CHAPTER XI.
HONORA
"But I did not pass it. A sound struck my ear. It was that of a smothered sob, and it came from the room where I had first seen Miss Dudleigh. Instantly a vision of that sweet form bowed in misery struck upon my still palpitating heart; and moved at a grief I knew to be well nigh as bitter as my own, I stopped before the half-closed door, and gently pushed it open.
"Miss Dudleigh at once advanced to meet me. Tears were on her cheeks, but she walked very firmly, and took my hand with an inquiry in her soft eyes that almost drove me distracted.
"'What shall I do?' I cried to myself. 'Tell this woman to beware, or leave her to fight her battles alone?' No answer came from my inmost soul. I was appalled by her weakness and my own selfishness, and bowed my head and said nothing.
"'A strange ending to the hopes of this day,' were the words that thereupon fell from her lips. 'Is—is—Marah ill, or did one of her strange moods overtake her?'
"'I do not understand Miss Leighton,' I replied. 'The time I have spent in the study of her character has been wasted. I shall never undertake to open the book again.'
"'Then,' she faltered, and an absolute terror grew in her eyes, 'you are going to leave her. She is going to be free, and—' The white cheeks grew scarlet. She evidently feared that she had shown me her heart.
"Affected, but irresolute still, I took her hand and carried it to my lips.
"'Let me thank you,' said I, 'for glimpses into a nature so noble and womanly that I am saved in this hour from cursing all womankind.'
"Ah, how she sighed.
"'You are good,' she murmured. 'You have deserved a better fate. But it is the lot of goodness and truth ever to meet with misappreciation and disdain. Here, here, only,' and she struck her breast with her clenched right hand, 'lie the rewards for honesty, long-suffering, and tenderness. In the world without there is nothing.'
"Tears, which I could not restrain, welled up to my eyes. I could never have wept for my own suffering, but for hers it seemed both natural and real. Ah, why had she thrown the treasures of her heart away upon a fool? Why had she given the trust of her heart to a villain? I opened my lips to speak; she saw his name faltering on my tongue, and stopped me.
"'Don't!' she breathed. 'I know what you would say and I cannot bear it. I was motherless, fatherless, almost friendless, and I relied upon the wisdom of an aunt, whose judgment was, perhaps, not all that it should have been. But it is too late now for regrets. I have launched my boat, and it must sail on; only—you are an honest man and will respect my confidence—was it Mr. Urquhart I saw on the outskirts of the crowd to-day?'
"I bowed. I knew she had not asked because she had any doubts as to the fact of his being there, but because she wanted to see if I had recognized him and owed any of my misery to that fact.
"'It was he,' said I, and said no more.
"The mask fell from her countenance. She clasped her hands together till they showed white as marble.
"'Oh! we are four miserable ones!' she cried. 'He—'
"It was my turn to stop her.
"'I would rather you did not say it,' I exclaimed. 'I can bear much, but not to hear another person utter words that will force me to think of the dagger I carry always in my breast. Besides, we may be mistaken.' I did not believe it, but I forced myself to say it. 'She declares he is nothing to her, and if that is so, you might wish to have kept silent.'
"'She says! Ah! can you believe her? do you?'
"'I must—or go mad.'
"'Then I will believe her, too. I am so slightly tied to this world that has deceived me, that I will trust on a little while longer, even if my trust lands me in my grave. I had rather die than discover deceit where I had looked for honesty and gratitude.'
"I was a coward, perhaps, but I did not try to dissuade her. Though she was fatherless and motherless, and loverless and friendless, I let her grasp at this wisp of hope and cling to it, though I knew it would never hold, and that her only chance for happiness was passing from her.
"'If he were not poor,' she now breathed rather than whispered, 'I would find it easier to rend myself free. But he has nothing but what lies in my future, and if I should make a mistake and do injustice to a man that is merely suffering under a temporary intoxication, I should rob him of his only hope, without adding one chance to my own.'
"I bowed, and made a movement toward the door. I could not stand much more of this strain.
"'You are going?' she cried. 'Well, I cannot keep you. But that dagger! You will promise me to throw it away? You do not need it in defense, and you do not want to kill me before my time.'
"No, no; I did not want to kill her. Grief was doing that fast enough; so I thought at that time. Shuddering, but resolute, I drew the tiny steel from my breast and laid it in her hand.
"'It is all I can give you to show you my appreciation of your goodness.' And not trusting myself to linger longer lest I should take it again from her hand, I went out and walked hastily from the house.
"If you asked me what road I took, or through what streets I passed, or whose eye I encountered in my next hour's walking through the town, I could not tell you. If jeers followed me, I heard them not; if I was the recipient of sympathizing looks and wondering conjectures, they were all lost upon eyes that were blind and ears that were deaf. I did not even feel; and did not realize till night that I had been wandering for hours without my cloak, which I had left in the carriage and forgotten to take again when I went out. The first knowledge I had of my surroundings was when I found an obstruction in my path, and looking up, saw myself in front of my own door, and not two feet from me, Edwin Urquhart."
CHAPTER XII.
EDWIN URQUHART
IN that moment Mark Felt paused and cast a glance toward the Hudson far below us. Then he resumed his narrative.
"I drew back," he said, "and clenched my hands to keep myself from strangling Urquhart. Then I broke into hurried pants, that subsided gradually into words of perplexity and amazement as I met his eye, and realized that it contained nothing but a rude sort of sympathy and good fellowship.
"'How? Why? What do you mean by coming back?' I cried. 'You said you would be gone a week. You swore—'
"A gay laugh interrupted me.
"'And must a man keep every oath he makes, especially when it separates him from a charming betrothed, and a friend who swore that he would make this day his wedding one?'
"'Urquhart!'
"'Felt!'
"'Are you a monster or are you—'
"'A self-possessed man who is going to take in charge a crazy one. Come into the house, Mark, a dozen eyes can see us here.'
"He took me in charge; he piloted me into my own dwelling—he whose whole body I had always esteemed weaker than my little finger; my enemy too, or so I considered him; the cause of half my grief, of all my shame, the beginning and end of my hatreds.
"When we were closeted, as we soon were in the room I had expended so much upon to make worthy of my bride, he came and stood before me and uttered these unexpected words:
"'Felt, I like you. You are the only friend I have, and I am indebted to you. Now, what have you against me?'
"I was astonished. His whole look and bearing were so different from what I had expected, so different from anything I had ever seen in him before. I began to question my doubts, and dropped my eyes as he pursued:
"'You have been disappointed in your marriage, I hear; but that need not make you as downcast as this. A woman as capricious as Miss Leighton might easily imagine she was too ill to go through the ceremony to-day. But she must have repented of her folly by this time, and in a week will reward you as your patience deserves. But what have I got to do with it? For incredible as it appears, your every look and tone assures me that you blame me for this mishap.'
"Was he daring me? If so, he should find me his equal. I raised my eyes and surveyed him.
"'Shall I tell you why this is so—why I associate Miss Leighton's caprice with your return, and regard both with suspicion? Because I have seen you look on her with love; because I have surprised the passion in your face and beheld her—'
"'Well?'
"The tone was indescribable. It was as if a hand had taken me by the throat and choked me. I drew off and was silent.
"He seized the word at once.
"'You have seen nothing. If you think you have, then have you deceived yourself. Marah Leighton has beauty, but it is not a kind that moves me—'
"He paled. Was it horror of the lie he was uttering? I have never known, never shall know.
"'The woman I am going to marry is Honora Dudleigh.'
"I gazed at him, determined to find the truth if it were in him. He bore my look unflinchingly, though his color did not return, and his hands trembled nervously.
"'You love her?' I asked.
"'I love her,' he returned.
"'And your wedding day—'
"'Is set.'
"'May it have no interruptions,' I remarked.
"He laughed—an uneasy laugh, I thought—but jealousy was not yet dead within me.
"'And yours?' he inquired.
"'I have had mine,' I returned. 'I shall never have another.'
"He shook his head and looked at me inquisitively. I repeated my assertion.
"'I shall never approach the altar again with a woman. I am done with such things, and done with love.'
"He finished his laugh.
"'Wait till you see Marah Leighton smile again,' he cried; and with the first reappearance of his old manner that I had seen in him since the beginning of this interview, he caught up a wine glass off the table, and filling it with wine, exclaimed jovially: 'Here's to our future wives! May they be all that love paints them!'
"I thought his mirth indecent, his manner out of keeping with the occasion, and the whole situation atrocious. But I saw he was about to leave, and said nothing; but I did not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass I had bought to mirror her beauty; and before the day was spent, I had destroyed every destructible article in the house whose value or whose prettiness spoke of the attempt I had made to alter my home from a bachelor's abode to the nest I had thought in keeping with the dove I had failed to place there. As I did it I filled the house with mocking laughter; that I should have thought that this or that would please her, who would have found a palace open to criticism, and the splendors of a throne room scarce grand enough for her taste! I was but suffering the stings of a lifetime compressed into a day, and was miserable because I could see no prospect but further addition to my suffering."
CHAPTER XIII.
BEFORE THE WEDDING
"Two weeks after this I was sitting beside my solitary hearth, musing upon my misery and longing for the blessed relief of sleep. There was no one with me in the house. I had dismissed every servant; for I would have no spies about me, prying into my misery; and though I could not keep the world of men and women from my doors, I could at least refuse to admit them; and this I did—living the life of a recluse almost as much as I do here, but with less ease, because the wind would bring whispers, and the walls were not thick enough to shut out from my fancy the curious glances I felt to be cast upon them by every passer-by that wandered through the street.
"On this night I had been thinking of Miss Dudleigh, of whose visibly failing health various murmurs had reached me, and I felt, notwithstanding my determination to hold myself aloof from every one and everything that could in any way reopen my still smarting wound, I could more easily find the sleep I longed for if some word from the great house would relieve the suspense in which my ignorance kept me. But I would not go there if I died of my anxiety, nor would I stoop to question any of the market men or women, who were the only persons admitted now within my doors.
"The clock was striking, and the strange sense of desolation which is inseparable from this sound to a solitary man (you see I have no clock here) was stealing over me, when I heard a tap on one of the windows overlooking my small garden, and a voice came through the lattice, crying:
"'Massa—Massa Felt.'
"I knew the voice at once. It was that of one of Miss Dudleigh's servants, an honest black, who had always been devoted to me from the day he did me some trifling service with Miss Leighton. Hearing it now, and after such thoughts, I was so moved by the promise it gave of news from the one quarter I desired, that I stumbled as I rose, and found difficulty in answering him. Nor did I recover my self-possession for hours; for the story he had to tell—after numerous apologies for his presumption in disturbing me—was so significant of coming evil that my mind was thrown again into turmoil, and the passions which I had tried to smother were roused again into action.
"It was simply this: That one evening after Mr. Urquhart's departure, and the extinguishing of all the lights in the house, he had occasion to cross the garden. That in doing this he had heard voices, and, stepping cautiously forward, perceived, lying upon the snow-covered ground, near a certain belt of evergreens, the shadows of two persons, whose forms were hidden from his sight. Being both curious and concerned, he halted before coming too close and, listening, heard Mr. Urquhart's voice, and presently that of Miss Leighton, both speaking very earnestly.
"'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking?' was what the former had said.
"'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,' was what the latter had replied.
"Frightened at a discovery which might mean nothing and which might mean misery to a mistress the day of whose marriage was scarcely a month away, the negro held his breath, determined to hear more. He was immediately rewarded by catching the words: 'You are a brave girl and my queen!' and then something like a prayer for a kiss, or some such favor, as a seal to their compact. But to this she returned a vigorous 'No,' followed by the mysterious sentence: 'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.'
"After which they made a move as if to separate, which action so alarmed the now deeply disconcerted negro that he drew back in haste, hiding behind some neighboring bushes till they had passed him and disappeared, he out of the gate, and she through the small side entrance into the house. This was the previous night, and for nearly twenty-four hours the poor negro had tortured himself as to what he should do with the information thus surreptitiously gained. He lacked the courage to tell his mistress, and finally he had thought of me, who was her best friend, and who must have known there was something amiss with Miss Leighton, or why had I not married her when everything was ready and the minister waiting with his book in his hand?
"Not answering this insinuation, I put to him one or two of the many questions that were burning in my brain. Had he told any of the other servants what he had seen? And did Miss Dudleigh look as if she suspected there was anything wrong?
"He answered that he had not dared to speak a word of it even to his wife; and as for Miss Dudleigh, she was ill so much of the time that it was hard to tell whether she had any other cause for uneasiness or not. He only knew that she was greatly changed since this miserable deceiver came into the house.
"I believed him, and amid all my struggle and wrath tried to fix my mind upon her alone. I succeeded only partially, but enough to enable me to write this line, which I entreated him to carry to her:
'Honored Miss Dudleigh—You will forgive me if I overstep the bounds of friendship in yielding to the inner voice which compels me to say that if before or on your marriage day you need advice or protection, you may command both from
Your respectful servant,'Mark Felt.'
"I did not expect a reply to this note, and I did not receive any. I thought I went as far as my position toward her allowed, but I have questioned it since—questioned if I should not have told her what the negro had heard and seen, and let her own judgment decide her fate. But I was not in my right mind in those days. I was too much a part of all this misery to be a fair judge of my own duty; and then the mysterious nature of Miss Leighton's remark, the incomprehensibility of the words—'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I shall give you everything'—added such unreality to the scene, and awakened such curious conjectures, that I did not know where any of us stood, or to what especial misery the future pointed.
"'Till she was dead!' What could she, what did she mean? She would then give him everything! Ah! ah!—when she was dead! Well, so be it. Meanwhile, there was no prospect of death for any one, unless it was for Miss Dudleigh, whom rumor acknowledged to be still fading, though everything was being done for her comfort, and physician after physician employed.
"I saw Cæsar once again in these days. I met him in the street, seemingly greatly to his delight, for he smiled till his teeth shone from ear to ear, and made haste to remark, in quite a jovial voice:
"'I specs it's all right, massa. Massa Urquhart never looks at Miss Leighton now, but always doin' his best for missus, making her smile quite happy when she isn't coughing that dreadful cough. We will have a gay wedding yet. Yes; Miss Leighton seems to spect that; for she all de time making pretty things and trying them on missus, and laughing and cheering her up, just as if she didn't spect any one to die.'
"Yes, but this change of manner frightened me. I grew feverishly anxious, and spent night and day in asking myself unanswerable questions. Nor did these in any way abate when one day I was startled by the tidings that all preparations for refitting the great house had stopped; that the doctors had decided that Miss Dudleigh must remove to a warmer climate, and that accordingly upon her marriage she and her husband would set sail for the Bermudas, there to take up their abode till her health was quite restored. I doubted my ears; I doubted the facts; I doubted Urquhart, and I doubted one other most of all whose name I find it hard to mention even to myself.
"Yet I should not have doubted her; I should have remembered the flame that was always burning in the depths of her eyes, and had confidence in that, if in nothing else. What if she had always been cold to me; she was not cold to him, and I should have known this and prepared myself. But I did not. I knew neither the extent of his villainy nor that of her despair. Had I done so, I might not have been crouching here a disappointed and hopeless man, while she—
"But I am running beyond my tale. After the news I had just imparted, I heard nothing more till the very week of the wedding. Then one of Miss Dudleigh's servants came to me with a note, the result of which was, that I walked out in the afternoon, and that she passed me in her carriage, and seeing me, stopped the horses and took me in, and that we rode on a short distance together.
"'I wish to talk to you,' she said. 'I wish to proffer you a request; to beg of you a favor. I want you,' she stammered and her eyes filled with tears, 'to see me married.'
"I opened my eyes with a quick denial, but I closed them again without speaking. After all, why not please her? Could I suffer more at this wedding than in thinking over it in my dungeon of a room at home? She would be there, of course, but I need not look at her; and if he or she meditated any treachery, where ought I to be but in the one place where my presence would be most useful? I decided to gratify Miss Dudleigh, almost before the inquiry in her eyes had changed to a look of suspense. 'Yes, I will come,' said I.
"She drew a deep breath, and smiled with tender sweetness.
"'I thank you,' she rejoined. 'I thank you most deeply and most truly. I do not know why I desired it so much. Possibly because I feel something like a sister to you, possibly because I feel afraid—'
"She stopped, blushing. 'I do not mean afraid. Why should I feel afraid? Edwin is very good to me; very good. I did not know he could be so attentive.' And she sighed.
"I felt that sigh go through and through me. Looking at her I took a sudden resolution.
"'Honora,' I said (I had never called her by her first name before), 'do not give your happiness into Edwin Urquhart's keeping. You have yet three days before you for reconsideration. Break your bonds, and, unhampered by uncongenial ties, seek in another climate for that peace of mind you will never enjoy here or elsewhere as his wife.'
"She stared at me for a moment with wide-open and appealing eyes; then she shook her head, and answered quietly:
"'One broken-off wedding in the family is enough. I cannot shock society with another. But, oh, Mark! why did you not warn me at first? I think I would have listened; I think so.'
"'Forgive me,' I entreated. 'You know it would have been presumptuous in me at first; afterward she stood in the way.'
"'I know,' she answered, and turned away her head.
"I saw she did not wish me to leave her yet; so I said:
"'You are going away; you are going to leave Albany.'
"'I must, or so Edwin thinks. He says I will never recover in this climate.'
"'Do you wish to go?'
"'Yes; I think I do. I can never be happy here, and perhaps when we are far away, and have only each other to think of, the love and confidence of which I have dreamed may come. At all events, I comfort myself with that hope.'
"'But it is a long, long sea voyage. Have you strength enough to carry you through?'
"'If I have not,' she intimated, with a mournful smile, 'he will be free, and I released without scandal from a marriage that fills you with apprehension.'
"'Oh,' I cried, 'would I were your brother indeed! This should never go on.' Then impelled by what I thought to be my duty, I inquired: 'And your money, Honora?'
"She flushed, but answered in the same spirit in which I had spoken.
"'As little of it as may be will remain with him. That much my old guardian insisted upon. Do not ask me any more questions, Mark.'
"'None of a nature so personal,' I promised. 'But there is one thing—can you not guess what it is?—which I ought to know. It is about Marah.'
"The words came with effort, and hurt her as much as me. But she answered bravely:
"'She returns to Schenectady the same day that we depart. I hoped she would not linger to the wedding, but she seems to have a strange desire to face again the people who have talked about her so freely these last few weeks. So what can I say to dissuade her?'
"'Let her stay,' I muttered; 'but let her beware how she behaves on that day, for there will be two eyes watching her, prompt to see any treachery, and prompt, too, to avenge it.'
"'You will have nothing to avenge,' murmured Honora; 'that is all in the past.'
"I prayed to Heaven she might be right, and ere long bowed in adieu and left her. I saw neither herself nor any one else again till I entered the Dudleigh mansion three days later to witness her nuptials."