Dr. Amboyne and Raby cried out, and tried to interfere; but Grace's movement was too swift, furious, and sudden; she was upon the man, with her stiletto high in the air, before they could get to her, and indeed the blow descended, and, inspired as it was by love, and hate, and fury, would doubtless have buried the weapon in a rascal's body; but Jael Dence caught Grace's arm: that weakened, and also diverted the blow; yet the slight, keen weapon pierced Coventry's cheek, and even inflicted a slight wound upon the tongue. That very moment Jael Dence dragged her away, and held her round the waist, writhing and striking the air; her white hand and bridal sleeve sprinkled with her bridegroom's blood.
As for him, his love, criminal as it was, supplied the place of heroism: he never put up a finger in defense. “No,” said he, despairingly, “let me die by her hand; it is all I hope for now.” He even drew near her to enable her to carry out her wish: but, on that, Jael Dence wrenched her round directly, and Dr. Amboyne disarmed her, and Raby marched between the bride and the bridegroom, and kept them apart: then they all drew their breath, for the first time, and looked aghast at each other.
Not a face in that room had an atom of color left in it; yet it was not until the worst was over that they realized the savage scene.
The bridegroom leaned against the wardrobe, a picture of despair, with blood trickling from his cheek, and channeling his white waist-coat and linen; the bride, her white and bridal sleeve spotted with blood, writhed feebly in Jael Dence's arms, and her teeth clicked together, and her eyes shone wildly. At that moment she was on the brink of frenzy.
Raby, a man by nature, and equal to great situations, was the first to recover self-possession and see his way. “Silence!” said he, sternly. “Amboyne, here's a wounded man; attend to him.”
He had no need to say that twice; the doctor examined his patient zealously, and found him bleeding from the tongue as well as the cheek; he made him fill his mouth with a constant supply of cold water, and applied cold water to the nape of his neck.
And now there was a knock at the door, and a voice inquired rather impatiently, what they were about all this time. It was Mr. Carden's voice.
They let him in, but instantly closed the door. “Now, hush!” said Raby, “and let me tell him.” He then, in a very few hurried words, told him the matter. Coventry hung his head lower and lower.
Mr. Carden was terribly shaken. He could hardly speak for some time. When he did, it was in the way of feeble expostulation. “Oh, my child! my child! what, would you commit murder?”
“Don't you see I would,” cried she, contemptuously, “sooner than HE should do it, and suffer for it like a felon? You are all blind, and no friends of mine. I should have rid the earth of a monster, and they would never have hanged ME. I hate you all, you worst of all, that call yourself my father, and drove me to marry this villain. One thing—you won't be always at hand to protect him.”
“I'll give you every opportunity,” said Coventry, doggedly. “You shall kill me for loving you so madly.”
“She shall do no such thing,” said Mr. Carden. “Opportunity? do you know her so little as to think she will ever live with you. Get out of my house, and never presume to set foot in at again. My good friends, have pity on a miserable father and help me to hide this monstrous thing from the world.”
This appeal was not lost: the gentlemen put their heads together and led Coventry into another room. There Dr. Amboyne attended to him, while Mr. Carden went down and told his guests the bridegroom had been taken ill, so seriously indeed that anxiety and alarm had taken the place of joy.
The guests took the hint and dispersed, wondering and curious.
Meantime, on one side of a plaster wall Amboyne was attending the bridegroom, and stanching the effusion of blood; on the other, Raby and Jael Dence were bringing the bride to reason.
She listened to nothing they could say until they promised her most solemnly that she should never be compelled to pass a night under the same roof as Frederick Coventry. That pacified her not a little.
Dr. Amboyne had also great trouble with his patient: the wound in the cheek was not serious; but, by a sort of physical retribution—of which, by-the-bye, I have encountered many curious examples—the tongue, that guilty part of Frederick Coventry, though slightly punctured, bled so persistently that Amboyne was obliged to fill his mouth with ice, and at last support him with stimulants. He peremptorily refused to let him be moved from Woodbine Villa.
When this was communicated to Grace, she instantly exacted Raby's promise; and as he was a man who never went from his word, he drove her and Jael to Raby Hall that very night, and they left Coventry in the villa, attended by a surgeon, under whose care Amboyne had left him with strict injunctions. Mr. Carden was secretly mortified at his daughter's retreat, but raised no objection.
Next morning, however, he told Coventry; and then Coventry insisted on leaving the house. “I am unfortunate enough,” said he: “do not let me separate my only friend from his daughter.”
Mr. Carden sent a carriage off to Raby Hall, with a note, telling Grace Mr. Coventry was gone of his own accord, and appeared truly penitent, and much shocked at having inadvertently driven her out of the house. He promised also to protect her, should Coventry break his word and attempted to assume marital rights without her concurrence.
This letter found Grace in a most uncomfortable position. Mrs. Little had returned late to Raby Hall; but in the morning she heard from Jael Dence that Grace was in the house, and why.
The mother's feathers were up, and she could neither pity nor excuse. She would not give the unhappy girl a word of comfort. Indeed, she sternly refused to see her. “No,” said she: “Mrs. Coventry is unhappy; so this is no time to show her how thoroughly Henry Little's mother despises her.”
These bitter words never reached poor Grace, but the bare fact of Mrs. Little not coming down-stairs by one o'clock, nor sending a civil message, spoke volumes, and Grace was sighing over it when her father's letter came. She went home directly, and so heartbroken, that Jael Dence pitied her deeply, and went with her, intending to stay a day or two only.
But every day something or other occurred, which combined with Grace's prayers to keep her at Woodbine Villa.
Mr. Coventry remained quiet for some days, by which means he pacified Grace's terrors.
On the fourth day Mr. Beresford called at Woodbine Villa, and Grace received him, he being the curate of the parish.
He spoke to her in a sympathetic tone, which let her know at once he was partly in the secret. He said he had just visited a very guilty, but penitent man; that we all need forgiveness, and that a woman, once married, has no chance of happiness but with her husband.
Grace maintained a dead silence, only her eye began to glitter.
Mr. Beresford, who had learned to watch the countenance of all those he spoke to changed his tone immediately, from a spiritual to a secular adviser.
“If I were you,” said he, in rather an offhand way, “I would either forgive this man the sin into which his love has betrayed him, or I would try to get a divorce. This would cost money: but, if you don't mind expense, I think I could suggest a way—”
Grace interrupted him. “From whom did you learn my misery, and his villainy? I let you in, because I thought you came from God; but you come from a villain. Go back, sir, and say that an angel, sent by him, becomes a devil in my eyes.” And she rang the bell with a look that spoke volumes.
Mr. Beresford bowed, smiled bitterly, and went back to Coventry, with whom he had a curious interview, that ended in Coventry lending him two hundred pounds on his personal security. To dispose of Mr. Beresford for the present I will add that, soon after this, his zeal for the poor subjected him to an affront. He was a man of soup-kitchens and subscriptions. One of the old fogies, who disliked him, wrote letters to The Liberal, and demanded an account of his receipts and expenditure in these worthy objects, and repeated the demand with a pertinacity that implied suspicion. Then Mr. Beresford called upon Dr. Fynes, and showed him the letters, and confessed to him that he never kept any accounts, either of public or private expenditure. “I can construe Apollonius Rhodius—with your assistance, sir,” said he, “but I never could add up pounds, shillings, and pence; far less divide them except amongst the afflicted.” “Take no notice of the cads,” said Dr. Fynes. But Beresford represented meekly that a clergyman's value and usefulness were gone when once a slur was thrown upon him. Then Dr. Fynes gave him high testimonials, and they parted with mutual regret.
It took Grace a day to get over her interview with Mr. Beresford; and when with Jael's help she was calm again, she received a letter from Coventry, indited in tones of the deepest penitence, but reminding her that he had offered her his life, had made no resistance when she offered to take it, and never would.
There was nothing in the letter that irritated her, but she saw in it an attempt to open a correspondence. She wrote back:
“If you really repent your crimes, and have any true pity for the poor creature whose happiness you have wrecked, show it by leaving this place, and ceasing all communication with her.”
This galled Coventry, and he wrote back:
“What! leave the coast clear to Mr. Little? No, Mrs. Coventry; no.”
Grace made no reply, but a great terror seized her, and from that hour preyed constantly on her mind—the fear that Coventry and Little would meet, and the man she loved would do some rash act, and perhaps perish on the scaffold for it.
This was the dominant sentiment of her distracted heart, when one day, at eleven A.M., came a telegram from Liverpool:
“Just landed. Will be with you by four.
“HENRY LITTLE.”
Jael found her shaking all over, with this telegram in her hand.
“Thank God you are with me!” she gasped. “Let me see him once more, and die.”
This was her first thought; but all that day she was never in the same mind for long together. She would burst out into joy that he was really alive, and she should see his face once more. Then she would cower with terror, and say she dared not look him in the face; she was not worthy. Then she would ask wildly, who was to tell him? What would become of him?
“It would break his heart, or destroy his reason. After all he had done and suffered for her!”
Oh! why could she not die before he came? Seeing her dead body he would forgive her. She should tell him she loved him still, should always love him. She would withhold no comfort. Perhaps he would kill her, if so, Jael must manage so that he should not be taken up or tormented any more, for such a wretch as she was.
But I might as well try to dissect a storm, and write the gusts of a tempest, as to describe all the waves of passion in that fluctuating and agonized heart: the feelings and the agitation of a life were crowded into those few hours, during which she awaited the lover she had lost.
At last, Jael Dence, though she was also much agitated and perplexed, decided on a course of action. Just before four o'clock she took Grace upstairs and told her she might see him arrive, but she must not come down until she was sent for. “I shall see him first, and tell him all; and, when he is fit to see you, I will let you know.”
Grace submitted, and even consented to lie down for half an hour. She was now, in truth, scarcely able to stand, being worn out with the mental struggle. She lay passive, with Jael Dence's hand in hers.
When she had lain so about an hour, she started up suddenly, and the next moment a fly stopped at the door. Henry Little got out at the gate, and walked up the gravel to the house.
Grace looked at him from behind the curtain, gazed at him till he disappeared, and then turned round, with seraphic joy on her countenance. “My darling!” she murmured; “more beautiful than ever! Oh misery! misery!”
One moment her heart was warm with rapture, the next it was cold with despair. But the joy was blind love; the despair was reason.
She waited, and waited, but no summons came.
She could not deny herself the sound of his voice. She crept down the stairs, and into her father's library, separated only by thin folding-doors from the room where Henry Little was with Jael Dence.
Meantime Jael Dence opened the door to Henry Little, and, putting her fingers to her lips, led him into the dining-room and shut the door.
Now, as his suspicions were already excited, this reception alarmed him seriously. As soon as ever they were alone, he seized both Jael's hands, and, looking her full in the face, said:
“One word—is she alive?”
“She is.”
“Thank god! Bless the tongue that tells me that. My good Jael! my best friend!” And, with that, kissed her heartily on both cheeks.
She received this embrace like a woman of wood; a faint color rose, but retired directly, and left her cheek as pale as before.
He noticed her strange coldness, and his heart began to quake.
“There is something the matter?” he whispered.
“There is.”
“Something you don't like to tell me?”
“Like to tell you! I need all my courage, and you yours.”
“Say she is alive, once more.”
“She is alive, and not likely to die; but she does not care to live now. They told her you were dead; they told her you were false; appearances were such she had no chance not to be deceived. She held out for a long time; but they got the better of her—her father is much to blame—she is—married.”
“Married!”
“Yes!”
“Married!” He leaned, sick as death, against the mantel-piece, and gasped so terribly that Jael's fortitude gave way, and she began to cry.
After a long time he got a word or two out in a broken voice.
“The false—inconstant—wretch! Oh Heaven! what I have done and suffered for her—and now married!—married! And the earth doesn't swallow her, nor the thunder strike her! Curse her, curse her husband, curse her children! may her name be a by-word for shame and misery—”
“Hush! hush! or you will curse your own mad tongue. Hear all, before you judge her.”
“I have heard all; she is a wife; she shall soon be a widow. Thought I was false! What business had she to think I was false? It is only false hearts that suspect true ones. She thought me dead? Why? Because I was out of sight. She heard there was a dead hand found in the river. Why didn't she go and see it? Could all creation pass another hand off on me for hers? No; for I loved her. She never loved me.”
“She loved you, and loves you still. When that dead hand was found, she fell swooning, and lay at death's door for you, and now she has stained her hands with blood for you. She tried to kill her husband, the moment she found you were alive and true, and he had made a fool of her.”
“TRIED to kill him! Why didn't she do it? I should not have failed at such work. I love her.”
“Blame me for that; I stopped her arm, and I am stronger than she is. I say she is no more to blame than you. You have acted like a madman, and she suffers for it. Why did you slip away at night like that, and not tell me?”
“I left letters to you and her, and other people besides.”
“Yes, left them, and hadn't the sense to post them. Why didn't you TELL me? Had ever any young man as faithful and true a friend in any young woman as you had in me? Many a man has saved a woman's life, but it isn't often that a woman fights for a man, and gets the upper hand: yet you gave me nothing in return; not even your confidence. Look the truth in the face, my lad; all your trouble, and all hers, comes of your sneaking out of Hillsborough in that daft way, without a word to me, the true friend, that was next door to you; which I nearly lost my life by your fault; for, if you had told me, I should have seen you off, and so escaped a month's hospital, and other troubles that almost drove me crazy. Don't you abuse that poor young lady before me, or I sha'n't spare you. She is more to be pitied than you are. Folk should look at home for the cause of their troubles; her misery, and yours, it is all owing to your own folly and ingratitude; ay, you may look; I mean what I say—ingratitude.”
The attack was so sudden and powerful that Henry Little was staggered and silenced; but an unexpected defender appeared on the scene; one of the folding-doors was torn open, and Grace darted in.
“How dare you say it is his fault, poor ill-used angel! No, no, no, no, I am the only one to blame. I didn't love you as you deserved. I tried to die for you, and FAILED. I tried to kill that monster for you, and FAILED. I am too weak and silly; I shall only make you more unhapppy. Give me one kiss, my own darling, and then kill me out of the way.” With this she was over his knees and round his neck in a moment, weeping, and clutching him with a passionate despair that melted all his anger away, and soon his own tears tell on her like rain.
“Ah, Grace! Grace!” he sobbed, “how could you? how could you?”
“Don't speak unkindly to her,” cried Jael, “or she won't be alive a day. She is worse off than you are; and so is he too.”
“You mock me; he is her husband. He can make her live with him. He can—” Here he broke out cursing and blaspheming, and called Grace a viper, and half thrust her away from him with horror, and his face filled with jealous anguish: he looked like a man dying of poison.
Then he rose to his feet, and said, with a sort of deadly calm, “Where can I find the man?”
“Not in this house, you may be sure,” said Jael; “nor in any house where she is.”
Henry sank into his seat again, and looked amazed.
“Tell him all,” said Grace. “Don't let him think I do not love him at all.”
“I will,” said Jael. “Well, the wedding was at eleven; your letter came at half-past twelve, and I took it her. Soon after that the villain came to her, and she stabbed him directly with this stiletto. Look at it; there's his blood up on it; I kept it to show you. I caught her arm, or she would have killed him, I believe. He lost so much blood, the doctor would not let him be moved. Then she thought of you still, and would not pass a night under the same roof with him; at two o'clock she was on the way to Raby; but Mr. Coventry was too much of a man to stay in the house and drive her out; so he went off next morning, and, as soon as she heard that, she came home. She is wife and no wife, as the saying is, and how it is all to end Heaven only knows.”
“It will end the moment I meet the man; and that won't be long.”
“There! there!” cried Grace, “that is what I feared. Ah, Jael! Jael! why did you hold my hand? They would not have hung ME. I told you so at the time: I knew what I was about.”
“Jael,” said the young man, “of all the kind things you have done for me, that was the kindest. You saved my poor girl from worse trouble than she is now in. No, Grace; you shall not dirty your hand with such scum as that: it is my business, and mine only.”
In vain did Jael expostulate, and Grace implore. In vain did Jael assure him that Coventry was in a worse position than himself, and try to make him see that any rash act of his would make Grace even more miserable than she was at present. He replied that he had no intention of running his neck into a halter; he should act warily, like the Hillsborough Trades, and strike his blow so cunningly that the criminal should never know whence it came. “I've been in a good school for homicide,” said he; “and I am an inventor. No man has ever played the executioner so ingeniously as I will play it. Think of all this scoundrel has done to me: he owes me a dozen lives, and I'll take one. Man shall never detect me: God knows all, and will forgive me, I hope. If He doesn't, I can't help it.”
He kissed Grace again and again, and comforted her; said she was not to blame; honest people were no match for villains: if she had been twice as simple, he would have forgiven her at sight of the stiletto; that cleared her, in his mind, better than words.
He was now soft and gentle as a lamb. He begged Jael's pardon humbly for leaving Hillsborough without telling her. He said he had gone up to her room; but all was still; and he was a working man, and the sleep of a working-woman was sacred to him—(he would have awakened a fine lady without ceremony). Be assured her he had left a note for her in his box, thanking and blessing her for all her goodness. He said that he hoped he might yet live to prove by acts, and not by idle words, how deeply he felt all she had done and suffered for him.
Jael received these excuses in hard silence. “That is enough about me,” said she, coldly. “If you are grateful to me, show it by taking my advice. Leave vengeance to Him who has said that vengeance is His.”
The man's whole manner changed directly, and he said doggedly:
“Well, I will be His instrument.”
“He will choose His own.”
“I'll lend my humble co-operation.”
“Oh, do not argue with him,” said Grace, piteously. “When did a man ever yield to our arguments? Dearest, I can't argue: but I am full of misery, and full of fears. You see my love; you forgive my folly. Have pity on me; think of my condition: do not doom me to live in terror by night and day: have I not enough to endure, my own darling? There, promise me you will do nothing rash to-night, and that you will come to me the first thing to-morrow. Why, you have not seen your mother yet; she is at Raby Hall.”
“My dear mother!” said he: “it would be a poor return for all your love if I couldn't put off looking for that scum till I have taken you in my arms.”
And so Grace got a reprieve.
They parted in deep sorrow, but almost as lovingly as ever, and Little went at once to Raby Hall, and Grace, exhausted by so many emotions, lay helpless on a couch in her own room all the rest of the day.
For some time she lay in utter prostration, and only the tears that trickled at intervals down her pale cheeks showed that she was conscious of her miserable situation.
Jael begged and coaxed her to take some nourishment: but she shook her head with disgust at the very idea.
For all that at nine o'clock, her faithful friend almost forced a few spoonfuls of tea down her throat, feeding her like a child: and, when she had taken it, she tried to thank her, but choked in the middle, and, flinging her arm round Jael's neck, burst into a passion of weeping, and incoherent cries of love, and pity, and despair. “Oh, my darling! so great! so noble! so brave! so gentle! And I have destroyed us both! he forgave me as soon as he SAW me! So terrible, so gentle! What will be the next calamity? Ah, Jael! save him from that rash act, and I shall never complain; for he was dead, and is alive again.”
“We will find some way to do that between us—you, and I, and his mother.”
“Ah, yes: she will be on my side in that. But she will be hard upon me. She will point out all my faults, my execrable folly. Ah, if I could but live my time over again, I'd pray night and day for selfishness. They teach us girls to pray for this and that virtue, which we have too much of already; and what we ought to pray for is selfishness. But no! I must think of my father, and think of that hypocrite: but the one person whose feelings I was too mean, and base, and silly to consult, was myself. I always abhorred this marriage. I feared it, and loathed it; yet I yielded step by step, for want of a little selfishness; we are slaves without it—mean, pitiful, contemptible slaves. O God, in mercy give me selfishness! Ah me, it is too late now. I am a lost creature; nothing is left me but to die.”
Jael got her to bed, and sleep came at last to her exhausted body; but, even when her eyes were closed, tears found their way through the lids, and wetted her pillow.
So can great hearts and loving natures suffer.
Can they enjoy in proportion?
Let us hope so. But I have my doubts.
Henry Little kept his word, and came early next morning. He looked hopeful and excited: he said he had thought the matter over, and was quite content to let that scoundrel live, and even to dismiss all thought of him, if Grace really loved him.
“If I love you!” said Grace. “Oh, Henry, why did I ask you to do nothing rash, but that I love you? Why did I attempt his life myself? because you said in your letter—It was not to revenge myself, but to save you from more calamity. Cruel, cruel! Do I love him?”
“I know you love me, Grace: but do you love me enough? Will you give up the world for me, and let us be happy together, the only way we can? My darling Grace, I have made our fortune; all the world lies before us; I left England alone, for you; now leave it with me, and let us roam the world together.”
“Henry!—what!—when I can not be your wife!”
“You can be my wife; my wife in reality, as you are his in name and nothing else. It is idle to talk as if we were in some ordinary situation. There are plenty of countries that would disown such a marriage as yours, a mere ceremony obtained by fraud, and canceled by a stroke with a dagger and instant separation. Oh, my darling, don't sacrifice both our lives to a scruple that is out of place here. Don't hesitate; don't delay. I have a carriage waiting outside; end all our misery by one act of courage, and trust yourself to me; did I ever fail you?”
“For shame, Henry! for shame!”
“It is the only way to happiness. You were quite right; if I kill that wretch we shall be parted in another way, always parted; now we can be together for life. Remember, dearest, how I begged you in this very room to go to the United States with me: you refused: well, have you never been sorry you refused? Now I once more implore you to be wise and brave, and love me as I love you. What is the world to us? You are all the world to me.”
“Answer him, Jael; oh, answer him!”
“Nay, these are things every woman must answer for herself.”
“And I'll take no answer but yours.” Then he threw himself at her feet, and clasping her in his arms implored her, with all the sighs and tears and eloquence of passion, to have pity on them both, and fly at once with him.
She writhed and struggled faintly, and turned away from him, and fell tenderly toward him, by turns, and still he held her tight, and grew stronger, more passionate, more persuasive, as she got weaker and almost faint. Her body seemed on the point of sinking, and her mind of yielding.
But all of a sudden she made a desperate effort. “Let me go!” she cried. “So this is your love! With all my faults and follies, I am truer than you. Shame on your love, that would dishonor the creature you love! Let me go, sir, I say, or I shall hate you worse than I do the wretch whose name I bear.”
He let her go directly, and then her fiery glance turned to one long lingering look of deep but tender reproach, and she fled sobbing.
He sank into a chair, and buried his face in his hands.
After a while he raised his head, and saw Jael Dence looking gravely at him.
“Oh, speak your mind,” said he, bitterly.
“You are like the world. You think only of yourself; that's all I have to say.”
“You are very unkind to say so. I think for us both: and she will think with me, in time. I shall come again to-morrow.”
He said this with an iron resolution that promised a long and steady struggle, to which Grace, even in this first encounter, had shown herself hardly equal.
Jael went to her room, expecting to find her as much broken down as she was by Henry's first visit; but, instead of that, the young lady was walking rapidly to and fro.
At sight of Jael, she caught her by the hand, and said, “Well!”
“He is coming again to-morrow.”
“Is he sorry?”
“Not he.”
“Who would have thought he was so wicked?”
This seemed rather exaggerated to Jael; for with all Mrs. Little's teaching she was not quite a lady yet in all respects, though in many things she was always one by nature. “Let it pass,” said she.
“'It is a man's part to try,
And a woman's to deny.'”
“And how often shall I have to deny him I love so dearly?”
“As often as he asks you to be his mistress; for, call it what you like, that is all he has to offer you.”
Grace hid her face in her hands.
Jael colored. “Excuse my blunt speaking; but sometimes the worst word is the best; fine words are just words with a veil on.”
“Will he dare to tempt me again, after what I said?”
“Of course he will: don't you know him? he never gives in. But, suppose he does, you have your answer ready.”
“Jael,” said Grace, “you are so strong, it blinds you to my weakness. I resist him, day after day! I, who pity him so, and blame myself! Why, his very look, his touch, his voice, overpower me so that my whole frame seems dissolving: feel how I tremble at him, even now. No, no; let those resist who are sure of their strength. Virtue, weakened by love and pity, has but one resource—to fly. Jael Dence, if you are a woman, help me to save the one thing I have got left to save.”
“I will,” said Jael Dence.
In one hour from that time they had packed a box and a carpetbag, and were on their way to a railway station. They left Hillsborough.
In three days Jael returned, but Grace Coventry did not come back with her.
The day after that trying scene, Henry Little called, not to urge Grace again, as she presumed he would, but to ask pardon: at the same time we may be sure of this—that, after a day or two spent in obtaining pardon, the temptation would have been renewed, and so on forever. Of this, however, Little was not conscious: he came to ask pardon, and offer a pure and patient love, till such time as Heaven should have pity on them both. He was informed that Mrs. Coventry had quitted Hillsborough, and left a letter for him. It was offered him; he snatched it and read it.
“MY OWN DEAR HENRY,—You have given me something to forgive, and I forgive you without asking, as I hope you will one day forgive me. I have left Hillsborough to avoid a situation that was intolerable and solicitations which I blushed to hear, and for which you would one day have blushed too. This parting is not forever, I hope; but that rests with yourself. Forego your idea of vengeance on that man, whose chastisement you would best alleviate by ending his miserable existence; and learn to love me honorably and patiently, as I love you. Should you obtain this great victory over yourself, you will see me again. Meantime, think of her who loves you to distraction, and whose soul hovers about you unseen. Pray for me, dear one, at midnight, and at eight o'clock every morning; for those are two of the hours I shall pray for you. Do you remember the old church, and how you cried over me? I can write no more: my tears blind me so. Farewell. Your unhappy
“GRACE.”
Little read this piteous letter, and it was a heavy blow to him; a blow that all the tenderness shown in it could not at first soften. She had fled from him; she shunned him. It was not from Coventry she fled; it was from him.
He went home cold and sick at heart, and gave himself up to grief and deep regrets for several days.
But soon his powerful and elastic mind, impatient of impotent sorrow, and burning for some kind of action, seized upon vengeance as the only thing left to do.
At this period he looked on Coventry as a beast in human shape, whom he had a moral right to extinguish; only, as he had not a legal right, it must be done with consummate art. He trusted nobody; spoke to nobody; but set himself quietly to find out where Coventry lived, and what were his habits. He did this with little difficulty. Coventry lodged in a principal street, but always dined at a club, and returned home late, walking through a retired street or two; one of these passed by the mouth of a narrow court that was little used.
Little, disguised as a workman, made a complete reconnaissance of this locality, and soon saw that his enemy was at his mercy.
But, while he debated within himself what measure of vengeance he should take, and what noiseless weapon he should use, an unseen antagonist baffled him. That antagonist was Grace Carden. Still foreboding mischief, she wrote to Mr. Coventry, from a town two hundred miles distant:
“Whatever you are now, you were born a gentleman, and will, I think, respect a request from a lady you have wronged. Mr. Little has returned, and I have left Hillsborough; if he encounters you in his despair, he will do you some mortal injury. This will only make matters worse, and I dread the scandal that will follow, and to hear my sad story in a court of law as a justification for his violence. Oblige me, then, by leaving Hillsborough for a time, as I have done.”
On receipt of this, Coventry packed up his portmanteau directly, and, leaving Lally behind to watch the town, and see whether this was a ruse, he went directly to the town whence Grace's letter was dated, and to the very hotel.
This she had foreseen and intended.
He found she had been there, and had left for a neighboring watering-place: he followed her thither, and there she withdrew the clew; she left word she was gone to Stirling; but doubled on him, and soon put hundreds of miles between them. He remained in Scotland, hunting her.
Thus she played the gray plover with him she hated, and kept the beloved hands from crime.
When Little found that Coventry had left Hillsborough, he pretended to himself that he was glad of it. “My darling is right,” said he. “I will obey her, and do nothing contrary to law. I will throw him into prison, that is all.” With these moderated views, he called upon his friend Ransome, whom of course he had, as yet, carefully avoided, to ask his aid in collecting the materials for an indictment. He felt sure that Coventry had earned penal servitude, if the facts could only be put in evidence. He found Ransome in low spirits, and that excellent public servant being informed what he was wanted for, said dryly, “Well, but this will require some ability: don't you think your friend Silly Billy would be more likely to do it effectually than John Ransome?”
“Why, Ransome, are you mad?”
“No, I merely do myself justice. Silly Billy smelt that faulty grindstone; and I can't smell a rat a yard from my nose, it seems. You shall judge for yourself. There have been several burglaries in this town of late, and planned by a master. This put me on my mettle, and I have done all I could, with my small force, and even pryed about in person, night after night, and that is not exactly my business, but I felt it my duty. Well, sir, two nights ago, no more, I had the luck to come round a corner right upon a job: Alderman Dick's house, full of valuables, and the windows well guarded; but one of his cellars is only covered with a heavy wooden shutter, bolted within. I found this open, and a board wedged in, to keep it ajar: down I went on my knees, saw a light inside, and heard two words of thieves' latin; that was enough, you know; I whipped out the board, jumped on the heavy shutter, and called for the police.”
“Did you expect them to come?”
“Not much. These jobs are timed so as not to secure the attendance of the police. But assistance of another kind came; a gentleman full dressed, in a white tie and gloves, ran up, and asked me what it was. 'Thieves in the cellar,' said I, and shouted police, and gave my whistle. The gentleman jumped on the shutter. 'I can keep that down,' said he. 'I'm sure I saw two policemen in acorn Street: run quick!' and he showed me his sword-cane, and seemed so hearty in it, and confident, I ran round the corner, and gave my whistle. Two policemen came up; but, in that moment, the swell accomplice had pulled all his pals out of the cellar, and all I saw of the lot, when I came back, was the swell's swallow-tail coat flying like the wind toward a back slum, where I and my bobbies should have been knocked on the head, if we had tried to follow him; but indeed he was too fleet to give us the chance.”
“Well,” said Henry, “that was provoking: but who can foresee every thing all in a moment? I have been worse duped than that a good many times.”
Ransome shook his head. “An old officer of police, like me, not to smell a swell accomplice. I had only to handcuff that man, and set him down with me on the shutter, till, in the dispensation of Providence, a bobby came by.”
He added by way of corollary, “You should send to London for a detective.”
“Not I,” said Henry. “I know you for a sagacious man, and a worthy man, and my friend. I'll have no one to help me in it but you.”
“Won't you?” said Ransome. “Then I'll go in. You have done me good, Mr. Little, by sticking to a defeated friend like this. Now for your case; tell me all you know, and how you know it.”
Henry complied, and Ransome took his notes. Then he said, he had got some old memoranda by him, that might prove valuable: he would call in two days.
He did call, and showed Henry Coventry's card, and told him he had picked it up close by his letter-box, on the very night of the explosion. “Mark my words, this will expand into something,” said the experienced officer.
Before he left, he told Henry that he had now every reason to believe the swell accomplice was Shifty Dick, the most successful and distinguished criminal in England. “I have just got word from London that he has been working here, and has collared a heavy swag; he says he will go into trade: one of his old pals let that out in jail. Trade! then heaven help his customers, that is all.”
“You may catch him yet.”
“When I catch Jack-a-lantern. He is not so green as to stay a day in Hillsborough, now his face has been close to mine; they all know I never forget a face. No, no; I shall never see him again, till I am telegraphed for, to inspect his mug and his wild-cat eyes in some jail or other. I must try and not think of him; it disturbs my mind, and takes off my attention from my duties.”
Ransome adhered to this resolution for more than a month, during which time he followed out every indication with the patience of a beagle; and, at last, he called one day and told Little Hill had forfeited his bail, and gone to Canada at the expense of the trade; but had let out strange things before he left. There was a swell concerned in his attempt with the bow and arrow: there was a swell concerned in the explosion, with some workman, whose name he concealed; he had seen them on the bridge, and had seen the workman receive a bag of gold, and had collared him, and demanded his share; this had been given him, but not until he threatened to call the bobbies. “Now, if we could find Hill, and get him to turn Queen's evidence, this, coupled with what you and I could furnish, would secure your man ten years of penal servitude. I know an able officer at Quebec. Is it worth while going to the expense?”
Little, who had received the whole communication in a sort of despondent, apathetic way, replied that he didn't think it was worth while. “My good friend,” said he, “I am miserable. Vengeance, I find, will not fill a yearning heart. And the truth is, that all this time I have been secretly hoping she would return, and that has enabled me to bear up, and chatter about revenge. Who could believe a young creature like that would leave her father and all her friends for good? I made sure she would come back in a week or two. And to think that it is I who have driven her away, and darkened my own life. I thought I had sounded the depths of misery. I was a fool to think so. No, no; life would be endurable if I could only see her face once a day, and hear her voice, though it was not even speaking to me. Oh! oh!”
Now this was the first time Little had broken down before Ransome. Hitherto he had spoken of Coventry, but not of Grace; he had avoided speaking of her, partly from manly delicacy, partly because he foresaw his fortitude would give way if he mentioned her.
But now the strong man's breast seemed as if it would burst, and his gasping breath, and restless body, betrayed what a price he must have paid for the dogged fortitude he had displayed for several weeks, love-sick all the time.
Ransome was affected: he rose and walked about the room, ashamed to look at a Spartan broken down.
When he had given Little time to recover some little composure, he said, “Mr. Little, you were always too much of a gentleman to gossip about the lady you love; and it was not my business to intrude upon that subject; it was too delicate. But, of course, with what I have picked up here and there, and what you have let drop, without the least intending it, I know pretty well how the land lies. And, sir, a man does not come to my time of life without a sore and heavy heart; if I was to tell you how I came to be a bachelor—but, no; even after ten years I could not answer for myself. All I can say is that, if you should do me the honor to consult me on something that is nearer your heart than revenge, you would have all my sympathy and all my zeal.”
“Give me your hand, old fellow,” said Little, and broke down again.
But, this time, he shook it off quickly, and, to encourage him, Mr. Ransome said, “To begin, you may take my word Mr. Carden knows, by this time, where his daughter is. Why not sound him on the matter?”
Henry acted on this advice, and called on Mr. Carden.
He was received very coldly by that gentleman.
After some hesitation, he asked Mr. Carden if he had any news of his daughter.
“I have.”
The young man's face was irradiated with joy directly.
“Is she well, sir?”
“Yes.”
“Is she happier than she was?”
“She is content.”
“Has she friends about her? Kind, good people; any persons of her own sex, whom she can love?”
“She is among people she takes for angels, at present. She will find them to be petty, mean, malicious devils. She is in a Protestant convent.”
“In a convent? Where?”
“Where? Where neither the fool nor the villain, who have wrecked her happiness between them, and robbed me of her, will ever find her. I expected this visit, sir; the only thing I doubted was which would come first, the villain or the fool. The fool has come first, and being a fool, expects ME to tell him where to find his victim, and torture her again. Begone, fool, from the house you have made desolate by your execrable folly in slipping away by night like a thief, or rather like that far more dangerous animal, a fool.”
The old man delivered these insults with a purple face, and a loud fury, that in former days would have awakened corresponding rage in the fiery young fellow. But affliction had tempered him, and his insulter's hairs were gray.
He said, quietly, “You are her father. I forgive you these cruel words.” Then he took his hat and went away.
Mr. Carden followed him to the passage, and cried after him, “The villain will meet a worse reception than the fool. I promise you that much.”
Little went home despondent, and found a long letter from his mother, telling him he must dine and sleep at Raby Hall that day.
She gave him such potent reasons, and showed him so plainly his refusal would infuriate his uncle, and make her miserable, that he had no choice. He packed up his dress suit, and drove to Raby Hall, with a heavy heart and bitter reluctance.
O caeca mens hominum.
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