources of prosperity in the wilderness, +with his knowledge, which many a hard-working man +availed himself of, working the same mines and gathering +the same gold, which was fast lifting him into that respectability +and independence which honorable labor, either of +mind or hands alone can bring.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen keeps his house; she has plenty of mountain +flowers all around that neat log cabin, and so many vines +clambering over it, that it looks more like a mammoth +bird’s nest than a human habitation. But, though she +loves flowers, and seeks to cover up coarser things with +them, back of that house you may find a well kept vegetable +garden, which Brian takes care of, and which the +colored girl, who went West with her, sometimes vigorously +works in, when there is nothing to be done indoors. Especially +she goes out when her young mistress is writing by +that little window, curtained with morning glories; for +then it seems almost wrong to tread hard upon the floor, +and she feels like holding her breath as she moves about.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Just now Ellen is reading a letter from Mrs. Clarence +Brooks, who proposed, during the summer, to take that +Western trip with her husband. She wrote just then to +know if there was an unoccupied room in the cabin for +them.</p> + +<p class='c013'>Ellen has taken up her pen, which shakes and quivers in +<span class='pageno' id='Page_556'>556</span>her hand; but she makes out to write, that unoccupied +rooms are unheard of in that part of the country, but a +new cabin, opening into theirs, will be up long and long +before her friends can get there. In fact, Alfred will have +the log-rolling at once, that she can have flowers growing +over it when they come.</p> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c002'> + <div><span class='small'>THE END</span></div> + </div> +</div> + +<div class='pbb'> + <hr class='pb c003'> +</div> +<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> + +<div class='chapter ph2'> + +<div class='nf-center-c0'> +<div class='nf-center c010'> + <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> + </div> +</div> + +</div> + +<table class='table0'> + <tr> + <th class='c015'>Page</th> + <th class='c015'>Changed from</th> + <th class='c016'>Changed to</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><a href='#t57'>57</a></td> + <td class='c017'>As a general thing, I don’t think peaking and listening</td> + <td class='c018'>As a general thing, I don’t think peeking and listening</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><a href='#t329'>329</a></td> + <td class='c017'>think Amos Lander was cute enough to find out the difference</td> + <td class='c018'>think Amos Lander was ’cute enough to find out the difference</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><a href='#t355'>355</a></td> + <td class='c017'>She’s a darned sight more likely to kid the hoss than</td> + <td class='c018'>She’s a darned sight more likely to kill the hoss than</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><a href='#t446'>446</a></td> + <td class='c017'>space shut in by the curtains. In this position he heard</td> + <td class='c018'>space shut in by the curtains. In this position she heard</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class='c007'><a href='#t446a'>446</a></td> + <td class='c017'>was making strenuous efforts to repay the money she had</td> + <td class='c018'>was making strenuous efforts to repay the money he had</td> + </tr> +</table> + + <ul class='ul_1'> + <li>Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. + </li> + </ul> + +</div> + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77750 ***</div> + </body> + <!-- created with ppgen.py 3.57i (with regex) on 2025-12-30 22:44:23 GMT --> +</html> diff --git a/77750-h/images/cover.jpg b/77750-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd08eae --- /dev/null +++ b/77750-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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