I stood with bowed head and moving lips before him—mutely, indignantly.

"I shall, however, make all this," he continued, "appear as well as possible to your friends and mine, especially, believe me, Miriam! I shall state, for your sake, that, after being rescued from the raft, you were partially insane, but still sufficiently mistress of yourself to coincide with me and your sisters in the wish to let your death as Miss Harz pass current with the world, until you should redeem your errors" (what errors?), "and be restored to health and perfect reason. You will see that your acknowledgment of the last paper includes these extenuating facts, when you have leisure to re-read it (for I saw how hastily you glanced over that one in particular); you must do me the favor to peruse it much more carefully," drawing on his gloves coolly, "before you make your final decision. You are very comfortable here, my dear girl," glancing around benignly, "but you have no conception of the frame of mind, bare walls, utter solitude, a fireless hearth and a frugal table, would bring about in a very few days or weeks, or even in one as resolute and defiant as yourself. I should be loath to try such an experiment or deprive you of your child—but necessitous non habet legem, the school-book says. I think you, too, studied a little Latin, Miriam?"

"Monster!"

"Not a very relevant or polite remark, I must confess. By-the-by, Miriam, as you stand before me with your well-poised figure—your blazing eyes—your quivering nostrils—your curling, compressed lip—your heaving chest (always a splendid feature in your physique), your folded arms, and the color coming and going in your pale-olive cheek, in the old flame-like way I used to admire so much in your girlhood—you are a splendid creature, by Jove! I could find it in my heart to love you still—there, it is out at last—if it were not for Mrs. Raymond—" glancing, as he spoke, in the direction of Mrs. Clayton, with a knowing smile, "It was your magnificent disdain that kindled the torch before. Beware how you revive that fanaticism of mine!"

I turned for one moment with an involuntary feeling of appeal to Mrs. Clayton, but her cold, green eyes were quivering in accordance with the smile that stretched her thin lips to a line of mocking mirth. One glimpse of sympathy would have carried me to her arms for refuge—distasteful as she was to me in every way save one. She, like myself, was a woman. But such perversion of all natural feeling estranged me from her irreconcilably and forever.

I was alone; shame, humiliation, despair, possessed me; indignation, for the insult I was forced to bear in her presence, filled my soul—I stood with my head cast down, tears raining on my bosom, my arms dropped nervelessly beside me, my hands clinched, my whole frame trembling with excitement.

Slowly and one by one came those convulsive sobs—that rend and wrench the physical frame as earthquakes do the earth. Then rose the sudden resolve—born of volcanic impulse, irresistible to mind as is the lava-flood to matter, sweeping before it all obstructions of reason, habit, expediency.

If it cost me my life I would avenge myself on this tiger, thirsting for my blood; I would anticipate him in his work of destruction, and the strength of Samson seemed to permeate my frame.

It was strange that at that moment of cold, impetuous energy I forgot the steel I carried in my bosom, and thought only of the power I bore in my own hands. I determined to strangle him with my strong, elastic fingers, of which I knew full well the powerful grasp.

The consequences were as cobwebs in my estimate—compared to the ecstasy of such revenge—for all this flashed through my brain with the swift vividness of lightning, and in less than thirty seconds after his last remark this matter was matured. The woman prevailed over the lady.

I raised my eyes slowly and dashed away my tears, preparatory to the onset. He was looking at me wonder-struck, and, perhaps, with something like compunction in his face as I met his gaze. He must have read an expression that appalled him in those dilated eyes of mine that confronted his, for, as I sprang toward him, he bounded backward and escaped through the door of Mrs. Clayton's chamber, which he shut after him with undignified alertness. I stood smiling, and strangely cold, leaning against the mantel-shelf, while my heart beat as though it would have leaped from my throat, and I could feel the pallor of my face as chill as marble.

Mrs. Clayton approached me, but I put her away with waving hands. "Go, wretch!" I said, "woman no more, you have unsexed yourself. Leave me in peace—your touch is poisonous."

She shrank away silently, and I stood for a while like one frozen; then cast myself down on a chair and gave way to bitter weeping. The flood-gates were open, and the "waters" had indeed "come in over my soul." I had restrained my passionate inclinations until now, not only from a sense of personal dignity, but from a determination not to play into the hands of my enemies and captors, and all the more from such long self-control was the revulsion potent and overwhelming.

The consciousness that Ernie was at my knee at last aroused me from the indulgence of my grief, and I looked down to meet his compassionate and inquiring eyes fixed upon me with a masterful expression I have never seen in any other childish face. It thrilled me to the heart.

"What Mirry cry for—is God mad with Mirry?" he asked at length.

"It seems so, Ernie—yet oh, no, no! I cannot, will not believe in such injustice on the part of the Most High!" I pursued in sad soliloquy, with folded hands, and shaking head; and musing eyes fixed on the fire before me: "My God will not forsake me!"

"Did the bad man hurt Mirry?" he asked, leaning with both arms on my lap and putting up his hand to touch my face.

"Yes, very cruelly, Ernie."

"Big giant will come and kill him, and fayways put him in the river, and the old wolf wat eat Red Riding Hood eat him, and then the devil will roast him for his dinner."

I could but smile, albeit through my tears, at the climax of these threats which seemed to delight and stir the inmost soul of Ernie. His eyes flashed, his cheek crimsoned, his wide red mouth curled with disdainful ire, disclosing the small, pointed pearls within; he seemed transfigured.

"And Ernie! what will Ernie do for Mirry?" I asked, as I watched the workings of his expressive face. "Will Ernie let the wicked man kill Mirry?"

He looked at his small hands and arms, then extended them wistfully.

"Ernie will tell good Jesus," he said, "and he will make Ernie grow big—ever so big—to tie the man and put him in a bag like Clayton's cat."

The burlesque was irresistible, and none the less so that the child was so direfully in earnest. To his infant imagination no worse disaster than had befallen Clayton's cat could be devised. This animal, adored by him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to Clayton, by that vengeful potentate, to the despair of Ernie. The idolized kittens, too, which had followed her, had disappeared with their mother, and days of infant melancholy ensued, during which the canaries before referred to were brought as substitutes. The faithful heart still clung to its feline passion, it was evident, though for weeks the memory of that hapless cat had been ignored and its name unmentioned.

I believe, after my momentary wrath was over, I should have been content with the punishment suggested by the child, as sufficient even for Basil Bainrothe.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: The raft on which Miss Lamarque and her family had found refuge had been swept by the tempest of nearly every soul that clung to it, after a terrible night of storm and rain, during which that courageous lady—that Sybarite of society—sustained the fainting souls of her companions by singing the grand anthems of her Church, in a voice loud, clear, and sweet as that of a dying swan. One child was saved of the nine little ones, and the brother and sister remained almost alone on the raft. Let it be here mentioned that, at no period of her subsequent life, a long and apparently prosperous one, could Miss Lamarque bear to hear the circumstances of the wreck alluded to. Mr. Dunmore and his companions found a watery grave.]



CHAPTER IX.

A nervous headache, that confined me to my bed for several days, succeeded the degrading and exciting scene through which I had passed, and, as Mrs. Clayton had at the same time one of her prostrating neuralgic attacks, the services of Dinah were in active requisition. During my own peculiar phase of suffering, the small racket of Ernie, unnoticed in hours of health, grated painfully on my ear, and I caught eagerly at the proposition of the negress to take him down-stairs for a walk and hours of play in the sunshine, privileges he did not very often obtain in these latter days.

I was much the better for having lain silently for a time, when he returned with his hands filled with flowers, his lips smelling of peppermint-drops, and his eyes, always his finest feature, dancing with delight.

He had seen Ady, he told me, with eagerness, and she had kissed him, and tied a string of beads about his neck—red ones—which he displayed; and "Ady had a comb in her head, and her toof was broke"—touching one of his own front teeth lightly, so that I knew he was not pointing out any deficiency in the afore-mentioned comb. From this description, vague as it was, I identified Ada Greene as the person intended to be described; for I too had observed the imperfection he made a point of—a broken tooth, impairing the beauty of otherwise faultless ones.

"And who gave you the flowers, Ernie?" I asked, receiving them from his generous hands as I spoke, and raising the white roses to my nostrils to inhale their delicate breath. "Did Ady give you these?"

"No—Angy!" he answered, solemnly.

"Tell me about Angy, Ernie—had she wings?"

"No wings! Poor Angy could not fly. She was walking in the garden with Adam and Eve, with their clothes on," he said, earnestly.

"Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe, no doubt," I thought, smiling at the strange mixture of the real and the ideal—the plates of the old Bible evidently supplied the latter, from which many of his impressions were derived—and the practical pair in question the former, quietly perambulating together.

But "Angy!" Could I doubt for one moment to whom he applied that celestial title? The face of one of the angels in the transfiguration did, indeed, resemble Mabel's. I had often remarked and pondered over it.

"Tell me about Angy, Ernie," I entreated. "O Heaven! to think her hands have touched these flowers—her sweet face bent above him! Darling, darling! to be divided and yet so near! It breaks my heart!" and tears flowed freely while he tried to describe the vision that had so impressed him, in his earnest way.

"Poor Angy got no wings," he began again; "bu hair, and bu eyes, and bu dress"—every thing he admired was blue—"and she kissed Ernie and gave him peppermint-drops. Then Adam and Eve laughed just so"—grinning wonderfully—"and said, 'Go home, bad, ugly child, with a back on!' Then Angy pulled flowers and gave Ernie!"

"It is only the little gal next door—I means de young lady ob de 'stablishment, wat de poor, foolish, humped-shouldered baby talking about," Dinah explained. "He calls her 'Angy,' I s'pose, 'cause she's so purty like; and you tells him 'bout dem hebbenly kine of people, so de say, mos' ebbery night. Does you think dar is such tings, sure enough, Mirry?"

"Certainly, Dinah—the Bible tells us so; but what is the name of the pretty little girl of whom you speak? Tell me, if you know"—and I laid my hand upon her arm and whispered this inquiry, waiting impatiently for a confirmation of my almost certainty. For, that my darling was Ernie's Angy, I could not doubt, and the thought moved me to tremulous emotion.

"Dar, now: you is going to hab one ob dem bad turns agin—I sees it in your eyes. You see," dropping her voice for a moment, "I darsn't dar to speak out plain and 'bove-board heah, as if I was at home in Georgy! Ebbery ting is wat dey calls a mist'ry' hereabouts; an' I has bin notified not to tell ob no secret doins ob deirn to any airthly creeter, onless I wants to be smacked into jail an' guv up to my wrong owners. My own folks went down on de 'Scewsko;' an' I means to wait till I see how dat 'state's gwine to be settled up afore I pursents myself as 'mong de live ones. We is all published as dead, you sees, honey, an' it would be no lie to preach, our funeral, or eben put up our foot-board. He—he—he! I wonder wat my ole man'll say ef he ebber sees me comin' back agin wid a bag full ob money? I guess it'll skeer de ole creeter out ob a year's growfe; but dis is de trufe! Ef Miss Polly Allen gits de 'state (she was my mistis's born full-sister, an' a mity fine ole maid, I tells you, chile!), wy, den Sabra'll be found to be no ghose; fur it's easier to lib wid good wite folks Souf dan Norf. We hab our own housen dar, an' pigs, an' poultry, an' taturs, an' a heap besides, an' time to come an' go, an' doctors wen we's sick, an' our own preachin', an' de banjo an' bones to dance by, an' de best ob funeral 'casions an' weddin's bofe, an' no cole wedder, an' nuffin to do but set by de light wood-fiah an' smoke a pipe wen we gits past work; an' we chooses our own time to lay by—some sooner, some later, 'cordin' as de jints holes out. But here it is work—work—work—all de time; good pay, but no holiday, no yams, no possum-meat, an' mity mean colored siety!"

"But what has all this to do with the name of the little girl next door? Whisper that, and tell me the rest afterward."

"But, if Master Jack Dillard gits de 'state," she proceeded, as though she had not heard my eager question, "wy, den Sabra Smif am as dead as a door-nail from dis time to de day ob judgment, an' de ole man'll have to git anoder 'fectionate companion. I'se mity sorry for de poor ole soul, but I a'n't gwine to put myself in Jack Dillard's claws, not ef I knows myself. He's one ob dem young wite sort wat lubs de card-table, an' don't scriminate atween ole an' young folks. You see, he's my masta's nevy—for de ole folks had no chillun but Miss May Jane, an' she's bin dead dis fifteen yeer, and bofe her chilluns dun follered her to de grabe, so dere is only Miss Polly Ann lef, and—"

Here Mrs. Clayton groaned audibly, and, calling Dinah to her aid, broke up the tete-a-tete if such might justly have been called our interview. It was not very long, however, before Dinah returned to my bedside, by Mrs. Clayton's directions, to offer to comb out my hair, which was tangled beyond my skill to thread in my prostrate condition. Yet, to make an effort so far as to rise and have this done, I knew would be of benefit to me.

We were sitting by the toilet, while the process of untangling my massive length of locks was going on, and the upper drawer thereof was half open, thus affording me a glimpse of its contents. Among these was my silent watch with its chain of gold, its pencil and seal attached. I wore it usually (though useless now in its silent condition—the mainspring was broken) from habit and for safe keeping, but had laid it there when I staggered to my bed, ill and weak after my terrible interview with Mr. Bainrothe.

It caught the eye of Dinah and stirred her master-passion, avarice, and she began to question me, I soon saw, with a view of getting it in her own possession. The selfishness of the old negress had struck me on the raft as something rare even in one of her shallow race, and my conviction of her cowardice and coldness prevented me from taking advantage of her cupidity, as I might have done otherwise.

She was fully capable, I felt convinced, of accepting my watch as a bribe, and failing afterward to come up to her bargain. Yet, dear as it was to me from association of ideas, I should not have weighed it an instant against the merest probability of escape. I knew if I could gain an hour upon my pursuers, I should be safe in the house of Dr. Pemberton, or even in that of Dr. Craig, another friend of my father's. I was comparatively at home anywhere in the city of my nativity, acquainted as I was with its streets and people, and I fully determined, when I found Sabra's avarice excited, to offer her as a reward this golden treasure, should she first place me in circumstances to gain my freedom.

"Dey calls you pore, honey," she said softly, "but wen I sees dat bright gole watch and chain I knows better. Now I reckon dey would bring enough bright silver dollars at a juglar's shop to buy my ole man twice over agin! He is but porely, and our chilluns is all dead and gone, anyway, all but one, way down in New Orleans, an' ef I could git his free papers he might come here and jine his wife in freedom, even if Massa Jack Dillard did heir masta's estate. How much would dat watch and chain be worth, honey?"

"Two or three hundred dollars, I suppose, I don't know exactly; but certainly enough to buy your old man at Southerners' value set upon aged negroes; but whether it be or not—"

An apparition, of which I fortunately caught the reflection in the glass before me, cut short the promise that hovered on my lips. It was that of Mrs. Clayton, in her bed-gown and swathed in flannel, peering, peeping, listening at the door of her chamber, as unlovely a vision, certainly, as ever broke up an entretien or dissolved a delusion.

I maintained my self-possession, though my agitation was extreme (the crisis had seemed so favorable!), while she limped forward and accosted me civilly, with a demand as peremptory as a highwayman's for my watch and chain, of which I took no notice.

"I should be doing you great injustice in your condition," she added, coolly, "to let you sell your watch, even to benefit Dinah and her old man, benevolent as is your motive; so I must take possession of it, or send for Dr. Englehart to do so, whichever you prefer."

"The watch is there," I said, rising haughtily, with my still unadjusted hair falling about me. "It was my father's and is precious to me far beyond its intrinsic value; and I shall hold you accountable for it some day. Take it at once, though, rather than recall the person before me with whose presence you menace me. Keep it yourself, however; I would rather deal with you than the others, false as you have shown yourself to every promise."

"I wish you would be reasonable," she said, "and do what your friends ask of you. This confinement is wearing us both out; it will be the death of me, and you will be to blame."

"The sooner the better," I rejoined, heartlessly.

"Ah, Miss Monfort, you have no better friend than I am, perhaps, but you are ungrateful."

"I hope not; but some things of late have shaken, I confess, what little faith I had in you; this confiscation of my property is one of them."

"You know why this is done; I need not explain, but I shall trust you fearlessly in Dinah's society in future. I believe you have no other treasure to bribe her with," and, smiling in her sardonic way, she turned and limped to her bedroom, which it had cost her so great an effort to leave. Her groans and moans during the remainder of the evening were piteous, and Dinah could do nothing to comfort her. A sudden determination possessed me. My own system recuperated rapidly, and after a nervous headache I was always conscious of renewed vital power and of keener sensations. I would try the experiment once more—hazarded under circumstances so different that it made me tremulous but to think of the vast abyss between my now and then—and essay, to magnetize Mrs. Clayton.

She could not sleep naturally, and she feared evidently to avail herself of opiates, lest in her heavy slumber, perhaps, I should escape. In her normal condition this seemed impossible, for she slept habitually as lightly as a cat, or bird upon its perch, yet lying, and with her key beneath her head (never dreaming of other outlet) she felt at ease. I had already learned that since her illness there were additional precautions taken to insure my safety, and, as she had alleged, her own fidelity.

The Dragon was watched in turn by a Cerberus—no other than the long-trusted colored coachman of Basil Bainrothe, of whom mention has been made far back in these pages.

Thus secure and secured, Mrs. Clayton might have surrendered herself to slumber with all serenity, one would suppose, had it not absolutely refused to visit her eyelids, and the suggestion of an opiate, on my part, was received for some reason in dumb derision.

I went to her at last, and said: "Mrs. Clayton, I hear you groaning grievously, and I fancy I could relieve you. The laying on of hands is a sort of gift of mine; let me try by such means to ease your pain."

"Thank you, Miss Monfort," very dryly, "you are very kind, indeed, but I don't think you can relieve me. I have excruciating neuralgia in my eyebones and temples, and my hands are cramped again. Dinah has been rubbing, without bettering them, for the last half hour."

"Let me try," and, without farther parley, I sat down to my self-appointed, loathed, and detested task, first quietly dismissing Dinah to the next room, where Ernie was eating his supper, and I knew would soon be wanting to be put to bed. We changed places for a time, and it was not long before Mrs. Clayton pronounced the pain in her eyes "almost gone." The experiment was a desperate one, and I bore to it all the powers of my organization—mental and physical—and had the satisfaction in less than an hour to see her sleeping profoundly. She had been failing fast under her painful vigils, and I knew that a few hours of refreshing sleep would be worth to her more than all the drugs in the Pharmacopoeia. Now came the test which was to make this slumber worth nothing or every thing to me. If she could be awakened from it without my coincidence, it would prove, perhaps, only a snare to my feet, but if her waking depended on my will, then might I indeed hope to baffle my Dragon, and, as far as she was concerned, make sure of my escape. I willed then earnestly that she should sleep until twelve o'clock; and at ten, when Dinah became impatient to retire, I gave her permission, in order to gain egress to try and arouse Mrs. Clayton.

In consequence of this immurement of our servant, I had remained supperless—beyond the crusts of bread left by Ernie and some cold tea in Mrs. Clayton's teapot, of which I partook with an appetite born of exhaustion. Those who have undertaken this "laying on of hands," for the purpose of soothing pain, will comprehend what the succeeding sensation of nerveless prostration is—those only—and give me their sympathy.

From her errand to arouse our sleeper in quest of the key, of course Dinah returned disconsolate. Greatly to my satisfaction, she stated that it was "out ob de question to try to git her eyes open. Why honey," she pursued, "ef I didn't know what a steady-goin' Christian creetur she was, I mout suppose she had bin 'bibin' of whisky or peach-brandy—dat's de sleepiest stuff goin', chile; but I does believe she has the fallin' fits, caze, even wen I pulled open one corner of her eyes, dey was rolled clean back in her head. Mebbe she's dyin', chile, an' ef she is—but no!" she muttered, "dat ole creetur down-stairs nebber leaves dem back-doors open one minute, you had better believe, even ef he happens to turn his back a spell, an' it would be no use tryin' to git out ob de 'stablishment dat way, but I knows whar she keeps her key, an' I kin go to bed myself if you say so, an' you kin lock de do' inside, an' lay de key back undernefe her pillow: you see dar's a bolt outside, too, honey, an' I means to draw dat after me, as ole Caleb always does ob nights wen he goes to bed."

Chuckling low at the manifest disappointment in my face, she disappeared, to return almost instantly.

"I thought she must be possumin'," she said, "but I know she is as fas' asleep now as de bar' in de hollow ob a tree in cole wedder, for she made no 'sistance like wen I grabbed de key from undernefe her head, an' here it is, chile, an' ef you wants to try your 'speriment you kin, but I spec you'd better wait a spell," and she looked cunningly at me; "dere's traps everywhar in dese woods!"

It occurred to me as well that Mrs. Clayton might be feigning slumber, having penetrated my design of lulling and soothing her fitful spirit to rest; and feeling, as I did, an utter want of confidence in Sabra, not only as free agent but as watched attendant, I determined as far as in me lay to disarm suspicion by duplicity. So I lifted up my voice in testimony of deceit, and declared my weariness of bondage to be such that I had determined to embrace Mr. Bainrothe's conditions, and that in a few days I should be free again without assistance.

"So take the key, Dinah," I said, after observing it closely, and perceiving that it was several sizes larger than that I had made, as clumsy as that was, and, therefore, could be of no use to me. "Let yourself out, and bolt the door behind you, and Mrs. Clayton shall see that I will take no mean advantage of her slumbers."

This arrangement having been carried with speedy effect, I returned to my own chamber after a close scrutiny of Mrs. Clayton's condition, and employed myself at once in running my penknife around the door concealed by my bed-head, and thus loosening the paper, pasted on cotton cloth, that covered it, from that of the wall, with which it was connected so intimately as to make the whole surface within the chamber seem to form one partition.

Long before this I had cut that which surrounded the lock, so that it lay like a flap, over it, fastened down lightly, however, with gum-arabic (part of Ernie's draught for a catarrh), so as to baffle slight inspection. My heart beat wildly as, after having effected this preliminary step, I cautiously unlocked the door, which, for aught I knew, might be, like that of Mrs. Clayton's closet, bolted without, so as to frustrate all my efforts. It opened outwardly, and could have been readily so secured.

In the great providence of God, it was not bolted. I sank on my knees, weak and prayerful, I remember, as the door swung slightly back, revealing the platform beyond, and the short stair that led from it up to the second story. The hinges creaked a little, and these I hastened to oil; then closing and relocking the door softly, I crept (without pushing my bedstead back again the few inches I had wheeled it forward) to look once more upon the sleeping face of Mrs. Clayton.

It was still calm and unconscious. Ernie, too, slumbered peacefully. Every thing seemed propitious to my purpose. I threw on hastily the famous, flimsy black silk and mantle that had been prepared for me on shipboard, tied a dark veil over my head, and, with no other precaution, went forth, as I hoped, to freedom.

My heart seemed to suspend its action as, cautiously unlocking and opening the door, I stepped forth on the platform. It will be remembered that I knew the topography of the lower part of the house of old thoroughly.

I had been entertained there with my father more than once, when, as heiress of my mother's great estate, I had commanded the reverence of my hosts, and the situation of parlors, study, and dining-room, was perfectly familiar to me.

It was what in those days was called a single house, though a spacious-enough mansion; that is, all the rooms, with one exception, were placed either on the same side of the wide hall of entrance, or behind it in the ell. The study alone formed a small lateral projection on the other hand. The door of this apartment opened at the foot of that-stair, on the upper platform of which I now stood trembling, weighing my fate by a hair. I had left the door ajar through which I had crept quietly, so that, in case of failure, I might have a chance of retreat before discovery should be made. It was well, perhaps, that I did so on this occasion, for otherwise I should scarcely have had nerve enough to avoid the sure and speedy detection which must have followed the slightest delay or noise made in returning.

I lingered to reconnoitre some minutes on the platform before I ventured to commence the wary descent of the broad, carpeted stairway. I had convinced myself that the second story was empty, though a lighted lamp swung in the upper entry, as well as in that below, throwing a flood of radiance on the scene with which I would fain have dispensed.

I heard the sound of voices from the closed parlors, and saw reposing on the rack before me several hats and canes, indicative of visitors. From the study, however, there fortunately came no murmur, and I found that it was dark. The front-door stood invitingly open; I could see the opposite lamp-post without, and I had made up my mind to dart on and downward, and reach at a bound the pavement, when the door of the first parlor was suddenly thrown back, and left so, by a servant coming out with a tray of wines and fruits which he had been evidently handing, and I had just time to shrink into shadow, favored in my wish for concealment by the black dress and veil I wore, when a once familiar form appeared in the door-way of the front hall, which I recognized at a glance as that of Gregory. Closing the door firmly after him, he prepared to divest himself of hat and cape in the hall, without a look in my direction. After the completion of which process he entered the parlor by the nearest door, setting that also wide open as he did so, with some exclamation about the heat of the apartment, which seemed to meet with acquiescence from the powers within.

I caught a panoramic view of that interior before I fled swiftly, noiselessly, hopelessly, back to my cage again, having lost my only chance of escape by that fatal delay of five minutes on the platform. I should have been out and away on the wings of the wind ere Gregory entered the inclosure before the house, had I not hesitated. Yet, after all, perhaps, I miscalculated. What if I had met him face to face—been seized and dragged back again to captivity! Perchance it was better as it was. Time would develop and determine this; but, in the interval, how woful was my disappointment!

I had time to get to bed again, and in some degree recover my composure; indeed, I had been in bed an hour when the clock in the dining-room beneath me, which, since the evident occupancy of that long-deserted hall, had been wound and put in running order, struck twelve, with its deep-mouthed, melodramatic tones, and at the very moment I heard sounds indicative of the resurrection of the mesmeric sleeper.

She was evidently startled in some way on finding herself awake again, or perhaps from having fallen so soundly asleep in hands like mine, for she called aloud first for "Dinah," then, repeatedly, on "Miriam," both without effect. In a few moments after these appeals had died away she came in person, as I knew she would, to reconnoitre.

The bedstead had been pushed carefully and noiselessly back again on its grooved castors against the door, from the lock of which the wooden key had been removed, rewashed in oil, and hidden away in that hollow aperture in the bedstead, which formed a perfect box, by the skillful readjustment of one loosened compartment of the veneering of the massive post.

She shook me slightly, and I rose in my bed with a start and shudder, admirably simulated, I fancied, and which completely deceived her evidently. "I am sorry to have startled you so," she said, hurriedly, "but where is Dinah, Miss Monfort, and how did she get out?"

"I really cannot inform you where she is," I answered, petulantly. "I scarcely think it was worth while to disturb me for the sake of asking me a question you must have known my inability to answer."

"But how did she get out, Miss Harz?"

"By means of the key under your head, which you will find in the lock, no doubt, where it was left. She promised me, insolently enough, to bolt the door outside to prevent egress, and I, to prevent ingress, locked it within."

"So she assured you we were both prisoners by night, did she? Well, I am glad you have proof at last of what I told you."

"I have no proof; but, as I have made up my mind to come to terms of some kind very soon, I thought it useless to investigate. Do you feel better for my laying on of hands? You seem refreshed."

"Yes, greatly better; a good sleep was what I needed, and I fell into a doze while you were beside the bed, I believe. I have heard of magnetism before as a means of relief for pain; now I am convinced of its efficacy."

"Magnetism! You don't think it amounts to that, do you? You flatter me;" and I laughed.

"I do, indeed, and I am sure I am much obliged to you, Miss Monfort; though, for that matter, you can never say, even when you come to your own again—which you will now do shortly—that I have not been considerate and attentive to you while in confinement."

"You need not be afraid of any complaint as far as you are concerned. I think I comprehend you and your motives by this time. Let there be peace between us from this hour." And I extended my hand to her, which, very unexpectedly to me, she seized and kissed—a proceeding deprecated loathingly. "I assure you," I added, laughingly, "I would rather even marry Englehart than continue here."

"Then you will marry Mr. Gregory?"

"I do not know—either that or die, I suppose—whichever God pleases. I am weary of being a prisoner—weary of you, of every thing about me. All that I cared for is lost to me, and I might as well surrender, I suppose; not at discretion, however!"

She turned from me silently, and sought her couch again; but I felt instinctively that she slept no more; and so we lay, silently watching one another, until morning. I dared not renew my efforts to escape, at all events, in the night-time, when I knew the house was locked, and watched without, as well as within—for this was the old habit of the square.

One—two—three—four o'clock came, and passed, and were reported by the deep-tongued clock in the room beneath me, before I slept, and then I dreamed a vision so vivid, that I wakened from it excited—exhausted—as though its frightful figments had been stern realities.

I thought that the noble dog Ossian came to me again and laid the double-footed key upon my lap, as he had done at Beauseincourt—staining my white dress with blood, not mud, this time, and that Colonel La Vigne struck it furiously to the floor, and handed me instead the wooden one I had carved, with the words of the proverb:

"The opportunity lost is like the arrow sped: it comes no more. Your wooden key will fail you next time, as it has failed you this, and you will be baffled—baffled—as you tried to baffle me! Miriam, unseen I pursue you!"

Then he laughed horribly, and faded in the gray dawn, to which I awoke, covered with cold dew, and trembling in every limb. Had he been there, indeed, in spiritual presence? Was it his hand that had left that band about my brow—that surging in my brain—that weight upon my heart? O God! had I indeed become the sport of fiends? At last I wept, and in my tears found sullen comfort. The image so often caviled at as false in Hamlet came to me then as the readiest interpretation of what I suffered, and thus proved its own fidelity and truth. "A sea of sorrow" did indeed seem to roll above me, against which I felt the vanity of "taking arms."

My destruction was decreed, and I had nothing to do but suffer and submit!

All the persecution I had sustained since my father's death, at the hands of Evelyn and Basil Bainrothe—all my wrongs, beginning at the heart-betrayal of Claude, and ending with the immurement I was suffering now at the hands of his father—all my strange life at Beauseincourt, with its episode of horror, its one reality of perfect happiness too fair to last, its singular revelations, its warm and deep attachments, my fearful and nightmare-like experience on the burning ship, the level raft, with the green wares curling above it, the rescue, the snare into which I had inevitably fallen, the Inquisition-walls closing around me—all were there in one vivid and overwhelming mental summary!

I think if ever madness came near me in my life, it came that night, so crushing, so terrific was this weight which, Sysiphus-like, memory was rolling to the summit of the present moment, to fall back again by the power of its own weight to the valley below—the valley of despair—- and destroy all that it encountered or found beneath it. Yet, by the time the sun was up, my eyes were sealed again in slumber.

Before I close this chapter, it will be as well to describe the tableau I had caught sight of through the open parlor-door when I tempted my fate and failed.

Standing close in the shadow, so that, even if directed toward me unconsciously, the glance of those within, I knew, could not penetrate the mystery of my presence, I scanned with a sad derision, the scene before me. With a glance I received the impression that it required moments to convey in narrative.

On the hearth-rug, with his back to the fire, his legs apart, his coat-skirts parted behind him, stood Basil Bainrothe, monarch of all he surveyed, with extended hand, evidently demonstrating some axiom to the two visitors ensconced on the sofa near him, who, with the exception of their booted feet, and the straps of their pantaloons, were beyond my angle of vision. On the opposite side of the chimney from these inscrutable guests sat two ladies, elaborately dressed and rouged, in whom I recognized at a glance Evelyn Erle and Mrs. Raymond. Just before I vanished, Claude Bainrothe, courteous in manner and elegant in exterior, approached them from the other parlor, in time to witness the entree of Gregory, to which I have referred, and to salute him cordially. That these were all confederates I could not doubt, and prepared to aid each other. How could I know that one pair of those evident feet belonged to the invisible body of a man who was one of the few whom I could have called to my defense from the ends of the earth, had choice of champions been afforded me? It was not until long afterward that I ascertained beyond a doubt that Major Favraud had formed one of that company on the occasion of my fatal failure. Had I dreamed of his presence, I should fearlessly have entered the parlor, and thrown myself on his brotherly protection, secure of his best efforts to rescue me, even though his own heart's blood had been the sacrifice.

Alas! should I ever find another dart like that, never to be recalled, to launch in the right direction, and fix quivering in the eye of the target?—God alone could know.



CHAPTER X.

After the one hopeful excitement of my prison-life, my spirit drooped deplorably for a season, and all occupation became distasteful to me. My diary even was abandoned, the writing of which had so well assisted to fill my time, and, although destroyed daily, to impress upon my memory a faithful and sequent record of the monotonous hours, else remembered merely as a homogeneous whole. Had it not been for poor Ernie and his requirements, I should have sunk under this fresh phase of suffering, I am convinced. My health, too, was giving way. My strength, my energy were failing. I kept my bed, as I had never been willing to do before if able to arise from it, until noon sometimes, for want of nervous impulse, and my food was tasteless and innutritious, even when I forced myself to eat a portion of what was placed regularly before me. It seemed to me that, long ere this, Wardour Wentworth must have ascertained my fate, and the thought that he might be passive when my very soul was at stake, thrilled me with agony unspeakable.

This mood endured so long that even Mrs. Clayton grew alarmed. She insisted on Dr. Englehart again, and, when I shook my head drearily for all reply, begged that I would permit her to state my case to Mrs. Raymond, who might in turn see some able physician about me and procure remedies.

To this, at last, I consented.

The consequence was what I had hoped it might be: Mrs. Raymond came in person, and I had at last the opportunity I had long desired of seeing her alone. If thoughtless, if unrefined according to my views of good breeding, she was still young, and vivacious, and perhaps kind-hearted; besides this, sufficiently well pleased with herself to be generous to one who could no longer be her rival.

Her approach was heralded by a note from Mr. Bainrothe, full of his characteristic, guileful sophistry and cool impertinence. It ran as follows (I still possess this billet with others of his inditing—along with a snake's rattle):

"MIRIAM: I am glad to hear through Mrs. Clayton that reaction has occurred, and that you manifest repentance for your recent violence toward one who always means you well. A little jesting on the part of your guardian, my dear girl, should meet with a very different reception, and handsome women must submit to compliments with a good grace, or run the risk of being called prudes or viragos. Not that I mean to apply either term to you by any means. Your father's daughter could not be other than a lady, even if she tried, but I must confess your manners have deteriorated somewhat since you went into voluntary banishment among those outlandish people. I have heard no very good account of this old La Vigne who died in debt, it seems, and left his children beggars. I have some curiosity to know whether he paid your salary. 'Straws show,' you know, etc.

"It is now October; by the end of this month I hope you will have made up that stubborn mind of yours (truly indomitable, as I often say to Evelyn) to leave seclusion, and enter your family once more in the only way you can do so respectably after what has occurred—as a married woman.

"You remember the French song which I was always fond of humming, 'Ou est on si bien qu'au sein de sa famille?' How appropriate it seems to your condition!

"You will be surprised to hear that your step-mother's brother has appeared on the tapis, and that he has had the audacity to propose to adopt Mabel, whom he claims as his niece.

"He seems a gentlemanly person enough, but may be an impostor for aught I know. The young lady he was engaged to, Gregory tells me, perished in the Kosciusko, which proves a relief, after all, as it is rumored he has a wife in Europe. But such gossip can hardly interest you very vividly. The man has gone to California, and will probably return no more.

"Did you, or did you not, meet this person at Colonel La Vigne's? Favraud hinted something of the kind when he was here; but I can get no satisfaction from Gregory.

"They all believe you were drowned in Georgia, and I thought it best for the present not to undeceive Favraud, who laments your fate.

"The surprise will be all the more pleasant; and, of course, every thing will be explained to the satisfaction of friends when you appear publicly as the wife of Luke Gregory—'long secretly married!' You see, it will be necessary to go back a little to save appearances, on account of Ernie!"

The miscreant! I understood him now—oh, my God, for strength to tear his cowardly heart from his truculent body! But no; let there be no further unavailing anger. In God's good time all should recoil on his own head. For the present, I must bear, and make myself insensible, if possible; and yet, I would not willingly have had the living greenness of my spirit turned to stone, as we are told branches are in some strange, foreign rivers—crystal-cold!

Another extract, the closing one, and then forever away with Basil Bainrothe and his flimsy letters:

"Again, I must congratulate you on the subdued and humbled temper you manifest. Claude, and Evelyn, and I, had just been discussing a plan for removing you to another asylum, where stricter discipline and less luxurious externals are employed to conquer the otherwise unmanageable inmates. Dr. Englehart, you know, holds up the theory of indulgence to his patients, and I am rejoiced to find his measures have at last prevailed over your frenzy. Mabel, like your other friends, believes you dead, and is at home with Evelyn and Claude, and is growing in beauty and intelligence every day.

"She was quite shocked at her uncle's wild behavior, and positively refused to go with him, is fond of Mr. Gregory, and remembers you with affection.

"Owing to my knowledge of your condition for the last year, my dear child, I don't blame you for any thing that is past, not even for those delusions with regard to my own acts and intentions which formed your mania, nor for the misfortune and sense of shame which, no doubt, caused your hasty flight, and whose evidences you brought with you from the raft, in the shape of a nearly year-old child.

"I remain, faithfully yours,

"B.B."

The shameful accusations which brought the blood to my brow ought to have been easier to bear than all the rest, because so easily confuted, and because I knew not really believed; but they were not. The very idea of shame humiliated me more than positive ill-treatment could have done; and, spotless though I knew myself to be (as others knew me too—all I loved and cared for), still my purity was shocked by such injustice.

I felt like one who had gone out to walk in fresh attire, and been mud-pelted by rude urchins, so that the outward robes, at least, were soiled, and a sense of degradation and uncleanness became the consequence in spite of reason. But, after all, the dress could be easily changed when opportunity should occur, and all be made clean again, and the mud-pelting forgotten or overlooked, and the urchins punished or dismissed in scorn.

Surely, God would not much longer permit this fiend to subjugate me. Had I not suffered sufficiently? Alas I who but our Creator can judge of our deserts, or measure our power to bear?

In my adversity and lonely trouble I had drawn near to Him and his blessed Son—our Mediator, and example, and only strength. Dear as was still the memory of that earthly love, the only real passion I had ever known, could ever know, it came no longer to my spirit as a substitute for religion. I had learned to separate my worship of God from my fealty to man, yet was this last not weakened, but strengthened, by such discrimination.

If only for the gift of grace it brought to me, let me bless my sad captivity!



CHAPTER XI.

The dreary days rolled on; the health of Mrs. Clayton declined so rapidly that a small stove was found necessary to the comfort of her contracted bedroom, which freed me from the unpleasant necessity of her actual presence. The stocking-basket was set aside, the gingerbread nuts were neglected, and the noise of constant crunching, as of bones, came no more from my dragon's den; nor yet the smell of Stilton cheese and porter, wherewith she had so frequently regaled herself and nauseated me between-meals, and in the night-season. I used to call her a chronic eater—a symptom, I believe, of the worst sort of dyspepsia, as well as too often its occasion.

I prefer, myself, the Indian notion of eating, seldom, and enough at a time. After all, is there any despot equal to the stomach and its requisitions? What an injustice it seems to all the rest of the organs, the royal brain especially, that this selfish, sensual sybarite should exact tribute, and even enforce concession, whenever denied its customary demands!

There are human beings, the poor of the earth, as we know, who pass their whole lives, merge their immortal souls in ministering to its absolute necessities, who go cold, ill-clad, and ignorant, to keep off the pangs of hunger; who sacrifice pride and affection at its miserable altar. There are others, fewer in number, it is true, but scarcely less to be pitied, who exceed this enforced servility in the most abject fashion of voluntary adulation; who flatter, persuade, and bring rich tribute to this smiling Moloch, only waiting his own time to turn upon and destroy his idolaters. For the pampered stomach, like all other spoiled potentates, is treacherous and ungrateful beyond belief.

Yet the philosophers tell us man's necessity for food lies at the root of civilization, and that the desire for a sufficiency and variety of aliment alone keeps up our energies! I cannot think so; I believe it is the stone about our necks that drags us down, and is intended to do so, and which keeps us truly from being "but a little lower than the angels."

"Revenons a nos moutons!"

The good-hearted vulgarian, who, whatever she was, and however detestable the part she was playing, was at least possessed of womanly sympathy, came frequently to see me during those weary days. Her engagement to Mr. Bainrothe was never by her acknowledged, or by me alluded to, and she seemed to have taken up the impression in some way that I was the victim of an unfortunate attachment to that subtle person, which had degenerated into a morbid and causeless hatred on my part, leading to mania.

Had she stated this conviction plainly, I might have been tempted to undeceive her; as it was, I suffered the error to continue, knowing that no condition of belief would influence her half so kindly toward me. Women as a class have a sincere friendship for those who have undergone slighting treatment at the hands of their lovers and husbands; and we all know what a common trick of trade it is with men who have been unsuccessful in their attempts to gain a woman's affections, or worse, in their evil designs on her honor, to give out such mendacious impressions!

Yet, to the end of time, the vanity and credulity of women will lead them to lend credence to such statements, rather than look matters firmly in the face, with the eyes of common-sense and experience. I, for one, am a very skeptic on this subject of manly dislike growing out of female susceptibility, and usually take the conservative view of the question.

During one of these condescending visits of the "Lady Anastasia," whose position toward Bainrothe I perfectly comprehended, through the inadvertence, it may be remembered, of Mrs. Clayton, I ventured to ask her whether she had met with her betrothed, as she had expected to do on landing at New York, and when her marriage was to take place.

"Whenever you come out of this retirement, dear; not before. You see I have set my heart on 'aving you for my bridesmaid, with your friends' permission."

"Then Mr. Bainrothe has concluded to annul the condition of my marriage before leaving the asylum."

"Oh, I had forgotten about that! Well, we will have the ceremony performed together, if you prefer; down in Dr. Englehart's drawing-rooms."

"You reside here, then?" I questioned; "you are at home in this house, whosesoever it may be?"

"Oh, no, you quite misunderstand me. I am staying with friends, and Mr. Bainrothe is over at home with his son and daughter-in-law"—with a jerk of her head in the right direction—"in the other city, I mean; I am such a stranger I. forget names sometimes. This, you know, is solely Dr. Englehart's establishment."

"I suppose that gentleman is absent, as I have not seen him lately," I continued.

"He has been absent, but has just returned. He speaks of calling, I believe, very soon, to see you on the part of Mr. Gregory. How happy you are to inspire such a passion in the heart of that splendid man!"—and she rolled her eyes, and drew up her square, flat shoulders expressively. "Do tell me where you knew him, and all about it; I am sure he is much more suitable to you, in age and intellect, than—than—even Mr. Bainrothe."

"There is no question of him now," I responded, gravely, purposely misunderstanding her; "he has been married some time to my step-sister, Evelyn Erie, and, I suppose, with many of my other friends, believes me dead!"

"Oh, no, I assure you," she rejoined, with some confusion, "it is a mistake altogether. Both Mr. and Mrs. Claude Bainrothe are perfectly aware of your seclusion, and he, especially, recommended and contrived it."

"There was contrivance, then; you admit that!" I said, impressively.

At this juncture a feeble voice from the adjoining room was heard calling aloud, and I listened to it, uplifted as it was, evidently, in tones of remonstrance and reproof, for some moments afterward—the Lady Anastasia having hastened, with dutiful alacrity, to the bedside of her soi-disant servant.

I became aware, after this visit, that Mrs. Raymond had become my jailer as well as her mother's. She came regularly at supper-time thereafter to superintend Dinah's arrangements, to give Mrs. Clayton her night-draught, which did not assuage her direful vigilance one particle, but rather seemed to infuse new powers of wakefulness in those ever-watchful eyes, until sunrise, when, protected by the knowledge that others besides herself were on the watch, she permitted sleep to take possession of her senses.

I earnestly believe that no one ever so effectually controlled the predisposition to slumber as did this woman.

After locking us up regularly for the night, the "Lady Anastasia" withdrew, followed by Dinah; and I would hear, later, sounds of festivity, in which her well-known laugh was blended, in the dining-room below, where, with Bainrothe and his friends, she held wassail, frequently, until after midnight. The groans of Mrs. Clayton would then commence, and, with little intermission, last until morning's light.

Yet it was something to be rid of Mrs. Raymond's surveillance during those very hours I had selected for my second effort to escape. This must be hazarded, I knew, between eight and ten o'clock of the evening, during which time I had reason to suppose the house-door remained unlocked. The risk of encountering some one in the hall below—for there was constant passing and repassing of footsteps during those hours—constituted my chief danger; but, at all hazards, the experiment must then, if at all, be made.

October was fast drifting away, and I knew that at its close my course would be decided for me, should I not anticipate such despotism by setting it at naught, in the only possible way—that of flying from the scene of my oppression.

How to do this, and when, became the one problem of my existence; and it was well for me that Mrs. Clayton was too great a sufferer to notice beyond my external safety, or she might have seen clear indications of some strange change at work, stamped upon my features.

My unsettled intentions were suddenly brought to a crisis by the contents of a letter handed to me, as usual, in the shadows of the evening, by the long-absent Dr. Englehart, who came in person, in accordance with Mrs. Raymond's announcement (arriving, as it chanced, while Mrs. Clayton slumbered), to deliver it.

Gregory wrote a large, clear hand, not difficult to decipher, even by the dim light of a moonlight lamp; and, while Dr. Englehart stood regarding me in the shadow, anxiously enough, I perceived, to keep me entirely on my guard, I perused, with mingled derision and terror, this truly characteristic epistle. My running commentaries, as I read—entirely sotto voce, of course, for one does not care to rouse the wrath of a tiger on the crouch, by flinging pebbles in the jungle—may give some idea of the impression it made upon me, and the emotions it excited.

"BELOVED MIRIAM" (insolent cur!)—"for by this tender title I am permitted to address you at last" (by whom?)—"I cannot flatter myself that, in concurring with the wishes of your friends, you return my fervent passion" (you are mistaken there; I do return it with the seal unbroken); "but will you not suffer me to hope that the deep, disinterested devotion of months may undo the past, and dissolve those bitter prejudices which I feel well aware were instilled into your heart by one of the coldest and most time-serving of men" (of course, hope is free to all; it is no longer kept in a box, as in the days of Pandora)? "When I assure you that Wentworth, with a perfect knowledge of your present situation, has repudiated the past, you will more perfectly understand my reference" (I will believe this when he tells me so, not before; your assertion simply reassures me). "It is not, however, to place my own devotion in contrast with his perfidy, that I now address you" (Nature drew the contrast, fortunately for him, without your assistance), "but to beseech you, for your own sake, to let nothing turn you from your recently-formed resolution" (I don't intend to let any thing turn me, if I can help it, this time!). "It remains with you to live a free and happy life, adored and indulged by one who would give his heart's blood to serve you" (a poor gift, I take it), "or pass your whole existence in the cell of a lunatic, cut off from every being who could care for or protect you." (Great Heavens! what can the wretch mean?) "Should you refuse to become my wife, and affix your signature to the papers in your possession, I have reason to know that Bainrothe designs to make, or rather continue, you dead, and imprison you in a lonely house on the sea-coast, which he owns, where others of his victims have before now lived and died unknown!" (Very melodramatic, truly; but I don't believe Cagliostro would dare to do it.) "To convince you of the truth of my allegations. Dr. Engelehart is instructed to place in your hands a note recently intercepted by me from that arch-conspirator to his son, which please return to him, my truest friend" (direst enemy, you mean), "along with this letter, as I send you both documents at my own peril, and dare not leave them in your hands" (how magnanimous!); and here I dropped the letter on the table, and extended my hand mutely to Dr. Englehart for the note, which was ready for me, in the hollow of his pudgy palm.

It did, indeed, most clearly confirm the statement, true or false, of the ubiquitous Gregory. Returning it to the physician pro tem., I then continued the perusal of this singular love-letter to the end, in which the lawyer and knave predominated in spite of Eros! Yet there was food for consideration here, and extremest terror.

"How long before this ultimatum is proposed to me, which Mr. Gregory seemed to anticipate, and with which you, no doubt, are acquainted?" I asked, coldly, after consideration.

"Ten days will close up de whole transaction, as I understand," was the no less cool reply, made in those husky, inimitable tones, peculiar to the man of petty pills.

"Ten days! It would seem a short time wherein to get up a reasonable trousseau, even!"

"True—true! but nosing of dat kind is necessaire under dese circumstances—only your mos' gracious and graceful consent!" He spoke eagerly, with bowed head and clasped hands, standing mutely before me when he had concluded.

"If Mr. Gregory loved me truly, he would not limit me thus," I hazarded. "He would give me time to learn to return his affection, as I must try to do, and to forget the past! He would not strike hands with my persecutors, but insist on my liberation—or obtain it, as he could readily do, without their cooeperation, through you, Dr. Englehart, who seem to be his friend and ally, and who have already run such risks for his sake in bringing me these two dangerous letters," and as I spoke I pushed them across the table, to be gathered up and concealed with well-affected eagerness.

How perfectly he played his part, and how cunningly Bainrothe had contrived to convey to me his menace—real, or assumed for effect, I could not tell which, for my judgment spoke one language, my cowardice another! Yet, I confess, that the panic was complete, though I concealed it from the enemy.

"Women usually, at least romantic and incredulous women like me, demand some proof of a lover's devotion," I resumed, as coolly as I could, "before yielding him their faith and fealty; but Mr. Gregory has given me no evidence so far of the sincerity of his passion; I confess I find it difficult, under the circumstances, to believe in its existence."

He drew near to me, bent eagerly above me, then again concealed himself, as it was wise for him to do, in shadow; and I could hear his hissing breath, as it passed between his closed teeth—like that of a roused serpent. The impulse of the man came near betraying him, but he rallied and refrained from an exposure, as he would have supposed it, that must have been fatal to his success as a lover, even if it confirmed his power of possession.

His tones, low and deep, were unmistakably those of suppressed passion when he spoke again, and he had almost dropped his accent, so wonderfully assumed.

"When shall he come to you, and speak for himself? Let me take to him some word of encouragement from your lips—for de love of whom—he languishes—he dies! All other passions of his life have proved like cobwebs, compared to this—avarice, ambition, revenge, all yield before it! He is your slave! Do not trample on a fervent heart, thus laid at your feet! Have mercy on this unfortunate!"

"Strange language from a captor to a captive—mocking language, that I find unendurable! Let Mr. Gregory remain where he is until the extreme limit of the interval granted me by Basil Bainrothe—as breathing-space before execution; and before hope expires in thick darkness—then let him come and take what he will find of the victim of so much perfidy!"

"You do not—you cannot—meditate personal violence, self-murder?" He spoke in a voice of agony, that could scarcely be restrained from breaking into its natural tones.

"No—no—do not flatter yourselves that I could be driven by you—by any one to such God-offending," I hastened to say, for I felt the importance of keeping this barrier of disguise, of ice, between Gregory and myself as a means of safety for a season, and determined that he should not transcend it, if I could prevent an expose, such as his excited feelings made imminent. "My hopes are dead—say this to Mr. Gregory—and I have reason to believe I should fare as well in his hands as in any other's, knowing him—as I know him to be—" and I hesitated here for a moment—"gentle, compassionate, faithful, where his feelings are fairly enlisted."

"He thanks you, through my lips, most lovely lady, for dis great proof of consideration; dis' message, which I shall truthfully deliver, will fill his heart with joy, long a stranger to his breast, for he has feared your hatred."

"Now go, Dr. Englehart, and let no one come to me without previous warning, for I need all my strength to bear me up in this emergency. Nor would I meet Mr. Gregory without due preparation—even of apparel," and I glanced at my dress of spotted lawn, faded and unseasonable as it seemed in the autumn weather. "I know his fastidiousness on this subject, and from this time it ought to, it must be my study to try to please him."

Why was not the fate of Ananias or Sapphira mine after that false utterance? Why did I triumph in the strength of guile that desperation gave me, rather than sink abashed and penitent beneath it? And this was the woman who had once lectured on duplicity and expediency, and deemed herself above them!

Bitter and nauseous as was this bowl to me, I drank it without a grimace; so much depended on the measure of deceit—hope, love, honor, life itself perhaps—for my terrors whispered that even such warnings as those Gregory had given were not to be disregarded where there was question of success or failure to Basil Bainrothe! But one alternative presented itself—escape! Delay, I scarce could hope for, and, even if granted, how could it avail me in the end? Those words—"He will make you dead!" rang in my ears, and seemed written on the wall. They confronted me everywhere. It was so easy to do this—so easy to repeat what the papers had already told the world—so easy to confine me in a maniac's cell under an assumed name, and by the aid of my own gold, and say, "She perished at sea!"

It would be to the interest of all who knew it, to preserve the secret, except the poor ship's captain, and he had been a dupe, and would scarcely recognize his folly, or, if he did, be the first to boast of and publish it. Besides that, should the matter be inquired into, how easy for Bainrothe to allege that my own family had sanctioned his course to save my reputation! For innuendo was over on this disgraceful subject. He had declared openly his base design.

Years might elapse before the final exposition, years of utter ruin to my prospects and my hopes. Wentworth might be married by that time, or indifferent, or dead; Ernie too old to make the matter of a year or two of consequence in the carrying out of the nefarious scheme to sustain which it would be so easy to summon and suborn witnesses.

All these possibilities represented themselves to me with frightful distinctness; my mind became imbued with them to the exclusion of all else—of reason even. I was literally panic-stricken, and nothing but flight could satisfy my instinct, my impulse of self-preservation. I must go, even if blown like a leaf before the gales of heaven; must fly, if even to certainty of destruction. I had felt this necessity once before, be it remembered, but never so stringently, so morbidly as now. I was yielding under the agony, the anxiety incident to my condition; my nervous system, too severely taxed, was breaking down, and it would succumb entirely, unless relief came to me (of this I felt convinced), before another weary month should roll away. Had I been imprisoned for a certain term of years as an expiation for crimes, I think I could have borne it better; but the injustice, the uncertainty of these proceedings were more than I could sustain.

I fell asleep, I remember, on the night of my interview with Gregory—alias Englehart—to dream confusedly of Baron Trenck and his iron collar, and the Princess Amelia and her unmitigated grief, and it seemed to me that I was given to drink from a cup the poor prisoner had carved (as memoirs tell us he carved and sold many such), filled with a sort of bitter wine, by the man in the iron mask—so vividly did Fancy, mixing her ingredients, typify the anguish of my waking moments, and reproduce its anxieties, in dreams of night that could not be controlled.

When I awoke in the morning it was to lie quietly, and listen to the doleful voice of Sabra, for such had been Dinah's Congo name, uplifted in what she called a "speritual" as she cleaned the brass mountings of the grate and kindled its tardy fires. With very slight alteration and adjustment, this picturesque and dramatic Obi hymn is given in this place, just as I jotted it down in my diary, thus imprinting it on my memory from her own dolphin-like lips and bellows-like lungs. Her forefathers, she informed me with considerable pride, had been snake-worshipers, and she certainly inherited their tendency to treat the worst enemy of mankind with respectful adoration.

It served to divert my mind from its one fixed idea for a little time to arrange this singular hymn, which, together with those she had given voice to on the raft, proved her poetic powers. For Sabra assured me that this gift of sacred song had come to her one day when she was washing her master's linen, and that she had felt it run cold streaks down her back and through her brain, and that from that time she was uplifted to sing "sperituals" by spells and seasons. This, her longest and most successful inspiration, I now lay before the reader:

SABRA'S SPERITUAL.

We's on de road to Zion, We's on de paf' to Zion, But dar's a roarin' lion, For Satan stops de way. Oh! lef' us pass, ole Masta, Oh! lef' us pass, strong Masta, Oh! lef' us pass, rich Masta— It am near de break ob day!

We's on de road to Zion, We's on de paf' to Zion, But wid his red-hot iron He bars de hebbenly gate! Oh! lef' us pass, ole Masta, Oh! lef' us pass, kin' Masta, Oh! lef' us pass, sweet Masta, For we is mighty late!

Does you hear de rain a-fallin'? Does you hear de prophets callin'? Does you hear de cherubs squallin' Wat's settin' on de gate? Oh! lef us pass, ole Masta, Oh! step dis side, kin' Masta, Unbar de do', dear Masta, We dar' no longer wait!

Does you hear de win' a blowin'? Does you hear de chickens crowin'? Does you see de niggars hoein'? It am de break ob day! Oh! lef us by, good Masta, Oh! stan' aside, ole Masta, Oh! light your lamp, sweet Sabiour, For we done los' our way!

We'll gib you all our money, We'll fotch you yams and honey, We'll fill your pipe wid 'baccer, An' twiss your tail wid hay! We'll shod your hoofs wid copper, We'll knob your horns wid silber, We'll cook you rice and gopher, Ef you will clar de way!

He's gwine away, my bredderin, He's stepped aside, my sisterin, He's clared de track, my chillun, Now make de trumpets bray! We tanks you kindly, Masta, We gibs you tanks, ole Masta, You is a buckra Masta, Whateber white folks say!



CHAPTER XII.

During these last days of my captivity, Mrs. Clayton was truly a piteous sight to see—swathed in flannel and helpless as an infant, yet still perversely vigilant as she had been in her hours of health, and determined on the subject of opiates as before. I sometimes think she feared to place herself wholly in my hands, as she must have been under the influence of a powerful anodyne, and that, in spite of her professions of confidence, and even affection, she feared me as her foe. God knows that, had it been to save my own life, I would not have harmed one hair of her viperish head, as flat on top as if the stone of the Indian had been bound upon its crown from babyhood, yet full of brains to bursting around the base of the skull.

It was necessary for Dinah to be in constant attendance on my Argus, and even to feed her, so helpless were her hands, with the mucilages which now formed her principal diet, by the order of some celebrated physician who wrote his prescriptions without seeing his patient, after the form of the ancients, sending them daily through the hands of Mrs. Raymond. Still those vigilant green eyes never faltered in their task, and lying where—with the door opened between our chambers (as she tyrannically required it to be most of the time) she could command a view of almost every act of my life—I found her scrutiny more unendurable than when she had at least feigned to be absorbed with her stocking-basket. Ernie's noise, too, disturbed her, and I was obliged to keep him constantly amused, for fear that her wrath might culminate in eternal banishment.

The days slid on—November had passed through that exquisite phase of existence (which almost redeems it from the reproach cast upon it through all time, of being par excellence the gloomy month of the year), the sweet and balmy influences of which had reached us, even through the walls of our prison-house, in the shape of smoky sunshine, and balmy, odorous, and lingering blossoms, and was now asserting its traditional character with much angry bluster of sleet, and storm, and cutting wind. It was Herod lamenting his Mariamne slain by his own hand, and making others suffer the consequences of his regretted cruelty, his remorseful anguish. It was the fierce Viking making wild wail over his dead Oriana.

No more to come until another year had done its work of resurrection and decay, the lovely Indian Summer slumbered under her mound of withered flowers and heaps of gorgeous leaves, unheeding all, or unconscious of the grief of her stern bridegroom.

Cold and bitter and bleak howled the November blast, and ruthlessly drove the sleet against the shivering panes, exposed without, though shielded within by Venetian folding shutters, on that gray morning, when a passing whisper from most unlovely and altogether unfaithful lips nerved me paradoxically to sudden resolution.

False as I knew old Dinah to be—almost on principle—still, I could not disregard the possible truth of her passing warning, given in broken whisper first as she poured out my tea and afterward prepared my bath.

"Honey, don't you touch no tea nor coffee dis evening after Dinah goes out ob here an' de bolt am fetched home; jus' make 'tence to drene it down, like, but don't swaller one mortal drop, for dey is gwine to give you a dose of laudamy"—nodding sagaciously and peering into the teapot as she interpolated aloud; "sure enough, it is full ob grounds, honey! (I heerd 'um say dat wid my own two blessed yers), for de purpose of movin' you soun' asleep up to dat bell-tower (belfry, b'leves dey call it sometimes)—he! he! he! next door, in dat big house, war de res' on 'em libs, de little angel gal too. You see, honey, der was an ossifer to sarve a process writ about somebody here dis mornin', but dar was something wrong about it, so dey all said, an' he is comin' to sarch de house for you, I spec', to-morrow; for de hue an' cry is out somehow—or mebbe it's me—he! he! he! (very faintly) an' dey is gwine to move you, so dey says, to keep all dark, after you gets soun' asleep. But de ossifer is 'bleeged to wait till mornin' (court-time, as I heerd 'em say) comes roun' agin to git de haby-corpy fixed up right, an' dat's how he spounded hisself. Wat does dat mean, honey?"

"I can scarcely make you understand now, Dinah" (aside). "Don't ask me—just go on, low, very low; how did you hear all this?" (Aloud) "More cream, Dinah."

"Wid my ear to de key-hole, in de study, war dey axed de ossifer. My 'spicions was roused by de words he 'dressed to me wen I opened de front do', for you see, dat ole nigger watch-dog ob dern, dat has nebber a good word for nobody, was gone to market, an' Madame Raymond she hel' de watch, an' she sont me from de kitchen to mine de front-do' bell.

"'Old dame,' says the ossifer (for so dey calls him), as pleasant as a mornin' in May; 'has you a young gal locked up here as you knows ob? Now tell what you choose, and don't be afraid of dese folks. Dis is a free country for bofe black and white.'

"Den I answered him straightforward like de trufe: 'Dar's nobody in de house heah but wat you kin see for axin' for 'em, as far as I knows on. Wat young gal do you 'lude to, masta?—Bridget Maloney, I spose, dat Irish heifer wat does de chambers ebery mornin' and goes home ob ebenin's. Ef you means her, she's off to church to-day, an' sleeps at her mammy's house.'

"'Does you feel willin' to swar to de trufe of your insertion, ole dame?' he disclaims. 'I shall resist on dat'—fierce as a buck-rabbit, holdin' up his right hand, an' blinkin' his little 'cute eyes.

"Sartin an' sure I does when de right time is come,' I sez. 'Jes' take me to de court-hous' ef you doubt Dinah's word compunctionable. I neber hab bin in dat place yit since I was sold in Georgy on de block befo' de high, wooden steps; but I knows it is more solemn to lie dar dan in Methody meetin'-house.'

"Den Mr. Bainrofe he cum out, hearin' de talk, in dat long-tailed, satin-flowered gownd ob his'n, wid a silk rope tied roun' his waist, an' gole tossels hangin' in front, jes' like a Catholic Roman or a king, an' he sez, 'Walk in here, my fren, an' don't tamper wid my servants—dat ain't gentlem'ly;' den he puts his han' on de ossifer's shoulder, an' dey walked in together, an' I listened at de do', in duty boun', an' I heerd him say, 'Plant a guard if you choose—do wateber you like—but, till dat writ am rectified, you can't sarch through my house, for a man's house is his castle here, as in de Great Britain, till de law reaches out a long arm an' a strong arm.' Dat was wat Mr. Bainrofe spounded to de ossifer, an' he 'peared 'fused-like an' flusterfied, for I peeped fru de key-hole at 'em wen dey wus talkin'. 'An,' sez he, 'dis heah paper does want de secon' seal, sure enough, since I 'xamine it, wat you, is so 'tickiler 'bout; but dat can easily be reconstructified, an' I'll be sartin sure to be here airly to-morrow morning. In de mean while, my man, McDermot, shall keep de house in his eye, an' mus' hab de liberty of lodgment.'

"Den Mr. Bainrofe he say, 'Oh, sartinly—your man, McDermot, am welcome to his bite an' sup, an' all he kin fine out'—an' he laughed, an' dey parted, mighty pleasant-like, and den he called Mrs. Raymun' and Mass' Gregory, an' I listened again. Dat's our colored way for reformation, child. An' I heerd 'em—"

"Dinah! Dinah! what are you muttering about—don't you hear Mrs. Raymond knocking? Miss Monfort must be tired out of your nonsense. What keeps you there so long?"

"I'se spounding another speritual to Miss Mirainy, an', wen I gits 'gaged in dat way, I disregards airthly knockin'. I'se listenin' to de angels hammerin' overhead, an' Mrs. Raymun' will hab to wait a spell—he! he! he!"

"Oh, go at once, Dinah, and open the door for Mrs. Raymond. I can write your song down just as well another time," I remonstrated, taking up and laying down my note-book as I spoke, so as to display my ostensible occupation to the peering eyes of Mrs. Clayton (now sitting bolt upright in her bed, looking like a Chinese bonze), for the purpose of sweeping in my position definitively.

"That will do, Dinah. Now go and get Miss Monfort's bath ready," I heard my dragoness say, after a short whispered communication from her early visitor. It was the idea, probably, to remove me, as well as Dinah, while the plot was being unfolded, and my bath-room, with its closed door, promised security from quick ears and eyes to the brace of conspirators now plotting their final blow.

Once in that belfry, and truly might the sense of Dante's famous inscription become my motto for life: "Here hope is left behind."

I covered my eyes as I recalled that dreary, dreadful prison-house of clock and bell, into which I had clambered once by means of a movable step-ladder, rarely left there by the attendant, in order to rescue my famished cat, shut up there by accident. I recollected the maddened look of the creature, as it flew by me like a flash, frightened out of its wits, Mrs. Austin had said, by the clicking of the machinery of the huge clock, and the chiming of the responsive bell. Both were silent now, and there was room enough for a prisoner's cot in that lonely and dismantled turret as there once had been for a telescope and its rest, used for astronomical purposes at long intervals by my father and a few of his scientific friends, but finally dismantled and put aside forever.

I could imagine myself a denizen, at the will of Bainrothe, of that weird, gray belfry, shut up with that silent clock, in company with a bed, a chair, and table, denied, perchance, even the comfort of a stove, for fear the flue might utter smoke, and, with it, that kind of revelation, said proverbially to accompany such manifestations; denied books, even writing-materials, the sight of a human face, and furnished with food merely sufficing in quantity and quality to keep soul and body together!

Could I resist this state of things? Could I sustain it and retain my reason? No, I felt that the picture my fancy drew, if realized, would make me abject and submissive, change me to a cowardly, cringing slave. I was not made of the right stuff for martyrdom, only for battle, for resistance, and would put forth my last powers in the effort to save myself from the unendurable trials before me, even if destruction were the consequence. A pistol-ball in my brain would be preferable to what I saw awaiting me, should Bainrothe succeed in his stratagem, as I doubted not he would do, if determined on it. I should know freedom in its true sense never again, if that night were suffered to pass without its redemption, if that belfry once were entered.

As carelessly as I could I followed Dinah to the bath-room, ostensibly to direct the temperature of the water, but really to draw out from her all that was possible while the mood of communication possessed her, on the subject so vital to me and my welfare. Life and death almost were involved in her revelations, and I hastened to wind in the clew while it lingered in my hand; for I knew that she was an eccentric as well as a selfish creature, and might suddenly see fit to withdraw or snap its thread.

"Now, tell me about McDermot, Dinah, what sort of a look has he? Is he large or small, light or dark, and does he smoke a pipe'?"

"He is a great big man, honey, wid red har an' sort ob chaney-blue eyes; mos while, sometimes he rolls em up in his head, an' he smells mighty strong of whisky. I tells you all; his bref mos knocked me down, but I didn't see no pipe?"

A discouraging account, truly; yet I persevered. It seemed my only hope to enlist this man on my side, either through his sympathies or sense of duty. I had no power to command his services on the side of his avarice. The ring on my finger, the pledge of Wentworth's troth, a massive circlet of chased gold, was all that remained to me in the shape of valuables. I did not possess a stiver in that prison, nor own even the clothes on my back.

"Could you not take him a message from me, Dinah? It is his duty, you know, to assist me; it is on my account, doubtless, he is placed here; and hereafter I can reward him liberally, and you too. Just now, you know, I am penniless."

The woman stopped and looked at me, her small black irises mere points, set in extensive, muddy-looking whites, not unfrequently suffused and bloodshot.

"I dun told the ossifer dar wus no one here you knows, answerin' to your perscription."

"But that was only a measure of safety for yourself; you surely do not mean to take sides with my persecutors?"

"I has nuffin at all to do wid it, at all," hunching her back; "I has gib you far warnin' 'bout de laudamy an' der retentions, an' you mus' fight it out yourself, chile! I is afraid to go one step furder; but de debble sort o' tempted me dis mornin' to make a clean breast of der doins. Ef you mentions it, do; I is retermined to reny ebbery word of your ramification, and in dis here country a nigger's word, dey tells me, goes jus' as fur as a pore white gal's, if not furder; 'sides dat, I is gwine to swar favorable for my 'ployers, in course, at de court-house—unless"—hesitating and leering in my face—"you sees, honey, dey have not paid me yit—and mebbe dey won't, ef I displeases 'em, an' your gole watch is gone; an' den, Dinah would be lef' on de shelf."

"But I have other property, Dinah, other jewels, even. That watch was very little compared to what I possess outside of these prison-walls, and these possessions—"

"Whar is dey, honey? 'a bird in dis han' am worf two dozen in a bush,' as my ole masta used to say, wen de traders cum up to buy his corn an' cotton, an' I always sawed de dollars come down mighty quick after dat sayin' of his'n; for I used to watch round the dinin'-room pretty constant an' close in dem days, totin' in poplar-chips an' corn-cobs for kin'lin' an' litin' masta's long clay pipes—none ob de common sort, I tells you—an' brushin' up de harf an' keepin' off' de flies, and so forf. You see I was a little shaver in dem days, an' masta liked my Congo straction, an' petted me a heap, an' I never seed the cotton-field till my ole masta died; den dey put me out ob de house, because Mass Jack Dillard's father—dat was my ole mistis's own step-brother's secon' son—he 'cused me ob stealin' his gole pencil-case wrongfully—like I had any use fur his writin' 'tensils!" (indignantly).

"Dinah," I adjured, cutting short the stream of her narrative, "for God's sake, see Mr. McDermot, and tell him of my situation! He shall have a thousand dollars to-morrow, and you also shall have money enough to buy your whole family, and bring them hither, if you will but assist me to escape this night. Don't stand and look at me, woman, but act at once, if you have a human heart. You must help me now, or never."

"You mus' tink I's one ob de born fools, Miss Mirimy, to bl'eve all dat stuff! Doesn't I know you loss all your trunks on de 'Scusco, an' wasn't you a pore gal, teachin' white folks's chilluns fur a livin' before? I has hearn all dat discounted since I come into dis 'stablishment. We all knows as how teachers is de meanest kine of white trash gwine; still, I specs you might'ly. You has been ob de quality; any nigger can see dat wid half an eye open; an' you has got more sense in de end ob yo little finger, ef you is crazy, dan all de res tied up in a bunch ob fedders! Wat I does for you, chile, I does for lub ob yo purliteness" (hesitating here). "You hasn't anoder ob dem gole-pieces anywhar, like dat you gib me befo', has you? I'se bery bad off fur 'baccer, I is, indeed, chile, an' de pay is mighty slow in dis house."

"I have not a five-penny bit, Dinah, not one copper cent, if it were to save my life or yours."

"Is dat ring of yours good guinea gole, honey?" asked the mercenary creature, leering at it. "It looks mighty bright and pretty, it does dat! But mebbe its nuffin but pinchbeck, after all."

"It looks what it is, Dinah"—and, after a moment's consideration, I drew it from my finger. "If I give you this, will you promise to deliver my message to McDermot faithfully?"

"Sartain sure, honey, but tell me again wat it is; I forgits de small patticklers."

"Get me my pencil and a scrap of paper, and let me write it down for him to read; or no, this might involve observation, detection. I must rely upon your memory, Dinah, which I have reason to know is good. Now, listen and understand me. I promise to Mr. McDermot one thousand dollars, to be paid down to-morrow morning, if he will help me to escape to-night. And I promise you liberty for all of your family, and security for yourself, if you will assist me, or even be silent, and let me go without a word, without informing. Do you understand this, Dinah? If so, repeat it to me low, yet distinctly."

She obeyed me, evincing wonderful shrewdness in her way of putting the affair, as she said she meant to do, in approaching McDermot.

"And do you believe me, Dinah, now that I have promised so solemnly to pay these rewards?"

"Dats neider here nor dar, Miss Mirim, so dat McDermot bleves you, dat's enough; wat dis chile bleves am her own business. Dem Irish am mighty stupid kine ob creeturs; dey swallows down mos' any thing you chooses to tell 'em."

A voice without, uplifted at this juncture, as if it had long been expending itself in ineffectual appeals, now summoned Dinah, harshly and emphatically.

The Lady Anastasia had departed, after a brief interview, and Mrs. Clayton, unable to leave her bed, felt naturally anxious to ascertain the cause of Dinah's prolonged ministry on her fellow-prisoner.

I heard only the words, "De pattikalerest lady I ebber come acrost about de feel of water, an' I is done tired out, I is—" The rest was lost, as Dinah vanished from the apartment of the invalid. In the next moment, I heard the key turned, and the outlet bolt drawn, and the growl of the surly sable watch-dog without, who, in Mrs. Raymond's absence, officiated as our jailer and Cerberus.

It was early evening when Dinah returned, for she brought to us but two meals at this season, the necessary food for Ernie being always ready in a closet. She came ushered in, as usual, by Mrs. Raymond, who bore with her on this occasion what she called savory broth, concocted, by her own fair hands, for the benefit of her suffering parent. While Clayton was employed in supping this mutton abomination, with a loud noise peculiar to the vulgar, and Mrs. Raymond whispering inaudible words above the bowl, I was ostensibly employed in tearing a croquet to pieces with my fork, while I interrogated Dinah, in a low, even voice, between each shred, unintelligible, I knew, in the next room, through its monotony, on the success of her mission, and caught her muttered rather than murmured replies eagerly in return.

"Did you speak with him, Dinah?"

"Dere was no use, honey; Bainrothe done bought him up. I peaked fru de key-hole, and seen de gole paid down wid my own two precious eyes. Dar's no mistake about dat," shaking her head dolefully. "All you has to do now, honey, is to keep wide awake, an' duly sober, as ole mast a used to say, 'frain 'ligiously from de tea or coffee, one or de udder, dat she will offer you 'bout eight o'clock dis ebenin', or mebbe dey will send it up by me, I can't say yit. Howsomever, you needn't to drink dat stuff arter wat you knows; an' ef dey goes to take you forcefully off to de belfry in de night-time, you kin skreech ebbery step ob de way. Dat's de bes plan, chile, wat I kin project for your resistance; but I'se afeard dar is no hopin' you, any way we can fix it."