In the later part of the day, Mrs. Linwood, who had also remained at home, asked me to accompany her in a ride. She wished to visit several who were sick and afflicted, and I always felt it a privilege to be her companion.

"Will you object to calling here?" she asked, when we approached the old gray cottage, once my mother's home and my own. "There is a sick woman here, whom I wish to see. You can walk about the green skirting the woods, if you prefer. This enchanting breeze will give new life to your body and new brightness to your spirits."

I thanked her for the permission, knowing well the kind regard to my feelings which induced her to give it. She knew sad memories must hang around the apartments where my mother and the faithful Peggy had suffered and died; and that it would be a trial to me to see strangers occupying the places so hallowed by association.

Time had been at work on that old cottage, with its noiseless but effacing fingers. And its embroidering fingers too, for the roof from which many a shingle had fallen, was green with garlands of moss, wrought into the damp and mouldering wood with exquisite grace and skill. I turned away with a sigh, and beheld infancy by the side of the humble ruin, the oriental palace which was my bridal home, and wondered at the marvellous changes of life.

I wandered to the welling spring by whose gushing waters I had so often sat, indulging the wild poetry of my childish imagination. I gazed around, scarcely recognizing the once enchanting spot. A stone had literally rolled against the mouth of the fountain, and the crystal diamonds no longer sparkled in the basin below. An awkward pump, put up near the cabin, explained this appearance of neglect and wildness. The soft grassy slope where I used to recline and watch the fountain's silvery play, was overgrown with tall, rank, rustling weeds, among which I could distinguish the deadly bloom and sickening odor of the nightshade. There was a rock covered with the brightest, richest covering of dark green moss, on which I seated myself, and gave myself up to the memories of the past. Perhaps this was the same rock on which Richard Clyde and I had often sat side by side, and watched the shadows of twilight purple the valley.

I untied my bonnet and laid it on the long grass, for I was shaded from the western sun, and the breeze blew fresh and pure from the hills he was about to crown with a right royal diadem. While I thus sat, I heard footsteps quick and eager echoing behind, and Richard Clyde bounded down the slope and threw himself on the ground at my side.

"Thank heaven," he exclaimed, "I have found you, Gabriella, and found you alone!"

His manner was hurried and agitated, his eyes had a wild expression, and tossing aside his hat, he wiped thick-coming drops of perspiration from his forehead.

His words, and the unusual excitement of his manner, alarmed me.

"What has happened, Richard? Where have you sought me? What tidings have you to communicate? Speak, and tell me, for I tremble with fear."

"I am so agitated," he cried, sitting down on the rock at my side, and taking one of my hands in his. I started, for his was so icy cold and tremulous, and his face was as pale as Ernest's. He looked like one who had escaped some terrible danger, and in whose bosom horror and gratitude were struggling for mastery.

"Is it of Ernest you have come to tell me?" I asked, with blanched lips.

"No, no, no! I know nothing of him. It is of myself,—of you, I would speak. I have just made the most astonishing discovery! Never till now have I heard your real name and early history. O! Gabriella you whom I have loved so long with such fervor, such passion, such idolatry,—you (O righteous God forgive me!) are the daughter of my father,—for Theresa La Fontaine was my own mother. Gabriella,—sister,—beloved!"

He clasped me to his bosom; he kissed me again and again, weeping and sobbing like a child. In broken words he deplored his sinful passion, entreating me to forgive him, to love him as a brother, to cling to him as a friend, and feel that there was one who would live to protect, or die to defend me. Bewildered and enraptured by this most unthought of and astounding discovery, my heart acknowledged its truth and glowed with gratitude and joy. Richard, the noble-hearted, gallant Richard, was my brother! My soul's desire was satisfied. How I had yearned for a brother! and to find him,—and such a brother! Oh I joy unspeakable. Oh! how strange,—how passing strange,—how almost passing credulity!

At any moment this discovery would have been welcomed with rapture. But now, when the voluntary estrangement of Ernest had thrown my warm affections back for the time into my own bosom, to pine for want of cherishing, it came like a burst of sunshine after a long and dreary darkness,—like the music of gushing waters to the feverish and thirsty pilgrim.

My heart was too full for questions, and his for explanations. They would come in due time. He was my brother,—that was enough. Ernest could not be jealous of a brother's love. He would own with pride the fraternal bond, and forget the father's crimes in the son's virtues.

It seemed but a moment since Richard had called me sister. Neither of us had spoken, for tears choked our words; but our arms were still entwined, and my head rested on his bosom, in all the abandonment of nature's holiest feelings. All at once I heard a rustling in the grass, soft and stealthy like a gliding snake. I raised my head, looked back, looked up.

Merciful Father of heaven and earth! did I not then pass the agonies of death?

I saw a face,—my God! how dark, how deadly, how terrible it was! I knew that face, and my heart was rifted as if by a thunderbolt.

The loud report of a pistol, and a shriek such as never before issued from mortal lips, bursting from mine, were simultaneous sounds. Richard fell back with a deep groan. Then there seemed a rushing sound as the breaking up of the great deep, a heaving and tossing like the throes of an earthquake; then a sinking, sinking, lower and lower, and then a cloud black as night and heavy as iron came lowering and crushing me,—me, and the bleeding Richard. All was darkness,—silence,—oblivion.



CHAPTER L.

A light, soft and glimmering as morning twilight, floated round me. Was it the dawn of an eternal morning, or the lingering radiance of life's departing day? Did my spirit animate the motionless body extended on that snowy bed, or was it hovering, faint and invisible, above the confines of mortality?

I was just awakened to the consciousness of existence,—a dim, vague consciousness, such as one feels in a dissolving dream. I seemed involved in a white, transparent cloud, and reclining on one of those downy-looking cloud-beds that I have seen waiting to receive the sinking sun.

While thus I lay, living the dawning life of infancy, the white cloud softly rolled on one side, and a figure appeared in the opening, that belonged to a previous state of existence. I had seen its mild lineaments in another world; but when,—how long ago?

My eyes rested on the features of the lady till they grew more and more familiar, but there was a white cloud round her face, that threw a mournful shadow over it,—that I had never seen before. Again my eyelids closed, and I seemed passing away, where, I knew not; yet consciousness remained. I felt soft, trembling kisses breathed upon my face, and tears too, mingling with their balm. With a delicious perception of tenderness, watchfulness, and love, I sunk into a deep, deep sleep.

When I awoke, the silver lustre of an astral lamp, shaded by a screen, glimmered in the apartment and quivered like moonbeams in the white drapery that curtained the bed. I knew where I was,—I was in my own chamber, and the lady who sat by my bedside, and whose profile I beheld through the parted folds of the curtains, was Mrs. Linwood. And yet, how strange! It must have been years since we had met, for the lovely brown of her hair was now a pale silver gray, and age had laid its withering hand on her brow. With a faint cry, I ejaculated her name, and attempted to raise my head from the pillow, but in vain. I had no power of motion. Even the exertion of uttering her name was beyond my strength. She rose, bent over me, looked earnestly and long into the eyes uplifted to her face, then dropping on her knees and clasping her hands, her spirit went upwards in silent prayer.

As thus she knelt, and I gazed on her upturned countenance, shaded by that strange, mournful, silver cloud, my thoughts began to shape themselves slowly and gradually, as the features of a landscape through dissolving mists. They trembled as the foliage trembles in the breeze that disperses the vapors. Images of the past gained distinctness of outline and coloring, and all at once, like the black hull, broken mast, and rent sails of a wrecked vessel, one awful scene rose before me. The face, like that of the angel of death, the sound terrible as the thunders of doom, the bleeding body that my arms encircled, the destroying husband,—the victim brother,—all came back to me; life,—memory,—grief,—horror,—all came back.

"Ernest! Richard!" burst in anguish from my feeble lips.

"They live! my child, they live!" said Mrs. Linwood, rising from her knees and taking my passive hand in both hers; "but ask nothing now; you have been very ill, you are weak as an infant; you must be tranquil, patient, and submissive; and grateful, too, to a God of infinite mercy. When you are stronger I will talk to you, but not now. You must yield yourself to my guidance, in the spirit of an unweaned child."

"They live!" repeated I to myself, "my God, I bless thee! I lie at thy footstool. I am willing to die; I long to die. Let the waves of eternity roll over my soul."

Husband and brother! they lived, and yet neither came to me on my couch of sickness. But Richard! had not I seen him bleeding, insensible, the image of death? he lived, yet he might be on the borders of the grave. But she had commanded me to be silent, submissive, and grateful; and I tried to obey her. My physical weakness was such, it subdued the paroxysms of mental agony, and the composing draught which she gave me was a blessed Nepenthe, producing oblivion and repose.

The next day I recognized Dr. Harlowe, the excellent and beloved physician. When I called him by name, as he stood by the bed, counting my languid pulse, the good man turned aside his head to hide the womanish tears that moistened his cheeks. Then looking down on me with a benignant smile, he said, smoothing my hair on my forehead, as if I were a little child—

"Be a good girl; keep quiet; be patient as a lamb, and you will soon be well."

"How long have I been ill, Doctor?" I asked. "I am very foolish, I know; but it seems as if even you look older than you did."

"Never mind, my dear, how long you have been sick. I mean to have you well in a short time. Perhaps I do look a little older, for I have forgotten to shave this morning."

While he was speaking, I caught a glimpse of the lawn through a slight opening in the window curtain, and I uttered an exclamation of amazement and alarm. The trees which I had last beheld clothed in a foliage of living green, were covered with the golden tints of autumn; and here and there a naked bough, with prophetic desolation, waved its arm across the sky.

Where had my spirit been while the waning year had rolled on? Where was Ernest? Where was Richard? Why was I forsaken and alone?

These questions quivered on my tongue, and would have utterance.

"Tell me, Doctor,—I cannot live in this dreadful suspense."

He sat down by me, still holding my hand in his, and promised to tell me, if I would be calm and passive. He told me that for two months I had been in a state of alternate insensibility and delirium, that they had despaired of my life, and that they welcomed me as one risen from the grave. He told me that Ernest had left home, in consequence of the prayers of his mother, till Richard should recover from the effects of his wound, which they at first feared would prove fatal; that Richard was convalescent, was under the same roof with me, and would see me as soon as I could bear the meeting.

"Ernest knows that he is my brother,—he knows that I am innocent," I exclaimed, my whole soul trembling on his answer.

"I trust he knows it now," he replied, with a troubled countenance. "His mother has written and told him all. We were ignorant ourselves of this, you must recollect, till Richard was able to explain it."

"And he went away believing me a wretch!" I cried, in a tone of unutterable agony. "He will never, never return!"

"My dear child," replied Dr. Harlowe, in an accent of kind authority, "you have no right to murmur; you have been spared the most awful infliction a sovereign God could lay upon you,—a brother's life taken by a husband's hand. Praise the Almighty day and night, bless Him without ceasing, that He has lifted from your bosom this weight of woe. Be reconciled to your husband's absence. Mourn not for a separation which may prove the greatest blessing ever bestowed upon both. All may yet be well. It will be, if God wills it; and if He wills it not, my dear child, you must then lay your hand on your mouth, and your mouth in the dust, and say, 'It is the Lord, let Him do what seemeth good in His sight.'"

"I know it,—I feel it," I answered, tears raining on my pillow; "but let me see my brother. It will do me good."

"By and by," said he; "he is not very strong himself yet. The young rascal! if he had only confided to me the secret with which his heart was bursting! But there is no use in crying over burnt bread. We must keep it out of the fire next time."

The entrance of Edith checked this conversation, and it was well. She came with her usual gentle motion, and fair, pitying countenance, and diffused around her an atmosphere of divine repose. My brain, relieved of the dreadful tension of suspense, throbbed soft and cool beneath the snow of her loving fingers. She, too, was pale and wan, but she smiled upon me with glistening eyes, and whispered words of sweetest consolation.

It was not till after the lapse of several days that I was permitted to see Richard, and then the doctor said he deserved a good whipping for insisting on coming. He came into the room leaning on the arm of Dr. Harlowe, and supported on the other side by Mrs. Linwood. He looked like the shadow of his former self,—so white, so thin and languid, and his countenance showed as plainly as words could speak, that he was struck with the same sad change in me.

"Now no heroics, no scene," said the doctor; "say how do you do, and shake hands, but not one bit of sentiment,—I forbid that entirely."

"My sister, my dear sister!" said Richard, bending down and kissing my forehead. He reeled as he lifted his head, and would have fallen had not Dr. Harlowe's strong arm supported him.

I longed to embrace him with all a sister's fondness, and pour out on his bosom all my sorrow and my love; but the doctor was imperative, and made him recline in an easy-chair by the bedside, threatening him with instant dismission if he were not perfectly quiet and obedient. I saw Richard start and shudder, as his eyes rested on my left arm, which hung over the counterpane. The sleeve of my loose robe had slipped up, baring the arm below the elbow. The start, the shudder, the look of anguish, made me involuntarily raise it, and then I saw a scar, as of a recently healed wound just below the elbow. I understood it all. The ball that had penetrated his back, had passed through my arm, and thus prevented it from reaching the citadel of life. That feeble arm had been his safeguard and his shield; it had intercepted the bolt of death; it had barricaded, as it were, the gates of hell.

Mrs. Linwood, who was standing by me, stooped down, kissed the scar, and drew the sleeve gently over it. As she bowed her head, and I saw the silver shadow on her late dark, brown hair, I felt how intense must have been the suffering that wrought this wondrous change,—and I resolved to bear unmurmuring my own sorrows, rather than add a feather's weight to her burden of woe.

I remembered how the queenly locks of Marie Antoinette were whitened in one night of agony. Perhaps my own dark tresses were crowned by premature snow. I had not seen myself since the green of summer had passed into the "sere and yellow leaf," and perhaps the blight of my heart was visible on my brow. When I was alone with Edith, I surprised her by asking if my hair were not white. She smiled, and bringing a toilet glass, held it before me. What was my astonishment to see my hair curling in short waves round my face, like the locks of childhood! And such a face,—so white, so colorless. I hardly recognized myself, and pushing back the glass, I burst into tears.

"Dear Gabriella!" said Edith, quite distressed, "I am sorry they cut off your beautiful hair. But the doctor said it must be done. It does not spoil you, though. You do not know how sweetly childish it makes you look."

"I care not for the looks, Edith; it is not that. But it is so dreadful to think of so many changes, and I unconscious of all. Such a long, dreary blank! Where was my soul wandering? What fearful scenes may hereafter dawn on my memory? Beauty! No, Edith; think not I weep for the cloud that has passed over it. The only eyes in which I desired to appear lovely, will never behold me more."

"You will not be the only sufferer, Gabriella," said Edith, mournfully. "A dreadful blow has fallen upon us all; but for our mother's sake, if not for a greater, we must endeavor to submit."

"Tell me, Edith, what I dare not ask of her, tell me where he is gone, and tell me the particulars of those first dark hours when my soul was in such awful eclipse. I must know; and when once told, I shall be resigned, whatever be my fate."

Edith seated herself on the side of the bed, and leaned back so that I could not look in her face. Then putting her arms round me, she drew me towards her, and made me rest against her shoulder.

"If you grieve to listen, think how painful it is for me to relate," said she.

"I will," I answered; "I shall have strength to hear whatever you have fortitude to tell."

"You must not ask a minute description of what will always be involved in my remembrance in a horror of thick darkness. I know not how I got home from Dr. Harlowe's, where the tidings reached me. My mother brought you in the carriage, supported in her arms; and when I first saw you, you were lying just where you are now, perfectly insensible. Richard was carried to Dr. Harlowe's on a litter, and it was then feared he might not live."

Edith's voice faltered.

"It was after sunset. The saloon was dark, and all was gloom and confusion in the household. Mamma and I were standing by your bed, with our backs to the door, when we heard a hoarse, low voice behind us, saying,—

"'Is she dead?'

"We turned, and beheld Ernest right in the door way, looking more like a spectre than a human being.

"'No, no,' answered my mother; and almost running to meet him, she seized him by the arm, drew him into the chamber, and closed the door. He struggled to be released; but she seemed to have the strength of numbers in her single grasp.

"'She is not dead,' said she, pointing to the bed, 'though she hears, sees, knows nothing; but Richard will die, and you will be arrested as a murderer. You must not linger here one moment. Go, and save yourself from the consequences of this fatal act. Go, if you would not see me, your mother, die in agony at your feet."

"Oh! Gabriella, had you seen her then, her who has such sublime self-control, prostrate at his feet, wringing her hands and entreating him to fly before it was too late, you would not wonder that the morning sun shone on her silver hair.

"'I will not fly the death for which I groan,' cried Ernest. 'Had I ten thousand lives, I would loathe and curse them all.'

"'Parricide, parricide,' exclaimed my mother, 'wo, wo be to him who spurns a kneeling mother's prayer.'

"'Oh! my mother,' cried he, endeavoring to raise her from the ground, while he shook as if with ague shiverings. 'I do not spurn you; but why should I live, with a brand blacker than Cain's on my heart and soul,—crushed, smitten, dishonored, and undone?'

"'Forbear, my son. This blighted form is sacred as it is spotless. Has not blood quenched your maniac passion?'

"The eyes of Ernest flashed with lurid fire.

"'Locked in each other's arms they fell,' he muttered through his shut teeth, 'heart to heart, mother. I saw them, and God, who will judge me, saw them. No, she is false, false, false,—false as the lost angels who fell from paradise into the burning pit of doom.'

"But what am I doing, Gabriella? I did not mean to repeat this. I had become so excited by the remembrance of that terrible scene, I knew not what I was saying. You cannot bear it. I must not go on. What would my mother, what would Dr. Harlowe say, if they knew of this?"

I entreated her to continue. I told her that nothing she had said was half so dreadful as my imagination had depicted, that I grew strong with my need of strength.

"And you and your mother believed him," I said, with astonishing calmness; "you knew not that Richard was my brother."

"Had it not been for your wounded arm," replied Edith, laying her hand gently on the scar, "we should have supposed he was under a strong delusion to believe a lie. Appearances were against you, and your condemnation was my brother's palliation, if not acquittal. My mother continued her supplications, mingled with tears and sighs that seemed to rend the life from her bosom; and I, Gabriella, do you think I was silent and passive? I, who would willingly have laid down my life for his? We prevailed,—he yielded,—he left us in the darkness of night,—the darkness of despair. It is more than two months since, and we have received no tidings of the wanderer. My mother urged him to go to New York and remain till he heard the fate of Richard. She has written to him there, again and again, but as yet has received no answer."

"And he went without one farewell look of her whom he deemed so vile,—so lost?" said I, pressing Edith's hand against my cold and sinking heart.

"No, Gabriella. His last act was to kneel by your side, and pray God to forgive you both. Twice he went to the door, then coming back he bent over you as if he would clasp you in his arms; then with a wild ejaculation he turned away. Never saw I such anguish in the human countenance."

"I have but one question more to ask," said I, after a long pause, whose dreariness was that which follows the falling of the clods in the grave hollow. "How did Ernest know that Richard was with me, when we left him alone in the library?"

"Dr. Harlowe accidentally alluded to your father's history before Richard, who, you recollect, was in foreign lands during the excitement it caused, and had never heard the circumstances. As soon as he heard the name of St. James, I saw him start, and turn to the doctor with a flushed and eager countenance. Then he drew him one side, and they conversed together some time in a low undertone; and Richard's face, red one moment and white the next, flashed with strange and shifting emotions. At the time when your father's name obtained such unhappy notoriety, and yours through him, in the public papers, my mother confided to Dr. Harlowe, who was greatly troubled on your account, the particulars of your mother's life. She thought it due to your mother's memory, and his steady friendship. I know not how much he told Richard, whose manner evidently surprised him, but we all noticed that he was greatly agitated; and then he abruptly took leave. He came immediately here, and inquired for you, asked where you were gone, and hurried away as if on an errand of life and death. Ernest, who was passing along the winding gallery, heard him, and followed."

Another dreary pause. Then I remembered Julian, and the love-light that had illumined them both that memorable evening. Edith had not once alluded to her own clouded hopes. She seemed to have forgotten herself in her mother's griefs and mine.

"And Julian, my beloved Edith? There is a future for you, a happy one, is there not?"

"I do not expect happiness," she answered, with a sigh; "but Julian's love will gild the gloom of sorrow, and be the rainbow of my clouded days. He will return in the winter, and then perhaps he will not leave me again. I cannot quit my mother; but he can take a son's place in her desolated home. No garlands of roses will twine round my bridal hours, for they are all withered, all but the rose of Sharon, Gabriella, whose sacred bloom can never fade away. It is the only flower worth cherishing,—the only one without thorns, and without blight."

Softly withdrawing her supporting arms, she suffered me to sink back on the pillow, gave me a reviving cordial, drew the curtains, and taking up a book, seemed absorbed in its contents. I closed my eyes and appeared to sleep, that she might not suppose her narration had banished repose. I had anticipated all she uttered; but the certainty of desolation is different to the agonies of suspense. I could have borne the separation from Ernest; but that he should believe me the false, guilty wretch I had seemed to be, inflicted pangs sharper than the vulture's beak or the arrow's barb. If he had left the country, as there was every reason to suppose he had, with this conviction, he never would return; and the loneliness and dreariness of a widowhood more sad than that which death creates, would settle down darkly and heavily on my young life.

I did not blame him for the rash deed he had wrought, for it was a madman's act. When I recalled the circumstances, I did not wonder at the frantic passion that dyed his hand in blood; and yet I could not blame myself. Had I shrunk from a brother's embrace, I should have been either more or less than woman. I had yielded to a divine impulse, and could appeal to nature and Heaven for justification.

But I had sinned. I had broken the canons of the living God, and deserved a fearful chastisement. I had made unto myself an idol, and no pagan idolater ever worshipped at his unhallowed shrine with more blind devotion. I had been true to Ernest, but false to my Maker, the one great and jealous God. I had lived but for one object, and that object was withdrawn, leaving all creation a blank.

I stood upon the lonely strand, the cold waves beating against my feet, and the bleak winds piercing through my unsheltered heart. I stretched out my arms to the wild waste of waters, in whose billows my life-boat was whelmed, and I called, but there was none to answer. I cried for help, but none came. Then I looked up to heaven, and high above the darkness of the tempest and the gloom of the deep, one star shining in solitary glory arrested my despairing gaze. I had seen it before with the eye of faith, but never beaming with such holy lustre as now, when all other lights were withdrawn.

"Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on my darkness, and lend me thine aid. Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."

Why, tender and pitying Saviour, do we wait for the night time of sorrow to fathom the depths of thy love and compassion? Why must every fountain of earthly joy be dried up, before we bow to taste the waters of Kedron; and every blossom of love be withered, before we follow thee to the garden of Gethsemane?



CHAPTER LI.

Though the circumstance of discovering a brother in the lover of my youth seems more like romance than reality, nothing could be more simple and natural than the explanation of the mystery. His recollection did not go back to the period recorded in my mother's manuscript, when he was brought as a lawful heir to the home in which my early infancy was sheltered. His first remembrances were associated with a mother's sorrow and loneliness,—with an humble dwelling in one of the by-lanes of the city of New York, where she toiled with her needle for their daily bread.

"I remember," said Richard, "how I used to sit on a low stool at my mother's feet, and watch her, as she wrought in muslin the most beautiful flowers and devices, with a skill and rapidity which seemed miraculous to me. Young as I was, I used to wonder that any one could look so sad, while producing such charming figures. Once, I recollect, the needle resisted her efforts to draw it through the muslin. She threw it from her, and taking another from the needle-case met with no better success.

"'Oh! mon Dieu!' she cried, dropping her work in her lap and clasping her hands, 'my tears rust them.'

"'And why do you let so many fall, mother?' I asked. 'Where do they all come from?'

"'From a breaking heart,' she answered, and I never forgot her looks or her words. The breaking heart became an image in my mind, almost as distinct as the rusted steel. For a long time I was afraid to jump or bound about the room, lest the fracture in my mother's heart should be made wider, and more tears come gushing through.

"But she did not always weep. She taught me to read, while she toiled with her needle, and she told me tales of the genii and of fairy-land, at twilight hour, or as she used to say, 'entre le loup et le chien,' in her own expressive, idiomatic language. She told me, too, stories from the Bible, before I was able to read them, of Isaac bound on the sacrificial pyre, with his father kneeling by him, ready to plunge the knife in his young heart, when the angels called to him out of heaven to stay his uplifted hand; of Joseph's wondrous history, from his coat of many colors, fatal cause of fraternal jealousy, to the royal robes and golden chain with which Pharaoh invested him; of David, the shepherd-boy, the minstrel monarch, the conqueror of Philistia's giant chief. It was thus she employed the dim hours between the setting sun and the rising stars; but the moment she lighted her lonely lamp she again plied her busy needle, though alas! too often rusted with her tears.

"Thus my early childhood passed,—and every day my heart twined more closely round my mother's heart, and I began to form great plans of future achievements to be wrought for her. I would be a second Joseph and go to some distant land and win fame, and honors, and wealth, and send for her that I might lay them all at her feet. She would not, at first, recognize her boy in the purple and fine linen of his sumptuous attire; but I would fall on her neck, and lift up my voice and weep aloud, and then she would know her child. A mother's tears, Gabriella, nurture great aspirations in a child.

"I used to accompany her to the shop when she carried home her work. It was there she first met the gentleman whose name I bear. Their acquaintance commenced through me, to whom he seemed peculiarly attracted, and he won my admiring gratitude by the gifts he lavished upon me. He came often to see my mother, and though at first she shrunk from his visits, she gradually came to welcome him as a friend and a benefactor.

"One evening, I think I was about eight or nine years old, she took me in her arms, and told me, with many tears, that Mr. Clyde, the good and kind gentleman whom I loved so much, had offered to be a father to me, and was going to take us both to a pleasant home in the country, where I could run about in the green fields, and be free as the birds of the air. She told me that perhaps my own father was living, but that he had left her so long their union was annulled by law, and that she had a right to marry another, and that she did so that I might have a father and protector. She explained this simply, so that I understood it all, and I understood too why she wished me to drop my own name and take that of her future husband. It was associated with so much sorrow and wrong, it was painful to her ear, and Mr. Clyde wished me to adopt his own. He was a good and honorable man, and I cherish his memory with reverence and gratitude. If the fissure in my mother's heart was not healed, it closed, and tears no longer dripped through.

"Our country home was pleasant and comfortable, and I revelled in the delights of nature, with all the wild passion of a bird let loose from the imprisoning cage. I went to school,—I was in the world of action,—the energies of incipient manhood awoke and struggled in my bosom. We remained about two years in this rural residence, situated in the western part of New York, when Mr. Clyde was called to attend a dying father, who lived in this town, Gabriella, not very far from the little cottage in the woods where I first knew you. He took my mother and myself with him, for she was in feeble health, and he thought the journey would invigorate her. It did not. A child of sunny France, she languished under the bleaker New England skies. She was never able to return; and he who came to bury a father, soon laid a beloved wife by the side of the aged. My heart went down to the grave with her, and it was long before its resurrection. My step-father was completely crushed by the blow, for he loved her as such a woman deserved to be loved, and mourned as few mourn. He remained with his aged mother in the old homestead, which she refused to leave, and I was placed in the academy under the charge of Mr. Regulus, where I first knew and loved you, my own sister, my darling, beloved Gabriella."

If I had loved Richard before, how much more did I love him now, after hearing his simple and affecting history, so similar to my own. As I had never loved him otherwise than as a brother, the revelation which had caused such a terrible revulsion in his feelings was a sacred sanction to mine. His nerves still vibrated from the shock, and he could not pronounce the word sister without a tremulousness of voice which betrayed internal agitation.

He had but little more to relate. His step-father was dead, and as there was found to be a heavy mortgage on his estate, he was left with a moderate income, sufficient to give him an education and a start in life. His expenses in Europe had been defrayed by some liberal gentlemen, who still considered themselves the guardians of his reputation and his fortunes.

It was painful to me to tell the story of our father's crimes, of which he had heard but a slight outline. When I described our interview in the Park, he knit his brows over his flashing eyes, and his whole frame quivered with emotion.

"My poor sister! what a dreadful scene for you. What have you not suffered! but you shall never know another sorrow from which I can shield you, another wrong from which I can defend."

"O Richard! when I think of him in his lonely dungeon, alone with remorse and horror; when I think of my mother's dying injunctions, I feel as if I must go to him, and fulfil the holy mission she bade me perform. Read her manuscript; you have a right to its contents, though they will rend your heart to peruse them; take it with you to your own room, when you go, for I cannot look on and see you read words that have been driven like burning arrows through my soul."

When I again met Richard, I could see in his bloodshot eyes what thoughts were bleeding within.

"My mother left me the same awful legacy," said he. "She left her forgiveness, if he lived; oblivion of all her wrongs, if dead. Oh! what bolt of vengeance is red enough for the wretch who could destroy the happiness of two such women as your mother and mine! All-righteous Providence, may thy retributive fires—"

"Stop! stop!" I cried, throwing my arms round him, and arresting his fearful words, "he is our father, you must not curse him. By our mothers' ashes, by their angels, now perhaps hovering over us, forbear, my brother, forbear."

"God help me," he exclaimed, his lips turning to an ashy paleness, "I did not know what I was about to say; but is it not enough to drive one mad, to think of the fountain of one's life being polluted, poisoned, and accursed?"

"One drop of the Saviour's blood can cleanse and make it pure, my brother, if he were only led to the foot of the cross."

Richard's countenance changed; a crimson flush swept over his face, and then left it colorless.

"My hand is not worthy to lead him there," he cried, "and if it were, I fear there is no mercy for so hardened, so inveterate a transgressor."

"There is, Richard, there is. Let the expiring thief bear witness to a Saviour's illimitable love. Oh! it is sinful to set bounds to God's immeasurable mercy. Let us go together, my brother. My mother's dream may yet be realized. Who knows but our weak, filial hands, may lift our unhappy father from the black abyss of sin and impenitence, Almighty God assisting us? If heavenly blessings are promised to him who turns a soul from the error of his ways, think, Richard, how divine the joy, if it be an erring parent's soul, thus reclaimed and brought home to God? Let us go, as soon as we have strength to commence the journey. I cannot remain here, where every thing reminds me of my blighted hopes and ruined happiness. It seems so like a grave, Richard."

"I wonder you do not hate. I wonder you do not curse me," exclaimed he, with sudden vehemence, "for it is my rashness that has wrought this desolation. Dearly have you purchased a most unworthy brother. Would I had never claimed you, Gabriella; never rolled down such a dark cloud on your heart and home."

"Say not so, my beloved brother. The cloud was on my heart already, and you have scarcely made it darker or more chilling. I feel as if I had been living amid the thunderstorms of tropic regions, where even in sunshine electric fires are flashing. Before this shock came, my soul was sick and weary of the conflicts of wild and warring passions. Oh! you know not how often I have sighed for a brother's heart to lean upon, even when wedded joys were brightest,—how much more must I prize the blessing now! Surely never brother and sister had more to bind them to each other, than you and I, Richard. Suffering and sorrow, life's holiest sacraments, have hallowed and strengthened the ties of nature."

It was not long before we were able to ride abroad with Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and it was astonishing how rapidly we advanced in restoration to health. I could perceive that we were objects of intense interest and curiosity, from the keen and eager glances that greeted us on every side; for the fearful tragedy of which I had been the heroine, had cast a shadow over the town and its surroundings. Its rumor had swept beyond the blue hills, and Grandison Place was looked upon as the theatre of a dark and bloody drama. This was all natural. Seldom is the history of every-day life marked by events as romantic and thrilling as those compressed in my brief experience of eighteen years. And of all the deep, vehement passions, whose exhibition excites the popular mind, there is none that takes such strong hold as jealousy, the terrible hydra of the human heart.

I believe I was generally beloved, and that a deep feeling of sympathy for my misfortunes pervaded the community, for I had never been elated by prosperity; but Ernest, whose exclusiveness and reserve was deemed haughtiness, was far from being popular. Mrs. Linwood was revered by all, and blessed as the benefactress of the poor and the comforter of the afflicted; but she was lifted by fortune above the social level of the community, and few, very few were on terms of intimacy with the inmates of the Granite Castle, as Grandison Place was often called. Its massy stone walls, its turreted roof, sweeping lawn, and elevated position, seemed emblematic of the aristocracy of its owners; and though the blessings of the lower classes, and the respect and reverence of the higher, rested upon it, there was a mediocral one, such as is found in every community, that looked with envy on those, whose characters they could not appreciate, because they were lifted so high above their own level.

I have spoken of Dr. Harlowe and Mr. Regulus as the most valued friends of the family; but there was one whom it would be ungrateful in me to omit, and whose pure and sacred traits came forth in the dark hours through which I had just passed, like those worlds of light which are never seen by day. I allude to Mr. Somerville, the pastor of the parish, and who might truly be called a man of God. The aged minister, who had presided over the church during my mother's life, had been gathered to his fathers, and his name was treasured, a golden sheaf, in the garner of memory. The successor, who had to walk in the holy footprints he had left in the valley, was obliged to take heed to his steps and to shake the dust of earth from his sandals as he went along. In our day of sunshine he had stood somewhat aloof, for he felt his mission was to the poor and lowly, to the sons and daughters of want and affliction; but as soon as sickness and sorrow darkened the household, he came with lips distilling balm, and hands ready to pour oil on the bruised and wounded heart.

Methinks I see him now, as when he knelt by my bedside, after I aroused from my long and deadly trance. No outward graces adorned his person, but the beauty of holiness was on his brow, and its low, sweet music in his somewhat feeble accents. It seemed to me as if an angel were pleading for me, and my soul, emerging as it were from the cold waves of oblivion, thrilled with new-born life. Had my spirit been nearer to God during its unconscious wanderings, and brought back with it impressions of celestial glory never conceived before? I know not; but I know that a change had passed over it, and that I felt the reality of that eternity, which had seemed before a grand and ever-receding shadow.

Every day, during Richard's illness and mine, came our good and beloved pastor, and he always left a track of light behind him. I always felt nearer heaven when he departed than when he came, for its kingdom was within him.

To him I confided my wish to accompany my brother on his filial mission, and he warmly approved it.

"As surely as I believe the Lord has put it into your heart to go," said he, "do I believe that a blessing will follow you."

Mrs. Linwood was more tardy in her sanction.

"My dear child," she said, looking at me with the tenderest compassion, "you do not know what is before you. What will you do in that great city without female friendship and sympathy? You and Richard, both so young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. I will not, however, put any obstacle in his path, for man may go unshrinking where woman may not tread. But you, my Gabriella, must remain with me."

"Here, where the phantom of Ernest haunts my every step, where the echo of his voice is heard in every gale, and the shadow of departed joy comes between me and the sunshine of heaven? What can I do here but remind you by my presence of him, whom I have banished for ever from your arms? Let me go, my own dear mother, for I cannot remain passive here. I shall not want female sympathy and guardianship, for Mrs. Brahan is all that is kind and tender, and knows enough of my sad history to be entitled to unbounded confidence. I will write to her, and be guided by her, as if she were another Mrs. Linwood."

She yielded at last, and so did Dr. Harlowe, who cheered me by his cordial approval. He said it was the best thing I could do for myself; for change of scene, and a strong motive of action, might save me from becoming a confirmed invalid. Edith wept, but made no opposition. She believed I was in the path of duty, and that it would be made smooth beneath my feet.

No tidings from Ernest came to interrupt the dreary blank of his absence,—the same continuity of anxiety and uncertainty stretching on into a hopeless futurity. Again and again I said to myself—

"Better so a thousand times, than to live as I have done, scathed by the lightning of jealousy. Even if he returned, I could not, with the fear of God now before me, renew our unblest wedlock. The hand of violence has sundered us, and my heart fibres must ever bleed from the wrench, but they will not again intwine. He has torn himself ruthlessly from me; and the shattered vine, rent from its stay, is beginning to cling to the pillars of God's temple. It is for him I pray, for him I mourn, rather than myself. It is for his happiness, rather than my own justification, that I desire him to know the history of my innocence. I am willing to drink the cup of humiliation even to the dregs, if it may not pass from me; but spare him, O Heavenly Father, the bitter, bitter chalice."

It was a bleak morning in early winter, that we commenced our journey to that city, where little more than a year ago I had gone a young and happy bride. As we rode along the winding avenue, I looked out on the dry russet lawn, the majestic skeleton of the great elm, stripped of the foliage and hues of life, and saw the naked branches of the oaks clinging to each other in sad fraternity, and heard the wind whistling through them as through the shrouds of a vessel. With an involuntary shiver I drew nearer to Richard, and hid my face from the prophetic desolation of nature.



CHAPTER LII.

On our arrival in New York, we stopped at the —— hotel till private lodgings could be obtained. We both wished to be as retired as possible from public observation, and for this purpose I remained in my room, where Richard, as my brother, had the privilege of visiting me. I was anxious he should go immediately to Mr. Brahan's; for, added to my desire to be under the influence of her feminine regard, I cherished a faint hope that through him I might learn something of Ernest's mysterious exile.

They both returned with Richard; and while Mr. Brahan remained with him below, she came to my chamber, and welcomed me with a warmth and tenderness that melted, while it cheered.

"You must not stay here one hour longer," said she, pressing one hand in hers, while she laid the other caressingly on my short, curling hair. "You must go with me, and feel as much at home as with your own Mrs. Linwood. I pass a great many lonely hours, while my husband is absent engaged in business; and it will be a personal favor to me. Indeed, you must not refuse."

I said something about leaving my brother, while I expressed my gratitude for her kindness.

"Mr. Brahan will arrange that," she said; "you may be assured he shall be cared for. You have not unpacked your trunk; and here is your bonnet and mantilla ready to be resumed. You did not think I would suffer you to remain among strangers, when my heart has been yearning to meet you for weary months?"

With gentle earnestness she overcame all my scruples; and it was but a little time before I found myself established as a guest in the house where I first beheld the light of existence. How strange it seemed, that the children of the two betrayed and injured beings who had been made exiles from that roof, should be received beneath its shelter after the lapse of so many years!

Mrs. Brahan accompanied me to the chamber prepared for my reception; and had I been her own daughter she could not have lavished upon me more affectionate cares. The picture of my mother, which I had returned when we left the city, was hanging on the wall; and the eyes and lips of heavenly sweetness seemed to welcome her sad descendant to the home of her infancy. As I stood gazing upon it with mingled grief and adoration, Mrs. Brahan encircled me with her arm, and told me she understood now the history of that picture, and the mystery of its wonderful resemblance to me. I had not seen her since the notoriety my name had acquired, in consequence of the diamonds and my father's arrest; and she knew me now as the daughter of that unhappy man. Did she know the circumstances of the discovery of my brother, and my husband's flight? I dared not ask; but I read so much sympathy and compassion in her countenance, and so much tenderness in her manners, I thought she had fathomed the depth of my sorrows.

"You look like a girl of fifteen," she said, passing her fingers through my carelessly waving locks. "Your hair was very beautiful, but I can scarcely regret its loss."

"I may look more juvenile,—I believe I do, for every one tells me so; but the youth and bloom of my heart are gone for ever."

"For ever from the lips of the young, and from those more advanced in life, mean very different things," answered Mrs. Brahan. "I have no doubt you have happier hours in store, and you will look back to these as morning shadows melting off in the brightening sunshine."

"Do you know all that has happened, dear Mrs. Brahan, since I left your city?"

"The rumor of the distressing circumstances which attended the discovery of your brother reached us even here, and our hearts bled for you. But all will yet be well. The terrible shock you have sustained will be a death blow to the passion that has caused you so much misery. Forgive me, if I make painful allusions; but I cannot suffer you to sink into the gloom of despondency."

"I try to look upward. I do think the hopes which have no home on earth, have found rest in heaven."

"But why, my dear young friend, do you close your heart to earthly hope? Surely, when your husband returns, you may anticipate a joyful reunion."

"When he returns! Alas! his will be a life-long exile. Believing what he does, he will never, never return."

"But you have written and explained every thing?"

"How can I write,—when I know not where to direct, when I know not to what region he has wandered, or what resting-place he has found?"

"But Mr. Harland!" said she, with a look of troubled surprise. "You might learn through him?"

"Mrs. Linwood has written repeatedly to Mr. Harland, and received no answer. She concluded that he had left the city, but knew not how to ascertain his address."

"Then you did not know that he had gone to India? I thought,—I believed,—is it possible that you are not aware"—

"Of what?" I exclaimed, catching hold of her arm, for my brain reeled and my sight darkened.

"That Mr. Linwood accompanied him," she answered, turning pale at the agitation her words excited. To India! that distant, deadly clime! To India, without one farewell, one parting token to her whom he left apparently on the brink of the grave!

By the unutterable anguish of that moment, I knew the delusion that had veiled my motives. I had thought it was only to reclaim a lost parent that I had come, but I found it was the hope of meeting the deluded wanderer, more than filial piety, that had urged my departure.

"To India!" I cried, and my spirit felt the tossings of the wild billows that lay rolling between. "Then we are indeed parted,—parted for ever!"

"Why, t'is but a step from ocean to ocean, from clime to clime," she said in kind, assuring accents. "Men think nothing of such a voyage, for science has furnished wings which bear them over space with the speed of an eagle. If you knew not his destination, I should think you would rejoice rather than mourn, to be relieved of the torture of suspense. Had I known that you were ignorant of the fact, I should have written months ago."

"Is it certain that he is gone?" I asked. "Did you see him? Did Mr. Brahan? How did you learn, what we have vainly sought to know?"

"Mr. Brahan had business with Mr. Harland, and having neglected some important items, followed him on board the ship in which he embarked. It was at night, and he remained but a short time; but he caught a glimpse of your husband, whom he immediately recognized, but who gave him no opportunity of speaking to him. Knowing he was a friend of Mr. Harland's, he supposed he had come on board to bid him farewell, though he was not aware of his being in the city. When we heard the rumor of the tragic scenes in which he acted so dread a part, and connected it with the time of Mr. Harland's departure, Mr. Brahan recalled Mr. Linwood's unexpected appearance in the ship, and the mystery was explained. But we dreamed not that his departure was unknown to you. If you had only written to us!"

It was strange that I had never thought of the possibility of their knowing any thing connected with Ernest. Mr. Harland was the only gentleman with whom he was on terms of intimacy, the only one to whom we thought of applying in the extremity of anxiety.

"Has the ship been heard from? What was its name?" I asked, unconscious of the folly of my first question.

"Not yet. It was called the 'Star of the East.' A beautiful and hope-inspiring name. Mr. Brahan can give you Mr. Harland's address. You can write to your husband through him. Every thing is as clear as noonday. Do you not already inhale the fragrance of the opening flowers of joy?"

I tried to smile, but I fear it was a woful attempt. Even the scent of the roses had been crushed out of my heart.

"Your brother is an exceedingly interesting young man," she observed, perceiving that I could not speak without painful agitation of Ernest. "I have never seen a stranger who won my regard so instantaneously."

"Dear Richard!" I cried, "he is all that he seems, and far more. The noblest, kindest, and best. How sad that such a cloud darkens his young manhood!"

"It will serve as a background to his filial virtues and bring them out in bright and beautiful relief. I admire, I honor him a thousand times more than if he were the heir of an unspotted name, a glorious ancestry. A father's crimes cannot reflect shame on a son so pure and upright. Besides, he bears another name, and the world knows not his clouded lineage."

My heart warmed at her generous praises of Richard, who was every day more and more endeared to my affections. Where was he now? Had he commenced his mission, and gone to the gloomy cell where his father was imprisoned? He did not wish me to accompany him the first time. What a meeting it must be! He had never consciously beheld his father. The father had no knowledge of his deserted son. In the dungeon's gloom, the living grave of hope, joy, and fame, the recognition would take place. With what feelings would the poor, blasted criminal behold the noble boy, on whom he had never bestowed one parental care, coming like an angel, if not to unbar his prison doors, to unlock for him the golden gates of heaven!

I was too weary for my journey, too much exhausted from agitation to wait for Richard's return, but I could not lay my head on the pillow before writing to Mrs. Linwood and Edith, and telling them the tidings I had learned of the beloved exile. And now the first stormy emotions had subsided, gratitude, deep and holy gratitude, triumphed over every other feeling. Far, far away as he was, he was with a friend; he was in all human probability safe, and he could learn in time how deeply he had wronged me.

Often, on bended knees, with weeping eyes and rending sighs had I breathed this prayer,—"Only let him know that I am still worthy of his love, and I am willing to resign it,—let me be justified in his sight, and I am willing to devote my future life to Thee."

The path was opening, the way clearing, and my faith and resignation about to be proved. I recognized the divine arrangement of Providence in the apparently accidental circumstances of my life, and my soul vindicated the justice as well as adored the mercy of the Most High.

A voice seemed whispering in my ear, "O thou afflicted and tossed with tempests! there is a haven where thy weary bark shall find rest. I, who once bore the burden of life, know its sorrows and temptations, its wormwood and its gall. I bore the infirmities of man, that I might pity and forgive; I bore the crown of thorns, that thou mightest wear the roses of Paradise; I drained the dregs of human agony, that thou mightest drink the wine of immortality. Is not my love passing the love of man, and worth the sacrifice of earth's fleeting joys?"

As the heavenly accents seemed to die away, like a strain of sweet, low harmony, came murmuring the holy refrain—

"Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where the infant Redeemer is laid."



CHAPTER LIII.

Richard had visited the Tombs, but had not seen his father. The sight, the air, the ponderous gloom of the awful prison-house, was as much as he had fortitude to bear; and though he had at first thought preferred meeting him in the shadows of night, he recoiled from its additional horrors.

Poor fellow! I felt heart-sick for him. On one side the memory of his mother's wrongs,—on the other, his father's sufferings and disgrace. I knew by my own bitter experience the conflict he was enduring.

"After we have once met," he said, "the bitterest pang will be over."

When he returned, I was shocked at the suffering his countenance expressed. I sat down by him in silence, and took his hand in mine, for I saw that his heart was full.

"I cannot take you there, Gabriella," were the first words he uttered. "If my nerves are all unstrung, how will yours sustain the shock? He told me not to bring you, that your presence would only aggravate his sufferings."

"Did I not come to share your duties, Richard? and will it not be easier to go hand in hand, though we do tread a thorny path? I have heard of women who devote their whole lives to visiting the dungeons of the doomed, and pouring oil and balm into the wounds of penitence and remorse; women who know nothing of the prisoner, but that he is a sinful and suffering son of Adam,—angels of compassion, following with lowly hearts the footsteps of their divine Master. O my brother, think me not so weak and selfish. I will convince you that I have fortitude, though you believe it not. Dr. Harlowe thinks I have a great deal. But, Richard, is it too painful to speak of the interview you so much dreaded? Does he look more wretched than you feared?"

"Look, Gabriella! Oh, he is a wreck, a melancholy wreck of a once noble man. Worn, haggard, gloomy, and despairing, he is the very personification of a sin-blasted being, a lost, ruined spirit. I had prepared myself for something mournful and degraded, but not for such a sight as this. O what an awful thing it is to give oneself up to the dominion of evil, till one seems to live, and move, and have their being in it! How awful to be consumed by slow, baleful fires, till nothing but smouldering ashes and smoking cinders are left! My God! Gabriella, I never realized before what accursed meant."

He started up, and walked up and down the room, just as Ernest used to do, unable to control the vehemence of his emotions.

"Father!" he exclaimed, "how I could have loved, revered, adored my father, had he been what my youthful heart has so panted to embrace. I loved my mother,—Heaven knows I did; but there always seemed majesty as well as beauty in the name of father, and I longed to reverence, as well as to love. Mr. Clyde was a good man, and I honored him; he was my benefactor, and I was grateful to him,—but he wanted the intellectual grandeur, to which my soul longed to pay homage. I was always forming an image in my own mind of what a father should be,—pure, upright, and commanding,—a being to whom I could look up as to an earthly divinity, who could satisfy the wants of my venerating nature."

"It is thus I have done," I cried, struck by the peculiar sympathy of our feelings. "In the dreams of my childhood, a vague but glorious form reigned with the sovereignty of a king and the sanctity of a high-priest, and imagination offered daily incense at its throne. Never, till I read my mother's history, was the illusion dispelled. But how did he welcome you, Richard? Surely he was glad and proud to find a son in you."

"He is no longer capable of pride or joy. He is burnt out, as it were. But he did at last show some emotion, when made to believe that I was the son of Theresa." His hand trembled, and his hard, sunken eye momentarily softened. "Did you come here to mock and upbraid me?" he cried, concealing his sensibility under a kind of fierce sullenness. "What wrong have I done you? I deserted you, it is true, but I saved you from the influence of my accursed example, which might have dragged you to the burning jaws of hell. Go, and leave me to my doom. Leave me in the living grave my own unhallowed hands have dug. I want no sympathy, no companionship,—and least of all, yours. Every time I look on you, I feel as if coals of fire were eating in my heart."

"Remorse, Richard," I exclaimed, "remorse! Oh! he feels. Our ministrations will not be in vain. Did you tell him that I was with you, that I came to comfort and to do him good?"

"I did; but he bade me tell you, that if he wanted comfort, it could not come through you,—that he would far rather his tortures were increased than diminished, that he might, he said, become inured to sufferings, which would continue as long as Almighty vengeance could inflict and immortality endure. My dear sister, I ought not to repeat such things, but the words ring in my ears like a funeral knell."

"Let us not speak of him any more at present," he added, reseating himself at my side, and he took my hand and pressed it on his throbbing temples. "There is sweetness in a sister's sympathy, balm in her gentle touch."

Mrs. Brahan, who had considerately left us alone, soon entered, saying it was luncheon time, and that a glass of wine would do us all good. Mr. Brahan followed her, whose intelligent and animated conversation drew our minds from the subjects that engrossed our thoughts. It was well for me that I had an opportunity of becoming so intimately acquainted with a married pair like Mr. and Mrs. Brahan. It convinced me that the most perfect confidence was compatible with the fondest love, and that the purest happiness earth is capable of imparting, is found in the union of two constant, trusting hearts.

"We have been married seventeen years," said Mrs. Brahan, in a glow of grateful affection, "and I have never seen a cloud of distrust on my husband's brow. We have had cares,—as who has not,—but they have only made us more dear to each, other, by calling forth mutual tenderness and sympathy. Ours was not one of those romantic attachments which partake of the wildness of insanity, but a serene, steady flame, that burns brighter and brighter as life rolls on."

She spoke out of the abundance of her heart, without meaning to contrast her own bright lot with mine, but I could not help envying her this unclouded sunshine of love. I tried to rejoice with her, without sighing for my own darker destiny; but there is an alloy of selfishness in the purest gold of our natures. At least, there is in mine.

There was another happy pair,—Mr. Regulus and his wild Madge. A letter from her, forwarded by Mrs. Linwood soon after our arrival in New York, breathed, in her own characteristic language, the most perfect felicity, mingled with heart-felt sympathy and affection. Their bridal hours were saddened by my misfortunes; and they were compelled to leave me when I was unconscious of their departure. Margaret was delighted with every thing around and about her,—the place, the people, and most of all her husband; though, in imitation of the Swedish wife, she called him her bear, her buffalo, and mastadon. The exuberant energies of her character, that had been rioting in all their native wildness, had now a noble framework to grasp round, and would in time form a beautiful domestic bower, beneath whose shade all household joys and graces would bloom and multiply.

I have anticipated the reception of this letter, but I feared I might forget to mention it. It is delightful to see a fine character gradually wrought out of seemingly rough and unpromising elements. It is beautiful to witness the triumph of pure, disinterested affection in the heart of woman. It is sweet to know that the angel of wedded love scatters thornless flowers in some happy homes,—that there are some thresholds not sprinkled by blood, but guarded by confidence, which the destroying demon of the household is not permitted to pass over.

I do not like to turn back to myself, lest they who follow me should find the path too shadowy and thorny. But is it not said that they who go forth weeping, bearing precious seed, shall come again rejoicing, bending under the weight of golden sheaves?

I wrote to Ernest for the first time, for we had never been parted before. Again and again I commenced, and threw down the pen in despair. My heart seemed locked, closed as with Bastile bars. What words of mine could pierce through the cloud of infamy in which his remembrance wrapped me? He would not believe my strange, improbable tale. He would cast it from him as a device of the evil spirit, and brand me with a deeper curse. No! if he was so willing to cast me off, to leave me so coldly and cruelly, without one farewell line, one wish to know whether I were living or dead, let him be. Why should I intrude my vindication on him, when he cared not to hear it? He had no right to believe me guilty. Had a winged spirit from another sphere come and told me that he was false, I would have spurned the accusation, and clung to him more closely and more confidingly.

"But you knew his infirmity," whispered accusing conscience, "even before you loved him; and have you not seen him writhing at your feet in agonies of remorse, for the indulgence of passions more torturing to himself than to you! It is you who have driven him from country and home, innocently, it is true, but he is not less a wanderer and an exile. Write and tell him the simple, holy truth, then folding your hands meekly over your heart, leave the result to the disposal of the God of futurity."

Then words came like water rushing through breaking ice. They came without effort or volition, and I knew not what they were till I saw them looking at me from the paper, like my own image reflected in a glass. Had I been writing a page for the book of God's remembrance, it could not have been more nakedly true. I do believe there is inspiration now given to the spirit in the extremity of its need, and that we often speak and write as if moved by the Holy Ghost, and language comes to us in a Pentecostal shower, burning with heaven's fire, and tongues of flame are put in our mouth, and our spirits move as with the wings of a mighty wind.

I recollect the closing sentence of the letter. I knew it contained my fate; and yet I felt that I had not the power to change it.

"Come back to your country, your mother, and Edith. I do not bid you come back to me, for it seems that the distance that separates us is too immeasurable to be overcome. I remember telling you, when the midnight moon was shining upon us in the solitude of our chamber, that I saw as in a vision a frightful abyss opening between us, and I stood on one icy brink and you on the other, and I saw you receding further and further from me, and my arms vainly sought to reach over the cold chasm, and my own voice came back to me in mournful echoes. That vision is realized. Our hearts can never again meet till that gulf is closed, and confidence firm as a rock makes a bridge for our souls.

"I have loved you as man never should be loved, and that love can never pass away. But from the deathlike trance in which you left me, my spirit has risen with holier views of life and its duties. An union, so desolated by storms of passion as ours has been, must be sinful and unhallowed in the sight of God. It has been severed by the hand of violence, and never, with my consent, will be renewed, unless we can make a new covenant, to which the bow of heaven's peace shall be an everlasting sign; till passion shall be exalted by esteem, love sustained by confidence, and religion pure and undefiled be the sovereign principle of our lives."



CHAPTER LIV.

The Tombs!—shall I ever forget my first visit to that dismal abode of crime, woe, and despair?—never!

I had nerved myself for the trial, and went with the spirit of a martyr, though with blanched cheek and faltering step, into the heart of that frowning pile, on which I could never gaze without shuddering.

Clinging to the arm of Richard, I felt myself borne along through cold and dreary walls, that seemed to my startled ear echoing with sighs and groans and curses, upward through dark galleries, and passed ponderous iron doors that reminded me of Milton's description of the gates of hell, till the prison officer who preceded us paused before one of those grim portals, and inserting a massy key, a heavy grating sound scraped and lacerated my ear.

"Wait one moment," I gasped, leaning almost powerless on the shoulder of Richard.

"I feared so," said he, passing his arm around me, his eyes expressing the most intense sensibility. "I knew you could not bear it. Let us return,—I was wrong to permit your coming in the first place."

"No, no,—I am able to go in now,—the shock is over,—I am quite strong now."

And raising my head, I drew a quick, painful breath, passed through the iron door into the narrow cell, where the gloom of eternal twilight darkly hung.

At first I could not distinguish the objects within, for a mist was over my sight, which deepened the shadows of the dungeon walls. But as my eye became accustomed to the dimness, I saw a tall, emaciated figure rising from the bed, which nearly filled the limited space which inclosed us. A narrow aperture in the deep, massy stone, admitted all the light which illumined us after the iron door slowly closed.

The dark, sunken eyes of the prisoner gleamed like the flash of an expiring taper, wild and fitful, on our entering forms. He was dreadfully altered,—I should scarcely have recognized him through the gloomy shade of his long-neglected hair, and thick, unshorn beard.

"Father," said Richard, trying to speak in a cheerful tone, "I have brought you a comforter. A daughter's presence must be more soothing than a son's."

I held out my hand as Richard spoke, and he took it as if it were marble. No tenderness softened his countenance,—he rather seemed to recoil from me than to welcome. I noticed a great difference in his reception of Richard. He grasped his hand, and perused his features as if he could not withdraw his gaze.

"Are you indeed my son?" he asked, in an unsteady tone. "Do you not mock me? Tell me once more, are you Theresa's child?"

"As surely as I believe her an angel in heaven, I am."

"Yes,—yes, you have her brow and smile; but why have you come to me again, when I commanded you to stay away? And why have you brought this pale girl here, when she loathes me as an incarnate fiend?"

"No,—no," I exclaimed, sinking down on the foot of the bed, in hopelessness of spirit, "I pity, forgive, pray for you, weep for you."

"I want neither pity, forgiveness, nor prayers," he sullenly answered. "I want nothing but freedom, and that you cannot give. Go back to your husband, and tell him I curse him for the riches that tempted me, and you for the jewels that betrayed. You might have given me gold instead of diamonds, and then I would have been safe from the hell-hounds of law. Curse on the sordid fear"—

"Stop," cried Richard, seizing the arm he had raised in imprecation, and fixing on him an eye of stem command. "You shall not wound her ears with such foul blasphemy. Utter another word of reproach to her, and I will leave you for ever to the doom you merit. Is this the return you make for her filial devotion? Betrayer of her mother, robber of her husband, coward as well as villain, how dare you blast her with your impious curse?"

Richard forgot at that moment he was speaking to a father, in the intensity of his indignation and scorn. His eye burned, his lip quivered, he looked as if he could have hurled him against the granite walls.

St. James quailed and writhed out of his grasp. His face turned the hue of ashes, and he staggered back like a drunken man.

"I did not mean to curse her," he cried. "I am mad half the time, and know not what I say. Who would not be mad, cut off from communion with their kind, in such a den as this, with fiends whispering, and devils tempting, and know that it is not for a day, a week, a month, nor even a year; but for ten long years! And what will life be then, supposing I drag out its hated length through imprisonment, and horror, and despair? What is it now? A worn shred, a shivelled scroll, a blasted remnant of humanity!"

He sat down again on the side of the bed, and leaning forward, bent his face downward and buried it in his hands. Groans, that seemed to tear his breast as they forced their passage, burst spasmodically from his lips. Oh! if that travailing soul, travailing in sin and sorrow, would cast itself on the bosom of Divine Mercy, would prostrate itself at the foot of the cross, till the scarlet dye of crime was washed white in a Saviour's blood! What were ten years of imprisonment and anguish, to eternal ages burning with the unquenchable fires of remorse!

"O father!" I cried, moved by an irresistible impulse, and approaching him with trembling steps, "these prison walls may become the house of God, the gate of heaven, dark and dismal as they are. The Saviour will come and dwell with you, if you only look up to him in penitence and faith; and he will make them blissful with his presence. He went into the den of lions. He walked through the fiery furnace. He can rend these iron doors and give you the glorious liberty of the children of God. If I could only speak as I feel, if I only knew how to convince and persuade;—but alas! my tongue is weak, my words are cold. Richard will you not help me?"

"If he will not listen to you, Gabriella, he would not be persuaded though an angel spoke."

"Why do you care about my soul?" asked the prisoner, lifting his head from his knees, and rolling his bloodshot eyes upon me.

"Because you are my father," I answered,—overcoming my trepidation, and speaking with fervor and energy,—"because my mother prayed for you, and my Saviour died for you."

"Your mother!" he exclaimed; "who was she, that she should pray for me?"

"My mother!" I repeated, fearing his mind was becoming unsettled; "if you have forgotten her, I do not wish to recall her."

"I remember now,—her name was Rosalie," he said, and a strange expression passed over his countenance. "I was thinking of my poor Theresa."

He looked at Richard as he spoke, and something like parental tenderness softened his features. Degraded as he was, unworthy as it seemed he must ever have been of woman's love, I could not help a pang of exquisite pain at the thought of my mother's being forgotten, while Theresa was remembered with apparent tenderness. When I met him in the Park, he expressed exceeding love for me for her sake,—he spoke of her as the beloved of his youth, as the being whose loss had driven him to desperation and made him the wretch and outcast he was. And now, no chord of remembrance vibrated at her name, no ray of fondness for her child played upon the sacrifice I was offering. It was a sordid deception then,—his pretended tenderness,—to gain access to my husband's gold; and I turned, heart-sick and loathing away. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of a book that looked like the Bible on a little table, between the bed and the wall. With an involuntary motion I reached forward and opened it.

"I am so glad," I cried, looking at Richard. "I wanted to bring one; but I thought I would ask permission."

"Yes," exclaimed St. James, with a ghastly smile, "we all have Bibles, I believe. Like the priest's blessing, they cost nothing."

"But you read it, father!" said Richard, anxiously. "You cannot fail to find light and comfort in it. You cannot be altogether lonely with such a companion."

"What is the use of reading what one cannot understand?" cried he, in a gloomy tone. "Your mother was a Catholic. She did not read the Bible, and if there is a heaven above, it was made for such as she."

"My mother did read her Bible," answered Richard, with solemnity. "She taught me to read it, making a table of her knees, while her hands toiled for our subsistence. It was a lamp to her path, a balm to her sorrows. She lived according to its precepts. She died, believing in its promises."

The glistening eyes of Richard seemed to magnetize his father, so earnest, so steadfast was his gaze.

"Have you her Bible?" he asked, in a husky voice.

"I have; it was her dying gift."

"Bring it, and read to me the chapters she loved best. Perhaps—who knows? Great God! I was once a praying child at my mother's knee."

Richard grasped his father's hand with a strong emotion,

"I will bring it, father. We will read it together, and her spirit will breathe into our hearts. The pages are marked by her pencil, blistered by her tears."

"Yes, bring it!" he repeated. "Who knows? Just heaven!—who knows?"

Who, indeed, did know what influence that book, embalmed in such sacred memories, might have on the sinner's blasted heart? The fierceness and sullenness that had repelled and terrified me on our first entrance had passed away, and sensibility roused from an awful paralysis, started at the ruins it beheld. There was hope, since he could feel. Richard's filial mission might not be in vain. But mine was. I realized this before I left the cell, and resolved to yield to him the task which I had hoped to share. I could not help feeling grieved and disappointed, not so much on my own account, as for the indifference manifested to my mother's memory,—that mother who had loved him, even to her dying hour.

My heart hardened against him; but when I rose to go, and looked round on the narrow and dismal tomb in which he was inclosed, and then on his hollow cheek and wasted frame, and thought in all human probability those walls would prove his grave, it melted with the tenderest compassion.

"Is there any thing I can do for your comfort?" I asked, trying in vain to keep back the rushing tears. "Can I send you any thing to do you good? If you wish to see me again, tell Richard, and I will come; but I do not wish to be in the way. He, I see, can do every thing I could do, and far more. I thought a daughter could draw so near a father's heart!"

I stopped, choked with emotion which seemed contagious, for Richard turned aside and took up his handkerchief, which had dropped upon the bed. St. James was agitated. He gave the hand which I extended a spasmodic pressure, and looked from me to Richard, and then back again, with a peculiar, hesitating expression.

"Forgive me," said he, in a gentler accent than I had yet heard him use, "my harsh, fierce words; as I told you, it was a demon's utterance, not mine. You would have saved me, I know you would. I made you unhappy, and plunged into perdition myself. No, you had better not come again. You are too lovely, too tender for this grim place. My boy will come; and you, you, my child, may pray for me, if you do not think it mockery to ask God to pardon a wretch like me."

I looked in his face, inexpressibly affected by the unexpected gentleness of his words and manner. Surely the spirit of God was beginning to move over the stagnant waters of sin and despair. I was about to leave him,—the lonely,—the doomed. I, too, was lonely and doomed.

"Father!" I cried, and with an impulse of pity and anguish I threw my arms round him and wept as if my heart was breaking; "I would willingly wear out my life in prayer for you, but O, pray for yourself. One prayer from your heart would be worth ten thousand of mine."

I thought not of the haggard form I was embracing; I thought of the immortal soul that inhabited it; and it seemed a sacred ruin. He clasped me convulsively to him one moment, then suddenly withdrawing his arms, he pushed me towards Richard,—not harshly, but as if bidding him take care of me; and throwing himself on the bed, he turned his face downward, so that his long black hair covered it from sight.

"Let us go," said Richard, in a low voice; "we had better leave him now."

As we were passing very softly out of the cell, he raised his head partially, and calling to Richard, said,—

"Come back, my son, to-morrow. I have something to tell you. I ought to do it now, while you are both here, but to-morrow will do; and don't forget your mother's Bible."

Again we traversed the stone galleries, the dismal stairs, and our footsteps left behind us a cold, sepulchral sound. Neither of us spoke, for a kind of funeral silence solemnized our hearts. I looked at one of the figures that were gliding along the upper galleries, though there were many of them,—prisoners, who being condemned for lighter offences than murder or forgery, were allowed to walk under the eye of a keeper. I was conscious of passing them, but they only seemed to deepen the gloom, like ravens and bats flapping their wings in a deserted tower.

As we came into the light of day, which, struggling through massy ridges of darkness, burst between the grand and gloomy columns that supported the fabric, I felt as if a great stone were rolling from my breast I raised the veil, which I had drawn closely over my face, to inhale the air that flowed from the world without I was coming out of darkness into light, out of imprisonment into freedom, sunshine, and the breath of heaven.

There were men traversing the vestibule in many directions; and Richard hurried me on, that I might escape the gaze of curiosity or the stare of impertinence. Against one of the pillars which we passed, a gentleman was standing, whose figure was so striking as to attract my abstracted eye. I had seen him before. I knew him instantaneously, though I had only had a passing glimpse of him the morning we left the Falls. It was the gentleman who had accosted Julian, and who had stamped himself so indelibly on my memory. And now, as I came nearer, I was struck by a resemblance in his air and features to our unhappy father. It is true there was the kind of difference there is between a fallen spirit and an angel of light; for the expression of the stranger's face was noble and dignified, as if conscious that he still wore undefaced the image of his Maker. He lifted his hat as we passed, with that graceful courtesy which marks the gentleman, and I again noticed that the dark waves of his hair were mingled with snow. It reminded me of those wreaths of frost I had seen hanging from the evergreens of Grandison Place.

The singularity of the place, the earnestness of his gaze, and the extraordinary attraction I felt towards him, brought the warm, bright color to my cheeks, and I instinctively dropped the veil which I had raised a moment before. As we entered the carriage, which had been kept in waiting, the horses, high-spirited and impatient, threatened to break loose from the driver's control,—when the stranger, coming rapidly forward, stood at their heads till their transient rebellion was over. It was but an instant; for as Richard leaned from the carriage window to thank him, the horses dashed forward, and I only caught one more glimpse of his fine, though pensive features.

"Richard, did you not perceive a resemblance to our father in this gentleman, noble and distinguished as he appears? I was struck with it at the first glance."

"Yes, there is a likeness; but not greater than we very often see strangers bearing to each other. My father must once have been a fine looking man, though now so sad a wreck. A life of sinful indulgence, followed by remorse and retribution, leaves terrible scars on the face as well as the soul."

"But how strange it is, that we are sometimes so drawn towards strangers, as by a loadstone's power! I saw this gentleman once before, at the Falls of Niagara, and I felt the same sudden attraction that I do now. I may never see him again. It is not probable that I ever shall; but it will be impossible for me to forget him. I feel as if he must have some influence on my destiny; and such a confidence in his noble qualities, that if I were in danger I would appeal to him for protection, and in sorrow, for sympathy and consolation. You smile, Richard. I dare say it all sounds foolish to you, but it is even so."

"Not foolish, but romantic, my own darling sister. I like such sentiments. I like any thing better than the stereotyped thoughts of the world. You have a right to be romantic, Gabriella, for your life has been one of strange and thrilling interest."

"Yes; strange indeed!" I answered, while my soul rolled back on the billows of the past, wondering at the storms that heaved them so high, when life to many seemed smooth as a sea of glass. Then I thought how sweet the haven of eternal repose must be to the wave-worn mariner; how much sweeter to one who had had a tempestuous voyage, than one who had been floating on a tranquil current; and the closing verse of an old hymn came melodiously to my recollection:—

"There will I bathe my weary soul In seas of endless rest, And not a wave of trouble roll Across my peaceful breast."



CHAPTER LV.

What a contrast did the large, airy, pleasant nursery room of Mrs. Brahan present, to the narrow cell I had so lately quitted! I accompanied her there after dinner, while Richard, anxious to follow up the impression he had made, returned to the prison, taking with him his mother's Bible. I had hardly thought of the communication which he said he wished to make, till I saw Richard depart. Then it recurred to me; but it did not seem possible that it could interest or affect me much, though it might my brother.