CHAPTER III.

HERMAN, ARTHUR, ALICE.

"Oh! my God, I thank thee," muttered Arthur, and clutched the iron bar and crouched closer to the wall.

And ere a moment passed, the Madam entered the room, followed by Barnhurst. She held the light, and he advanced toward the bed.

"It looks rather bad," cried Barnhurst, as he caught sight of the face of Alice.

"Why, where has Corkins gone?" cried the Madam, and turning abruptly she sought for Corkins, and uttered a shriek. At the same instant Barnhurst raised his eyes from the face of Alice, and fell back against the wall, as though a bullet had pierced his temple.

They had at the same instant discovered Dermoyne, who, motionless as stone, stood against the wall, beside the door, his arms folded, and his head sunk on his breast. Thus, with his head drooped on his breast, he raised his eyes and silently surveyed them both, and with the same glance.

Not a word was spoken. The Madam, unable to support herself, sank on the foot of the bed, and Barnhurst, staggered to his feet again, looked around the room with a visage stamped with guilt and terror.

Arthur quietly advanced a step, and closed the door of the room. Then he locked it and put the key in his pocket.

"What do you mean?" cried the Madam the color rushing into her face.

"No noise," whispered Arthur, "unless indeed,"--and he smiled in a way which she understood,--"unless, indeed, you mean to alarm the neighborhood, and bring the police into the room. Would you like to have the police examine your house?"

The Madam bit her red lip, but did not answer. Arthur passed her, and approached the Rev. Herman Barnhurst.

"Nay, don't be afraid; I will not hurt you," he whispered, as the clergyman stretched forth his hands and retreated toward the wall. "Come, take courage, man,--look there!"

He pointed to the face of Alice.

Herman, ashy pale, and shaking in every limb, followed the movement of Arthur's hand, but did not utter a word.

"A 'man of your cloth' to be 'suspected'--eh, my friend?" and Arthur, laughed. "A minister of THE Church, to be suspected of seduction and of murder? Is it not a lying tongue that dare charge you, Reverend sir, with such crimes?"

Here, poor Alice, writhing in the bed, spoke a faint word about father, and home.

Barnhurst, cringing against the wall, his smooth complexion changed to a livid paleness, muttered an incoherent word about "reparation."

"Oh, you _shall_ make reparation,--never fear; you _shall_ make reparation," whispered Dermoyne, his eyes fairly blazing with light. "And you visited her father's house as a minister of God. She heard you preach in the church, and you talked to her in her home. What words you said, I know not; but some forty-eight hours ago you took her from her home; but a few hours have passed since then. The father lies a mangled corpse somewhere between this house and Philadelphia; and Alice, the daughter, is before you. Are you not proud of your work, my reverend friend?"

Herman's eye glanced from the ominous face of Dermoyne, and then to the iron bar which he held in his clenched hand,--

"You will not--kill--me?" he gasped.

Arthur was silent. The veins upon his forehead were swollen; his teeth were locked; his eyes, deep sunken under his down-drawn brows, emitted a steady and sinister light. He was _thinking_.

"Kill you?" he said, in a measured voice, which seemed torn, word by word, through his clenched teeth, from his heart. "Oh, if I could believe your creed--that eternal vengeance is the only future punishment for earthly crimes--why, I would kill you, before you could utter another word. Do you believe that creed? No--wretch! you do not. You have but preached it as a part of that machinery which manufactures your salary. But now, wretch! as you stand by the death-bed of your victim, with the face of her avenger before you, now search your heart, and answer me--Do you not begin to feel that there is a GOD?"

It was pitiful to see the poor wretch cringe against the wall, supporting himself with his hands, which he placed behind his back, while his head slowly sunk, and his eyes were riveted to the face of Dermoyne.

"You will not kill me," he faltered; and, with his left hand, tugged at his white cravat, for there was a choking sensation at his throat.

As for the Madam, who stood at the back of Dermoyne, she began to recover some portion of her self-possession, as a hope flashed upon her mind: "The handle of the bell is behind Barnhurst," she muttered to himself; "if he would only touch it, it would resound in the basement, and call Slung-Shot to our aid."

And with flashing eyes, the Madam gazed over Dermoyne's shoulder, watching every movement of the clergyman, and hoping that even in his fright, he might touch the handle of the bell. That bell communicated with the basement room; one movement of the handle, and Slung-Shot would be summoned to the scene.

However, as Barnhurst cringed against the wall, his hands strayed all around the handle of the bell, but did not touch it.

At this crisis, however, the Madam forming suddenly a bold resolution, strode across the floor and placed her bulky form between Dermoyne and the clergyman.

"What do _you_ want _here_, any how?" she said, tossing her head and placing her arms a-kimbo. "You are neither the brother nor the husband of this girl. Supposin' you was, what have you to complain of? Haven't I treated her like my own child? Yes, I've been a mother to her--and _that is_ a fact."

Dermoyne, for a moment, paused to admire the cool impudence which stamped the florid visage of the madam. Her chin projected, her nose upturned, and her nether lip protruded, she stood there in her flowing wrapper, with a hand on each side of her waist.

"Look there," he said quietly, and pointed to the bed, where the poor girl was stretched in her agony; her hands quivering and her lips white with foam: "When that poor child entered your house, she was in the enjoyment of good health. What is she now? Shall I go forth from this place and bring a physician to testify as to the nature of your _motherly_ treatment?"

The Madam retreated from the gaze of the young man, and felt the force of his words.

Too well she knew what verdict a physician would pass upon her treatment of the young girl.

"The bell-handle is behind you," she whispered, as she passed the cringing Barnhurst. He did not seem to heed her; but the moment that she passed him and resumed her former place, he fixed his stupefied gaze once more upon the visage of Dermoyne.

As for Dermoyne, for a moment he stood buried in profound thought. The clergyman trembled closer to the wall as he remarked the livid paleness of Arthur's face,--the peculiar light in Arthur's eyes.

Dermoyne, after a moment, advanced and extended his hand--"Come," he said, and sought to grasp Barnhurst's hands. But, shuddering and half dead with fright, Herman _crouched_ away from the extended hand,--crouched and cringed away as though he would bury himself in the very wall.

"Come," again repeated Dermoyne, his voice changed and husky. "Come!" He grasped the hand of the clergyman and dragged him to the bedside. "Oh, look upon that sight!" he groaned as the tortured girl writhed before them--"Look upon that sight, and tell me, what fiend of hell ever, even in thought, planned a deed like this?"

"Don't kill me, don't, don't!" faltered Herman.

"This is a strange meeting," continued Dermoyne, with a look that made Herman's blood run cold; "here we are together, you and I and Alice! I that loved her better than life, and would have been glad to have called her by the sacred name of wife. You, that without loving her or caring for her, save as the instrument of your brutal appetite, have made her what she is,--have made her what she is, and brought her here to die in a dark corner, something worse than the death of a dog. And Alice, poor Alice, who saw you first in the pulpit, and then listened to you and yielded to you in the home,--her father's home,--Alice lies before you now. Hark!"

The poor girl stretched forth her hands, and with the foam still white upon her livid lips, she said, in her wandering way--

"Oh! Herman, dear Herman! it was not _father_ that was hurt, was it? Oh! are you sure, are you sure?" And then came wandering words about father, Herman, home, and--her lost condition. There was something too, about returning to father and asking his forgiveness when the _danger_ was over.

"And _you_ desire her death." In his agony, as he uttered these words, Arthur clutched Herman with a gripe that forced a groan from his lips. "You who have brought her to _this_,--" he pointed to the bed,--"while I desire her to live; I, that by her death will become the sole inheritor of her father's fortune."

This was a revelation that astounded Herman, half dead as he was, with terror.

"The sole inheritor of her father's fortune!" he echoed.

At this crisis, the Madam darted forward. Arthur saw her hand extended toward the handle of the bell.

"Oh! ring by all means," he exclaimed, "ring, my dear Madam; summon your bullies; we will have as much noise as possible,--perchance, a fight! And then the police will come and examine the little mysteries of your mansion. Will you not ring?"

The Madam's hand dropped to her side, and she slunk back to her former position, her florid face impressed with an expression which was not, altogether, one of serenity or joy.

"You wondered, to-night, why Mr. Burney permitted the poor shoemaker to visit his house. Let me enlighten you a little. Not many years ago, an unknown mechanic called upon the rich merchant, in his library, and proved to the merchant's satisfaction, that he,--the poor mechanic,--had, in his possession, certain papers which established the fact that the immense wealth of Mr. Burney had been obtained by a gross fraud; a fraud which, in a court of law, would disclose itself in the two-fold shape of _perjury_ and _forgery_. The father of the mechanic was the victim; Burney, the criminal; the victim had died poor and broken-hearted; but in the hands of the criminal, the property so illy-gotten, had swelled into an immense fortune. It was the son of the victim who, having lived through a friendless orphanage, now came to Mr. Burney and proved that at any moment he might involve the rich merchant in disgrace and ruin."

"Impossible!" ejaculated Barnhurst.

"The merchant made large offers to the mechanic to obtain his silence,--believing in the true mercantile way, that every man has his price, he offered a good round sum, and doubled it the next moment,--but in vain. The image of his broken-hearted father was before the mechanic,--he could not banish it,--he had but one purpose, and that was, to bring the rich man to utter ruin. This purpose was strong in his heart, when scorning all the offers of the merchant, he rose from his seat and moved toward the door. But at the door his purpose was changed. There he was confronted by the face of a happy, sinless girl,--a girl with all the beauty of a happy, sinless heart, written upon her young face. At the sight, the mechanic relented. Maddened by the thirst for a full and bitter revenge, he could destroy the father, but he had not the heart to destroy the father of that sinless girl. For,--do you hear me,--it was Alice,--it was Alice,--Alice."

The long-restrained agony burst forth at last. With her name upon his lips, he paused,--he buried his face in his hands.

"Alice, Alice, who lies before you now!" He raised his face again; it was distorted by agony; it was bathed in tears.

The clergyman fell on his knees.

"Don't harm me," he faltered, "I will make reparation."

"Up! up! don't kneel to me," shrieked Dermoyne, and he dragged the miserable culprit to his feet. "There's no manner of kneeling or praying between heaven and hell, that can help you, if that poor girl dies. I spared her father for her sake, (and to make my silence perpetual, he made a will, in which he names me as his sole heir, in case of his daughter's death); I spared her father for her sake, and can you think that I will spare you,--you who have brought her to a shame and death like this?"

He pointed to the bed, and once more the poor girl, writhing in pain, uttered, in a low, pleading voice, "Herman, Herman, do not, oh! do not desert me!"

Dermoyne, at a rapid glance, surveyed the culprit cringing against the wall,--the florid Madam, who stood apart, her face manifesting undeniable chagrin,--and then his gaze rested upon Corkins, who, kneeling in the corner, seemed to have been suddenly stricken dumb. And as he took that rapid glance, his eyes flashed, his face grew paler, his bosom heaved, and a world of thought rushed through his brain; and, in a moment, he had decided upon his course.

He drew near to the Madam: she could not meet the look which he fixed upon her face.

"To-morrow morning, at ten o'clock, I will return to this house," he said, in a low voice; "I hold you responsible for the life of this poor girl. Nay, do not speak; not a word from your accursed lips. Remember!--he drew a step nearer,--to-morrow morning, at ten o'clock, and--I hold you responsible for the life of Alice Burney."

The Madam quailed before his glance; for once, her florid face grew pale. "But how will you obtain entrance into my house?" she thought; and a faint smile crossed her countenance.