initial commit of ebook 10377HEADmain

4 files changed, 10878 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/old/10377-8.txt b/old/10377-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..56d7a51
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10377-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5439 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Evil Guest
+
+Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10377]
+[Date last updated: January 22, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL GUEST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Evil Guest
+
+By J. Sheridan LeFanu
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+"When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and Sin, when it is
+finished, bringeth forth Death."
+
+
+
+
+About sixty years ago, and somewhat more than twenty miles from the
+ancient town of Chester, in a southward direction, there stood a large,
+and, even then, an old-fashioned mansion-house. It lay in the midst of a
+demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber;
+but, apart from the somber majesty of these giant groups, and the
+varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little
+that could be deemed attractive in the place. A certain air of neglect
+and decay, and an indescribable gloom and melancholy, hung over it. In
+darkness, it seemed darker than any other tract; when the moonlight fell
+upon its glades and hollows, they looked spectral and awful, with a sort
+of churchyard loneliness; and even when the blush of the morning kissed
+its broad woodlands, there was a melancholy in the salute that saddened
+rather than cheered the heart of the beholder.
+
+This antique, melancholy, and neglected place, we shall call, for
+distinctness sake, Gray Forest. It was then the property of the younger
+son of a nobleman, once celebrated for his ability and his daring, but
+who had long since passed to that land where human wisdom and courage
+avail naught. The representative of this noble house resided at the
+family mansion in Sussex, and the cadet, whose fortunes we mean to sketch
+in these pages, lived upon the narrow margin of an encumbered income, in
+a reserved and unsocial discontent, deep among the solemn shadows of the
+old woods of Gray Forest.
+
+The Hon. Richard Marston was now somewhere between forty and fifty years
+of age--perhaps nearer the latter; he still, however, retained, in an
+eminent degree, the traits of manly beauty, not the less remarkable for
+its unquestionably haughty and passionate character. He had married a
+beautiful girl, of good family, but without much money, somewhere about
+eighteen years before; and two children, a son and a daughter, had been
+the fruit of this union. The boy, Harry Marston, was at this time at
+Cambridge; and his sister, scarcely fifteen, was at home with her
+parents, and under the training of an accomplished governess, who had
+been recommended to them by a noble relative of Mrs. Marston. She was a
+native of France, but thoroughly mistress of the English language, and,
+except for a foreign accent, which gave a certain prettiness to all she
+said, she spoke it as perfectly as any native Englishwoman. This young
+Frenchwoman was eminently handsome and attractive. Expressive, dark eyes,
+a clear olive complexion, small even teeth, and a beautifully-dimpling
+smile, more perhaps than a strictly classic regularity of features, were
+the secrets of her unquestionable influence, at first sight, upon the
+fancy of every man of taste who beheld her.
+
+Mr. Marston's fortune, never very large, had been shattered by early
+dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat exacting temper, he
+actively felt the mortifying consequences of his poverty. The want of
+what he felt ought to have been his position and influence in the county
+in which he resided, fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful
+and bitter sense of every slight, imaginary or real, to which the same
+fruitful source of annoyance and humiliation had exposed him. He held,
+therefore, but little intercourse with the surrounding gentry, and that
+little not of the pleasantest possible kind; for, not being himself in a
+condition to entertain, in that style which accorded with his own ideas
+of his station, he declined, as far as was compatible with good breeding,
+all the proffered hospitalities of the neighborhood; and, from his wild
+and neglected park, looked out upon the surrounding world in a spirit of
+moroseness and defiance, very unlike, indeed, to that of neighborly
+good-will.
+
+In the midst, however, of many of the annoyances attendant upon crippled
+means, he enjoyed a few of those shadowy indications of hereditary
+importance, which are all the more dearly prized, as the substantial
+accessories of wealth have disappeared. The mansion in which he dwelt
+was, though old-fashioned, imposing in its aspect, and upon a scale
+unequivocally aristocratic; its walls were hung with ancestral portraits,
+and he managed to maintain about him a large and tolerably respectable
+staff of servants. In addition to these, he had his extensive demesne,
+his deer-park, and his unrivalled timber, wherewith to console himself;
+and, in the consciousness of these possessions, he found some imperfect
+assuagement of those bitter feelings of suppressed scorn and resentment,
+which a sense of lost station and slighted importance engendered. Mr.
+Marston's early habits had, unhappily, been of a kind to aggravate,
+rather than alleviate, the annoyances incidental to reduced means. He had
+been a gay man, a voluptuary, and a gambler. His vicious tastes had
+survived the means of their gratification. His love for his wife had been
+nothing more than one of those vehement and headstrong fancies, which, in
+self-indulgent men, sometimes result in marriage, and which seldom
+outlive the first few months of that life-long connection. Mrs. Marston
+was a gentle, noble-minded woman. After agonies or disappointment, which
+none ever suspected, she had at length learned to submit, in sad and
+gentle acquiescence, to her fate. Those feelings, which had been the
+charm of her young days, were gone, and, as she bitterly felt, forever.
+For them there was no recall they could not return; and, without
+complaint or reproach, she yielded to what she felt was inevitable. It
+was impossible to look at Mrs. Marston, and not to discern, at a glance,
+the ruin of a surpassingly beautiful woman; a good deal wasted, pale, and
+chastened with a deep, untold sorrow, but still possessing the outlines,
+both in face and form, of that noble beauty and matchless grace, which
+had made her, in happier days, the admired of all observers. But equally
+impossible was it to converse with her, for even a minute, without
+hearing, in the gentle and melancholy music of her voice, the sad echoes
+of those griefs to which her early beauty had been sacrificed, an undying
+sense of lost love, and happiness departed, never to come again.
+
+One morning, Mr. Marston had walked, as was his custom when he expected
+the messenger who brought from the neighboring post office his letters,
+some way down the broad, straight avenue, with its double rows of lofty
+trees at each side, when he encountered the nimble emissary on his
+return. He took the letter-bag in silence. It contained but two
+letters--one addressed to "Mademoiselle de Barras, chez M. Marston," and
+the other to himself. He took them both, dismissed the messenger, and
+opening that addressed to himself, read as follows, while he slowly
+retraced his steps towards the house:--
+
+Dear Richard,
+
+I am a whimsical fellow, as you doubtless remember, and have lately
+grown, they tell me, rather hippish besides. I do not know to which
+infirmity I am to attribute a sudden fancy that urges me to pay you a
+visit, if you will admit me. To say truth, my dear Dick, I wish to see a
+little of your part of the world, and, I will confess it, en passant, to
+see a little of you too. I really wish to make acquaintance with your
+family; and though they tell me my health is very much shaken, I must
+say, in self-defense, I am not a troublesome inmate. I can perfectly take
+care of myself, and need no nursing or caudling whatever. Will you
+present this, my petition, to Mrs. Marston, and report her decision
+thereon to me. Seriously, I know that your house may be full, or some
+other contretemps may make it impracticable for me just now to invade
+you. If it be so, tell me, my dear Richard, frankly, as my movements are
+perfectly free, and my time all my own, so that I can arrange my visit to
+suit your convenience.
+
+--Yours, &c.,
+
+WYNSTON E. BERKLEY
+
+P.S.--Direct to me at ---- Hotel, in Chester, as I shall probably be
+there by the time this reaches you.
+
+"Ill-bred and pushing as ever," quoth Mr. Marston, angrily, as he thrust
+the unwelcome letter into his pocket. "This fellow, wallowing in wealth,
+without one nearer relative on earth than I, and associated more nearly
+still with me the--pshaw! not affection--the recollections of early and
+intimate companionship, leaves me unaided, for years of desertion and
+suffering, to the buffetings of the world, and the troubles of all but
+overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, and now, with the cool confidence of
+one entitled to respect and welcome, invites himself to my house. Coming
+here," he continued, after a gloomy pause, and still pacing slowly
+towards the house, "to collect amusing materials for next season's
+gossip--stories about the married Benedick--the bankrupt beau--the outcast
+tenant of a Cheshire wilderness"; and, as he said this, he looked at the
+neglected prospect before him with an eye almost of hatred. "Aye, to see
+the nakedness of the land is he coming, but he shall be disappointed. His
+money may buy him a cordial welcome at an inn, but curse me if it shall
+purchase him a reception here."
+
+He again opened and glanced through the letter.
+
+"Aye, purposely put in such a way that I can't decline it without
+affronting him," he continued doggedly. "Well, then, he has no one to
+blame but himself--affronted he shall be; I shall effectually put an end
+to this humorous excursion. Egad, it is rather hard if a man cannot keep
+his poverty to himself."
+
+Sir Wynston Berkley was a baronet of large fortune--a selfish,
+fashionable man, and an inveterate bachelor. He and Marston had been
+schoolfellows, and the violent and implacable temper of the latter had as
+little impressed his companion with feelings of regard, as the frivolity
+and selfishness of the baronet had won the esteem of his relative. As
+boys, they had little in common upon which to rest the basis of a
+friendship, or even a mutual liking. Berkley was gay, cold, and
+satirical; his cousin--for cousins they were--was jealous, haughty, and
+relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another's society, not
+unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for
+a time given place to actual hostility, while the two young men were at
+Oxford. In some intrigue, Marston discovered in his cousin a
+too-successful rival; the consequence was, a bitter and furious quarrel,
+which, but for the prompt and peremptory interference of friends, Marston
+would undoubtedly have pushed to a bloody issue. Time had, however,
+healed this rupture, and the young men came to regard one another with
+the same feelings, and eventually to re-establish the same sort of cold
+and indifferent intimacy which had subsisted between them before their
+angry collision.
+
+Under these circumstances, whatever suspicion Marston might have felt on
+the receipt of the unexpected, and indeed unaccountable proposal, which had
+just reached him, he certainly had little reason to complain of any
+violation of early friendship in the neglect with which Sir Wynston had
+hitherto treated him. In deciding to decline his proposed visit, however,
+Marston had not consulted the impulses of spite or anger. He knew the
+baronet well; he knew that he cherished no good will towards him, and
+that in the project which he had thus unexpectedly broached, whatever
+indirect or selfish schemes might possibly be at the bottom of it, no
+friendly feeling had ever mingled. He was therefore resolved to avoid the
+trouble and the expense of a visit in all respects distasteful to him,
+and in a gentlemanlike way, but, at the same time, as the reader may
+suppose, with very little anxiety as to whether or not his gay
+correspondent should take offence at his reply, to decline, once for all,
+the proposed distinction.
+
+With this resolution, he entered the spacious and somewhat dilapidated
+mansion which called him master; and entering a sitting room,
+appropriated to his daughter's use, he found her there, in company with
+her beautiful French governess. He kissed his child, and saluted her
+young preceptress with formal courtesy.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I have got a letter for you; and, Rhoda," he
+continued, addressing his pretty daughter, "bring this to your mother,
+and say, I request her to read it."
+
+He gave her the letter he himself had just received, and the girl tripped
+lightly away upon her mission.
+
+Had he narrowly scrutinised the countenance of the fair Frenchwoman, as
+she glanced at the direction of that which he had just placed in her
+hand, he might have seen certain transient, but very unmistakable
+evidences of excitement and agitation. She quickly concealed the letter,
+however, and with a sigh, the momentary flush which it had called to her
+cheek subsided, and she was tranquil as usual.
+
+Mr. Marston remained for some minutes--five, eight, or ten, we cannot say
+precisely--pretty much where he had stood on first entering the chamber,
+doubtless awaiting the return of his messenger, or the appearance of his
+wife. At length, however, he left the room himself to seek her; but,
+during his brief stay, his previous resolution had been removed. By what
+influence we cannot say; but removed completely it unquestionably was,
+and a final determination that Sir Wynston Berkley should become his
+guest had fixedly taken its place.
+
+As Marston walked along the passages which led from this room, he
+encountered Mrs. Marston and his daughter.
+
+"Well," said he, "you have read Wynston's letter?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, returning it to him; "and what answer, Richard, do
+you purpose giving him?"
+
+She was about to hazard a conjecture, but checked herself, remembering
+that even so faint an evidence of a disposition to advise might possibly
+be resented by her cold and imperious lord.
+
+"I have considered it, and decided to receive him," he replied.
+
+"Ah! I am afraid--that is, I hope--he may find our housekeeping such as
+he can enjoy," she said, with an involuntary expression of surprise; for
+she had scarcely had a doubt that her husband would have preferred
+evading the visit of his fine friend, under his gloomy circumstances.
+
+"If our modest fare does not suit him," said Marston, with sullen
+bitterness, "he can depart as easily as he came. We, poor gentlemen, can
+but do our best. I have thought it over, and made up my mind."
+
+"And how soon, my dear Richard, do you intend fixing his arrival?" she
+inquired, with the natural uneasiness of one upon whom, in an
+establishment whose pretensions considerably exceeded its resources, the
+perplexing cares of housekeeping devolved.
+
+"Why, as soon as he pleases," replied he, "I suppose you can easily have
+his room prepared by tomorrow or next day. I shall write by this mail,
+and tell him to come down at once."
+
+Having said this in a cold, decisive way, he turned and left her, as it
+seemed, not caring to be teased with further questions. He took his
+solitary way to a distant part of his wild park, where, far from the
+likelihood of disturbance or intrusion, he was often wont to amuse
+himself for the live-long day, in the sedentary sport of shooting
+rabbits. And there we leave him for the present, signifying to the
+distant inmates of his house the industrious pursuit of his unsocial
+occupation, by the dropping fire that sullenly, from hour to hour, echoed
+from the remote woods.
+
+Mrs. Marston issued her orders; and having set on foot all the necessary
+preparations for so unwonted an event as a stranger's visit of some
+duration, she betook herself to her little boudoir--the scene of many an
+hour of patient but bitter suffering, unseen by human eye, and unknown,
+except to the just Searcher of hearts, to whom belongs mercy--and
+vengeance.
+
+Mrs. Marston had but two friends to whom she had ever spoken upon the
+subject nearest her heart--the estrangement of her husband, a sorrow to
+which even time had failed to reconcile her. From her children this grief
+was carefully concealed. To them she never uttered the semblance of a
+complaint. Anything that could by possibility have reflected blame or
+dishonor upon their father, she would have perished rather than have
+allowed them so much as to suspect. The two friends who did understand
+her feelings, though in different degrees, were, one, a good and
+venerable clergyman, the Rev. Doctor Danvers, a frequent visitor and
+occasional guest at Gray Forest, where his simple manners and unaffected
+benignity and tenderness of heart had won the love of all, with the
+exception of its master, and commanded even his respect. The second was
+no other than the young French governess, Mademoiselle de Barras, in
+whose ready sympathy and consolatory counsels she found no small
+happiness. The society of this young lady had indeed become, next to that
+of her daughter, her greatest comfort and pleasure.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras was of a noble though ruined French family, and a
+certain nameless elegance and dignity attested, spite of her fallen
+condition, the purity of her descent. She was accomplished--possessed of
+that fine perception and sensitiveness, and that ready power of
+self-adaptation to the peculiarities and moods of others, which we term
+tact--and was, moreover, gifted with a certain natural grace, and manners
+the most winning imaginable. In short, she was a fascinating companion;
+and when the melancholy circumstances of her own situation, and the sad
+history of her once rich and noble family, were taken into account, with
+her striking attractions of person and air, the combination of all these
+associations and impressions rendered her one of the most interesting
+persons that could well be imagined. The circumstances of Mademoiselle de
+Barras's history and descent seemed to warrant, on Mrs. Marston's part, a
+closer intimacy and confidence than usually subsists between parties
+mutually occupying such a relation.
+
+Mrs. Marston had hardly established herself in this little apartment,
+when a light foot approached, a gentle tap was given at the door, and
+Mademoiselle de Barras entered.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, so kind--such pretty flowers. Pray sit down," said the
+lady, with a sweet and grateful smile, as she took from the tapered
+fingers of the foreigner the little bouquet, which she had been at the
+pains to gather.
+
+Mademoiselle sat down, and gently took the lady's hand and kissed it. A
+small matter will overflow a heart charged with sorrow--a chance word, a
+look, some little office of kindness--and so it was with mademoiselle's
+bouquet and gentle kiss. Mrs. Marston's heart was touched; her eyes
+filled with bright tears; she smiled gratefully upon her fair and humble
+companion, and as she smiled, her tears overflowed, and she wept in
+silence for some minutes.
+
+"My poor mademoiselle," she said, at last, "you are so very, very kind."
+
+Mademoiselle said nothing; she lowered her eyes, and pressed the poor
+lady's hand.
+
+Apparently to interrupt an embarrassing silence, and to give a more
+cheerful tone to their little interview, the governess, in a gay tone, on
+a sudden said--
+
+"And so, madame, we are to have a visitor, Miss Rhoda tells me--a
+baronet, is he not?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, mademoiselle--Sir Wynston Berkley, a gay London gentleman,
+and a cousin of Mr. Marston's," she replied.
+
+"Ha--a cousin!" exclaimed the young lady, with a little more surprise in
+her tone than seemed altogether called for--"a cousin? oh, then, that is
+the reason of his visit. Do, pray, madame, tell me all about him; I am so
+much afraid of strangers, and what you call men of the world. Oh, dear
+Mrs. Marston, I am not worthy to be here, and he will see all that in a
+moment; indeed, indeed, I am afraid. Pray tell me all about him."
+
+She said this with a simplicity which made the elder lady smile, and
+while mademoiselle re-adjusted the tiny flowers which formed the bouquet
+she had just presented to her, Mrs. Marston good-naturedly recounted to
+her all she knew of Sir Wynston Berkley, which, in substance, amounted to
+no more than we have already stated. When she concluded, the young
+Frenchwoman continued for some time silent, still busy with her
+flowers. But, suddenly, she heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head.
+
+"You seem disquieted, mademoiselle," said Mrs. Marston, in a tone
+of kindness.
+
+"I am thinking, madame," she said, still looking upon the flowers which
+she was adjusting, and again sighing profoundly, "I am thinking of what
+you said to me a week ago; alas!"
+
+"I do not remember what it was, my good mademoiselle--nothing, I am
+sure, that ought to grieve you--at least nothing that was intended to
+have that effect," replied the lady, in a tone of gentle encouragement.
+
+"No, not intended, madame," said the young Frenchwoman, sorrowfully.
+
+"Well, what was it? Perhaps you misunderstood; perhaps I can explain what
+I said," replied Mrs. Marston, affectionately.
+
+"Ah, madame, you think--you think I am unlucky," answered the young
+lady, slowly and faintly.
+
+"Unlucky! Dear mademoiselle, you surprise me," rejoined her companion.
+
+"I mean--what I mean is this, madame; you date unhappiness--if not its
+beginning, at least its great aggravation and increase," she answered,
+dejectedly, "from the time of my coming here, madame; and though I know
+you are too good to dislike me on that account, yet I must, in your eyes,
+be ever connected with calamity, and look like an ominous thing."
+
+"Dear mademoiselle, allow no such thought to enter your mind. You do me
+great wrong, indeed you do," said Mrs. Marston, laying her hand upon the
+young lady's, kindly.
+
+There was a silence for a little time, and the elder lady resumed:--"I
+remember now what you allude to, dear mademoiselle--the increased
+estrangement, the widening separation which severs me from one
+unutterably dear to me--the first and bitter disappointment of my life,
+which seems to grow more hopelessly incurable day by day."
+
+Mrs. Marston paused, and, after a brief silence, the governess said:--
+
+"I am very superstitious myself, dear madame, and I thought I must have
+seemed to you an inauspicious inmate--in short, unlucky--as I have said;
+and the thought made me very unhappy--so unhappy, that I was going to
+leave you, madame--I may now tell you frankly--going away; but you have
+set my doubts at rest, and I am quite happy again."
+
+"Dear mademoiselle," cried the lady, tenderly, and rising, as she spake,
+to kiss the cheek of her humble friend; "never--never speak of this
+again. God knows I have too few friends on earth, to spare the kindest
+and tenderest among them all. No, no. You little think what comfort I
+have found in your warm-hearted and ready sympathy, and how dearly I
+prize your affection, my poor mademoiselle."
+
+The young Frenchwoman rose, with downcast eyes, and a dimpling, happy
+smile; and, as Mrs. Marston drew her affectionately toward her, and
+kissed her, she timidly returned the embrace of her kind patroness. For a
+moment her graceful arms encircled her, and she whispered to her, "Dear
+madame, how happy--how very happy you make me."
+
+Had Ithuriel touched with his spear the beautiful young woman, thus for a
+moment, as it seemed, lost in a trance of gratitude and love, would that
+angelic form have stood the test unscathed? A spectator, marking the
+scene, might have observed a strange gleam in her eyes--a strange
+expression in her face--an influence for a moment not angelic, like a
+shadow of some passing spirit, cross her visibly, as she leaned over the
+gentle lady's neck, and murmured, "Dear madame, how happy--how very happy
+you make me." Such a spectator, as he looked at that gentle lady, might
+have seen, for one dreamy moment, a lithe and painted serpent, coiled
+round and round, and hissing in her ear.
+
+A few minutes more, and mademoiselle was in the solitude of her own
+apartment. She shut and bolted the door, and taking from her desk the
+letter which she had that morning received, threw herself into an
+armchair, and studied the document profoundly. Her actual revision and
+scrutiny of the letter itself was interrupted by long intervals of
+profound abstraction; and, after a full hour thus spent, she locked it
+carefully up again, and with a clear brow, and a gay smile, rejoined her
+pretty pupil for a walk.
+
+We must now pass over an interval of a few days, and come at once to the
+arrival of Sir Wynston Berkley, which duly occurred upon the evening of
+the day appointed. The baronet descended from his chaise but a short
+time before the hour at which the little party, which formed the family
+at Gray Forest were wont to assemble for the social meal of supper. A few
+minutes devoted to the mysteries of the toilet, with the aid of an
+accomplished valet, enabled him to appear, as he conceived, without
+disadvantage at this domestic reunion.
+
+Sir Wynston Berkley was a particularly gentleman-like person. He was
+rather tall, and elegantly made, with gay, easy manners, and something
+indefinably aristocratic in his face, which, however, was a little more
+worn than his years would have strictly accounted for. But Sir Wynston
+had been a roué, and, spite of the cleverest possible making up, the
+ravages of excess were very traceable in the lively beau of fifty.
+Perfectly well dressed, and with a manner that was ease and gaiety
+itself, he was at home from the moment he entered the room. Of course,
+anything like genuine cordiality was out of the question; but Mr. Marston
+embraced his relative with perfect good breeding, and the baronet
+appeared determined to like everybody, and be pleased with everything. He
+had not been five minutes in the parlor, chatting gaily with Mr. and Mrs.
+Marston and their pretty daughter, when Mademoiselle de Barras entered
+the room. As she moved towards Mrs. Marston, Sir Wynston rose, and,
+observing her with evident admiration, said in an undertone, inquiringly,
+to Marston, who was beside him--
+
+"And this?"
+
+"That is Mademoiselle de Barras, my daughter's governess, and Mrs.
+Marston's companion," said Marston, drily.
+
+"Ha!" said Sir Wynston; "I thought you were but three at home just now,
+and I was right. Your son is at Cambridge; I heard so from our old
+friend, Jack Manbury. Jack has his boy there too. Egad, Dick, it seems
+but last week that you and I were there together."
+
+"Yes," said Marston, looking gloomily into the fire, as if he saw, in its
+smoke and flicker, the phantoms of murdered time and opportunity; "but I
+hate looking back, Wynston. The past is to me but a medley of ill-luck
+and worse management."
+
+"Why what an ungrateful dog you are!" returned Sir Wynston, gaily,
+turning his back upon the fire, and glancing round the spacious and
+handsome, though somewhat faded apartment. "I was on the point of
+congratulating you on the possession of the finest park and noblest
+demesne in Cheshire, when you begin to grumble. Egad, Dick, all I can say
+to your complaint is, that I don't pity you, and there are dozens who may
+honestly envy you--that is all."
+
+In spite of this cheering assurance, Marston remained sullenly silent.
+Supper, however, had now been served, and the little party assumed their
+places at the table.
+
+"I am sorry, Wynston, I have no sport of any kind to offer you here,"
+said Marston, "except, indeed, some good trout-fishing, if you like it. I
+have three miles of excellent fishing at your command."
+
+"My dear fellow, I am a mere cockney," rejoined Sir Wynston; "I am not a
+sportsman; I never tried it, and should not like to begin now. No, Dick,
+what I much prefer is, abundance of your fresh air, and the enjoyment of
+your scenery. When I was at Rouen three years ago--"
+
+"Ha!--Rouen? Mademoiselle will feel an interest in that; it is her
+birth-place," interrupted Marston, glancing at the Frenchwoman.
+
+"Yes--Rouen--ah--yes!" said mademoiselle, with very evident
+embarrassment.
+
+Sir Wynston appeared for a moment a little disconcerted too, but
+rallied speedily, and pursued his detail of his doings at that fair town
+of Normandy.
+
+Marston knew Sir Wynston well; and he rightly calculated that whatever
+effect his experience of the world might have had in intensifying his
+selfishness or hardening his heart, it certainly could have had none in
+improving a character originally worthless and unfeeling. He knew,
+moreover, that his wealthy cousin was gifted with a great deal of that
+small cunning which is available for masking the little scheming of
+frivolous and worldly men; and that Sir Wynston never took trouble of any
+kind without a sufficient purpose, having its center in his own personal
+gratification.
+
+This visit greatly puzzled Marston; it gave him even a vague sense of
+uneasiness. Could there exist any flaw in his own title to the estate of
+Gray Forest? He had an unpleasant, doubtful sort of remembrance of some
+apprehensions of this kind, when he was but a child, having been
+whispered in the family. Could this really be so, and could the
+baronet have been led to make this unexpected visit merely for the
+purpose of personally examining into the condition or a property of
+which he was about to become the legal invader? The nature of this
+suspicion affords, at all events, a fair gauge of Marston's estimate
+of his cousin's character. And as he revolved these doubts from time to
+time, and as he thought of Mademoiselle de Barras's transient, but
+unaccountable embarrassment at the mention of Rouen by Sir Wynston--an
+embarrassment which the baronet himself appeared for a moment to
+reciprocate--undefined, glimmering suspicions of another kind flickered
+through the darkness of his mind. He was effectually puzzled; his
+surmises and conjectures baffled; and he more than half repented that he
+had acceded to his cousin's proposal, and admitted him as an inmate of
+his house.
+
+Although Sir Wynston comported himself as if he were conscious of being
+the very most welcome visitor who could possibly have established himself
+at Gray Forest, he was, doubtless, fully aware of the real feelings with
+which he was regarded by his host. If he had in reality an object in
+prolonging his stay, and wished to make the postponement of his departure
+the direct interest of his entertainer, he unquestionably took effectual
+measures for that purpose.
+
+The little party broke up every evening at about ten o'clock, and Sir
+Wynston retired to his chamber at the same hour. He found little
+difficulty in inducing Marston to amuse him there with a quiet game of
+piquet. In his own room, therefore, in the luxurious ease of dressing
+gown and slippers he sat at cards with his host, often until an hour or
+two past midnight. Sir Wynston was exorbitantly wealthy, and very
+reckless in expenditure. The stakes for which they played, although they
+gradually became in reality pretty heavy, were in his eyes a very
+unimportant consideration. Marston, on the other hand, was poor, and
+played with the eye of a lynx and the appetite of a shark. The ease and
+perfect good-humor with which Sir Wynston lost were not unimproved by his
+entertainer, who, as may readily be supposed, was not sorry to reap this
+golden harvest, provided without the slightest sacrifice, on his part, of
+pride or independence. If, indeed, he sometimes suspected that his guest
+was a little more anxious to lose than to win, he was also quite resolved
+not to perceive it, but calmly persisted in, night after night, giving
+Sir Wynston, as he termed it, his revenge; or, in other words, treating
+him to a repetition of his losses. All this was very agreeable to
+Marston, who began to treat his visitor with, at all events, more
+external cordiality and distinction than at first.
+
+An incident, however, occurred, which disturbed these amicable relations
+in an unexpected way. It becomes necessary here to mention that
+Mademoiselle de Barras's sleeping apartment opened from a long corridor.
+It was en suite with two dressing rooms, each opening also upon the
+corridor, but wholly unused and unfurnished. Some five or six other
+apartments also opened at either side, upon the same passage. These
+little local details being premised, it so happened that one day Marston,
+who had gone out with the intention of angling in the trout-stream which
+flowed through his park, though at a considerable distance from the
+house, having unexpectedly returned to procure some tackle which he had
+forgotten, was walking briskly through the corridor in question to his
+own apartment, when, to his surprise, the door of one of the deserted
+dressing-rooms, of which we have spoken, was cautiously pushed open, and
+Sir Wynston Berkley issued from it. Marston was almost beside him as he
+did so, and Sir Wynston made a motion as if about instinctively to draw
+back again, and at the same time the keen ear of his host distinctly
+caught the sound of rustling silks and a tiptoe tread hastily withdrawing
+from the deserted chamber. Sir Wynston looked nearly as much confused as
+a man of the world can look. Marston stopped short, and scanned his
+visitor for a moment with a very peculiar expression.
+
+"You have caught me peeping, Dick. I am an inveterate explorer," said the
+baronet, with an effectual effort to shake off his embarrassment. "An
+open door in a fine old house is a temptation which--"
+
+"That door is usually closed, and ought to be kept so," interrupted
+Marston, drily; "there is nothing whatever to be seen in the room but
+dust and cobwebs."
+
+"Pardon me," said Sir Wynston, more easily, "you forget the view from
+the window."
+
+"Aye, the view, to be sure; there is a good view from it," said Marston,
+with as much of his usual manner as he could resume so soon; and, at the
+same time, carelessly opening the door again, he walked in, accompanied
+by Sir Wynston, and both stood at the window together, looking out in
+silence upon a prospect which neither of them saw.
+
+"Yes, I do think it is a good view," said Marston; and as he turned
+carelessly away, he darted a swift glance round the chamber. The door
+opening toward the French lady's apartment was closed, but not actually
+shut. This was enough; and as they left the room, Marston repeated his
+invitation to his guest to accompany him; but in a tone which showed that
+he scarcely followed the meaning of what he himself was saying.
+
+He walked undecidedly toward his own room, then turned and went down
+stairs. In the hall he met his pretty child.
+
+"Ha! Rhoda," said he, "you have not been out today?"
+
+"No, papa; but it is so very fine, I think I shall go now."
+
+"Yes; go, and mademoiselle can accompany you. Do you hear, Rhoda,
+mademoiselle goes with you, and you had better go at once."
+
+A few minutes more, and Marston, from the parlor-window, beheld Rhoda and
+the elegant French girl walking together towards the woodlands. He
+watched them gloomily, himself unseen, until the crowding underwood
+concealed their receding figures. Then, with a sigh, he turned, and
+reascended the great staircase.
+
+"I shall sift this mystery to the bottom," thought he. "I shall foil the
+conspirators, if so they be, with their own weapons; art with art;
+chicane with chicane; duplicity with duplicity."
+
+He was now in the long passage, which we have just spoken of, and
+glancing back and before him, to ascertain that no chance eye discerned
+him, he boldly entered mademoiselle's chamber. Her writing desk lay upon
+the table. It was locked; and coolly taking it in his hands, Marston
+carried it into his own room, bolted his chamber-door, and taking two or
+three bunches of keys, he carefully tried nearly a dozen in succession,
+and when almost despairing of success, at last found one which fitted the
+lock, turned, and opened the desk.
+
+Sustained throughout his dishonorable task by some strong and angry
+passion, the sight of the open escritoire checked and startled him for a
+moment. Violated privilege, invaded secrecy, base, perfidious espionage
+upbraided and stigmatized him, as the intricacies of the outraged
+sanctuary opened upon his intrusive gaze. He felt for a moment shocked
+and humbled. He was impelled to lock and replace the desk where he had
+originally found it, without having effected his meditated treason; but
+this hesitation was transient; the fiery and reckless impulse which had
+urged him to the act returned to enforce its consummation. With a guilty
+eye and eager hands, he searched the contents of this tiny repository of
+the fair Norman's written secrets.
+
+"Ha! the very thing," he muttered, as he detected the identical letter
+which he himself had handed to Mademoiselle de Barras but a few days
+before. "The handwriting struck me, ill-disguised; I thought I knew it;
+we shall see."
+
+He had opened the letter; it contained but a few lines: he held his
+breath while he read it. First he grew pale, then a shadow came over his
+face, and then another, and another, darker and darker, shade upon shade,
+as if an exhalation from the pit was momentarily blackening the air about
+him. He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his
+face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and
+locked the desk.
+
+Of course, when Mademoiselle de Barras returned from her accustomed
+walk, she found everything in her room, to all appearances, undisturbed,
+and just as when she left it. While this young lady was making her
+toilet for the evening, and while Sir Wynston Berkley was worrying
+himself with conjectures as to whether Marston's evil looks, when he
+encountered him that morning in the passage, existed only in his own
+fancy, or were, in good truth, very grim and significant realities,
+Marston himself was striding alone through the wildest and darkest
+solitudes of his park, haunted by his own unholy thoughts, and, it may
+be, by those other evil and unearthly influences which wander, as we
+know, "in desert places." Darkness overtook him, and the chill of night,
+in these lonely tracts. In his solitary walk, what fearful company had
+he been keeping! As the shades of night deepened round him, the sense of
+the neighborhood of ill, the consciousness of the foul fancies or which,
+where he was now treading, he had been for hours the sport, oppressed
+him with a vague and unknown terror; a certain horror of the thoughts
+which had been his comrades through the day, which he could not now
+shake off, and which haunted him with a ghastly and defiant pertinacity,
+scared, while they half-enraged him. He stalked swiftly homewards, like
+a guilty man pursued.
+
+Marston was not perfectly satisfied, though very nearly, with the
+evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which
+had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of
+the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted
+disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the
+letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not
+actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other
+circumstances, a powerful presumption in aid of his suspicions. He
+resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time.
+Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and
+bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and
+dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would
+divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of
+everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized
+such displays and eccentricities in another man.
+
+His rapid and reckless ramble, a kind of physical vent for the paroxysm
+which had so agitated him throughout the greater part of the day, had
+soiled and disordered his dress, and thus had helped to give to his whole
+appearance a certain air of haggard wildness, which, in the privacy of
+his chamber, he hastened carefully and entirely to remove.
+
+At supper, Marston was apparently in unusually good spirits. Sir Wynston
+and he chatted gaily and fluently upon many subjects, grave and gay.
+Among them the inexhaustible topic of popular superstition happened to
+turn up, and especially the subject of strange prophecies of the fates
+and fortunes of individuals, singularly fulfilled in the events of their
+afterlife.
+
+"By-the-by, Dick, this is rather a nervous topic for me to discuss," said
+Sir Wynston.
+
+"How so?" asked his host.
+
+"Why, don't you remember?" urged the baronet.
+
+"No, I don't recollect what you allude to," replied Marston, in all
+sincerity.
+
+"Why, don't you remember Eton?" pursued Sir Wynston.
+
+"Yes, to be sure," said Marston.
+
+"Well?" continued his visitor.
+
+"Well, I really don't recollect the prophecy," replied Marston.
+
+"What! do you forget the gypsy who predicted that you were to murder me,
+Dick--eh?"
+
+"Ah-ha, ha!" laughed Marston, with a start.
+
+"Don't you remember it now?" urged his companion.
+
+"Ah, why yes, I believe I do," said Marston; "but another prophecy was
+running in my mind; a gypsy prediction, too. At Ascot, do you
+recollect the girl told me I was to be Lord Chancellor of England, and
+a duke besides?"
+
+"Well, Dick," rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, "if both are to be
+fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack
+of England."
+
+The party soon after broke up: Sir Wynston and his host, as usual, to
+pass some hours at piquet; and Mrs. Marston, as was her wont, to, spend
+some time in her own boudoir, over notes and accounts, and the worrying
+details of housekeeping.
+
+While thus engaged, she was disturbed by a respectful tap at her door,
+and an elderly servant, who had been for many years in the employment of
+Mr. Marston, presented himself.
+
+"Well, Merton, do you want anything?" asked the lady.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, please, I want to give warning; I wish to leave the service,
+ma'am;" replied he, respectfully, but doggedly.
+
+"To leave us, Merton!" echoed his mistress, both surprised and sorry for
+the man had been long her servant, and had been much liked and trusted.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he repeated.
+
+"And why do you wish to do so, Merton? Has anything occurred to make the
+place unpleasant to you?" urged the lady.
+
+"No, ma'am--no, indeed," said he, earnestly, "I have nothing to complain
+of--nothing, indeed, ma'am."
+
+"Perhaps, you think you can do better, if you leave us?" suggested
+his mistress.
+
+"No, indeed, ma'am, I have no such thought," he said, and seemed on the
+point of bursting into tears; "but--but, somehow--ma'am, there is
+something come over me, lately, and I can't help, but think, if I stay
+here, ma'am--some--some--misfortune will happen to us all--and that is the
+truth, ma'am."
+
+"This is very foolish, Merton--a mere childish fancy," replied Mrs.
+Marston; "you like your place, and have no better prospect before you;
+and now, for a mere superstitious fancy, you propose giving it up, and
+leaving us. No, no, Merton, you had better think the matter over--and if
+you still, upon reflection, prefer going away, you can then speak to
+your master."
+
+"Thank you ma'am--God bless you," said the man, withdrawing.
+
+Mrs. Marston rang the bell for her maid, and retired to her room. "Has
+anything occurred lately," she asked, "to annoy Merton?"
+
+"No, ma'am, I don't know of anything; but he is very changed, indeed, of
+late," replied the maid.
+
+"He has not been quarreling?" inquired she.
+
+"Oh, no, ma'am, he never quarrels; he is very quiet, and keeps to himself
+always; he thinks a wonderful deal of himself," replied the servant.
+
+"But, you said that he is much changed--did you not?" continued the lady;
+for there was something strangely excited and unpleasant in the man's
+manner, in this little interview, which struck Mrs. Marston, and alarmed
+her curiosity. He had seemed like one charged with some horrible
+secret--intolerable, and which he yet dared not reveal.
+
+"What," proceeded Mrs. Marston, "is the nature of the change of which
+you speak?"
+
+"Why, ma'am, he is like one frightened, and in sorrow," she replied; "he
+will sit silent, and now and then shaking his head, as if he wanted to
+get rid of something that is teasing him, for an hour together."
+
+"Poor man!" said she.
+
+"And, then, when we are at meals, he will, all on a sudden, get up, and
+leave the table; and Jem Boulter, that sleeps in the next room to him,
+says, that, almost as often as he looks through the little window between
+the two rooms, no matter what hour in the night, he sees Mr. Merton on
+his knees by the bedside, praying or crying, he don't know which; but,
+any way, he is not happy--poor man!--and that is plain enough."
+
+"It is very strange," said the lady, after a pause; "but, I think, and
+hope, after all, it will prove to have been no more than a little
+nervousness."
+
+"Well, ma'am, I do hope it is not his conscience that is coming against
+him, now," said the maid.
+
+"We have no reason to suspect anything of the kind," said Mrs.
+Marston, gravely, "quite the reverse; he has been always a
+particularly proper man."
+
+"Oh, indeed," responded the attendant, "goodness forbid I should say or
+think anything against him; but I could not help telling you my mind,
+ma'am, meaning no harm."
+
+"And, how long is it since you observed this sad change in poor Merton?"
+persisted the lady.
+
+"Not, indeed, to say very long, ma'am," replied the girl; "somewhere
+about a week, or very little more--at least, as we remarked, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Marston pursued her inquiries no further that night. But, although
+she affected to treat the matter thus lightly, it had, somehow, taken a
+painful hold upon her imagination, and left in her mind those
+undefinable and ominous sensations, which, in certain mental
+temperaments, seem to foreshadow the approach of unknown misfortune.
+
+For two or three days, everything went on smoothly, and pretty much as
+usual. At the end of this brief interval, however, the attention of Mrs.
+Marston was recalled to the subject of her servant's mysterious anxiety
+to leave, and give up his situation. Merton again stood before her, and
+repeated the intimation he had already given.
+
+"Really, Merton, this is very odd," said the lady. "You like your
+situation, and yet you persist in desiring to leave it. What am I
+to think?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am," said he, "I am unhappy; I am tormented, ma'am. I can't tell
+you, ma'am; I can't indeed ma'am!"
+
+"If anything weighs upon your mind, Merton, I would advise you to consult
+our good clergyman, Dr. Danvers," urged the lady.
+
+The servant hung his head, and mused for a time gloomily; and then said
+decisively--"No, ma'am; no use."
+
+"And pray, Merton, how long is it since you first entertained this
+desire?" asked Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Since Sir Wynston Berkley came, ma'am," answered he.
+
+"Has Sir Wynston annoyed you in any way?" continued she.
+
+"Far from it, ma'am," he replied; "he is a very kind gentleman."
+
+"Well, his man, then; is he a respectable, inoffensive person?"
+she inquired.
+
+"I never met one more so," said the man, promptly, and raising his head.
+
+"What I wish to know is, whether your desire to go is connected with Sir
+Wynston and his servant?" said Mrs. Marston.
+
+The man hesitated, and shifted his position uneasily.
+
+"You need not answer, Merton, if you don't wish it," she said kindly.
+
+"Why, ma'am, yes, it has something to say to them both," he replied, with
+some agitation.
+
+"I really cannot understand this," said she.
+
+Merton hesitated for some time, and appeared much troubled. "It was
+something, ma'am--something that Sir Wynston's man said to me; and there
+it is out," he said at last, with an effort.
+
+"Well, Merton," said she, "I won't press you further; but I must say,
+that as this communication, whatever it may be, has caused you,
+unquestionably, very great uneasiness, it seems to me but probable that
+it affects the safety or the interests of some person--I cannot say of
+whom; and, if so, there can be no doubt that it is your duty to acquaint
+those who are so involved in the disclosure, with its purport."
+
+"No, ma'am, there is nothing in what I heard that could touch anybody but
+myself. It was nothing but what others heard, without remarking it, or
+thinking about it. I can't tell you anymore, ma'am; but I am very
+unhappy, and uneasy in my mind."
+
+As the man said this, he began to weep bitterly.
+
+The idea that his mind was affected now seriously occurred to Mrs.
+Marston, and she resolved to convey her suspicions to her husband, and to
+leave him to deal with the case as to him should seem good.
+
+"Don't agitate yourself so, Merton; I shall speak to your master upon
+what you have said; and you may rely upon it, that no surmise to the
+prejudice of your character has entered my mind," said Mrs. Marston,
+very kindly.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, you are too good," sobbed the poor man, vehemently. "You
+don't know me, ma'am; I never knew myself till lately. I am a miserable
+man. I am frightened at myself, ma'am--frightened terribly. Christ knows,
+it would be well for me I was dead this minute."
+
+"I am very sorry for your unhappiness, Merton," said Mrs. Marston; "and,
+especially, that I can do nothing to alleviate it; I can but speak, as I
+have said, to your master, and he will give you your discharge, and
+arrange whatever else remains to be done."
+
+"God bless you, ma'am," said the servant, still much agitated, and left
+her.
+
+Mr. Marston usually passed the early part of the day in active exercise,
+and she, supposing that he was, in all probability, at that moment far
+from home, went to "mademoiselle's" chamber, which was at the other end
+of the spacious house, to confer with her in the interval upon the
+strange application thus urged by poor Merton.
+
+Just as she reached the door of Mademoiselle de Barras's chamber, she
+heard voices within exerted in evident excitement. She stopped in
+amazement. They were those of her husband and mademoiselle. Startled,
+confounded, and amazed, she pushed open the door, and entered. Her
+husband was sitting, one hand clutched upon the arm of the chair he
+occupied, and the other extended, and clenched, as it seemed, with the
+emphasis of rage, upon the desk that stood upon the table. His face was
+darkened with the stormiest passions, and his gaze was fixed upon the
+Frenchwoman, who was standing with a look half-guilty, half-imploring,
+at a little distance.
+
+There was something, to Mrs. Marston, so utterly unexpected, and even so
+shocking, in this tableau, that she stood for some seconds pale and
+breathless, and gazing with a vacant stare of fear and horror from her
+husband to the French girl, and from her to her husband again. The three
+figures in this strange group remained fixed, silent, and aghast, for
+several seconds. Mrs. Marston endeavored to speak; but, though her lips
+moved, no sound escaped her; and, from very weakness, she sank,
+half-fainting, into a chair.
+
+Marston rose, throwing, as he did so, a guilty and furious glance at the
+young Frenchwoman, and walked a step or two toward the door; he
+hesitated, however, and turned, just as mademoiselle, bursting into
+tears, threw her arms round Mrs. Marston's neck, and passionately
+exclaimed, "Protect me, madame, I implore, from the insults and
+suspicions of your husband."
+
+Marston stood a little behind his wife, and he and the governess
+exchanged a glance of keen significance, as the latter sank, sobbing,
+like an injured child into its mother's embrace, upon the poor lady's
+tortured bosom.
+
+"Madame, madame! he says--Mr. Marston says--I have presumed to give you
+advice, and to meddle, and to interfere; that I am endeavoring to make
+you despise his authority. Madame, speak for me. Say, madame, have I ever
+done so?--say, madame, am I the cause of bitterness and contumacy? Ah,
+mon Dieu! c'est trop--it is too much, madame. I shall go--I must go,
+madame. Why, ah! why, did I stay for this?"
+
+As she thus spoke, mademoiselle again burst into a paroxysm of weeping,
+and again the same significant glance was interchanged.
+
+"Go; yes, you shall go," said Marston, striding toward the window. "I
+will have no whispering or conspiring in my house: I have heard of your
+confidences and consultations. Mrs. Marston, I meant to have done this
+quietly," he continued, addressing his wife; "I meant to have given
+Mademoiselle de Barras my opinion and her dismissal without your
+assistance; but it seems you wish to interpose. You are sworn friends,
+and never fail one another, of course, at a pinch. I take it for granted
+that I owe your presence at our interview which I am resolved shall be,
+as respects mademoiselle, a final one, to a message from that intriguing
+young lady--eh?"
+
+"I have had no message, Richard," said Mrs. Marston; "I don't
+know--do tell me, for God's sake, what is all this about?" And as
+the poor lady thus spoke, her overwrought feelings found vent in a
+violent flood of tears.
+
+"Yes, madame, that is the question. I have asked him frequently what is
+all this anger, all these reproaches about; what have I done?" interposed
+mademoiselle, with indignant vehemence, standing erect, and viewing
+Marston with a flashing eye and a flushed cheek. "Yes, I am called
+conspirator, meddler, intrigant. Ah, madame, it is intolerable."
+
+"But what have I done, Richard?" urged the poor lady, stunned and
+bewildered; "how have I offended you?"
+
+"Yes, yes," continued the Frenchwoman, with angry volubility, "what has
+she done that you call contumacy and disrespect? Yes, dear madame, there
+is the question; and if he cannot answer, is it not most cruel to call me
+conspirator, and spy, and intrigant, because I talk to my dear madame,
+who is my only friend in this place?"
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras, I need no declamation from you; and, pardon me,
+Mrs. Marston, nor from you either," retorted he; "I have my information
+from one on whom I can rely; let that suffice. Of course you are both
+agreed in a story. I dare say you are ready to swear you never so much as
+canvassed my conduct, and my coldness and estrangement--eh? These are the
+words, are not they?"
+
+"I have done you no wrong, sir; madame can tell you. I am no
+mischief-maker; no, I never was such a thing. Was I, madame?" persisted
+the governess--"bear witness for me?"
+
+"I have told you my mind, Mademoiselle de Barras," interrupted Marston;
+"I will have no altercation, if you please. I think, Mrs. Marston, we
+have had enough of this; may I accompany you hence?"
+
+So saying, he took the poor lady's passive hand, and led her from the
+room. Mademoiselle stood in the center of the apartment, alone, erect,
+with heaving breast and burning cheek--beautiful, thoughtful, guilty--the
+very type of the fallen angelic. There for a time, her heart all
+confusion, her mind darkened, we must leave her; various courses before
+her, and as yet without resolution to choose among them; a lost spirit,
+borne on the eddies of the storm; fearless and self-reliant, but with no
+star to guide her on her dark, malign, and forlorn way.
+
+Mrs. Marston, in her own room, reviewed the agitating scene through which
+she had just been so unexpectedly carried. The tremendous suspicion
+which, at the first disclosure of the tableau we have described, smote
+the heart and brain of the poor lady with the stun of a thunderbolt, had
+been, indeed, subsequently disturbed, and afterwards contradicted; but
+the shock of her first impression remained still upon her mind and heart.
+She felt still through every nerve the vibrations of that maddening
+terror and despair which had overcome her senses for a moment. The
+surprise, the shock, the horror, outlived the obliterating influence of
+what followed. She was in this agitation when Mademoiselle de Barras
+entered her chamber, resolved with all her art to second and support the
+success of her prompt measures in the recent critical emergency. She had
+come, she said, to bid her dear madame farewell, for she was resolved to
+go. Her own room had been invaded, that insult and reproach might be
+heaped upon her; how utterly unmerited Mrs. Marston knew. She had been
+called by every foul name which applied to the spy and the maligner; she
+could not bear it. Some one had evidently been endeavoring to procure her
+removal, and had but too effectually succeeded. Mademoiselle was
+determined to go early the next morning; nothing should prevent or retard
+her departure; her resolution was taken. In this strain did mademoiselle
+run on, but in a subdued and melancholy tone, and weeping profusely.
+
+The wild and ghastly suspicions which had for a moment flashed terribly
+upon the mind of Mrs. Marston, had faded away under the influences of
+reason and reflection, although, indeed, much painful excitement still
+remained, before Mademoiselle de Barras had visited her room. Marston's
+temper she knew but too well; it was violent, bitter, and impetuous; and
+though he cared little, if at all, for her, she had ever perceived that
+he was angrily jealous of the slightest intimacy or confidence by which
+any other than himself might establish an influence over her mind. That
+he had learned the subject of some of her most interesting conversations
+with mademoiselle she could not doubt, for he had violently upbraided
+that young lady in her presence with having discussed it, and here now
+was mademoiselle herself taking refuge with her from galling affront and
+unjust reproach, incensed, wounded, and weeping. The whole thing was
+consistent; all the circumstances bore plainly in the same direction; the
+evidence was conclusive; and Mrs. Marston's thoughts and feelings
+respecting her fair young confidante quickly found their old level, and
+flowed on tranquilly and sadly in their accustomed channel.
+
+While Mademoiselle de Barras was thus, with the persevering industry of
+the spider, repairing the meshes which a chance breath had shattered, she
+would, perhaps, have been in her turn shocked and startled, could she
+have glanced into Marston's mind, and seen, in what was passing there,
+the real extent of her danger.
+
+Marston was walking, as usual, alone, and in the most solitary region of
+his lonely park. One hand grasped his walking stick, not to lean upon it,
+but as if it were the handle of a battle-axe; the other was buried in his
+bosom; his dark face looked upon the ground, and he strode onward with a
+slow but energetic step, which had the air of deep resolution. He found
+himself at last in a little churchyard, lying far among the wild forest
+of his demesne, and in the midst of which, covered with ivy and tufted
+plants, now ruddy with autumnal tints, stood the ruined walls of a little
+chapel. In the dilapidated vault close by lay buried many of his
+ancestors, and under the little wavy hillocks of fern and nettles, slept
+many an humble villager. He sat down upon a worn tombstone in this lowly
+ruin, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he surrendered his spirit
+to the stormy and evil thoughts which he had invited. Long and motionless
+he sat there, while his foul fancies and schemes began to assume shape
+and order. The wind rushing through the ivy roused him for a moment, and
+as he raised his gloomy eye it alighted accidentally upon a skull, which
+some wanton hand had fixed in a crevice of the wall. He averted his
+glance quickly, but almost as quickly refixed his gaze upon the impassive
+symbol of death, with an expression glowering and contemptuous, and with
+an angry gesture struck it down among the weeds with his stick. He left
+the place, and wandered on through the woods.
+
+"Men can't control the thoughts that flit across their minds," he
+muttered, as he went along, "anymore than they can direct the shadows
+of the clouds that sail above them. They come and pass, and leave no
+stain behind. What, then, of omens, and that wretched effigy of
+death? Stuff--pshaw! Murder, indeed! I'm incapable of murder. I have
+drawn my sword upon a man in fair duel; but murder! Out upon the
+thought, out upon it."
+
+He stamped upon the ground with a pang at once of fury and horror. He
+walked on a little, stopped again, and folding his arms, leaned against
+an ancient tree.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras, _vous êtes une traîtresse_, and you shall go.
+Yes, go you shall; you have deceived me, and we must part."
+
+He said this with melancholy bitterness; and, after a pause, continued:
+
+"I will have no other revenge. No; though, I dare say, she will care but
+little for this; very little, if at all."
+
+"And then, as to the other person," he resumed, after a pause, "it is not
+the first time he has acted like a trickster. He has crossed me before,
+and I will choose an opportunity to tell him my mind. I won't mince
+matters with him either, and will not spare him one insulting syllable
+that he deserves. He wears a sword, and so do I; if he pleases, he may
+draw it; he shall have the opportunity; but, at all events, I will make
+it impossible for him to prolong his disgraceful visit at my house."
+
+On reaching home and his own study, the servant, Merton, presented
+himself, and his master, too deeply excited to hear him then, appointed
+the next day for the purpose. There was no contending against Marston's
+peremptory will, and the man reluctantly withdrew. Here was, apparently,
+a matter of no imaginable moment; whether this menial should be
+discharged on that day, or on the morrow; and yet mighty things were
+involved in the alternative.
+
+There was a deeper gloom than usual over the house. The servants seemed
+to know that something had gone wrong, and looked grave and mysterious.
+Marston was more than ever dark and moody. Mrs. Marston's dimmed and
+swollen eyes showed that she had been weeping. Mademoiselle absented
+herself from supper, on the plea of a bad headache. Rhoda saw that
+something, she knew not what, had occurred to agitate her elders, and was
+depressed and anxious. The old clergyman, whom we have already mentioned,
+had called, and stayed to supper. Dr. Danvers was a man of considerable
+learning, strong sense, and remarkable simplicity of character. His
+thoughtful blue eye, and well-marked countenance, were full of gentleness
+and benevolence, and elevated by a certain natural dignity, of which
+purity and goodness, without one debasing shade of self-esteem and
+arrogance, were the animating spirit. Mrs. Marston loved and respected
+this good minister of God; and many a time had sought and found, in his
+gentle and earnest counsels, and in the overflowing tenderness of his
+sympathy, much comfort and support in the progress of her sore and
+protracted earthly trial. Most especially at one critical period in her
+history had he endeared himself to her, by interposing, and successfully,
+to prevent a formal separation which (as ending forever the one hope that
+cheered her on, even in the front of despair) she would probably not long
+have survived.
+
+With Mr. Marston, however, he was far from being a favorite. There was
+that in his lofty and simple purity which abashed and silently reproached
+the sensual, bitter, disappointed man of the world. The angry pride of
+the scornful man felt its own meanness in the grand presence of a simple
+and humble Christian minister. And the very fact that all his habits had
+led him to hold such a character in contempt, made him but the more
+unreasonably resent the involuntary homage which its exhibition in Dr.
+Danvers's person invariably extorted from him. He felt in this good man's
+presence under a kind of irritating restraint; that he was in the
+presence of one with whom he had, and could have, no sympathy whatever,
+and yet one whom he could not help both admiring and respecting; and in
+these conflicting feelings were involved certain gloomy and humbling
+inferences about himself, which he hated, and almost feared to
+contemplate.
+
+It was well, however, for the indulgence of Sir Wynston's conversational
+propensities, that Dr. Danvers had happened to drop in; for Marston was
+doggedly silent and sullen, and Mrs. Marston was herself scarcely more
+disposed than he to maintain her part in a conversation; so that, had it
+not been for the opportune arrival of the good clergyman, the supper must
+have been dispatched with a very awkward and unsocial taciturnity.
+
+Marston thought, and, perhaps, not erroneously, that Sir Wynston
+suspected something of the real state of affairs, and he was, therefore,
+incensed to perceive, as he thought, in his manner, very evident
+indications of his being in unusually good spirits. Thus disposed, the
+party sat down to supper.
+
+"One of our number is missing," said Sir Wynston, affecting a slight
+surprise, which, perhaps, he did not feel.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras--I trust she is well?" said Doctor Danvers,
+looking towards Marston.
+
+"I suppose she is; I don't know," said Marston, drily.
+
+"Why! how should he know," said the baronet, gaily, but with something
+almost imperceptibly sarcastic in his tone. "Our friend, Marston, is
+privileged to be as ungallant as he pleases, except where he has the
+happy privilege to owe allegiance; but I, a gay young bachelor of fifty,
+am naturally curious. I really do trust that our charming French friend
+is not unwell."
+
+He addressed his inquiry to Mrs. Marston, who, with some slight
+confusion, replied:--
+
+"No; nothing, at least, serious; merely a slight headache. I am sure she
+will be quite well enough to come down to breakfast."
+
+"She is, indeed, a very charming and interesting young person," said
+Doctor Danvers. "There is a certain simplicity about her which argues a
+good and kind heart, and an open nature."
+
+"Very true, indeed, doctor," observed Berkley, with the same faint, but,
+to Marston, exquisitely provoking approximation to sarcasm. "There is, as
+you say, a very charming simplicity. Don't you think so, Marston?"
+
+Marston looked at him for a moment, but continued silent.
+
+"Poor mademoiselle!--she is, indeed, a most affectionate creature," said
+Mrs. Marston, who felt called upon to say something.
+
+"Come, Marston, will you contribute nothing to the general fund of
+approbation?" said Sir Wynston, who was gifted by nature with an amiable
+talent for teasing, which he was fond of exercising in a quiet way. "We
+have all, but you, said something handsome of our absent young friend."
+
+"I never praise anybody, Wynston; not even you," said Marston, with an
+obvious sneer.
+
+"Well, well, I must comfort myself with the belief that your silence
+covers a great deal of good-will, and, perhaps, a little admiration,
+too," answered his cousin, significantly.
+
+"Comfort yourself in any honest way you will, my dear Wynston," retorted
+Marston, with a degree of asperity, which, to all but the baronet
+himself, was unaccountable. "You may be right, you may be wrong; on a
+subject so unimportant it matters very little which; you are at perfect
+liberty to practice delusions, if you will, upon yourself."
+
+"By-the-bye, Mr. Marston, is not your son about to come down here?" asked
+Doctor Danvers, who perceived that the altercation was becoming, on
+Marston's part, somewhat testy, if not positively rude.
+
+"Yes; I expect him in a few days," replied he, with a sudden gloom.
+
+"You have not seen him, Sir Wynston?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"I have that pleasure yet to come," said the baronet.
+
+"A pleasure it is, I do assure you," said Doctor Danvers, heartily. "He
+is a handsome lad, with the heart of a hero--a fine, frank, generous lad,
+and as merry as a lark."
+
+"Yes, yes," interrupted Marston; "he is well enough, and has done pretty
+well at Cambridge. Doctor Danvers, take some wine."
+
+It was strange, but yet mournfully true, that the praises which the good
+Doctor Danvers thus bestowed upon his son were bitter to the soul of the
+unhappy Marston. They jarred upon his ear, and stung his heart; for his
+conscience converted them into so many latent insults and humiliations
+to himself.
+
+"Your wine is very good, Marston. I think your clarets are many degrees
+better than any I can get," said Sir Wynston, sipping a glass of his
+favorite wine. "You country gentlemen are sad selfish dogs; and, with all
+your grumbling, manage to collect the best of whatever is worth having
+about you."
+
+"We sometimes succeed in collecting a pleasant party," retorted Marston,
+with ironical courtesy, "though we do not always command the means of
+entertaining them quite as we would wish."
+
+It was the habit of Doctor Danvers, without respect of persons or
+places, to propose, before taking his departure from whatever domestic
+party he chanced to be thrown among for the evening, to read some verses
+from that holy Book, on which his own hopes and peace were founded, and
+to offer up a prayer for all to the throne of grace. Marston, although
+he usually absented himself from such exercises, did not otherwise
+discourage them; but upon the present occasion, starting from his gloomy
+reverie, he himself was the first to remind the clergyman of his
+customary observance. Evil thoughts loomed upon the mind of Marston,
+like measureless black mists upon a cold, smooth sea. They rested, grew,
+and darkened there; and no heaven-sent breath came silently to steal
+them away. Under this dread shadow his mind lay waiting, like the deep,
+before the Spirit of God moved upon its waters, passive and awful. Why
+for the first time now did religion interest him? The unseen,
+intangible, was even now at work within him. A dreadful power shook his
+very heart and soul. There was some strange, ghastly wrestling going on
+in his own immortal spirit, a struggle that made him faint, which he had
+no power to determine. He looked upon the holy influence of the good
+man's prayer--a prayer in which he could not join--with a dull,
+superstitious hope that the words, inviting better influence, though
+uttered by another, and with other objects, would, like a spell, chase
+away the foul fiend that was busy with his soul. Marston sate, looking
+into the fire, with a countenance of stern gloom, upon which the wayward
+lights of the flickering hearth sported fitfully; while at a distant
+table Doctor Danvers sate down, and, taking his well-worn Bible from his
+pocket, turned over its leaves, and began, in gentle but impressive
+tones, to read.
+
+Sir Wynston was much too well bred to evince the slightest disposition to
+aught but the most proper and profound attention. The faintest imaginable
+gleam of ridicule might, perhaps, have been discerned in his features,
+as he leaned back in his chair, and, closing his eyes, composed himself
+to at least an attitude of attention. No man could submit with more
+cheerfulness to an inevitable bore.
+
+In these things, then, thou hast no concern; the judgment troubles thee
+not; thou hast no fear of death, Sir Wynston Berkley; yet there is a
+heart beating near thee, the mysteries of which, could they glide out and
+stand before thy face, would perchance appal thee, cold, easy man of the
+world. Aye, couldst thou but see with those cunning eyes of thine, but
+twelve brief hours into futurity, each syllable that falls from that good
+man's lips unheeded would peal through thy heart and brain like maddening
+thunder. Hearken, hearken, Sir Wynston Berkley, perchance these are the
+farewell words of thy better angel--the last pleadings of despised mercy!
+
+The party broke up. Doctor Danvers took his leave, and rode homeward,
+down the broad avenue, between the gigantic ranks of elm that closed it
+in. The full moon was rising above the distant hills; the mists lay
+like sleeping lakes in the laps of the hollows; and the broad demesne
+looked tranquil and sad under this chastened and silvery glory. The
+good old clergyman thought, as he pursued his way, that here at least,
+in a spot so beautiful and sequestered, the stormy passions and fell
+contentions of the outer world could scarcely penetrate. Yet, in that
+calm secluded spot, and under the cold, pure light which fell so
+holily, what a hell was weltering and glaring!--what a spectacle was
+that moon to go down upon! As Sir Wynston was leaving the parlor for
+his own room, Marston accompanied him to the hall, and said--"I shan't
+play tonight, Sir Wynston."
+
+"Ah, ha! very particularly engaged?" suggested the baronet, with a
+faint, mocking smile. "Well, my dear fellow, we must endeavor to make up
+for it tomorrow--eh?"
+
+"I don't know that," said Marston, "and--in a word, there is no use, sir,
+in our masquerading with one another. Each knows the other; each
+understands the other. I wish to have a word or two with you in your room
+tonight, when we shan't be interrupted."
+
+Marston spoke in a fierce and grating whisper, and his countenance, more
+even than his accents, betrayed the intensity of his bridled fury. Sir
+Wynston, however, smiled upon his cousin as if his voice had been melody,
+and his looks all sunshine.
+
+"Very good, Marston, just as you please," he said; "only don't be later
+than one, as I shall be getting into bed about that hour."
+
+"Perhaps, upon second thoughts, it is as well to defer what I have to
+say," said Marston, musingly. "Tomorrow will do as well; so, perhaps, Sir
+Wynston, I may not trouble you tonight."
+
+"Just as suits you best, my dear Marston," replied the baronet, with a
+tranquil smile; "only don't come after the hour I have stipulated."
+
+So saying, the baronet mounted the stairs, and made his way to his
+chamber. He was in excellent spirits, and in high good-humor with
+himself: the object of his visit to Gray Forest had been, as he now
+flattered himself, attained. He had conducted an affair requiring the
+profoundest mystery in its prosecution, and the nicest tactic in its
+management, almost to a triumphant issue. He had perfectly masked his
+design, and completely outwitted Marston; and to a person who piqued
+himself upon his clever diplomacy, and vaunted that he had never yet
+sustained a defeat in any object which he had seriously proposed to
+himself, such a combination of successes was for the moment quite
+intoxicating.
+
+Sir Wynston not only enjoyed his own superiority with all the vanity of a
+selfish nature, but he no less enjoyed, with a keen and malicious relish,
+the intense mortification which, he was well assured, Marston must
+experience; and all the more acutely, because of the utter impossibility,
+circumstanced as he was, of his taking any steps to manifest his
+vexation, without compromising himself in a most unpleasant way.
+
+Animated by these amiable feelings, Sir Wynston Berkley sate down,
+and wrote the following short letter, addressed to Mrs. Gray,
+Wynston Hall:--
+
+"Mrs. Gray,
+
+"On receipt of this have the sitting rooms and several bedrooms put in
+order, and thoroughly aired. Prepare for my use the suite of three rooms
+over the library and drawing room; and have the two great wardrobes, and
+the cabinet in the state bedroom, removed into the large dressing room
+which opens upon the bedroom I have named. Make everything as comfortable
+as possible. If anything is wanted in the way of furniture, drapery,
+ornament, &c., you need only write to John Skelton, Esq., Spring-garden,
+London, stating what is required, and he will order and send them down.
+You must be expeditious, as I shall probably go down to Wynston, with two
+or three friends, at the beginning of next month.
+
+"WYNSTON BERKLEY
+
+"P.S.--I have written to direct Arkins and two or three of the other
+servants to go down at once. Set them all to work immediately."
+
+He then applied himself to another letter of considerably greater length,
+and from which, therefore, we shall only offer a few extracts. It was
+addressed to John Skelton, Esq., and began as follows.--
+
+"My Dear Skelton,
+
+"You are, doubtless, surprised at my long silence, but I have had nothing
+very particular to say. My visit to this dull and uncomfortable place was
+(as you rightly surmise) not without its object--a little bit of wicked
+romance; the pretty demoiselle of Rouen, whom I mentioned to you more
+than once--la belle de Barras--was, in truth, the attraction that drew me
+hither; and I think (for, as yet, she affects hesitation), I shall have
+no further trouble with her. She is a fine creature, and you will admit,
+when you have seen her, well worth taking some trouble about. She is,
+however, a very knowing little minx, and evidently suspects me of being a
+sad, fickle dog--and, as I surmise, has some plans, moreover, respecting
+my morose cousin, Marston, a kind of wicked Penruddock, who has carried
+all his London tastes into his savage retreat, a paradise of bogs and
+bushes. There is, I am very confident, a liaison in that quarter. The
+young lady is evidently a good deal afraid of him, and insists upon such
+precautions in our interviews, that they have been very few, and far
+between, indeed. Today, there has been a fracas of some kind. I have no
+doubt that Marston, poor devil, is jealous. His situation is really
+pitiably comic--with an intriguing mistress, a saintly wife, and a devil
+of a jealous temper of his own. I shall meet Mary on reaching town. Has
+Clavering (shabby dog!) paid his I.O.U. yet? Tell the little opera woman
+she had better be quiet. She ought to know me by this time; I shall do
+what is right, but won't submit to be bullied. If she is troublesome,
+snap your fingers at her, on my behalf, and leave her to her remedy. I
+have written to Gray, to get things at Wynston in order. She will draw
+upon you for what money she requires. Send down two or three of the
+servants, if they have not already gone. The place is very dusty and
+dingy, and needs a great deal of brushing and scouring. I shall see you
+in town very soon. By the way, has the claret I ordered from the Dublin
+house arrived yet? It is consigned to you, and goes by the 'Lizard'; pay
+the freightage, and get Edwards to pack it; ten dozen or so may as well
+go down to Wynston, and send other wines in proportion. I leave details
+to you...."
+
+Some further directions upon other subjects followed; and having
+subscribed the dispatch, and addressed it to the gentlemanlike scoundrel
+who filled the onerous office of factotum to this profligate and
+exacting man of the world, Sir Wynston Berkley rang his bell, and gave
+the two letters into the hand of his man, with special directions to
+carry them himself in person, to the post office in the neighboring
+village, early next morning. These little matters completed, Sir Wynston
+stirred his fire, leaned back in his easy chair, and smiled blandly over
+the sunny prospect of his imaginary triumphs.
+
+It here becomes necessary to describe, in a few words, some of the local
+relations of Sir Wynston's apartments. The bedchamber which he occupied
+opened from the long passage of which we have already spoken--and there
+were two other smaller apartments opening from it in train. In the
+further of these, which was entered from a lobby, communicating by a back
+stair with the kitchen and servants' apartments, lay Sir Wynston's valet,
+and the intermediate chamber was fitted up as a dressing room for the
+baronet himself. These circumstances it is necessary to mention, that
+what follows may be clearly intelligible.
+
+While the baronet was penning these records of vicious schemes--dire
+waste of wealth and time--irrevocable time!--Marston paced his study in a
+very different frame of mind. There were a gloom and disorder in the room
+accordant with those of his own mind. Shelves of ancient tomes, darkened
+by time, and upon which the dust of years lay sleeping--dark oaken
+cabinets, filled with piles of deeds and papers, among which the nimble
+spiders were crawling--and, from the dusky walls, several stark, pale
+ancestors, looking down coldly from their tarnished frames. An hour, and
+another hour passed--and still Marston paced this melancholy chamber, a
+prey to his own fell passions and dark thoughts. He was not a
+superstitious man, but, in the visions which haunted him, perhaps, was
+something which made him unusually excitable--for, he experienced a chill
+of absolute horror, as, standing at the farther end of the room, with his
+face turned towards the entrance, he beheld the door noiselessly and
+slowly pushed open, by a pale, thin hand, and a figure dressed in a loose
+white robe, glide softly in. He stood for some seconds gazing upon this
+apparition, as it moved hesitatingly towards him from the dusky extremity
+of the large apartment, before he perceived that the form was that of
+Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Hey, ha!--Mrs. Marston--what on earth has called you hither?" he asked,
+sternly. "You ought to have been at rest an hour ago; get to your
+chamber, and leave me, I have business to attend to."
+
+"Now, dear Richard, you must forgive me," she said, drawing near, and
+looking up into his haggard face with a sweet and touching look of
+timidity and love; "I could not rest until I saw you again; your looks
+have been all this night so unlike yourself; so strange and terrible,
+that I am afraid some great misfortune threatens you, which you fear to
+tell me of."
+
+"My looks! Why, curse it, must I give an account of my looks?" replied
+Marston, at once disconcerted and wrathful. "Misfortune! What misfortune
+can befall us more? No, there is nothing, nothing, I say, but your own
+foolish fancy; go to your room--go to sleep--my looks, indeed; pshaw!"
+
+"I came to tell you, dear Richard, that I will do, in all respects, just
+as you desire. If you continue to wish it, I will part with poor
+mademoiselle; though, indeed, Richard, I shall miss her more than you can
+imagine; and all your suspicions have wronged her deeply," said Mrs.
+Marston. Her husband darted a sudden flashing glance of suspicious
+scrutiny upon her face; but its expression was frank, earnest, noble. He
+was disarmed; he hung his head gloomily upon his breast, and was silent
+for a time. She came nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm. He looked
+darkly into her upturned eyes, and a feeling which had not touched his
+heart for many a day--an emotion of pity, transient, indeed, but vivid,
+revisited him. He took her hand in his, and said, in gentler terms than
+she had heard him use for a long time--
+
+"No, indeed, Gertrude, you have deceived yourself; no misfortune has
+happened, and if I am gloomy, the source of all my troubles is within.
+Leave me, Gertrude, for the present. As to the other matter, the
+departure of Mademoiselle de Barras, we can talk of that tomorrow--now I
+cannot; so let us part. Go to your room; good night."
+
+She was withdrawing, and he added, in a subdued tone--"Gertrude, I am
+very glad you came--very glad. Pray for me tonight."
+
+He had followed her a few steps toward the door, and now stopped short,
+turned about, and walked dejectedly back again--
+
+"I am right glad she came," he muttered, as soon as he was once more
+alone. "Wynston is provoking and fiery, too. Were I, in my present mood,
+to seek a tête-à-tête with him, who knows what might come of it? Blood;
+my own heart whispers--blood! I'll not trust myself."
+
+He strode to the study door, locked it, and taking out the key, shut it
+in the drawer of one of the cabinets.
+
+"Now it will need more than accident or impulse to lead me to him. I
+cannot go, at least, without reflection, without premeditation. Avaunt,
+fiend. I have baffled you."
+
+He stood in the center of the room, cowering and scowling as he said
+this, and looked round with a glance half-defiant, half-fearful, as if he
+expected to see some dreadful form in the dusky recesses of the desolate
+chamber. He sat himself by the smouldering fire, in somber and agitated
+rumination. He was restless; he rose again, unbuckled his sword, which he
+had not loosed since evening, and threw it hastily into a corner. He
+looked at his watch, it was half-past twelve; he glanced at the door, and
+thence at the cabinet in which he had placed the key; then he turned
+hastily, and sate down again. He leaned his elbows on his knees, and his
+chin upon his clenched hand; still he was restless and excited. Once more
+he arose, and paced up and down. He consulted his watch again; it was now
+but a quarter to one.
+
+Sir Wynston's man having received the letters, and his master's
+permission to retire to rest, got into his bed, and was soon beginning to
+dose. We have already mentioned that his and Sir Wynston's apartments
+were separated by a small dressing room, so that any ordinary noise or
+conversation could be heard but imperfectly from one to the other. The
+servant, however, was startled by a sound of something falling on the
+floor of his master's apartment, and broken to pieces by the violence of
+the shock. He sate up in his bed, listened, and heard some sentences
+spoken vehemently, and gabbled very fast. He thought he distinguished the
+words "wretch" and "God"; and there was something so strange in the tone
+in which they were spoken, that the man got up and stole noiselessly
+through the dressing room, and listened at the door.
+
+He heard him, as he thought, walking in his slippers through the room,
+and making his customary arrangements previously to getting into bed. He
+knew that his master had a habit of speaking when alone, and concluded
+that the accidental breakage of some glass or chimney-ornament had
+elicited the volley of words he had heard. Well knowing that, except at
+the usual hours, or in obedience to Sir Wynston's bell, nothing more
+displeased his master than his presuming to enter his sleeping-apartment
+while he was there, the servant quietly retreated, and, perfectly
+satisfied that all was right, composed himself to slumber, and was soon
+beginning to dose again.
+
+The adventures of the night, however, were not yet over. Waking, as men
+sometimes do, without any ascertainable cause; without a start or an
+uneasy sensation; without even a disturbance of the attitude of repose,
+he opened his eyes and beheld Merton, the servant of whom we have spoken,
+standing at a little distance from his bed. The moonlight fell in a clear
+flood upon this figure: the man was ghastly pale; there was a blotch of
+blood on his face; his hands were clasped upon something which they
+nearly concealed; and his eyes, fixed on the servant who had just
+awakened, shone in the cold light with a wild and lifeless glitter. This
+specter drew close to the side of the bed, and stood for a few moments
+there with a look of agony and menace, which startled the newly-awakened
+man, who rose upright, and said--
+
+"Mr. Merton, Mr. Merton--in God's name, what is the matter?"
+
+Merton recoiled at the sound of his voice; and, as he did so, dropped
+something on the floor, which rolled away to a distance; and he stood
+gazing silently and horribly upon his interrogator.
+
+"Mr. Merton, I say, what is it?" urged the man. "Are you hurt? Your face
+is bloody."
+
+Merton raised his hand to his face mechanically, and Sir Wynston's man
+observed that it, too, was covered with blood.
+
+"Why, man," he said, vehemently, and actually freezing with horror," you
+are all bloody; hands and face; all over blood."
+
+"My hand is cut to the bone," said Merton, in a harsh whisper; and
+speaking to himself, rather than addressing the servant--"I wish it was
+my neck; I wish to God I bled to death."
+
+"You have hurt your hand, Mr. Merton," repeated the man, scarce knowing
+what he said.
+
+"Aye," whispered Merton, wildly drawing toward the bedside again; "who
+told you I hurt my hand? It is cut to the bone, sure enough."
+
+He stooped for a moment over the bed, and then cowered down toward the
+floor to search for what he had dropped.
+
+"Why, Mr. Merton, what brings you here at this hour?" urged the man,
+after a pause of a few seconds. "It is drawing toward morning."
+
+"Aye, aye," said Merton, doubtfully, and starting upright again, while
+he concealed in his bosom what he had been in search of. "Near morning,
+is it? Night and morning, it is all one to me. I believe I am going
+mad, by--"
+
+"But what do you want? What did you come here for at this hour?"
+persisted the man.
+
+"What! Aye, that is it; why, his boots and spurs, to be sure. I
+forgot them. His--his--Sir Wynston's boots and spurs; I forgot to
+take them, I say," said Merton, looking toward the dressing room, as
+if about to enter it.
+
+"Don't mind them tonight, I say, don't go in there," said the man,
+peremptorily, and getting out upon the floor. "I say, Mr. Merton, this is
+no hour to be going about searching in the dark for boots and spurs.
+You'll waken the master. I can't have it, I say; go down, and let it be
+for tonight."
+
+Thus speaking, in a resolute and somewhat angry under-key, the valet
+stood between Merton and the entrance of the dressing-room; and, signing
+with his hand toward the other door of the apartment, continued--
+
+"Go down, I say, Mr. Merton, go down; you may as well quietly, for, I
+tell you plainly, you shall neither go a step further, nor stay here a
+moment longer."
+
+The man drew his shoulders up, and made a sort of shivering moan, and
+clasping his hands together, shook them, as it seemed, in great agony. He
+then turned abruptly, and hurried from the room by the door leading to
+the kitchen.
+
+"By my faith," said the servant, "I am glad he is gone. The poor chap is
+turning crazy, as sure as I am a living man. I'll not have him prowling
+about here anymore, however; that I am resolved on."
+
+In pursuance of this determination, by no means an imprudent one, as it
+seemed, he fastened the door communicating with the lower apartments upon
+the inside. He had hardly done this, when he heard a step traversing the
+stable-yard, which lay under the window of his apartment. He looked out,
+and saw Merton walking hurriedly across, and into a stable at the
+farther end.
+
+Feeling no very particular curiosity about his movements, the man hurried
+back to his bed. Merton's eccentric conduct of late had become so
+generally remarked and discussed among the servants, that Sir Wynston's
+man was by no means surprised at the oddity of the visit he had just had;
+nor, after the first few moments of doubt, before the appearance of blood
+had been accounted for, had he entertained any suspicions whatever
+connected with the man's unexpected presence in the room. Merton was in
+the habit of coming up every night to take down Sir Wynston's boots,
+whenever the baronet had ridden in the course of the day; and this
+attention had been civilly undertaken as a proof of good-will toward the
+valet, whose duty this somewhat soiling and ungentlemanlike process would
+otherwise have been. So far, the nature of the visit was explained; and
+the remembrance of the friendly feeling and good offices which had been
+mutually interchanged, as well as of the inoffensive habits for which
+Merton had earned a character for himself, speedily calmed the
+uneasiness, for a moment amounting to actual alarm, with which the
+servant had regarded his appearance.
+
+We must now pass on to the morrow, and ask the reader's attention for a
+few moments to a different scene.
+
+In contact with Gray Forest upon the northern side, and divided by a
+common boundary, lay a demesne, in many respects presenting a very
+striking contrast to its grander neighbor. It was a comparatively modern
+place. It could not boast the towering timber which enriched and
+overshadowed the vast and varied expanse of its aristocratic rival; but,
+if it was inferior in the advantages of antiquity, and, perhaps, also in
+some of those of nature, its superiority in other respects was
+striking, and important. Gray Forest was not more remarkable for its
+wild and neglected condition, than was Newton Park for the care and
+elegance with which it was kept. No one could observe the contrast,
+without, at the same time, divining its cause. The proprietor of the one
+was a man of wealth, fully commensurate with the extent and pretensions
+of the residence he had chosen; the owner of the other was a man of
+broken fortunes.
+
+Under a green shade, which nearly met above, a very young man, scarcely
+one-and-twenty, of a frank and sensible, rather than a strictly
+handsome countenance, was walking, followed by half a dozen dogs of as
+many breeds and sizes. This young man was George Mervyn, the only son
+of the present proprietor of the place. As he approached the great
+gate, the clank of a horse's hoofs in quick motion upon the sequestered
+road which ran outside it, reached him; and hardly had he heard these
+sounds, when a young gentleman rode briskly by, directing his look into
+the demesne as he passed. He had no sooner seen him, than wheeling his
+horse about, he rode up to the iron gate, and dismounting, threw it
+open, and let his horse in.
+
+"Ha! Charles Marston, I protest!" said the young man, quickening his pace
+to meet his friend. "Marston, my dear fellow," he called aloud, "how glad
+I am to see you."
+
+There was another entrance into Newton Park, opening from the same road,
+about half a mile further on; and Charles Marston made his way lie
+through this. Thus the young people walked on, talking of a hundred
+things as they proceeded, in the mirth of their hearts.
+
+Between the fathers of the two young men, who thus walked so
+affectionately together, there subsisted unhappily no friendly feelings.
+There had been several slight disagreements between them, touching their
+proprietary rights, and one of these had ripened into a formal and
+somewhat expensive litigation, respecting a certain right of fishing
+claimed by each. This legal encounter had terminated in the defeat of
+Marston. Mervyn, however, promptly wrote to his opponent, offering him
+the free use of the waters for which they had thus sharply contested, and
+received a curt and scarcely civil reply, declining the proposed
+courtesy. This exhibition of resentment on Marston's part had been
+followed by some rather angry collisions, where chance or duty happened
+to throw them together. It is but justice to say that, upon all such
+occasions, Marston was the aggressor. But Mervyn was a somewhat testy old
+gentleman, and had a certain pride of his own, which was not to be
+trifled with. Thus, though near neighbors, the parents of the young
+friends were more than strangers to each other. On Mervyn's side,
+however, this estrangement was unalloyed with bitterness, and simply of
+that kind which the great moralist would have referred to "defensive
+pride." It did not include any member of Marston's family, and Charles,
+as often as he desired it, which was, in truth, as often as his visits
+could escape the special notice of his father, was a welcome guest at
+Newton Park.
+
+These details respecting the mutual relation in which the two families
+stood, it was necessary to state, for the purpose of making what follows
+perfectly clear. The young people had now reached the further gate, at
+which they were to part. Charles Marston, with a heart beating happily in
+the anticipation of many a pleasant meeting, bid him farewell for the
+present, and in a few minutes more was riding up the broad, straight
+avenue, towards the gloomy mansion which closed in the hazy and somber
+perspective. As he moved onward, he passed a laborer, with whose face,
+from his childhood, he had been familiar.
+
+"How do you do, Tom?" he cried.
+
+"At your service, sir," replied the man, uncovering, "and welcome
+home, sir."
+
+There was something dark and anxious in the man's looks, which
+ill-accorded with the welcome he spoke, and which suggested some
+undefined alarm.
+
+"The master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--are all well?" he asked
+eagerly.
+
+"All well, sir, thank God," replied the man.
+
+Young Marston spurred on, filled with vague apprehensions, and observing
+the man still leaning upon his spade, and watching his progress with the
+same gloomy and curious eye.
+
+At the hall-door he met with one of the servants, booted and spurred.
+
+"Well, Daly," he said, as he dismounted, "how are all at home?"
+
+This man, like the former, met his smile with a troubled countenance, and
+stammered--
+
+"All, sir--that is, the master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--quite well,
+sir; but--"
+
+"Well, well," said Charles, eagerly, "speak on--what is it?"
+
+"Bad work, sir," replied the man, lowering his voice. "I am going off
+this minute for--"
+
+"For what?" urged the young gentleman.
+
+"Why, sir, for the coroner," replied he.
+
+"The coroner--the coroner! Why, good God, what has happened?" cried
+Charles, aghast with horror.
+
+"Sir Wynston," commenced the man, and hesitated.
+
+"Well?" pursued Charles, pale and breathless.
+
+"Sir Wynston--he--it is he," said the man.
+
+"He? Sir Wynston? Is he dead, or who is?--Who is dead?" demanded the
+young man, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sir Wynston, sir; it is he that is dead. There is bad work, sir--very
+bad, I'm afraid," replied the man.
+
+Charles did not wait to inquire further, but, with a feeling of mingled
+horror and curiosity, entered the house.
+
+He hurried up the stairs, and entered his mother's sitting room. She was
+there, perfectly alone, and so deadly pale, that she scarcely looked like
+a living being. In an instant they were locked in one another's arms.
+
+"Mother--my dear mother, you are ill," said the young man, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, no, no, dear Charles, but frightened, horrified;" and as she said
+this, the poor lady burst into tears.
+
+"What is this horrible affair? Something about Sir Wynston. He is dead, I
+know, but is it--is it suicide?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, no, not suicide," said Mrs. Marston, greatly agitated.
+
+"Good God! Then he is murdered," whispered the young man, growing
+very pale.
+
+"Yes, Charles--horrible--dreadful! I can scarcely believe it," replied
+she, shuddering while she wept.
+
+"Where is my father?" inquired the young man, after a pause.
+
+"Why, why, Charles, darling--why do you ask for him?" she said, wildly,
+grasping him by the arm, as she looked into his face with a terrified
+expression.
+
+"Why--why, he could tell me the particulars of this horrible
+tragedy," answered he, meeting her agonized look with one of alarm
+and surprise, "as far as they have been as yet collected. How is he,
+mother--is he well?"
+
+"Oh, yes, quite well, thank God," she answered, more collectedly--"quite
+well, but, of course, greatly, dreadfully shocked."
+
+"I will go to him, mother; I will see him," said he, turning
+towards the door.
+
+"He has been wretchedly depressed and excited for some days," said Mrs.
+Marston, dejectedly, "and this dreadful occurrence will, I fear, affect
+him most deplorably."
+
+The young man kissed her tenderly and affectionately, and hurried down to
+the library, where his father usually sat when he desired to be alone, or
+was engaged in business. He opened the door softly. His father was
+standing at one of the windows, his face haggard as from a night's
+watching, unkempt and unshorn, and with his hands thrust into his
+pockets. At the sound of the revolving door he started, and seeing his
+son, first recoiled a little, with a strange, doubtful expression, and
+then rallying, walked quickly towards him with a smile, which had in it
+something still more painful.
+
+"Charles, I am glad to see you," he said, shaking him with an agitated
+pressure by both hands, "Charles, this is a great calamity, and what
+makes it still worse, is that the murderer has escaped; it looks badly,
+you know."
+
+He fixed his gaze for a few moments upon his son, turned abruptly, and
+walked a little way into the room then, in a disconcerted manner, he
+added, hastily turning back--
+
+"Not that it signifies to us, of course--but I would fain have justice
+satisfied."
+
+"And who is the wretch--the murderer?" inquired Charles.
+
+"Who? Why, everyone knows!--that scoundrel, Merton," answered Marston, in
+an irritated tone--"Merton murdered him in his bed, and fled last night;
+he is gone--escaped--and I suspect Sir Wynston's man of being an
+accessory."
+
+"Which was Sir Wynston's bedroom?" asked the young man.
+
+"The room that old Lady Mostyn had--the room with the portrait of Grace
+Hamilton in it."
+
+"I know--I know," said the young man, much excited. "I should wish
+to see it."
+
+"Stay," said Marston; "the door from the passage is bolted on the inside,
+and I have locked the other; here is the key, if you choose to go, but
+you must bring Hughes with you, and do not disturb anything; leave all as
+it is; the jury ought to see, and examine for themselves."
+
+Charles took the key, and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he made
+his way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room,
+which, as we have said, intervened between the valet's chamber and Sir
+Wynston's. After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key in the
+door, and stood.
+
+"In the dark chamber of white death."
+
+The shutters lay partly open, as the valet had left them some hours
+before, on making the astounding discovery, which the partially admitted
+light revealed. The corpse lay in the silk-embroidered dressing gown, and
+other habiliments, which Sir Wynston had worn, while taking his ease in
+his chamber, on the preceding night. The coverlet was partially dragged
+over it. The mouth was gaping, and filled with clotted blood; a wide gash
+was also visible in the neck, under the ear; and there was a thickening
+pool of blood at the bedside, and quantities of blood, doubtless from
+other wounds, had saturated the bedclothes under the body. There lay Sir
+Wynston, stiffened in the attitude in which the struggle of death had
+left him, with his stern, stony face, and dim, terrible gaze turned up.
+
+Charles looked breathlessly for more than a minute upon this mute and
+unchanging spectacle, and then silently suffered the curtain to fall back
+again, and stepped, with the light tread of awe, again to the door. There
+he turned back, and pausing for a minute, said, in a whisper, to the
+attendant--
+
+"And Merton did this?"
+
+"Troth, I'm afeard he did, sir," answered the man, gloomily.
+
+"And has made his escape?" continued Charles.
+
+"Yes, sir; he stole away in the night-time," replied the servant, "after
+the murder was done" (and he glanced fearfully toward the bed); "God
+knows where he's gone."
+
+"The villain!" muttered Charles; "but what was his motive? why did he do
+all this--what does it mean?"
+
+"I don't know exactly, sir, but he was very queer for a week and more
+before it," replied the man; "there was something bad over him for a
+long time."
+
+"It is a terrible thing," said Charles, with a profound sigh; "a terrible
+and shocking occurrence."
+
+He hesitated again at the door, but his feelings had sustained a terrible
+revulsion at sight of the corpse, and he was no longer disposed to
+prosecute his purposed examination of the chamber and its contents; with
+a view to conjecturing the probable circumstances of the murder.
+
+"Observe, Hughes, that I have moved nothing in the chamber from the place
+it occupied when we entered," he said to the servant, as they withdrew.
+
+He locked the door, and as he passed through the hall, on his return, he
+encountered his father, and, restoring the key, said--
+
+"I could not stay there; I am almost sorry I have seen it; I am
+overpowered; what a determined, ferocious murder it was; the place is all
+in a pool of gore; he must have received many wounds."
+
+"I can't say; the particulars will be elicited soon enough; those details
+are for the inquest; as for me, I hate such spectacles," said Marston,
+gloomily; "go now, and see your sister; you will find her there."
+
+He pointed to the small room where we have first seen her and her fair
+governess; Charles obeyed the direction, and Marston proceeded himself to
+his wife's sitting room.
+
+The young man, dispirited and horrified by the awful spectacle he had
+just contemplated, hurried to the little study occupied by his sister.
+Marston himself ascended, as we have said, the great staircase leading to
+his wife's private sitting room.
+
+"Mrs. Marston," he said, entering, "this is a hateful occurrence, a
+dreadful thing to have taken place here; I don't mean to affect grief
+which I don't feel; but the thing is very shocking, and particularly so,
+as having occurred under my roof; but that cannot now be helped. I have
+resolved to spare no exertions, and no influence, to bring the assassin
+to justice; and a coroner's jury will, within a few hours, sift the
+evidence which we have succeeded in collecting. But my purpose in seeking
+you now is, to recur to the conversation we yesterday had, respecting a
+member of this establishment."
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras?" suggested the lady.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras," echoed Marston; "I wish to say, that,
+having reconsidered the circumstances affecting her, I am absolutely
+resolved that she shall not continue to be an inmate of this house."
+
+He paused, and Mrs. Marston said--
+
+"Well, Richard, I am sorry, very sorry for it; but your decision shall
+never be disputed by me."
+
+"Of course," said Marston, drily; "and, therefore, the sooner you
+acquaint her with it, and let her know that she must go, the better."
+
+Having said this, he left her, and went to his own chamber, where he
+proceeded to make his toilet with elaborate propriety, in preparation for
+the scene which was about to take place under his roof.
+
+Mrs. Marston, meanwhile, suffered from a horrible uncertainty. She never
+harbored, it is true, one doubt as to her husband's perfect innocence of
+the ghastly crime which filled their house with fear and gloom; but at
+the same time that she thoroughly and indignantly scouted the possibility
+of his, under any circumstances, being accessory to such a crime, she
+experienced a nervous and agonizing anxiety lest anyone else should
+possibly suspect him, however obliquely and faintly, of any participation
+whatever in the foul deed. This vague fear tortured her; it had taken
+possession of her mind; and it was the more acutely painful, because it
+was of a kind which precluded the possibility of her dispelling it, as
+morbid fears so often are dispelled, by taking counsel upon its
+suggestions with a friend.
+
+The day wore on, and strange faces began to fill the great parlor. The
+coroner, accompanied by a physician, had arrived. Several of the gentry
+in the immediate vicinity had been summoned as jurors, and now began to
+arrive in succession. Marston, in a handsome and sober suit, received
+these visitors with a stately and melancholy courtesy, befitting the
+occasion. Mervyn and his son had both been summoned, and, of course, were
+in attendance. There being now a sufficient number to form a jury, they
+were sworn, and immediately proceeded to the chamber where the body of
+the murdered man was lying.
+
+Marston accompanied them, and with a pale and stern countenance, and in a
+clear and subdued tone, called their attention successively to every
+particular detail which he conceived important to be noted. Having thus
+employed some minutes, the jury again returned to the parlor, and the
+examination of the witnesses commenced.
+
+Marston, at his own request, was first sworn and examined. He deposed
+merely to the circumstance of his parting, on the night previous, with
+Sir Wynston, and to the state in which he had seen the room and the body
+in the morning. He mentioned also the fact, that on hearing the alarm in
+the morning, he had hastened from his own chamber to Sir Wynston's, and
+found, on trying to enter, that the door opening upon the passage was
+secured on the inside. This circumstance showed that the murderer must
+have made his egress at least through the valet's chamber, and by the
+back-stairs. Marston's evidence went no further.
+
+The next witness sworn was Edward Smith, the servant of the late Sir
+Wynston Berkley. His evidence was a narrative of the occurrences we have
+already stated. He described the sounds which he had overheard from his
+master's room, the subsequent appearance of Merton, and the conversation
+which had passed between them. He then proceeded to mention, that it was
+his master's custom to have himself called at seven o'clock, at which
+hour he usually took some medicine, which it was the valet's duty to
+bring to him; after which he either settled again to rest, or rose in a
+short time, if unable to sleep. Having measured and prepared the dose in
+the dressing room, the servant went on to say, he had knocked at his
+master's door, and receiving no answer, had entered the room, and partly
+unclosed the shutters. He perceived the blood on the carpet, and on
+opening the curtains, saw his master lying with his mouth and eyes open,
+perfectly dead, and weltering in gore. He had stretched out his hand, and
+seized that of the dead man, which was quite stiff and cold; then, losing
+heart, he had run to the door communicating with the passage, but found
+it locked, and turned to the other entrance, and ran down the
+back-stairs, crying "murder." Mr. Hughes, the butler, and James Carney,
+another servant, came immediately, and they all three went back into the
+room. The key was in the outer door, upon the inside, but they did not
+unlock it until they had viewed the body. There was a great pool of blood
+in the bed, and in it was lying a red-handled case knife, which was
+produced, and identified by the witness. Just then they heard Mr. Marston
+calling for admission, and they opened the door with some difficulty, for
+the lock was rusty. Mr. Marston had ordered them to leave the things as
+they were, and had used very stern language to the witness. They had then
+left the room, securing both doors.
+
+This witness underwent a severe and searching examination, but his
+evidence was clear and consistent.
+
+In conclusion, Marston produced a dagger, which was stained with blood,
+and asked the man whether he recognized it.
+
+Smith at once stated this to have been the property of his late master,
+who, when traveling, carried it, together with his pistols, along with
+him. Since his arrival at Gray Forest, it had lain upon the
+chimney-piece in his bedroom, where he believed it to have been upon the
+previous night.
+
+James Carney, one of Marston's servants, was next sworn and examined. He
+had, he said, observed a strange and unaccountable agitation and
+depression in Merton's manner for some days past; he had also been
+several times disturbed at night by his talking aloud to himself, and
+walking to and fro in his room. Their bedrooms were separated by a thin
+partition, in which was a window, through which Carney had, on the night
+of the murder, observed a light in Merton's room, and, on looking in, had
+seen him dressing hastily. He also saw him twice take up, and again lay
+down, the red-hafted knife which had been found in the bed of the
+murdered man. He knew it by the handle being broken near the end. He had
+no suspicion of Merton having any mischievous intentions, and lay down
+again to rest. He afterwards heard him pass out of his room, and go
+slowly up the back-stairs leading to the upper story. Shortly after this
+he had fallen asleep, and did not hear or see him return. He then
+described, as Smith had already done, the scene which presented itself in
+the morning, on his accompanying him into Sir Wynston's bedchamber.
+
+The next witness examined was a little Irish boy, who described himself
+as "a poor scholar." His testimony was somewhat singular. He deposed that
+he had come to the house on the preceding evening, and had been given
+some supper, and was afterwards permitted to sleep among the hay in one
+of the lofts. He had, however, discovered what he considered a snugger
+berth. This was an unused stable, in the further end of which lay a
+quantity of hay. Among this he had lain down, and gone to sleep. He was,
+however, awakened in the course of the night by the entrance of a man,
+whom he saw with perfect distinctness in the moonlight, and his
+description of his dress and appearance tallied exactly with those of
+Merton. This man occupied himself for sometime in washing his hands and
+face in a stable bucket, which happened to stand by the door; and, during
+the whole of this process, he continued to moan and mutter, like one in
+woeful perturbation. He said, distinctly, twice or thrice, "by ----, I am
+done for;" and every now and then he muttered, "and nothing for it, after
+all." When he had done washing his hands, he took something from his
+coat-pocket, and looked at it, shaking his head; at this time he was
+standing with his back turned toward the boy, so that he could not see
+what this object might be. The man, however, put it into his breast, and
+then began to search hurriedly, as it seemed, for some hiding place for
+it. After looking at the pavement, and poking at the chinks of the wall,
+he suddenly went to the window, and forced up the stone which formed the
+sill. Under this he threw the object which the boy had seen him examine
+with so much perplexity, and then he readjusted the stone, and removed
+the evidences of its having been recently stirred. The boy was a little
+frightened, but very curious about all that he saw; and when the man left
+the stable in which he lay, he got up, and following to the door, peeped
+after him. He saw him putting on an outside-coat and hat, near the yard
+gate; and then, with great caution, unbolt the wicket, constantly looking
+back towards the house, and so let himself out. The boy was uneasy, and
+sat in the hay, wide-awake, until morning. He then told the servants what
+he had seen, and one of the men having raised the stone, which he had not
+strength to lift, they found the dagger, which Smith had identified as
+belonging to his master. This weapon was stained with blood; and some
+hair, which was found to correspond in color with Sir Wynston's, was
+sticking in the crevice between the blade and the handle.
+
+"It appears very strange that one man should have employed two
+distinct instruments of this kind," observed Mervyn, after a pause. A
+silence followed.
+
+"Yes, strange; it does seem strange," said Marston, clearing his voice.
+
+"Yet, it is clear," said another of the jury, "that the same hand did
+employ them. It is proved that the knife was in Merton's possession just
+as he left his chamber; and proved, also, that the dagger was secreted by
+him after he quitted the house."
+
+"Yes," said Marston, with a grisly sort of smile, and glancing
+sarcastically at Mervyn, while he addressed the last speaker--"I thank
+you for recalling my attention to the facts. It certainly is not a very
+pleasant suggestion, that there still remains within my household an
+undetected murderer."
+
+Mervyn ruminated for a time, and said he should wish to put a few more
+questions to Smith and Carney. They were accordingly recalled, and
+examined in great detail, with a view to ascertain whether any indication
+of the presence of a second person having visited the chamber with Merton
+was discoverable. Nothing, however, appeared, except that the valet
+mentioned the noise and the exclamations which he had indistinctly heard.
+
+"You did not mention that before, sir," said Marston, sharply.
+
+"I did not think of it, sir," replied the man, "the gentlemen were asking
+me so many questions; but I told you, sir, about it in the morning."
+
+"Oh, ah--yes, yes--I believe you did," said Marston; "but you then said
+that Sir Wynston often talked when he was alone; eh, sir?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and so he used, which was the reason I did not go into the
+room when I heard it," replied the man.
+
+"How long afterwards was it when you saw Merton in your own room?"
+asked Mervyn.
+
+"I could not say, sir," answered Smith; "I was soon asleep, and can't say
+how long I slept before he came."
+
+"Was it an hour?" pursued Mervyn.
+
+"I can't say," said the man, doubtfully.
+
+"Was it five hours?" asked Marston.
+
+"No, Sir; I am sure it was not five."
+
+"Could you swear it was more than half-an-hour?" persisted Marston.
+
+"No, I could not swear that," answered he.
+
+"I am afraid, Mr. Mervyn; you have found a mare's nest," said Marston,
+contemptuously.
+
+"I have done my duty, sir," retorted Mervyn, cynically; "which plainly
+requires that I shall have no doubt, which the evidence of the witness
+can clear up, unsifted and unsatisfied. I happened to think it of some
+moment to ascertain, if possible, whether more persons than one were
+engaged in this atrocious murder. You don't seem to think the question so
+important a one; different men, sir, take different views."
+
+"Views, sir, in matters of this sort, especially where they tend to
+multiply suspicions, and to implicate others, ought to be supported by
+something more substantial than mere fancies," retorted Marston.
+
+"I don't know what you call fancies," replied Mervyn, testily; "but here
+are two deadly weapons, a knife and a dagger, each, it would seem,
+employed in doing this murder; if you see nothing odd in that, I can't
+enable you to do so."
+
+"Well, sir," said Marston, grimly, "the whole thing is, as you term it,
+odd; and I can see no object in your picking out this particular
+singularity for long-winded criticism, except to cast scandal upon my
+household, by leaving a hideous and vague imputation floating among the
+members of it. Sir, sir, this is a foul way," he cried, sternly, "to
+gratify a paltry spite."
+
+"Mr. Marston," said Mervyn, rising, and thrusting his hands into his
+pockets, while he confronted him to the full as sternly, "the country
+knows in which of our hearts the spite, if any there be between us, is
+harbored. I owe you no friendship, but, sir, I cherish no malice, either;
+and against the worst enemy I have on earth I am incapable of perverting
+an opportunity like this, and inflicting pain, under the pretence of
+discharging a duty."
+
+Marston was on the point of retorting, but the coroner interposed, and
+besought them to confine their attention strictly to the solemn inquiry
+which they were summoned together to prosecute.
+
+There remained still to be examined the surgeon who had accompanied the
+coroner, for the purpose of reporting upon the extent and nature of
+the injuries discoverable upon the person of the deceased. He,
+accordingly, deposed, that having examined the body, he found no less
+than three deep wounds, inflicted with some sharp instrument; two of them
+had actually penetrated the heart, and were, of course, supposed to cause
+instant death. Besides these, there were two contusions, one upon the
+back of the head, the other upon the forehead, with a slight abrasion of
+the eyebrow. There was a large lock of hair torn out by the roots at the
+front of the head, and the palm and fingers of the right hand were cut.
+This evidence having been taken, the jury once more repaired to the
+chamber where the body lay, and proceeded with much minuteness to examine
+the room, with a view to ascertain, if possible, more particularly the
+exact circumstances of the murder.
+
+The result of this elaborate scrutiny was as follows:--The deceased,
+they conjectured, had fallen asleep in his easy chair, and, while he was
+unconscious, the murderer had stolen into the room, and, before attacking
+his victim, had secured the bedroom-door upon the inside. This was argued
+from the non-discovery of blood upon the handle, or any other part of the
+door. It was supposed that he had then approached Sir Wynston, with the
+view either of robbing, or of murdering him while he slept, and that the
+deceased had awakened just after he had reached him; that a brief and
+desperate struggle had ensued, in which the assailant had struck his
+victim with his fist upon the forehead, and having stunned him, had
+hurriedly clutched him by the hair, and stabbed him with the dagger,
+which lay close by upon the chimneypiece, forcing his head violently
+against the back of the chair. This part of the conjecture was supported
+by the circumstance of there being discovered a lock of hair upon the
+ground at the spot, and a good deal of blood. The carpet, too, was
+tumbled, and a water-decanter, which had stood upon the table close by,
+was lying in fragments upon the floor. It was supposed that the murderer
+had then dragged the half-lifeless body to the bed, where, having
+substituted the knife, which he had probably brought to the room in the
+same pocket from which the boy afterwards saw him take the dagger, he
+dispatched him; and either hearing some alarm--perhaps the movement of
+the valet in the adjoining room, or from some other cause--he dropped
+the knife in the bed, and was not able to find it again. The wounds upon
+the hand of the dead man indicated his having caught and struggled to
+hold the blade of the weapon with which he was assailed. The impression
+of a bloody hand thrust under the bolster, where it was Sir Wynston's
+habit to place his purse and watch, when making his arrangements for the
+night, supplied the motive of this otherwise unaccountable atrocity.
+
+After some brief consultation, the jury agreed upon a verdict of willful
+murder against John Merton, a finding of which the coroner expressed his
+entire approbation.
+
+Marston, as a justice of the peace, had informations, embodying the
+principal part of the evidence given before the coroner, sworn against
+Merton, and transmitted a copy of them to the Home Office. A reward for
+the apprehension of the culprit was forthwith offered, but for some
+months without effect.
+
+Marston had, in the interval, written to several of Sir Wynston's many
+relations, announcing the catastrophe, and requesting that steps might
+immediately be taken to have the body removed. Meanwhile undertakers were
+busy in the chamber of death. The corpse was enclosed in lead, and that
+again in cedar, and a great oak shell, covered with crimson cloth and
+goldheaded nails, and with a gilt plate, recording the age, title, &c.
+&c., of the deceased, was screwed down firmly over all.
+
+Nearly a fortnight elapsed before any reply to Marston's letters was
+received. A short epistle at last arrived from Lord H----, the late Sir
+Wynston's uncle, deeply regretting the "sad and inexplicable occurrence,"
+and adding, that the will, which, on receipt of the "distressing
+intelligence," was immediately opened and read, contained no direction
+whatever respecting the sepulture of the deceased, which had therefore
+better be completed as modestly and expeditiously as possible, in the
+neighborhood; and, in conclusion, he directed that the accounts of the
+undertakers, &c., employed upon the melancholy occasion, might be sent in
+to Mr. Skelton, who had kindly undertaken to leave London without any
+delay, for the purpose of completing these last arrangements, and who
+would, in any matter of business connected with the deceased, represent
+him, Lord H----, as executor of the late baronet.
+
+This letter was followed, in a day or two, by the arrival of Skelton, a
+well-dressed, languid, impertinent London tuft-hunter, a good deal faded,
+with a somewhat sallow and puffy face, charged with a pleasant
+combination at once of meanness, insolence, and sensuality--just such a
+person as Sir Wynston's parasite might have been expected to prove.
+
+However well disposed to impress the natives with high notions of his
+extraordinary refinement and importance, he very soon discovered that, in
+Marston, he had stumbled upon a man of the world, and one thoroughly
+versed in the ways and characters of London life. After some ineffectual
+attempts, therefore, to overawe and astonish his host, Mr. Skelton became
+aware of the fruitlessness of the effort, and condescended to abate
+somewhat of his pretensions. Marston could not avoid inviting this
+person to pass the night at his house, an invitation which was accepted,
+of course; and next morning, after a late breakfast, Mr. Skelton
+observed, with a yawn--"And now, about this body--poor Berkley!--what do
+you propose to do with him?"
+
+"I have no proposition to make," said Marston, drily. "It is no affair of
+mine, except that the body may be removed without more delay. I have no
+suggestion to offer."
+
+"H----'s notion was to have him buried as near the spot as may be,"
+said Skelton.
+
+Marston nodded.
+
+"There is a kind of vault, is not there, in the demesne, a family
+burial-place?" inquired the visitor.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Marston, curtly.
+
+"Well?" drawled Skelton.
+
+"Well, sir, what then?" responded Marston.
+
+"Why, as the wish of the parties is to have him buried--poor fellow!--as
+quietly as possible, I think he might just as well be laid there as
+anywhere else!"
+
+"Had I desired it, Mr. Skelton, I should myself have made the offer,"
+said Marston, abruptly.
+
+"Then you don't wish it?" said Skelton.
+
+"No, sir; certainly not--most peremptorily not," answered Marston, with
+more sharpness than, in his early days, he would have thought quite
+consistent with politeness.
+
+"Perhaps," replied Skelton, for want of something better to say, and with
+a callous sort of levity; "perhaps you hold the idea--some people
+do--that murdered men can't rest in their graves until their murderers
+have expiated their guilt?"
+
+Marston made no reply, but shot two or three lurid glances from under his
+brow at the speaker.
+
+"Well, then, at all events," continued Skelton, indolently resuming his
+theme, "if you decline your assistance, may I, at least, hope for your
+advice? Knowing nothing of this country, I would ask you whither you
+would recommend me to have the body conveyed?"
+
+"I don't care to advise in the matter," said Marston; "but if I were
+directing, I should have the remains buried in Chester. It is not more
+than twenty miles from this; and if, at any future time, his family
+should desire to remove the body, it could be effected more easily from
+thence. But you can decide."
+
+"Egad! I believe you are right," said Skelton, glad to be relieved of the
+trouble of thinking about the matter; "and I shall take your advice."
+
+In accordance with this declaration the body was, within four-and-twenty
+hours, removed to Chester, and buried there, Mr. Skelton attending on
+behalf of Sir Wynston's numerous and afflicted friends and relatives.
+
+There are certain heartaches for which time brings no healing; nay,
+which grow but the sorer and fiercer as days and years roll on; of this
+kind, perhaps, were the stern and bitter feelings which now darkened the
+face of Marston with an almost perpetual gloom. His habits became even
+more unsocial than before. The society of his son he no longer seemed to
+enjoy. Long and solitary rambles in his wild and extensive demesne
+consumed the listless hours or his waking existence; and when the
+weather prevented this, he shut himself up, upon pretence of business,
+in his study.
+
+He had not, since the occasion we have already mentioned, referred to the
+intended departure of Mademoiselle de Barras. Truth to say, his feelings
+with respect to that young lady were of a conflicting and mysterious
+kind; and as often as his dark thoughts wandered to her (which, indeed,
+was frequently enough), his muttered exclamation seemed to imply some
+painful and horrible suspicions respecting her.
+
+"Yes," he would mutter, "I thought I heard your light foot upon the
+lobby, on that accursed night. Fancy! Well, it may have been, but
+assuredly a strange fancy. I cannot comprehend that woman. She baffles my
+scrutiny. I have looked into her face with an eye she might well
+understand, were it indeed as I sometimes suspect, and she has been calm
+and unmoved. I have watched and studied her; still--doubt, doubt, hideous
+doubt!--is she what she seems, or--a tigress?"
+
+Mrs. Marston, on the other hand, procrastinated from day to day the
+painful task of announcing to Mademoiselle de Barras the stern message
+with which she had been charged by her husband. And thus several weeks
+had passed, and she began to think that his silence upon the subject,
+notwithstanding his seeing the young French lady at breakfast every
+morning, amounted to a kind of tacit intimation that the sentence of
+banishment was not to be carried into immediate execution, but to be kept
+suspended over the unconscious offender.
+
+It was now six or eight weeks since the hearse carrying away the remains
+of the ill-fated Sir Wynston Berkley had driven down the dusky avenue;
+the autumn was deepening into winter, and as Marston gloomily trod the
+woods of Gray Forest, the withered leaves whirled drearily along his
+pathway, and the gusts that swayed the mighty branches above him were
+rude and ungenial. It was a bleak and somber day, and as he broke into a
+long and picturesque vista, deep among the most sequestered woods, he
+suddenly saw before him, and scarcely twenty paces from the spot on which
+he stood, an apparition, which for some moments absolutely froze him to
+the earth.
+
+Travel-soiled, tattered, pale, and wasted, John Merton, the murderer,
+stood before him. He did not exhibit the smallest disposition to turn
+about and make his escape. On the contrary, he remained perfectly
+motionless, looking upon his former master with a wild and sorrowful
+gaze. Marston twice or thrice essayed to speak; his face was white as
+death, and had he beheld the specter of the murdered baronet himself, he
+could not have met the sight with a countenance of ghastlier horror.
+
+"Take me, sir," said Merton, doggedly.
+
+Still Marston did not stir.
+
+"Arrest me, sir, in God's name! here I am," he repeated, dropping his
+arms by his side; "I'll go with you wherever you tell me."
+
+"Murderer!" cried Marston, with a sudden burst of furious horror,
+"murderer--assassin--miscreant--take that!"
+
+And, as he spoke, he discharged one of the pistols he always carried
+about him full at the wretched man. The shot did not take effect, and
+Merton made no other gesture but to clasp his hands together, with an
+agonized pressure, while his head sunk upon his breast.
+
+"Shoot me; shoot me," he said hoarsely; "kill me like a dog: better for
+me to be dead than what I am."
+
+The report of Marston's pistol had, however, reached another ear; and its
+ringing echoes had hardly ceased to vibrate among the trees, when a stern
+shout was heard not fifty yards away, and, breathless and amazed, Charles
+Marston sprang to the place. His father looked from Merton to him, and
+from him again to Merton, with a guilty and stupefied scowl, still
+holding the smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+"What--how! Good God--Merton!" ejaculated Charles.
+
+"Aye, sir, Merton; ready to go to gaol, or wherever you will," said the
+man, recklessly.
+
+"A murderer; a madman; don't believe him," muttered Marston, scarce
+audibly, with lips as white as wax.
+
+"Do you surrender yourself, Merton?" demanded the young man, sternly,
+advancing toward him.
+
+"Yes, sir; I desire nothing more; God knows I wish to die," responded he,
+despairingly, and advancing slowly to meet Charles.
+
+"Come, then," said young Marston, seizing him by the collar, "come
+quietly to the house. Guilty and unhappy man, you are now my prisoner,
+and, depend upon it, I shall not let you go."
+
+"I don't want to go, I tell you, sir. I have traveled fifteen miles
+today, to come here and give myself up to the master."
+
+"Accursed madman," said Marston unconsciously, gazing at the prisoner;
+and then suddenly rousing himself, he said, "Well, miscreant, you wish to
+die, and, by ----, you are in a fair way to have your wish."
+
+"So best," said the man, doggedly. "I don't want to live; I wish I was in
+my grave; I wish I was dead a year ago."
+
+Some fifteen minutes afterwards, Merton, accompanied by Marston and his
+son Charles, entered the hall of the mansion which, not ten weeks
+before, he had quitted under circumstances so guilty and terrible. When
+they reached the house, Merton seemed much agitated, and wept bitterly
+on seeing two or three of his former fellow servants, who looked on him
+in silence as they passed, with a gloomy and fearful curiosity. These,
+too, were succeeded by others, peeping and whispering, and upon one
+pretence or another crossing and re-crossing the hall, and stealing
+hurried glances at the criminal. Merton sate with his face buried in his
+hands, sobbing, and taking no note of the humiliating scrutiny of which
+he was the subject. Meanwhile Marston, pale and agitated, made out his
+committal, and having sworn in several of his laborers and servants as
+special constables, dispatched the prisoner in their charge to the
+county gaol, where, under lock and key, we leave him in safe custody for
+the present.
+
+After this event Marston became excited and restless. He scarcely ate or
+slept, and his health seemed now as much scattered as his spirits had
+been before. One day he glided into the room in which, as we have said,
+it was Mrs. Marston's habit frequently to sit alone. His wife was there,
+and, as he entered, she uttered an exclamation of doubtful joy and
+surprise. He sate down near her in silence, and for some time looked
+gloomily on the ground. She did not care to question him, and anxiously
+waited until he should open the conversation. At length he raised his
+eyes, and, looking full at her, asked abruptly--"Well, what about
+mademoiselle?"
+
+Mrs. Marston was embarrassed, and hesitated.
+
+"I told you what I wished with respect to that young lady some time ago,
+and commissioned you to acquaint her with my pleasure; and yet I find her
+still here, and apparently as much established as ever."
+
+Again Mrs. Marston hesitated. She scarcely knew how to confess to him
+that she had not conveyed his message.
+
+"Don't suppose, Gertrude, that I wish to find fault. I merely wanted to
+know whether you had told Mademoiselle de Barras that we were agreed as
+to the necessity or expediency, or what you please, of dispensing
+henceforward with her services, I perceive by your manner that you have
+not done so. I have no doubt your motive was a kind one, but my decision
+remains unaltered; and I now assure you again that I wish you to speak to
+her; I wish you explicitly to let her know my wishes and yours."
+
+"Not mine, Richard," she answered faintly.
+
+"Well, mine, then," he replied, roughly; "we shan't quarrel about that."
+
+"And when--how soon--do you wish me to speak to her on this, to both of
+us, most painful subject?" asked she, with a sigh.
+
+"Today--this hour--this minute, if you can; in short the sooner the
+better," he replied, rising. "I see no reason for holding it back any
+longer. I am sorry my wishes were not complied with immediately. Pray,
+let there be no further hesitation or delay. I shall expect to learn this
+evening that all is arranged."
+
+Marston having thus spoken, left her abruptly, went down to his study
+with a swift step, shut himself in, and throwing himself into a great
+chair, gave a loose to his agitation, which was extreme.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Marston had sent for Mademoiselle de Barras, anxious to
+get through her painful task as speedily as possible. The fair French
+girl quickly presented herself.
+
+"Sit down, mademoiselle," said Mrs. Marston, taking her hand kindly, and
+drawing her to the prie-dieu chair beside herself.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras sate down, and, as she did so, read the
+countenance of her patroness with one rapid glance of her flashing eyes.
+These eyes, however, when Mrs. Marston looked at her the next moment,
+were sunk softly and sadly upon the floor. There was a heightened color,
+however, in her cheek, and a quicker heaving of her bosom, which
+indicated the excitement of an anticipated and painful disclosure. The
+outward contrast of the two women, whose hands were so lovingly locked
+together, was almost as striking as the moral contrast of their hearts.
+The one, so chastened, sad, and gentle; the other, so capable of pride
+and passion; so darkly excitable, and yet so mysteriously beautiful. The
+one, like a Niobe seen in the softest moonshine; the other, a Venus,
+lighted in the glare of distant conflagration.
+
+"Mademoiselle, dear mademoiselle, I am so much grieved at what I have to
+say, that I hardly know how to speak to you," said poor Mrs. Marston,
+pressing her hand; "but Mr. Marston has twice desired me to tell you,
+what you will hear with far less pain than it costs me to say it."
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras stole another flashing glance at her companion,
+but did not speak.
+
+"Mr. Marston still persists, mademoiselle, in desiring that we
+shall part."
+
+"Est-il possible?" cried the Frenchwoman, with a genuine start.
+
+"Indeed, mademoiselle, you may well be surprised," said Mrs. Marston,
+encountering her full and dilated gaze, which, however, dropped again in
+a moment to the ground. "You may, indeed, naturally be surprised and
+shocked at this, to me, most severe decision."
+
+"When did he speak last of it?" said she, rapidly.
+
+"But a few moments since," answered Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Ha," said mademoiselle, and remained silent and motionless for more
+than a minute.
+
+"Madame," she cried at last, mournfully, "I suppose, then, I must go; but
+it tears my heart to leave you and dear Miss Rhoda. I would be very happy
+if, before departing, you would permit me, dear madame, once more to
+assure Mr. Marston of my innocence, and, in his presence, to call heaven
+to witness how unjust are all his suspicions."
+
+"Do so, mademoiselle, and I will add my earnest assurances again; though,
+heaven knows," she said, despondingly, "I anticipate little success; but
+it is well to leave no chance untried."
+
+Marston was sitting, as we have said, in his library. His agitation had
+given place to a listless gloom, and he leaned back in his chair, his
+head supported by his hand, and undisturbed, except by the occasional
+fall of the embers upon the hearth. There was a knock at the chamber
+door. His back was towards it, and, without turning or moving, he called
+to the applicant to enter. The door opened--closed again: a light tread
+was audible--a tall shadow darkened the wall: Marston looked round, and
+Mademoiselle de Barras was standing before him. Without knowing how or
+why, he rose, and stood gazing upon her in silence.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras!" he said, at last, in a tone of cold surprise.
+
+"Yes, poor Mademoiselle de Barras," replied the sweet voice of the
+young Frenchwoman, while her lips hardly moved as the melancholy tones
+passed them.
+
+"Well, mademoiselle, what do you desire?" he asked, in the same cold
+accents, and averting his eyes.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, do you ask?--can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not
+sent me a message, a cruel, cruel message?"
+
+She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room
+could hardly have heard her words.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message," he replied,
+doggedly. "A cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you
+reflect upon your own conduct, and the circumstances which have provoked
+the measures I have taken."
+
+"What have I done, Monsieur?--what circumstances do you mean?" asked she,
+plaintively.
+
+"What have you done! A pretty question, truly. Ha, ha!" he repeated,
+bitterly, and then added, with suppressed vehemence, "ask your own heart,
+mademoiselle."
+
+"I have asked, I do ask, and my heart answers--nothing," she replied,
+raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.
+
+"It lies, then," he retorted, with a fierce scoff.
+
+"Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully," she said,
+earnestly, clasping her hands together.
+
+"Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, mademoiselle?" retorted
+Marston, with a sneer.
+
+"I don't know--I don't care. I only know that I am innocent," continued
+she, piteously. "I call heaven to witness you have wronged me."
+
+"Wronged you!--why, after all, with what have I charged you?" said he,
+scoffingly; "but let that pass. I have formed my opinions, arrived at my
+conclusions. If I have not named them broadly, you at least seem to
+understand their nature thoroughly. I know the world. I am no novice in
+the arts of women, mademoiselle. Reserve your vows and attestations for
+schoolboys and simpletons; they are sadly thrown away upon me."
+
+Marston paced to and fro, with his hands thrust into his pockets, as he
+thus spoke.
+
+"Then you don't, or rather you will not believe what I tell you?" said
+she, imploringly. "No," he answered, drily and slowly, as he passed her.
+"I don't, and I won't (as you say) believe one word of it; so, pray spare
+yourself further trouble about the matter."
+
+She raised her head, and darted after him a glance that seemed absolutely
+to blaze, and at the same time smote her little hand fast clenched upon
+her breast. The words, however, that trembled on her pale lips were not
+uttered; her eyes were again cast down, and her fingers played with the
+little locket that hung round her neck.
+
+"I must make, before I go," she said, with a deep sigh and a melancholy
+voice, "one confidence--one last confidence: judge me by it. You cannot
+choose but believe me now: it is a secret, and it must even here be
+whispered, whispered, whispered!"
+
+As she spoke, the color fled from her face, and her tones became so
+strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel, and
+stopped before her. She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his
+eyes. She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for
+a few moments in his ear. He raised his face suddenly: its features were
+sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a
+face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little and a little more, and
+then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately, the chair in which he
+had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse.
+When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of
+anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman's
+countenance. The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had
+sunk upon her full white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed
+struggling in her handsome face, and she stood before him like a
+beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to
+her father confessor.
+
+Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his
+park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back
+entrance. Marston touched his hat, and said--
+
+"I don't stand on forms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive
+ceremony with me. You will find Mrs. Marston at home."
+
+"Nay, my dear sir," interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his
+saddle, "my business lies with you today."
+
+"The devil it does!" said Marston, with discontented surprise.
+
+"Truly it does, sir," repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the
+profanity of Marston's ejaculation, far more than the rudeness of his
+manner, offended him; "and I grieve that your surprise should have
+somewhat carried you away--"
+
+"Well, then, Doctor Danvers," interrupted Marston, drily, and without
+heeding his concluding remark, "if you really have business with me, it
+is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told
+after supper as now. So, pray, go into the house and rest yourself: we
+can talk together in the evening."
+
+"My horse is not tired," said the clergyman, patting his steed's neck;
+"and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and
+as we go, I can say out what I have to tell."
+
+"Well, well, be it so," said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and
+without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off
+upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded
+demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him. They proceeded some
+little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.
+
+"I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man," at length he said.
+
+"What unhappy man? Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?"
+said Marston, sharply.
+
+"No, truly, you have well said," replied Doctor Danvers. "True it is that
+man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of
+your servant, Merton--a most unhappy wretch."
+
+"Ha! you have been with him, you say?" replied Marston, with evident
+interest and anxiety.
+
+"Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely," continued
+the clergyman.
+
+"Humph! I thought that had been the chaplain's business, not yours, my
+good friend," observed Marston.
+
+"He has been unwell," replied Dr. Danvers; "and thus, for a day or two,
+I took his duty, and this poor man, Merton, having known something of me,
+preferred seeing me rather than a stranger; and so, at the chaplain's
+desire and his, I continued my visits."
+
+"Well, and you have taught him to pray and sing psalms, I suppose; and
+what has come of it all?" demanded Marston, testily.
+
+"He does pray, indeed, poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with
+mercy at the throne of grace," said his companion, in his earnestness
+disregarding the sneering tone of his companion. "He is full of
+compunction, and admits his guilt."
+
+"Ho! that is well--well for himself--well for his soul, at least; you are
+sure of it; he confesses; confesses his guilt?"
+
+Marston put his question so rapidly and excitedly, that the clergyman
+looked with a slight expression of surprise; and recovering himself, he
+added, in an unconcerned tone--
+
+"Well, well--it was just as well he did so; the evidence is too clear for
+doubt or mystification; he knew he had no chance, and has taken the
+seemliest course; and, doubtless, the best for his hopes hereafter."
+
+"I did not question him upon the subject," said Doctor Danvers; "I even
+declined to hear him speak upon it at first; but he told me he was
+resolved to offer no defense, and that he saw the finger of God in the
+fate which had overtaken him."
+
+"He will plead guilty, then, I suppose?" suggested Marston, watching the
+countenance of his companion with an anxious and somewhat sinister eye.
+
+"His words seem to imply so much," answered he; "and having thus frankly
+owned his guilt, and avowed his resolution to let the law take its due
+course in his case, without obstruction or evasion, I urged him to
+complete the grand work he had begun, and to confess to you, or to some
+other magistrate fully, and in detail, every circumstance connected with
+the perpetration of the dreadful deed."
+
+Marston knit his brows, and rode on for some minutes in silence. At
+length he said, abruptly--
+
+"In this, it seems to me, sir, you a little exceeded your commission."
+
+"How so, my dear sir?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"Why, sir," answered Marston, "the man may possibly change his mind
+before the day of trial, and it is the hangman's office, not yours, my
+good sir, to fasten the halter about his neck. You will pardon my
+freedom; but, were this deposition made as you suggest, it would
+undoubtedly hang him."
+
+"God forbid, Mr. Marston," rejoined Danvers, "that I should induce the
+unhappy man to forfeit his last chances of escape, and to shut the door
+of human mercy against himself, but on this he seems already resolved; he
+says so; he has solemnly declared his resolution to me; and even against
+my warning, again and again reiterated the same declaration."
+
+"That I should have thought quite enough, were I in your place, without
+inviting a detailed description of the whole process by which this
+detestable butchery was consummated. What more than the simple knowledge
+of the man's guilt does any mortal desire; guilty, or not guilty, is the
+plain question which the law asks, and no more; take my advice, sir, as a
+poor Protestant layman, and leave the acts of the confessional and
+inquisition to Popish priests."
+
+"Nay, Mr. Marston, you greatly misconceive me; as matters stand, there
+exists among the coroner's jury, and thus among the public, some faint
+and unfounded suspicion of the possibility of Merton's having had an
+accessory or accomplice in the perpetration of this foul murder."
+
+"It is a lie, sir--a malignant, d----d lie--the jury believe no such
+thing, nor the public neither," said Marston, starting in his saddle, and
+speaking in a voice of thunder; "you have been crammed with lies, sir;
+malicious, unmeaning, vindictive lies; lies invented to asperse my
+family, and torture my feelings; suggested in my presence by that
+scoundrel Mervyn, and scouted by the common sense of the jury."
+
+"I do assure you," replied Doctor Danvers, in a voice which seemed
+scarcely audible, after the stunning and passionate explosion of
+Marston's wrath, "I did not imagine that you could feel thus sorely upon
+the point; nay, I thought that you yourself were not without such
+painful doubts."
+
+"Again, I tell you, sir," said Marston, in a tone somewhat calmer, but no
+less stern, "such doubts as you describe have no existence; your
+unsuspecting ear has been alarmed by a vindictive wretch, an old
+scoundrel who has scarce a passion left but spite towards me; few such
+there are, thank God; few such villains as would, from a man's very
+calamities, distil poison to kill the peace and character of his family."
+
+"I am sorry, Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, "you have formed so ill an
+opinion of a neighbor, and I am very sure that Mr. Mervyn meant you no
+ill in frankly expressing whatever doubts still rested on his mind, after
+the evidence was taken."
+
+"He did--the scoundrel!" said Marston, furiously striking his hand, in
+which his whip was clutched, upon his thigh; "he did mean to wound and
+torture me; and with the same object he persists in circulating what he
+calls his doubts. Meant me no ill, forsooth! why, my great God, sir,
+could any man be so stupid as not to perceive that the suggestion of such
+suspicions--absurd, contradictory, incredible as they were--was
+precisely the thing to exasperate feelings sufficiently troubled
+already, and not content with raising the question, where it was scouted,
+as I said, as soon as named, the vindictive slanderer proceeds to
+propagate and publish his pretended surmises--d----n him."
+
+"Mr. Marston, you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian
+minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and
+language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pass unreproved,"
+said Danvers, solemnly. "If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian
+feelings, at least for the brief space that I am with you, command your
+fierce, unbecoming words."
+
+Marston was about to make a sneering retort, but restrained himself, and
+turned his head away.
+
+"The wretched man himself appears now very anxious to make some further
+disclosures," resumed Doctor Danvers, after a pause, "and I recommended
+him to make them to you, Mr. Marston, as the most natural depository of
+such a statement."
+
+"Well, Mr. Danvers, to cut the matter short, as it appears that a
+confession of some sort is to be made, be it so. I will attend and
+receive it. The judges will not be here for eight or ten weeks to come,
+so there is no great hurry about it. I shall ride down to the town, and
+see him in the jail some time in the next week."
+
+With this assurance Marston parted from the old clergyman, and rode on
+alone through the furze and fern of his wild and somber park.
+
+After supper that evening Marston found himself alone in the parlor with
+his wife. Mrs. Marston availed herself of the opportunity to redeem her
+pledge to Mademoiselle de Barras. She was not aware of the strange
+interview which had taken place between him and the lady for whom she
+pleaded. The result of her renewed entreaties perhaps the reader has
+anticipated. Marston listened, doubted, listened, hesitated again, put
+questions, pondered the answers; debated the matter inwardly, and at last
+gruffly consented to give the young lady another trial, and permit her to
+remain some time longer. Poor Mrs. Marston, little suspecting the
+dreadful future, overwhelmed her husband with gratitude for granting to
+her entreaties (as he had predetermined to do) this fatal boon. Not
+caring to protract this scene--either from a disinclination to listen to
+expressions of affection, which had long lost their charm for him, and
+had become even positively distasteful, or perhaps from some instinctive
+recoil from the warm expression of gratitude from lips which, were the
+truth revealed, might justly have trembled with execration and
+reproach--he abruptly left the room, and Mrs. Marston, full of her good
+news, hastened, in the kindness of her heart, to communicate the fancied
+result of her advocacy to Mademoiselle de Barras.
+
+It was about a week after this, that Marston was one evening surprised in
+his study by the receipt of the following letter from Dr. Danvers:--
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"You will be shocked to hear that Merton is most dangerously ill, and at
+this moment in imminent peril. He is thoroughly conscious of his
+situation, and himself regards it as a merciful interposition of
+Providence to spare him the disgrace and terror of the dreadful fate,
+which he anticipated. The unhappy man has twice repeated his anxious
+desire, this day, to state some facts connected with the murder of the
+late Sir Wynston Berkley, which, he says, it is of the utmost moment that
+you should hear. He says that he could not leave the world in peace
+without having made this disclosure, which he especially desires to make
+to yourself, and entreats that you will come to receive his
+communication as early as you can in the morning. This is indeed needful,
+as the physician says that he is fast sinking. I offer no apology for
+adding my earnest solicitations to those or the dying man; and am, dear
+sir, your very obedient servant,
+
+"J. Danvers"
+
+"He regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence," muttered
+Marston, as he closed the letter, with a sneer. "Well, some men have odd
+notions of mercy and providence, to be sure; but if it pleases him,
+certainly I shall not complain for one."
+
+Marston was all this evening in better spirits than he had enjoyed for
+months, or even years. A mountain seemed to have been lifted from his
+heart. He joined in the conversation during and after supper, listened
+with apparent interest, talked with animation, and even laughed and
+jested. It is needless to say all this flowed not from the healthy cheer
+of a heart at ease, but from the excited and almost feverish sense of
+sudden relief.
+
+Next morning, Marston rode into the old-fashioned town, at the further
+end of which the dingy and grated front of the jail looked warningly out
+upon the rustic passengers. He passed the sentries and made his inquiries
+of the official at the hatch. He was relieved from the necessity of
+pushing these into detail, however, by the appearance of the physician,
+who at that moment passed from the interior of the prison.
+
+"Dr. Danvers told me he expected to see you here this morning," said the
+medical man, after the customary salutation had been interchanged. "Your
+call, I believe, is connected with the prisoner, John Merton?"
+
+"Yes, sir, so it is," said Marston. "Is he in a condition, pray, to make
+a statement of considerable length?"
+
+"Far from it, Mr. Marston; he has but a few hours to live," answered the
+physician, "and is now insensible; but I believe he last night saw Dr.
+Danvers, and told him whatever was weighing upon his mind."
+
+"Ha!--And can you say where Dr. Danvers now is?" inquired Marston,
+anxiously and hurriedly. "Not here, is he?"
+
+"No; but I saw him, as I came here, not ten minutes since, ride into the
+town. It is market-day, and you will probably find him somewhere in the
+high street for an hour or two to come," answered he.
+
+Marston thanked him, and, lost in abstraction, rode down to the little
+inn, entered a sitting room, and wrote a hurried line to Dr. Danvers,
+entreating his attendance there, as a place where they might converse
+less interruptedly than in the street; and committing this note to the
+waiter, with the injunction to deliver it at once, and an intimation of
+where Dr. Danvers was probably to be found, he awaited, with intense and
+agitating anxiety, the arrival of the clergyman.
+
+It was not for nearly ten minutes, however, which his impatience
+magnified into an eternity, that the well-known voice of Dr. Danvers
+reached him from the little hall. It was in vain that Marston strove to
+curb his violent agitation: his heart swelled as if it would smother him;
+he felt, as it were, the chill of death pervade his frame, and he could
+scarcely see the door through which he momentarily expected the entrance
+of the clergyman.
+
+A few minutes more, and Dr. Danvers entered the little apartment.
+
+"My dear sir," said he, gravely and earnestly, as he grasped the cold
+hand of Marston, "I am rejoiced to see you. I have matters of great
+moment and the strangest mystery to lay before you."
+
+"I dare say--I was sure--that is, I suspected so much," answered
+Marston, breathing fast, and looking very pale. "I heard at the prison
+that the murderer, Merton, was fast dying, and now is in an unconscious
+state; and from the physician, that you had seen him, at his urgent
+entreaty, last night. My mind misgives me, sir, I fear I know not what. I
+long, yet dread, to hear the wretched man's confession. For God's sake
+tell me, does it implicate anybody else in the guilt?"
+
+"No; no one specifically; but it has thrown a hideous additional mystery
+over the occurrence. Listen to me, my dear sir, and the whole narrative,
+as he stated it to me, shall be related now to you," said Dr. Danvers.
+
+Marston had closed the door carefully, and they sate down together at the
+further end of the apartment. Marston, breathless and ghastly pale; his
+lips compressed--his brows knit--and his dark, dilated gaze fixed
+immovably upon the speaker. Dr. Danvers, on the other hand, tranquil and
+solemn, and with, perhaps, some shade of awe overcasting the habitual
+sweetness of his countenance.
+
+"His confession was a strange one," renewed Dr. Danvers, shaking his head
+gravely. "He said that the first idea of the crime was suggested by Sir
+Wynston's man accidentally mentioning, a few days after their arrival,
+that his master slept with his bank-notes, to the amount of some hundreds
+of pounds, in a pocketbook under his pillow. He declared that as the man
+mentioned this circumstance, something muttered the infernal suggestion
+in his ear, and from that moment he was the slave of that one idea; it
+was ever present with him. He contended against it in vain; he dreaded
+and abhorred it; but still it possessed him; he felt his power of
+resistance yielding. This horrible stranger which had stolen into his
+heart, waxed in power and importunity, and tormented him day and night.
+He resolved to fly from the house. He gave notice to you and Mrs.
+Marston of his intended departure; but accident protracted his stay until
+that fatal night which sealed his doom. The influence which had mastered
+him forced him to rise from his bed, and take the knife--the discovery of
+which afterwards helped to convict him--and led him to Sir Wynston's
+chamber; he entered; it was a moonlight night."
+
+Here the clergyman, glancing round the room, lowered his voice, and
+advanced his lips so near to Marston, that their heads nearly touched. In
+this tone and attitude he continued his narrative for a few minutes. At
+the end of this brief space, Marston rose up slowly, and with a movement
+backward, every feature strung with horror, and saying, in a long
+whisper, the one word, "yes," which seemed like the hiss of a snake
+before he makes his last deadly spring. Both were silent for a time. At
+last Marston broke out with hoarse vehemence.
+
+"Dreadful--horrible--oh, God! God!--My God! How frightful!"
+
+And throwing himself into a chair, he clasped his hands across his
+eyes and forehead, while the sweat of agony literally poured down his
+pale face.
+
+"Truly it is so," said the clergyman, scarcely above his breath; and,
+after a long interval--"horrible indeed!"
+
+"Well," said Marston, rising suddenly to his feet, wiping the dews of
+horror from his face, and looking wildly round, like one newly awoke from
+a nightmare, "I must make the most of this momentous and startling
+disclosure. I shall spare no pains to come at the truth," said he,
+energetically. "Meanwhile, my dear sir, for the sake of justice and of
+mercy, observe secrecy. Leave me to sift this matter; give no note
+anywhere that we suspect. Observe this reserve and security, and with it
+detection will follow. Breathe but one word, and you arm the guilty with
+double caution, and turn licentious gossip loose upon the fame of an
+innocent and troubled family. Once more I entreat--I expect--I implore
+silence--silence, at least, for the present--silence!"
+
+"I quite agree with you, my dear Mr. Marston," answered Dr. Danvers. "I
+have not divulged one syllable of that poor wretch's confession, save to
+yourself alone. You, as a magistrate, a relative of the murdered
+gentleman, and the head of that establishment among whom the guilt
+rests, are invested with an interest in detecting, and powers of sifting
+the truth in this matter, such as none other possesses. I clearly see,
+with you, too, the inexpediency and folly of talking, for talking's
+sake, of this affair. I mean to keep my counsel, and shall most
+assuredly, irrespectively even of your request--which should, however,
+of course, have weight with me--maintain a strict and cautious silence
+upon this subject."
+
+Some little time longer they remained together, and Marston, buried in
+strange thoughts, took his leave, and rode slowly back to Gray Forest.
+
+Months passed away--a year, and more--and though no new character
+appeared upon the stage, the relations which had subsisted among the old
+ones became, in some respects, very materially altered. A gradual and
+disagreeable change came over Mademoiselle de Barras's manner; her
+affectionate attentions to Mrs. Marston became less and less frequent;
+nor was the change merely confined to this growing coldness; there was
+something of a positive and still more unpleasant kind in the alteration
+we have noted. There was a certain independence and carelessness,
+conveyed in a hundred intangible but significant little incidents and
+looks--a something which, without being open to formal rebuke or
+remonstrance, yet bordered, in effect, upon impertinence, and even
+insolence. This indescribable and provoking self-assertion, implied in
+glances, tones, emphasis, and general bearing, surprised Mrs. Marston far
+more than it irritated her. As often as she experienced one of these
+studied slights or insinuated impertinences, she revolved in her own mind
+all the incidents of their past intercourse, in the vain endeavor to
+recollect some one among them which could possibly account for the
+offensive change so manifest in the conduct of the young Frenchwoman.
+
+Mrs. Marston, although she sometimes rebuked these artful affronts by a
+grave look, a cold tone, or a distant manner, yet had too much dignity to
+engage in a petty warfare of annoyance, and had, in reality, no
+substantial and well-defined ground of complaint against her, such as
+would have warranted her either in taking the young lady herself to task,
+or in bringing her conduct under the censure of Marston.
+
+One evening, it happened that Mrs. Marston and Mademoiselle de Barras had
+been left alone together. After the supper-party had dispersed, they had
+been for a long time silent. Mrs. Marston resolved to improve the
+Tate-à-Tate, for the purpose of eliciting from mademoiselle an
+explanation of her strange behavior.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I have lately observed a very marked change in
+your conduct to me."
+
+"Indeed!" said the Frenchwoman.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle; you must be yourself perfectly aware of that change;
+it is a studied and intentional one," continued Mrs. Marston, in a gentle
+but dignified tone. "Although I have felt some doubt as to whether it
+were advisable, so long as you observe toward me the forms of external
+respect, and punctually discharge the duties you have undertaken, to open
+any discussion whatever upon the subject; yet I have thought it better
+to give you a fair opportunity of explaining frankly, should you desire
+to do so, the feelings and impressions under which you are acting."
+
+"Ah, you are very obliging, madame," said she, coolly.
+
+"It is quite clear, mademoiselle, that you have either misunderstood me,
+or that you are dissatisfied with your situation among us: your conduct
+cannot otherwise be accounted for," said Mrs. Marston, gravely.
+
+"My conduct--_ma foi!_ what conduct?" retorted the handsome Frenchwoman,
+confidently, and with a disdainful glance.
+
+"If you question the fact, mademoiselle," said the elder lady, "it is
+enough. Your ungracious manner and ungentle looks, I presume, arise from
+what appears to you a sufficient and well-defined cause, of which,
+however, I know nothing."
+
+"I really was not aware," said Mademoiselle de Barras, with a
+supercilious smile, "that my looks and my manner were subjected to so
+strict a criticism, or that it was my duty to regulate both according to
+so nice and difficult a standard."
+
+"Well, mademoiselle," continued Mrs. Marston, "it is plain that whatever
+may be the cause of your dissatisfaction, you are resolved against
+confiding it to me. I only wish to know frankly from your own lips,
+whether you have formed a wish to leave this situation. If so, I entreat
+you to declare it freely."
+
+"You are very obliging, indeed, madame," said the pretty foreigner,
+drily, "but I have no such wish, at least at present."
+
+"Very well, mademoiselle," replied Mrs. Marston, with gentle dignity; "I
+regret your want of candor, on your own account. You would, I am sure, be
+much happier, were you to deal frankly with me."
+
+"May I now have your permission, madame, to retire to my room?" asked
+the French girl, rising, and making a low courtesy--"that is, if madame
+has nothing further to censure."
+
+"Certainly, mademoiselle; I have nothing further to say," replied the
+elder lady.
+
+The Frenchwoman made another and a deeper courtesy, and withdrew. Mrs.
+Marston, however, heard, as she was designed to do, the young lady
+tittering and whispering to herself, as she lighted her candle in the
+hall. This scene mortified and grieved poor Mrs. Marston inexpressibly.
+She was little, if at all, accessible to emotions of anger and certainly,
+none such mingled in the feelings with which she regarded Mademoiselle de
+Barras. But she had found in this girl a companion, and even a confidante
+in her melancholy solitude; she had believed her affectionate,
+sympathetic, tender, and the disappointment was as bitter as unimagined.
+
+The annoyances which she was fated to receive from Mademoiselle de Barras
+were destined, however, to grow in number and in magnitude. The
+Frenchwoman sometimes took a fancy, for some unrevealed purpose, to talk
+a good deal to Mrs. Marston, and on such occasions would persist,
+notwithstanding that lady's marked reserve and discouragement, in
+chatting away, as if she were conscious that her conversation was the
+most welcome entertainment possible to her really unwilling auditor. No
+one of their interviews did she ever suffer to close without in some way
+or other suggesting or insinuating something mysterious and untold to the
+prejudice of Mr. Marston. Those vague and intangible hints, the meaning
+of which, for an instant legible and terrific, seemed in another moment
+to dissolve and disappear, tortured Mrs. Marston like the intrusion of a
+specter; and this, along with the portentous change, rather felt than
+visible, in mademoiselle's conduct toward her, invested the beautiful
+Frenchwoman, in the eyes of her former friend and patroness, with an
+indefinable character that was not only repulsive but formidable.
+
+Mrs. Marston's feelings with respect to this person were still further
+disturbed by the half-conveyed hints and innuendoes of her own maid, who
+never lost an opportunity of insinuating her intense dislike of the
+Frenchwoman, and appeared perpetually to be upon the very verge of making
+some explicit charges, or some shocking revelations, respecting her,
+which, however, she as invariably evaded; and even when Mrs. Marston once
+or twice insisted upon her explaining her meaning distinctly, she eluded
+her mistress's desire, and left her still in the same uneasy uncertainty.
+
+Marston, on his part, however much his conduct might tend to confirm
+suspicion, certainly did nothing to dissipate the painful and undefined
+apprehension respecting himself, which Mademoiselle de Barras, with such
+malign and mysterious industry, labored to raise. His spirits and temper
+were liable to strange fluctuations. In the midst of that excited gaiety,
+to which, until lately, he had been so long a stranger, would sometimes
+intervene paroxysms of the blackest despair, all the ghastlier for the
+contrast, and with a suddenness so abrupt and overwhelming, that one
+might have fancied him crossed by the shadow of some terrific apparition.
+Sometimes for a whole day, or even more, he would withdraw himself from
+the society of his family, and, in morose and moody solitude, take his
+meals alone in his library, and steal out unattended to wander among the
+thickets and glades of his park. Sometimes, again, he would sit for hours
+in the room which had been Sir Wynston's, and, with a kind of horrible
+resolution, often loiter there till after nightfall. In such hours, the
+servants would listen with curious awe, as they heard his step, pacing
+to and fro, in that deserted and inauspicious chamber, while his voice,
+in broken sentences, was also imperfectly audible, as if maintaining a
+muttered dialogue. These eccentric practices gradually invested him, in
+the eyes of his domestics, with a certain preternatural mystery, which
+enhanced the fear with which they habitually regarded him, and was
+subsequently confirmed by his giving orders to have the furniture taken
+out of the ominous suite of rooms, and the doors nailed up and secured.
+He gave no reason for this odd and abrupt measure, and gossip of course
+reported that the direction had originated in his having encountered the
+specter of the murdered baronet, in one of these strange and unseasonable
+visits to the scene of the fearful catastrophe.
+
+In addition to all this, Marston's conduct towards his wife became
+strangely capricious. He avoided her society more than ever; and when he
+did happen to exchange a few words with her, they were sometimes harsh
+and violent, and at others remorsefully gentle and sad, and this without
+any changes of conduct upon her part to warrant the wayward uncertainty
+of his treatment. Under all these circumstances, Mrs. Marston's
+unhappiness and uneasiness greatly increased. Mademoiselle de Barras,
+too, upon several late occasions, had begun to assume a tone of authority
+and dictation, which justly offended the mistress of the establishment.
+Meanwhile Charles Marston had returned to Cambridge; and Rhoda, no longer
+enjoying happy walks with her brother, pursued her light and easy studies
+with Mademoiselle de Barras, and devoted her leisure hours to the loved
+society of her mother.
+
+One day Mrs. Marston, sitting in her room with Rhoda, had happened to
+call her own maid, to take down and carefully dust some richly bound
+volumes which filled a bookcase in the little chamber.
+
+"You have been crying, Willett," said Mrs. Marston, observing that the
+young woman's eyes were red and swollen.
+
+"Indeed, and I was, ma'am," she replied, reluctantly, "and I could not
+help it, so I could not."
+
+"Why, what has happened to vex you? Has anyone ill-treated you?" said
+Mrs. Marston, who had an esteem for the poor girl. "Come, come, you must
+not fret about it; only tell me what has vexed you."
+
+"Oh! Ma'am, no one has ill-used me, ma'am; but I can't but be vexed
+sometimes, ma'am, and fretted to see how things is going on. I have
+one wish, just one wish, ma'am, and if I got that, I'd ask no more,"
+said the girl.
+
+"And what is it?" asked Mrs. Marston; "what do you wish for? Speak
+plainly, Willett; what is it?"
+
+"Ah! Ma'am, if I said it, maybe you might not be pleased. Don't ask me,
+ma'am," said the girl dusting the books very hard, and tossing them down
+again with angry emphasis. "I don't desire anybody's harm, God knows;
+but, for all that, I wish what I wish, and that is the truth."
+
+"Why, Willett, I really cannot account for your strange habit of lately
+hinting, and insinuating, and always speaking riddles, and refusing to
+explain your meaning. What do you mean? Speak plainly. If there are any
+dishonest practices going on, it is your duty to say so distinctly."
+
+"Oh! Ma'am, it is just a wish I have. I wish--; but it's no matter. If I
+could once see the house clear of that Frenchwoman--"
+
+"If you mean Mademoiselle de Barras, she is a lady," interrupted
+Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Well, ma'am, I beg pardon," continued the woman; "lady or no lady, it is
+all one to me; for I am very sure, ma'am, she'll never leave the house
+till there is something bad comes about; and--and--. I can't bring myself
+to talk to you about her, ma'am. I can't say what I want to tell you:
+but--but--. Oh, ma'am, for God's sake, try and get her out, any way, no
+matter how; try and get rid of her."
+
+As she said this, the poor girl burst into a passionate agony of tears,
+and Mrs. Marston and Rhoda looked on in silent amazement, while she for
+some minutes continued to sob and weep.
+
+The party were suddenly recalled from their various reveries by a knock
+at the chamber-door. It opened, and the subject of the girl's deprecatory
+entreaty entered. There was something unusually excited and assured in
+Mademoiselle de Barras's air and countenance; perhaps she had a suspicion
+that she had been the topic of their conversation. At all events, she
+looked round upon them with a smile, in which there was something
+supercilious, and even defiant; and, without waiting to be invited, sate
+herself down, with a haughty air.
+
+"I was about to ask you to sit down, mademoiselle, but you have
+anticipated me," said Mrs. Marston, gravely. "You have something to say
+to me, I suppose; I am quite at leisure, so pray let me hear it now."
+
+"Thank you, thank you, madame," replied she, with a sharp, and even
+scornful glance; "I ought to have asked your permission to sit; I forgot;
+but you have condescended to give it without my doing so; that was very
+kind, very kind, indeed."
+
+"But I wish to know, mademoiselle, whether you have anything very
+particular to say to me?" said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"You wish to know!--and why, pray madame?" asked Mademoiselle de
+Barras, sharply.
+
+"Because, unless it is something very urgent, I should prefer your
+talking to me some other time; as, at present, I desire to be alone with
+my daughter."
+
+"Oh, ho! I ought to ask pardon again," said mademoiselle, with the same
+glance, and the same smile. "I find I am de trop--quite in the way.
+Hélas! I am very unfortunate today."
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras made not the slightest movement, and it was
+evident that she was resolved to prolong her stay, in sheer defiance of
+Mrs. Marston's wishes.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I conclude from your silence that you have nothing very
+pressing to say, and, therefore, must request that you will have the
+goodness to leave me for the present," said Mrs. Marston, who felt that
+the spirit of the French girl's conduct was too apparent not to have been
+understood by Rhoda and the servant, and that it was of a kind, for
+example sake, impossible to be submitted to, or tolerated.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras darted a fiery and insolent glance at Mrs.
+Marston, and was, doubtless, upon the point of precipitating the open
+quarrel which was impending, by setting her authority at defiance; but
+she checked herself, and changed her line of operations.
+
+"We are not alone madame," she said, with a heightened color, and a
+slight toss of the head. "I was about to speak of Mr. Marston. I had
+something, not much, I confess, to say; but before servants I shan't
+speak; nor, indeed, now at all. So, madame, as you desire it, I shall no
+further interrupt you. Come, Miss Rhoda, come to the music-room, if you
+please, and finish your practice for today."
+
+"You forget, mademoiselle, that I wish to have my daughter with me at
+present," said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"I am very sorry, madame," said the French lady, with the same heightened
+color and unpleasant smile, and her finely-penciled brows just
+discernibly knit, so as to give a novel and menacing expression to her
+beautiful face--"I am very sorry, madame, but she must, so long as I
+remain accountable for her education, complete her allotted exercises at
+the appointed hours; and nothing shall, I assure you, with my consent,
+interfere with these duties. Come, Miss Rhoda, precede me, if you please,
+to the music-room. Come, come."
+
+"Stay where you are, Rhoda," said Mrs. Marston, firmly and gently, and
+betraying no symptom of excitement, except in a slight tremor of her
+voice, and a faint flush upon her cheek--"Stay where you are, my dear
+child. I am your mother, and, next to your father, have the first claim
+upon your obedience. Mademoiselle," she continued, addressing the
+Frenchwoman, calmly but firmly, "my daughter will remain here for some
+time longer, and you will have the goodness to withdraw. I insist upon
+it, Mademoiselle de Barras."
+
+"I will not leave the room, I assure you, madame, without my pupil,"
+retorted mademoiselle, with resolute insolence. "Your husband, madame,
+has invested me with this authority, and she shall obey me. Miss Rhoda, I
+say again, go down to the music-room."
+
+"Remain where you are, Rhoda," said Mrs. Marston again. "Mademoiselle;
+you have long been acting as if your object were to provoke me to part
+with you. I find it impossible any longer to overlook this grossly
+disrespectful conduct; conduct of which I had, indeed, believed you
+absolutely incapable. Willett," she continued, addressing the maid, who
+was evidently bursting with rage at the scene she had just witnessed,
+"your master is, I believe, in the library; go down, and tell him that I
+entreat him to come here immediately."
+
+The maid started on her mission with angry alacrity, darting a venomous
+glance at the handsome Frenchwoman as she passed.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras, meanwhile, sate, listless and defiant, in her
+chair, and tapping her little foot with angry excitement upon the floor.
+Rhoda sate close by her mother, holding her hand fast, and looking
+frightened, perplexed, and as if she were on the point of weeping. Mrs.
+Marston, though flushed and excited, yet maintained her dignified and
+grave demeanor. And thus, in silence, did they all three await the
+arrival of the arbiter to whom Mrs. Marston had so promptly appealed.
+
+A few minutes more, and Marston entered the room. Mademoiselle's
+expression changed as he did so to one of dejected and sorrowful
+submission; and, as Marston's eye lighted upon her, his brow darkened and
+his face grew pale.
+
+"Well, well--what is it?--What is all this?" he said, glancing with a
+troubled eye from one to the other. "Speak, someone. Mrs. Marston, you
+sent for me; what is it?"
+
+"I want to know, Mr. Marston, from your own lips," said the lady, in
+reply, "whether Rhoda is to obey me or Mademoiselle de Barras?"
+
+"Bah!--A question of women's prerogative," said Marston, with muttered
+vehemence.
+
+"Of a wife's and a mother's prerogative, Richard," said Mrs. Marston,
+with gentle emphasis. "A very simple question, and one I should have
+thought needing no deliberation to decide it."
+
+"Well, child," sad he, turning to Rhoda, with angry irony, "pray what is
+all this fuss about? You are a very ill used young lady, I dare aver.
+Pray what cruelties does Mademoiselle de Barras propose inflicting upon
+you, that you need to appeal thus to your mother for protection?"
+
+"You quite mistake me, Richard," interposed Mrs. Marston; "Rhoda is
+perfectly passive in the matter. I simply wish to learn from you, in
+mademoiselle's presence, whether I or she is to command my daughter?"
+
+"Command!" said Marston, evading the direct appeal; "and pray what is all
+this commanding about?--What do you want the girl to do?"
+
+"I wish her to remain here with me for a little time, and mademoiselle,
+knowing this, desires her instantly to go to the music-room, and leave
+me. That is all," said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"And pray, is there nothing to make her going to the music-room advisable
+or necessary? Has she no music to learn, or studies to pursue? Pshaw!
+Mrs. Marston, what needs all this noise about nothing? Go, miss," he
+added, sharply and peremptorily, addressing Rhoda, "go this moment to the
+music-room."
+
+The girl glided from the room, and mademoiselle, as she followed, shot a
+glance at Mrs. Marston which wounded and humbled her in the dust.
+
+"Oh! Richard, Richard, if you knew all, you would not have subjected me
+to this indignity," she said; and throwing her arms about his neck, she
+wept, for the first time for many a long year, upon his breast.
+
+Marston was embarrassed and agitated. He disengaged her arms from his
+neck, and placed her gently in a chair. She sobbed on for some time in
+silence--a silence which Marston himself did not essay to break. He
+walked to the door, apparently with the intention of leaving her. He
+hesitated however, and returned; took a hurried turn through the room;
+hesitated again; sat down; then returned to the door, not to depart, but
+to close it carefully, and walked gloomily to the window, whence he
+looked forth, buried in agitating and absorbing thoughts.
+
+"Richard, to you this seems a trifling thing; but, indeed it is not so,"
+said Mrs. Marston, sadly.
+
+"You are very right, Gertrude," he said, quickly, and almost with a
+start; "it is very far from a trifling thing; it is very important."
+
+"You don't blame me, Richard?" said she.
+
+"I blame nobody," said he.
+
+"Indeed, I never meant to offend you, Richard," she urged.
+
+"Of course not; no, no; I never said so," he interrupted, sarcastically;
+"what could you gain by that?"
+
+"Oh! Richard, better feelings have governed me," she said, in a
+melancholy and reproachful tone.
+
+"Well, well, I suppose so," he said; and after an interval, he added
+abstractedly, "This cannot, however, go on; no, no--it cannot. Sooner or
+later it must have come; better at once--better now."
+
+"What do you mean, Richard?" she said, greatly alarmed, she knew not why.
+"What are you resolving upon? Dear Richard, in mercy tell me. I implore
+of you, tell me."
+
+"Why, Gertrude, you seem to me to fancy that, because I don't talk about
+what is passing, that I don't see it either. Now this is quite a
+mistake," said Marston, calmly and resolutely--"I have long observed your
+growing dislike of Mademoiselle de Barras. I have thought it over; this
+fracas of today has determined me; it is decisive. I suppose you now wish
+her to go, as earnestly as you once wished her to stay. You need not
+answer. I know it. I neither ask nor care to whose fault I am to
+attribute these changed feelings--female caprice accounts sufficiently
+for it; but whatever the cause, the effect is undeniable; and the only
+way to deal satisfactorily with it is, to dismiss mademoiselle at once.
+You need take no part in the matter; I take it upon myself. Tomorrow
+morning she shall have left this house. I have said it, and am perfectly
+resolved."
+
+As he thus spoke, as if to avoid the possibility of any further
+discussion, he turned abruptly from her, and left the room.
+
+The extreme agitation which she had just undergone combined with her
+physical delicacy to bring on an hysterical attack; and poor Mrs.
+Marston, with an aching head and a heavy heart, lay down upon her bed.
+She had swallowed an opiate, and before ten o'clock upon that night, an
+eventful one as it proved, she had sunk into a profound slumber.
+
+Some hours after this, she became in a confused way conscious of her
+husband's presence in the room. He was walking, with an agitated mien, up
+and down the chamber, and casting from time to time looks of great
+trouble toward the bed where she lay. Though the presence of her husband
+was a strange and long unwonted occurrence there, at such an hour, and
+though she felt the strangeness of the visit, the power of the opiate
+overwhelmed her so, that she could only see this apparition gliding
+slowly back and forward before her, with the passive wonder and curiosity
+with which one awaits the issue of an interesting dream.
+
+For a time she lay once more in an uneasy sleep; but still, throughout
+even this, she was conscious of his presence; and when, a little while
+after, she again saw him, he was not walking to and fro before the foot
+of the bed, but sitting beside her, with one hand laid upon the pillow on
+which her head was resting, the other supporting his chin. He was looking
+steadfastly upon her, with a changed face, an expression of bitter
+sorrow, compunction, and tenderness. There was not one trace of
+sternness; all was softened. The look was what she fancied he might have
+turned upon her had she lain there dead, ere yet the love of their early
+and ill-fated union had grown cold in his heart. There was something in
+it which reminded her of days and feelings gone, never to return. And
+while she looked in his face with a sweet and mournful fascination, tears
+unconsciously wet the pillow on which her poor head was resting. Unable
+to speak, unable to move, she heard him say--"It was not your fault,
+Gertrude--it was not yours, nor mine. There is a destiny in these things
+too strong for us. Past is past--what is done, is done forever; and even
+were it all to do over again, what power have I to mend it? No, no; how
+could I contend against the combined power of passions, circumstances,
+influences--in a word, of fate? You have been good and patient, while
+I--; but no matter. Your lot, Gertrude, is a happier one than mine."
+
+Mrs. Marston heard him and saw him, but she had not the power, nor even
+the will, herself to speak or move. He appeared before her passive sense
+like the phantasm of a dream. He stood up at the bedside, and looked on
+her steadfastly, with the same melancholy expression. For a moment he
+stooped over her, as if about to kiss her face, but checked himself,
+stood erect again at the bedside, then suddenly turned; the curtain fell
+back into its place, and she saw him no more.
+
+With a strange mixture of sweet and bitter feelings this vision rested
+upon the memory of Mrs. Marston, until, gradually, deep slumber again
+overcame her senses, and the incident and all its attendant circumstances
+faded into oblivion.
+
+It was past eight o'clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning. The sun
+was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows; and as the remembrance
+of Marston's visit to her chamber, and the unwonted manifestations of
+tenderness and compunction which accompanied it, returned, she felt
+something like hope and happiness, to which she had long been a stranger,
+flutter her heart. The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was,
+however, interrupted. The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached
+her ear, and, pushing back the bed-curtains, and leaning forward to look,
+she saw her maid, Willett, sitting with her back to the wall, crying
+bitterly, and striving, as it seemed, to stifle her sobs with her apron,
+which was wrapped about her face.
+
+"Willet, Willett, is it you who are sobbing? What is the matter with you,
+child?" said Mrs. Marston, anxiously.
+
+The girl checked herself, dried her eyes hastily, and walking briskly to
+a little distance, as if engaged in arranging the chamber, she said, with
+an affectation of carelessness--
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it is nothing; nothing at all, indeed, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Marston remained silent for a time, while all her vague
+apprehensions returned. Meantime the girl continued to shove the chairs
+hither and thither, and to arrange and disarrange everything in the room
+with a fidgety industry, intended to cover her agitation. A few minutes,
+however, served to weary her of this, for she abruptly stopped, stood by
+the bedside, and, looking at her mistress, burst into tears.
+
+"Good God! What is it?" said Mrs. Marston, shocked and even terrified,
+while new alarms displaced her old ones. "Is Miss Rhoda--can it be--is
+she--is my darling well?"
+
+"Oh, yes, ma'am," answered the maid, "very well, ma'am; she is up, and
+out walking and knows nothing of all this."
+
+"All what?" urged Mrs. Marston. "Tell me, tell me, Willett, what has
+happened. What is it? Speak, child; say what it is?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh my poor dear mistress!" continued the girl, and stopped,
+almost stifled with sobs.
+
+"Willett, you must speak; you must say what is the matter. I implore of
+you--desire you!" urged the distracted lady. Still the girl, having made
+one or two ineffectual efforts to speak, continued to sob.
+
+"Willett, you will drive me mad. For mercy's sake, for God's sake,
+speak--tell me what it is!" cried the unhappy lady.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it is--it is about the master," sobbed the girl.
+
+"Why he can't--he has not--oh, merciful God! He has not hurt himself,"
+she almost screamed.
+
+"No, ma'am, no; not himself; no, no, but--" and again she hesitated.
+
+"But what? Speak out, Willett; dear Willett have mercy on me, and speak
+out," cried her wretched mistress.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, don't be fretted; don't take it to heart, ma'am," said the
+maid, clasping her hands together in anguish.
+
+"Anything, anything, Willett; only speak at once," she answered.
+
+"Well, ma'am, it is soon said--it is easy told. The master, ma'am--the
+master is gone with the Frenchwoman; they went in the traveling coach
+last night, ma'am; he is gone away with her, ma'am; that is all."
+
+Mrs. Marston looked at the girl with a gaze of stupefied, stony terror;
+not a muscle of her face moved; not one heaving respiration showed that
+she was living. Motionless, with this fearful look fixed upon the girl,
+and her thin hands stretched towards her, she remained, second after
+second. At last her outstretched hands began to tremble more and more
+violently; and as if for the first time the knowledge of this calamity had
+reached her, with a cry, as though body and soul were parting, she fell
+back motionless in her bed.
+
+Several hours had passed before Mrs. Marston was restored to
+consciousness. To this state of utter insensibility, one of silent,
+terrified stupor succeeded; and it was not until she saw her daughter
+Rhoda standing at her bedside, weeping, that she found voice and
+recollection to speak.
+
+"My child; my darling, my poor child," she cried, sobbing piteously, as
+she drew her to her heart and looked in her face alternately--"my
+darling, my darling child!"
+
+Rhoda could only weep, and return her poor mother's caresses in silence.
+Too young and inexperienced to understand the full extent and nature of
+this direful calamity, the strange occurrence, the general and apparent
+consternation of the whole household, and the spectacle of her mother's
+agony, had filled her with fear, perplexity, and anguish. Scared and
+stunned with a vague sense of danger, like a young bird that, for the
+first time, cowers under a thunderstorm, she nestled in her mother's
+bosom; there, with a sense of protection, and of boundless love and
+tenderness, she lay frightened, wondering, and weeping.
+
+Two or three days passed, and Dr. Danvers came and sate for several hours
+with poor Mrs. Marston. To comfort and console were, of course, out of
+his power. The nature of the bereavement, far more terrible than
+death--its recent occurrence--the distracting consciousness of all its
+complicated consequences--rendered this a hopeless task. She bowed
+herself under the blow with the submission of a broken heart. The hope to
+which she had clung for years had vanished; the worst that ever her
+imagination feared had come in earnest.
+
+One idea was now constantly present in her mind. She felt a sad, but
+immovable assurance, that she should not live long, and the thought,
+"what will become of my darling when I am gone; who will guard and love
+my child when I am in my grave; to whom is she to look for tenderness
+and protection then?" perpetually haunted her, and superadded the pangs
+of a still wilder despair to the desolation of a broken heart.
+
+It was not for more than a week after this event, that one day
+Willett, with a certain air of anxious mystery, entered the silent and
+darkened chamber where Mrs. Marston lay. She had a letter in her hand;
+the seal and handwriting were Mr. Marston's. It was long before the
+injured wife was able to open it; when she did so, the following
+sentences met her eye:--
+
+"Gertrude,
+
+"You can be ignorant neither of the nature nor of the consequences of the
+decisive step I have taken: I do not seek to excuse it. For the censure
+of the world, its meddling and mouthing hypocrisy, I care absolutely
+nothing; I have long set it at defiance. And you yourself, Gertrude, when
+you deliberately reconsider the circumstances of estrangement and
+coldness under which, though beneath the same roof, we have lived for
+years, without either sympathy or confidence, can scarcely, if at all,
+regret the rupture of a tie which had long ceased to be anything better
+than an irksome and galling formality. I do not desire to attribute to
+you the smallest blame. There was an incompatibility, not of temper but
+of feelings, which made us strangers though calling one another man and
+wife. Upon this fact I rest my own justification; our living together
+under these circumstances was, I dare say, equally undesired by us both.
+It was, in fact, but a deference to the formal hypocrisy of the world. At
+all events, the irrevocable act which separates us forever is done, and I
+have now merely to state so much of my intentions as may relate in
+anywise to your future arrangements. I have written to your cousin, and
+former guardian, Mr. Latimer, telling him how matters stand between us.
+You, I told him, shall have, without opposition from me, the whole of
+your own fortune to your own separate use, together with whatever shall
+be mutually agreed upon as reasonable, from my income, for your support
+and that of my daughter. It will be necessary to complete your
+arrangements with expedition, as I purpose returning to Gray Forest in
+about three weeks; and as, of course, a meeting between you and those by
+whom I shall be accompanied is wholly out of the question, you will see
+the expediency of losing no time in adjusting everything for yours and my
+daughter's departure. In the details, of course, I shall not interfere. I
+think I have made myself clearly intelligible, and would recommend your
+communicating at once with Mr. Latimer, with a view to completing
+temporary arrangements, until your final plans shall have been decided
+upon.
+
+"RICHARD MARSTON"
+
+The reader can easily conceive the feelings with which this letter was
+perused. We shall not attempt to describe them; nor shall we weary his
+patience by a detail of all the circumstances attending Mrs. Marston's
+departure. Suffice it to mention that, in less than a fortnight after the
+receipt of the letter which we have just copied, she had forever left the
+mansion of Gray Forest.
+
+In a small house, in a sequestered part of the rich county of Warwick,
+the residence of Mrs. Marston and her daughter was for the present fixed.
+And there, for a time, the heart-broken and desolate lady enjoyed, at
+least, the privilege of an immunity from the intrusions of all external
+trouble. But the blow, under which the feeble remains of her health and
+strength were gradually to sink, had struck too surely home; and, from
+month to month--almost from week to week--the progress of decay was
+perceptible.
+
+Meanwhile, though grieved and humbled, and longing to comfort his unhappy
+mother Charles Marston, for the present absolutely dependant upon his
+father, had no choice but to remain at Cambridge, and to pursue his
+studies there.
+
+At Gray Forest Marston and the partner of his guilt continued to live.
+The old servants were all gradually dismissed, and new ones hired by
+Mademoiselle de Barras. There they dwelt, shunned by everybody, in a
+stricter and more desolate seclusion than ever. The novelty of the
+unrestraint and licence of their new mode of life speedily passed away,
+and with it the excited and guilty sense of relief which had for a time
+produced a false and hollow gaiety. The sense of security prompted in
+mademoiselle a hundred indulgences which, in her former precarious
+position, she would not have dreamed of. Outbreaks of temper, sharp and
+sometimes violent, began to manifest themselves on her part, and renewed
+disappointment and blacker remorse to darken the soul of Marston himself.
+Often, in the dead of the night, the servants would overhear their bitter
+and fierce altercations ringing through the melancholy mansion, and
+often the reckless use of terrible and mysterious epithets of crime.
+Their quarrels increased in violence and in frequency, and, before two
+years had passed, feelings of bitterness, hatred, and dread, alone seemed
+to subsist between them. Yet upon Marston she continued to exercise a
+powerful and mysterious influence. There was a dogged, apathetic
+submission on his part, and a growing insolence on hers, constantly more
+and more strikingly visible. Neglect, disorder, and decay, too, were more
+than ever apparent in the dreary air of the place.
+
+Doctor Danvers, save by rumor and conjecture, knew nothing of Marston
+and his abandoned companion. He had, more than once, felt a strong
+disposition to visit Gray Forest, and expostulate, face to face, with its
+guilty proprietor. This idea, however, he had, upon consideration,
+dismissed; not on account of any shrinking from the possible repulses and
+affronts to which the attempt might subject him, but from a thorough
+conviction that the endeavor would be utterly fruitless for good, while
+it might, very obviously, expose him to painful misinterpretation and
+suspicion, and leave it to be imagined that he had been influenced, if by
+no meaner motive, at least by the promptings of a coarse curiosity.
+
+Meanwhile he maintained a correspondence with Mrs. Marston, and had even
+once or twice since her departure visited her. Latterly, however, this
+correspondence had been a good deal interrupted, and its intervals had
+been supplied occasionally by Rhoda, whose letters, although she herself
+appeared unconscious of the mournful event the approach of which they
+too plainly indicated, were painful records of the rapid progress of
+mortal decay.
+
+He had just received one of those ominous letters, at the little post
+office in the town we have already mentioned, and, full of the melancholy
+news it contained, Dr. Danvers was returning slowly towards his home. As
+he rode into a lonely road, traversing an undulating tract of some three
+miles in length, the singularity, it may be, of his costume attracted the
+eye of another passenger, who was, as it turned out, no other than
+Marston himself. For two or three miles of this desolate road, their ways
+happened to lie together. Marston's first impulse was to avoid the
+clergyman; his second, which he obeyed, was to join company, and ride
+along with him, at all events, for so long as would show that he shrank
+from no encounter which fortune or accident presented. There was a spirit
+of bitter defiance in this, which cost him a painful effort.
+
+"How do you do, Parson Danvers?" said Marston, touching his hat with the
+handle of his whip.
+
+Danvers thought he had seldom seen a man so changed in so short a time.
+His face had grown sallow and wasted, and his figure slightly stooped,
+with an appearance almost of feebleness.
+
+"Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, gravely, and almost sternly, though
+with some embarrassment, "it is a long time since you and I have seen
+one another, and many and painful events have passed in the interval.
+I scarce know upon what terms we meet. I am prompted to speak to you,
+and in a tone, perhaps, which you will hardly brook; and yet, if we
+keep company, as it seems likely we may, I cannot, and I ought not, to
+be silent."
+
+"Well, Mr. Danvers, I accept the condition--speak what you will," said
+Marston, with a gloomy promptitude. "If you exceed your privilege, and
+grow uncivil, I need but use my spurs, and leave you behind me preaching
+to the winds."
+
+"Ah! Mr. Marston," said Dr. Danvers, almost sadly, after a considerable
+pause, "when I saw you close beside me, my heart was troubled within me."
+
+"You looked on me as something from the nether world, and expected to see
+the cloven hoof," said Marston, bitterly, and raising his booted foot a
+little as he spoke; "but, after all, I am but a vulgar sinner of flesh
+and blood, without enough of the preternatural about me to frighten an
+old nurse, much less to agitate a pillar of the Church."
+
+"Mr. Marston, you talk sarcastically, but you feel that recent
+circumstances, as well as old recollections, might well disturb and
+trouble me at sight of you," answered Dr. Danvers.
+
+"Well--yes--perhaps it is so," said Marston, hastily and sullenly, and
+became silent for a while.
+
+"My heart is full, Mr. Marston; charged with grief, when I think of the
+sad history of those with whom, in my mind, you must ever be associated,"
+said Doctor Danvers.
+
+"Aye, to be sure," said Marston, with stern impatience; "but, then, you
+have much to console you. You have got your comforts and your
+respectability; all the dearer, too, from the contrast of other people's
+misfortunes and degradations; then you have your religion moreover--"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Danvers, earnestly, and hastening to avoid a sneer
+upon this subject; "God be blessed, I am an humble follower of his
+gracious Son, our Redeemer; and though, I trust, I should bear with
+patient submission whatever chastisement in his wisdom and goodness he
+might see fit to inflict upon me, yet I do praise and bless him for the
+mercy which has hitherto spared me, and I do feel that mercy all the more
+profoundly, from the afflictions and troubles with which I daily see
+others overtaken."
+
+"And in the matter of piety and decorum, doubtless, you bless God also,"
+said Marston, sarcastically, "that you are not as other men are, nor even
+as this publican."
+
+"Nay, Mr. Marston; God forbid I should harden my sinful heart with the
+wicked pride of the Pharisee. Evil and corrupt am I already over much.
+Too well I know the vileness of my heart, to make myself righteous in my
+own eyes," replied Dr. Danvers, humbly. "But, sinner as I am, I am yet a
+messenger of God, whose mission is one of authority to his
+fellow-sinners; and woe is me if I speak not the truth at all seasons,
+and in all places where my words may be profitably heard."
+
+"Well, Doctor Danvers, it seems you think it your duty to speak to me,
+of course, respecting my conduct and my spiritual state. I shall save you
+the pain and trouble of opening the subject; I shall state the case for
+you in two words," said Marston, almost fiercely. "I have put away my
+wife without just cause, and am living in sin with another woman. Come,
+what have you to say on this theme? Speak out. Deal with me as roughly as
+you will, I will hear it, and answer you again."
+
+"Alas, Mr. Marston! And do not these things trouble you?" exclaimed Dr.
+Danvers, earnestly. "Do they not weigh heavy upon your conscience? Ah,
+sir, do you not remember that, slowly and surely, you are drawing towards
+the hour of death, and the Day of Judgment?"
+
+"The hour or death! Yes, I know it is coming, and I await it with
+indifference. But, for the Day of Judgment, with its books and trumpets!
+My dear doctor, pray don't expect to frighten me with that."
+
+Marston spoke with an angry scorn, which had the effect of interrupting
+the conversation for some moments.
+
+They rode on, side by side, for a long time, without speaking. At length,
+however, Marston unexpectedly broke the silence--
+
+"Doctor Danvers," said he, "you asked me some time ago if I feared the
+hour of death, and the Day of Judgment. I answered you truly, I do not
+fear them; nay death, I think, I could meet with a happier and a quieter
+heart than any other chance that can befall me; but there are other
+fears; fears that do trouble me much."
+
+Doctor Danvers looked inquiringly at him; but neither spoke for a time.
+
+"You have not seen the catastrophe of the tragedy yet," said Marston,
+with a stern, stony look, made more horrible by a forced smile and
+something like a shudder. "I wish I could tell you--you, Doctor
+Danvers--for you are honorable and gentle-hearted. I wish I durst tell
+you what I fear; the only, only thing I really do fear. No mortal knows
+it but myself, and I see it coming upon me with slow, but unconquerable
+power. Oh, God--dreadful Spirit--spare me!"
+
+Again they were silent, and again Marston resumed--
+
+"Doctor Danvers, don't mistake me," he said, turning sharply, and fixing
+his eyes with a strange expression upon his companion. "I dread nothing
+human; I fear neither death, nor disgrace, nor eternity; I have no
+secrets to keep--no exposures to apprehend; but I dread--I dread--"
+
+He paused, scowled darkly, as if stung with pain, turned away, muttering
+to himself, and gradually became much excited.
+
+"I can't tell you now, sir, and I won't," he said, abruptly and fiercely,
+and with a countenance darkened with a wild and appalling rage that was
+wholly unaccountable. "I see you searching me with your eyes. Suspect
+what you will, sir, you shan't inveigle me into admissions. Aye,
+pry--whisper--stare--question, conjecture, sir--I suppose I must endure
+the world's impertinence, but d----n me if I gratify it."
+
+It would not be easy to describe Dr. Danvers' astonishment at this
+unaccountable explosion of fury. He was resolved, however, to bear his
+companion's violence with temper.
+
+They rode on slowly for fully ten minutes in utter silence, except that
+Marston occasionally muttered to himself, as it seemed, in excited
+abstraction. Danvers had at first felt naturally offended at the violent
+and insulting tone in which he had been so unexpectedly and unprovokedly
+addressed; but this feeling of irritation was but transient, and some
+fearful suspicions as to Marston's sanity flitted through his mind. In a
+calmer and more dogged tone, his companion now addressed him:--
+
+"There is little profit you see, doctor, in worrying me about your
+religion," said Marston. "it is but sowing the wind, and reaping the
+whirlwind; and, to say the truth, the longer you pursue it, the less I am
+in the mood to listen. If ever you are cursed and persecuted as I have
+been, you will understand how little tolerant of gratuitous vexations and
+contradictions a man may become. We have squabbled over religion long
+enough, and each holds his own faith still. Continue to sun yourself in
+your happy delusions, and leave me untroubled to tread the way of my own
+dark and cheerless destiny."
+
+Thus saying, he made a sullen gesture of farewell, and spurring his
+horse, crossed the broken fence at the roadside, and so, at a listless
+pace, through gaps and by farm-roads, penetrated towards his melancholy
+and guilty home.
+
+Two years had now passed since the decisive event which had forever
+separated Marston from her who had loved him so devotedly and so fatally;
+two years to him of disappointment, abasement, and secret rage; two years
+to her of gentle and heart-broken submission to the chastening hand of
+heaven. At the end of this time she died. Marston read the letter that
+announced the event with a stern look, and silently, but the shock he
+felt was terrific. No man is so self-abandoned to despair and
+degradation, that at some casual moment thoughts of amendment--some
+gleams of hope, however faint and transient, from the distant
+future--will not visit him. With Marston, those thoughts had somehow ever
+been associated with vague ideas of a reconciliation with the being whom
+he had forsaken--good and pure, and looking at her from the darkness and
+distance of his own fallen state, almost angelic as she seemed. But she
+was now dead; he could make her no atonement; she could never smile
+forgiveness upon him. This long-familiar image--the last that had
+reflected for him one ray of the lost peace and love of happier
+times--had vanished, and henceforward there was before him nothing but
+storm and fear.
+
+Marston's embarrassed fortunes made it to him an object to resume the
+portion of his income heretofore devoted to the separate maintenance of
+his wife and daughter. In order to effect this it became, of course,
+necessary to recall his daughter, Rhoda, and fix her residence once more
+at Gray Forest. No more dreadful penalty could have been inflicted upon
+the poor girl--no more agonizing ordeal than that she was thus doomed to
+undergo. She had idolized her mother, and now adored her memory. She knew
+that Mademoiselle de Barras had betrayed and indirectly murdered the
+parent she had so devotedly loved; she knew that that woman had been the
+curse, the fate of her family, and she regarded her naturally with
+feelings of mingled terror and abhorrence, the intensity of which was
+indescribable.
+
+The few scattered friends and relatives, whose sympathies had been moved
+by the melancholy fate of poor Mrs. Marston, were unanimously agreed that
+the intended removal of the young and innocent daughter to the polluted
+mansion of sin and shame, was too intolerably revolting to be permitted.
+But each of these virtuous individuals unhappily thought it the duty of
+the others to interpose; and with a running commentary of wonder and
+reprobation, and much virtuous criticism, events were suffered
+uninterruptedly to take their sinister and melancholy course.
+
+It was about two months after the death of Mrs. Marston, and on a bleak
+and ominous night at the wintry end of autumn, that poor Rhoda, in deep
+mourning, and pale with grief and agitation, descended from a chaise at
+the well-known door of the mansion of Gray Forest. Whether from
+consideration for her feelings, or, as was more probable, from pure
+indifference, Rhoda was conducted, on her arrival, direct to her own
+chamber, and it was not until the next morning that she saw her father.
+He entered her room unexpectedly, he was very pale, and as she thought,
+greatly altered, but he seemed perfectly collected, and free from
+agitation. The marked and even shocking change in his appearance, and
+perhaps even the trifling though painful circumstance that he wore no
+mourning for the beloved being who was gone, caused her, after a moment's
+mute gazing in his face, to burst into an irrepressible flood of tears.
+Marston waited stoically until the paroxysm had subsided, and then taking
+her hand, with a look in which a dogged sternness was contending with
+something like shame, he said:--
+
+"There, there; you can weep when I am gone. I shan't say very much to you
+at present, Rhoda, and only wish you to attend to me for one minute.
+Listen, Rhoda; the lady whom you have been in the habit (here he slightly
+averted his eyes) of calling Mademoiselle de Barras, is no longer so; she
+is married; she is my wife, and consequently you will treat her with the
+respect due to"--he would have said "a mother," but could not, and
+supplied the phrase by adding, "to that relation."
+
+Rhoda was unable to speak, but almost unconsciously bowed her head in
+token of attention and submission, and her father pressed her hand more
+kindly, as he continued:--
+
+"I have always found you a dutiful and obedient child, Rhoda, and
+expected no other conduct from you. Mrs. Marston will treat you with
+proper kindness and consideration, and desires me to say that you can,
+whenever you please, keep strictly to yourself, and need not, unless
+you feel so disposed, attend the regular meals of the family. This
+privilege may suit your present depressed spirits, and you must not
+scruple to use it."
+
+After a few words more, Marston withdrew, leaving his daughter to her
+reflections, and bleak and bitter enough they were.
+
+Some weeks passed away, and perhaps we shall best consult our readers'
+ease by substituting for the formal precision of narrative, a few
+extracts from the letters which Rhoda wrote to her brother, still at
+Cambridge. These will convey her own impressions respecting the scenes
+and personages among whom she was now to move.
+
+"The house and place are much neglected, and the former in some parts
+suffered almost to go to decay. The windows broken in the last storm,
+nearly eight months ago, they tell me, are still unmended, and the roof,
+too, unrepaired. The pretty garden, near the well, among the lime trees,
+that our darling mother was so fond of, is all but obliterated with weeds
+and grass, and since my first visit I have not had heart to go near it
+again. All the old servants are gone; new faces everywhere.
+
+"I have been obliged several times, through fear of offending my father,
+to join the party in the drawing room. You may conceive what I felt at
+seeing mademoiselle in the place once filled by our dear mamma, I was so
+choked with sorrow, bitterness, and indignation, and my heart so
+palpitated, that I could not speak, and I believe they thought I was
+going to faint. Mademoiselle looked very angry, but my father pretending
+to show me, heaven knows what, from the window, led me to it, and the
+air revived me a little. Mademoiselle (for I cannot call her by her new
+name) is altered a good deal--more, however, in the character than in the
+contour of her face and figure. Certainly, however, she has grown a good
+deal fuller, and her color is higher; and whether it is fancy or not, I
+cannot say, but certainly to me it seems that the expression of her face
+has acquired something habitually lowering and malicious, and which, I
+know not how, inspires me with an undefinable dread. She has, however,
+been tolerably civil to me, but seems contemptuous and rude to my father,
+and I am afraid he is very wretched, I have seen them exchange such
+looks, and overheard such intemperate and even appalling altercations
+between them, as indicate something worse and deeper than ordinary
+ill-will. This makes me additionally wretched, especially as I cannot
+help thinking that some mysterious cause enables her to frighten and
+tyrannise over my poor father. I sometimes think he absolutely detests
+her; yet, though fiery altercations ensue, he ultimately submits to this
+bad and cruel woman. Oh, my dear Charles, you have no idea of the
+shocking, or rather the terrifying, reproaches I have heard interchanged
+between them, as I accidently passed the room where they were
+sitting--such terms as have sent me to my room, feeling as if I were
+in a horrid dream, and made me cry and tremble for hours after I got
+there.... I see my father very seldom, and when I do, he takes but little
+notice of me.... Poor Willett, you know, returned with me. She
+accompanies me in my walks, and is constantly dropping hints about
+mademoiselle, from which I know not what to gather....
+
+"I often fear that my father has some secret and mortal ailment. He
+generally looks ill, and sometimes quite wretchedly. He came twice lately
+to my room, I think to speak to me on some matter of importance; but he
+said only a sentence or two, and even these broken and incoherent. He
+seemed unable to command spirits for the interview; and, indeed, he grew
+so agitated and strange, that I was alarmed, and felt greatly relieved
+when he left me....
+
+"I do not, you see, disguise my feelings, dear Charles; I do not conceal
+from you the melancholy and anguish of my present situation. How
+intensely I long for your promised arrival. I have not a creature to whom
+I can say one word in confidence, except poor Willett; who, though very
+good-natured, and really dear to me, is yet far from being a companion. I
+sometimes think my intense anxiety to see you here is almost selfish; for
+I know you will feel as acutely as I do, the terrible change observable
+everywhere. But I cannot help longing for your return, dear Charles, and
+counting the days and the very hours till you arrive....
+
+"Be cautious, in writing to me, not to say anything which you would not
+wish mademoiselle to see; for Willett tells me that she knows that she
+often examines, and even intercepts the letters that arrive; and, though
+Willett may be mistaken, and I hope she is, yet it is better that you
+should be upon your guard. Ever since I heard this, I have brought my
+letters to the post office myself, instead of leaving them with the rest
+upon the hall table; and you know it is a long walk for me....
+
+"I go to church every Sunday, and take Willett along with me. No one from
+this seems to think of doing so but ourselves. I see the Mervyns there.
+Mrs. Mervyn is particularly kind; and I know that she wishes to offer me
+an asylum at Newton Park; and you cannot think with how much tenderness
+and delicacy she conveys the wish. But I dare not hint the subject to my
+father; and, earnestly as I desire it, I could not but feel that I should
+go there, not to visit, but to reside. And so even in this, in many
+respects, delightful project, is mingled the bitter apprehension of
+dependence--something so humiliating, that, kindly and delicately as the
+offer is made, I could not bring myself to embrace it. I have a great
+deal to say to you, and long to see you."...
+
+These extracts will enable the reader to form a tolerably accurate idea
+of the general state of affairs at Gray Forest. Some particulars must,
+however, be added.
+
+Marston continued to be the same gloomy and joyless being as heretofore.
+Sometimes moody and apathetic, sometimes wayward and even savage, but
+never for a moment at ease, never social--an isolated, disdainful,
+ruined man.
+
+One day as Rhoda sate and read under the shade of some closely-interwoven
+evergreens, in a lonely and sheltered part of the neglected
+pleasure-grounds, with her honest maid Willett in attendance, she was
+surprised by the sudden appearance of her father, who stood unexpectedly
+before her. Though his attitude for some time was fixed, his countenance
+was troubled with anxiety and pain, and his sunken eyes rested upon her
+with a fiery and fretted gaze. He seemed lost in thought for a while, and
+then, touching Willett sharply on the shoulder, said abruptly:
+
+"Go; I shall call you when you are wanted. Walk down that alley." And,
+as he spoke, he indicated with his walking-cane the course he desired
+her to take.
+
+When the maid was sufficiently distant to be quite out of hearing,
+Marston sate down beside Rhoda upon the bench, and took her hand in
+silence. His grasp was cold, and alternately relaxed and contracted
+with an agitated uncertainty, while his eyes were fixed upon the
+ground, and he seemed meditating how to open the conversation. At last,
+as if suddenly awaking from a fearful reverie, he said--"You correspond
+with Charles?"
+
+"Yes, sir," she replied, with the respectful formality prescribed by the
+usages of the time, "we correspond regularly."
+
+"Aye, aye; and, pray, when did you last hear from him?" he continued.
+
+"About a month since, sir," she replied.
+
+"Ha--and--and--was there nothing strange--nothing--nothing mysterious and
+menacing in his letter? Come, come, you know what I speak of." He stopped
+abruptly, and stared in her face with an agitated gaze.
+
+"No, indeed, sir; there was not anything of the kind," she replied.
+
+"I have been greatly shocked, I may say incensed," said Marston
+excitedly, "by a passage in his last letter to me. Not that it says
+anything specific; but--but it amazes me--it enrages me."
+
+He again checked himself, and Rhoda, much surprised, and even shocked,
+said, stammeringly--
+
+"I am sure, sir, that dear Charles would not intentionally say or do
+anything that could offend you."
+
+"Ah, as to that, I believe so, too. But it is not with him I am
+indignant; no, no. Poor Charles! I believe he is, as you say, disposed to
+conduct himself as a son ought to do, respectfully and obediently. Yes,
+yes, Charles is very well; but I fear he is leading a bad life,
+notwithstanding--a very bad life. He is becoming subject to influences
+which never visit or torment the good; believe me, he is."
+
+Marston shook his head, and muttered to himself, with a look of almost
+craven anxiety, and then whispered to his daughter--
+
+"Just read this, and then tell me is it not so. Read it, read it, and
+pronounce."
+
+As he thus spoke, he placed in her hand the letter of which he had
+spoken, and with the passage to which he invited her attention folded
+down. It was to the following effect:--
+
+"I cannot tell you how shocked I have been by a piece of scandal, as I
+must believe it, conveyed to me in an anonymous letter, and which is of
+so very delicate a nature, that without your special command I should
+hesitate to pain you by its recital. I trust it may be utterly false.
+Indeed I assume it to be so. It is enough to say that it is of a very
+distressing nature, and affects the lady (Mademoiselle de Barras) whom
+you have recently honored with your hand."
+
+"Now you see," cried Marston, with a shuddering fierceness, as she
+returned the letter with a blanched cheek and trembling hand--"now you
+see it all. Are you stupid?--the stamp of the cloven hoof--eh?"
+
+Rhoda, unable to gather his meaning, but, at the same time, with a heart
+full and trembling very much, stammered a few frightened words, and
+became silent.
+
+"It is he, I tell you, that does it all; and if Charles were not living
+an evil life, he could not have spread his nets for him," said Marston,
+vehemently. "He can't go near anything good; but, like a scoundrel, he
+knows where to find a congenial nature; and when he does, he has skill
+enough to practice upon it. I know him well, and his arts and his smiles;
+aye, and his scowls and his grins, too. He goes, like his master, up and
+down, and to and fro upon the earth, for ceaseless mischief. There is not
+a friend of mine he can get hold of, but he whispered in his ear some
+damned slander of me. He is drawing them all into a common understanding
+against me; and he takes an actual pleasure in telling me how the thing
+goes on--how, one after the other, he has converted my friends into
+conspirators and libelers, to blast my character, and take my life, and
+now the monster essays to lure my children into the hellish
+confederation."
+
+"Who is he, father, who is he?" faltered Rhoda.
+
+"You never saw him," retorted Marston, sternly.
+
+"No, no; you can't have seen him, and you probably never will; but if he
+does come here again, don't listen to him. He is half-fiend and
+half-idiot, and no good comes of his mouthing and muttering. Avoid him, I
+warn you, avoid him. Let me see: how shall I describe him? Let me see.
+You remember--you remember Berkley--Sir Wynston Berkley. Well, he greatly
+resembles that dead villain: he has all the same grins, and shrugs, and
+monkey airs, and his face and figure are like. But he is a grimed,
+ragged, wasted piece of sin, little better than a beggar--a shrunken,
+malignant libel on the human shape. Avoid him, I tell you, avoid him: he
+is steeped in lies and poison, like the very serpent that betrayed us.
+Beware of him, I say, for if he once gains your ear, he will delude you,
+spite of all your vigilance; he will make you his accomplice, and
+thenceforth, inevitably, there is nothing but mortal and implacable
+hatred between us!"
+
+Frightened at this wild language, Rhoda did not answer, but looked up in
+his face in silence. A fearful transformation was there--a scowl so livid
+and maniacal, that her very senses seemed leaving her with terror.
+Perhaps the sudden alteration observable in her countenance, as this
+spectacle so unexpectedly encountered her, recalled him to himself; for
+he added, hurriedly, and in a tone of gentler meaning--
+
+"Rhoda, Rhoda, watch and pray. My daughter, my child! keep your heart
+pure, and nothing bad can approach you for ill. No, no; you are good, and
+the good need not fear!"
+
+Suddenly Marston burst into tears, as he ended this sentence, and
+wept long and convulsively. She did not dare to speak, or even to
+move; but after a while he ceased, appeared uneasy, half ashamed and
+half angry; and looking with a horrified and bewildered glance into
+her face, he said--
+
+"Rhoda, child, what--what have I said? My God! what have I been saying?
+Did I--do I look ill? Oh, Rhoda, Rhoda, may you never feel this!"
+
+He turned away from her without awaiting her answer, and walked away
+with the appearance of intense agitation, as if to leave her. He turned
+again, however, and with a face pallid and sunken as death, approached
+her slowly--
+
+"Rhoda," said he, "don't tell what I have said to anyone--don't, I
+conjure you, even to Charles. I speak too much at random, and say more
+than I mean--a foolish, rambling habit: so do not repeat one word of it,
+not one word to any living mortal. You and I, Rhoda, must have our
+little secrets."
+
+He ended with an attempt at a smile, so obviously painful and
+fear-stricken that as he walked hurriedly away, the astounded girl burst
+into a bitter flood of tears. What was, what could be, the meaning of
+the shocking scene she had then been forced to witness? She dared not
+answer the question. Yet one ghastly doubt haunted her like her
+shadow--a suspicion that the malignant and hideous light of madness was
+already glaring upon his mind. As, leaning upon the arm of her
+astonished attendant, she retracted her steps, the trees, the flowers,
+the familiar hall-door, the echoing passages--every object that met her
+eye--seemed strange and unsubstantial, and she gliding on among them in
+a horrid dream.
+
+Time passed on: there was no renewal of the painful scene which dwelt so
+sensibly in the affrighted imagination of Rhoda. Marston's manner was
+changed towards her; he seemed shy, cowed, and uneasy in her presence,
+and thenceforth she saw less than ever of him. Meanwhile the time
+approached which was to witness the long expected, and, by Rhoda, the
+intensely prayed for arrival of her brother.
+
+Some four or five days before this event, Mr. Marston, having, as he
+said, some business in Chester, and further designing to meet his son
+there, took his departure from Gray Forest, leaving poor Rhoda to the
+guardianship of her guilty stepmother; and although she had seen so
+little of her father, yet the very consciousness of his presence had
+given her a certain confidence and sense of security, which vanished at
+the moment of his departure. Fear-stricken and wretched as he had been,
+his removal, nevertheless, seemed to her to render the lonely and
+inauspicious mansion still more desolate and ominous than before.
+
+She had, with a vague and instinctive antipathy, avoided all contact and
+intercourse with Mrs. Marston, or as, for distinctness sake, we shall
+continue to call her, "Mademoiselle," since her return; and she on her
+part had appeared to acquiesce with a sort of scornful nonchalance, in
+the tacit understanding that she and her former pupil should see and hear
+as little as might be of one another.
+
+Meanwhile poor Willett, with her good-natured honesty and her
+inexhaustible gossip, endeavored to amuse and reassure her young
+mistress, and sometimes even with some partial success.
+
+We must now follow Mr. Marston in his solitary expedition to Chester.
+When he took his place in the stagecoach he had the whole interior of the
+vehicle to himself, and thus continued to be its solitary occupant for
+several miles. The coach, however, was eventually hailed, brought to, and
+the door being opened, Dr. Danvers got in, and took his place opposite to
+the passenger already established there. The worthy man was so busied in
+directing the disposition of his luggage from the window, and in
+arranging the sundry small parcels with which he was charged, that he
+did not recognize his companion until they were in motion. When he did so
+it was with no very pleasurable feeling; and it is probable that Marston,
+too, would have gladly escaped the coincidence which thus reduced them
+once more to the temporary necessity of a Tate-à-Tate. Embarrassing as
+each felt the situation to be, there was, however, no avoiding it, and,
+after a recognition and a few forced attempts at conversation, they
+became, by mutual consent, silent and uncommunicative.
+
+The journey, though in point of space a mere trifle, was, in those
+slowcoach days, a matter of fully five hours' duration; and before it was
+completed the sun had set, and darkness began to close. Whether it was
+that the descending twilight dispelled the painful constraint under which
+Marston had seemed to labor, or that some more purely spiritual and
+genial influence had gradually dissipated the repulsion and distrust with
+which, at first, he had shrunk from a renewal of intercourse with Dr.
+Danvers, he suddenly accosted him thus.
+
+"Dr. Danvers, I have been fifty times on the point of speaking to
+you--confidentially of course--while sitting here opposite to you, what I
+believe I could scarcely bring myself to hint to any other man living;
+yet I must tell it, and soon, too, or I fear it will have told itself."
+
+Dr. Danvers intimated his readiness to hear and advise, if desired; and
+Marston resumed abruptly, after a pause--
+
+"Pray, Doctor Danvers, have you heard any stories of an odd kind; any
+surmises--I don't mean of a moral sort, for those I hold very cheap--to
+my prejudice? Indeed I should hardly say to my prejudice; I mean--I ought
+to say--in short, have you heard people remark upon any fancied
+eccentricities, or that sort of thing, about me?"
+
+He put the question with obvious difficulty, and at last seemed to
+overcome his own reluctance with a sort of angry and excited
+self-contempt and impatience. Doctor Danvers was a little puzzled by
+the interrogatory, and admitted, in reply, that he did not comprehend
+its drift.
+
+"Doctor Danvers," he resumed, sternly and dejectedly, "I told you, in the
+chance interview we had some months ago, that I was haunted by a certain
+fear. I did not define it, nor do I think you suspect its nature. It is a
+fear of nothing mortal, but of the immortal tenant of this body. My mind;
+sir, is beginning to play me tricks; my guide mocks and terrifies me."
+
+There was a perceptible tinge of horror in the look of astonishment with
+which Dr. Danvers listened.
+
+"You are a gentleman, sir, and a Christian clergyman; what I have said
+and shall say is confided to your honor; to be held sacred as the
+confession of misery, and hidden from the coarse gaze of the world. I
+have become subject to a hideous delusion. It comes at intervals. I do
+not think any mortal suspects it, except, maybe, my daughter Rhoda. It
+comes and disappears, and comes again. I kept my pleasant secret for a
+long time, but at last I let it slip, and committed myself fortunately,
+to but one person, and that my daughter; and, even so, I hardly think she
+understood me. I recollected myself before I had disclosed the grotesque
+and infernal chimera that haunts me."
+
+Marston paused. He was stooped forward, and looking upon the floor of the
+vehicle, so that his companion could not see his countenance. A silence
+ensued, which was interrupted by Marston, who once more resumed.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I know not why, but I have longed, intensely longed,
+for some trustworthy ear into which to pour this horrid secret; why I
+repeat, I cannot tell, for I expect no sympathy, and hate compassion. It
+is, I suppose, the restless nature of the devil that is in me; but, be it
+what it may, I will speak to you, but to you only, for the present, at
+least, to you alone."
+
+Doctor Danvers again assured him that he might repose the most entire
+confidence in his secrecy.
+
+"The human mind, I take it, must have either comfort in the past or hope
+in the future," he continued, "otherwise it is in danger. To me, sir, the
+past is intolerably repulsive; one boundless, barren, and hideous
+Golgotha of dead hopes and murdered opportunities; the future, still
+blacker and more furious, peopled with dreadful features of horror and
+menace, and losing itself in utter darkness. Sir, I do not exaggerate.
+Between such a past and such a future I stand upon this miserable
+present; and the only comfort I still am capable of feeling is, that no
+human being pities me; that I stand aloof from the insults of compassion
+and the hypocrisies of sympathetic morality; and that I can safely defy
+all the respectable scoundrels in Christendom to enhance, by one
+feather's weight, the load which I myself have accumulated, and which I
+myself hourly and unaided sustain."
+
+Doctor Danvers here introduced a word or two in the direction of their
+former conversation.
+
+"No, sir, there is no comfort from that quarter either," said Marston,
+bitterly; "you but cast your seeds, as the parable terms your teaching,
+upon the barren sea, in wasting them on me. My fate, be it what it may,
+is as irrevocably fixed, as though I were dead and judged a hundred
+years ago.
+
+"This cursed dream," he resumed abruptly, "that everyday enslaves me more
+and more, has reference to that--that occurrence about Wynston
+Berkley--he is the hero of the hellish illusion. At certain times, sir,
+it seems to me as if he, though dead, were still invested with a sort of
+spurious life; going about unrecognized, except by me, in squalor and
+contempt, and whispering away my fame and life; laboring with the
+malignant industry of a fiend to involve me in the meshes of that special
+perdition from which alone I shrink, and to which this emissary of hell
+seems to have predestined me. Sir, this is a monstrous and hideous
+extravagance, a delusion, but, after all, no more than a trick of the
+imagination; the reason, the judgment, is untouched. I cannot choose but
+see all the damned phantasmagoria, but I do not believe it real, and this
+is the difference between my case and--and--madness!"
+
+They were now entering the suburbs of Chester, and Doctor Danvers, pained
+and shocked beyond measure by this unlooked-for disclosure, and not
+knowing what remark or comfort to offer, relieved his temporary
+embarrassment by looking from the window, as though attracted by the
+flash of the lamps, among which the vehicle was now moving. Marston,
+however, laid his hand upon his arm, and thus recalled him, for a moment,
+to a forced attention.
+
+"It must seem strange to you, Doctor, that I should trust this cursed
+secret to your keeping," he said; "and, truth to say, it seems so to
+myself. I cannot account for the impulse, the irresistible power of which
+has forced me to disclose the hateful mystery to you, but the fact is
+this, beginning like a speck, this one idea has gradually darkened and
+dilated, until it has filled my entire mind. The solitary consciousness
+of the gigantic mastery it has established there had grown intolerable; I
+must have told it. The sense of solitude under this aggressive and
+tremendous delusion was agony, hourly death to my soul. That is the
+secret of my talkativeness; my sole excuse for plaguing you with the
+dreams of a wretched hypochondriac."
+
+Doctor Danvers assured him that no apologies were needed, and was only
+restrained from adding the expression of that pity which he really felt,
+by the fear of irritating a temper so full of bitterness, pride and
+defiance. A few minutes more, and the coach having reached its
+destination, they bid one another farewell, and parted.
+
+At that time there resided in a decent mansion about a mile from the town
+of Chester, a dapper little gentleman, whom we shall call Doctor Parkes.
+This gentleman was the proprietor and sole professional manager of a
+private asylum for the insane and enjoyed a high reputation, and a
+proportionate amount of business, in his melancholy calling. It was about
+the second day after the conversation we have just sketched, that this
+little gentleman, having visited, according to his custom, all his
+domestic patients, was about to take his accustomed walk in his somewhat
+restricted pleasure grounds, when his servant announced a visitor.
+
+"A gentleman," he repeated; "you have seen him before--eh?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the man; "he is in the study, sir."
+
+"Ha! a professional call. Well, we shall see."
+
+So saying, the little gentleman summoned his gravest look, and hastened
+to the chamber of audience.
+
+On entering he found a man dressed well, but gravely, having in his
+air and manner something of high breeding. In countenance striking,
+dark-featured, and stern, furrowed with the lines of pain or
+thought, rather than of age, although his dark hairs were largely
+mingled with white.
+
+The physician bowed, and requested the stranger to take a chair; he,
+however, nodded slightly and impatiently, as if to intimate an
+intolerance of ceremony, and, advancing a step or two, said abruptly--
+
+"My name, sir, is Marston; I have come to give you a patient."
+
+The doctor bowed with a still deeper inclination, and paused for a
+continuance of the communication thus auspiciously commenced.
+
+"You are Dr. Parkes, I take it for granted," said Marston, in the
+same tone.
+
+"Your most obedient, humble servant, sir," replied he, with the polite
+formality of the day, and another grave bow.
+
+"Doctor," demanded Marston, fixing his eye upon him sternly, and
+significantly tapping his own forehead, "can you stay execution?"
+
+The physician looked puzzled, hesitated, and at last requested his
+visitor to be more explicit.
+
+"Can you," said Marston, with the same slow and stern articulation, and
+after a considerable pause--"can you prevent the malady you profess to
+cure?--can you meet and defeat the enemy halfway?--can you scare away the
+spirit of madness before it takes actual possession, and while it is
+still only hovering about its threatened victim?"
+
+"Sir," he replied, "in certain cases--in very many, indeed--the enemy, as
+you well call it, may thus be met, and effectually worsted at a distance.
+Timely interposition, in ninety cases out of a hundred, is everything;
+and, I assure you, I hear your question with much pleasure, inasmuch as I
+assume it to have reference to the case of the patient about whom you
+desire to consult me; and who is, therefore, I hope, as yet merely
+menaced with the misfortune from which you would save him."
+
+"I, myself, am that patient, sir," said Marston, with an effort; "your
+surmise is right. I am not mad, but unequivocally menaced with madness;
+it is not to be mistaken. Sir, there is no misunderstanding the
+tremendous and intolerable signs that glare upon my mind."
+
+"And pray, sir, have you consulted your friends or your family upon the
+course best to be pursued?" inquired Dr. Parkes, with grave interest.
+
+"No, sir," he answered sharply, and almost fiercely; "I have no fancy to
+make myself the subject of a writ _de lunatico inquirendo_; I don't want
+to lose my liberty and my property at a blow. The course I mean to take
+has been advised by no one but myself--is known to no other. I now
+disclose it, and the causes of it, to you, a gentleman, and my
+professional adviser, in the expectation that you will guard with the
+strictest secrecy my spontaneous revelations; this you promise me?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Marston; I have neither the disposition nor the right to
+withhold such a promise," answered the physician.
+
+"Well, then, I will first tell you the arrangement I propose, with your
+permission, to make, and then I shall answer all your questions,
+respecting my own case," resumed Marston, gloomily. "I wish to place
+myself under your care, to live under your roof, reserving my full
+liberty of action. I must be free to come and to go as I will; and on the
+other hand, I undertake that you shall find me an amenable and docile
+patient enough. In addition, I stipulate that there shall be no attempt
+whatever made to communicate with those who are connected with me: these
+terms agreed upon, I place myself in your hands. You will find in me, as
+I said before, a deferential patient, and I trust not a troublesome one.
+I hope you will excuse my adding, that I shall myself pay the charge of
+my sojourn here from week to week, in advance."
+
+The proposed arrangement was a strange one; and although Dr. Parkes
+dimly foresaw some of the embarrassments which might possibly arise
+from his accepting it, there was yet so much that was reasonable as
+well as advantageous in the proposal, that he could not bring himself
+to decline it.
+
+The preliminary arrangement concluded, Dr. Parkes proceeded to his more
+strictly professional investigation. It is, of course, needless to
+recapitulate the details of Marston's tormenting fancies, with which the
+reader has indeed been already sufficiently acquainted. Doctor Parkes,
+having attentively listened to the narrative, and satisfied himself as to
+the physical health of his patient, was still sorely puzzled as to the
+probable issue of the awful struggle already but too obviously commenced
+between the mind and its destroyer in the strange case before him. One
+satisfactory symptom unquestionably was, the as yet transitory nature of
+the delusion, and the evident and energetic tenacity with which reason
+contended for her vital ascendancy. It was a case, however, which for
+many reasons sorely perplexed him, but of which, notwithstanding, he was
+disposed, whether rightly or wrongly the reader will speedily see, to
+take by no means a decidedly gloomy view.
+
+Having disburdened his mind of this horrible secret, Marston felt for a
+time a sense of relief amounting almost to elation. With far less of
+apprehension and dismay than he had done so for months before, he that
+night repaired to his bedroom. There was nothing in his case, Doctor
+Parkes believed, to warrant his keeping any watch upon Marston's actions,
+and accordingly he bid him good-night, in the full confidence of meeting
+him, if not better, at least not worse, on the ensuing morning.
+
+He miscalculated, however. Marston had probably himself been conscious of
+some coming crisis in his hideous malady, when he took the decisive step
+of placing himself under the care of Doctor Parkes. Certain it is, that
+upon that very night the disease broke forth in a new and appalling
+development. Doctor Parkes, whose bedroom was next to that occupied by
+Marston, was awakened in the dead of night by a howling, more like that
+of a beast than a human voice, and which gradually swelled into an
+absolute yell; then came some horrid laughter and entreaties, thick and
+frantic; then again the same unearthly howl. The practiced ear of Doctor
+Parkes recognized but too surely the terrific import of those sounds.
+Springing from his bed, and seizing the candle which always burned in his
+chamber, in anticipation of such sudden and fearful emergencies, he
+hurried with a palpitating heart, and spite of his long habituation to
+such scenes as he expected, with a certain sense of horror, to the
+chamber of his aristocratic patient.
+
+Late as it was, Marston had not yet gone to bed; his candle was still
+burning, and he himself, half dressed, stood in the center of the floor,
+shaking and livid, his eyes burning with the preterhuman fires of
+insanity. As Doctor Parkes entered the chamber, another shout, or rather
+yell, thundered from the lips of this demoniac effigy; and the mad-doctor
+stood freezing with horror in the doorway, and yet exerting what remained
+to him of presence of mind, in the vain endeavor, in the flaring light of
+the candle, to catch and fix with his own practiced eye the gaze of the
+maniac. Second after second, and minute after minute, he stood
+confronting this frightful slave of Satan, in the momentary expectation
+that he would close with and destroy him. On a sudden, however, this
+brief agony of suspense was terminated; a change like an awakening
+consciousness of realities, or rather like the withdrawal of some hideous
+and visible influence from within, passed over the tense and darkened
+features of the wretched being; a look of horrified perplexity, doubt,
+and inquiry, supervened, and he at last said, in a subdued and sullen
+tone, to Doctor Parkes:
+
+"Who are you, sir? What do you want here? Who are you, sir, I say?"
+
+"Who am I? Why, your physician, sir; Doctor Parkes, sir; the owner of
+this house, sir," replied he, with all the sternness he could command,
+and yet white as a specter with agitation. "For shame, sir, for shame, to
+give way thus. What do you mean by creating this causeless alarm, and
+disturbing the whole household at so unseasonable an hour? For shame,
+sir; go to your bed; undress yourself this moment; for shame."
+
+Doctor Parkes, as he spoke, was reassured by the arrival of one of his
+servants, alarmed by the unmistakable sounds of violent frenzy; he
+signed, however, to the man not to enter, feeling confident, as he did,
+that the paroxysm had spent itself.
+
+"Aye, aye," muttered Marston, looking almost sheepishly; "Doctor Parkes,
+to be sure. What was I thinking of? how cursedly absurd! And this," he
+continued, glancing at his sword, which he threw impatiently upon a sofa
+as he spoke. "Folly--nonsense! A false alarm, as you say, doctor. I beg
+your pardon."
+
+As Marston spoke, he proceeded with much agitation slowly to undress
+himself. He had, however, but commenced the process, when, turning
+abruptly to Doctor Parkes, he said, with a countenance of horror, and in
+a whisper--
+
+"By ----, doctor, it has been upon me worse than ever, I would have sworn
+I had the villain with me for hours--hours, sir--torturing me with his
+damned sneering threats; till, by ----, I could stand it no longer, and
+took my sword. Oh, doctor, can't you save me? can nothing be done for
+me?"
+
+Pale, covered with the dews of horror, he uttered these last words in
+accents of such imploring despair, as might have borne across the
+dreadful gulf the prayer of Dives for that one drop of water which never
+was to cool his burning tongue.
+
+When Rhoda learned that her father, on leaving Gray Forest, had fixed no
+definite period for his return, she began to feel her situation at home
+so painful and equivocal, that, having taken honest Willett to counsel,
+she came at last to the resolution of accepting the often conveyed
+invitation of Mrs. Mervyn and sojourning, at all events until her
+father's return, at Newton Park.
+
+"My dear young friend," said the kind lady, as soon as she heard Rhoda's
+little speech to its close, "I can scarcely describe the gratification
+with which I see you here; the happiness with which I welcome you to
+Newton Park; nor, indeed, the anxiety with which I constantly
+contemplated your trying and painful position at Gray Forest. Indeed I
+ought to be angry with you for having refused me this happiness so long;
+but you have made amends at last; though, indeed, it was impossible to
+have deferred it longer. You must not fancy, however, that I will consent
+to lose you so soon as you seem to have intended. No, no; I have found it
+too hard to catch you, to let you take wing so easily; besides, I have
+others to consult as well as myself, and persons, too, who are just as
+anxious as I am to make a prisoner of you here."
+
+The good Mrs. Mervyn accompanied these words with looks so sly, and
+emphasis so significant, that Rhoda was fain to look down, to hide her
+blushes; and compassionating the confusion she herself had caused, the
+kind old lady led her to the chamber which was henceforward, so long as
+she consented to remain, to be her own apartment.
+
+How that day was passed, and how fleetly its hours sped away, it is
+needless to tell. Old Mervyn had his gentle as well as his grim aspect;
+and no welcome was ever more cordial and tender than that with which he
+greeted the unprotected child of his morose and repulsive neighbor. It
+would be impossible to convey any idea of the countless assiduities and
+the secret delight with which young Mervyn attended their rambles.
+
+The party were assembled at supper. What a contrast did this cheerful,
+happy--unutterably happy--gathering, present, in the mind of Rhoda, to
+the dull, drear, fearful evenings which she had long been wont to pass at
+Gray Forest.
+
+As they sate together in cheerful and happy intercourse, a chaise drove
+up to the hall-door, and the knocking had hardly ceased to reverberate,
+when a well-known voice was heard in the hall.
+
+Young Mervyn started to his feet, and merrily ejaculating, "Charles
+Marston! this is delightful!" disappeared, and in an instant returned
+with Charles himself.
+
+We pass over all the embraces of brother and sister; the tears and smiles
+of re-united affection. We omit the cordial shaking of hands; the kind
+looks; the questions and answers; all these, and all the little
+attentions of that good old-fashioned hospitality, which was never weary
+of demonstrating the cordiality of its welcome, we abandon to the
+imagination of the good-natured reader.
+
+Charles Marston, with the advice of his friend, Mr. Mervyn, resolved to
+lose no time in proceeding to Chester, whither it was ascertained his
+father had gone, with the declared intention of meeting and accompanying
+him home. He arrived in that town in the evening; and having previously
+learned that Doctor Danvers had been for some time in Chester, he at once
+sought him at his usual lodgings, and found the worthy old gentleman at
+his solitary "dish" of tea.
+
+"My dear Charles," said he, greeting his young friend with earnest
+warmth, "I am rejoiced beyond measure to see you. Your father is in town,
+as you supposed; and I have just had a note from him, which has, I
+confess, not a little agitated me, referring, as it does, to a subject of
+painful and horrible interest; one with which, I suppose, you are
+familiar, but upon which I myself have never yet spoken fully to any
+person, excepting your father only."
+
+"And pray, my dear sir, what is this topic?" inquired Charles, with
+marked interest.
+
+"Read this note," answered the clergyman, placing one at the same time in
+his young visitor's hand.
+
+Charles read as follows:
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"I have a singular communication to make to you, but in the strictest
+privacy, with reference to a subject which, merely to name, is to awaken
+feelings of doubt and horror; I mean the confession of Merton, with
+respect to the murder of Wynston Berkley. I will call upon you this
+evening after dark; for I have certain reasons for not caring to meet old
+acquaintances about town; and if you can afford me half an hour, I
+promise to complete my intended disclosure within that time. Let us be
+strictly private; this is my only proviso.
+
+"Yours with much respect,
+
+"Richard Marston"
+
+"Your father has been sorely troubled in mind," said Doctor Danvers, as
+soon as the young man had read this communication; "he has told me as
+much; it may be that the discovery he has now made may possibly have
+relieved him from certain galling anxieties. The fear that unjust
+suspicion should light upon himself, or those connected with him, has, I
+dare say, tormented him sorely. God grant, that as the providential
+unfolding of all the details of this mysterious crime comes about, he
+maybe brought to recognize, in the just and terrible process, the hand of
+heaven. God grant, that at last his heart may be softened, and his spirit
+illuminated by the blessed influence he has so long and so sternly
+rejected."
+
+As the old man thus spake--as if in symbolic answering to his prayer--a
+sudden glory from the setting sun streamed through the funereal pile of
+clouds which filled the western horizon, and flooded the chamber where
+they were.
+
+After a silence, Charles Marston said, with some little
+embarrassment--"It may be a strange confession to make, though, indeed,
+hardly so to you--for you know but too well the gloomy reserve with which
+my father has uniformly treated me--that the exact nature of Merton's
+confession never reached my ears; and once or twice, when I approached
+the subject, in conversation with you, it seemed to me that the subject
+was one which, for some reason, it was painful to you to enter upon."
+
+"And so it was, in truth, my young friend--so it was; for that confession
+left behind it many fearful doubts, proving, indeed, nothing but the one
+fact, that, morally, the wretched man was guilty of the murder."
+
+Charles, urged by a feeling of the keenest interest, requested Dr.
+Danvers to detail to him the particulars of the dying man's narration.
+
+"Willingly," answered Dr. Danvers, with a look of gloom, and heaving a
+profound sigh--"willingly, for you have now come to an age when you may
+safely be entrusted with secrets affecting your own family, and which,
+although, thank God, as I believe they in no respect involve the honor of
+anyone of its members, yet might deeply involve its peace and its
+security against the assaults of vague and horrible slander. Here, then,
+is the narrative: Merton, when he was conscious of the approach of death,
+qualified, by a circumstantial and detailed statement, the absolute
+confession of guilt which he had at first sullenly made. In this he
+declared that the guilt of design and intention only was his--that in
+the act itself he had been anticipated. He stated, that from the moment
+when Sir Wynston's servant had casually mentioned the circumstance of his
+master's usually sleeping with his watch and pocketbook under his pillow,
+the idea of robbing him had taken possession of his mind. With the idea
+of robbing him (under the peculiar circumstances, his servant sleeping in
+the apartment close by, and the slightest alarm being, in all
+probability, sufficient to call him to the spot) the idea of anticipating
+resistance by murder had associated itself. He had contended against
+these haunting and growing solicitations of Satan, with an earnest agony.
+He had intended to leave his place, and fly from the mysterious
+temptation which he felt he wanted power to combat, but accident or fate
+prevented him. In a state of ghastly excitement he had, on the memorable
+night of Sir Wynston's murder, proceeded, as had afterwards appeared in
+evidence, by the back stair to the baronet's chamber; he had softly
+stolen into it, and gone to the bedside, with the weapon in his hand. He
+drew his breath for the decisive stroke, which was to bereave the
+(supposedly) sleeping man of life, and when stretching his left hand
+under the clothes, it rested upon a dull, cold corpse, and, at the same
+moment, his right hand was immersed in a pool of blood. He dropped the
+knife, recoiled a pace or so. With a painful effort, however, he again
+grasped with his hand to recover the weapon he had suffered to escape,
+and secured, as it afterwards turned out, not the knife with which he had
+meditated the commission of his crime, but the dagger which was
+afterwards found where he had concealed it. He was now fully alive to the
+horror of his situation; he was compromised as fully as if he had in very
+deed driven home the weapon. To be found under such circumstances, would
+convict him as surely as if fifty eyes had seen him strike the blow. He
+had nothing now for it but flight; and in order to guard himself against
+the contingency of being surprised from the door opening upon the
+corridor, he bolted it; then groped under the murdered man's pillow for
+the booty which had so fatally fascinated his imagination. Here he was
+disappointed. What further happened you already know."
+
+Charles listened with breathless attention to this recital, and, after a
+painful interval, said--
+
+"Then the actual murderer is, after all, unascertained. This is, indeed,
+horrible; it was very natural that my father should have felt the danger
+to which such a disclosure would have exposed the reputation of our
+family, yet I should have preferred encountering it, were it ten times as
+great, to the equivocal prudence of suppressing the truth with respect to
+a murder committed under my own roof."
+
+"He has, however, it would seem, arrived at some new conclusions," said
+Dr. Danvers, "and is now prepared to throw some unanticipated light upon
+the whole transaction."
+
+Even as they were talking, a knocking was heard at the hall-door, and
+after a brief and hurried consultation, it was agreed, that, considering
+the strict condition of privacy attached to this visit by Mr. Marston
+himself, as well as his reserved and wayward temper, it might be better
+for Charles to avoid presenting himself to his father on this occasion. A
+few seconds afterwards the door opened, and Mr. Marston entered the
+apartment. It was now dark, and the servant, unbidden, placed candles
+upon the table. Without answering one word to Dr. Danvers' greeting,
+Marston sat down, as it seemed, in agitated abstraction. Removing his hat
+suddenly (for he had not even made this slight homage to the laws of
+courtesy), he looked round with a care-worn, fiery eye, and a pale
+countenance, and said--
+
+"We are quite alone, Dr. Danvers--no one anywhere near?"
+
+Dr. Danvers assured him that all was secure. After a long and agitated
+pause, Marston said--
+
+"You remember Merton's confession. He admitted his intention to kill
+Berkley, but denied that he was the actual murderer. He spoke truth--no
+one knew it better than I; for I am the murderer."
+
+Dr. Danvers was so shocked and overwhelmed that he was utterly
+unable to speak.
+
+"Aye, sir, in point of law and of morals, literally and honestly, the
+murderer of Wynston Berkley. I am resolved you shall know it all. Make
+what use of it you will--I care for nothing now, but to get rid of the
+d----d, unsustainable secret, and that is done. I did not intend to kill
+the scoundrel when I went to his room; but with the just feelings of
+exasperation with which I regarded him, it would have been wiser had I
+avoided the interview; and I meant to have done so. But his candle was
+burning; I saw the light through the door, and went in. It was his evil
+fortune to indulge in his old strain of sardonic impertinence. He
+provoked me; I struck him--he struck me again--and with his own dagger I
+stabbed him three times. I did not know what I had done; I could not
+believe it. I felt neither remorse nor sorrow--why should I?--but the
+thing was horrible, astounding. There he sat in the corner of his
+cushioned chair, with the old fiendish smile on still. Sir, I never
+thought that any human shape could look so dreadful. I don't know how
+long I stayed there, freezing with horror and detestation, and yet
+unable to take my eyes from the face. Did you see it in the coffin? Sir,
+there was a sneer of triumph on it that was diabolic and prophetic."
+
+Marston was fearfully agitated as he spoke, and repeatedly wiped from his
+face the cold sweat that gathered there.
+
+"I could not leave the room by the back stairs," he resumed, "for the
+valet slept in the intervening chamber. I felt such an appalled antipathy
+to the body, that I could scarcely muster courage to pass it. But, sir, I
+am not easily cowed--I mastered this repugnance in a few minutes--or,
+rather, I acted spite of it, I knew not how; but instinctively it
+seemed to me that it was better to lay the body in the bed, than leave it
+where it was, shewing, as its position might, that the thing occurred in
+an altercation. So, sir, I raised it, and bore it softly across the room,
+and laid it in the bed; and, while I was carrying it, it swayed forward,
+the arms glided round my neck, and the head rested against my cheek--that
+was a parody upon a brotherly embrace!
+
+"I do not know at what moment it was, but some time when I was carrying
+Wynston, or laying him in the bed," continued Marston, who spoke rather
+like one pursuing a horrible reverie, than as a man relating facts to a
+listener, "I heard a light tread, and soft breathing in the lobby. A
+thunderclap would have stunned me less that minute. I moved softly,
+holding my breath, to the door. I believe, in moments of strong
+excitement, men hear more acutely than at other times; but I thought I
+heard the rustling of a gown, going from the door again. I waited--it
+ceased; I waited until all was quiet. I then extinguished the candle, and
+groped my way to the door; there was a faint light in the corridor, and I
+thought I saw a head projected from the chamber-door, next to the
+Frenchwoman's--mademoiselle's. As I came on, it was softly withdrawn,
+and the door not quite noiselessly closed. I could not be absolutely
+certain, but I learned all afterward. And now, sir, you have the story of
+Sir Wynston's murder."
+
+Dr. Danvers groaned in spirit, being wrung alike with fear and sorrow.
+With hands clasped, and head bowed down, in an exceeding bitter agony of
+soul, he murmured only the words of the Litany--"Lord, have mercy upon
+us; Christ, have mercy upon us; Lord, have mercy upon us."
+
+Marston had recovered his usual lowering aspect and gloomy
+self-possession in a few moments, and was now standing erect and defiant
+before the humbled and afflicted minister of God. The contrast was
+terrible--almost sublime.
+
+Doctor Danvers resolved to keep this dreadful secret, at least for a
+time, to himself. He could not make up his mind to inflict upon those
+whom he loved so well as Charles and Rhoda the shame and agony of such a
+disclosure; yet he was sorely troubled, for his was a conflict of duty
+and mercy, of love and justice.
+
+He told Charles Marston, when urged with earnest inquiry, that what he
+had heard that evening was intended solely for his own ear, and gently
+but peremptorily declined telling, at least until some future time, the
+substance of his father's communication.
+
+Charles now felt it necessary to see his father, for the purpose of
+letting him know the substance of the letter respecting "mademoiselle"
+and the late Sir Wynston which had reached him. Accordingly, he
+proceeded, accompanied by Doctor Danvers, on the next morning, to the
+hotel where Marston had intimated his intention of passing the night.
+
+On their inquiring for him in the hall, the porter appeared much
+perplexed and disturbed, and as they pressed him with questions, his
+answers became conflicting and mysterious. Mr. Marston was there--he had
+slept there last night; he could not say whether or not he was then in
+the house; but he knew that no one could be admitted to see him. He
+would, if the gentlemen wished it, send their cards to (not Mr. Marston,
+but) the proprietor. And, finally, he concluded by begging that they
+would themselves see "the proprietor," and dispatched a waiter to apprise
+him of the circumstances of the visit. There was something odd and even
+sinister in all this, which, along with the whispering and the curious
+glances of the waiters, who happened to hear the errand on which they
+came, inspired the two companions with vague misgivings, which they did
+not care mutually to disclose.
+
+In a few moments they were shown into a small sitting room up stairs,
+where the proprietor, a fussy little gentleman, and apparently very
+uneasy and frightened, received them.
+
+"We have called here to see Mr. Marston," said Doctor Danvers, "and the
+porter has referred us to you."
+
+"Yes, sir, exactly--precisely so," answered the little man, fidgeting
+excessively, and as it seemed, growing paler every instant; "but--but, in
+fact, sir, there is, there has been--in short, have you not heard of
+the--the accident?"
+
+He wound up with a prodigious effort, and wiped his forehead when
+he had done.
+
+"Pray, sir, be explicit: we are near friends of Mr. Marston; in fact,
+sir, this is his son," said Doctor Danvers, pointing to Charles Marston;
+"and we are both uneasy at the reserve with which our inquiries have been
+met. Do, I entreat of you, say what has happened?"
+
+"Why--why," hesitated the man, "I really--I would not for five
+hundred pounds it had happened in my house. The--the unhappy
+gentleman has, in short--"
+
+He glanced at Charles, as if afraid of the effect of the disclosure he
+was on the point of making, and then hurriedly said--"He is dead, sir; he
+was found dead in his room, this morning, at eight o'clock. I assure you
+I have not been myself ever since."
+
+Charles Marston was so stunned by this sudden blow, that he was upon the
+point of fainting. Rallying, however, with a strong effort, he demanded
+to be conducted to the chamber where the body lay. The man assented, but
+hesitated on reaching the door, and whispered something in the ear of
+Doctor Danvers, who, as he heard it, raised his hands and eyes with a
+mute expression of horror, and turning to Charles, said--
+
+"My dear young friend, remain where you are for a few moments. I will
+return to you immediately, and tell you whatever I have ascertained. You
+are in no condition for such a scene at present."
+
+Charles, indeed, felt that the fact was so, and, sick and giddy, suffered
+Doctor Danvers, with gentle compulsion, to force him into a seat.
+
+In silence the venerable clergyman followed his conductor. With a
+palpitating heart he advanced to the bedside, and twice essayed to draw
+the curtain, and twice lost courage; but gathering resolution at last,
+he pulled the drapery aside, and beheld all he was to see again of
+Richard Marston.
+
+The bedclothes were drawn so as nearly to cover the mouth.
+
+"There is the wound, sir," whispered the man, as with coarse
+officiousness he drew back the bedclothes from the throat of the corpse,
+and exhibited a gash, as it seemed, nearly severing the head from the
+body. With sickening horror Doctor Danvers turned away from the awful
+spectacle. He covered his face in his hands, and it seemed to him as if a
+soft, solemn voice whispered in his ear the mystic words, "Whoso
+sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
+
+The hand which, but a few years before, had, unsuspected, consigned a
+fellow-mortal to the grave, had itself avenged the murder--Marston had
+perished by his own hand.
+
+Naturally ambitious and intriguing, the perilous tendencies of such a
+spirit in Mademoiselle de Barras had never been schooled by the mighty
+and benignant principles of religion; of her accidental acquaintance at
+Rouen with Sir Wynston Berkley, and her subsequent introduction, in an
+evil hour, into the family at Gray Forest, it is unnecessary to speak.
+The unhappy terms on which she found Marston living with his wife,
+suggested, in their mutual alienation, the idea of founding a double
+influence in the household; and to conceive the idea, and to act upon it,
+were, in her active mind, the same. Young, beautiful, fascinating, she
+well knew the power of her attractions, and determined, though probably
+without one thought of transgressing the limits of literal propriety, to
+bring them to bear upon the discontented, retired roué, for whom she
+cared absolutely nothing, except as the instrument, and in part the
+victim of her schemes. Thus yielding to the double instinct that swayed
+her, she gratified, at the same time, her love of intrigue and her love
+of power. At length, however, came the hour which demanded a sacrifice to
+the evil influence she had hitherto worshipped on such easy terms. She
+found that her power must now be secured by crime, and she fell. Then
+came the arrival of Sir Wynston--his murder--her elopement with Marston,
+and her guilty and joyless triumph. At last, however, came the blow, long
+suspended and terrific, which shattered all her hopes and schemes, and
+drove her once again upon the world. The catastrophe we have just
+described. After it she made her way to Paris. Arrived in the capital of
+France, she speedily dissipated whatever remained of the money and
+valuables which she had taken with her from Gray Forest; and Madame
+Marston, as she now styled herself, was glad to place herself once more
+as a governess in an aristocratic family. So far her good fortune had
+prevailed in averting the punishment but too well earned by her past
+life. But a day of reckoning was to come. A few years later France was
+involved in the uproar and conflagration of revolution. Noble families
+were scattered, beggared, decimated; and their dependants, often dragged
+along with them into the flaming abyss, in many instances suffered the
+last dire extremities of human ill. It was at this awful period that a
+retribution so frightful and extraordinary overtook Madame Marston, that
+we may hereafter venture to make it the subject of a separate narrative.
+Until then the reader will rest satisfied with what he already knows of
+her history; and meanwhile bid a long, and as it may possibly turn out,
+an eternal farewell to that beautiful embodiment of an evil and
+disastrous influence.
+
+The concluding chapter in a novel is always brief, though seldom so short
+as the world would have it. In a tale like this, the "winding up" must be
+proportionately contracted. We have scarcely a claim to so many lines as
+the formal novelist may occupy pages, in the distribution of poetic
+justice, and the final grouping of his characters into that effective
+tableau upon which, at last, the curtain gracefully descends. We, too,
+may be all the briefer, inasmuch as the reader has doubtless anticipated
+the little we have to say. It amounts, then, to this:--Within two years
+after the fearful event which we have just recorded, an alliance had
+drawn together, in nearer and dearer union, the inmates of Gray Forest
+and Newton Park. Rhoda had given her hand to young Mervyn, of ulterior
+consequences we say nothing--the nursery is above our province. And now,
+at length, after this Christmas journey through somewhat stern and gloomy
+scenery, in this long-deferred flood of golden sunshine we bid thee,
+gentle reader, a fond farewell.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: "Tate-à-Tate" is [sic] twice in the original book.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL GUEST ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10377-8.txt or 10377-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10377/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10377-8.zip b/old/10377-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4a77c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10377-8.zip
diff --git a/old/10377.txt b/old/10377.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..06a23ea
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10377.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,5439 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Evil Guest
+
+Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+Release Date: December 3, 2003 [EBook #10377]
+[Date last updated: January 22, 2005]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL GUEST ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+The Evil Guest
+
+By J. Sheridan LeFanu
+
+1895
+
+
+
+
+"When Lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth Sin: and Sin, when it is
+finished, bringeth forth Death."
+
+
+
+
+About sixty years ago, and somewhat more than twenty miles from the
+ancient town of Chester, in a southward direction, there stood a large,
+and, even then, an old-fashioned mansion-house. It lay in the midst of a
+demesne of considerable extent, and richly wooded with venerable timber;
+but, apart from the somber majesty of these giant groups, and the
+varieties of the undulating ground on which they stood, there was little
+that could be deemed attractive in the place. A certain air of neglect
+and decay, and an indescribable gloom and melancholy, hung over it. In
+darkness, it seemed darker than any other tract; when the moonlight fell
+upon its glades and hollows, they looked spectral and awful, with a sort
+of churchyard loneliness; and even when the blush of the morning kissed
+its broad woodlands, there was a melancholy in the salute that saddened
+rather than cheered the heart of the beholder.
+
+This antique, melancholy, and neglected place, we shall call, for
+distinctness sake, Gray Forest. It was then the property of the younger
+son of a nobleman, once celebrated for his ability and his daring, but
+who had long since passed to that land where human wisdom and courage
+avail naught. The representative of this noble house resided at the
+family mansion in Sussex, and the cadet, whose fortunes we mean to sketch
+in these pages, lived upon the narrow margin of an encumbered income, in
+a reserved and unsocial discontent, deep among the solemn shadows of the
+old woods of Gray Forest.
+
+The Hon. Richard Marston was now somewhere between forty and fifty years
+of age--perhaps nearer the latter; he still, however, retained, in an
+eminent degree, the traits of manly beauty, not the less remarkable for
+its unquestionably haughty and passionate character. He had married a
+beautiful girl, of good family, but without much money, somewhere about
+eighteen years before; and two children, a son and a daughter, had been
+the fruit of this union. The boy, Harry Marston, was at this time at
+Cambridge; and his sister, scarcely fifteen, was at home with her
+parents, and under the training of an accomplished governess, who had
+been recommended to them by a noble relative of Mrs. Marston. She was a
+native of France, but thoroughly mistress of the English language, and,
+except for a foreign accent, which gave a certain prettiness to all she
+said, she spoke it as perfectly as any native Englishwoman. This young
+Frenchwoman was eminently handsome and attractive. Expressive, dark eyes,
+a clear olive complexion, small even teeth, and a beautifully-dimpling
+smile, more perhaps than a strictly classic regularity of features, were
+the secrets of her unquestionable influence, at first sight, upon the
+fancy of every man of taste who beheld her.
+
+Mr. Marston's fortune, never very large, had been shattered by early
+dissipation. Naturally of a proud and somewhat exacting temper, he
+actively felt the mortifying consequences of his poverty. The want of
+what he felt ought to have been his position and influence in the county
+in which he resided, fretted and galled him; and he cherished a resentful
+and bitter sense of every slight, imaginary or real, to which the same
+fruitful source of annoyance and humiliation had exposed him. He held,
+therefore, but little intercourse with the surrounding gentry, and that
+little not of the pleasantest possible kind; for, not being himself in a
+condition to entertain, in that style which accorded with his own ideas
+of his station, he declined, as far as was compatible with good breeding,
+all the proffered hospitalities of the neighborhood; and, from his wild
+and neglected park, looked out upon the surrounding world in a spirit of
+moroseness and defiance, very unlike, indeed, to that of neighborly
+good-will.
+
+In the midst, however, of many of the annoyances attendant upon crippled
+means, he enjoyed a few of those shadowy indications of hereditary
+importance, which are all the more dearly prized, as the substantial
+accessories of wealth have disappeared. The mansion in which he dwelt
+was, though old-fashioned, imposing in its aspect, and upon a scale
+unequivocally aristocratic; its walls were hung with ancestral portraits,
+and he managed to maintain about him a large and tolerably respectable
+staff of servants. In addition to these, he had his extensive demesne,
+his deer-park, and his unrivalled timber, wherewith to console himself;
+and, in the consciousness of these possessions, he found some imperfect
+assuagement of those bitter feelings of suppressed scorn and resentment,
+which a sense of lost station and slighted importance engendered. Mr.
+Marston's early habits had, unhappily, been of a kind to aggravate,
+rather than alleviate, the annoyances incidental to reduced means. He had
+been a gay man, a voluptuary, and a gambler. His vicious tastes had
+survived the means of their gratification. His love for his wife had been
+nothing more than one of those vehement and headstrong fancies, which, in
+self-indulgent men, sometimes result in marriage, and which seldom
+outlive the first few months of that life-long connection. Mrs. Marston
+was a gentle, noble-minded woman. After agonies or disappointment, which
+none ever suspected, she had at length learned to submit, in sad and
+gentle acquiescence, to her fate. Those feelings, which had been the
+charm of her young days, were gone, and, as she bitterly felt, forever.
+For them there was no recall they could not return; and, without
+complaint or reproach, she yielded to what she felt was inevitable. It
+was impossible to look at Mrs. Marston, and not to discern, at a glance,
+the ruin of a surpassingly beautiful woman; a good deal wasted, pale, and
+chastened with a deep, untold sorrow, but still possessing the outlines,
+both in face and form, of that noble beauty and matchless grace, which
+had made her, in happier days, the admired of all observers. But equally
+impossible was it to converse with her, for even a minute, without
+hearing, in the gentle and melancholy music of her voice, the sad echoes
+of those griefs to which her early beauty had been sacrificed, an undying
+sense of lost love, and happiness departed, never to come again.
+
+One morning, Mr. Marston had walked, as was his custom when he expected
+the messenger who brought from the neighboring post office his letters,
+some way down the broad, straight avenue, with its double rows of lofty
+trees at each side, when he encountered the nimble emissary on his
+return. He took the letter-bag in silence. It contained but two
+letters--one addressed to "Mademoiselle de Barras, chez M. Marston," and
+the other to himself. He took them both, dismissed the messenger, and
+opening that addressed to himself, read as follows, while he slowly
+retraced his steps towards the house:--
+
+Dear Richard,
+
+I am a whimsical fellow, as you doubtless remember, and have lately
+grown, they tell me, rather hippish besides. I do not know to which
+infirmity I am to attribute a sudden fancy that urges me to pay you a
+visit, if you will admit me. To say truth, my dear Dick, I wish to see a
+little of your part of the world, and, I will confess it, en passant, to
+see a little of you too. I really wish to make acquaintance with your
+family; and though they tell me my health is very much shaken, I must
+say, in self-defense, I am not a troublesome inmate. I can perfectly take
+care of myself, and need no nursing or caudling whatever. Will you
+present this, my petition, to Mrs. Marston, and report her decision
+thereon to me. Seriously, I know that your house may be full, or some
+other contretemps may make it impracticable for me just now to invade
+you. If it be so, tell me, my dear Richard, frankly, as my movements are
+perfectly free, and my time all my own, so that I can arrange my visit to
+suit your convenience.
+
+--Yours, &c.,
+
+WYNSTON E. BERKLEY
+
+P.S.--Direct to me at ---- Hotel, in Chester, as I shall probably be
+there by the time this reaches you.
+
+"Ill-bred and pushing as ever," quoth Mr. Marston, angrily, as he thrust
+the unwelcome letter into his pocket. "This fellow, wallowing in wealth,
+without one nearer relative on earth than I, and associated more nearly
+still with me the--pshaw! not affection--the recollections of early and
+intimate companionship, leaves me unaided, for years of desertion and
+suffering, to the buffetings of the world, and the troubles of all but
+overwhelming pecuniary difficulties, and now, with the cool confidence of
+one entitled to respect and welcome, invites himself to my house. Coming
+here," he continued, after a gloomy pause, and still pacing slowly
+towards the house, "to collect amusing materials for next season's
+gossip--stories about the married Benedick--the bankrupt beau--the outcast
+tenant of a Cheshire wilderness"; and, as he said this, he looked at the
+neglected prospect before him with an eye almost of hatred. "Aye, to see
+the nakedness of the land is he coming, but he shall be disappointed. His
+money may buy him a cordial welcome at an inn, but curse me if it shall
+purchase him a reception here."
+
+He again opened and glanced through the letter.
+
+"Aye, purposely put in such a way that I can't decline it without
+affronting him," he continued doggedly. "Well, then, he has no one to
+blame but himself--affronted he shall be; I shall effectually put an end
+to this humorous excursion. Egad, it is rather hard if a man cannot keep
+his poverty to himself."
+
+Sir Wynston Berkley was a baronet of large fortune--a selfish,
+fashionable man, and an inveterate bachelor. He and Marston had been
+schoolfellows, and the violent and implacable temper of the latter had as
+little impressed his companion with feelings of regard, as the frivolity
+and selfishness of the baronet had won the esteem of his relative. As
+boys, they had little in common upon which to rest the basis of a
+friendship, or even a mutual liking. Berkley was gay, cold, and
+satirical; his cousin--for cousins they were--was jealous, haughty, and
+relentless. Their negative disinclination to one another's society, not
+unnaturally engendered by uncongenial and unamiable dispositions, had for
+a time given place to actual hostility, while the two young men were at
+Oxford. In some intrigue, Marston discovered in his cousin a
+too-successful rival; the consequence was, a bitter and furious quarrel,
+which, but for the prompt and peremptory interference of friends, Marston
+would undoubtedly have pushed to a bloody issue. Time had, however,
+healed this rupture, and the young men came to regard one another with
+the same feelings, and eventually to re-establish the same sort of cold
+and indifferent intimacy which had subsisted between them before their
+angry collision.
+
+Under these circumstances, whatever suspicion Marston might have felt on
+the receipt of the unexpected, and indeed unaccountable proposal, which had
+just reached him, he certainly had little reason to complain of any
+violation of early friendship in the neglect with which Sir Wynston had
+hitherto treated him. In deciding to decline his proposed visit, however,
+Marston had not consulted the impulses of spite or anger. He knew the
+baronet well; he knew that he cherished no good will towards him, and
+that in the project which he had thus unexpectedly broached, whatever
+indirect or selfish schemes might possibly be at the bottom of it, no
+friendly feeling had ever mingled. He was therefore resolved to avoid the
+trouble and the expense of a visit in all respects distasteful to him,
+and in a gentlemanlike way, but, at the same time, as the reader may
+suppose, with very little anxiety as to whether or not his gay
+correspondent should take offence at his reply, to decline, once for all,
+the proposed distinction.
+
+With this resolution, he entered the spacious and somewhat dilapidated
+mansion which called him master; and entering a sitting room,
+appropriated to his daughter's use, he found her there, in company with
+her beautiful French governess. He kissed his child, and saluted her
+young preceptress with formal courtesy.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said he, "I have got a letter for you; and, Rhoda," he
+continued, addressing his pretty daughter, "bring this to your mother,
+and say, I request her to read it."
+
+He gave her the letter he himself had just received, and the girl tripped
+lightly away upon her mission.
+
+Had he narrowly scrutinised the countenance of the fair Frenchwoman, as
+she glanced at the direction of that which he had just placed in her
+hand, he might have seen certain transient, but very unmistakable
+evidences of excitement and agitation. She quickly concealed the letter,
+however, and with a sigh, the momentary flush which it had called to her
+cheek subsided, and she was tranquil as usual.
+
+Mr. Marston remained for some minutes--five, eight, or ten, we cannot say
+precisely--pretty much where he had stood on first entering the chamber,
+doubtless awaiting the return of his messenger, or the appearance of his
+wife. At length, however, he left the room himself to seek her; but,
+during his brief stay, his previous resolution had been removed. By what
+influence we cannot say; but removed completely it unquestionably was,
+and a final determination that Sir Wynston Berkley should become his
+guest had fixedly taken its place.
+
+As Marston walked along the passages which led from this room, he
+encountered Mrs. Marston and his daughter.
+
+"Well," said he, "you have read Wynston's letter?"
+
+"Yes," she replied, returning it to him; "and what answer, Richard, do
+you purpose giving him?"
+
+She was about to hazard a conjecture, but checked herself, remembering
+that even so faint an evidence of a disposition to advise might possibly
+be resented by her cold and imperious lord.
+
+"I have considered it, and decided to receive him," he replied.
+
+"Ah! I am afraid--that is, I hope--he may find our housekeeping such as
+he can enjoy," she said, with an involuntary expression of surprise; for
+she had scarcely had a doubt that her husband would have preferred
+evading the visit of his fine friend, under his gloomy circumstances.
+
+"If our modest fare does not suit him," said Marston, with sullen
+bitterness, "he can depart as easily as he came. We, poor gentlemen, can
+but do our best. I have thought it over, and made up my mind."
+
+"And how soon, my dear Richard, do you intend fixing his arrival?" she
+inquired, with the natural uneasiness of one upon whom, in an
+establishment whose pretensions considerably exceeded its resources, the
+perplexing cares of housekeeping devolved.
+
+"Why, as soon as he pleases," replied he, "I suppose you can easily have
+his room prepared by tomorrow or next day. I shall write by this mail,
+and tell him to come down at once."
+
+Having said this in a cold, decisive way, he turned and left her, as it
+seemed, not caring to be teased with further questions. He took his
+solitary way to a distant part of his wild park, where, far from the
+likelihood of disturbance or intrusion, he was often wont to amuse
+himself for the live-long day, in the sedentary sport of shooting
+rabbits. And there we leave him for the present, signifying to the
+distant inmates of his house the industrious pursuit of his unsocial
+occupation, by the dropping fire that sullenly, from hour to hour, echoed
+from the remote woods.
+
+Mrs. Marston issued her orders; and having set on foot all the necessary
+preparations for so unwonted an event as a stranger's visit of some
+duration, she betook herself to her little boudoir--the scene of many an
+hour of patient but bitter suffering, unseen by human eye, and unknown,
+except to the just Searcher of hearts, to whom belongs mercy--and
+vengeance.
+
+Mrs. Marston had but two friends to whom she had ever spoken upon the
+subject nearest her heart--the estrangement of her husband, a sorrow to
+which even time had failed to reconcile her. From her children this grief
+was carefully concealed. To them she never uttered the semblance of a
+complaint. Anything that could by possibility have reflected blame or
+dishonor upon their father, she would have perished rather than have
+allowed them so much as to suspect. The two friends who did understand
+her feelings, though in different degrees, were, one, a good and
+venerable clergyman, the Rev. Doctor Danvers, a frequent visitor and
+occasional guest at Gray Forest, where his simple manners and unaffected
+benignity and tenderness of heart had won the love of all, with the
+exception of its master, and commanded even his respect. The second was
+no other than the young French governess, Mademoiselle de Barras, in
+whose ready sympathy and consolatory counsels she found no small
+happiness. The society of this young lady had indeed become, next to that
+of her daughter, her greatest comfort and pleasure.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras was of a noble though ruined French family, and a
+certain nameless elegance and dignity attested, spite of her fallen
+condition, the purity of her descent. She was accomplished--possessed of
+that fine perception and sensitiveness, and that ready power of
+self-adaptation to the peculiarities and moods of others, which we term
+tact--and was, moreover, gifted with a certain natural grace, and manners
+the most winning imaginable. In short, she was a fascinating companion;
+and when the melancholy circumstances of her own situation, and the sad
+history of her once rich and noble family, were taken into account, with
+her striking attractions of person and air, the combination of all these
+associations and impressions rendered her one of the most interesting
+persons that could well be imagined. The circumstances of Mademoiselle de
+Barras's history and descent seemed to warrant, on Mrs. Marston's part, a
+closer intimacy and confidence than usually subsists between parties
+mutually occupying such a relation.
+
+Mrs. Marston had hardly established herself in this little apartment,
+when a light foot approached, a gentle tap was given at the door, and
+Mademoiselle de Barras entered.
+
+"Ah, mademoiselle, so kind--such pretty flowers. Pray sit down," said the
+lady, with a sweet and grateful smile, as she took from the tapered
+fingers of the foreigner the little bouquet, which she had been at the
+pains to gather.
+
+Mademoiselle sat down, and gently took the lady's hand and kissed it. A
+small matter will overflow a heart charged with sorrow--a chance word, a
+look, some little office of kindness--and so it was with mademoiselle's
+bouquet and gentle kiss. Mrs. Marston's heart was touched; her eyes
+filled with bright tears; she smiled gratefully upon her fair and humble
+companion, and as she smiled, her tears overflowed, and she wept in
+silence for some minutes.
+
+"My poor mademoiselle," she said, at last, "you are so very, very kind."
+
+Mademoiselle said nothing; she lowered her eyes, and pressed the poor
+lady's hand.
+
+Apparently to interrupt an embarrassing silence, and to give a more
+cheerful tone to their little interview, the governess, in a gay tone, on
+a sudden said--
+
+"And so, madame, we are to have a visitor, Miss Rhoda tells me--a
+baronet, is he not?"
+
+"Yes, indeed, mademoiselle--Sir Wynston Berkley, a gay London gentleman,
+and a cousin of Mr. Marston's," she replied.
+
+"Ha--a cousin!" exclaimed the young lady, with a little more surprise in
+her tone than seemed altogether called for--"a cousin? oh, then, that is
+the reason of his visit. Do, pray, madame, tell me all about him; I am so
+much afraid of strangers, and what you call men of the world. Oh, dear
+Mrs. Marston, I am not worthy to be here, and he will see all that in a
+moment; indeed, indeed, I am afraid. Pray tell me all about him."
+
+She said this with a simplicity which made the elder lady smile, and
+while mademoiselle re-adjusted the tiny flowers which formed the bouquet
+she had just presented to her, Mrs. Marston good-naturedly recounted to
+her all she knew of Sir Wynston Berkley, which, in substance, amounted to
+no more than we have already stated. When she concluded, the young
+Frenchwoman continued for some time silent, still busy with her
+flowers. But, suddenly, she heaved a deep sigh, and shook her head.
+
+"You seem disquieted, mademoiselle," said Mrs. Marston, in a tone
+of kindness.
+
+"I am thinking, madame," she said, still looking upon the flowers which
+she was adjusting, and again sighing profoundly, "I am thinking of what
+you said to me a week ago; alas!"
+
+"I do not remember what it was, my good mademoiselle--nothing, I am
+sure, that ought to grieve you--at least nothing that was intended to
+have that effect," replied the lady, in a tone of gentle encouragement.
+
+"No, not intended, madame," said the young Frenchwoman, sorrowfully.
+
+"Well, what was it? Perhaps you misunderstood; perhaps I can explain what
+I said," replied Mrs. Marston, affectionately.
+
+"Ah, madame, you think--you think I am unlucky," answered the young
+lady, slowly and faintly.
+
+"Unlucky! Dear mademoiselle, you surprise me," rejoined her companion.
+
+"I mean--what I mean is this, madame; you date unhappiness--if not its
+beginning, at least its great aggravation and increase," she answered,
+dejectedly, "from the time of my coming here, madame; and though I know
+you are too good to dislike me on that account, yet I must, in your eyes,
+be ever connected with calamity, and look like an ominous thing."
+
+"Dear mademoiselle, allow no such thought to enter your mind. You do me
+great wrong, indeed you do," said Mrs. Marston, laying her hand upon the
+young lady's, kindly.
+
+There was a silence for a little time, and the elder lady resumed:--"I
+remember now what you allude to, dear mademoiselle--the increased
+estrangement, the widening separation which severs me from one
+unutterably dear to me--the first and bitter disappointment of my life,
+which seems to grow more hopelessly incurable day by day."
+
+Mrs. Marston paused, and, after a brief silence, the governess said:--
+
+"I am very superstitious myself, dear madame, and I thought I must have
+seemed to you an inauspicious inmate--in short, unlucky--as I have said;
+and the thought made me very unhappy--so unhappy, that I was going to
+leave you, madame--I may now tell you frankly--going away; but you have
+set my doubts at rest, and I am quite happy again."
+
+"Dear mademoiselle," cried the lady, tenderly, and rising, as she spake,
+to kiss the cheek of her humble friend; "never--never speak of this
+again. God knows I have too few friends on earth, to spare the kindest
+and tenderest among them all. No, no. You little think what comfort I
+have found in your warm-hearted and ready sympathy, and how dearly I
+prize your affection, my poor mademoiselle."
+
+The young Frenchwoman rose, with downcast eyes, and a dimpling, happy
+smile; and, as Mrs. Marston drew her affectionately toward her, and
+kissed her, she timidly returned the embrace of her kind patroness. For a
+moment her graceful arms encircled her, and she whispered to her, "Dear
+madame, how happy--how very happy you make me."
+
+Had Ithuriel touched with his spear the beautiful young woman, thus for a
+moment, as it seemed, lost in a trance of gratitude and love, would that
+angelic form have stood the test unscathed? A spectator, marking the
+scene, might have observed a strange gleam in her eyes--a strange
+expression in her face--an influence for a moment not angelic, like a
+shadow of some passing spirit, cross her visibly, as she leaned over the
+gentle lady's neck, and murmured, "Dear madame, how happy--how very happy
+you make me." Such a spectator, as he looked at that gentle lady, might
+have seen, for one dreamy moment, a lithe and painted serpent, coiled
+round and round, and hissing in her ear.
+
+A few minutes more, and mademoiselle was in the solitude of her own
+apartment. She shut and bolted the door, and taking from her desk the
+letter which she had that morning received, threw herself into an
+armchair, and studied the document profoundly. Her actual revision and
+scrutiny of the letter itself was interrupted by long intervals of
+profound abstraction; and, after a full hour thus spent, she locked it
+carefully up again, and with a clear brow, and a gay smile, rejoined her
+pretty pupil for a walk.
+
+We must now pass over an interval of a few days, and come at once to the
+arrival of Sir Wynston Berkley, which duly occurred upon the evening of
+the day appointed. The baronet descended from his chaise but a short
+time before the hour at which the little party, which formed the family
+at Gray Forest were wont to assemble for the social meal of supper. A few
+minutes devoted to the mysteries of the toilet, with the aid of an
+accomplished valet, enabled him to appear, as he conceived, without
+disadvantage at this domestic reunion.
+
+Sir Wynston Berkley was a particularly gentleman-like person. He was
+rather tall, and elegantly made, with gay, easy manners, and something
+indefinably aristocratic in his face, which, however, was a little more
+worn than his years would have strictly accounted for. But Sir Wynston
+had been a roue, and, spite of the cleverest possible making up, the
+ravages of excess were very traceable in the lively beau of fifty.
+Perfectly well dressed, and with a manner that was ease and gaiety
+itself, he was at home from the moment he entered the room. Of course,
+anything like genuine cordiality was out of the question; but Mr. Marston
+embraced his relative with perfect good breeding, and the baronet
+appeared determined to like everybody, and be pleased with everything. He
+had not been five minutes in the parlor, chatting gaily with Mr. and Mrs.
+Marston and their pretty daughter, when Mademoiselle de Barras entered
+the room. As she moved towards Mrs. Marston, Sir Wynston rose, and,
+observing her with evident admiration, said in an undertone, inquiringly,
+to Marston, who was beside him--
+
+"And this?"
+
+"That is Mademoiselle de Barras, my daughter's governess, and Mrs.
+Marston's companion," said Marston, drily.
+
+"Ha!" said Sir Wynston; "I thought you were but three at home just now,
+and I was right. Your son is at Cambridge; I heard so from our old
+friend, Jack Manbury. Jack has his boy there too. Egad, Dick, it seems
+but last week that you and I were there together."
+
+"Yes," said Marston, looking gloomily into the fire, as if he saw, in its
+smoke and flicker, the phantoms of murdered time and opportunity; "but I
+hate looking back, Wynston. The past is to me but a medley of ill-luck
+and worse management."
+
+"Why what an ungrateful dog you are!" returned Sir Wynston, gaily,
+turning his back upon the fire, and glancing round the spacious and
+handsome, though somewhat faded apartment. "I was on the point of
+congratulating you on the possession of the finest park and noblest
+demesne in Cheshire, when you begin to grumble. Egad, Dick, all I can say
+to your complaint is, that I don't pity you, and there are dozens who may
+honestly envy you--that is all."
+
+In spite of this cheering assurance, Marston remained sullenly silent.
+Supper, however, had now been served, and the little party assumed their
+places at the table.
+
+"I am sorry, Wynston, I have no sport of any kind to offer you here,"
+said Marston, "except, indeed, some good trout-fishing, if you like it. I
+have three miles of excellent fishing at your command."
+
+"My dear fellow, I am a mere cockney," rejoined Sir Wynston; "I am not a
+sportsman; I never tried it, and should not like to begin now. No, Dick,
+what I much prefer is, abundance of your fresh air, and the enjoyment of
+your scenery. When I was at Rouen three years ago--"
+
+"Ha!--Rouen? Mademoiselle will feel an interest in that; it is her
+birth-place," interrupted Marston, glancing at the Frenchwoman.
+
+"Yes--Rouen--ah--yes!" said mademoiselle, with very evident
+embarrassment.
+
+Sir Wynston appeared for a moment a little disconcerted too, but
+rallied speedily, and pursued his detail of his doings at that fair town
+of Normandy.
+
+Marston knew Sir Wynston well; and he rightly calculated that whatever
+effect his experience of the world might have had in intensifying his
+selfishness or hardening his heart, it certainly could have had none in
+improving a character originally worthless and unfeeling. He knew,
+moreover, that his wealthy cousin was gifted with a great deal of that
+small cunning which is available for masking the little scheming of
+frivolous and worldly men; and that Sir Wynston never took trouble of any
+kind without a sufficient purpose, having its center in his own personal
+gratification.
+
+This visit greatly puzzled Marston; it gave him even a vague sense of
+uneasiness. Could there exist any flaw in his own title to the estate of
+Gray Forest? He had an unpleasant, doubtful sort of remembrance of some
+apprehensions of this kind, when he was but a child, having been
+whispered in the family. Could this really be so, and could the
+baronet have been led to make this unexpected visit merely for the
+purpose of personally examining into the condition or a property of
+which he was about to become the legal invader? The nature of this
+suspicion affords, at all events, a fair gauge of Marston's estimate
+of his cousin's character. And as he revolved these doubts from time to
+time, and as he thought of Mademoiselle de Barras's transient, but
+unaccountable embarrassment at the mention of Rouen by Sir Wynston--an
+embarrassment which the baronet himself appeared for a moment to
+reciprocate--undefined, glimmering suspicions of another kind flickered
+through the darkness of his mind. He was effectually puzzled; his
+surmises and conjectures baffled; and he more than half repented that he
+had acceded to his cousin's proposal, and admitted him as an inmate of
+his house.
+
+Although Sir Wynston comported himself as if he were conscious of being
+the very most welcome visitor who could possibly have established himself
+at Gray Forest, he was, doubtless, fully aware of the real feelings with
+which he was regarded by his host. If he had in reality an object in
+prolonging his stay, and wished to make the postponement of his departure
+the direct interest of his entertainer, he unquestionably took effectual
+measures for that purpose.
+
+The little party broke up every evening at about ten o'clock, and Sir
+Wynston retired to his chamber at the same hour. He found little
+difficulty in inducing Marston to amuse him there with a quiet game of
+piquet. In his own room, therefore, in the luxurious ease of dressing
+gown and slippers he sat at cards with his host, often until an hour or
+two past midnight. Sir Wynston was exorbitantly wealthy, and very
+reckless in expenditure. The stakes for which they played, although they
+gradually became in reality pretty heavy, were in his eyes a very
+unimportant consideration. Marston, on the other hand, was poor, and
+played with the eye of a lynx and the appetite of a shark. The ease and
+perfect good-humor with which Sir Wynston lost were not unimproved by his
+entertainer, who, as may readily be supposed, was not sorry to reap this
+golden harvest, provided without the slightest sacrifice, on his part, of
+pride or independence. If, indeed, he sometimes suspected that his guest
+was a little more anxious to lose than to win, he was also quite resolved
+not to perceive it, but calmly persisted in, night after night, giving
+Sir Wynston, as he termed it, his revenge; or, in other words, treating
+him to a repetition of his losses. All this was very agreeable to
+Marston, who began to treat his visitor with, at all events, more
+external cordiality and distinction than at first.
+
+An incident, however, occurred, which disturbed these amicable relations
+in an unexpected way. It becomes necessary here to mention that
+Mademoiselle de Barras's sleeping apartment opened from a long corridor.
+It was en suite with two dressing rooms, each opening also upon the
+corridor, but wholly unused and unfurnished. Some five or six other
+apartments also opened at either side, upon the same passage. These
+little local details being premised, it so happened that one day Marston,
+who had gone out with the intention of angling in the trout-stream which
+flowed through his park, though at a considerable distance from the
+house, having unexpectedly returned to procure some tackle which he had
+forgotten, was walking briskly through the corridor in question to his
+own apartment, when, to his surprise, the door of one of the deserted
+dressing-rooms, of which we have spoken, was cautiously pushed open, and
+Sir Wynston Berkley issued from it. Marston was almost beside him as he
+did so, and Sir Wynston made a motion as if about instinctively to draw
+back again, and at the same time the keen ear of his host distinctly
+caught the sound of rustling silks and a tiptoe tread hastily withdrawing
+from the deserted chamber. Sir Wynston looked nearly as much confused as
+a man of the world can look. Marston stopped short, and scanned his
+visitor for a moment with a very peculiar expression.
+
+"You have caught me peeping, Dick. I am an inveterate explorer," said the
+baronet, with an effectual effort to shake off his embarrassment. "An
+open door in a fine old house is a temptation which--"
+
+"That door is usually closed, and ought to be kept so," interrupted
+Marston, drily; "there is nothing whatever to be seen in the room but
+dust and cobwebs."
+
+"Pardon me," said Sir Wynston, more easily, "you forget the view from
+the window."
+
+"Aye, the view, to be sure; there is a good view from it," said Marston,
+with as much of his usual manner as he could resume so soon; and, at the
+same time, carelessly opening the door again, he walked in, accompanied
+by Sir Wynston, and both stood at the window together, looking out in
+silence upon a prospect which neither of them saw.
+
+"Yes, I do think it is a good view," said Marston; and as he turned
+carelessly away, he darted a swift glance round the chamber. The door
+opening toward the French lady's apartment was closed, but not actually
+shut. This was enough; and as they left the room, Marston repeated his
+invitation to his guest to accompany him; but in a tone which showed that
+he scarcely followed the meaning of what he himself was saying.
+
+He walked undecidedly toward his own room, then turned and went down
+stairs. In the hall he met his pretty child.
+
+"Ha! Rhoda," said he, "you have not been out today?"
+
+"No, papa; but it is so very fine, I think I shall go now."
+
+"Yes; go, and mademoiselle can accompany you. Do you hear, Rhoda,
+mademoiselle goes with you, and you had better go at once."
+
+A few minutes more, and Marston, from the parlor-window, beheld Rhoda and
+the elegant French girl walking together towards the woodlands. He
+watched them gloomily, himself unseen, until the crowding underwood
+concealed their receding figures. Then, with a sigh, he turned, and
+reascended the great staircase.
+
+"I shall sift this mystery to the bottom," thought he. "I shall foil the
+conspirators, if so they be, with their own weapons; art with art;
+chicane with chicane; duplicity with duplicity."
+
+He was now in the long passage, which we have just spoken of, and
+glancing back and before him, to ascertain that no chance eye discerned
+him, he boldly entered mademoiselle's chamber. Her writing desk lay upon
+the table. It was locked; and coolly taking it in his hands, Marston
+carried it into his own room, bolted his chamber-door, and taking two or
+three bunches of keys, he carefully tried nearly a dozen in succession,
+and when almost despairing of success, at last found one which fitted the
+lock, turned, and opened the desk.
+
+Sustained throughout his dishonorable task by some strong and angry
+passion, the sight of the open escritoire checked and startled him for a
+moment. Violated privilege, invaded secrecy, base, perfidious espionage
+upbraided and stigmatized him, as the intricacies of the outraged
+sanctuary opened upon his intrusive gaze. He felt for a moment shocked
+and humbled. He was impelled to lock and replace the desk where he had
+originally found it, without having effected his meditated treason; but
+this hesitation was transient; the fiery and reckless impulse which had
+urged him to the act returned to enforce its consummation. With a guilty
+eye and eager hands, he searched the contents of this tiny repository of
+the fair Norman's written secrets.
+
+"Ha! the very thing," he muttered, as he detected the identical letter
+which he himself had handed to Mademoiselle de Barras but a few days
+before. "The handwriting struck me, ill-disguised; I thought I knew it;
+we shall see."
+
+He had opened the letter; it contained but a few lines: he held his
+breath while he read it. First he grew pale, then a shadow came over his
+face, and then another, and another, darker and darker, shade upon shade,
+as if an exhalation from the pit was momentarily blackening the air about
+him. He said nothing; there was but one long, gentle sigh, and in his
+face a mortal sternness, as he folded the letter again, replaced it, and
+locked the desk.
+
+Of course, when Mademoiselle de Barras returned from her accustomed
+walk, she found everything in her room, to all appearances, undisturbed,
+and just as when she left it. While this young lady was making her
+toilet for the evening, and while Sir Wynston Berkley was worrying
+himself with conjectures as to whether Marston's evil looks, when he
+encountered him that morning in the passage, existed only in his own
+fancy, or were, in good truth, very grim and significant realities,
+Marston himself was striding alone through the wildest and darkest
+solitudes of his park, haunted by his own unholy thoughts, and, it may
+be, by those other evil and unearthly influences which wander, as we
+know, "in desert places." Darkness overtook him, and the chill of night,
+in these lonely tracts. In his solitary walk, what fearful company had
+he been keeping! As the shades of night deepened round him, the sense of
+the neighborhood of ill, the consciousness of the foul fancies or which,
+where he was now treading, he had been for hours the sport, oppressed
+him with a vague and unknown terror; a certain horror of the thoughts
+which had been his comrades through the day, which he could not now
+shake off, and which haunted him with a ghastly and defiant pertinacity,
+scared, while they half-enraged him. He stalked swiftly homewards, like
+a guilty man pursued.
+
+Marston was not perfectly satisfied, though very nearly, with the
+evidence now in his possession. The letter, the stolen perusal of which
+had so agitated him that day, bore no signature; but, independently of
+the handwriting, which seemed, spite of the constraint of an attempted
+disguise, to be familiar to his eye, there existed, in the matter of the
+letter, short as it was, certain internal evidences, which, although not
+actually conclusive, raised, in conjunction with all the other
+circumstances, a powerful presumption in aid of his suspicions. He
+resolved, however, to sift the matter further, and to bide his time.
+Meanwhile his manner must indicate no trace of his dark surmises and
+bitter thoughts. Deception, in its two great branches, simulation and
+dissimulation, was easy to him. His habitual reserve and gloom would
+divest any accidental and momentary disclosure of his inward trouble of
+everything suspicious or unaccountable, which would have characterized
+such displays and eccentricities in another man.
+
+His rapid and reckless ramble, a kind of physical vent for the paroxysm
+which had so agitated him throughout the greater part of the day, had
+soiled and disordered his dress, and thus had helped to give to his whole
+appearance a certain air of haggard wildness, which, in the privacy of
+his chamber, he hastened carefully and entirely to remove.
+
+At supper, Marston was apparently in unusually good spirits. Sir Wynston
+and he chatted gaily and fluently upon many subjects, grave and gay.
+Among them the inexhaustible topic of popular superstition happened to
+turn up, and especially the subject of strange prophecies of the fates
+and fortunes of individuals, singularly fulfilled in the events of their
+afterlife.
+
+"By-the-by, Dick, this is rather a nervous topic for me to discuss," said
+Sir Wynston.
+
+"How so?" asked his host.
+
+"Why, don't you remember?" urged the baronet.
+
+"No, I don't recollect what you allude to," replied Marston, in all
+sincerity.
+
+"Why, don't you remember Eton?" pursued Sir Wynston.
+
+"Yes, to be sure," said Marston.
+
+"Well?" continued his visitor.
+
+"Well, I really don't recollect the prophecy," replied Marston.
+
+"What! do you forget the gypsy who predicted that you were to murder me,
+Dick--eh?"
+
+"Ah-ha, ha!" laughed Marston, with a start.
+
+"Don't you remember it now?" urged his companion.
+
+"Ah, why yes, I believe I do," said Marston; "but another prophecy was
+running in my mind; a gypsy prediction, too. At Ascot, do you
+recollect the girl told me I was to be Lord Chancellor of England, and
+a duke besides?"
+
+"Well, Dick," rejoined Sir Wynston, merrily, "if both are to be
+fulfilled, or neither, I trust you may never sit upon the woolsack
+of England."
+
+The party soon after broke up: Sir Wynston and his host, as usual, to
+pass some hours at piquet; and Mrs. Marston, as was her wont, to, spend
+some time in her own boudoir, over notes and accounts, and the worrying
+details of housekeeping.
+
+While thus engaged, she was disturbed by a respectful tap at her door,
+and an elderly servant, who had been for many years in the employment of
+Mr. Marston, presented himself.
+
+"Well, Merton, do you want anything?" asked the lady.
+
+"Yes, ma'am, please, I want to give warning; I wish to leave the service,
+ma'am;" replied he, respectfully, but doggedly.
+
+"To leave us, Merton!" echoed his mistress, both surprised and sorry for
+the man had been long her servant, and had been much liked and trusted.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," he repeated.
+
+"And why do you wish to do so, Merton? Has anything occurred to make the
+place unpleasant to you?" urged the lady.
+
+"No, ma'am--no, indeed," said he, earnestly, "I have nothing to complain
+of--nothing, indeed, ma'am."
+
+"Perhaps, you think you can do better, if you leave us?" suggested
+his mistress.
+
+"No, indeed, ma'am, I have no such thought," he said, and seemed on the
+point of bursting into tears; "but--but, somehow--ma'am, there is
+something come over me, lately, and I can't help, but think, if I stay
+here, ma'am--some--some--misfortune will happen to us all--and that is the
+truth, ma'am."
+
+"This is very foolish, Merton--a mere childish fancy," replied Mrs.
+Marston; "you like your place, and have no better prospect before you;
+and now, for a mere superstitious fancy, you propose giving it up, and
+leaving us. No, no, Merton, you had better think the matter over--and if
+you still, upon reflection, prefer going away, you can then speak to
+your master."
+
+"Thank you ma'am--God bless you," said the man, withdrawing.
+
+Mrs. Marston rang the bell for her maid, and retired to her room. "Has
+anything occurred lately," she asked, "to annoy Merton?"
+
+"No, ma'am, I don't know of anything; but he is very changed, indeed, of
+late," replied the maid.
+
+"He has not been quarreling?" inquired she.
+
+"Oh, no, ma'am, he never quarrels; he is very quiet, and keeps to himself
+always; he thinks a wonderful deal of himself," replied the servant.
+
+"But, you said that he is much changed--did you not?" continued the lady;
+for there was something strangely excited and unpleasant in the man's
+manner, in this little interview, which struck Mrs. Marston, and alarmed
+her curiosity. He had seemed like one charged with some horrible
+secret--intolerable, and which he yet dared not reveal.
+
+"What," proceeded Mrs. Marston, "is the nature of the change of which
+you speak?"
+
+"Why, ma'am, he is like one frightened, and in sorrow," she replied; "he
+will sit silent, and now and then shaking his head, as if he wanted to
+get rid of something that is teasing him, for an hour together."
+
+"Poor man!" said she.
+
+"And, then, when we are at meals, he will, all on a sudden, get up, and
+leave the table; and Jem Boulter, that sleeps in the next room to him,
+says, that, almost as often as he looks through the little window between
+the two rooms, no matter what hour in the night, he sees Mr. Merton on
+his knees by the bedside, praying or crying, he don't know which; but,
+any way, he is not happy--poor man!--and that is plain enough."
+
+"It is very strange," said the lady, after a pause; "but, I think, and
+hope, after all, it will prove to have been no more than a little
+nervousness."
+
+"Well, ma'am, I do hope it is not his conscience that is coming against
+him, now," said the maid.
+
+"We have no reason to suspect anything of the kind," said Mrs.
+Marston, gravely, "quite the reverse; he has been always a
+particularly proper man."
+
+"Oh, indeed," responded the attendant, "goodness forbid I should say or
+think anything against him; but I could not help telling you my mind,
+ma'am, meaning no harm."
+
+"And, how long is it since you observed this sad change in poor Merton?"
+persisted the lady.
+
+"Not, indeed, to say very long, ma'am," replied the girl; "somewhere
+about a week, or very little more--at least, as we remarked, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Marston pursued her inquiries no further that night. But, although
+she affected to treat the matter thus lightly, it had, somehow, taken a
+painful hold upon her imagination, and left in her mind those
+undefinable and ominous sensations, which, in certain mental
+temperaments, seem to foreshadow the approach of unknown misfortune.
+
+For two or three days, everything went on smoothly, and pretty much as
+usual. At the end of this brief interval, however, the attention of Mrs.
+Marston was recalled to the subject of her servant's mysterious anxiety
+to leave, and give up his situation. Merton again stood before her, and
+repeated the intimation he had already given.
+
+"Really, Merton, this is very odd," said the lady. "You like your
+situation, and yet you persist in desiring to leave it. What am I
+to think?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am," said he, "I am unhappy; I am tormented, ma'am. I can't tell
+you, ma'am; I can't indeed ma'am!"
+
+"If anything weighs upon your mind, Merton, I would advise you to consult
+our good clergyman, Dr. Danvers," urged the lady.
+
+The servant hung his head, and mused for a time gloomily; and then said
+decisively--"No, ma'am; no use."
+
+"And pray, Merton, how long is it since you first entertained this
+desire?" asked Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Since Sir Wynston Berkley came, ma'am," answered he.
+
+"Has Sir Wynston annoyed you in any way?" continued she.
+
+"Far from it, ma'am," he replied; "he is a very kind gentleman."
+
+"Well, his man, then; is he a respectable, inoffensive person?"
+she inquired.
+
+"I never met one more so," said the man, promptly, and raising his head.
+
+"What I wish to know is, whether your desire to go is connected with Sir
+Wynston and his servant?" said Mrs. Marston.
+
+The man hesitated, and shifted his position uneasily.
+
+"You need not answer, Merton, if you don't wish it," she said kindly.
+
+"Why, ma'am, yes, it has something to say to them both," he replied, with
+some agitation.
+
+"I really cannot understand this," said she.
+
+Merton hesitated for some time, and appeared much troubled. "It was
+something, ma'am--something that Sir Wynston's man said to me; and there
+it is out," he said at last, with an effort.
+
+"Well, Merton," said she, "I won't press you further; but I must say,
+that as this communication, whatever it may be, has caused you,
+unquestionably, very great uneasiness, it seems to me but probable that
+it affects the safety or the interests of some person--I cannot say of
+whom; and, if so, there can be no doubt that it is your duty to acquaint
+those who are so involved in the disclosure, with its purport."
+
+"No, ma'am, there is nothing in what I heard that could touch anybody but
+myself. It was nothing but what others heard, without remarking it, or
+thinking about it. I can't tell you anymore, ma'am; but I am very
+unhappy, and uneasy in my mind."
+
+As the man said this, he began to weep bitterly.
+
+The idea that his mind was affected now seriously occurred to Mrs.
+Marston, and she resolved to convey her suspicions to her husband, and to
+leave him to deal with the case as to him should seem good.
+
+"Don't agitate yourself so, Merton; I shall speak to your master upon
+what you have said; and you may rely upon it, that no surmise to the
+prejudice of your character has entered my mind," said Mrs. Marston,
+very kindly.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, you are too good," sobbed the poor man, vehemently. "You
+don't know me, ma'am; I never knew myself till lately. I am a miserable
+man. I am frightened at myself, ma'am--frightened terribly. Christ knows,
+it would be well for me I was dead this minute."
+
+"I am very sorry for your unhappiness, Merton," said Mrs. Marston; "and,
+especially, that I can do nothing to alleviate it; I can but speak, as I
+have said, to your master, and he will give you your discharge, and
+arrange whatever else remains to be done."
+
+"God bless you, ma'am," said the servant, still much agitated, and left
+her.
+
+Mr. Marston usually passed the early part of the day in active exercise,
+and she, supposing that he was, in all probability, at that moment far
+from home, went to "mademoiselle's" chamber, which was at the other end
+of the spacious house, to confer with her in the interval upon the
+strange application thus urged by poor Merton.
+
+Just as she reached the door of Mademoiselle de Barras's chamber, she
+heard voices within exerted in evident excitement. She stopped in
+amazement. They were those of her husband and mademoiselle. Startled,
+confounded, and amazed, she pushed open the door, and entered. Her
+husband was sitting, one hand clutched upon the arm of the chair he
+occupied, and the other extended, and clenched, as it seemed, with the
+emphasis of rage, upon the desk that stood upon the table. His face was
+darkened with the stormiest passions, and his gaze was fixed upon the
+Frenchwoman, who was standing with a look half-guilty, half-imploring,
+at a little distance.
+
+There was something, to Mrs. Marston, so utterly unexpected, and even so
+shocking, in this tableau, that she stood for some seconds pale and
+breathless, and gazing with a vacant stare of fear and horror from her
+husband to the French girl, and from her to her husband again. The three
+figures in this strange group remained fixed, silent, and aghast, for
+several seconds. Mrs. Marston endeavored to speak; but, though her lips
+moved, no sound escaped her; and, from very weakness, she sank,
+half-fainting, into a chair.
+
+Marston rose, throwing, as he did so, a guilty and furious glance at the
+young Frenchwoman, and walked a step or two toward the door; he
+hesitated, however, and turned, just as mademoiselle, bursting into
+tears, threw her arms round Mrs. Marston's neck, and passionately
+exclaimed, "Protect me, madame, I implore, from the insults and
+suspicions of your husband."
+
+Marston stood a little behind his wife, and he and the governess
+exchanged a glance of keen significance, as the latter sank, sobbing,
+like an injured child into its mother's embrace, upon the poor lady's
+tortured bosom.
+
+"Madame, madame! he says--Mr. Marston says--I have presumed to give you
+advice, and to meddle, and to interfere; that I am endeavoring to make
+you despise his authority. Madame, speak for me. Say, madame, have I ever
+done so?--say, madame, am I the cause of bitterness and contumacy? Ah,
+mon Dieu! c'est trop--it is too much, madame. I shall go--I must go,
+madame. Why, ah! why, did I stay for this?"
+
+As she thus spoke, mademoiselle again burst into a paroxysm of weeping,
+and again the same significant glance was interchanged.
+
+"Go; yes, you shall go," said Marston, striding toward the window. "I
+will have no whispering or conspiring in my house: I have heard of your
+confidences and consultations. Mrs. Marston, I meant to have done this
+quietly," he continued, addressing his wife; "I meant to have given
+Mademoiselle de Barras my opinion and her dismissal without your
+assistance; but it seems you wish to interpose. You are sworn friends,
+and never fail one another, of course, at a pinch. I take it for granted
+that I owe your presence at our interview which I am resolved shall be,
+as respects mademoiselle, a final one, to a message from that intriguing
+young lady--eh?"
+
+"I have had no message, Richard," said Mrs. Marston; "I don't
+know--do tell me, for God's sake, what is all this about?" And as
+the poor lady thus spoke, her overwrought feelings found vent in a
+violent flood of tears.
+
+"Yes, madame, that is the question. I have asked him frequently what is
+all this anger, all these reproaches about; what have I done?" interposed
+mademoiselle, with indignant vehemence, standing erect, and viewing
+Marston with a flashing eye and a flushed cheek. "Yes, I am called
+conspirator, meddler, intrigant. Ah, madame, it is intolerable."
+
+"But what have I done, Richard?" urged the poor lady, stunned and
+bewildered; "how have I offended you?"
+
+"Yes, yes," continued the Frenchwoman, with angry volubility, "what has
+she done that you call contumacy and disrespect? Yes, dear madame, there
+is the question; and if he cannot answer, is it not most cruel to call me
+conspirator, and spy, and intrigant, because I talk to my dear madame,
+who is my only friend in this place?"
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras, I need no declamation from you; and, pardon me,
+Mrs. Marston, nor from you either," retorted he; "I have my information
+from one on whom I can rely; let that suffice. Of course you are both
+agreed in a story. I dare say you are ready to swear you never so much as
+canvassed my conduct, and my coldness and estrangement--eh? These are the
+words, are not they?"
+
+"I have done you no wrong, sir; madame can tell you. I am no
+mischief-maker; no, I never was such a thing. Was I, madame?" persisted
+the governess--"bear witness for me?"
+
+"I have told you my mind, Mademoiselle de Barras," interrupted Marston;
+"I will have no altercation, if you please. I think, Mrs. Marston, we
+have had enough of this; may I accompany you hence?"
+
+So saying, he took the poor lady's passive hand, and led her from the
+room. Mademoiselle stood in the center of the apartment, alone, erect,
+with heaving breast and burning cheek--beautiful, thoughtful, guilty--the
+very type of the fallen angelic. There for a time, her heart all
+confusion, her mind darkened, we must leave her; various courses before
+her, and as yet without resolution to choose among them; a lost spirit,
+borne on the eddies of the storm; fearless and self-reliant, but with no
+star to guide her on her dark, malign, and forlorn way.
+
+Mrs. Marston, in her own room, reviewed the agitating scene through which
+she had just been so unexpectedly carried. The tremendous suspicion
+which, at the first disclosure of the tableau we have described, smote
+the heart and brain of the poor lady with the stun of a thunderbolt, had
+been, indeed, subsequently disturbed, and afterwards contradicted; but
+the shock of her first impression remained still upon her mind and heart.
+She felt still through every nerve the vibrations of that maddening
+terror and despair which had overcome her senses for a moment. The
+surprise, the shock, the horror, outlived the obliterating influence of
+what followed. She was in this agitation when Mademoiselle de Barras
+entered her chamber, resolved with all her art to second and support the
+success of her prompt measures in the recent critical emergency. She had
+come, she said, to bid her dear madame farewell, for she was resolved to
+go. Her own room had been invaded, that insult and reproach might be
+heaped upon her; how utterly unmerited Mrs. Marston knew. She had been
+called by every foul name which applied to the spy and the maligner; she
+could not bear it. Some one had evidently been endeavoring to procure her
+removal, and had but too effectually succeeded. Mademoiselle was
+determined to go early the next morning; nothing should prevent or retard
+her departure; her resolution was taken. In this strain did mademoiselle
+run on, but in a subdued and melancholy tone, and weeping profusely.
+
+The wild and ghastly suspicions which had for a moment flashed terribly
+upon the mind of Mrs. Marston, had faded away under the influences of
+reason and reflection, although, indeed, much painful excitement still
+remained, before Mademoiselle de Barras had visited her room. Marston's
+temper she knew but too well; it was violent, bitter, and impetuous; and
+though he cared little, if at all, for her, she had ever perceived that
+he was angrily jealous of the slightest intimacy or confidence by which
+any other than himself might establish an influence over her mind. That
+he had learned the subject of some of her most interesting conversations
+with mademoiselle she could not doubt, for he had violently upbraided
+that young lady in her presence with having discussed it, and here now
+was mademoiselle herself taking refuge with her from galling affront and
+unjust reproach, incensed, wounded, and weeping. The whole thing was
+consistent; all the circumstances bore plainly in the same direction; the
+evidence was conclusive; and Mrs. Marston's thoughts and feelings
+respecting her fair young confidante quickly found their old level, and
+flowed on tranquilly and sadly in their accustomed channel.
+
+While Mademoiselle de Barras was thus, with the persevering industry of
+the spider, repairing the meshes which a chance breath had shattered, she
+would, perhaps, have been in her turn shocked and startled, could she
+have glanced into Marston's mind, and seen, in what was passing there,
+the real extent of her danger.
+
+Marston was walking, as usual, alone, and in the most solitary region of
+his lonely park. One hand grasped his walking stick, not to lean upon it,
+but as if it were the handle of a battle-axe; the other was buried in his
+bosom; his dark face looked upon the ground, and he strode onward with a
+slow but energetic step, which had the air of deep resolution. He found
+himself at last in a little churchyard, lying far among the wild forest
+of his demesne, and in the midst of which, covered with ivy and tufted
+plants, now ruddy with autumnal tints, stood the ruined walls of a little
+chapel. In the dilapidated vault close by lay buried many of his
+ancestors, and under the little wavy hillocks of fern and nettles, slept
+many an humble villager. He sat down upon a worn tombstone in this lowly
+ruin, and with his eyes fixed upon the ground, he surrendered his spirit
+to the stormy and evil thoughts which he had invited. Long and motionless
+he sat there, while his foul fancies and schemes began to assume shape
+and order. The wind rushing through the ivy roused him for a moment, and
+as he raised his gloomy eye it alighted accidentally upon a skull, which
+some wanton hand had fixed in a crevice of the wall. He averted his
+glance quickly, but almost as quickly refixed his gaze upon the impassive
+symbol of death, with an expression glowering and contemptuous, and with
+an angry gesture struck it down among the weeds with his stick. He left
+the place, and wandered on through the woods.
+
+"Men can't control the thoughts that flit across their minds," he
+muttered, as he went along, "anymore than they can direct the shadows
+of the clouds that sail above them. They come and pass, and leave no
+stain behind. What, then, of omens, and that wretched effigy of
+death? Stuff--pshaw! Murder, indeed! I'm incapable of murder. I have
+drawn my sword upon a man in fair duel; but murder! Out upon the
+thought, out upon it."
+
+He stamped upon the ground with a pang at once of fury and horror. He
+walked on a little, stopped again, and folding his arms, leaned against
+an ancient tree.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras, _vous etes une traitresse_, and you shall go.
+Yes, go you shall; you have deceived me, and we must part."
+
+He said this with melancholy bitterness; and, after a pause, continued:
+
+"I will have no other revenge. No; though, I dare say, she will care but
+little for this; very little, if at all."
+
+"And then, as to the other person," he resumed, after a pause, "it is not
+the first time he has acted like a trickster. He has crossed me before,
+and I will choose an opportunity to tell him my mind. I won't mince
+matters with him either, and will not spare him one insulting syllable
+that he deserves. He wears a sword, and so do I; if he pleases, he may
+draw it; he shall have the opportunity; but, at all events, I will make
+it impossible for him to prolong his disgraceful visit at my house."
+
+On reaching home and his own study, the servant, Merton, presented
+himself, and his master, too deeply excited to hear him then, appointed
+the next day for the purpose. There was no contending against Marston's
+peremptory will, and the man reluctantly withdrew. Here was, apparently,
+a matter of no imaginable moment; whether this menial should be
+discharged on that day, or on the morrow; and yet mighty things were
+involved in the alternative.
+
+There was a deeper gloom than usual over the house. The servants seemed
+to know that something had gone wrong, and looked grave and mysterious.
+Marston was more than ever dark and moody. Mrs. Marston's dimmed and
+swollen eyes showed that she had been weeping. Mademoiselle absented
+herself from supper, on the plea of a bad headache. Rhoda saw that
+something, she knew not what, had occurred to agitate her elders, and was
+depressed and anxious. The old clergyman, whom we have already mentioned,
+had called, and stayed to supper. Dr. Danvers was a man of considerable
+learning, strong sense, and remarkable simplicity of character. His
+thoughtful blue eye, and well-marked countenance, were full of gentleness
+and benevolence, and elevated by a certain natural dignity, of which
+purity and goodness, without one debasing shade of self-esteem and
+arrogance, were the animating spirit. Mrs. Marston loved and respected
+this good minister of God; and many a time had sought and found, in his
+gentle and earnest counsels, and in the overflowing tenderness of his
+sympathy, much comfort and support in the progress of her sore and
+protracted earthly trial. Most especially at one critical period in her
+history had he endeared himself to her, by interposing, and successfully,
+to prevent a formal separation which (as ending forever the one hope that
+cheered her on, even in the front of despair) she would probably not long
+have survived.
+
+With Mr. Marston, however, he was far from being a favorite. There was
+that in his lofty and simple purity which abashed and silently reproached
+the sensual, bitter, disappointed man of the world. The angry pride of
+the scornful man felt its own meanness in the grand presence of a simple
+and humble Christian minister. And the very fact that all his habits had
+led him to hold such a character in contempt, made him but the more
+unreasonably resent the involuntary homage which its exhibition in Dr.
+Danvers's person invariably extorted from him. He felt in this good man's
+presence under a kind of irritating restraint; that he was in the
+presence of one with whom he had, and could have, no sympathy whatever,
+and yet one whom he could not help both admiring and respecting; and in
+these conflicting feelings were involved certain gloomy and humbling
+inferences about himself, which he hated, and almost feared to
+contemplate.
+
+It was well, however, for the indulgence of Sir Wynston's conversational
+propensities, that Dr. Danvers had happened to drop in; for Marston was
+doggedly silent and sullen, and Mrs. Marston was herself scarcely more
+disposed than he to maintain her part in a conversation; so that, had it
+not been for the opportune arrival of the good clergyman, the supper must
+have been dispatched with a very awkward and unsocial taciturnity.
+
+Marston thought, and, perhaps, not erroneously, that Sir Wynston
+suspected something of the real state of affairs, and he was, therefore,
+incensed to perceive, as he thought, in his manner, very evident
+indications of his being in unusually good spirits. Thus disposed, the
+party sat down to supper.
+
+"One of our number is missing," said Sir Wynston, affecting a slight
+surprise, which, perhaps, he did not feel.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras--I trust she is well?" said Doctor Danvers,
+looking towards Marston.
+
+"I suppose she is; I don't know," said Marston, drily.
+
+"Why! how should he know," said the baronet, gaily, but with something
+almost imperceptibly sarcastic in his tone. "Our friend, Marston, is
+privileged to be as ungallant as he pleases, except where he has the
+happy privilege to owe allegiance; but I, a gay young bachelor of fifty,
+am naturally curious. I really do trust that our charming French friend
+is not unwell."
+
+He addressed his inquiry to Mrs. Marston, who, with some slight
+confusion, replied:--
+
+"No; nothing, at least, serious; merely a slight headache. I am sure she
+will be quite well enough to come down to breakfast."
+
+"She is, indeed, a very charming and interesting young person," said
+Doctor Danvers. "There is a certain simplicity about her which argues a
+good and kind heart, and an open nature."
+
+"Very true, indeed, doctor," observed Berkley, with the same faint, but,
+to Marston, exquisitely provoking approximation to sarcasm. "There is, as
+you say, a very charming simplicity. Don't you think so, Marston?"
+
+Marston looked at him for a moment, but continued silent.
+
+"Poor mademoiselle!--she is, indeed, a most affectionate creature," said
+Mrs. Marston, who felt called upon to say something.
+
+"Come, Marston, will you contribute nothing to the general fund of
+approbation?" said Sir Wynston, who was gifted by nature with an amiable
+talent for teasing, which he was fond of exercising in a quiet way. "We
+have all, but you, said something handsome of our absent young friend."
+
+"I never praise anybody, Wynston; not even you," said Marston, with an
+obvious sneer.
+
+"Well, well, I must comfort myself with the belief that your silence
+covers a great deal of good-will, and, perhaps, a little admiration,
+too," answered his cousin, significantly.
+
+"Comfort yourself in any honest way you will, my dear Wynston," retorted
+Marston, with a degree of asperity, which, to all but the baronet
+himself, was unaccountable. "You may be right, you may be wrong; on a
+subject so unimportant it matters very little which; you are at perfect
+liberty to practice delusions, if you will, upon yourself."
+
+"By-the-bye, Mr. Marston, is not your son about to come down here?" asked
+Doctor Danvers, who perceived that the altercation was becoming, on
+Marston's part, somewhat testy, if not positively rude.
+
+"Yes; I expect him in a few days," replied he, with a sudden gloom.
+
+"You have not seen him, Sir Wynston?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"I have that pleasure yet to come," said the baronet.
+
+"A pleasure it is, I do assure you," said Doctor Danvers, heartily. "He
+is a handsome lad, with the heart of a hero--a fine, frank, generous lad,
+and as merry as a lark."
+
+"Yes, yes," interrupted Marston; "he is well enough, and has done pretty
+well at Cambridge. Doctor Danvers, take some wine."
+
+It was strange, but yet mournfully true, that the praises which the good
+Doctor Danvers thus bestowed upon his son were bitter to the soul of the
+unhappy Marston. They jarred upon his ear, and stung his heart; for his
+conscience converted them into so many latent insults and humiliations
+to himself.
+
+"Your wine is very good, Marston. I think your clarets are many degrees
+better than any I can get," said Sir Wynston, sipping a glass of his
+favorite wine. "You country gentlemen are sad selfish dogs; and, with all
+your grumbling, manage to collect the best of whatever is worth having
+about you."
+
+"We sometimes succeed in collecting a pleasant party," retorted Marston,
+with ironical courtesy, "though we do not always command the means of
+entertaining them quite as we would wish."
+
+It was the habit of Doctor Danvers, without respect of persons or
+places, to propose, before taking his departure from whatever domestic
+party he chanced to be thrown among for the evening, to read some verses
+from that holy Book, on which his own hopes and peace were founded, and
+to offer up a prayer for all to the throne of grace. Marston, although
+he usually absented himself from such exercises, did not otherwise
+discourage them; but upon the present occasion, starting from his gloomy
+reverie, he himself was the first to remind the clergyman of his
+customary observance. Evil thoughts loomed upon the mind of Marston,
+like measureless black mists upon a cold, smooth sea. They rested, grew,
+and darkened there; and no heaven-sent breath came silently to steal
+them away. Under this dread shadow his mind lay waiting, like the deep,
+before the Spirit of God moved upon its waters, passive and awful. Why
+for the first time now did religion interest him? The unseen,
+intangible, was even now at work within him. A dreadful power shook his
+very heart and soul. There was some strange, ghastly wrestling going on
+in his own immortal spirit, a struggle that made him faint, which he had
+no power to determine. He looked upon the holy influence of the good
+man's prayer--a prayer in which he could not join--with a dull,
+superstitious hope that the words, inviting better influence, though
+uttered by another, and with other objects, would, like a spell, chase
+away the foul fiend that was busy with his soul. Marston sate, looking
+into the fire, with a countenance of stern gloom, upon which the wayward
+lights of the flickering hearth sported fitfully; while at a distant
+table Doctor Danvers sate down, and, taking his well-worn Bible from his
+pocket, turned over its leaves, and began, in gentle but impressive
+tones, to read.
+
+Sir Wynston was much too well bred to evince the slightest disposition to
+aught but the most proper and profound attention. The faintest imaginable
+gleam of ridicule might, perhaps, have been discerned in his features,
+as he leaned back in his chair, and, closing his eyes, composed himself
+to at least an attitude of attention. No man could submit with more
+cheerfulness to an inevitable bore.
+
+In these things, then, thou hast no concern; the judgment troubles thee
+not; thou hast no fear of death, Sir Wynston Berkley; yet there is a
+heart beating near thee, the mysteries of which, could they glide out and
+stand before thy face, would perchance appal thee, cold, easy man of the
+world. Aye, couldst thou but see with those cunning eyes of thine, but
+twelve brief hours into futurity, each syllable that falls from that good
+man's lips unheeded would peal through thy heart and brain like maddening
+thunder. Hearken, hearken, Sir Wynston Berkley, perchance these are the
+farewell words of thy better angel--the last pleadings of despised mercy!
+
+The party broke up. Doctor Danvers took his leave, and rode homeward,
+down the broad avenue, between the gigantic ranks of elm that closed it
+in. The full moon was rising above the distant hills; the mists lay
+like sleeping lakes in the laps of the hollows; and the broad demesne
+looked tranquil and sad under this chastened and silvery glory. The
+good old clergyman thought, as he pursued his way, that here at least,
+in a spot so beautiful and sequestered, the stormy passions and fell
+contentions of the outer world could scarcely penetrate. Yet, in that
+calm secluded spot, and under the cold, pure light which fell so
+holily, what a hell was weltering and glaring!--what a spectacle was
+that moon to go down upon! As Sir Wynston was leaving the parlor for
+his own room, Marston accompanied him to the hall, and said--"I shan't
+play tonight, Sir Wynston."
+
+"Ah, ha! very particularly engaged?" suggested the baronet, with a
+faint, mocking smile. "Well, my dear fellow, we must endeavor to make up
+for it tomorrow--eh?"
+
+"I don't know that," said Marston, "and--in a word, there is no use, sir,
+in our masquerading with one another. Each knows the other; each
+understands the other. I wish to have a word or two with you in your room
+tonight, when we shan't be interrupted."
+
+Marston spoke in a fierce and grating whisper, and his countenance, more
+even than his accents, betrayed the intensity of his bridled fury. Sir
+Wynston, however, smiled upon his cousin as if his voice had been melody,
+and his looks all sunshine.
+
+"Very good, Marston, just as you please," he said; "only don't be later
+than one, as I shall be getting into bed about that hour."
+
+"Perhaps, upon second thoughts, it is as well to defer what I have to
+say," said Marston, musingly. "Tomorrow will do as well; so, perhaps, Sir
+Wynston, I may not trouble you tonight."
+
+"Just as suits you best, my dear Marston," replied the baronet, with a
+tranquil smile; "only don't come after the hour I have stipulated."
+
+So saying, the baronet mounted the stairs, and made his way to his
+chamber. He was in excellent spirits, and in high good-humor with
+himself: the object of his visit to Gray Forest had been, as he now
+flattered himself, attained. He had conducted an affair requiring the
+profoundest mystery in its prosecution, and the nicest tactic in its
+management, almost to a triumphant issue. He had perfectly masked his
+design, and completely outwitted Marston; and to a person who piqued
+himself upon his clever diplomacy, and vaunted that he had never yet
+sustained a defeat in any object which he had seriously proposed to
+himself, such a combination of successes was for the moment quite
+intoxicating.
+
+Sir Wynston not only enjoyed his own superiority with all the vanity of a
+selfish nature, but he no less enjoyed, with a keen and malicious relish,
+the intense mortification which, he was well assured, Marston must
+experience; and all the more acutely, because of the utter impossibility,
+circumstanced as he was, of his taking any steps to manifest his
+vexation, without compromising himself in a most unpleasant way.
+
+Animated by these amiable feelings, Sir Wynston Berkley sate down,
+and wrote the following short letter, addressed to Mrs. Gray,
+Wynston Hall:--
+
+"Mrs. Gray,
+
+"On receipt of this have the sitting rooms and several bedrooms put in
+order, and thoroughly aired. Prepare for my use the suite of three rooms
+over the library and drawing room; and have the two great wardrobes, and
+the cabinet in the state bedroom, removed into the large dressing room
+which opens upon the bedroom I have named. Make everything as comfortable
+as possible. If anything is wanted in the way of furniture, drapery,
+ornament, &c., you need only write to John Skelton, Esq., Spring-garden,
+London, stating what is required, and he will order and send them down.
+You must be expeditious, as I shall probably go down to Wynston, with two
+or three friends, at the beginning of next month.
+
+"WYNSTON BERKLEY
+
+"P.S.--I have written to direct Arkins and two or three of the other
+servants to go down at once. Set them all to work immediately."
+
+He then applied himself to another letter of considerably greater length,
+and from which, therefore, we shall only offer a few extracts. It was
+addressed to John Skelton, Esq., and began as follows.--
+
+"My Dear Skelton,
+
+"You are, doubtless, surprised at my long silence, but I have had nothing
+very particular to say. My visit to this dull and uncomfortable place was
+(as you rightly surmise) not without its object--a little bit of wicked
+romance; the pretty demoiselle of Rouen, whom I mentioned to you more
+than once--la belle de Barras--was, in truth, the attraction that drew me
+hither; and I think (for, as yet, she affects hesitation), I shall have
+no further trouble with her. She is a fine creature, and you will admit,
+when you have seen her, well worth taking some trouble about. She is,
+however, a very knowing little minx, and evidently suspects me of being a
+sad, fickle dog--and, as I surmise, has some plans, moreover, respecting
+my morose cousin, Marston, a kind of wicked Penruddock, who has carried
+all his London tastes into his savage retreat, a paradise of bogs and
+bushes. There is, I am very confident, a liaison in that quarter. The
+young lady is evidently a good deal afraid of him, and insists upon such
+precautions in our interviews, that they have been very few, and far
+between, indeed. Today, there has been a fracas of some kind. I have no
+doubt that Marston, poor devil, is jealous. His situation is really
+pitiably comic--with an intriguing mistress, a saintly wife, and a devil
+of a jealous temper of his own. I shall meet Mary on reaching town. Has
+Clavering (shabby dog!) paid his I.O.U. yet? Tell the little opera woman
+she had better be quiet. She ought to know me by this time; I shall do
+what is right, but won't submit to be bullied. If she is troublesome,
+snap your fingers at her, on my behalf, and leave her to her remedy. I
+have written to Gray, to get things at Wynston in order. She will draw
+upon you for what money she requires. Send down two or three of the
+servants, if they have not already gone. The place is very dusty and
+dingy, and needs a great deal of brushing and scouring. I shall see you
+in town very soon. By the way, has the claret I ordered from the Dublin
+house arrived yet? It is consigned to you, and goes by the 'Lizard'; pay
+the freightage, and get Edwards to pack it; ten dozen or so may as well
+go down to Wynston, and send other wines in proportion. I leave details
+to you...."
+
+Some further directions upon other subjects followed; and having
+subscribed the dispatch, and addressed it to the gentlemanlike scoundrel
+who filled the onerous office of factotum to this profligate and
+exacting man of the world, Sir Wynston Berkley rang his bell, and gave
+the two letters into the hand of his man, with special directions to
+carry them himself in person, to the post office in the neighboring
+village, early next morning. These little matters completed, Sir Wynston
+stirred his fire, leaned back in his easy chair, and smiled blandly over
+the sunny prospect of his imaginary triumphs.
+
+It here becomes necessary to describe, in a few words, some of the local
+relations of Sir Wynston's apartments. The bedchamber which he occupied
+opened from the long passage of which we have already spoken--and there
+were two other smaller apartments opening from it in train. In the
+further of these, which was entered from a lobby, communicating by a back
+stair with the kitchen and servants' apartments, lay Sir Wynston's valet,
+and the intermediate chamber was fitted up as a dressing room for the
+baronet himself. These circumstances it is necessary to mention, that
+what follows may be clearly intelligible.
+
+While the baronet was penning these records of vicious schemes--dire
+waste of wealth and time--irrevocable time!--Marston paced his study in a
+very different frame of mind. There were a gloom and disorder in the room
+accordant with those of his own mind. Shelves of ancient tomes, darkened
+by time, and upon which the dust of years lay sleeping--dark oaken
+cabinets, filled with piles of deeds and papers, among which the nimble
+spiders were crawling--and, from the dusky walls, several stark, pale
+ancestors, looking down coldly from their tarnished frames. An hour, and
+another hour passed--and still Marston paced this melancholy chamber, a
+prey to his own fell passions and dark thoughts. He was not a
+superstitious man, but, in the visions which haunted him, perhaps, was
+something which made him unusually excitable--for, he experienced a chill
+of absolute horror, as, standing at the farther end of the room, with his
+face turned towards the entrance, he beheld the door noiselessly and
+slowly pushed open, by a pale, thin hand, and a figure dressed in a loose
+white robe, glide softly in. He stood for some seconds gazing upon this
+apparition, as it moved hesitatingly towards him from the dusky extremity
+of the large apartment, before he perceived that the form was that of
+Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Hey, ha!--Mrs. Marston--what on earth has called you hither?" he asked,
+sternly. "You ought to have been at rest an hour ago; get to your
+chamber, and leave me, I have business to attend to."
+
+"Now, dear Richard, you must forgive me," she said, drawing near, and
+looking up into his haggard face with a sweet and touching look of
+timidity and love; "I could not rest until I saw you again; your looks
+have been all this night so unlike yourself; so strange and terrible,
+that I am afraid some great misfortune threatens you, which you fear to
+tell me of."
+
+"My looks! Why, curse it, must I give an account of my looks?" replied
+Marston, at once disconcerted and wrathful. "Misfortune! What misfortune
+can befall us more? No, there is nothing, nothing, I say, but your own
+foolish fancy; go to your room--go to sleep--my looks, indeed; pshaw!"
+
+"I came to tell you, dear Richard, that I will do, in all respects, just
+as you desire. If you continue to wish it, I will part with poor
+mademoiselle; though, indeed, Richard, I shall miss her more than you can
+imagine; and all your suspicions have wronged her deeply," said Mrs.
+Marston. Her husband darted a sudden flashing glance of suspicious
+scrutiny upon her face; but its expression was frank, earnest, noble. He
+was disarmed; he hung his head gloomily upon his breast, and was silent
+for a time. She came nearer, and laid her hand upon his arm. He looked
+darkly into her upturned eyes, and a feeling which had not touched his
+heart for many a day--an emotion of pity, transient, indeed, but vivid,
+revisited him. He took her hand in his, and said, in gentler terms than
+she had heard him use for a long time--
+
+"No, indeed, Gertrude, you have deceived yourself; no misfortune has
+happened, and if I am gloomy, the source of all my troubles is within.
+Leave me, Gertrude, for the present. As to the other matter, the
+departure of Mademoiselle de Barras, we can talk of that tomorrow--now I
+cannot; so let us part. Go to your room; good night."
+
+She was withdrawing, and he added, in a subdued tone--"Gertrude, I am
+very glad you came--very glad. Pray for me tonight."
+
+He had followed her a few steps toward the door, and now stopped short,
+turned about, and walked dejectedly back again--
+
+"I am right glad she came," he muttered, as soon as he was once more
+alone. "Wynston is provoking and fiery, too. Were I, in my present mood,
+to seek a tete-a-tete with him, who knows what might come of it? Blood;
+my own heart whispers--blood! I'll not trust myself."
+
+He strode to the study door, locked it, and taking out the key, shut it
+in the drawer of one of the cabinets.
+
+"Now it will need more than accident or impulse to lead me to him. I
+cannot go, at least, without reflection, without premeditation. Avaunt,
+fiend. I have baffled you."
+
+He stood in the center of the room, cowering and scowling as he said
+this, and looked round with a glance half-defiant, half-fearful, as if he
+expected to see some dreadful form in the dusky recesses of the desolate
+chamber. He sat himself by the smouldering fire, in somber and agitated
+rumination. He was restless; he rose again, unbuckled his sword, which he
+had not loosed since evening, and threw it hastily into a corner. He
+looked at his watch, it was half-past twelve; he glanced at the door, and
+thence at the cabinet in which he had placed the key; then he turned
+hastily, and sate down again. He leaned his elbows on his knees, and his
+chin upon his clenched hand; still he was restless and excited. Once more
+he arose, and paced up and down. He consulted his watch again; it was now
+but a quarter to one.
+
+Sir Wynston's man having received the letters, and his master's
+permission to retire to rest, got into his bed, and was soon beginning to
+dose. We have already mentioned that his and Sir Wynston's apartments
+were separated by a small dressing room, so that any ordinary noise or
+conversation could be heard but imperfectly from one to the other. The
+servant, however, was startled by a sound of something falling on the
+floor of his master's apartment, and broken to pieces by the violence of
+the shock. He sate up in his bed, listened, and heard some sentences
+spoken vehemently, and gabbled very fast. He thought he distinguished the
+words "wretch" and "God"; and there was something so strange in the tone
+in which they were spoken, that the man got up and stole noiselessly
+through the dressing room, and listened at the door.
+
+He heard him, as he thought, walking in his slippers through the room,
+and making his customary arrangements previously to getting into bed. He
+knew that his master had a habit of speaking when alone, and concluded
+that the accidental breakage of some glass or chimney-ornament had
+elicited the volley of words he had heard. Well knowing that, except at
+the usual hours, or in obedience to Sir Wynston's bell, nothing more
+displeased his master than his presuming to enter his sleeping-apartment
+while he was there, the servant quietly retreated, and, perfectly
+satisfied that all was right, composed himself to slumber, and was soon
+beginning to dose again.
+
+The adventures of the night, however, were not yet over. Waking, as men
+sometimes do, without any ascertainable cause; without a start or an
+uneasy sensation; without even a disturbance of the attitude of repose,
+he opened his eyes and beheld Merton, the servant of whom we have spoken,
+standing at a little distance from his bed. The moonlight fell in a clear
+flood upon this figure: the man was ghastly pale; there was a blotch of
+blood on his face; his hands were clasped upon something which they
+nearly concealed; and his eyes, fixed on the servant who had just
+awakened, shone in the cold light with a wild and lifeless glitter. This
+specter drew close to the side of the bed, and stood for a few moments
+there with a look of agony and menace, which startled the newly-awakened
+man, who rose upright, and said--
+
+"Mr. Merton, Mr. Merton--in God's name, what is the matter?"
+
+Merton recoiled at the sound of his voice; and, as he did so, dropped
+something on the floor, which rolled away to a distance; and he stood
+gazing silently and horribly upon his interrogator.
+
+"Mr. Merton, I say, what is it?" urged the man. "Are you hurt? Your face
+is bloody."
+
+Merton raised his hand to his face mechanically, and Sir Wynston's man
+observed that it, too, was covered with blood.
+
+"Why, man," he said, vehemently, and actually freezing with horror, "you
+are all bloody; hands and face; all over blood."
+
+"My hand is cut to the bone," said Merton, in a harsh whisper; and
+speaking to himself, rather than addressing the servant--"I wish it was
+my neck; I wish to God I bled to death."
+
+"You have hurt your hand, Mr. Merton," repeated the man, scarce knowing
+what he said.
+
+"Aye," whispered Merton, wildly drawing toward the bedside again; "who
+told you I hurt my hand? It is cut to the bone, sure enough."
+
+He stooped for a moment over the bed, and then cowered down toward the
+floor to search for what he had dropped.
+
+"Why, Mr. Merton, what brings you here at this hour?" urged the man,
+after a pause of a few seconds. "It is drawing toward morning."
+
+"Aye, aye," said Merton, doubtfully, and starting upright again, while
+he concealed in his bosom what he had been in search of. "Near morning,
+is it? Night and morning, it is all one to me. I believe I am going
+mad, by--"
+
+"But what do you want? What did you come here for at this hour?"
+persisted the man.
+
+"What! Aye, that is it; why, his boots and spurs, to be sure. I
+forgot them. His--his--Sir Wynston's boots and spurs; I forgot to
+take them, I say," said Merton, looking toward the dressing room, as
+if about to enter it.
+
+"Don't mind them tonight, I say, don't go in there," said the man,
+peremptorily, and getting out upon the floor. "I say, Mr. Merton, this is
+no hour to be going about searching in the dark for boots and spurs.
+You'll waken the master. I can't have it, I say; go down, and let it be
+for tonight."
+
+Thus speaking, in a resolute and somewhat angry under-key, the valet
+stood between Merton and the entrance of the dressing-room; and, signing
+with his hand toward the other door of the apartment, continued--
+
+"Go down, I say, Mr. Merton, go down; you may as well quietly, for, I
+tell you plainly, you shall neither go a step further, nor stay here a
+moment longer."
+
+The man drew his shoulders up, and made a sort of shivering moan, and
+clasping his hands together, shook them, as it seemed, in great agony. He
+then turned abruptly, and hurried from the room by the door leading to
+the kitchen.
+
+"By my faith," said the servant, "I am glad he is gone. The poor chap is
+turning crazy, as sure as I am a living man. I'll not have him prowling
+about here anymore, however; that I am resolved on."
+
+In pursuance of this determination, by no means an imprudent one, as it
+seemed, he fastened the door communicating with the lower apartments upon
+the inside. He had hardly done this, when he heard a step traversing the
+stable-yard, which lay under the window of his apartment. He looked out,
+and saw Merton walking hurriedly across, and into a stable at the
+farther end.
+
+Feeling no very particular curiosity about his movements, the man hurried
+back to his bed. Merton's eccentric conduct of late had become so
+generally remarked and discussed among the servants, that Sir Wynston's
+man was by no means surprised at the oddity of the visit he had just had;
+nor, after the first few moments of doubt, before the appearance of blood
+had been accounted for, had he entertained any suspicions whatever
+connected with the man's unexpected presence in the room. Merton was in
+the habit of coming up every night to take down Sir Wynston's boots,
+whenever the baronet had ridden in the course of the day; and this
+attention had been civilly undertaken as a proof of good-will toward the
+valet, whose duty this somewhat soiling and ungentlemanlike process would
+otherwise have been. So far, the nature of the visit was explained; and
+the remembrance of the friendly feeling and good offices which had been
+mutually interchanged, as well as of the inoffensive habits for which
+Merton had earned a character for himself, speedily calmed the
+uneasiness, for a moment amounting to actual alarm, with which the
+servant had regarded his appearance.
+
+We must now pass on to the morrow, and ask the reader's attention for a
+few moments to a different scene.
+
+In contact with Gray Forest upon the northern side, and divided by a
+common boundary, lay a demesne, in many respects presenting a very
+striking contrast to its grander neighbor. It was a comparatively modern
+place. It could not boast the towering timber which enriched and
+overshadowed the vast and varied expanse of its aristocratic rival; but,
+if it was inferior in the advantages of antiquity, and, perhaps, also in
+some of those of nature, its superiority in other respects was
+striking, and important. Gray Forest was not more remarkable for its
+wild and neglected condition, than was Newton Park for the care and
+elegance with which it was kept. No one could observe the contrast,
+without, at the same time, divining its cause. The proprietor of the one
+was a man of wealth, fully commensurate with the extent and pretensions
+of the residence he had chosen; the owner of the other was a man of
+broken fortunes.
+
+Under a green shade, which nearly met above, a very young man, scarcely
+one-and-twenty, of a frank and sensible, rather than a strictly
+handsome countenance, was walking, followed by half a dozen dogs of as
+many breeds and sizes. This young man was George Mervyn, the only son
+of the present proprietor of the place. As he approached the great
+gate, the clank of a horse's hoofs in quick motion upon the sequestered
+road which ran outside it, reached him; and hardly had he heard these
+sounds, when a young gentleman rode briskly by, directing his look into
+the demesne as he passed. He had no sooner seen him, than wheeling his
+horse about, he rode up to the iron gate, and dismounting, threw it
+open, and let his horse in.
+
+"Ha! Charles Marston, I protest!" said the young man, quickening his pace
+to meet his friend. "Marston, my dear fellow," he called aloud, "how glad
+I am to see you."
+
+There was another entrance into Newton Park, opening from the same road,
+about half a mile further on; and Charles Marston made his way lie
+through this. Thus the young people walked on, talking of a hundred
+things as they proceeded, in the mirth of their hearts.
+
+Between the fathers of the two young men, who thus walked so
+affectionately together, there subsisted unhappily no friendly feelings.
+There had been several slight disagreements between them, touching their
+proprietary rights, and one of these had ripened into a formal and
+somewhat expensive litigation, respecting a certain right of fishing
+claimed by each. This legal encounter had terminated in the defeat of
+Marston. Mervyn, however, promptly wrote to his opponent, offering him
+the free use of the waters for which they had thus sharply contested, and
+received a curt and scarcely civil reply, declining the proposed
+courtesy. This exhibition of resentment on Marston's part had been
+followed by some rather angry collisions, where chance or duty happened
+to throw them together. It is but justice to say that, upon all such
+occasions, Marston was the aggressor. But Mervyn was a somewhat testy old
+gentleman, and had a certain pride of his own, which was not to be
+trifled with. Thus, though near neighbors, the parents of the young
+friends were more than strangers to each other. On Mervyn's side,
+however, this estrangement was unalloyed with bitterness, and simply of
+that kind which the great moralist would have referred to "defensive
+pride." It did not include any member of Marston's family, and Charles,
+as often as he desired it, which was, in truth, as often as his visits
+could escape the special notice of his father, was a welcome guest at
+Newton Park.
+
+These details respecting the mutual relation in which the two families
+stood, it was necessary to state, for the purpose of making what follows
+perfectly clear. The young people had now reached the further gate, at
+which they were to part. Charles Marston, with a heart beating happily in
+the anticipation of many a pleasant meeting, bid him farewell for the
+present, and in a few minutes more was riding up the broad, straight
+avenue, towards the gloomy mansion which closed in the hazy and somber
+perspective. As he moved onward, he passed a laborer, with whose face,
+from his childhood, he had been familiar.
+
+"How do you do, Tom?" he cried.
+
+"At your service, sir," replied the man, uncovering, "and welcome
+home, sir."
+
+There was something dark and anxious in the man's looks, which
+ill-accorded with the welcome he spoke, and which suggested some
+undefined alarm.
+
+"The master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--are all well?" he asked
+eagerly.
+
+"All well, sir, thank God," replied the man.
+
+Young Marston spurred on, filled with vague apprehensions, and observing
+the man still leaning upon his spade, and watching his progress with the
+same gloomy and curious eye.
+
+At the hall-door he met with one of the servants, booted and spurred.
+
+"Well, Daly," he said, as he dismounted, "how are all at home?"
+
+This man, like the former, met his smile with a troubled countenance, and
+stammered--
+
+"All, sir--that is, the master, and mistress, and Miss Rhoda--quite well,
+sir; but--"
+
+"Well, well," said Charles, eagerly, "speak on--what is it?"
+
+"Bad work, sir," replied the man, lowering his voice. "I am going off
+this minute for--"
+
+"For what?" urged the young gentleman.
+
+"Why, sir, for the coroner," replied he.
+
+"The coroner--the coroner! Why, good God, what has happened?" cried
+Charles, aghast with horror.
+
+"Sir Wynston," commenced the man, and hesitated.
+
+"Well?" pursued Charles, pale and breathless.
+
+"Sir Wynston--he--it is he," said the man.
+
+"He? Sir Wynston? Is he dead, or who is?--Who is dead?" demanded the
+young man, almost fiercely.
+
+"Sir Wynston, sir; it is he that is dead. There is bad work, sir--very
+bad, I'm afraid," replied the man.
+
+Charles did not wait to inquire further, but, with a feeling of mingled
+horror and curiosity, entered the house.
+
+He hurried up the stairs, and entered his mother's sitting room. She was
+there, perfectly alone, and so deadly pale, that she scarcely looked like
+a living being. In an instant they were locked in one another's arms.
+
+"Mother--my dear mother, you are ill," said the young man, anxiously.
+
+"Oh, no, no, dear Charles, but frightened, horrified;" and as she said
+this, the poor lady burst into tears.
+
+"What is this horrible affair? Something about Sir Wynston. He is dead, I
+know, but is it--is it suicide?" he asked.
+
+"Oh, no, not suicide," said Mrs. Marston, greatly agitated.
+
+"Good God! Then he is murdered," whispered the young man, growing
+very pale.
+
+"Yes, Charles--horrible--dreadful! I can scarcely believe it," replied
+she, shuddering while she wept.
+
+"Where is my father?" inquired the young man, after a pause.
+
+"Why, why, Charles, darling--why do you ask for him?" she said, wildly,
+grasping him by the arm, as she looked into his face with a terrified
+expression.
+
+"Why--why, he could tell me the particulars of this horrible
+tragedy," answered he, meeting her agonized look with one of alarm
+and surprise, "as far as they have been as yet collected. How is he,
+mother--is he well?"
+
+"Oh, yes, quite well, thank God," she answered, more collectedly--"quite
+well, but, of course, greatly, dreadfully shocked."
+
+"I will go to him, mother; I will see him," said he, turning
+towards the door.
+
+"He has been wretchedly depressed and excited for some days," said Mrs.
+Marston, dejectedly, "and this dreadful occurrence will, I fear, affect
+him most deplorably."
+
+The young man kissed her tenderly and affectionately, and hurried down to
+the library, where his father usually sat when he desired to be alone, or
+was engaged in business. He opened the door softly. His father was
+standing at one of the windows, his face haggard as from a night's
+watching, unkempt and unshorn, and with his hands thrust into his
+pockets. At the sound of the revolving door he started, and seeing his
+son, first recoiled a little, with a strange, doubtful expression, and
+then rallying, walked quickly towards him with a smile, which had in it
+something still more painful.
+
+"Charles, I am glad to see you," he said, shaking him with an agitated
+pressure by both hands, "Charles, this is a great calamity, and what
+makes it still worse, is that the murderer has escaped; it looks badly,
+you know."
+
+He fixed his gaze for a few moments upon his son, turned abruptly, and
+walked a little way into the room then, in a disconcerted manner, he
+added, hastily turning back--
+
+"Not that it signifies to us, of course--but I would fain have justice
+satisfied."
+
+"And who is the wretch--the murderer?" inquired Charles.
+
+"Who? Why, everyone knows!--that scoundrel, Merton," answered Marston, in
+an irritated tone--"Merton murdered him in his bed, and fled last night;
+he is gone--escaped--and I suspect Sir Wynston's man of being an
+accessory."
+
+"Which was Sir Wynston's bedroom?" asked the young man.
+
+"The room that old Lady Mostyn had--the room with the portrait of Grace
+Hamilton in it."
+
+"I know--I know," said the young man, much excited. "I should wish
+to see it."
+
+"Stay," said Marston; "the door from the passage is bolted on the inside,
+and I have locked the other; here is the key, if you choose to go, but
+you must bring Hughes with you, and do not disturb anything; leave all as
+it is; the jury ought to see, and examine for themselves."
+
+Charles took the key, and, accompanied by the awestruck servant, he made
+his way by the back stairs to the door opening from the dressing-room,
+which, as we have said, intervened between the valet's chamber and Sir
+Wynston's. After a momentary hesitation, Charles turned the key in the
+door, and stood.
+
+"In the dark chamber of white death."
+
+The shutters lay partly open, as the valet had left them some hours
+before, on making the astounding discovery, which the partially admitted
+light revealed. The corpse lay in the silk-embroidered dressing gown, and
+other habiliments, which Sir Wynston had worn, while taking his ease in
+his chamber, on the preceding night. The coverlet was partially dragged
+over it. The mouth was gaping, and filled with clotted blood; a wide gash
+was also visible in the neck, under the ear; and there was a thickening
+pool of blood at the bedside, and quantities of blood, doubtless from
+other wounds, had saturated the bedclothes under the body. There lay Sir
+Wynston, stiffened in the attitude in which the struggle of death had
+left him, with his stern, stony face, and dim, terrible gaze turned up.
+
+Charles looked breathlessly for more than a minute upon this mute and
+unchanging spectacle, and then silently suffered the curtain to fall back
+again, and stepped, with the light tread of awe, again to the door. There
+he turned back, and pausing for a minute, said, in a whisper, to the
+attendant--
+
+"And Merton did this?"
+
+"Troth, I'm afeard he did, sir," answered the man, gloomily.
+
+"And has made his escape?" continued Charles.
+
+"Yes, sir; he stole away in the night-time," replied the servant, "after
+the murder was done" (and he glanced fearfully toward the bed); "God
+knows where he's gone."
+
+"The villain!" muttered Charles; "but what was his motive? why did he do
+all this--what does it mean?"
+
+"I don't know exactly, sir, but he was very queer for a week and more
+before it," replied the man; "there was something bad over him for a
+long time."
+
+"It is a terrible thing," said Charles, with a profound sigh; "a terrible
+and shocking occurrence."
+
+He hesitated again at the door, but his feelings had sustained a terrible
+revulsion at sight of the corpse, and he was no longer disposed to
+prosecute his purposed examination of the chamber and its contents; with
+a view to conjecturing the probable circumstances of the murder.
+
+"Observe, Hughes, that I have moved nothing in the chamber from the place
+it occupied when we entered," he said to the servant, as they withdrew.
+
+He locked the door, and as he passed through the hall, on his return, he
+encountered his father, and, restoring the key, said--
+
+"I could not stay there; I am almost sorry I have seen it; I am
+overpowered; what a determined, ferocious murder it was; the place is all
+in a pool of gore; he must have received many wounds."
+
+"I can't say; the particulars will be elicited soon enough; those details
+are for the inquest; as for me, I hate such spectacles," said Marston,
+gloomily; "go now, and see your sister; you will find her there."
+
+He pointed to the small room where we have first seen her and her fair
+governess; Charles obeyed the direction, and Marston proceeded himself to
+his wife's sitting room.
+
+The young man, dispirited and horrified by the awful spectacle he had
+just contemplated, hurried to the little study occupied by his sister.
+Marston himself ascended, as we have said, the great staircase leading to
+his wife's private sitting room.
+
+"Mrs. Marston," he said, entering, "this is a hateful occurrence, a
+dreadful thing to have taken place here; I don't mean to affect grief
+which I don't feel; but the thing is very shocking, and particularly so,
+as having occurred under my roof; but that cannot now be helped. I have
+resolved to spare no exertions, and no influence, to bring the assassin
+to justice; and a coroner's jury will, within a few hours, sift the
+evidence which we have succeeded in collecting. But my purpose in seeking
+you now is, to recur to the conversation we yesterday had, respecting a
+member of this establishment."
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras?" suggested the lady.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras," echoed Marston; "I wish to say, that,
+having reconsidered the circumstances affecting her, I am absolutely
+resolved that she shall not continue to be an inmate of this house."
+
+He paused, and Mrs. Marston said--
+
+"Well, Richard, I am sorry, very sorry for it; but your decision shall
+never be disputed by me."
+
+"Of course," said Marston, drily; "and, therefore, the sooner you
+acquaint her with it, and let her know that she must go, the better."
+
+Having said this, he left her, and went to his own chamber, where he
+proceeded to make his toilet with elaborate propriety, in preparation for
+the scene which was about to take place under his roof.
+
+Mrs. Marston, meanwhile, suffered from a horrible uncertainty. She never
+harbored, it is true, one doubt as to her husband's perfect innocence of
+the ghastly crime which filled their house with fear and gloom; but at
+the same time that she thoroughly and indignantly scouted the possibility
+of his, under any circumstances, being accessory to such a crime, she
+experienced a nervous and agonizing anxiety lest anyone else should
+possibly suspect him, however obliquely and faintly, of any participation
+whatever in the foul deed. This vague fear tortured her; it had taken
+possession of her mind; and it was the more acutely painful, because it
+was of a kind which precluded the possibility of her dispelling it, as
+morbid fears so often are dispelled, by taking counsel upon its
+suggestions with a friend.
+
+The day wore on, and strange faces began to fill the great parlor. The
+coroner, accompanied by a physician, had arrived. Several of the gentry
+in the immediate vicinity had been summoned as jurors, and now began to
+arrive in succession. Marston, in a handsome and sober suit, received
+these visitors with a stately and melancholy courtesy, befitting the
+occasion. Mervyn and his son had both been summoned, and, of course, were
+in attendance. There being now a sufficient number to form a jury, they
+were sworn, and immediately proceeded to the chamber where the body of
+the murdered man was lying.
+
+Marston accompanied them, and with a pale and stern countenance, and in a
+clear and subdued tone, called their attention successively to every
+particular detail which he conceived important to be noted. Having thus
+employed some minutes, the jury again returned to the parlor, and the
+examination of the witnesses commenced.
+
+Marston, at his own request, was first sworn and examined. He deposed
+merely to the circumstance of his parting, on the night previous, with
+Sir Wynston, and to the state in which he had seen the room and the body
+in the morning. He mentioned also the fact, that on hearing the alarm in
+the morning, he had hastened from his own chamber to Sir Wynston's, and
+found, on trying to enter, that the door opening upon the passage was
+secured on the inside. This circumstance showed that the murderer must
+have made his egress at least through the valet's chamber, and by the
+back-stairs. Marston's evidence went no further.
+
+The next witness sworn was Edward Smith, the servant of the late Sir
+Wynston Berkley. His evidence was a narrative of the occurrences we have
+already stated. He described the sounds which he had overheard from his
+master's room, the subsequent appearance of Merton, and the conversation
+which had passed between them. He then proceeded to mention, that it was
+his master's custom to have himself called at seven o'clock, at which
+hour he usually took some medicine, which it was the valet's duty to
+bring to him; after which he either settled again to rest, or rose in a
+short time, if unable to sleep. Having measured and prepared the dose in
+the dressing room, the servant went on to say, he had knocked at his
+master's door, and receiving no answer, had entered the room, and partly
+unclosed the shutters. He perceived the blood on the carpet, and on
+opening the curtains, saw his master lying with his mouth and eyes open,
+perfectly dead, and weltering in gore. He had stretched out his hand, and
+seized that of the dead man, which was quite stiff and cold; then, losing
+heart, he had run to the door communicating with the passage, but found
+it locked, and turned to the other entrance, and ran down the
+back-stairs, crying "murder." Mr. Hughes, the butler, and James Carney,
+another servant, came immediately, and they all three went back into the
+room. The key was in the outer door, upon the inside, but they did not
+unlock it until they had viewed the body. There was a great pool of blood
+in the bed, and in it was lying a red-handled case knife, which was
+produced, and identified by the witness. Just then they heard Mr. Marston
+calling for admission, and they opened the door with some difficulty, for
+the lock was rusty. Mr. Marston had ordered them to leave the things as
+they were, and had used very stern language to the witness. They had then
+left the room, securing both doors.
+
+This witness underwent a severe and searching examination, but his
+evidence was clear and consistent.
+
+In conclusion, Marston produced a dagger, which was stained with blood,
+and asked the man whether he recognized it.
+
+Smith at once stated this to have been the property of his late master,
+who, when traveling, carried it, together with his pistols, along with
+him. Since his arrival at Gray Forest, it had lain upon the
+chimney-piece in his bedroom, where he believed it to have been upon the
+previous night.
+
+James Carney, one of Marston's servants, was next sworn and examined. He
+had, he said, observed a strange and unaccountable agitation and
+depression in Merton's manner for some days past; he had also been
+several times disturbed at night by his talking aloud to himself, and
+walking to and fro in his room. Their bedrooms were separated by a thin
+partition, in which was a window, through which Carney had, on the night
+of the murder, observed a light in Merton's room, and, on looking in, had
+seen him dressing hastily. He also saw him twice take up, and again lay
+down, the red-hafted knife which had been found in the bed of the
+murdered man. He knew it by the handle being broken near the end. He had
+no suspicion of Merton having any mischievous intentions, and lay down
+again to rest. He afterwards heard him pass out of his room, and go
+slowly up the back-stairs leading to the upper story. Shortly after this
+he had fallen asleep, and did not hear or see him return. He then
+described, as Smith had already done, the scene which presented itself in
+the morning, on his accompanying him into Sir Wynston's bedchamber.
+
+The next witness examined was a little Irish boy, who described himself
+as "a poor scholar." His testimony was somewhat singular. He deposed that
+he had come to the house on the preceding evening, and had been given
+some supper, and was afterwards permitted to sleep among the hay in one
+of the lofts. He had, however, discovered what he considered a snugger
+berth. This was an unused stable, in the further end of which lay a
+quantity of hay. Among this he had lain down, and gone to sleep. He was,
+however, awakened in the course of the night by the entrance of a man,
+whom he saw with perfect distinctness in the moonlight, and his
+description of his dress and appearance tallied exactly with those of
+Merton. This man occupied himself for sometime in washing his hands and
+face in a stable bucket, which happened to stand by the door; and, during
+the whole of this process, he continued to moan and mutter, like one in
+woeful perturbation. He said, distinctly, twice or thrice, "by ----, I am
+done for;" and every now and then he muttered, "and nothing for it, after
+all." When he had done washing his hands, he took something from his
+coat-pocket, and looked at it, shaking his head; at this time he was
+standing with his back turned toward the boy, so that he could not see
+what this object might be. The man, however, put it into his breast, and
+then began to search hurriedly, as it seemed, for some hiding place for
+it. After looking at the pavement, and poking at the chinks of the wall,
+he suddenly went to the window, and forced up the stone which formed the
+sill. Under this he threw the object which the boy had seen him examine
+with so much perplexity, and then he readjusted the stone, and removed
+the evidences of its having been recently stirred. The boy was a little
+frightened, but very curious about all that he saw; and when the man left
+the stable in which he lay, he got up, and following to the door, peeped
+after him. He saw him putting on an outside-coat and hat, near the yard
+gate; and then, with great caution, unbolt the wicket, constantly looking
+back towards the house, and so let himself out. The boy was uneasy, and
+sat in the hay, wide-awake, until morning. He then told the servants what
+he had seen, and one of the men having raised the stone, which he had not
+strength to lift, they found the dagger, which Smith had identified as
+belonging to his master. This weapon was stained with blood; and some
+hair, which was found to correspond in color with Sir Wynston's, was
+sticking in the crevice between the blade and the handle.
+
+"It appears very strange that one man should have employed two
+distinct instruments of this kind," observed Mervyn, after a pause. A
+silence followed.
+
+"Yes, strange; it does seem strange," said Marston, clearing his voice.
+
+"Yet, it is clear," said another of the jury, "that the same hand did
+employ them. It is proved that the knife was in Merton's possession just
+as he left his chamber; and proved, also, that the dagger was secreted by
+him after he quitted the house."
+
+"Yes," said Marston, with a grisly sort of smile, and glancing
+sarcastically at Mervyn, while he addressed the last speaker--"I thank
+you for recalling my attention to the facts. It certainly is not a very
+pleasant suggestion, that there still remains within my household an
+undetected murderer."
+
+Mervyn ruminated for a time, and said he should wish to put a few more
+questions to Smith and Carney. They were accordingly recalled, and
+examined in great detail, with a view to ascertain whether any indication
+of the presence of a second person having visited the chamber with Merton
+was discoverable. Nothing, however, appeared, except that the valet
+mentioned the noise and the exclamations which he had indistinctly heard.
+
+"You did not mention that before, sir," said Marston, sharply.
+
+"I did not think of it, sir," replied the man, "the gentlemen were asking
+me so many questions; but I told you, sir, about it in the morning."
+
+"Oh, ah--yes, yes--I believe you did," said Marston; "but you then said
+that Sir Wynston often talked when he was alone; eh, sir?"
+
+"Yes, sir, and so he used, which was the reason I did not go into the
+room when I heard it," replied the man.
+
+"How long afterwards was it when you saw Merton in your own room?"
+asked Mervyn.
+
+"I could not say, sir," answered Smith; "I was soon asleep, and can't say
+how long I slept before he came."
+
+"Was it an hour?" pursued Mervyn.
+
+"I can't say," said the man, doubtfully.
+
+"Was it five hours?" asked Marston.
+
+"No, Sir; I am sure it was not five."
+
+"Could you swear it was more than half-an-hour?" persisted Marston.
+
+"No, I could not swear that," answered he.
+
+"I am afraid, Mr. Mervyn; you have found a mare's nest," said Marston,
+contemptuously.
+
+"I have done my duty, sir," retorted Mervyn, cynically; "which plainly
+requires that I shall have no doubt, which the evidence of the witness
+can clear up, unsifted and unsatisfied. I happened to think it of some
+moment to ascertain, if possible, whether more persons than one were
+engaged in this atrocious murder. You don't seem to think the question so
+important a one; different men, sir, take different views."
+
+"Views, sir, in matters of this sort, especially where they tend to
+multiply suspicions, and to implicate others, ought to be supported by
+something more substantial than mere fancies," retorted Marston.
+
+"I don't know what you call fancies," replied Mervyn, testily; "but here
+are two deadly weapons, a knife and a dagger, each, it would seem,
+employed in doing this murder; if you see nothing odd in that, I can't
+enable you to do so."
+
+"Well, sir," said Marston, grimly, "the whole thing is, as you term it,
+odd; and I can see no object in your picking out this particular
+singularity for long-winded criticism, except to cast scandal upon my
+household, by leaving a hideous and vague imputation floating among the
+members of it. Sir, sir, this is a foul way," he cried, sternly, "to
+gratify a paltry spite."
+
+"Mr. Marston," said Mervyn, rising, and thrusting his hands into his
+pockets, while he confronted him to the full as sternly, "the country
+knows in which of our hearts the spite, if any there be between us, is
+harbored. I owe you no friendship, but, sir, I cherish no malice, either;
+and against the worst enemy I have on earth I am incapable of perverting
+an opportunity like this, and inflicting pain, under the pretence of
+discharging a duty."
+
+Marston was on the point of retorting, but the coroner interposed, and
+besought them to confine their attention strictly to the solemn inquiry
+which they were summoned together to prosecute.
+
+There remained still to be examined the surgeon who had accompanied the
+coroner, for the purpose of reporting upon the extent and nature of
+the injuries discoverable upon the person of the deceased. He,
+accordingly, deposed, that having examined the body, he found no less
+than three deep wounds, inflicted with some sharp instrument; two of them
+had actually penetrated the heart, and were, of course, supposed to cause
+instant death. Besides these, there were two contusions, one upon the
+back of the head, the other upon the forehead, with a slight abrasion of
+the eyebrow. There was a large lock of hair torn out by the roots at the
+front of the head, and the palm and fingers of the right hand were cut.
+This evidence having been taken, the jury once more repaired to the
+chamber where the body lay, and proceeded with much minuteness to examine
+the room, with a view to ascertain, if possible, more particularly the
+exact circumstances of the murder.
+
+The result of this elaborate scrutiny was as follows:--The deceased,
+they conjectured, had fallen asleep in his easy chair, and, while he was
+unconscious, the murderer had stolen into the room, and, before attacking
+his victim, had secured the bedroom-door upon the inside. This was argued
+from the non-discovery of blood upon the handle, or any other part of the
+door. It was supposed that he had then approached Sir Wynston, with the
+view either of robbing, or of murdering him while he slept, and that the
+deceased had awakened just after he had reached him; that a brief and
+desperate struggle had ensued, in which the assailant had struck his
+victim with his fist upon the forehead, and having stunned him, had
+hurriedly clutched him by the hair, and stabbed him with the dagger,
+which lay close by upon the chimneypiece, forcing his head violently
+against the back of the chair. This part of the conjecture was supported
+by the circumstance of there being discovered a lock of hair upon the
+ground at the spot, and a good deal of blood. The carpet, too, was
+tumbled, and a water-decanter, which had stood upon the table close by,
+was lying in fragments upon the floor. It was supposed that the murderer
+had then dragged the half-lifeless body to the bed, where, having
+substituted the knife, which he had probably brought to the room in the
+same pocket from which the boy afterwards saw him take the dagger, he
+dispatched him; and either hearing some alarm--perhaps the movement of
+the valet in the adjoining room, or from some other cause--he dropped
+the knife in the bed, and was not able to find it again. The wounds upon
+the hand of the dead man indicated his having caught and struggled to
+hold the blade of the weapon with which he was assailed. The impression
+of a bloody hand thrust under the bolster, where it was Sir Wynston's
+habit to place his purse and watch, when making his arrangements for the
+night, supplied the motive of this otherwise unaccountable atrocity.
+
+After some brief consultation, the jury agreed upon a verdict of willful
+murder against John Merton, a finding of which the coroner expressed his
+entire approbation.
+
+Marston, as a justice of the peace, had informations, embodying the
+principal part of the evidence given before the coroner, sworn against
+Merton, and transmitted a copy of them to the Home Office. A reward for
+the apprehension of the culprit was forthwith offered, but for some
+months without effect.
+
+Marston had, in the interval, written to several of Sir Wynston's many
+relations, announcing the catastrophe, and requesting that steps might
+immediately be taken to have the body removed. Meanwhile undertakers were
+busy in the chamber of death. The corpse was enclosed in lead, and that
+again in cedar, and a great oak shell, covered with crimson cloth and
+goldheaded nails, and with a gilt plate, recording the age, title, &c.
+&c., of the deceased, was screwed down firmly over all.
+
+Nearly a fortnight elapsed before any reply to Marston's letters was
+received. A short epistle at last arrived from Lord H----, the late Sir
+Wynston's uncle, deeply regretting the "sad and inexplicable occurrence,"
+and adding, that the will, which, on receipt of the "distressing
+intelligence," was immediately opened and read, contained no direction
+whatever respecting the sepulture of the deceased, which had therefore
+better be completed as modestly and expeditiously as possible, in the
+neighborhood; and, in conclusion, he directed that the accounts of the
+undertakers, &c., employed upon the melancholy occasion, might be sent in
+to Mr. Skelton, who had kindly undertaken to leave London without any
+delay, for the purpose of completing these last arrangements, and who
+would, in any matter of business connected with the deceased, represent
+him, Lord H----, as executor of the late baronet.
+
+This letter was followed, in a day or two, by the arrival of Skelton, a
+well-dressed, languid, impertinent London tuft-hunter, a good deal faded,
+with a somewhat sallow and puffy face, charged with a pleasant
+combination at once of meanness, insolence, and sensuality--just such a
+person as Sir Wynston's parasite might have been expected to prove.
+
+However well disposed to impress the natives with high notions of his
+extraordinary refinement and importance, he very soon discovered that, in
+Marston, he had stumbled upon a man of the world, and one thoroughly
+versed in the ways and characters of London life. After some ineffectual
+attempts, therefore, to overawe and astonish his host, Mr. Skelton became
+aware of the fruitlessness of the effort, and condescended to abate
+somewhat of his pretensions. Marston could not avoid inviting this
+person to pass the night at his house, an invitation which was accepted,
+of course; and next morning, after a late breakfast, Mr. Skelton
+observed, with a yawn--"And now, about this body--poor Berkley!--what do
+you propose to do with him?"
+
+"I have no proposition to make," said Marston, drily. "It is no affair of
+mine, except that the body may be removed without more delay. I have no
+suggestion to offer."
+
+"H----'s notion was to have him buried as near the spot as may be,"
+said Skelton.
+
+Marston nodded.
+
+"There is a kind of vault, is not there, in the demesne, a family
+burial-place?" inquired the visitor.
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Marston, curtly.
+
+"Well?" drawled Skelton.
+
+"Well, sir, what then?" responded Marston.
+
+"Why, as the wish of the parties is to have him buried--poor fellow!--as
+quietly as possible, I think he might just as well be laid there as
+anywhere else!"
+
+"Had I desired it, Mr. Skelton, I should myself have made the offer,"
+said Marston, abruptly.
+
+"Then you don't wish it?" said Skelton.
+
+"No, sir; certainly not--most peremptorily not," answered Marston, with
+more sharpness than, in his early days, he would have thought quite
+consistent with politeness.
+
+"Perhaps," replied Skelton, for want of something better to say, and with
+a callous sort of levity; "perhaps you hold the idea--some people
+do--that murdered men can't rest in their graves until their murderers
+have expiated their guilt?"
+
+Marston made no reply, but shot two or three lurid glances from under his
+brow at the speaker.
+
+"Well, then, at all events," continued Skelton, indolently resuming his
+theme, "if you decline your assistance, may I, at least, hope for your
+advice? Knowing nothing of this country, I would ask you whither you
+would recommend me to have the body conveyed?"
+
+"I don't care to advise in the matter," said Marston; "but if I were
+directing, I should have the remains buried in Chester. It is not more
+than twenty miles from this; and if, at any future time, his family
+should desire to remove the body, it could be effected more easily from
+thence. But you can decide."
+
+"Egad! I believe you are right," said Skelton, glad to be relieved of the
+trouble of thinking about the matter; "and I shall take your advice."
+
+In accordance with this declaration the body was, within four-and-twenty
+hours, removed to Chester, and buried there, Mr. Skelton attending on
+behalf of Sir Wynston's numerous and afflicted friends and relatives.
+
+There are certain heartaches for which time brings no healing; nay,
+which grow but the sorer and fiercer as days and years roll on; of this
+kind, perhaps, were the stern and bitter feelings which now darkened the
+face of Marston with an almost perpetual gloom. His habits became even
+more unsocial than before. The society of his son he no longer seemed to
+enjoy. Long and solitary rambles in his wild and extensive demesne
+consumed the listless hours or his waking existence; and when the
+weather prevented this, he shut himself up, upon pretence of business,
+in his study.
+
+He had not, since the occasion we have already mentioned, referred to the
+intended departure of Mademoiselle de Barras. Truth to say, his feelings
+with respect to that young lady were of a conflicting and mysterious
+kind; and as often as his dark thoughts wandered to her (which, indeed,
+was frequently enough), his muttered exclamation seemed to imply some
+painful and horrible suspicions respecting her.
+
+"Yes," he would mutter, "I thought I heard your light foot upon the
+lobby, on that accursed night. Fancy! Well, it may have been, but
+assuredly a strange fancy. I cannot comprehend that woman. She baffles my
+scrutiny. I have looked into her face with an eye she might well
+understand, were it indeed as I sometimes suspect, and she has been calm
+and unmoved. I have watched and studied her; still--doubt, doubt, hideous
+doubt!--is she what she seems, or--a tigress?"
+
+Mrs. Marston, on the other hand, procrastinated from day to day the
+painful task of announcing to Mademoiselle de Barras the stern message
+with which she had been charged by her husband. And thus several weeks
+had passed, and she began to think that his silence upon the subject,
+notwithstanding his seeing the young French lady at breakfast every
+morning, amounted to a kind of tacit intimation that the sentence of
+banishment was not to be carried into immediate execution, but to be kept
+suspended over the unconscious offender.
+
+It was now six or eight weeks since the hearse carrying away the remains
+of the ill-fated Sir Wynston Berkley had driven down the dusky avenue;
+the autumn was deepening into winter, and as Marston gloomily trod the
+woods of Gray Forest, the withered leaves whirled drearily along his
+pathway, and the gusts that swayed the mighty branches above him were
+rude and ungenial. It was a bleak and somber day, and as he broke into a
+long and picturesque vista, deep among the most sequestered woods, he
+suddenly saw before him, and scarcely twenty paces from the spot on which
+he stood, an apparition, which for some moments absolutely froze him to
+the earth.
+
+Travel-soiled, tattered, pale, and wasted, John Merton, the murderer,
+stood before him. He did not exhibit the smallest disposition to turn
+about and make his escape. On the contrary, he remained perfectly
+motionless, looking upon his former master with a wild and sorrowful
+gaze. Marston twice or thrice essayed to speak; his face was white as
+death, and had he beheld the specter of the murdered baronet himself, he
+could not have met the sight with a countenance of ghastlier horror.
+
+"Take me, sir," said Merton, doggedly.
+
+Still Marston did not stir.
+
+"Arrest me, sir, in God's name! here I am," he repeated, dropping his
+arms by his side; "I'll go with you wherever you tell me."
+
+"Murderer!" cried Marston, with a sudden burst of furious horror,
+"murderer--assassin--miscreant--take that!"
+
+And, as he spoke, he discharged one of the pistols he always carried
+about him full at the wretched man. The shot did not take effect, and
+Merton made no other gesture but to clasp his hands together, with an
+agonized pressure, while his head sunk upon his breast.
+
+"Shoot me; shoot me," he said hoarsely; "kill me like a dog: better for
+me to be dead than what I am."
+
+The report of Marston's pistol had, however, reached another ear; and its
+ringing echoes had hardly ceased to vibrate among the trees, when a stern
+shout was heard not fifty yards away, and, breathless and amazed, Charles
+Marston sprang to the place. His father looked from Merton to him, and
+from him again to Merton, with a guilty and stupefied scowl, still
+holding the smoking pistol in his hand.
+
+"What--how! Good God--Merton!" ejaculated Charles.
+
+"Aye, sir, Merton; ready to go to gaol, or wherever you will," said the
+man, recklessly.
+
+"A murderer; a madman; don't believe him," muttered Marston, scarce
+audibly, with lips as white as wax.
+
+"Do you surrender yourself, Merton?" demanded the young man, sternly,
+advancing toward him.
+
+"Yes, sir; I desire nothing more; God knows I wish to die," responded he,
+despairingly, and advancing slowly to meet Charles.
+
+"Come, then," said young Marston, seizing him by the collar, "come
+quietly to the house. Guilty and unhappy man, you are now my prisoner,
+and, depend upon it, I shall not let you go."
+
+"I don't want to go, I tell you, sir. I have traveled fifteen miles
+today, to come here and give myself up to the master."
+
+"Accursed madman," said Marston unconsciously, gazing at the prisoner;
+and then suddenly rousing himself, he said, "Well, miscreant, you wish to
+die, and, by ----, you are in a fair way to have your wish."
+
+"So best," said the man, doggedly. "I don't want to live; I wish I was in
+my grave; I wish I was dead a year ago."
+
+Some fifteen minutes afterwards, Merton, accompanied by Marston and his
+son Charles, entered the hall of the mansion which, not ten weeks
+before, he had quitted under circumstances so guilty and terrible. When
+they reached the house, Merton seemed much agitated, and wept bitterly
+on seeing two or three of his former fellow servants, who looked on him
+in silence as they passed, with a gloomy and fearful curiosity. These,
+too, were succeeded by others, peeping and whispering, and upon one
+pretence or another crossing and re-crossing the hall, and stealing
+hurried glances at the criminal. Merton sate with his face buried in his
+hands, sobbing, and taking no note of the humiliating scrutiny of which
+he was the subject. Meanwhile Marston, pale and agitated, made out his
+committal, and having sworn in several of his laborers and servants as
+special constables, dispatched the prisoner in their charge to the
+county gaol, where, under lock and key, we leave him in safe custody for
+the present.
+
+After this event Marston became excited and restless. He scarcely ate or
+slept, and his health seemed now as much scattered as his spirits had
+been before. One day he glided into the room in which, as we have said,
+it was Mrs. Marston's habit frequently to sit alone. His wife was there,
+and, as he entered, she uttered an exclamation of doubtful joy and
+surprise. He sate down near her in silence, and for some time looked
+gloomily on the ground. She did not care to question him, and anxiously
+waited until he should open the conversation. At length he raised his
+eyes, and, looking full at her, asked abruptly--"Well, what about
+mademoiselle?"
+
+Mrs. Marston was embarrassed, and hesitated.
+
+"I told you what I wished with respect to that young lady some time ago,
+and commissioned you to acquaint her with my pleasure; and yet I find her
+still here, and apparently as much established as ever."
+
+Again Mrs. Marston hesitated. She scarcely knew how to confess to him
+that she had not conveyed his message.
+
+"Don't suppose, Gertrude, that I wish to find fault. I merely wanted to
+know whether you had told Mademoiselle de Barras that we were agreed as
+to the necessity or expediency, or what you please, of dispensing
+henceforward with her services, I perceive by your manner that you have
+not done so. I have no doubt your motive was a kind one, but my decision
+remains unaltered; and I now assure you again that I wish you to speak to
+her; I wish you explicitly to let her know my wishes and yours."
+
+"Not mine, Richard," she answered faintly.
+
+"Well, mine, then," he replied, roughly; "we shan't quarrel about that."
+
+"And when--how soon--do you wish me to speak to her on this, to both of
+us, most painful subject?" asked she, with a sigh.
+
+"Today--this hour--this minute, if you can; in short the sooner the
+better," he replied, rising. "I see no reason for holding it back any
+longer. I am sorry my wishes were not complied with immediately. Pray,
+let there be no further hesitation or delay. I shall expect to learn this
+evening that all is arranged."
+
+Marston having thus spoken, left her abruptly, went down to his study
+with a swift step, shut himself in, and throwing himself into a great
+chair, gave a loose to his agitation, which was extreme.
+
+Meanwhile Mrs. Marston had sent for Mademoiselle de Barras, anxious to
+get through her painful task as speedily as possible. The fair French
+girl quickly presented herself.
+
+"Sit down, mademoiselle," said Mrs. Marston, taking her hand kindly, and
+drawing her to the prie-dieu chair beside herself.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras sate down, and, as she did so, read the
+countenance of her patroness with one rapid glance of her flashing eyes.
+These eyes, however, when Mrs. Marston looked at her the next moment,
+were sunk softly and sadly upon the floor. There was a heightened color,
+however, in her cheek, and a quicker heaving of her bosom, which
+indicated the excitement of an anticipated and painful disclosure. The
+outward contrast of the two women, whose hands were so lovingly locked
+together, was almost as striking as the moral contrast of their hearts.
+The one, so chastened, sad, and gentle; the other, so capable of pride
+and passion; so darkly excitable, and yet so mysteriously beautiful. The
+one, like a Niobe seen in the softest moonshine; the other, a Venus,
+lighted in the glare of distant conflagration.
+
+"Mademoiselle, dear mademoiselle, I am so much grieved at what I have to
+say, that I hardly know how to speak to you," said poor Mrs. Marston,
+pressing her hand; "but Mr. Marston has twice desired me to tell you,
+what you will hear with far less pain than it costs me to say it."
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras stole another flashing glance at her companion,
+but did not speak.
+
+"Mr. Marston still persists, mademoiselle, in desiring that we
+shall part."
+
+"Est-il possible?" cried the Frenchwoman, with a genuine start.
+
+"Indeed, mademoiselle, you may well be surprised," said Mrs. Marston,
+encountering her full and dilated gaze, which, however, dropped again in
+a moment to the ground. "You may, indeed, naturally be surprised and
+shocked at this, to me, most severe decision."
+
+"When did he speak last of it?" said she, rapidly.
+
+"But a few moments since," answered Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Ha," said mademoiselle, and remained silent and motionless for more
+than a minute.
+
+"Madame," she cried at last, mournfully, "I suppose, then, I must go; but
+it tears my heart to leave you and dear Miss Rhoda. I would be very happy
+if, before departing, you would permit me, dear madame, once more to
+assure Mr. Marston of my innocence, and, in his presence, to call heaven
+to witness how unjust are all his suspicions."
+
+"Do so, mademoiselle, and I will add my earnest assurances again; though,
+heaven knows," she said, despondingly, "I anticipate little success; but
+it is well to leave no chance untried."
+
+Marston was sitting, as we have said, in his library. His agitation had
+given place to a listless gloom, and he leaned back in his chair, his
+head supported by his hand, and undisturbed, except by the occasional
+fall of the embers upon the hearth. There was a knock at the chamber
+door. His back was towards it, and, without turning or moving, he called
+to the applicant to enter. The door opened--closed again: a light tread
+was audible--a tall shadow darkened the wall: Marston looked round, and
+Mademoiselle de Barras was standing before him. Without knowing how or
+why, he rose, and stood gazing upon her in silence.
+
+"Mademoiselle de Barras!" he said, at last, in a tone of cold surprise.
+
+"Yes, poor Mademoiselle de Barras," replied the sweet voice of the
+young Frenchwoman, while her lips hardly moved as the melancholy tones
+passed them.
+
+"Well, mademoiselle, what do you desire?" he asked, in the same cold
+accents, and averting his eyes.
+
+"Ah, monsieur, do you ask?--can you pretend to be ignorant? Have you not
+sent me a message, a cruel, cruel message?"
+
+She spoke so low and gently, that a person at the other end of the room
+could hardly have heard her words.
+
+"Yes, Mademoiselle de Barras, I did send you a message," he replied,
+doggedly. "A cruel one you will scarcely presume to call it, when you
+reflect upon your own conduct, and the circumstances which have provoked
+the measures I have taken."
+
+"What have I done, Monsieur?--what circumstances do you mean?" asked she,
+plaintively.
+
+"What have you done! A pretty question, truly. Ha, ha!" he repeated,
+bitterly, and then added, with suppressed vehemence, "ask your own heart,
+mademoiselle."
+
+"I have asked, I do ask, and my heart answers--nothing," she replied,
+raising her fine melancholy eyes for a moment to his face.
+
+"It lies, then," he retorted, with a fierce scoff.
+
+"Monsieur, before heaven I swear, you wrong me foully," she said,
+earnestly, clasping her hands together.
+
+"Did ever woman say she was accused rightly, mademoiselle?" retorted
+Marston, with a sneer.
+
+"I don't know--I don't care. I only know that I am innocent," continued
+she, piteously. "I call heaven to witness you have wronged me."
+
+"Wronged you!--why, after all, with what have I charged you?" said he,
+scoffingly; "but let that pass. I have formed my opinions, arrived at my
+conclusions. If I have not named them broadly, you at least seem to
+understand their nature thoroughly. I know the world. I am no novice in
+the arts of women, mademoiselle. Reserve your vows and attestations for
+schoolboys and simpletons; they are sadly thrown away upon me."
+
+Marston paced to and fro, with his hands thrust into his pockets, as he
+thus spoke.
+
+"Then you don't, or rather you will not believe what I tell you?" said
+she, imploringly. "No," he answered, drily and slowly, as he passed her.
+"I don't, and I won't (as you say) believe one word of it; so, pray spare
+yourself further trouble about the matter."
+
+She raised her head, and darted after him a glance that seemed absolutely
+to blaze, and at the same time smote her little hand fast clenched upon
+her breast. The words, however, that trembled on her pale lips were not
+uttered; her eyes were again cast down, and her fingers played with the
+little locket that hung round her neck.
+
+"I must make, before I go," she said, with a deep sigh and a melancholy
+voice, "one confidence--one last confidence: judge me by it. You cannot
+choose but believe me now: it is a secret, and it must even here be
+whispered, whispered, whispered!"
+
+As she spoke, the color fled from her face, and her tones became so
+strange and resolute, that Marston turned short upon his heel, and
+stopped before her. She looked in his face; he frowned, but lowered his
+eyes. She drew nearer, laid her hand upon his shoulder, and whispered for
+a few moments in his ear. He raised his face suddenly: its features were
+sharp and fixed; its hue was changed; it was livid and moveless, like a
+face cut in gray stone. He staggered back a little and a little more, and
+then a little more, and fell backward. Fortunately, the chair in which he
+had been sitting received him, and he lay there insensible as a corpse.
+When at last his eyes opened, there was no gleam of triumph, no shade of
+anger, nothing perceptible of guilt or menace, in the young woman's
+countenance. The flush had returned to her cheeks; her dimpled chin had
+sunk upon her full white throat; sorrow, shame, and pride seemed
+struggling in her handsome face, and she stood before him like a
+beautiful penitent, who has just made a strange and humbling shrift to
+her father confessor.
+
+Next day, Marston was mounting his horse for a solitary ride through his
+park, when Doctor Danvers rode abruptly into the courtyard from the back
+entrance. Marston touched his hat, and said--
+
+"I don't stand on forms with you, doctor, and you, I know, will waive
+ceremony with me. You will find Mrs. Marston at home."
+
+"Nay, my dear sir," interrupted the clergyman, sitting firm in his
+saddle, "my business lies with you today."
+
+"The devil it does!" said Marston, with discontented surprise.
+
+"Truly it does, sir," repeated he, with a look of gentle reproof, for the
+profanity of Marston's ejaculation, far more than the rudeness of his
+manner, offended him; "and I grieve that your surprise should have
+somewhat carried you away--"
+
+"Well, then, Doctor Danvers," interrupted Marston, drily, and without
+heeding his concluding remark, "if you really have business with me, it
+is, at all events, of no very pressing kind, and may be as well told
+after supper as now. So, pray, go into the house and rest yourself: we
+can talk together in the evening."
+
+"My horse is not tired," said the clergyman, patting his steed's neck;
+"and if you do not object, I will ride by your side for a short time, and
+as we go, I can say out what I have to tell."
+
+"Well, well, be it so," said Marston, with suppressed impatience, and
+without more ceremony, he rode slowly along the avenue, and turned off
+upon the soft sward in the direction of the wildest portion of his wooded
+demesne, the clergyman keeping close beside him. They proceeded some
+little way at a walk before Doctor Danvers spoke.
+
+"I have been twice or thrice with that unhappy man," at length he said.
+
+"What unhappy man? Unhappiness is no distinguishing singularity, is it?"
+said Marston, sharply.
+
+"No, truly, you have well said," replied Doctor Danvers. "True it is that
+man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward. I speak, however, of
+your servant, Merton--a most unhappy wretch."
+
+"Ha! you have been with him, you say?" replied Marston, with evident
+interest and anxiety.
+
+"Yes, several times, and conversed with him long and gravely," continued
+the clergyman.
+
+"Humph! I thought that had been the chaplain's business, not yours, my
+good friend," observed Marston.
+
+"He has been unwell," replied Dr. Danvers; "and thus, for a day or two,
+I took his duty, and this poor man, Merton, having known something of me,
+preferred seeing me rather than a stranger; and so, at the chaplain's
+desire and his, I continued my visits."
+
+"Well, and you have taught him to pray and sing psalms, I suppose; and
+what has come of it all?" demanded Marston, testily.
+
+"He does pray, indeed, poor man! and I trust his prayers are heard with
+mercy at the throne of grace," said his companion, in his earnestness
+disregarding the sneering tone of his companion. "He is full of
+compunction, and admits his guilt."
+
+"Ho! that is well--well for himself--well for his soul, at least; you are
+sure of it; he confesses; confesses his guilt?"
+
+Marston put his question so rapidly and excitedly, that the clergyman
+looked with a slight expression of surprise; and recovering himself, he
+added, in an unconcerned tone--
+
+"Well, well--it was just as well he did so; the evidence is too clear for
+doubt or mystification; he knew he had no chance, and has taken the
+seemliest course; and, doubtless, the best for his hopes hereafter."
+
+"I did not question him upon the subject," said Doctor Danvers; "I even
+declined to hear him speak upon it at first; but he told me he was
+resolved to offer no defense, and that he saw the finger of God in the
+fate which had overtaken him."
+
+"He will plead guilty, then, I suppose?" suggested Marston, watching the
+countenance of his companion with an anxious and somewhat sinister eye.
+
+"His words seem to imply so much," answered he; "and having thus frankly
+owned his guilt, and avowed his resolution to let the law take its due
+course in his case, without obstruction or evasion, I urged him to
+complete the grand work he had begun, and to confess to you, or to some
+other magistrate fully, and in detail, every circumstance connected with
+the perpetration of the dreadful deed."
+
+Marston knit his brows, and rode on for some minutes in silence. At
+length he said, abruptly--
+
+"In this, it seems to me, sir, you a little exceeded your commission."
+
+"How so, my dear sir?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"Why, sir," answered Marston, "the man may possibly change his mind
+before the day of trial, and it is the hangman's office, not yours, my
+good sir, to fasten the halter about his neck. You will pardon my
+freedom; but, were this deposition made as you suggest, it would
+undoubtedly hang him."
+
+"God forbid, Mr. Marston," rejoined Danvers, "that I should induce the
+unhappy man to forfeit his last chances of escape, and to shut the door
+of human mercy against himself, but on this he seems already resolved; he
+says so; he has solemnly declared his resolution to me; and even against
+my warning, again and again reiterated the same declaration."
+
+"That I should have thought quite enough, were I in your place, without
+inviting a detailed description of the whole process by which this
+detestable butchery was consummated. What more than the simple knowledge
+of the man's guilt does any mortal desire; guilty, or not guilty, is the
+plain question which the law asks, and no more; take my advice, sir, as a
+poor Protestant layman, and leave the acts of the confessional and
+inquisition to Popish priests."
+
+"Nay, Mr. Marston, you greatly misconceive me; as matters stand, there
+exists among the coroner's jury, and thus among the public, some faint
+and unfounded suspicion of the possibility of Merton's having had an
+accessory or accomplice in the perpetration of this foul murder."
+
+"It is a lie, sir--a malignant, d----d lie--the jury believe no such
+thing, nor the public neither," said Marston, starting in his saddle, and
+speaking in a voice of thunder; "you have been crammed with lies, sir;
+malicious, unmeaning, vindictive lies; lies invented to asperse my
+family, and torture my feelings; suggested in my presence by that
+scoundrel Mervyn, and scouted by the common sense of the jury."
+
+"I do assure you," replied Doctor Danvers, in a voice which seemed
+scarcely audible, after the stunning and passionate explosion of
+Marston's wrath, "I did not imagine that you could feel thus sorely upon
+the point; nay, I thought that you yourself were not without such
+painful doubts."
+
+"Again, I tell you, sir," said Marston, in a tone somewhat calmer, but no
+less stern, "such doubts as you describe have no existence; your
+unsuspecting ear has been alarmed by a vindictive wretch, an old
+scoundrel who has scarce a passion left but spite towards me; few such
+there are, thank God; few such villains as would, from a man's very
+calamities, distil poison to kill the peace and character of his family."
+
+"I am sorry, Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, "you have formed so ill an
+opinion of a neighbor, and I am very sure that Mr. Mervyn meant you no
+ill in frankly expressing whatever doubts still rested on his mind, after
+the evidence was taken."
+
+"He did--the scoundrel!" said Marston, furiously striking his hand, in
+which his whip was clutched, upon his thigh; "he did mean to wound and
+torture me; and with the same object he persists in circulating what he
+calls his doubts. Meant me no ill, forsooth! why, my great God, sir,
+could any man be so stupid as not to perceive that the suggestion of such
+suspicions--absurd, contradictory, incredible as they were--was
+precisely the thing to exasperate feelings sufficiently troubled
+already, and not content with raising the question, where it was scouted,
+as I said, as soon as named, the vindictive slanderer proceeds to
+propagate and publish his pretended surmises--d----n him."
+
+"Mr. Marston, you will pardon me when I say that, as a Christian
+minister, I cannot suffer a spirit so ill as that you manifest, and
+language so unseemly as that you have just uttered, to pass unreproved,"
+said Danvers, solemnly. "If you will cherish those bitter and unchristian
+feelings, at least for the brief space that I am with you, command your
+fierce, unbecoming words."
+
+Marston was about to make a sneering retort, but restrained himself, and
+turned his head away.
+
+"The wretched man himself appears now very anxious to make some further
+disclosures," resumed Doctor Danvers, after a pause, "and I recommended
+him to make them to you, Mr. Marston, as the most natural depository of
+such a statement."
+
+"Well, Mr. Danvers, to cut the matter short, as it appears that a
+confession of some sort is to be made, be it so. I will attend and
+receive it. The judges will not be here for eight or ten weeks to come,
+so there is no great hurry about it. I shall ride down to the town, and
+see him in the jail some time in the next week."
+
+With this assurance Marston parted from the old clergyman, and rode on
+alone through the furze and fern of his wild and somber park.
+
+After supper that evening Marston found himself alone in the parlor with
+his wife. Mrs. Marston availed herself of the opportunity to redeem her
+pledge to Mademoiselle de Barras. She was not aware of the strange
+interview which had taken place between him and the lady for whom she
+pleaded. The result of her renewed entreaties perhaps the reader has
+anticipated. Marston listened, doubted, listened, hesitated again, put
+questions, pondered the answers; debated the matter inwardly, and at last
+gruffly consented to give the young lady another trial, and permit her to
+remain some time longer. Poor Mrs. Marston, little suspecting the
+dreadful future, overwhelmed her husband with gratitude for granting to
+her entreaties (as he had predetermined to do) this fatal boon. Not
+caring to protract this scene--either from a disinclination to listen to
+expressions of affection, which had long lost their charm for him, and
+had become even positively distasteful, or perhaps from some instinctive
+recoil from the warm expression of gratitude from lips which, were the
+truth revealed, might justly have trembled with execration and
+reproach--he abruptly left the room, and Mrs. Marston, full of her good
+news, hastened, in the kindness of her heart, to communicate the fancied
+result of her advocacy to Mademoiselle de Barras.
+
+It was about a week after this, that Marston was one evening surprised in
+his study by the receipt of the following letter from Dr. Danvers:--
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"You will be shocked to hear that Merton is most dangerously ill, and at
+this moment in imminent peril. He is thoroughly conscious of his
+situation, and himself regards it as a merciful interposition of
+Providence to spare him the disgrace and terror of the dreadful fate,
+which he anticipated. The unhappy man has twice repeated his anxious
+desire, this day, to state some facts connected with the murder of the
+late Sir Wynston Berkley, which, he says, it is of the utmost moment that
+you should hear. He says that he could not leave the world in peace
+without having made this disclosure, which he especially desires to make
+to yourself, and entreats that you will come to receive his
+communication as early as you can in the morning. This is indeed needful,
+as the physician says that he is fast sinking. I offer no apology for
+adding my earnest solicitations to those or the dying man; and am, dear
+sir, your very obedient servant,
+
+"J. Danvers"
+
+"He regards it as a merciful interposition of Providence," muttered
+Marston, as he closed the letter, with a sneer. "Well, some men have odd
+notions of mercy and providence, to be sure; but if it pleases him,
+certainly I shall not complain for one."
+
+Marston was all this evening in better spirits than he had enjoyed for
+months, or even years. A mountain seemed to have been lifted from his
+heart. He joined in the conversation during and after supper, listened
+with apparent interest, talked with animation, and even laughed and
+jested. It is needless to say all this flowed not from the healthy cheer
+of a heart at ease, but from the excited and almost feverish sense of
+sudden relief.
+
+Next morning, Marston rode into the old-fashioned town, at the further
+end of which the dingy and grated front of the jail looked warningly out
+upon the rustic passengers. He passed the sentries and made his inquiries
+of the official at the hatch. He was relieved from the necessity of
+pushing these into detail, however, by the appearance of the physician,
+who at that moment passed from the interior of the prison.
+
+"Dr. Danvers told me he expected to see you here this morning," said the
+medical man, after the customary salutation had been interchanged. "Your
+call, I believe, is connected with the prisoner, John Merton?"
+
+"Yes, sir, so it is," said Marston. "Is he in a condition, pray, to make
+a statement of considerable length?"
+
+"Far from it, Mr. Marston; he has but a few hours to live," answered the
+physician, "and is now insensible; but I believe he last night saw Dr.
+Danvers, and told him whatever was weighing upon his mind."
+
+"Ha!--And can you say where Dr. Danvers now is?" inquired Marston,
+anxiously and hurriedly. "Not here, is he?"
+
+"No; but I saw him, as I came here, not ten minutes since, ride into the
+town. It is market-day, and you will probably find him somewhere in the
+high street for an hour or two to come," answered he.
+
+Marston thanked him, and, lost in abstraction, rode down to the little
+inn, entered a sitting room, and wrote a hurried line to Dr. Danvers,
+entreating his attendance there, as a place where they might converse
+less interruptedly than in the street; and committing this note to the
+waiter, with the injunction to deliver it at once, and an intimation of
+where Dr. Danvers was probably to be found, he awaited, with intense and
+agitating anxiety, the arrival of the clergyman.
+
+It was not for nearly ten minutes, however, which his impatience
+magnified into an eternity, that the well-known voice of Dr. Danvers
+reached him from the little hall. It was in vain that Marston strove to
+curb his violent agitation: his heart swelled as if it would smother him;
+he felt, as it were, the chill of death pervade his frame, and he could
+scarcely see the door through which he momentarily expected the entrance
+of the clergyman.
+
+A few minutes more, and Dr. Danvers entered the little apartment.
+
+"My dear sir," said he, gravely and earnestly, as he grasped the cold
+hand of Marston, "I am rejoiced to see you. I have matters of great
+moment and the strangest mystery to lay before you."
+
+"I dare say--I was sure--that is, I suspected so much," answered
+Marston, breathing fast, and looking very pale. "I heard at the prison
+that the murderer, Merton, was fast dying, and now is in an unconscious
+state; and from the physician, that you had seen him, at his urgent
+entreaty, last night. My mind misgives me, sir, I fear I know not what. I
+long, yet dread, to hear the wretched man's confession. For God's sake
+tell me, does it implicate anybody else in the guilt?"
+
+"No; no one specifically; but it has thrown a hideous additional mystery
+over the occurrence. Listen to me, my dear sir, and the whole narrative,
+as he stated it to me, shall be related now to you," said Dr. Danvers.
+
+Marston had closed the door carefully, and they sate down together at the
+further end of the apartment. Marston, breathless and ghastly pale; his
+lips compressed--his brows knit--and his dark, dilated gaze fixed
+immovably upon the speaker. Dr. Danvers, on the other hand, tranquil and
+solemn, and with, perhaps, some shade of awe overcasting the habitual
+sweetness of his countenance.
+
+"His confession was a strange one," renewed Dr. Danvers, shaking his head
+gravely. "He said that the first idea of the crime was suggested by Sir
+Wynston's man accidentally mentioning, a few days after their arrival,
+that his master slept with his bank-notes, to the amount of some hundreds
+of pounds, in a pocketbook under his pillow. He declared that as the man
+mentioned this circumstance, something muttered the infernal suggestion
+in his ear, and from that moment he was the slave of that one idea; it
+was ever present with him. He contended against it in vain; he dreaded
+and abhorred it; but still it possessed him; he felt his power of
+resistance yielding. This horrible stranger which had stolen into his
+heart, waxed in power and importunity, and tormented him day and night.
+He resolved to fly from the house. He gave notice to you and Mrs.
+Marston of his intended departure; but accident protracted his stay until
+that fatal night which sealed his doom. The influence which had mastered
+him forced him to rise from his bed, and take the knife--the discovery of
+which afterwards helped to convict him--and led him to Sir Wynston's
+chamber; he entered; it was a moonlight night."
+
+Here the clergyman, glancing round the room, lowered his voice, and
+advanced his lips so near to Marston, that their heads nearly touched. In
+this tone and attitude he continued his narrative for a few minutes. At
+the end of this brief space, Marston rose up slowly, and with a movement
+backward, every feature strung with horror, and saying, in a long
+whisper, the one word, "yes," which seemed like the hiss of a snake
+before he makes his last deadly spring. Both were silent for a time. At
+last Marston broke out with hoarse vehemence.
+
+"Dreadful--horrible--oh, God! God!--My God! How frightful!"
+
+And throwing himself into a chair, he clasped his hands across his
+eyes and forehead, while the sweat of agony literally poured down his
+pale face.
+
+"Truly it is so," said the clergyman, scarcely above his breath; and,
+after a long interval--"horrible indeed!"
+
+"Well," said Marston, rising suddenly to his feet, wiping the dews of
+horror from his face, and looking wildly round, like one newly awoke from
+a nightmare, "I must make the most of this momentous and startling
+disclosure. I shall spare no pains to come at the truth," said he,
+energetically. "Meanwhile, my dear sir, for the sake of justice and of
+mercy, observe secrecy. Leave me to sift this matter; give no note
+anywhere that we suspect. Observe this reserve and security, and with it
+detection will follow. Breathe but one word, and you arm the guilty with
+double caution, and turn licentious gossip loose upon the fame of an
+innocent and troubled family. Once more I entreat--I expect--I implore
+silence--silence, at least, for the present--silence!"
+
+"I quite agree with you, my dear Mr. Marston," answered Dr. Danvers. "I
+have not divulged one syllable of that poor wretch's confession, save to
+yourself alone. You, as a magistrate, a relative of the murdered
+gentleman, and the head of that establishment among whom the guilt
+rests, are invested with an interest in detecting, and powers of sifting
+the truth in this matter, such as none other possesses. I clearly see,
+with you, too, the inexpediency and folly of talking, for talking's
+sake, of this affair. I mean to keep my counsel, and shall most
+assuredly, irrespectively even of your request--which should, however,
+of course, have weight with me--maintain a strict and cautious silence
+upon this subject."
+
+Some little time longer they remained together, and Marston, buried in
+strange thoughts, took his leave, and rode slowly back to Gray Forest.
+
+Months passed away--a year, and more--and though no new character
+appeared upon the stage, the relations which had subsisted among the old
+ones became, in some respects, very materially altered. A gradual and
+disagreeable change came over Mademoiselle de Barras's manner; her
+affectionate attentions to Mrs. Marston became less and less frequent;
+nor was the change merely confined to this growing coldness; there was
+something of a positive and still more unpleasant kind in the alteration
+we have noted. There was a certain independence and carelessness,
+conveyed in a hundred intangible but significant little incidents and
+looks--a something which, without being open to formal rebuke or
+remonstrance, yet bordered, in effect, upon impertinence, and even
+insolence. This indescribable and provoking self-assertion, implied in
+glances, tones, emphasis, and general bearing, surprised Mrs. Marston far
+more than it irritated her. As often as she experienced one of these
+studied slights or insinuated impertinences, she revolved in her own mind
+all the incidents of their past intercourse, in the vain endeavor to
+recollect some one among them which could possibly account for the
+offensive change so manifest in the conduct of the young Frenchwoman.
+
+Mrs. Marston, although she sometimes rebuked these artful affronts by a
+grave look, a cold tone, or a distant manner, yet had too much dignity to
+engage in a petty warfare of annoyance, and had, in reality, no
+substantial and well-defined ground of complaint against her, such as
+would have warranted her either in taking the young lady herself to task,
+or in bringing her conduct under the censure of Marston.
+
+One evening, it happened that Mrs. Marston and Mademoiselle de Barras had
+been left alone together. After the supper-party had dispersed, they had
+been for a long time silent. Mrs. Marston resolved to improve the
+Tate-a-Tate, for the purpose of eliciting from mademoiselle an
+explanation of her strange behavior.
+
+"Mademoiselle," said she, "I have lately observed a very marked change in
+your conduct to me."
+
+"Indeed!" said the Frenchwoman.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle; you must be yourself perfectly aware of that change;
+it is a studied and intentional one," continued Mrs. Marston, in a gentle
+but dignified tone. "Although I have felt some doubt as to whether it
+were advisable, so long as you observe toward me the forms of external
+respect, and punctually discharge the duties you have undertaken, to open
+any discussion whatever upon the subject; yet I have thought it better
+to give you a fair opportunity of explaining frankly, should you desire
+to do so, the feelings and impressions under which you are acting."
+
+"Ah, you are very obliging, madame," said she, coolly.
+
+"It is quite clear, mademoiselle, that you have either misunderstood me,
+or that you are dissatisfied with your situation among us: your conduct
+cannot otherwise be accounted for," said Mrs. Marston, gravely.
+
+"My conduct--_ma foi!_ what conduct?" retorted the handsome Frenchwoman,
+confidently, and with a disdainful glance.
+
+"If you question the fact, mademoiselle," said the elder lady, "it is
+enough. Your ungracious manner and ungentle looks, I presume, arise from
+what appears to you a sufficient and well-defined cause, of which,
+however, I know nothing."
+
+"I really was not aware," said Mademoiselle de Barras, with a
+supercilious smile, "that my looks and my manner were subjected to so
+strict a criticism, or that it was my duty to regulate both according to
+so nice and difficult a standard."
+
+"Well, mademoiselle," continued Mrs. Marston, "it is plain that whatever
+may be the cause of your dissatisfaction, you are resolved against
+confiding it to me. I only wish to know frankly from your own lips,
+whether you have formed a wish to leave this situation. If so, I entreat
+you to declare it freely."
+
+"You are very obliging, indeed, madame," said the pretty foreigner,
+drily, "but I have no such wish, at least at present."
+
+"Very well, mademoiselle," replied Mrs. Marston, with gentle dignity; "I
+regret your want of candor, on your own account. You would, I am sure, be
+much happier, were you to deal frankly with me."
+
+"May I now have your permission, madame, to retire to my room?" asked
+the French girl, rising, and making a low courtesy--"that is, if madame
+has nothing further to censure."
+
+"Certainly, mademoiselle; I have nothing further to say," replied the
+elder lady.
+
+The Frenchwoman made another and a deeper courtesy, and withdrew. Mrs.
+Marston, however, heard, as she was designed to do, the young lady
+tittering and whispering to herself, as she lighted her candle in the
+hall. This scene mortified and grieved poor Mrs. Marston inexpressibly.
+She was little, if at all, accessible to emotions of anger and certainly,
+none such mingled in the feelings with which she regarded Mademoiselle de
+Barras. But she had found in this girl a companion, and even a confidante
+in her melancholy solitude; she had believed her affectionate,
+sympathetic, tender, and the disappointment was as bitter as unimagined.
+
+The annoyances which she was fated to receive from Mademoiselle de Barras
+were destined, however, to grow in number and in magnitude. The
+Frenchwoman sometimes took a fancy, for some unrevealed purpose, to talk
+a good deal to Mrs. Marston, and on such occasions would persist,
+notwithstanding that lady's marked reserve and discouragement, in
+chatting away, as if she were conscious that her conversation was the
+most welcome entertainment possible to her really unwilling auditor. No
+one of their interviews did she ever suffer to close without in some way
+or other suggesting or insinuating something mysterious and untold to the
+prejudice of Mr. Marston. Those vague and intangible hints, the meaning
+of which, for an instant legible and terrific, seemed in another moment
+to dissolve and disappear, tortured Mrs. Marston like the intrusion of a
+specter; and this, along with the portentous change, rather felt than
+visible, in mademoiselle's conduct toward her, invested the beautiful
+Frenchwoman, in the eyes of her former friend and patroness, with an
+indefinable character that was not only repulsive but formidable.
+
+Mrs. Marston's feelings with respect to this person were still further
+disturbed by the half-conveyed hints and innuendoes of her own maid, who
+never lost an opportunity of insinuating her intense dislike of the
+Frenchwoman, and appeared perpetually to be upon the very verge of making
+some explicit charges, or some shocking revelations, respecting her,
+which, however, she as invariably evaded; and even when Mrs. Marston once
+or twice insisted upon her explaining her meaning distinctly, she eluded
+her mistress's desire, and left her still in the same uneasy uncertainty.
+
+Marston, on his part, however much his conduct might tend to confirm
+suspicion, certainly did nothing to dissipate the painful and undefined
+apprehension respecting himself, which Mademoiselle de Barras, with such
+malign and mysterious industry, labored to raise. His spirits and temper
+were liable to strange fluctuations. In the midst of that excited gaiety,
+to which, until lately, he had been so long a stranger, would sometimes
+intervene paroxysms of the blackest despair, all the ghastlier for the
+contrast, and with a suddenness so abrupt and overwhelming, that one
+might have fancied him crossed by the shadow of some terrific apparition.
+Sometimes for a whole day, or even more, he would withdraw himself from
+the society of his family, and, in morose and moody solitude, take his
+meals alone in his library, and steal out unattended to wander among the
+thickets and glades of his park. Sometimes, again, he would sit for hours
+in the room which had been Sir Wynston's, and, with a kind of horrible
+resolution, often loiter there till after nightfall. In such hours, the
+servants would listen with curious awe, as they heard his step, pacing
+to and fro, in that deserted and inauspicious chamber, while his voice,
+in broken sentences, was also imperfectly audible, as if maintaining a
+muttered dialogue. These eccentric practices gradually invested him, in
+the eyes of his domestics, with a certain preternatural mystery, which
+enhanced the fear with which they habitually regarded him, and was
+subsequently confirmed by his giving orders to have the furniture taken
+out of the ominous suite of rooms, and the doors nailed up and secured.
+He gave no reason for this odd and abrupt measure, and gossip of course
+reported that the direction had originated in his having encountered the
+specter of the murdered baronet, in one of these strange and unseasonable
+visits to the scene of the fearful catastrophe.
+
+In addition to all this, Marston's conduct towards his wife became
+strangely capricious. He avoided her society more than ever; and when he
+did happen to exchange a few words with her, they were sometimes harsh
+and violent, and at others remorsefully gentle and sad, and this without
+any changes of conduct upon her part to warrant the wayward uncertainty
+of his treatment. Under all these circumstances, Mrs. Marston's
+unhappiness and uneasiness greatly increased. Mademoiselle de Barras,
+too, upon several late occasions, had begun to assume a tone of authority
+and dictation, which justly offended the mistress of the establishment.
+Meanwhile Charles Marston had returned to Cambridge; and Rhoda, no longer
+enjoying happy walks with her brother, pursued her light and easy studies
+with Mademoiselle de Barras, and devoted her leisure hours to the loved
+society of her mother.
+
+One day Mrs. Marston, sitting in her room with Rhoda, had happened to
+call her own maid, to take down and carefully dust some richly bound
+volumes which filled a bookcase in the little chamber.
+
+"You have been crying, Willett," said Mrs. Marston, observing that the
+young woman's eyes were red and swollen.
+
+"Indeed, and I was, ma'am," she replied, reluctantly, "and I could not
+help it, so I could not."
+
+"Why, what has happened to vex you? Has anyone ill-treated you?" said
+Mrs. Marston, who had an esteem for the poor girl. "Come, come, you must
+not fret about it; only tell me what has vexed you."
+
+"Oh! Ma'am, no one has ill-used me, ma'am; but I can't but be vexed
+sometimes, ma'am, and fretted to see how things is going on. I have
+one wish, just one wish, ma'am, and if I got that, I'd ask no more,"
+said the girl.
+
+"And what is it?" asked Mrs. Marston; "what do you wish for? Speak
+plainly, Willett; what is it?"
+
+"Ah! Ma'am, if I said it, maybe you might not be pleased. Don't ask me,
+ma'am," said the girl dusting the books very hard, and tossing them down
+again with angry emphasis. "I don't desire anybody's harm, God knows;
+but, for all that, I wish what I wish, and that is the truth."
+
+"Why, Willett, I really cannot account for your strange habit of lately
+hinting, and insinuating, and always speaking riddles, and refusing to
+explain your meaning. What do you mean? Speak plainly. If there are any
+dishonest practices going on, it is your duty to say so distinctly."
+
+"Oh! Ma'am, it is just a wish I have. I wish--; but it's no matter. If I
+could once see the house clear of that Frenchwoman--"
+
+"If you mean Mademoiselle de Barras, she is a lady," interrupted
+Mrs. Marston.
+
+"Well, ma'am, I beg pardon," continued the woman; "lady or no lady, it is
+all one to me; for I am very sure, ma'am, she'll never leave the house
+till there is something bad comes about; and--and--. I can't bring myself
+to talk to you about her, ma'am. I can't say what I want to tell you:
+but--but--. Oh, ma'am, for God's sake, try and get her out, any way, no
+matter how; try and get rid of her."
+
+As she said this, the poor girl burst into a passionate agony of tears,
+and Mrs. Marston and Rhoda looked on in silent amazement, while she for
+some minutes continued to sob and weep.
+
+The party were suddenly recalled from their various reveries by a knock
+at the chamber-door. It opened, and the subject of the girl's deprecatory
+entreaty entered. There was something unusually excited and assured in
+Mademoiselle de Barras's air and countenance; perhaps she had a suspicion
+that she had been the topic of their conversation. At all events, she
+looked round upon them with a smile, in which there was something
+supercilious, and even defiant; and, without waiting to be invited, sate
+herself down, with a haughty air.
+
+"I was about to ask you to sit down, mademoiselle, but you have
+anticipated me," said Mrs. Marston, gravely. "You have something to say
+to me, I suppose; I am quite at leisure, so pray let me hear it now."
+
+"Thank you, thank you, madame," replied she, with a sharp, and even
+scornful glance; "I ought to have asked your permission to sit; I forgot;
+but you have condescended to give it without my doing so; that was very
+kind, very kind, indeed."
+
+"But I wish to know, mademoiselle, whether you have anything very
+particular to say to me?" said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"You wish to know!--and why, pray madame?" asked Mademoiselle de
+Barras, sharply.
+
+"Because, unless it is something very urgent, I should prefer your
+talking to me some other time; as, at present, I desire to be alone with
+my daughter."
+
+"Oh, ho! I ought to ask pardon again," said mademoiselle, with the same
+glance, and the same smile. "I find I am de trop--quite in the way.
+Helas! I am very unfortunate today."
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras made not the slightest movement, and it was
+evident that she was resolved to prolong her stay, in sheer defiance of
+Mrs. Marston's wishes.
+
+"Mademoiselle, I conclude from your silence that you have nothing very
+pressing to say, and, therefore, must request that you will have the
+goodness to leave me for the present," said Mrs. Marston, who felt that
+the spirit of the French girl's conduct was too apparent not to have been
+understood by Rhoda and the servant, and that it was of a kind, for
+example sake, impossible to be submitted to, or tolerated.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras darted a fiery and insolent glance at Mrs.
+Marston, and was, doubtless, upon the point of precipitating the open
+quarrel which was impending, by setting her authority at defiance; but
+she checked herself, and changed her line of operations.
+
+"We are not alone madame," she said, with a heightened color, and a
+slight toss of the head. "I was about to speak of Mr. Marston. I had
+something, not much, I confess, to say; but before servants I shan't
+speak; nor, indeed, now at all. So, madame, as you desire it, I shall no
+further interrupt you. Come, Miss Rhoda, come to the music-room, if you
+please, and finish your practice for today."
+
+"You forget, mademoiselle, that I wish to have my daughter with me at
+present," said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"I am very sorry, madame," said the French lady, with the same heightened
+color and unpleasant smile, and her finely-penciled brows just
+discernibly knit, so as to give a novel and menacing expression to her
+beautiful face--"I am very sorry, madame, but she must, so long as I
+remain accountable for her education, complete her allotted exercises at
+the appointed hours; and nothing shall, I assure you, with my consent,
+interfere with these duties. Come, Miss Rhoda, precede me, if you please,
+to the music-room. Come, come."
+
+"Stay where you are, Rhoda," said Mrs. Marston, firmly and gently, and
+betraying no symptom of excitement, except in a slight tremor of her
+voice, and a faint flush upon her cheek--"Stay where you are, my dear
+child. I am your mother, and, next to your father, have the first claim
+upon your obedience. Mademoiselle," she continued, addressing the
+Frenchwoman, calmly but firmly, "my daughter will remain here for some
+time longer, and you will have the goodness to withdraw. I insist upon
+it, Mademoiselle de Barras."
+
+"I will not leave the room, I assure you, madame, without my pupil,"
+retorted mademoiselle, with resolute insolence. "Your husband, madame,
+has invested me with this authority, and she shall obey me. Miss Rhoda, I
+say again, go down to the music-room."
+
+"Remain where you are, Rhoda," said Mrs. Marston again. "Mademoiselle;
+you have long been acting as if your object were to provoke me to part
+with you. I find it impossible any longer to overlook this grossly
+disrespectful conduct; conduct of which I had, indeed, believed you
+absolutely incapable. Willett," she continued, addressing the maid, who
+was evidently bursting with rage at the scene she had just witnessed,
+"your master is, I believe, in the library; go down, and tell him that I
+entreat him to come here immediately."
+
+The maid started on her mission with angry alacrity, darting a venomous
+glance at the handsome Frenchwoman as she passed.
+
+Mademoiselle de Barras, meanwhile, sate, listless and defiant, in her
+chair, and tapping her little foot with angry excitement upon the floor.
+Rhoda sate close by her mother, holding her hand fast, and looking
+frightened, perplexed, and as if she were on the point of weeping. Mrs.
+Marston, though flushed and excited, yet maintained her dignified and
+grave demeanor. And thus, in silence, did they all three await the
+arrival of the arbiter to whom Mrs. Marston had so promptly appealed.
+
+A few minutes more, and Marston entered the room. Mademoiselle's
+expression changed as he did so to one of dejected and sorrowful
+submission; and, as Marston's eye lighted upon her, his brow darkened and
+his face grew pale.
+
+"Well, well--what is it?--What is all this?" he said, glancing with a
+troubled eye from one to the other. "Speak, someone. Mrs. Marston, you
+sent for me; what is it?"
+
+"I want to know, Mr. Marston, from your own lips," said the lady, in
+reply, "whether Rhoda is to obey me or Mademoiselle de Barras?"
+
+"Bah!--A question of women's prerogative," said Marston, with muttered
+vehemence.
+
+"Of a wife's and a mother's prerogative, Richard," said Mrs. Marston,
+with gentle emphasis. "A very simple question, and one I should have
+thought needing no deliberation to decide it."
+
+"Well, child," sad he, turning to Rhoda, with angry irony, "pray what is
+all this fuss about? You are a very ill used young lady, I dare aver.
+Pray what cruelties does Mademoiselle de Barras propose inflicting upon
+you, that you need to appeal thus to your mother for protection?"
+
+"You quite mistake me, Richard," interposed Mrs. Marston; "Rhoda is
+perfectly passive in the matter. I simply wish to learn from you, in
+mademoiselle's presence, whether I or she is to command my daughter?"
+
+"Command!" said Marston, evading the direct appeal; "and pray what is all
+this commanding about?--What do you want the girl to do?"
+
+"I wish her to remain here with me for a little time, and mademoiselle,
+knowing this, desires her instantly to go to the music-room, and leave
+me. That is all," said Mrs. Marston.
+
+"And pray, is there nothing to make her going to the music-room advisable
+or necessary? Has she no music to learn, or studies to pursue? Pshaw!
+Mrs. Marston, what needs all this noise about nothing? Go, miss," he
+added, sharply and peremptorily, addressing Rhoda, "go this moment to the
+music-room."
+
+The girl glided from the room, and mademoiselle, as she followed, shot a
+glance at Mrs. Marston which wounded and humbled her in the dust.
+
+"Oh! Richard, Richard, if you knew all, you would not have subjected me
+to this indignity," she said; and throwing her arms about his neck, she
+wept, for the first time for many a long year, upon his breast.
+
+Marston was embarrassed and agitated. He disengaged her arms from his
+neck, and placed her gently in a chair. She sobbed on for some time in
+silence--a silence which Marston himself did not essay to break. He
+walked to the door, apparently with the intention of leaving her. He
+hesitated however, and returned; took a hurried turn through the room;
+hesitated again; sat down; then returned to the door, not to depart, but
+to close it carefully, and walked gloomily to the window, whence he
+looked forth, buried in agitating and absorbing thoughts.
+
+"Richard, to you this seems a trifling thing; but, indeed it is not so,"
+said Mrs. Marston, sadly.
+
+"You are very right, Gertrude," he said, quickly, and almost with a
+start; "it is very far from a trifling thing; it is very important."
+
+"You don't blame me, Richard?" said she.
+
+"I blame nobody," said he.
+
+"Indeed, I never meant to offend you, Richard," she urged.
+
+"Of course not; no, no; I never said so," he interrupted, sarcastically;
+"what could you gain by that?"
+
+"Oh! Richard, better feelings have governed me," she said, in a
+melancholy and reproachful tone.
+
+"Well, well, I suppose so," he said; and after an interval, he added
+abstractedly, "This cannot, however, go on; no, no--it cannot. Sooner or
+later it must have come; better at once--better now."
+
+"What do you mean, Richard?" she said, greatly alarmed, she knew not why.
+"What are you resolving upon? Dear Richard, in mercy tell me. I implore
+of you, tell me."
+
+"Why, Gertrude, you seem to me to fancy that, because I don't talk about
+what is passing, that I don't see it either. Now this is quite a
+mistake," said Marston, calmly and resolutely--"I have long observed your
+growing dislike of Mademoiselle de Barras. I have thought it over; this
+fracas of today has determined me; it is decisive. I suppose you now wish
+her to go, as earnestly as you once wished her to stay. You need not
+answer. I know it. I neither ask nor care to whose fault I am to
+attribute these changed feelings--female caprice accounts sufficiently
+for it; but whatever the cause, the effect is undeniable; and the only
+way to deal satisfactorily with it is, to dismiss mademoiselle at once.
+You need take no part in the matter; I take it upon myself. Tomorrow
+morning she shall have left this house. I have said it, and am perfectly
+resolved."
+
+As he thus spoke, as if to avoid the possibility of any further
+discussion, he turned abruptly from her, and left the room.
+
+The extreme agitation which she had just undergone combined with her
+physical delicacy to bring on an hysterical attack; and poor Mrs.
+Marston, with an aching head and a heavy heart, lay down upon her bed.
+She had swallowed an opiate, and before ten o'clock upon that night, an
+eventful one as it proved, she had sunk into a profound slumber.
+
+Some hours after this, she became in a confused way conscious of her
+husband's presence in the room. He was walking, with an agitated mien, up
+and down the chamber, and casting from time to time looks of great
+trouble toward the bed where she lay. Though the presence of her husband
+was a strange and long unwonted occurrence there, at such an hour, and
+though she felt the strangeness of the visit, the power of the opiate
+overwhelmed her so, that she could only see this apparition gliding
+slowly back and forward before her, with the passive wonder and curiosity
+with which one awaits the issue of an interesting dream.
+
+For a time she lay once more in an uneasy sleep; but still, throughout
+even this, she was conscious of his presence; and when, a little while
+after, she again saw him, he was not walking to and fro before the foot
+of the bed, but sitting beside her, with one hand laid upon the pillow on
+which her head was resting, the other supporting his chin. He was looking
+steadfastly upon her, with a changed face, an expression of bitter
+sorrow, compunction, and tenderness. There was not one trace of
+sternness; all was softened. The look was what she fancied he might have
+turned upon her had she lain there dead, ere yet the love of their early
+and ill-fated union had grown cold in his heart. There was something in
+it which reminded her of days and feelings gone, never to return. And
+while she looked in his face with a sweet and mournful fascination, tears
+unconsciously wet the pillow on which her poor head was resting. Unable
+to speak, unable to move, she heard him say--"It was not your fault,
+Gertrude--it was not yours, nor mine. There is a destiny in these things
+too strong for us. Past is past--what is done, is done forever; and even
+were it all to do over again, what power have I to mend it? No, no; how
+could I contend against the combined power of passions, circumstances,
+influences--in a word, of fate? You have been good and patient, while
+I--; but no matter. Your lot, Gertrude, is a happier one than mine."
+
+Mrs. Marston heard him and saw him, but she had not the power, nor even
+the will, herself to speak or move. He appeared before her passive sense
+like the phantasm of a dream. He stood up at the bedside, and looked on
+her steadfastly, with the same melancholy expression. For a moment he
+stooped over her, as if about to kiss her face, but checked himself,
+stood erect again at the bedside, then suddenly turned; the curtain fell
+back into its place, and she saw him no more.
+
+With a strange mixture of sweet and bitter feelings this vision rested
+upon the memory of Mrs. Marston, until, gradually, deep slumber again
+overcame her senses, and the incident and all its attendant circumstances
+faded into oblivion.
+
+It was past eight o'clock when Mrs. Marston awoke next morning. The sun
+was shining richly and cheerily in at the windows; and as the remembrance
+of Marston's visit to her chamber, and the unwonted manifestations of
+tenderness and compunction which accompanied it, returned, she felt
+something like hope and happiness, to which she had long been a stranger,
+flutter her heart. The pleasing reverie to which she was yielding was,
+however, interrupted. The sound of stifled sobbing in the room reached
+her ear, and, pushing back the bed-curtains, and leaning forward to look,
+she saw her maid, Willett, sitting with her back to the wall, crying
+bitterly, and striving, as it seemed, to stifle her sobs with her apron,
+which was wrapped about her face.
+
+"Willet, Willett, is it you who are sobbing? What is the matter with you,
+child?" said Mrs. Marston, anxiously.
+
+The girl checked herself, dried her eyes hastily, and walking briskly to
+a little distance, as if engaged in arranging the chamber, she said, with
+an affectation of carelessness--
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it is nothing; nothing at all, indeed, ma'am."
+
+Mrs. Marston remained silent for a time, while all her vague
+apprehensions returned. Meantime the girl continued to shove the chairs
+hither and thither, and to arrange and disarrange everything in the room
+with a fidgety industry, intended to cover her agitation. A few minutes,
+however, served to weary her of this, for she abruptly stopped, stood by
+the bedside, and, looking at her mistress, burst into tears.
+
+"Good God! What is it?" said Mrs. Marston, shocked and even terrified,
+while new alarms displaced her old ones. "Is Miss Rhoda--can it be--is
+she--is my darling well?"
+
+"Oh, yes, ma'am," answered the maid, "very well, ma'am; she is up, and
+out walking and knows nothing of all this."
+
+"All what?" urged Mrs. Marston. "Tell me, tell me, Willett, what has
+happened. What is it? Speak, child; say what it is?"
+
+"Oh, ma'am! Oh my poor dear mistress!" continued the girl, and stopped,
+almost stifled with sobs.
+
+"Willett, you must speak; you must say what is the matter. I implore of
+you--desire you!" urged the distracted lady. Still the girl, having made
+one or two ineffectual efforts to speak, continued to sob.
+
+"Willett, you will drive me mad. For mercy's sake, for God's sake,
+speak--tell me what it is!" cried the unhappy lady.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, it is--it is about the master," sobbed the girl.
+
+"Why he can't--he has not--oh, merciful God! He has not hurt himself,"
+she almost screamed.
+
+"No, ma'am, no; not himself; no, no, but--" and again she hesitated.
+
+"But what? Speak out, Willett; dear Willett have mercy on me, and speak
+out," cried her wretched mistress.
+
+"Oh, ma'am, don't be fretted; don't take it to heart, ma'am," said the
+maid, clasping her hands together in anguish.
+
+"Anything, anything, Willett; only speak at once," she answered.
+
+"Well, ma'am, it is soon said--it is easy told. The master, ma'am--the
+master is gone with the Frenchwoman; they went in the traveling coach
+last night, ma'am; he is gone away with her, ma'am; that is all."
+
+Mrs. Marston looked at the girl with a gaze of stupefied, stony terror;
+not a muscle of her face moved; not one heaving respiration showed that
+she was living. Motionless, with this fearful look fixed upon the girl,
+and her thin hands stretched towards her, she remained, second after
+second. At last her outstretched hands began to tremble more and more
+violently; and as if for the first time the knowledge of this calamity had
+reached her, with a cry, as though body and soul were parting, she fell
+back motionless in her bed.
+
+Several hours had passed before Mrs. Marston was restored to
+consciousness. To this state of utter insensibility, one of silent,
+terrified stupor succeeded; and it was not until she saw her daughter
+Rhoda standing at her bedside, weeping, that she found voice and
+recollection to speak.
+
+"My child; my darling, my poor child," she cried, sobbing piteously, as
+she drew her to her heart and looked in her face alternately--"my
+darling, my darling child!"
+
+Rhoda could only weep, and return her poor mother's caresses in silence.
+Too young and inexperienced to understand the full extent and nature of
+this direful calamity, the strange occurrence, the general and apparent
+consternation of the whole household, and the spectacle of her mother's
+agony, had filled her with fear, perplexity, and anguish. Scared and
+stunned with a vague sense of danger, like a young bird that, for the
+first time, cowers under a thunderstorm, she nestled in her mother's
+bosom; there, with a sense of protection, and of boundless love and
+tenderness, she lay frightened, wondering, and weeping.
+
+Two or three days passed, and Dr. Danvers came and sate for several hours
+with poor Mrs. Marston. To comfort and console were, of course, out of
+his power. The nature of the bereavement, far more terrible than
+death--its recent occurrence--the distracting consciousness of all its
+complicated consequences--rendered this a hopeless task. She bowed
+herself under the blow with the submission of a broken heart. The hope to
+which she had clung for years had vanished; the worst that ever her
+imagination feared had come in earnest.
+
+One idea was now constantly present in her mind. She felt a sad, but
+immovable assurance, that she should not live long, and the thought,
+"what will become of my darling when I am gone; who will guard and love
+my child when I am in my grave; to whom is she to look for tenderness
+and protection then?" perpetually haunted her, and superadded the pangs
+of a still wilder despair to the desolation of a broken heart.
+
+It was not for more than a week after this event, that one day
+Willett, with a certain air of anxious mystery, entered the silent and
+darkened chamber where Mrs. Marston lay. She had a letter in her hand;
+the seal and handwriting were Mr. Marston's. It was long before the
+injured wife was able to open it; when she did so, the following
+sentences met her eye:--
+
+"Gertrude,
+
+"You can be ignorant neither of the nature nor of the consequences of the
+decisive step I have taken: I do not seek to excuse it. For the censure
+of the world, its meddling and mouthing hypocrisy, I care absolutely
+nothing; I have long set it at defiance. And you yourself, Gertrude, when
+you deliberately reconsider the circumstances of estrangement and
+coldness under which, though beneath the same roof, we have lived for
+years, without either sympathy or confidence, can scarcely, if at all,
+regret the rupture of a tie which had long ceased to be anything better
+than an irksome and galling formality. I do not desire to attribute to
+you the smallest blame. There was an incompatibility, not of temper but
+of feelings, which made us strangers though calling one another man and
+wife. Upon this fact I rest my own justification; our living together
+under these circumstances was, I dare say, equally undesired by us both.
+It was, in fact, but a deference to the formal hypocrisy of the world. At
+all events, the irrevocable act which separates us forever is done, and I
+have now merely to state so much of my intentions as may relate in
+anywise to your future arrangements. I have written to your cousin, and
+former guardian, Mr. Latimer, telling him how matters stand between us.
+You, I told him, shall have, without opposition from me, the whole of
+your own fortune to your own separate use, together with whatever shall
+be mutually agreed upon as reasonable, from my income, for your support
+and that of my daughter. It will be necessary to complete your
+arrangements with expedition, as I purpose returning to Gray Forest in
+about three weeks; and as, of course, a meeting between you and those by
+whom I shall be accompanied is wholly out of the question, you will see
+the expediency of losing no time in adjusting everything for yours and my
+daughter's departure. In the details, of course, I shall not interfere. I
+think I have made myself clearly intelligible, and would recommend your
+communicating at once with Mr. Latimer, with a view to completing
+temporary arrangements, until your final plans shall have been decided
+upon.
+
+"RICHARD MARSTON"
+
+The reader can easily conceive the feelings with which this letter was
+perused. We shall not attempt to describe them; nor shall we weary his
+patience by a detail of all the circumstances attending Mrs. Marston's
+departure. Suffice it to mention that, in less than a fortnight after the
+receipt of the letter which we have just copied, she had forever left the
+mansion of Gray Forest.
+
+In a small house, in a sequestered part of the rich county of Warwick,
+the residence of Mrs. Marston and her daughter was for the present fixed.
+And there, for a time, the heart-broken and desolate lady enjoyed, at
+least, the privilege of an immunity from the intrusions of all external
+trouble. But the blow, under which the feeble remains of her health and
+strength were gradually to sink, had struck too surely home; and, from
+month to month--almost from week to week--the progress of decay was
+perceptible.
+
+Meanwhile, though grieved and humbled, and longing to comfort his unhappy
+mother Charles Marston, for the present absolutely dependant upon his
+father, had no choice but to remain at Cambridge, and to pursue his
+studies there.
+
+At Gray Forest Marston and the partner of his guilt continued to live.
+The old servants were all gradually dismissed, and new ones hired by
+Mademoiselle de Barras. There they dwelt, shunned by everybody, in a
+stricter and more desolate seclusion than ever. The novelty of the
+unrestraint and licence of their new mode of life speedily passed away,
+and with it the excited and guilty sense of relief which had for a time
+produced a false and hollow gaiety. The sense of security prompted in
+mademoiselle a hundred indulgences which, in her former precarious
+position, she would not have dreamed of. Outbreaks of temper, sharp and
+sometimes violent, began to manifest themselves on her part, and renewed
+disappointment and blacker remorse to darken the soul of Marston himself.
+Often, in the dead of the night, the servants would overhear their bitter
+and fierce altercations ringing through the melancholy mansion, and
+often the reckless use of terrible and mysterious epithets of crime.
+Their quarrels increased in violence and in frequency, and, before two
+years had passed, feelings of bitterness, hatred, and dread, alone seemed
+to subsist between them. Yet upon Marston she continued to exercise a
+powerful and mysterious influence. There was a dogged, apathetic
+submission on his part, and a growing insolence on hers, constantly more
+and more strikingly visible. Neglect, disorder, and decay, too, were more
+than ever apparent in the dreary air of the place.
+
+Doctor Danvers, save by rumor and conjecture, knew nothing of Marston
+and his abandoned companion. He had, more than once, felt a strong
+disposition to visit Gray Forest, and expostulate, face to face, with its
+guilty proprietor. This idea, however, he had, upon consideration,
+dismissed; not on account of any shrinking from the possible repulses and
+affronts to which the attempt might subject him, but from a thorough
+conviction that the endeavor would be utterly fruitless for good, while
+it might, very obviously, expose him to painful misinterpretation and
+suspicion, and leave it to be imagined that he had been influenced, if by
+no meaner motive, at least by the promptings of a coarse curiosity.
+
+Meanwhile he maintained a correspondence with Mrs. Marston, and had even
+once or twice since her departure visited her. Latterly, however, this
+correspondence had been a good deal interrupted, and its intervals had
+been supplied occasionally by Rhoda, whose letters, although she herself
+appeared unconscious of the mournful event the approach of which they
+too plainly indicated, were painful records of the rapid progress of
+mortal decay.
+
+He had just received one of those ominous letters, at the little post
+office in the town we have already mentioned, and, full of the melancholy
+news it contained, Dr. Danvers was returning slowly towards his home. As
+he rode into a lonely road, traversing an undulating tract of some three
+miles in length, the singularity, it may be, of his costume attracted the
+eye of another passenger, who was, as it turned out, no other than
+Marston himself. For two or three miles of this desolate road, their ways
+happened to lie together. Marston's first impulse was to avoid the
+clergyman; his second, which he obeyed, was to join company, and ride
+along with him, at all events, for so long as would show that he shrank
+from no encounter which fortune or accident presented. There was a spirit
+of bitter defiance in this, which cost him a painful effort.
+
+"How do you do, Parson Danvers?" said Marston, touching his hat with the
+handle of his whip.
+
+Danvers thought he had seldom seen a man so changed in so short a time.
+His face had grown sallow and wasted, and his figure slightly stooped,
+with an appearance almost of feebleness.
+
+"Mr. Marston," said the clergyman, gravely, and almost sternly, though
+with some embarrassment, "it is a long time since you and I have seen
+one another, and many and painful events have passed in the interval.
+I scarce know upon what terms we meet. I am prompted to speak to you,
+and in a tone, perhaps, which you will hardly brook; and yet, if we
+keep company, as it seems likely we may, I cannot, and I ought not, to
+be silent."
+
+"Well, Mr. Danvers, I accept the condition--speak what you will," said
+Marston, with a gloomy promptitude. "If you exceed your privilege, and
+grow uncivil, I need but use my spurs, and leave you behind me preaching
+to the winds."
+
+"Ah! Mr. Marston," said Dr. Danvers, almost sadly, after a considerable
+pause, "when I saw you close beside me, my heart was troubled within me."
+
+"You looked on me as something from the nether world, and expected to see
+the cloven hoof," said Marston, bitterly, and raising his booted foot a
+little as he spoke; "but, after all, I am but a vulgar sinner of flesh
+and blood, without enough of the preternatural about me to frighten an
+old nurse, much less to agitate a pillar of the Church."
+
+"Mr. Marston, you talk sarcastically, but you feel that recent
+circumstances, as well as old recollections, might well disturb and
+trouble me at sight of you," answered Dr. Danvers.
+
+"Well--yes--perhaps it is so," said Marston, hastily and sullenly, and
+became silent for a while.
+
+"My heart is full, Mr. Marston; charged with grief, when I think of the
+sad history of those with whom, in my mind, you must ever be associated,"
+said Doctor Danvers.
+
+"Aye, to be sure," said Marston, with stern impatience; "but, then, you
+have much to console you. You have got your comforts and your
+respectability; all the dearer, too, from the contrast of other people's
+misfortunes and degradations; then you have your religion moreover--"
+
+"Yes," interrupted Danvers, earnestly, and hastening to avoid a sneer
+upon this subject; "God be blessed, I am an humble follower of his
+gracious Son, our Redeemer; and though, I trust, I should bear with
+patient submission whatever chastisement in his wisdom and goodness he
+might see fit to inflict upon me, yet I do praise and bless him for the
+mercy which has hitherto spared me, and I do feel that mercy all the more
+profoundly, from the afflictions and troubles with which I daily see
+others overtaken."
+
+"And in the matter of piety and decorum, doubtless, you bless God also,"
+said Marston, sarcastically, "that you are not as other men are, nor even
+as this publican."
+
+"Nay, Mr. Marston; God forbid I should harden my sinful heart with the
+wicked pride of the Pharisee. Evil and corrupt am I already over much.
+Too well I know the vileness of my heart, to make myself righteous in my
+own eyes," replied Dr. Danvers, humbly. "But, sinner as I am, I am yet a
+messenger of God, whose mission is one of authority to his
+fellow-sinners; and woe is me if I speak not the truth at all seasons,
+and in all places where my words may be profitably heard."
+
+"Well, Doctor Danvers, it seems you think it your duty to speak to me,
+of course, respecting my conduct and my spiritual state. I shall save you
+the pain and trouble of opening the subject; I shall state the case for
+you in two words," said Marston, almost fiercely. "I have put away my
+wife without just cause, and am living in sin with another woman. Come,
+what have you to say on this theme? Speak out. Deal with me as roughly as
+you will, I will hear it, and answer you again."
+
+"Alas, Mr. Marston! And do not these things trouble you?" exclaimed Dr.
+Danvers, earnestly. "Do they not weigh heavy upon your conscience? Ah,
+sir, do you not remember that, slowly and surely, you are drawing towards
+the hour of death, and the Day of Judgment?"
+
+"The hour or death! Yes, I know it is coming, and I await it with
+indifference. But, for the Day of Judgment, with its books and trumpets!
+My dear doctor, pray don't expect to frighten me with that."
+
+Marston spoke with an angry scorn, which had the effect of interrupting
+the conversation for some moments.
+
+They rode on, side by side, for a long time, without speaking. At length,
+however, Marston unexpectedly broke the silence--
+
+"Doctor Danvers," said he, "you asked me some time ago if I feared the
+hour of death, and the Day of Judgment. I answered you truly, I do not
+fear them; nay death, I think, I could meet with a happier and a quieter
+heart than any other chance that can befall me; but there are other
+fears; fears that do trouble me much."
+
+Doctor Danvers looked inquiringly at him; but neither spoke for a time.
+
+"You have not seen the catastrophe of the tragedy yet," said Marston,
+with a stern, stony look, made more horrible by a forced smile and
+something like a shudder. "I wish I could tell you--you, Doctor
+Danvers--for you are honorable and gentle-hearted. I wish I durst tell
+you what I fear; the only, only thing I really do fear. No mortal knows
+it but myself, and I see it coming upon me with slow, but unconquerable
+power. Oh, God--dreadful Spirit--spare me!"
+
+Again they were silent, and again Marston resumed--
+
+"Doctor Danvers, don't mistake me," he said, turning sharply, and fixing
+his eyes with a strange expression upon his companion. "I dread nothing
+human; I fear neither death, nor disgrace, nor eternity; I have no
+secrets to keep--no exposures to apprehend; but I dread--I dread--"
+
+He paused, scowled darkly, as if stung with pain, turned away, muttering
+to himself, and gradually became much excited.
+
+"I can't tell you now, sir, and I won't," he said, abruptly and fiercely,
+and with a countenance darkened with a wild and appalling rage that was
+wholly unaccountable. "I see you searching me with your eyes. Suspect
+what you will, sir, you shan't inveigle me into admissions. Aye,
+pry--whisper--stare--question, conjecture, sir--I suppose I must endure
+the world's impertinence, but d----n me if I gratify it."
+
+It would not be easy to describe Dr. Danvers' astonishment at this
+unaccountable explosion of fury. He was resolved, however, to bear his
+companion's violence with temper.
+
+They rode on slowly for fully ten minutes in utter silence, except that
+Marston occasionally muttered to himself, as it seemed, in excited
+abstraction. Danvers had at first felt naturally offended at the violent
+and insulting tone in which he had been so unexpectedly and unprovokedly
+addressed; but this feeling of irritation was but transient, and some
+fearful suspicions as to Marston's sanity flitted through his mind. In a
+calmer and more dogged tone, his companion now addressed him:--
+
+"There is little profit you see, doctor, in worrying me about your
+religion," said Marston. "it is but sowing the wind, and reaping the
+whirlwind; and, to say the truth, the longer you pursue it, the less I am
+in the mood to listen. If ever you are cursed and persecuted as I have
+been, you will understand how little tolerant of gratuitous vexations and
+contradictions a man may become. We have squabbled over religion long
+enough, and each holds his own faith still. Continue to sun yourself in
+your happy delusions, and leave me untroubled to tread the way of my own
+dark and cheerless destiny."
+
+Thus saying, he made a sullen gesture of farewell, and spurring his
+horse, crossed the broken fence at the roadside, and so, at a listless
+pace, through gaps and by farm-roads, penetrated towards his melancholy
+and guilty home.
+
+Two years had now passed since the decisive event which had forever
+separated Marston from her who had loved him so devotedly and so fatally;
+two years to him of disappointment, abasement, and secret rage; two years
+to her of gentle and heart-broken submission to the chastening hand of
+heaven. At the end of this time she died. Marston read the letter that
+announced the event with a stern look, and silently, but the shock he
+felt was terrific. No man is so self-abandoned to despair and
+degradation, that at some casual moment thoughts of amendment--some
+gleams of hope, however faint and transient, from the distant
+future--will not visit him. With Marston, those thoughts had somehow ever
+been associated with vague ideas of a reconciliation with the being whom
+he had forsaken--good and pure, and looking at her from the darkness and
+distance of his own fallen state, almost angelic as she seemed. But she
+was now dead; he could make her no atonement; she could never smile
+forgiveness upon him. This long-familiar image--the last that had
+reflected for him one ray of the lost peace and love of happier
+times--had vanished, and henceforward there was before him nothing but
+storm and fear.
+
+Marston's embarrassed fortunes made it to him an object to resume the
+portion of his income heretofore devoted to the separate maintenance of
+his wife and daughter. In order to effect this it became, of course,
+necessary to recall his daughter, Rhoda, and fix her residence once more
+at Gray Forest. No more dreadful penalty could have been inflicted upon
+the poor girl--no more agonizing ordeal than that she was thus doomed to
+undergo. She had idolized her mother, and now adored her memory. She knew
+that Mademoiselle de Barras had betrayed and indirectly murdered the
+parent she had so devotedly loved; she knew that that woman had been the
+curse, the fate of her family, and she regarded her naturally with
+feelings of mingled terror and abhorrence, the intensity of which was
+indescribable.
+
+The few scattered friends and relatives, whose sympathies had been moved
+by the melancholy fate of poor Mrs. Marston, were unanimously agreed that
+the intended removal of the young and innocent daughter to the polluted
+mansion of sin and shame, was too intolerably revolting to be permitted.
+But each of these virtuous individuals unhappily thought it the duty of
+the others to interpose; and with a running commentary of wonder and
+reprobation, and much virtuous criticism, events were suffered
+uninterruptedly to take their sinister and melancholy course.
+
+It was about two months after the death of Mrs. Marston, and on a bleak
+and ominous night at the wintry end of autumn, that poor Rhoda, in deep
+mourning, and pale with grief and agitation, descended from a chaise at
+the well-known door of the mansion of Gray Forest. Whether from
+consideration for her feelings, or, as was more probable, from pure
+indifference, Rhoda was conducted, on her arrival, direct to her own
+chamber, and it was not until the next morning that she saw her father.
+He entered her room unexpectedly, he was very pale, and as she thought,
+greatly altered, but he seemed perfectly collected, and free from
+agitation. The marked and even shocking change in his appearance, and
+perhaps even the trifling though painful circumstance that he wore no
+mourning for the beloved being who was gone, caused her, after a moment's
+mute gazing in his face, to burst into an irrepressible flood of tears.
+Marston waited stoically until the paroxysm had subsided, and then taking
+her hand, with a look in which a dogged sternness was contending with
+something like shame, he said:--
+
+"There, there; you can weep when I am gone. I shan't say very much to you
+at present, Rhoda, and only wish you to attend to me for one minute.
+Listen, Rhoda; the lady whom you have been in the habit (here he slightly
+averted his eyes) of calling Mademoiselle de Barras, is no longer so; she
+is married; she is my wife, and consequently you will treat her with the
+respect due to"--he would have said "a mother," but could not, and
+supplied the phrase by adding, "to that relation."
+
+Rhoda was unable to speak, but almost unconsciously bowed her head in
+token of attention and submission, and her father pressed her hand more
+kindly, as he continued:--
+
+"I have always found you a dutiful and obedient child, Rhoda, and
+expected no other conduct from you. Mrs. Marston will treat you with
+proper kindness and consideration, and desires me to say that you can,
+whenever you please, keep strictly to yourself, and need not, unless
+you feel so disposed, attend the regular meals of the family. This
+privilege may suit your present depressed spirits, and you must not
+scruple to use it."
+
+After a few words more, Marston withdrew, leaving his daughter to her
+reflections, and bleak and bitter enough they were.
+
+Some weeks passed away, and perhaps we shall best consult our readers'
+ease by substituting for the formal precision of narrative, a few
+extracts from the letters which Rhoda wrote to her brother, still at
+Cambridge. These will convey her own impressions respecting the scenes
+and personages among whom she was now to move.
+
+"The house and place are much neglected, and the former in some parts
+suffered almost to go to decay. The windows broken in the last storm,
+nearly eight months ago, they tell me, are still unmended, and the roof,
+too, unrepaired. The pretty garden, near the well, among the lime trees,
+that our darling mother was so fond of, is all but obliterated with weeds
+and grass, and since my first visit I have not had heart to go near it
+again. All the old servants are gone; new faces everywhere.
+
+"I have been obliged several times, through fear of offending my father,
+to join the party in the drawing room. You may conceive what I felt at
+seeing mademoiselle in the place once filled by our dear mamma, I was so
+choked with sorrow, bitterness, and indignation, and my heart so
+palpitated, that I could not speak, and I believe they thought I was
+going to faint. Mademoiselle looked very angry, but my father pretending
+to show me, heaven knows what, from the window, led me to it, and the
+air revived me a little. Mademoiselle (for I cannot call her by her new
+name) is altered a good deal--more, however, in the character than in the
+contour of her face and figure. Certainly, however, she has grown a good
+deal fuller, and her color is higher; and whether it is fancy or not, I
+cannot say, but certainly to me it seems that the expression of her face
+has acquired something habitually lowering and malicious, and which, I
+know not how, inspires me with an undefinable dread. She has, however,
+been tolerably civil to me, but seems contemptuous and rude to my father,
+and I am afraid he is very wretched, I have seen them exchange such
+looks, and overheard such intemperate and even appalling altercations
+between them, as indicate something worse and deeper than ordinary
+ill-will. This makes me additionally wretched, especially as I cannot
+help thinking that some mysterious cause enables her to frighten and
+tyrannise over my poor father. I sometimes think he absolutely detests
+her; yet, though fiery altercations ensue, he ultimately submits to this
+bad and cruel woman. Oh, my dear Charles, you have no idea of the
+shocking, or rather the terrifying, reproaches I have heard interchanged
+between them, as I accidently passed the room where they were
+sitting--such terms as have sent me to my room, feeling as if I were
+in a horrid dream, and made me cry and tremble for hours after I got
+there.... I see my father very seldom, and when I do, he takes but little
+notice of me.... Poor Willett, you know, returned with me. She
+accompanies me in my walks, and is constantly dropping hints about
+mademoiselle, from which I know not what to gather....
+
+"I often fear that my father has some secret and mortal ailment. He
+generally looks ill, and sometimes quite wretchedly. He came twice lately
+to my room, I think to speak to me on some matter of importance; but he
+said only a sentence or two, and even these broken and incoherent. He
+seemed unable to command spirits for the interview; and, indeed, he grew
+so agitated and strange, that I was alarmed, and felt greatly relieved
+when he left me....
+
+"I do not, you see, disguise my feelings, dear Charles; I do not conceal
+from you the melancholy and anguish of my present situation. How
+intensely I long for your promised arrival. I have not a creature to whom
+I can say one word in confidence, except poor Willett; who, though very
+good-natured, and really dear to me, is yet far from being a companion. I
+sometimes think my intense anxiety to see you here is almost selfish; for
+I know you will feel as acutely as I do, the terrible change observable
+everywhere. But I cannot help longing for your return, dear Charles, and
+counting the days and the very hours till you arrive....
+
+"Be cautious, in writing to me, not to say anything which you would not
+wish mademoiselle to see; for Willett tells me that she knows that she
+often examines, and even intercepts the letters that arrive; and, though
+Willett may be mistaken, and I hope she is, yet it is better that you
+should be upon your guard. Ever since I heard this, I have brought my
+letters to the post office myself, instead of leaving them with the rest
+upon the hall table; and you know it is a long walk for me....
+
+"I go to church every Sunday, and take Willett along with me. No one from
+this seems to think of doing so but ourselves. I see the Mervyns there.
+Mrs. Mervyn is particularly kind; and I know that she wishes to offer me
+an asylum at Newton Park; and you cannot think with how much tenderness
+and delicacy she conveys the wish. But I dare not hint the subject to my
+father; and, earnestly as I desire it, I could not but feel that I should
+go there, not to visit, but to reside. And so even in this, in many
+respects, delightful project, is mingled the bitter apprehension of
+dependence--something so humiliating, that, kindly and delicately as the
+offer is made, I could not bring myself to embrace it. I have a great
+deal to say to you, and long to see you."...
+
+These extracts will enable the reader to form a tolerably accurate idea
+of the general state of affairs at Gray Forest. Some particulars must,
+however, be added.
+
+Marston continued to be the same gloomy and joyless being as heretofore.
+Sometimes moody and apathetic, sometimes wayward and even savage, but
+never for a moment at ease, never social--an isolated, disdainful,
+ruined man.
+
+One day as Rhoda sate and read under the shade of some closely-interwoven
+evergreens, in a lonely and sheltered part of the neglected
+pleasure-grounds, with her honest maid Willett in attendance, she was
+surprised by the sudden appearance of her father, who stood unexpectedly
+before her. Though his attitude for some time was fixed, his countenance
+was troubled with anxiety and pain, and his sunken eyes rested upon her
+with a fiery and fretted gaze. He seemed lost in thought for a while, and
+then, touching Willett sharply on the shoulder, said abruptly:
+
+"Go; I shall call you when you are wanted. Walk down that alley." And,
+as he spoke, he indicated with his walking-cane the course he desired
+her to take.
+
+When the maid was sufficiently distant to be quite out of hearing,
+Marston sate down beside Rhoda upon the bench, and took her hand in
+silence. His grasp was cold, and alternately relaxed and contracted
+with an agitated uncertainty, while his eyes were fixed upon the
+ground, and he seemed meditating how to open the conversation. At last,
+as if suddenly awaking from a fearful reverie, he said--"You correspond
+with Charles?"
+
+"Yes, sir," she replied, with the respectful formality prescribed by the
+usages of the time, "we correspond regularly."
+
+"Aye, aye; and, pray, when did you last hear from him?" he continued.
+
+"About a month since, sir," she replied.
+
+"Ha--and--and--was there nothing strange--nothing--nothing mysterious and
+menacing in his letter? Come, come, you know what I speak of." He stopped
+abruptly, and stared in her face with an agitated gaze.
+
+"No, indeed, sir; there was not anything of the kind," she replied.
+
+"I have been greatly shocked, I may say incensed," said Marston
+excitedly, "by a passage in his last letter to me. Not that it says
+anything specific; but--but it amazes me--it enrages me."
+
+He again checked himself, and Rhoda, much surprised, and even shocked,
+said, stammeringly--
+
+"I am sure, sir, that dear Charles would not intentionally say or do
+anything that could offend you."
+
+"Ah, as to that, I believe so, too. But it is not with him I am
+indignant; no, no. Poor Charles! I believe he is, as you say, disposed to
+conduct himself as a son ought to do, respectfully and obediently. Yes,
+yes, Charles is very well; but I fear he is leading a bad life,
+notwithstanding--a very bad life. He is becoming subject to influences
+which never visit or torment the good; believe me, he is."
+
+Marston shook his head, and muttered to himself, with a look of almost
+craven anxiety, and then whispered to his daughter--
+
+"Just read this, and then tell me is it not so. Read it, read it, and
+pronounce."
+
+As he thus spoke, he placed in her hand the letter of which he had
+spoken, and with the passage to which he invited her attention folded
+down. It was to the following effect:--
+
+"I cannot tell you how shocked I have been by a piece of scandal, as I
+must believe it, conveyed to me in an anonymous letter, and which is of
+so very delicate a nature, that without your special command I should
+hesitate to pain you by its recital. I trust it may be utterly false.
+Indeed I assume it to be so. It is enough to say that it is of a very
+distressing nature, and affects the lady (Mademoiselle de Barras) whom
+you have recently honored with your hand."
+
+"Now you see," cried Marston, with a shuddering fierceness, as she
+returned the letter with a blanched cheek and trembling hand--"now you
+see it all. Are you stupid?--the stamp of the cloven hoof--eh?"
+
+Rhoda, unable to gather his meaning, but, at the same time, with a heart
+full and trembling very much, stammered a few frightened words, and
+became silent.
+
+"It is he, I tell you, that does it all; and if Charles were not living
+an evil life, he could not have spread his nets for him," said Marston,
+vehemently. "He can't go near anything good; but, like a scoundrel, he
+knows where to find a congenial nature; and when he does, he has skill
+enough to practice upon it. I know him well, and his arts and his smiles;
+aye, and his scowls and his grins, too. He goes, like his master, up and
+down, and to and fro upon the earth, for ceaseless mischief. There is not
+a friend of mine he can get hold of, but he whispered in his ear some
+damned slander of me. He is drawing them all into a common understanding
+against me; and he takes an actual pleasure in telling me how the thing
+goes on--how, one after the other, he has converted my friends into
+conspirators and libelers, to blast my character, and take my life, and
+now the monster essays to lure my children into the hellish
+confederation."
+
+"Who is he, father, who is he?" faltered Rhoda.
+
+"You never saw him," retorted Marston, sternly.
+
+"No, no; you can't have seen him, and you probably never will; but if he
+does come here again, don't listen to him. He is half-fiend and
+half-idiot, and no good comes of his mouthing and muttering. Avoid him, I
+warn you, avoid him. Let me see: how shall I describe him? Let me see.
+You remember--you remember Berkley--Sir Wynston Berkley. Well, he greatly
+resembles that dead villain: he has all the same grins, and shrugs, and
+monkey airs, and his face and figure are like. But he is a grimed,
+ragged, wasted piece of sin, little better than a beggar--a shrunken,
+malignant libel on the human shape. Avoid him, I tell you, avoid him: he
+is steeped in lies and poison, like the very serpent that betrayed us.
+Beware of him, I say, for if he once gains your ear, he will delude you,
+spite of all your vigilance; he will make you his accomplice, and
+thenceforth, inevitably, there is nothing but mortal and implacable
+hatred between us!"
+
+Frightened at this wild language, Rhoda did not answer, but looked up in
+his face in silence. A fearful transformation was there--a scowl so livid
+and maniacal, that her very senses seemed leaving her with terror.
+Perhaps the sudden alteration observable in her countenance, as this
+spectacle so unexpectedly encountered her, recalled him to himself; for
+he added, hurriedly, and in a tone of gentler meaning--
+
+"Rhoda, Rhoda, watch and pray. My daughter, my child! keep your heart
+pure, and nothing bad can approach you for ill. No, no; you are good, and
+the good need not fear!"
+
+Suddenly Marston burst into tears, as he ended this sentence, and
+wept long and convulsively. She did not dare to speak, or even to
+move; but after a while he ceased, appeared uneasy, half ashamed and
+half angry; and looking with a horrified and bewildered glance into
+her face, he said--
+
+"Rhoda, child, what--what have I said? My God! what have I been saying?
+Did I--do I look ill? Oh, Rhoda, Rhoda, may you never feel this!"
+
+He turned away from her without awaiting her answer, and walked away
+with the appearance of intense agitation, as if to leave her. He turned
+again, however, and with a face pallid and sunken as death, approached
+her slowly--
+
+"Rhoda," said he, "don't tell what I have said to anyone--don't, I
+conjure you, even to Charles. I speak too much at random, and say more
+than I mean--a foolish, rambling habit: so do not repeat one word of it,
+not one word to any living mortal. You and I, Rhoda, must have our
+little secrets."
+
+He ended with an attempt at a smile, so obviously painful and
+fear-stricken that as he walked hurriedly away, the astounded girl burst
+into a bitter flood of tears. What was, what could be, the meaning of
+the shocking scene she had then been forced to witness? She dared not
+answer the question. Yet one ghastly doubt haunted her like her
+shadow--a suspicion that the malignant and hideous light of madness was
+already glaring upon his mind. As, leaning upon the arm of her
+astonished attendant, she retracted her steps, the trees, the flowers,
+the familiar hall-door, the echoing passages--every object that met her
+eye--seemed strange and unsubstantial, and she gliding on among them in
+a horrid dream.
+
+Time passed on: there was no renewal of the painful scene which dwelt so
+sensibly in the affrighted imagination of Rhoda. Marston's manner was
+changed towards her; he seemed shy, cowed, and uneasy in her presence,
+and thenceforth she saw less than ever of him. Meanwhile the time
+approached which was to witness the long expected, and, by Rhoda, the
+intensely prayed for arrival of her brother.
+
+Some four or five days before this event, Mr. Marston, having, as he
+said, some business in Chester, and further designing to meet his son
+there, took his departure from Gray Forest, leaving poor Rhoda to the
+guardianship of her guilty stepmother; and although she had seen so
+little of her father, yet the very consciousness of his presence had
+given her a certain confidence and sense of security, which vanished at
+the moment of his departure. Fear-stricken and wretched as he had been,
+his removal, nevertheless, seemed to her to render the lonely and
+inauspicious mansion still more desolate and ominous than before.
+
+She had, with a vague and instinctive antipathy, avoided all contact and
+intercourse with Mrs. Marston, or as, for distinctness sake, we shall
+continue to call her, "Mademoiselle," since her return; and she on her
+part had appeared to acquiesce with a sort of scornful nonchalance, in
+the tacit understanding that she and her former pupil should see and hear
+as little as might be of one another.
+
+Meanwhile poor Willett, with her good-natured honesty and her
+inexhaustible gossip, endeavored to amuse and reassure her young
+mistress, and sometimes even with some partial success.
+
+We must now follow Mr. Marston in his solitary expedition to Chester.
+When he took his place in the stagecoach he had the whole interior of the
+vehicle to himself, and thus continued to be its solitary occupant for
+several miles. The coach, however, was eventually hailed, brought to, and
+the door being opened, Dr. Danvers got in, and took his place opposite to
+the passenger already established there. The worthy man was so busied in
+directing the disposition of his luggage from the window, and in
+arranging the sundry small parcels with which he was charged, that he
+did not recognize his companion until they were in motion. When he did so
+it was with no very pleasurable feeling; and it is probable that Marston,
+too, would have gladly escaped the coincidence which thus reduced them
+once more to the temporary necessity of a Tate-a-Tate. Embarrassing as
+each felt the situation to be, there was, however, no avoiding it, and,
+after a recognition and a few forced attempts at conversation, they
+became, by mutual consent, silent and uncommunicative.
+
+The journey, though in point of space a mere trifle, was, in those
+slowcoach days, a matter of fully five hours' duration; and before it was
+completed the sun had set, and darkness began to close. Whether it was
+that the descending twilight dispelled the painful constraint under which
+Marston had seemed to labor, or that some more purely spiritual and
+genial influence had gradually dissipated the repulsion and distrust with
+which, at first, he had shrunk from a renewal of intercourse with Dr.
+Danvers, he suddenly accosted him thus.
+
+"Dr. Danvers, I have been fifty times on the point of speaking to
+you--confidentially of course--while sitting here opposite to you, what I
+believe I could scarcely bring myself to hint to any other man living;
+yet I must tell it, and soon, too, or I fear it will have told itself."
+
+Dr. Danvers intimated his readiness to hear and advise, if desired; and
+Marston resumed abruptly, after a pause--
+
+"Pray, Doctor Danvers, have you heard any stories of an odd kind; any
+surmises--I don't mean of a moral sort, for those I hold very cheap--to
+my prejudice? Indeed I should hardly say to my prejudice; I mean--I ought
+to say--in short, have you heard people remark upon any fancied
+eccentricities, or that sort of thing, about me?"
+
+He put the question with obvious difficulty, and at last seemed to
+overcome his own reluctance with a sort of angry and excited
+self-contempt and impatience. Doctor Danvers was a little puzzled by
+the interrogatory, and admitted, in reply, that he did not comprehend
+its drift.
+
+"Doctor Danvers," he resumed, sternly and dejectedly, "I told you, in the
+chance interview we had some months ago, that I was haunted by a certain
+fear. I did not define it, nor do I think you suspect its nature. It is a
+fear of nothing mortal, but of the immortal tenant of this body. My mind;
+sir, is beginning to play me tricks; my guide mocks and terrifies me."
+
+There was a perceptible tinge of horror in the look of astonishment with
+which Dr. Danvers listened.
+
+"You are a gentleman, sir, and a Christian clergyman; what I have said
+and shall say is confided to your honor; to be held sacred as the
+confession of misery, and hidden from the coarse gaze of the world. I
+have become subject to a hideous delusion. It comes at intervals. I do
+not think any mortal suspects it, except, maybe, my daughter Rhoda. It
+comes and disappears, and comes again. I kept my pleasant secret for a
+long time, but at last I let it slip, and committed myself fortunately,
+to but one person, and that my daughter; and, even so, I hardly think she
+understood me. I recollected myself before I had disclosed the grotesque
+and infernal chimera that haunts me."
+
+Marston paused. He was stooped forward, and looking upon the floor of the
+vehicle, so that his companion could not see his countenance. A silence
+ensued, which was interrupted by Marston, who once more resumed.
+
+"Sir," said he, "I know not why, but I have longed, intensely longed,
+for some trustworthy ear into which to pour this horrid secret; why I
+repeat, I cannot tell, for I expect no sympathy, and hate compassion. It
+is, I suppose, the restless nature of the devil that is in me; but, be it
+what it may, I will speak to you, but to you only, for the present, at
+least, to you alone."
+
+Doctor Danvers again assured him that he might repose the most entire
+confidence in his secrecy.
+
+"The human mind, I take it, must have either comfort in the past or hope
+in the future," he continued, "otherwise it is in danger. To me, sir, the
+past is intolerably repulsive; one boundless, barren, and hideous
+Golgotha of dead hopes and murdered opportunities; the future, still
+blacker and more furious, peopled with dreadful features of horror and
+menace, and losing itself in utter darkness. Sir, I do not exaggerate.
+Between such a past and such a future I stand upon this miserable
+present; and the only comfort I still am capable of feeling is, that no
+human being pities me; that I stand aloof from the insults of compassion
+and the hypocrisies of sympathetic morality; and that I can safely defy
+all the respectable scoundrels in Christendom to enhance, by one
+feather's weight, the load which I myself have accumulated, and which I
+myself hourly and unaided sustain."
+
+Doctor Danvers here introduced a word or two in the direction of their
+former conversation.
+
+"No, sir, there is no comfort from that quarter either," said Marston,
+bitterly; "you but cast your seeds, as the parable terms your teaching,
+upon the barren sea, in wasting them on me. My fate, be it what it may,
+is as irrevocably fixed, as though I were dead and judged a hundred
+years ago.
+
+"This cursed dream," he resumed abruptly, "that everyday enslaves me more
+and more, has reference to that--that occurrence about Wynston
+Berkley--he is the hero of the hellish illusion. At certain times, sir,
+it seems to me as if he, though dead, were still invested with a sort of
+spurious life; going about unrecognized, except by me, in squalor and
+contempt, and whispering away my fame and life; laboring with the
+malignant industry of a fiend to involve me in the meshes of that special
+perdition from which alone I shrink, and to which this emissary of hell
+seems to have predestined me. Sir, this is a monstrous and hideous
+extravagance, a delusion, but, after all, no more than a trick of the
+imagination; the reason, the judgment, is untouched. I cannot choose but
+see all the damned phantasmagoria, but I do not believe it real, and this
+is the difference between my case and--and--madness!"
+
+They were now entering the suburbs of Chester, and Doctor Danvers, pained
+and shocked beyond measure by this unlooked-for disclosure, and not
+knowing what remark or comfort to offer, relieved his temporary
+embarrassment by looking from the window, as though attracted by the
+flash of the lamps, among which the vehicle was now moving. Marston,
+however, laid his hand upon his arm, and thus recalled him, for a moment,
+to a forced attention.
+
+"It must seem strange to you, Doctor, that I should trust this cursed
+secret to your keeping," he said; "and, truth to say, it seems so to
+myself. I cannot account for the impulse, the irresistible power of which
+has forced me to disclose the hateful mystery to you, but the fact is
+this, beginning like a speck, this one idea has gradually darkened and
+dilated, until it has filled my entire mind. The solitary consciousness
+of the gigantic mastery it has established there had grown intolerable; I
+must have told it. The sense of solitude under this aggressive and
+tremendous delusion was agony, hourly death to my soul. That is the
+secret of my talkativeness; my sole excuse for plaguing you with the
+dreams of a wretched hypochondriac."
+
+Doctor Danvers assured him that no apologies were needed, and was only
+restrained from adding the expression of that pity which he really felt,
+by the fear of irritating a temper so full of bitterness, pride and
+defiance. A few minutes more, and the coach having reached its
+destination, they bid one another farewell, and parted.
+
+At that time there resided in a decent mansion about a mile from the town
+of Chester, a dapper little gentleman, whom we shall call Doctor Parkes.
+This gentleman was the proprietor and sole professional manager of a
+private asylum for the insane and enjoyed a high reputation, and a
+proportionate amount of business, in his melancholy calling. It was about
+the second day after the conversation we have just sketched, that this
+little gentleman, having visited, according to his custom, all his
+domestic patients, was about to take his accustomed walk in his somewhat
+restricted pleasure grounds, when his servant announced a visitor.
+
+"A gentleman," he repeated; "you have seen him before--eh?"
+
+"No, sir," replied the man; "he is in the study, sir."
+
+"Ha! a professional call. Well, we shall see."
+
+So saying, the little gentleman summoned his gravest look, and hastened
+to the chamber of audience.
+
+On entering he found a man dressed well, but gravely, having in his
+air and manner something of high breeding. In countenance striking,
+dark-featured, and stern, furrowed with the lines of pain or
+thought, rather than of age, although his dark hairs were largely
+mingled with white.
+
+The physician bowed, and requested the stranger to take a chair; he,
+however, nodded slightly and impatiently, as if to intimate an
+intolerance of ceremony, and, advancing a step or two, said abruptly--
+
+"My name, sir, is Marston; I have come to give you a patient."
+
+The doctor bowed with a still deeper inclination, and paused for a
+continuance of the communication thus auspiciously commenced.
+
+"You are Dr. Parkes, I take it for granted," said Marston, in the
+same tone.
+
+"Your most obedient, humble servant, sir," replied he, with the polite
+formality of the day, and another grave bow.
+
+"Doctor," demanded Marston, fixing his eye upon him sternly, and
+significantly tapping his own forehead, "can you stay execution?"
+
+The physician looked puzzled, hesitated, and at last requested his
+visitor to be more explicit.
+
+"Can you," said Marston, with the same slow and stern articulation, and
+after a considerable pause--"can you prevent the malady you profess to
+cure?--can you meet and defeat the enemy halfway?--can you scare away the
+spirit of madness before it takes actual possession, and while it is
+still only hovering about its threatened victim?"
+
+"Sir," he replied, "in certain cases--in very many, indeed--the enemy, as
+you well call it, may thus be met, and effectually worsted at a distance.
+Timely interposition, in ninety cases out of a hundred, is everything;
+and, I assure you, I hear your question with much pleasure, inasmuch as I
+assume it to have reference to the case of the patient about whom you
+desire to consult me; and who is, therefore, I hope, as yet merely
+menaced with the misfortune from which you would save him."
+
+"I, myself, am that patient, sir," said Marston, with an effort; "your
+surmise is right. I am not mad, but unequivocally menaced with madness;
+it is not to be mistaken. Sir, there is no misunderstanding the
+tremendous and intolerable signs that glare upon my mind."
+
+"And pray, sir, have you consulted your friends or your family upon the
+course best to be pursued?" inquired Dr. Parkes, with grave interest.
+
+"No, sir," he answered sharply, and almost fiercely; "I have no fancy to
+make myself the subject of a writ _de lunatico inquirendo_; I don't want
+to lose my liberty and my property at a blow. The course I mean to take
+has been advised by no one but myself--is known to no other. I now
+disclose it, and the causes of it, to you, a gentleman, and my
+professional adviser, in the expectation that you will guard with the
+strictest secrecy my spontaneous revelations; this you promise me?"
+
+"Certainly, Mr. Marston; I have neither the disposition nor the right to
+withhold such a promise," answered the physician.
+
+"Well, then, I will first tell you the arrangement I propose, with your
+permission, to make, and then I shall answer all your questions,
+respecting my own case," resumed Marston, gloomily. "I wish to place
+myself under your care, to live under your roof, reserving my full
+liberty of action. I must be free to come and to go as I will; and on the
+other hand, I undertake that you shall find me an amenable and docile
+patient enough. In addition, I stipulate that there shall be no attempt
+whatever made to communicate with those who are connected with me: these
+terms agreed upon, I place myself in your hands. You will find in me, as
+I said before, a deferential patient, and I trust not a troublesome one.
+I hope you will excuse my adding, that I shall myself pay the charge of
+my sojourn here from week to week, in advance."
+
+The proposed arrangement was a strange one; and although Dr. Parkes
+dimly foresaw some of the embarrassments which might possibly arise
+from his accepting it, there was yet so much that was reasonable as
+well as advantageous in the proposal, that he could not bring himself
+to decline it.
+
+The preliminary arrangement concluded, Dr. Parkes proceeded to his more
+strictly professional investigation. It is, of course, needless to
+recapitulate the details of Marston's tormenting fancies, with which the
+reader has indeed been already sufficiently acquainted. Doctor Parkes,
+having attentively listened to the narrative, and satisfied himself as to
+the physical health of his patient, was still sorely puzzled as to the
+probable issue of the awful struggle already but too obviously commenced
+between the mind and its destroyer in the strange case before him. One
+satisfactory symptom unquestionably was, the as yet transitory nature of
+the delusion, and the evident and energetic tenacity with which reason
+contended for her vital ascendancy. It was a case, however, which for
+many reasons sorely perplexed him, but of which, notwithstanding, he was
+disposed, whether rightly or wrongly the reader will speedily see, to
+take by no means a decidedly gloomy view.
+
+Having disburdened his mind of this horrible secret, Marston felt for a
+time a sense of relief amounting almost to elation. With far less of
+apprehension and dismay than he had done so for months before, he that
+night repaired to his bedroom. There was nothing in his case, Doctor
+Parkes believed, to warrant his keeping any watch upon Marston's actions,
+and accordingly he bid him good-night, in the full confidence of meeting
+him, if not better, at least not worse, on the ensuing morning.
+
+He miscalculated, however. Marston had probably himself been conscious of
+some coming crisis in his hideous malady, when he took the decisive step
+of placing himself under the care of Doctor Parkes. Certain it is, that
+upon that very night the disease broke forth in a new and appalling
+development. Doctor Parkes, whose bedroom was next to that occupied by
+Marston, was awakened in the dead of night by a howling, more like that
+of a beast than a human voice, and which gradually swelled into an
+absolute yell; then came some horrid laughter and entreaties, thick and
+frantic; then again the same unearthly howl. The practiced ear of Doctor
+Parkes recognized but too surely the terrific import of those sounds.
+Springing from his bed, and seizing the candle which always burned in his
+chamber, in anticipation of such sudden and fearful emergencies, he
+hurried with a palpitating heart, and spite of his long habituation to
+such scenes as he expected, with a certain sense of horror, to the
+chamber of his aristocratic patient.
+
+Late as it was, Marston had not yet gone to bed; his candle was still
+burning, and he himself, half dressed, stood in the center of the floor,
+shaking and livid, his eyes burning with the preterhuman fires of
+insanity. As Doctor Parkes entered the chamber, another shout, or rather
+yell, thundered from the lips of this demoniac effigy; and the mad-doctor
+stood freezing with horror in the doorway, and yet exerting what remained
+to him of presence of mind, in the vain endeavor, in the flaring light of
+the candle, to catch and fix with his own practiced eye the gaze of the
+maniac. Second after second, and minute after minute, he stood
+confronting this frightful slave of Satan, in the momentary expectation
+that he would close with and destroy him. On a sudden, however, this
+brief agony of suspense was terminated; a change like an awakening
+consciousness of realities, or rather like the withdrawal of some hideous
+and visible influence from within, passed over the tense and darkened
+features of the wretched being; a look of horrified perplexity, doubt,
+and inquiry, supervened, and he at last said, in a subdued and sullen
+tone, to Doctor Parkes:
+
+"Who are you, sir? What do you want here? Who are you, sir, I say?"
+
+"Who am I? Why, your physician, sir; Doctor Parkes, sir; the owner of
+this house, sir," replied he, with all the sternness he could command,
+and yet white as a specter with agitation. "For shame, sir, for shame, to
+give way thus. What do you mean by creating this causeless alarm, and
+disturbing the whole household at so unseasonable an hour? For shame,
+sir; go to your bed; undress yourself this moment; for shame."
+
+Doctor Parkes, as he spoke, was reassured by the arrival of one of his
+servants, alarmed by the unmistakable sounds of violent frenzy; he
+signed, however, to the man not to enter, feeling confident, as he did,
+that the paroxysm had spent itself.
+
+"Aye, aye," muttered Marston, looking almost sheepishly; "Doctor Parkes,
+to be sure. What was I thinking of? how cursedly absurd! And this," he
+continued, glancing at his sword, which he threw impatiently upon a sofa
+as he spoke. "Folly--nonsense! A false alarm, as you say, doctor. I beg
+your pardon."
+
+As Marston spoke, he proceeded with much agitation slowly to undress
+himself. He had, however, but commenced the process, when, turning
+abruptly to Doctor Parkes, he said, with a countenance of horror, and in
+a whisper--
+
+"By ----, doctor, it has been upon me worse than ever, I would have sworn
+I had the villain with me for hours--hours, sir--torturing me with his
+damned sneering threats; till, by ----, I could stand it no longer, and
+took my sword. Oh, doctor, can't you save me? can nothing be done for
+me?"
+
+Pale, covered with the dews of horror, he uttered these last words in
+accents of such imploring despair, as might have borne across the
+dreadful gulf the prayer of Dives for that one drop of water which never
+was to cool his burning tongue.
+
+When Rhoda learned that her father, on leaving Gray Forest, had fixed no
+definite period for his return, she began to feel her situation at home
+so painful and equivocal, that, having taken honest Willett to counsel,
+she came at last to the resolution of accepting the often conveyed
+invitation of Mrs. Mervyn and sojourning, at all events until her
+father's return, at Newton Park.
+
+"My dear young friend," said the kind lady, as soon as she heard Rhoda's
+little speech to its close, "I can scarcely describe the gratification
+with which I see you here; the happiness with which I welcome you to
+Newton Park; nor, indeed, the anxiety with which I constantly
+contemplated your trying and painful position at Gray Forest. Indeed I
+ought to be angry with you for having refused me this happiness so long;
+but you have made amends at last; though, indeed, it was impossible to
+have deferred it longer. You must not fancy, however, that I will consent
+to lose you so soon as you seem to have intended. No, no; I have found it
+too hard to catch you, to let you take wing so easily; besides, I have
+others to consult as well as myself, and persons, too, who are just as
+anxious as I am to make a prisoner of you here."
+
+The good Mrs. Mervyn accompanied these words with looks so sly, and
+emphasis so significant, that Rhoda was fain to look down, to hide her
+blushes; and compassionating the confusion she herself had caused, the
+kind old lady led her to the chamber which was henceforward, so long as
+she consented to remain, to be her own apartment.
+
+How that day was passed, and how fleetly its hours sped away, it is
+needless to tell. Old Mervyn had his gentle as well as his grim aspect;
+and no welcome was ever more cordial and tender than that with which he
+greeted the unprotected child of his morose and repulsive neighbor. It
+would be impossible to convey any idea of the countless assiduities and
+the secret delight with which young Mervyn attended their rambles.
+
+The party were assembled at supper. What a contrast did this cheerful,
+happy--unutterably happy--gathering, present, in the mind of Rhoda, to
+the dull, drear, fearful evenings which she had long been wont to pass at
+Gray Forest.
+
+As they sate together in cheerful and happy intercourse, a chaise drove
+up to the hall-door, and the knocking had hardly ceased to reverberate,
+when a well-known voice was heard in the hall.
+
+Young Mervyn started to his feet, and merrily ejaculating, "Charles
+Marston! this is delightful!" disappeared, and in an instant returned
+with Charles himself.
+
+We pass over all the embraces of brother and sister; the tears and smiles
+of re-united affection. We omit the cordial shaking of hands; the kind
+looks; the questions and answers; all these, and all the little
+attentions of that good old-fashioned hospitality, which was never weary
+of demonstrating the cordiality of its welcome, we abandon to the
+imagination of the good-natured reader.
+
+Charles Marston, with the advice of his friend, Mr. Mervyn, resolved to
+lose no time in proceeding to Chester, whither it was ascertained his
+father had gone, with the declared intention of meeting and accompanying
+him home. He arrived in that town in the evening; and having previously
+learned that Doctor Danvers had been for some time in Chester, he at once
+sought him at his usual lodgings, and found the worthy old gentleman at
+his solitary "dish" of tea.
+
+"My dear Charles," said he, greeting his young friend with earnest
+warmth, "I am rejoiced beyond measure to see you. Your father is in town,
+as you supposed; and I have just had a note from him, which has, I
+confess, not a little agitated me, referring, as it does, to a subject of
+painful and horrible interest; one with which, I suppose, you are
+familiar, but upon which I myself have never yet spoken fully to any
+person, excepting your father only."
+
+"And pray, my dear sir, what is this topic?" inquired Charles, with
+marked interest.
+
+"Read this note," answered the clergyman, placing one at the same time in
+his young visitor's hand.
+
+Charles read as follows:
+
+"My Dear Sir,
+
+"I have a singular communication to make to you, but in the strictest
+privacy, with reference to a subject which, merely to name, is to awaken
+feelings of doubt and horror; I mean the confession of Merton, with
+respect to the murder of Wynston Berkley. I will call upon you this
+evening after dark; for I have certain reasons for not caring to meet old
+acquaintances about town; and if you can afford me half an hour, I
+promise to complete my intended disclosure within that time. Let us be
+strictly private; this is my only proviso.
+
+"Yours with much respect,
+
+"Richard Marston"
+
+"Your father has been sorely troubled in mind," said Doctor Danvers, as
+soon as the young man had read this communication; "he has told me as
+much; it may be that the discovery he has now made may possibly have
+relieved him from certain galling anxieties. The fear that unjust
+suspicion should light upon himself, or those connected with him, has, I
+dare say, tormented him sorely. God grant, that as the providential
+unfolding of all the details of this mysterious crime comes about, he
+maybe brought to recognize, in the just and terrible process, the hand of
+heaven. God grant, that at last his heart may be softened, and his spirit
+illuminated by the blessed influence he has so long and so sternly
+rejected."
+
+As the old man thus spake--as if in symbolic answering to his prayer--a
+sudden glory from the setting sun streamed through the funereal pile of
+clouds which filled the western horizon, and flooded the chamber where
+they were.
+
+After a silence, Charles Marston said, with some little
+embarrassment--"It may be a strange confession to make, though, indeed,
+hardly so to you--for you know but too well the gloomy reserve with which
+my father has uniformly treated me--that the exact nature of Merton's
+confession never reached my ears; and once or twice, when I approached
+the subject, in conversation with you, it seemed to me that the subject
+was one which, for some reason, it was painful to you to enter upon."
+
+"And so it was, in truth, my young friend--so it was; for that confession
+left behind it many fearful doubts, proving, indeed, nothing but the one
+fact, that, morally, the wretched man was guilty of the murder."
+
+Charles, urged by a feeling of the keenest interest, requested Dr.
+Danvers to detail to him the particulars of the dying man's narration.
+
+"Willingly," answered Dr. Danvers, with a look of gloom, and heaving a
+profound sigh--"willingly, for you have now come to an age when you may
+safely be entrusted with secrets affecting your own family, and which,
+although, thank God, as I believe they in no respect involve the honor of
+anyone of its members, yet might deeply involve its peace and its
+security against the assaults of vague and horrible slander. Here, then,
+is the narrative: Merton, when he was conscious of the approach of death,
+qualified, by a circumstantial and detailed statement, the absolute
+confession of guilt which he had at first sullenly made. In this he
+declared that the guilt of design and intention only was his--that in
+the act itself he had been anticipated. He stated, that from the moment
+when Sir Wynston's servant had casually mentioned the circumstance of his
+master's usually sleeping with his watch and pocketbook under his pillow,
+the idea of robbing him had taken possession of his mind. With the idea
+of robbing him (under the peculiar circumstances, his servant sleeping in
+the apartment close by, and the slightest alarm being, in all
+probability, sufficient to call him to the spot) the idea of anticipating
+resistance by murder had associated itself. He had contended against
+these haunting and growing solicitations of Satan, with an earnest agony.
+He had intended to leave his place, and fly from the mysterious
+temptation which he felt he wanted power to combat, but accident or fate
+prevented him. In a state of ghastly excitement he had, on the memorable
+night of Sir Wynston's murder, proceeded, as had afterwards appeared in
+evidence, by the back stair to the baronet's chamber; he had softly
+stolen into it, and gone to the bedside, with the weapon in his hand. He
+drew his breath for the decisive stroke, which was to bereave the
+(supposedly) sleeping man of life, and when stretching his left hand
+under the clothes, it rested upon a dull, cold corpse, and, at the same
+moment, his right hand was immersed in a pool of blood. He dropped the
+knife, recoiled a pace or so. With a painful effort, however, he again
+grasped with his hand to recover the weapon he had suffered to escape,
+and secured, as it afterwards turned out, not the knife with which he had
+meditated the commission of his crime, but the dagger which was
+afterwards found where he had concealed it. He was now fully alive to the
+horror of his situation; he was compromised as fully as if he had in very
+deed driven home the weapon. To be found under such circumstances, would
+convict him as surely as if fifty eyes had seen him strike the blow. He
+had nothing now for it but flight; and in order to guard himself against
+the contingency of being surprised from the door opening upon the
+corridor, he bolted it; then groped under the murdered man's pillow for
+the booty which had so fatally fascinated his imagination. Here he was
+disappointed. What further happened you already know."
+
+Charles listened with breathless attention to this recital, and, after a
+painful interval, said--
+
+"Then the actual murderer is, after all, unascertained. This is, indeed,
+horrible; it was very natural that my father should have felt the danger
+to which such a disclosure would have exposed the reputation of our
+family, yet I should have preferred encountering it, were it ten times as
+great, to the equivocal prudence of suppressing the truth with respect to
+a murder committed under my own roof."
+
+"He has, however, it would seem, arrived at some new conclusions," said
+Dr. Danvers, "and is now prepared to throw some unanticipated light upon
+the whole transaction."
+
+Even as they were talking, a knocking was heard at the hall-door, and
+after a brief and hurried consultation, it was agreed, that, considering
+the strict condition of privacy attached to this visit by Mr. Marston
+himself, as well as his reserved and wayward temper, it might be better
+for Charles to avoid presenting himself to his father on this occasion. A
+few seconds afterwards the door opened, and Mr. Marston entered the
+apartment. It was now dark, and the servant, unbidden, placed candles
+upon the table. Without answering one word to Dr. Danvers' greeting,
+Marston sat down, as it seemed, in agitated abstraction. Removing his hat
+suddenly (for he had not even made this slight homage to the laws of
+courtesy), he looked round with a care-worn, fiery eye, and a pale
+countenance, and said--
+
+"We are quite alone, Dr. Danvers--no one anywhere near?"
+
+Dr. Danvers assured him that all was secure. After a long and agitated
+pause, Marston said--
+
+"You remember Merton's confession. He admitted his intention to kill
+Berkley, but denied that he was the actual murderer. He spoke truth--no
+one knew it better than I; for I am the murderer."
+
+Dr. Danvers was so shocked and overwhelmed that he was utterly
+unable to speak.
+
+"Aye, sir, in point of law and of morals, literally and honestly, the
+murderer of Wynston Berkley. I am resolved you shall know it all. Make
+what use of it you will--I care for nothing now, but to get rid of the
+d----d, unsustainable secret, and that is done. I did not intend to kill
+the scoundrel when I went to his room; but with the just feelings of
+exasperation with which I regarded him, it would have been wiser had I
+avoided the interview; and I meant to have done so. But his candle was
+burning; I saw the light through the door, and went in. It was his evil
+fortune to indulge in his old strain of sardonic impertinence. He
+provoked me; I struck him--he struck me again--and with his own dagger I
+stabbed him three times. I did not know what I had done; I could not
+believe it. I felt neither remorse nor sorrow--why should I?--but the
+thing was horrible, astounding. There he sat in the corner of his
+cushioned chair, with the old fiendish smile on still. Sir, I never
+thought that any human shape could look so dreadful. I don't know how
+long I stayed there, freezing with horror and detestation, and yet
+unable to take my eyes from the face. Did you see it in the coffin? Sir,
+there was a sneer of triumph on it that was diabolic and prophetic."
+
+Marston was fearfully agitated as he spoke, and repeatedly wiped from his
+face the cold sweat that gathered there.
+
+"I could not leave the room by the back stairs," he resumed, "for the
+valet slept in the intervening chamber. I felt such an appalled antipathy
+to the body, that I could scarcely muster courage to pass it. But, sir, I
+am not easily cowed--I mastered this repugnance in a few minutes--or,
+rather, I acted spite of it, I knew not how; but instinctively it
+seemed to me that it was better to lay the body in the bed, than leave it
+where it was, shewing, as its position might, that the thing occurred in
+an altercation. So, sir, I raised it, and bore it softly across the room,
+and laid it in the bed; and, while I was carrying it, it swayed forward,
+the arms glided round my neck, and the head rested against my cheek--that
+was a parody upon a brotherly embrace!
+
+"I do not know at what moment it was, but some time when I was carrying
+Wynston, or laying him in the bed," continued Marston, who spoke rather
+like one pursuing a horrible reverie, than as a man relating facts to a
+listener, "I heard a light tread, and soft breathing in the lobby. A
+thunderclap would have stunned me less that minute. I moved softly,
+holding my breath, to the door. I believe, in moments of strong
+excitement, men hear more acutely than at other times; but I thought I
+heard the rustling of a gown, going from the door again. I waited--it
+ceased; I waited until all was quiet. I then extinguished the candle, and
+groped my way to the door; there was a faint light in the corridor, and I
+thought I saw a head projected from the chamber-door, next to the
+Frenchwoman's--mademoiselle's. As I came on, it was softly withdrawn,
+and the door not quite noiselessly closed. I could not be absolutely
+certain, but I learned all afterward. And now, sir, you have the story of
+Sir Wynston's murder."
+
+Dr. Danvers groaned in spirit, being wrung alike with fear and sorrow.
+With hands clasped, and head bowed down, in an exceeding bitter agony of
+soul, he murmured only the words of the Litany--"Lord, have mercy upon
+us; Christ, have mercy upon us; Lord, have mercy upon us."
+
+Marston had recovered his usual lowering aspect and gloomy
+self-possession in a few moments, and was now standing erect and defiant
+before the humbled and afflicted minister of God. The contrast was
+terrible--almost sublime.
+
+Doctor Danvers resolved to keep this dreadful secret, at least for a
+time, to himself. He could not make up his mind to inflict upon those
+whom he loved so well as Charles and Rhoda the shame and agony of such a
+disclosure; yet he was sorely troubled, for his was a conflict of duty
+and mercy, of love and justice.
+
+He told Charles Marston, when urged with earnest inquiry, that what he
+had heard that evening was intended solely for his own ear, and gently
+but peremptorily declined telling, at least until some future time, the
+substance of his father's communication.
+
+Charles now felt it necessary to see his father, for the purpose of
+letting him know the substance of the letter respecting "mademoiselle"
+and the late Sir Wynston which had reached him. Accordingly, he
+proceeded, accompanied by Doctor Danvers, on the next morning, to the
+hotel where Marston had intimated his intention of passing the night.
+
+On their inquiring for him in the hall, the porter appeared much
+perplexed and disturbed, and as they pressed him with questions, his
+answers became conflicting and mysterious. Mr. Marston was there--he had
+slept there last night; he could not say whether or not he was then in
+the house; but he knew that no one could be admitted to see him. He
+would, if the gentlemen wished it, send their cards to (not Mr. Marston,
+but) the proprietor. And, finally, he concluded by begging that they
+would themselves see "the proprietor," and dispatched a waiter to apprise
+him of the circumstances of the visit. There was something odd and even
+sinister in all this, which, along with the whispering and the curious
+glances of the waiters, who happened to hear the errand on which they
+came, inspired the two companions with vague misgivings, which they did
+not care mutually to disclose.
+
+In a few moments they were shown into a small sitting room up stairs,
+where the proprietor, a fussy little gentleman, and apparently very
+uneasy and frightened, received them.
+
+"We have called here to see Mr. Marston," said Doctor Danvers, "and the
+porter has referred us to you."
+
+"Yes, sir, exactly--precisely so," answered the little man, fidgeting
+excessively, and as it seemed, growing paler every instant; "but--but, in
+fact, sir, there is, there has been--in short, have you not heard of
+the--the accident?"
+
+He wound up with a prodigious effort, and wiped his forehead when
+he had done.
+
+"Pray, sir, be explicit: we are near friends of Mr. Marston; in fact,
+sir, this is his son," said Doctor Danvers, pointing to Charles Marston;
+"and we are both uneasy at the reserve with which our inquiries have been
+met. Do, I entreat of you, say what has happened?"
+
+"Why--why," hesitated the man, "I really--I would not for five
+hundred pounds it had happened in my house. The--the unhappy
+gentleman has, in short--"
+
+He glanced at Charles, as if afraid of the effect of the disclosure he
+was on the point of making, and then hurriedly said--"He is dead, sir; he
+was found dead in his room, this morning, at eight o'clock. I assure you
+I have not been myself ever since."
+
+Charles Marston was so stunned by this sudden blow, that he was upon the
+point of fainting. Rallying, however, with a strong effort, he demanded
+to be conducted to the chamber where the body lay. The man assented, but
+hesitated on reaching the door, and whispered something in the ear of
+Doctor Danvers, who, as he heard it, raised his hands and eyes with a
+mute expression of horror, and turning to Charles, said--
+
+"My dear young friend, remain where you are for a few moments. I will
+return to you immediately, and tell you whatever I have ascertained. You
+are in no condition for such a scene at present."
+
+Charles, indeed, felt that the fact was so, and, sick and giddy, suffered
+Doctor Danvers, with gentle compulsion, to force him into a seat.
+
+In silence the venerable clergyman followed his conductor. With a
+palpitating heart he advanced to the bedside, and twice essayed to draw
+the curtain, and twice lost courage; but gathering resolution at last,
+he pulled the drapery aside, and beheld all he was to see again of
+Richard Marston.
+
+The bedclothes were drawn so as nearly to cover the mouth.
+
+"There is the wound, sir," whispered the man, as with coarse
+officiousness he drew back the bedclothes from the throat of the corpse,
+and exhibited a gash, as it seemed, nearly severing the head from the
+body. With sickening horror Doctor Danvers turned away from the awful
+spectacle. He covered his face in his hands, and it seemed to him as if a
+soft, solemn voice whispered in his ear the mystic words, "Whoso
+sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed."
+
+The hand which, but a few years before, had, unsuspected, consigned a
+fellow-mortal to the grave, had itself avenged the murder--Marston had
+perished by his own hand.
+
+Naturally ambitious and intriguing, the perilous tendencies of such a
+spirit in Mademoiselle de Barras had never been schooled by the mighty
+and benignant principles of religion; of her accidental acquaintance at
+Rouen with Sir Wynston Berkley, and her subsequent introduction, in an
+evil hour, into the family at Gray Forest, it is unnecessary to speak.
+The unhappy terms on which she found Marston living with his wife,
+suggested, in their mutual alienation, the idea of founding a double
+influence in the household; and to conceive the idea, and to act upon it,
+were, in her active mind, the same. Young, beautiful, fascinating, she
+well knew the power of her attractions, and determined, though probably
+without one thought of transgressing the limits of literal propriety, to
+bring them to bear upon the discontented, retired roue, for whom she
+cared absolutely nothing, except as the instrument, and in part the
+victim of her schemes. Thus yielding to the double instinct that swayed
+her, she gratified, at the same time, her love of intrigue and her love
+of power. At length, however, came the hour which demanded a sacrifice to
+the evil influence she had hitherto worshipped on such easy terms. She
+found that her power must now be secured by crime, and she fell. Then
+came the arrival of Sir Wynston--his murder--her elopement with Marston,
+and her guilty and joyless triumph. At last, however, came the blow, long
+suspended and terrific, which shattered all her hopes and schemes, and
+drove her once again upon the world. The catastrophe we have just
+described. After it she made her way to Paris. Arrived in the capital of
+France, she speedily dissipated whatever remained of the money and
+valuables which she had taken with her from Gray Forest; and Madame
+Marston, as she now styled herself, was glad to place herself once more
+as a governess in an aristocratic family. So far her good fortune had
+prevailed in averting the punishment but too well earned by her past
+life. But a day of reckoning was to come. A few years later France was
+involved in the uproar and conflagration of revolution. Noble families
+were scattered, beggared, decimated; and their dependants, often dragged
+along with them into the flaming abyss, in many instances suffered the
+last dire extremities of human ill. It was at this awful period that a
+retribution so frightful and extraordinary overtook Madame Marston, that
+we may hereafter venture to make it the subject of a separate narrative.
+Until then the reader will rest satisfied with what he already knows of
+her history; and meanwhile bid a long, and as it may possibly turn out,
+an eternal farewell to that beautiful embodiment of an evil and
+disastrous influence.
+
+The concluding chapter in a novel is always brief, though seldom so short
+as the world would have it. In a tale like this, the "winding up" must be
+proportionately contracted. We have scarcely a claim to so many lines as
+the formal novelist may occupy pages, in the distribution of poetic
+justice, and the final grouping of his characters into that effective
+tableau upon which, at last, the curtain gracefully descends. We, too,
+may be all the briefer, inasmuch as the reader has doubtless anticipated
+the little we have to say. It amounts, then, to this:--Within two years
+after the fearful event which we have just recorded, an alliance had
+drawn together, in nearer and dearer union, the inmates of Gray Forest
+and Newton Park. Rhoda had given her hand to young Mervyn, of ulterior
+consequences we say nothing--the nursery is above our province. And now,
+at length, after this Christmas journey through somewhat stern and gloomy
+scenery, in this long-deferred flood of golden sunshine we bid thee,
+gentle reader, a fond farewell.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+[Transcriber's note: "Tate-a-Tate" is [sic] twice in the original book.]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Evil Guest, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EVIL GUEST ***
+
+***** This file should be named 10377.txt or 10377.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/3/7/10377/
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS," WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's
+eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII,
+compressed (zipped), HTML and others.
+
+Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over
+the old filename and etext number.  The replaced older file is renamed.
+VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving
+new filenames and etext numbers.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000,
+are filed in directories based on their release date.  If you want to
+download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular
+search system you may utilize the following addresses and just
+download by the etext year.
+
+     http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext06
+
+    (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99,
+     98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90)
+
+EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are
+filed in a different way.  The year of a release date is no longer part
+of the directory path.  The path is based on the etext number (which is
+identical to the filename).  The path to the file is made up of single
+digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename.  For
+example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/2/3/10234
+
+or filename 24689 would be found at:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689
+
+An alternative method of locating eBooks:
+     https://www.gutenberg.org/GUTINDEX.ALL
+
+
diff --git a/old/10377.zip b/old/10377.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c60fc5f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/old/10377.zip