Part 38

Dick looked astonished, but muttered, resignedly,--"God sends no more than can be borne." Then he bowed low to Bergan. "_Dopo un papa, se ne fa un altro_," said he,--"The King is dead, long live the King; I congratulate you."

"Upon what?" asked Bergan, with a keen glance;--"Doctor Remy's succession?"

"Of course not," replied Dick, coloring and laughing. "Doctor Remy will find out that _Den sviges vaerst, som sviger sig selv_,--He is worse cheated who cheats himself. But," he added, with a quick change of countenance, "he must have found it out already."

The thought was a startling one. Much as Dick had enjoyed the certainty of the doctor's final discomfiture, he had not expected that it would come so soon; nor had he known, as now, the extent of the doctor's resources in the way of his interest or his vengeance. As he pondered the matter, he was dismayed to recognize in the false will, the Major's death, and the attempt on Bergan's life, apparent parts of the same plan, and to infer therefrom the subtle and determined character of the man whom he had ventured to try to outwit. Had he succeeded? If so, he had everything to dread from the doctor's resentment; if not--if Doctor Remy had found means to carry out his plans to the end, and cover his tracks, as he seemed to have done thus far--would he dare to open his mouth against him, only to take a share in his punishment? Right and honor were good things, but could they make a prison a pleasant abode?

Here, Bergan broke in upon his troubled reflections. "I must remind you," said he, "that no time should be wasted. My disappearance must have caused much anxiety, and my uncle should be informed where I am, without delay."

"Very well," said Dick, glad, on the whole, to be relieved from further consideration of his difficulties. "I'll be off instanter, if you'll promise not to stir while I'm gone. And if anybody knocks, don't speak, or even breathe loud;--likely enough it will be Doctor Remy, and, in your case, discretion is the better part of valor. I'll make all fast behind me, so that no one can get in. And I'll hurry back, and bring your uncle with me, if I can."

At Oakstead, Dick was informed that Mr. Bergan was at the Hall, and wherefore. He dared not go after him, knowing that Doctor Remy would certainly be there also. He debated with himself, for a moment, whether it would not be well to make his errand known to Mrs. Bergan; but murmuring cynically, "A woman conceals only what she don't know," he decided to entrust her with a message simply. This was so mysteriously and solemnly given, however, as necessarily to suggest to her, after his departure, that he might possibly have found some clue to the mystery of Bergan's absence; whereupon she dispatched a servant to the Hall with the message,--though not without a strict injunction that he should deliver it to his master privately. But this, as has been seen, was not so well observed as to prevent some portion of the message from reaching Doctor Remy's ears, and exciting his suspicions.

VII.

THE SET TIME.

Dick Causton trudged back to his cabin in no tranquil frame of mind. He had his own excellent reasons for believing that a more disappointed and angry man than Doctor Remy, at that moment, was not to be found under the sun. Not only had he lost the coveted Bergan estate, but he had been fooled and cheated by the very man whom he had taken to be his most willing and despicable tool. Nor would it be long, Dick foresaw, before the doctor would seek to mitigate the bitterness of his chagrin with whatever sweetness was to be derived from the thought and purpose of revenge. In that case, he would be the first point of attack. What a fool he had been to meddle or make with any of the doctor's affairs! As if he did not know at least a dozen different proverbs in as many languages, to the effect that prudence was better than repentance, safety preferable to sorrow! Of what use was it to have his head stuffed with the consummate wisdom of all nations, if he only acted like a consummate idiot!

A pertinent question, Richard Causton! Showing the good results, too, of your period of forced abstinence from strong drink, and your lonely watch over the sick-bed--wellnigh the death-bed--of Bergan Arling. Up to this point, we have deemed your case hopeless; now, truly, we think better of it. To recognize one's folly is the first step toward breaking from its bondage. To have learned that the fruits of righteousness do not ripen on the tree of worldly wisdom, is, perhaps, to feel the first faint hunger for the saving fruitage of the tree of life. There may be the making of a man--a contrite, humbled, subdued, scarred, but free man--in you yet!

Ignoring, or unconscious of, these grounds of hope for the future, however, Dick continued to busy himself with his fears for the present. Nor did they prove to be causeless; he was not yet in sight of his door, when he heard the sound of impatient knocking thereat. Stealing to a point where he could see without being seen, his worst fears were realized,--the unwelcome visitor was Doctor Remy.

"_De puerta cerrada el diablo se torna_,--From a locked door, the devil turns away," he muttered, settling himself in his hiding place, with the intention of remaining there until the anticipated departure.

But the doctor was not to be thus balked. After repeated knockings, with short intervals of waiting, he finally drew back from the door with the evident intention of bursting it in; whereupon Dick hastened to make his appearance, doing his best to assume an air of easy nonchalance.

"He who brings good news, knocks hard," he called out, by way of arresting the doctor's attention, and saving the door. "Or, as the Germans say, He who brings, is welcome; I suppose you have come to settle our little account."

"Yes, I have come to settle accounts with you," replied Doctor Remy, with grim irony. "Why didn't you tell me about this other will?"

"What other will?" asked Dick, innocently.

"I am in no humor for trifling," returned Doctor Remy;--"Major Bergan's will, that you witnessed a fortnight ago."

"_C'est la glose d' Orleans_,--that is to say, the commentary is more obscure than the text," answered Dick, shaking his head, as if he could make nothing of it.

"Don't try my patience too far," rejoined the doctor, menacingly. "I have just seen Mr. Tatum, and he told me of the will, and named you as one of the witnesses."

"Did he?" asked Dick, shrugging his shoulders. "Then I must be like '_el escudero de Guadalaxara, que de lo que dice de noche, no hay nada â la mañana_.' Do you understand Spanish?"

"Do you understand English?" growled Doctor Remy. "I asked you if you had witnessed a will; and I want to know what was in it."

"And I gave you to understand that if I had, it must have been when I was too drunk to remember anything about it," responded Dick.

Doctor Remy's eyes flashed ominously. "I shall find a way to refresh your memory," said he. "One question more, and I warn you that you had better give me a straightforward answer, and not try to put me off with a proverb;--what was done with the will after it was made?"

"Why, hasn't it been found?" asked Dick, with surprise that was plainly genuine.

"No, it has not," replied Doctor Remy, curtly. "See here, Dick," he added, after a pause, quitting his threatening tone for one of persuasion; "I'll make it well worth your while to tell me all you know about that will. Open the door--I'm tired of standing--and we'll go in and talk it over."

"I--I--it's pleasanter outside," stammered Dick, fairly driven to his wit's end by this proposal. "Besides, 'walls have ears;' no place like the open air for your business--and mine."

"Your walls should be deaf," answered the doctor, looking at him suspiciously; "you live alone, do you not?"

"Yes, certainly; but no walls are to be trusted; _mèfiance est mére de sûretè_."

"Very true," replied Doctor Remy; "and I distrust you. Open that door at once, and let me see what or whom it is, that you are so anxious to conceal."

Dick's consternation was extreme. Still, he did what he could to gain time; assistance might be on the road. He began to fumble in his pockets. "Very happy to oblige you, I'm sure," he faltered, with a poor assumption of graciousness. "But, 'He that will be served must be patient.' I declare! I believe I've lost that key! Still, _Mais val perder, que mais perd_--"

"Will you open that door?" interrupted Doctor Remy, fiercely, "or shall I do it myself?"

Dick lifted his head boldly; his straining ears had caught the sound of distant footsteps. "A man's house is his castle," he began;--but Doctor Remy stopped the rest of the sentence in his throat, with one hand, while he thrust the other into his pocket for the key. Dick uttered a smothered cry. Immediately Doctor Remy heard the door tried from within; the next moment, the window beside it was flung open, and the pale, stern face of Bergan Arling met his astonished sight.

At the same instant, he saw several persons emerging from the shadow of the Oakstead woods. Mr. Bergan, Hubert Arling, and Doctor Gerrish, he recognized at a glance, and he stayed to recognize no more:--these, in conjunction with Bergan--alive, and in possession of his faculties--were enough to show him that his deep-laid scheme had come to naught, that the prize for which he had thought, labored, and sinned, was snatched from his hands in the very moment of success. Some important figure--could it be Providence?--had been overlooked or changed in his calculations, and made them all come wrong.

Yet he had failed before. Bitterly he acknowledged to himself that, despite his rich natural endowments of intellect, courage, will, and resource, his life had been, on the whole, a succession of failures. The consequences of one early mistake had followed, hampered, modified, and defeated, every effort that he had made to rise above a certain level of station, fortune, or reputation. Nevertheless, he had saved from every wreck, thus far, an unbroken spirit and an inexhaustible invention. What was there in the present one to cause his heart to shiver and shrink with so deadly a chill of despair, to smite him with so heavy an intuition that the measure of his opportunities for good or evil was full, and that some set time of reckoning was at hand? Nay, he _would not_ be daunted! There must be some expedient--some bold stroke or crafty subterfuge--by which he could still wring safety, at least, from the hands of defeat.

He ran his eye over the scene of his recent operations, as a general might scan a disastrous battle-field. Instantly, the intercepted letters, the forged will, the poisoned powder, the attack on Bergan Arling, set themselves in order before him,--revolted soldiers, once his obedient servants, now gone over to the enemy. No! the odds were too great. Nothing was left him but flight;--nay, it was a question if even that remained,--pursuit was so near! Still, it must be tried.

Giving Dick a final choke, to render him incapable of immediate action, he flung him on the ground, and fled towards the nearest bank. Once across the excavation, there was a thick wood beyond, in which he would quickly be lost to sight; and the present was all he had time to think of; the future must care for itself. One moment his tall form was seen, by the approaching party, on the edge of the bank, clearly defined against the twilight sky; the next, it sank suddenly from view, both hands raised, apparently in a mocking gesture of farewell, or it might be, of defiance.

Hubert Arling immediately recognized the fugitive, and hastened after him. Arrived at the brink of the excavation, he was amazed to find that Doctor Remy was nowhere in sight, although it seemed incredible that he could have traversed the sandy chasm so quickly. Nothing daunted, however, Hubert leaped the precipice, half-burying himself in the soft sand at the bottom, struggled across, climbed the opposite bank--taking much more time, it seemed to him, than his predecessor had done--and plunged into the wood beyond. Here, he soon found that all the odds were against him; the underbrush was thick, the wood was soon merged in a dense juniper swamp; the twilight was deepening; a hundred men might easily elude his single search. It was necessary to go back and obtain organized assistance.

He was rejoiced to find Bergan in the cabin, though his state was such as to cause intense anxiety. The great exertion that he had made to interfere between Doctor Remy and Dick--believing the latter to be in danger of losing his life in behalf of his guest--had caused his wound to re-open; and when Dick recovered himself sufficiently to make it known that Bergan was within, and to unlock the door, he was found on the floor under the window, in a death-like faint. Doctor Gerrish, however, at once took him in hand, with great personal good will, and no small amount of medical efficiency. And no sooner was he pronounced out of immediate danger--although he had relapsed into fever and delirium--than Hubert's mind recurred to the intermitted pursuit of Doctor Remy. From the first, he had shared Doctor Trubie's suspicions, and having now heard the several stories of Mr. Bergan, Doctor Gerrish, and Dick, and pretty accurately divined their logical connection and drift, he was strongly of the opinion that the doctor's evil career should be brought to a close. No consideration of family, friendship, or love, he thought, should interfere to save him from richly deserved punishment, and leave him at large to work new wickedness. So thinking, he put his thoughts into prompt, resolute, persevering action.

But it was wholly in vain. If the earth had opened and swallowed him up, Doctor Remy could not have disappeared more effectually. Far and near, no trace was found of his course, no clue to his hiding place. The flight of a bird through the air, the dart of a fish through the wave, do not leave less visible track behind. Day by day, Hubert had to acknowledge himself baffled, puzzled, confounded; but he would not be discouraged. Doctor Trubie having been sent for, had joined him, and between the two, the search went obstinately on.

VIII.

GIFT AND GIVER.

Carice was in her own room. Her face was pale, her mouth and eyes deeply serious. At last, she had been put in possession of all the facts hitherto concealed from her. She knew by what base means she had been separated from Bergan, and married to a man known to be a forger, suspected to be a murderer, and now a fugitive from justice. She was also aware that, so far as her own consciousness went, she had lost a year out of her life. None the less, she felt in her deep heart that her soul had not stood still during this suspension of certain of her faculties, but had accomplished some rapid, sensible growth. She was not, in all respects, the same Carice who had fallen through the gap in the foot-bridge. She contemplated her situation with far less dismay and bewilderment than that immaturer self could have done; in some mysterious way, her year of unconsciousness had been also a year of preparation for the difficulties that it had postponed; she now faced them with a deeper insight, a broader comprehension, and a calmer courage. She blinded herself with no subtleties nor evasions; she dimmed the clear medium of her integrity with no selfish breath; but counted herself what that solemn marriage ceremony had made her--a wife. She must remain such until the plea of "wilful desertion for a year," in the courts of law, should secure for her a certain personal freedom. But even then, she would be only a deserted wife;--in her opinion, divorce was powerless except as regarded separation. The virtual relation, she believed, could only be dissolved by death; and that meant, in this case, perhaps, the arrest, conviction, and execution of Doctor Remy. She shuddered at the thought. She could not wish the barrier between Bergan and herself to be thus removed.

Bergan?--She dared not think of him! He was lying so dangerously ill!--yet she must not go to him;--she could trust neither her thoughts nor herself by that bedside. She must just leave him, where she left all her own cares and sorrows, in the hands of God. She waited upon Him: in His own good time and way, He would make it clear that He reigned, and that His sceptre was justice, and His crown mercy.

Mrs. Bergan opened the door. "My child," she asked, tenderly, "would you like to see a visitor?"

"Whom?" asked Carice, with a little wonder;--her mother had been so careful to spare her all intrusion, during these trying days.

Mrs. Bergan shook her head. "I really don't know; I was so taken with her face, that I forgot to ask her name. She said that she was a friend of Astra Lyte's, and of--Bergan's."

"Mamma, could I not be excused?"

"I suppose so,--if you really wish it. But you would never think of refusing her, if you once saw her; she has such a princess-like way with her, as if she had never been refused anything in her life--except happiness. She has the most beautiful face that I ever saw, but there is a shadow over it, as if she had known great sorrow."

Carice felt a jealous pang. Beautiful! and Bergan's friend? Sad? of course, since he was in danger!

Mrs. Bergan went on. "She said she had a story to tell you. And when I hesitated--fearing that it might be some new trouble or excitement--you have had enough such, of late, dear--she smiled, as if she knew what I was thinking, and said,--'Have no fear, madam; my story will do her good, not harm!' Shall I let her come up?"

An hour after, the door of Bergan's sick-room opened gently. His eyes were closed; he, too, had been thinking, as deeply as his weak, half unconscious state permitted; and his thoughts had been strangely like those of Carice. The tangled web left behind by Doctor Remy would be hard to unravel, he felt; and in the process, there would be much pain, loss, anxiety, and disgrace,--especially for Carice. His heart ached for her;--and a little also--for he was very weak and weary--for himself. Would it not be well to have done with it all,--to let thought, care, and life drift away together, as they seemed so ready to do, if only he ceased to hold them back? It would be so much easier to let them go!--was there really any good reason why he should try to live?

Hearing the door close, and the sound of light footsteps, he languidly opened his eyes. Diva Thane was standing at his bedside, holding the blushing Carice by the hand, and smiling down upon him with eyes deep-lit by a mysterious radiance. There was a lofty beauty in her face, a look of victory after conflict, that he had never seen there before.

His heart gave a great bound. He remembered his strange, repeated intuition that that fair, firm hand would some day bestow upon him an inestimable blessing. Was the time come?

"I bring you a gift," said she, in low, rich tones, full of feeling as of melody. "This little, maiden hand--free from every claim as from every stain--is the best return that I can make for what you have done for me." And, placing Carice's hand in his, she added, solemnly:--"I give it to you, for I have the right: I am the wife of Edmund Roath."

The rush of joy was almost too great. It swept over Bergan's senses like a great whelming wave; speech and sound were lost in it; sight was gone, except for Carice's sweet, fair face, the one point of light in a vast ocean of blackness; feeling was annihilated, save that he clung to that dear hand as to the one treasure that he would not be parted from, let him be carried whither he might. Firmly and tenderly it closed upon his, too,--seeming to be the only thing which kept him from drifting out into that wide obscurity, and brought him back to the steady standing-ground of consciousness. There he was met by a rush of gratitude and sympathy only a little less overpowering. He knew so well what that avowal had cost Diva's pride! He understood so clearly whence came that solemn light of sacrifice in her eyes, that exalted beauty in her face, and how dearly it had been won! Still holding Carice fast with one hand, he held out the other to her, with emotion too deep for aught but a benediction.

"God bless you," he murmured, fervently. And he added, in a tone of entire conviction;--"I am sure He will."

She bent her graceful head,--no longer haughty in its pose,--gave his hand an earnest, heartening pressure, and glided from the room.

All gentle, delicate souls, all sympathetic hearts, go with her; curiosity, coldness, rudeness, must needs follow after. In that sick-room, Love only may remain,--Love which, by its long patience of sorrow, its steady conscientiousness, its freedom from all self-seeking, has won at last its blessed right to be,--and to be happy!

At a little distance from the cabin was a huge ilex tree, in the broad, low shade of which Dick had once been moved to set up a rude bench. Thither Diva betook herself to wait for Carice. There was a pleasant enough prospect before her, beyond the gulf of sand,--the creek on its sunshiny way to the sea, the pines and water oaks mingling their moss-hung boughs and diverse verdure,--but it is doubtful if she was aware of it. Her eyes--whether bent on the ground at her feet, or lifted to some far point of the blue horizon--spoke plainly of a mind too busy with its own reflections to be anywise cognizant of outward objects. She was reviewing the main events of her life by the new light recently shed on them, discovering a connection, a harmony, and a meaning in them unsuspected before, and gaining thereby a deeper sense of the might and wisdom of that overruling Providence in whom she had come so lately to believe.

She had been reared in almost princely affluence, as well as in professed scepticism;--every material wish gratified, every material caprice humored; no spiritual want recognized, no spiritual yearning indulged. Early accustomed to admiration and adulation, she grew up proud, imperious, self-reliant, counting herself made of more excellent clay than often went to the fashioning of human organisms, as she was certainly endowed with an intellect of no common strength and fineness of fibre, which her father took care to feed with all his own learned and labored Philosophy of Doubt. She was taught to scorn faith, to deride inspiration, to scoff at worship, to acknowledge no law but her own will, no higher rule of life than "_Noblesse oblige_." Yet she had generous impulses and strong affections; the very weeds that grew to such rank luxuriance in her character bore witness to the natural richness of the soil. Nor was she without a deep, innate reverence, inherited from the mother that she had never known,--which, being diverted from its proper objects, fell to deifying human genius and intellect, and suffered sorely in seeing them betray, soon or late, how much of their substance was human dust. Disappointed thus in the concrete, she turned to the abstract; first Song, then Art, became the idol of her imagination, the object of her devoted worship. Her father's health failing about this time, both looked to Italy as their natural goal, the one for healing, the other for culture. There they met the man whose potent influence was to change the whole current of her life.