CHAPTER XV.

AFTER THE DEATH OF MARION.

A pleasant place, in summer time, was the country-mansion of the celebrated Doctor N----, situated upon the heights of Weehawken, about one mile from the Hudson River. A huge edifice of brick, separated from the high road by a garden, it was surrounded by tall trees, whose branches overhung its steep roof, and relieved by the background of the rich foliage and blossoms of the orchard trees. A pleasant place, in summer, was the mansion of the celebrated Doctor, but lonely enough, and desolate enough in winter. On this drear winter night, it looks sad and desolate as the grave. The sky above it is leaden, the trees around it are leafless, the garden white with snow, and the bitter wind howls dismally over the waste of snow, which clothes the adjacent fields. In the distance, the Hudson glitters dimly, white and cold, with fields of floating ice. It is near morning, and but a single room in the vast country mansion is tenanted. You can see a light trembling faintly through the half vailed window yonder; the window near the roof, in the southern wing.

It is near morning; but one person by a solitary light, keeps his vigil in the deserted mansion; a sleigh drawn by a single horse, (he has been driven hard, for there is foam upon his flanks) and moving noiselessly, without the sound of bells stops at the garden gate. Two persons, whose forms are wrapped in thick overcoats, and whose faces are concealed by fur caps, drawn low over the brows, dismount and pass along the garden walk, bearing a burden on their shoulders. They ascend the steps of the porch, and stand in front of the hall door, looking anxiously about them, as if to assure themselves, their movements were not observed.

"So far safe enough,--" exclaims one in a hoarse voice, "the next thing is to get _it_ up stairs." And he places a key in the lock of the door.

Meanwhile the light, which trembling outward from yonder window, shines redly over the frozen snow, shines within upon the face of the lonely watcher. A young man sits beside a table, reading by the light of a clouded lamp, his cheeks resting on his hands, and his gaze riveted upon the large volume, spread open before him. The light falls brightly upon the book, leaving his features in half twilight, but still you can trace the outlines of his face,--the enthusiasm of his fixed eyes,--the energy of his broad bold forehead. It is a small and comfortable apartment; near him a wood-fire is burning, on the open hearth; opposite him a sofa, and a range of shelves, filled with books, and upon the green cloth of the table by which he is seated, you discover a sort of semicircle of open volumes,--placed there evidently for reference,--a mass of carelessly strewn manuscripts, and a case of surgical instruments.

Arthur Conroy, the favorite student of the celebrated Doctor,--a student, whose organization combines the exactness and untiring industry of the man of science, with the rich enthusiasm of the poet,--is the only tenant of the mansion, during the dreary winter. He is not seen during the day, but every night, arriving from New York, after dark, he builds his fire, lights his candle, and commences his lonely vigil. Sometimes, late at night, he is joined by the grave Doctor himself, and they pursue their researches together. What manner of researches? We cannot tell; but there is a rumor, that one apartment of the huge mansion is used, in winter time, as a Dissecting-Room. And the light streaming night after night, from the window near the roof, strikes the lonely wayfarer with a sensation, in some manner, associated with ghosts, witches, and dealings with the _devil_ in general.

Arthur is ambitious; even while his mind is wrapt in the mazes of a scientific problem, he thinks of his widowed mother and orphan sisters far away in the great village near Seneca lake, and his pulse beats quicker, as he looks forward to the day when their ears shall be greeted by the tidings of his world-wide fame. For he has determined to be a surgeon, and a master in his art; he has the will and the genius; he will accomplish what he wills.

He raises his eyes from his book,--they are glittering with the clear light of intense thought,--and unconsciously begins to think aloud.

"Do the dead return? Are the dead indeed _dead_? You have nailed down the coffin-lid; you have seen the coffin as it sunk into the grave; you have heard the rattling of the clod,--but is that all? Is the beloved one whom you have given to the grave, indeed _dead_, or only more truly living in a new body, formed of refined matter, invisible to our gross organs? Is that which we call soul, only the result of a particular organization of gross matter, or is it the real, eternal substance of which all other matter is but the servant and the expression? Do the dead return? Do those whose faces we have seen for the last time, ere the coffin-lid closed upon them forever, ever come back to us, clad in spiritual bodies, and addressing us, not through our external organs, but by directly _impressing_ that _divine substance_ in us, which is like unto them,--that which we call our SOUL?"

It was a thought which for ages has made the hearts of the noblest and truest of our race, alternately combat with despair, and swell with hope,--that thought which seeks to unvail the mystery of Life and Death, disclose the tie which connects perishable matter with eternal mind, and lift the curtain which hides from the present, the other world.

Arthur felt the vast thought gather all his soul into its embrace. But his meditations were interrupted by the opening of the door, and the two men,--whom we saw dismount from the sleigh,--entered the room of the student, bearing in their arms the burden, which was covered by folds of coarse canvas.

Very ungainly men they were, with their brawny forms wrapped in huge gray overcoats, adorned with white buttons, and their harsh visages half concealed by their coarse fur caps. They came into the room without a word.

"O, you have come," said Arthur, as if he recognized persons by no means strangers to him. "Have you the particular subject which the doctor desired you to procure?"

"Jist that partikler subject," said one of the twain,--"an' a devil of a time we've had to git it! Fust we entered the vault at Greenwood, with a false key, and then opened the coffin, so as it'll never be known that it was opened at all. Closed the vault ag'in and got the body over the wall, and hid it in the bottom of the sleigh. Crossed the ferry at Brooklyn--went through the city, and then took the ferry for Hoboken,--same sleigh, and same subject in the bottom of it; an' druv here with a blast in our face, sharp as a dozen butcher knives."

"But if it had not a-been for the storm, we wouldn't a-got the body," interrupted the other.

"And here we _air_, and here _it_ is, and that's enough. What shall we do with it?"

Arthur opened a small door near the bookcase, and a narrow stairway (leading up into the garret) was disclosed.

"You know the way," he said. "When you get up there place _it_ on the table."

They obeyed without a word. Bearing their burden slowly through the narrow doorway, they disappeared, and the echo of their heavy boots was heard on the stairway. They were not long absent. After a few moments they again appeared, and the one who had acted as principal spokesman, held out his open palm toward Arthur,--

"Double allowance to-night, you know," he said,--"Doctor generally gives us from forty to sixty dollars a job, but this partikler case axes for ten gold pieces,--spread eagles, you know, wuth ten dollars apiece,--only a hundred dollars in all. Shell out!"

Arthur quietly placed ten gold pieces in the hands of the ruffian.--"The doctor left it for you. Now go."

And shuffling their heavy boots, they disappeared through the same door by which they had entered. Looking through the window after a few moments, he saw the sleigh moving noiselessly down the public road.

"Dangerous experiment for the doctor, especially if the _event_ of this night should happen to be discovered," ejaculated Arthur, as he rebuilt his fire. "A peculiar case of suicide, and he wished _the body_ at all hazards. Well! I must to work."

He drew on an apron of dark muslin, which was provided with sleeves, and then lifting the shade from the lamp, he lighted a cigar. As the smoke of the grateful Havana rolled through his apartment, he took the lamp in one hand, and a case of instruments in the other, and ascended the secret stairway leading to the garret.

"I have seen her when living, arrayed in all the pride of youth and beauty," he said, as the lamp shone upon the vast and gloomy garret,--"and now let me look upon the shell which so lately held that passionate soul."

It was indeed a vast and gloomy garret. It traversed the entire extent of the southern wing. The windows at either end were carefully darkened. The ceiling was formed by the huge rafters and bare shingles of the steep roof. To one of these rafters a human skeleton was suspended, its white bones glaring amid the darkness. In the center was a large table, upon which was placed the burden which the ruffians had that night stolen from the grave. The place was silent, lonely,--the wind howled dismally among the chimneys,--and Arthur could not repress a slight shudder as his footsteps echoed from the naked floor. Arthur placed the lamp upon the table, and began to uncover the subject. Removing the coarse canvas he disclosed the corpse. An ejaculation burst from his lips,--a cry half of terror, half of surprise.

The light shone upon the body of a beautiful woman. From those faultless limbs and that snowy bosom the grave-clothes had been carefully stripped. A single fragment of the shroud fluttered around the right arm. Save this fragment the body was completely bare, and the dark hair of the dead fell loosely on her shoulders. The face was very beautiful and calm, as though sealed only for an hour in a quiet sleep,--the fringes of the eyelashes rested darkly upon the cheeks. Never had the light shone upon a shape of more surpassing loveliness, upon limbs more like ivory in their snowy whiteness, upon a face more like a dreamless slumber, in its calm, beautiful expression. Dead, and yet very beautiful! A proud soul dwelt in this casket once,--the soul has fled, and now the casket must be surrendered to the scalpel,--must be cut and rent, shred by shred, by the dissector's hand.

"But the limbs are not rigid with death," soliloquized Arthur,--"Decay has not yet commenced its work. As I live, there is a glow upon the cheek."

With his scalpel he inflicted a gash near the right temple, and at the same instant--imagining he heard a footstep,--he turned his face over his shoulder. It was only imagination, and he turned again to trace the result of the incision.

The dead woman was in a sitting posture, her eyes were wide open, she was gazing calmly into his face. Arthur fell back with a cry of horror.

"Nay, do not be frightened," said a low, although tremulous voice,--"I have simply been the victim of an attack of catalepsy."

And while he stood spell-bound, his eyes riveted to her face, and his ears drinking in the rich music of her voice, she continued,--

"Catalepsy, which leaves the soul keenly conscious and in possession of all its powers, but without the slightest control over the body, which appears insensible and dead. The agony of that state is beyond all power of words! To hear the voices which speak over your coffin, and yet be unable to frame a word, to breathe even a sigh! I heard them talk over my coffin,--I was conscious as the lid closed down upon my face,--conscious when they placed me in the vault, and locked the door, and left me there buried alive. And an eternity seemed to pass from the time when they locked the door, (I was only buried yesterday,) until your men came to-night, to rob the grave of its prey. I heard every word they uttered from the moment when they tore the shroud from my bosom, until they entered your room, and then I heard your voice. And when they left me here, I heard your step upon the stair, heard your ejaculation as you bent over me, and it seemed to me that my soul made its last effort to arouse from this unutterable _living death_, as you struck the knife into my temple. You have saved my life----"

Arthur could not utter a word; he could not believe the scene to be real; he thought himself the victim of a terrible although bewitching dream.

"I arise from the grave, but it is to begin life anew. The name which I bore lies buried in the grave vault. It is with a new name, and under new auspices, that I will recommence life. And as for you, I know you to be young, gifted, ambitious. I will show my gratitude by making your fortune. But you must swear, and now, never to reveal the secret of this night!"

"I swear it," ejaculated Arthur, still pale and trembling.

"What, are you still afraid of me? Come near me,--nearer,--take my hand,--does that,--" and a bewitching smile crossed her face,--"does that feel like the hand of a dead woman?"

With these words the history of Marion came to a pause.

* * * * *

For the first time, Arthur Dermoyne raised his eyes from the pages which recorded the life of Marion Merlin. For an hour and more he had bent over those pages in profound and absorbing interest.

"Here, then, is the real secret of the life of Herman Barnhurst!" he ejaculated. "He was simply a sincere enthusiast, all his bad nature dormant, and all his good in active life, until this woman crossed his path. And the wife who now slumbers by his side, is none other than Fanny Lansdale, the victim of the unutterable crime. Who shall say that we are not, in a great measure, the sport of circumstance? How different would have been the life of Herman, had Marion never crossed his path?"

Something like pity for the crimes of Barnhurst began to steal over Dermoyne's face, as he sat thus alone, in the solitude of the last hour of the night; but the thoughts of Alice, on her bed of shame and anguish, started up like a phantom and drove every throb of compassion from his soul.

"If Alice dies, there is but one way,"--he said moodily, with a fixed light in his eyes.--"But this Marion,--ah! Something more of her history is written here. Let me read,--" Once more he bent over the Red Book. Even as his eyes were fixed upon the page, a shadow was cast over it, and then a dark object interposed between him and the light; and the next moment all was darkness. But on the instant, before the darkness came, he looked up, and saw before him a brawny form, a face stamped with ferocious brutality; an upraised hand grasping a knife, which glittered as it rose. This he saw for an instant only, and then all was blackness.

"Not wid de knife, Dirk! Let me fix him wid dis,--and do yer see to de Red Book!"

There was a sound as of a weapon whizzing through the air, and Dermoyne was felled to the floor by a blow from the "Slung-shot."

As the first gleam of morning stole into the bed-chamber, touching, with rosy light, the faces of the sleeping wife and her children, Barnhurst stealthily arose, dressed himself, and stole on tiptoe from the place. In the dark he descended the stairway, and all the while,--from loss of sleep, combined with the excitement of the past night,--he shook in every nerve. His thoughts were black and desperate.

"Ruin wherever I turn! If I escape this man, there remains the villain whom I met last night, in Trinity Church. On one side exposure, on the other death. What can be done? Cut the matter short, and renouncing all my prospects, seek safety in flight? or remain,--dare all the chances,--exposure,--the death of a dog,--all,--and trust to my good fortune?"

He paused at the foot of the stairway, and a hope shot through his heart,--"If I could see GODIVA all might yet be well! Yes, I must, I will see GODIVA."

Uttering the name of GODIVA, (new to the reader and to our history,) he approached the parlor door. "Now for this man!" he said, and shuddered. He opened the door, and looked around; the first rays of morning were stealing through the window-curtains, but the room was vacant. Dermoyne was not there. The carpet was torn near the sofa, the table overturned, and there was blood upon the carpet and sofa. But Dermoyne had disappeared.

PART SIXTH.

DAY, SUNSET, NIGHT.

DECEMBER 24, 1844.