CHAPTER II.

HERMAN AND GODIVA.

Our history now returns to Madam Resimer, whom we left in her most secret chamber, near ten o'clock, on the 24th of December, listening to the sound of the bell, which resounded through her mansion.

It was the bell of the secret passage.

"Who can it be?" again ejaculated the Madam, as she stood in the center of the room, with the light of the candle on one side of her florid face.

To which Corkins, who stood behind her, his slender form lost in her capacious shadow, responded in a quivering voice, "Who _can_ it be?"

Much troubled and very angry, and not knowing upon whom to vent her anger, the Madam turned upon her trembling satellite, and addressing him by numerous titles, not one of which but was more vigorous than elegant or complimentary, she bade him,--

"Run for your life. Answer the hell of the secret passage! Don't be foolin' away your time, when the very devil's to pay and no pitch hot. Cut!"

Corkins accordingly "_cut_," or, to speak in a less classical phrase, he glided from the room.

How anxiously the Madam waited there, in her most secret chamber, with her finger to her lip, and the candle-light on one side of her face!

"Who can it be? Only four persons in the world know of this secret passage. It can't be this devil from Philadelphia? O, I shall do somebody a mischief! I can't endure this any longer,--"

Hark! There are footsteps in the corridor; they approach the Madam's room. She fixes her small black eyes upon the door, with the intensity of a--cat, contemplating a rat-hole.

"This way," cries the voice of Corkins, and he enters the room, followed by two persons, one of whom is taller than the other, and both of whom wear caps and cloaks.

"Has _he_ come back?" cries the taller of the two, in a voice that trembles with anxiety and fear,--he lifts his cap, and discloses the face of Herman Barnhurst.

"No,--no,--I haven't laid eyes upon him since last night," and she clutched Barnhurst by the arm,--"Where did you leave him?"

"He went home with me," replied Barnhurst, and stopped to gaze around that room, dimly lighted by a single candle, as though he was afraid that Dermoyne was concealed in its shadows.--"I left him in the parlor down stairs. He was determined to wait for me until morning, and then come with me to this house. But this morning, when I came down stairs, he was not there."

"He was not there?" echoed the Madam, breathless with impatience.

"He wasn't there; there was blood upon the sofa and the carpet, and marks of a struggle."

The Madam uttered a round oath and a cry of joy.

"Good,--capital! My boys have done their work. You see, Herman, I sent Dirk and Slung after him, and they've laid him out. It's a sure thing."

Herman, even in his fright, could not but help shuddering, as he heard the cool manner in which she spoke of Dermoyne's death. The next instant the idea of his own safety rose uppermost in his mind.

"Do you think that your fellows have taken good care of him?" he asked.

"Don't doubt it,--don't doubt it," and she rubbed her hands joyfully together. "It's a sure thing!"

A raven-like voice, behind her, echoed, "Sure thing!" It was Corkins, of course.

"And _she_,--how is _she_?"--Herman lowered his voice, and pointed upward.

"She is well!" was the emphatic response of the Madam,--"But how did you know of the secret bell? Only four persons in the world know of it, and you are not one of them."

Herman pointed to the person who had entered with him, and who now stood in the darkness at his back,--"Godiva!" he said.

The Madam gave a start, echoing "Godiva," and Corkins, behind the Madam, as in duty bound, re-echoed "Godiva!"

The person called by this name,--the name of the beautiful lady, famed in ancient story, for the sacrifice which she made of her modesty in order to achieve a noble purpose,--advanced from the shadows into the light, saying, "This boy came to me this morning, in a world of trouble; he confided all his sorrows to me. It appears he is in a devil of a scrape. I came here to get him out of it."

And removing cap and cloak, Godiva stood disclosed in the candle-light. Godiva was a woman of some twenty-five years, with a rounded form, brown complexion, large eyes that were hazel in the sun, and black by night; and Godiva wore her raven hair in rich masses on either side of her warm, tropical face. Godiva was dressed, not in those flowing garments which give such bewitching mystery to the form of a lovely woman, but, in male costume from head to foot,--a shirt, with open collar, dark satin vest, blue frock-coat, black pantaloons, and boots of patent leather. Although looking short in stature beside the tall Barnhurst, she was tall for a woman, and her male costume, which did full justice to her throat, her ample bust, and rounded limbs, became her exceedingly.

With her cloak on her right arm, her cap in her right hand, she rested her left hand on her hip, and looked in the face of the Madam with an air of insolent condescension that was quite refreshing.

"How _do_ you _do_, my dear child?"--and the Madam offered her hand. Godiva waved her back.

"Don't be impertinent, woman," was the response. "The few days that I once passed in your house, by no means give you the right to be familiar. I am here, simply, for two reasons,--I wish, in the first place, to get the boy (she pointed to Barnhurst,) out of his 'scrape;' and, in the second place, to recover a certain manuscript which, it seems, I left in this house when I was here."

The Madam was an essentially vulgar, as well as wicked woman, but she could not help feeling the cutting insolence which marked the tone of the queenly Godiva.

"There is no _sich_ manuscript here," she said, tartly, and her thoughts reverted to the Red Book.

"Hadn't you better wait to know what kind of manuscript it was, before making such a flat denial?" coolly responded Godiva. "But now let's talk of this boy! What's the amount of his entanglements? How's the girl?"

"She is well," said the Madam, emphatically.

"Well!" croaked Corkins from the background.

"And this fellow from Philadelphia--was he really such a desperate creature?" asked Godiva.

"A devil incarnate," replied the Madam.

"What's that?" cried Herman, with a start, as the sound of a hell once more rang through the mansion.

"It's the bell of the door in the alley. Run, Corkins! It's Dirk and Slung. Bring 'em up,--'put', I say!"

Corkins "put," and the party waited for his return in evident anxiety. It was not long before there was the tramp of heavy steps in the passage, and two men, roughly clad--one, short, thick-set, and bow-legged, the other, tall and bony--stumbled into the room, bringing with them the perfume of very bad liquor.

"Where's de ole woman?" cried Dirk; "What in de thunder de yer have candles a-burnin' in daylight for--s-a-y?"

"Ole lady, I'll finger dat pewter--I will," said Slung-shot. "We laid yer man out--we did. Dat cool hundred, ef yer please."

And while Herman and Godiva glided into the shadows, the two ruffians recounted the incidents of the night, in their peculiar _patois_; the Madam interrupting them with questions, at every step of the narrative.

The story of these savages of city life, (and we believe that only the English and American cities produce such ruffians in a perfect state of brute-and-devil completeness,) reduced to the briefest compass, and stripped of all its oaths, read thus:--They had followed Dermoyne and Barnhurst all night long. Entering the house of Barnhurst, (the door had been left ajar,) they had found Dermoyne seated on the sofa, his eyes fixed upon a book. As one struck him with the slung-shot, the other extinguished the light, and a brief but terrible contest took place in the dark. Finally, they had borne the insensible form of Dermoyne from the house, and flung him into the gutter of a dark and deserted street.

"An' dere he'd freeze to death, ef he gets over de dirk and de slung-shot--he would," added the thick-set ruffian.

"And where have you been ever since?" asked the Madam, whose little eyes sparkled with joy.

"Gittin' drunk," tersely remarked Dirk.

"The book--you have it?" she said eagerly.

To which Dirk replied, in his own way, that if he had, he hoped his eyes and liver might be made uncomfortable for an indefinite length of time.

"Fact is, it slid under de sofar in de muss, an' I couldn't' find it in de dark."

The Madam burst into a transport of fury, and in her rage administered the back of her hand somewhat freely to the faces of Dirk and Slung. "Out of my sight--out of my sight! Fools! Devils! That book was all that I sent you after!" and she fairly drove them from the room. They were heard shuffling in the passage, and murmuring and cursing as they went down stairs.

"The miserable knaves! What trust can you put in human natur' arter this!" and she fretted and fumed along the room.

"The book is safe in my house," said Barnhurst, advancing, his face glowing with satisfaction. "This fellow, it appears, is safe. I pledge my word to have that book in this room before an hour."

Godiva, looking over his shoulder, muttered in atone inaudible to the others: "And my manuscript is in the book, and I pledge my word to have that within an hour."

"If you do that, Herman, I'll sell my soul for you!" cried the Madam, warmly.

"Suppose we look at the--_the patient_," whispered Herman.

"Up-stairs in the same room;" and Herman and Godiva left her room together, and directed their steps toward the chamber of Alice.

"The book is safe; he'll keep his word--don't you think so, Corkins?" said the Madam, as she found herself once more alone with her familiar spirit.

"Safe--perfectly," returned Corkins, when his words were interrupted by the ring of a bell. It was the front door bell this time. Corkins hurried from the room, and in a few moments returned, and placed a card in the hands of the Madam:

"This person wants to see you."

Drawing near the candle, the Madam read upon the card this name--"DR. ARTHUR CONROY." A name, you will remember, associated with the history of Marion Merlin. It was Arthur Conroy, who, in the dissecting room, saw the corpse before him start suddenly into life.

"Dr. Conroy!"--it seemed a familiar name to the Madam. "I wonder if he wants a subject? Show him up, Corkins."

* * * * *

Through the bowed window-shutters and the drawn curtains, the winter sunlight stole into the chamber of Alice, lighting up the bed, and touching with a few golden rays the face of the Virgin Mary on the wall.

Herman and Godiva stood by the bed, their backs toward the window, and their faces from the light. They did not speak. The room was breathlessly still.

Alice was there, resting on the bed, the coverlet drawn up to her neck, and her cheek pressed against the pillow, thus turning her face to the light. One hand and arm lay motionless on the coverlet, and her sunny hair strayed in unbound luxuriance over the pillow. Her eyes were closed; her lips slightly parted; her cheek pale as the pillow on which she slept: for she was sleeping. A bright ray, that found entrance through an aperture in the curtains, was playing over her face, now on her lips, now on her throat, and among the waves of her silken hair. The sight was so beautiful that Godiva, whose heart had long since ceased to feel, was awed into silence. As for Herman, he could not take his eyes away, but stood there with his gaze chained to the face of the sleeping girl; for she was sleeping--sleeping that dear, quiet sleep, which, in this world, never knows an awakening hour. In the language of the woman-fiend, she indeed "was _well_!" Dead, with the second life which she bore, dead within her. Poor Alice! She had only opened her wings in the world, to fold them again and die.

"Herman," whispered Godiva, "look at that! Are you not proud of your work?"

"Don't taunt me, Marion," he answered. "Had I never met you--had you never made my life but one continued dream of sensuality--I would not stand here at this hour, gazing upon this murdered girl."

"Sweet boy! And so, when I first met you, you believed all that you preached in the pulpit?"

"If I did not believe it, I certainly did not wish to doubt it. You, and the life I've led since first I knew you, have made me _dread_ the very mention of the existence of a God, or of the immortality of the soul."

"Pretty boy! How sadly I've used you! But don't call me Marion again;--that name I left in the grave. Leave off preaching, and let us see what you intend to do?"

"Godiva, whichever way I look is ruin. I am rid of this Dermoyne; but there are those persons who, conscious of _the event of that night in November_, 1842, will expose me to the world, unless I become their tool, in regard to the heirs of Anreke Jans and Trinity Church. I am sick of this life of suspense and dread! Let us fly, Godiva; I will change my name, and, in some distant place, begin life anew."

"What, and leave your wife?"

"Take care, Godiva, take care! Don't press me too hard! You know who it was that planned the dishonor of that wife, when she was a maiden, and betrothed to me. Take care!"

"You needn't look so black at me with those devilish eyes," said Godiva, as her face lost that bitter sneer, which, for the last few moments, had made her resemble a beautiful fiend. "You mustn't be angry at my jests. Well--let us travel! I have money enough for both, and we can enjoy ourselves with money anywhere. But the Van Huyden estate?"

"I cannot call my share my own, even if a share should happen to fall to me. These people who knew of _the event in_ 1842, and who are now playing conspirator between Trinity Church and the heirs of Anreke Jans, will demand my share as the price of their silence. I cannot live in this state of dread. Listen Godiva! A vessel sails this afternoon for one of the West India Islands. What think you of a life in the tropics, far away from this devilish _practical_ world? Why, we can make an Eden to ourselves, and forget that we ever lived before! I have engaged passage for two on board this vessel. It makes my heart bound! Groves of palm--a cloudless sky--good wine--days all dream, and nights!--ah, Godiva! Flight, Godiva, flight!"

"Flight be it, and to-night!" cried Godiva, winding her arm about Herman's neck.

They were disturbed by a sound, low and scarcely audible--it resembled the sound of a footstep. Herman turned his head, and saw, between him and the doorway, the haggard face of--Arthur Dermoyne, whose cheek was marked with a hideous gash, but whose eyes shone with a clear unfaltering light.

Herman read his death in those eyes.

* * * * *

Let us turn from this scene, and enter once more the secret chamber of the Madam.

"Why, Doctor, I am glad to see you!" she cried, as Doctor Arthur Conroy entered her room; "I haven't clapped eyes upon you for a dog's age. Why, bless me, how changed you are!"

As Conroy flung his cloak upon a chair, and advancing to the light, seated himself opposite the Madam, it was evident that he was indeed changed. His eyes were dull and heavy, his cheeks bloated; the marks of days and nights spent in sensual excess, were upon every lineament of his once noble face. A sad, a terrible change! Can this man who sits before us, with his coat buttoned to the chin, and his heavy eyes rolling vacantly in his bloated countenance, be the same Arthur Conroy whom we first beheld in the lonely hour of his student vigil, his eyes dilating with a noble ambition, his forehead stamped with thought, with genius?

"I am changed," he said sullenly and with a thick utterance; "let me have some brandy."

The Madam, without a word, produced a bottle and a glass. Conroy filled the glass half-full, and drank it, undiluted with water, and without removing the glass from his lips.

And then his faded eyes began to flash and his cheek to glow.

It was the most melancholy kind of intemperance--that which drinks alone, and drinks in silence, and, instead of rousing the social feelings, or the grotesque fancies of drunken mirth, calls up the images of the past, and bids them feed upon the soul.

"Good brandy that! It warms the blood!"

"Why, Conroy, I have not seen you since you brought Godiva here, and that is a year and I don't know how many months ago."

"May God,"--he ended the sentence with an awful imprecation upon the very name of Godiva. And his face grew wild with hatred.

"Why I thought she was a favorite of yours, or you of hers," said the Madam.

"By ----! I wish I had buried my knife in her heart, as she lay on the dissecting table before me!" he cried, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Look at me! When first I met that woman I was studious, ambitious; the thought of my mother and two sisters, who depended upon my efforts, stirred me into superhuman exertion. Well!--It is not _quite_ a _century_ since I met that woman, and look at me now--a gambler--a drunkard; yes," he struck the table with his fist--"Arthur Conroy is come to that! My mother dead, of a broken heart, and my sisters, well!--my sisters--"

As he tried to choke down his emotion, his features worked as with a spasm.

"Well! never mind!--and the accursed woman, whom I brought to your house, in order to kill the fruits of her passion,--she is the cause of all,--"

The light which left the greater part of the room in shadow, fell strongly over the florid face of the Madam, manifesting vague astonishment; and the flushed visage of Conroy, working with violent emotions.

"Yes," he said, as though thinking aloud, while his eyes shone with the brilliancy of a lighted coal,--"she was to make my fortune; she was to aid me, as I ascended that difficult path, which ambition treads in pursuit of fame. How smooth her words! I called her back from the dead,--she recovered from her relative a large portion of her property, sacrificing the rest, on condition that he concealed the fact of her existence from the world,--and I loved her, became the habitant of her mansion, the companion of her voluptuous hours. The she-devil! look to what she has brought me!"

"I wonder if he wants to borrow money?" said the Madam, in a sort of stage-whisper.

"No he does not," returned Conroy, with a scowl,--"He wants to do you a service, good lady. This morning about daybreak, as I was returning from the Club-Room, I came across a poor devil in the streets, who had been shockingly abused by ruffians,--"

"Ah!" and the Madam sank back in her chair.

"I could not let him die there, so I dragged him to the house of a clergyman, hard by, and laid him on the sofa. Then, assisted by the wife of the clergyman, a good sort of woman,--I dressed the wounds of the poor devil, and brought him to."

"The name of the clergyman?" asked the Madam, biting her lips.

"Barnet, or Barnhurst, or some such name."

"Ah!" and the Madam changed color, "and you left this man there?"

"He must have had a constitution of iron, to stand all those knocks! Do you know in a little while he was on his feet, explaining to the clergyman's lady, that he had come home with her husband, the night before, and had been dragged by unknown ruffians, from that very house,--"

"The dev-i-l!" and Madam clutched the arms of her chair, as she tried to restrain the rage, which filled every atom of her bulky frame.

"And now, he's down stairs at the door--"

"Down stairs at the door!" she bounded from her chair.

"He has a book under his arm, bound in red morocco," continued Dr. Conroy,--"and he desires to see you on particular business," and Conroy filled another glass, half full of brandy.

* * * * *

Once more to the death-room of Alice.

Dermoyne, who was as white as a sheet, stood but one step from the threshold, Godiva was by the bed, Herman near the head of the bed: thus Godiva was between the avenger and his victim.

Herman read his death in the eyes of Dermoyne, and looked to the window, as though he thought of raising the sashing, and dashing himself to pieces upon the pavement.

Godiva also caught the eye of Dermoyne,--she saw, that weak as he was from his wounds, and the loss of blood, that he was nerved by his emotions, by his purpose, with superhuman strength,--she saw the pistol in his hand. And all the craft of her dark and depraved nature, came in a moment to her aid. She resolved to save Herman,--that is, if her craft could save him.

"Hush! hush!" she whispered, "do not awake the sleeping girl! She has had a hard night, but now all is well. Hush! tread lightly,--lightly!--"

"Then she lives!" cried Dermoyne, and his savage eyes lit up with joy.

"Lives, and is doing well, don't you see how sweet she sleeps?" said Godiva advancing to him, on tip-toe, "Generous man! How can I thank you for your kindness to my cousin, poor, dear Alice?"

"Your cousin?" without another word, she flung herself upon Dermoyne's breast, wound her arms tightly about his neck, and hung there like a tigress upon the neck of her victim.

"Now's your time, Herman!" she cried,--and Dermoyne struggled madly in her embrace, but her arms wound closer about his neck, and he struggled in vain. His pistol fell to the floor.

Herman rushed by him, and the next instant, Dermoyne had unwound the arms of Godiva, and flung her violently to the floor. He turned to the door,--it was closed and locked,--Herman had escaped.

"Villain, you shall pay for this with your life!" he cried, as with flaming eyes, he advanced upon the prostrate Godiva.

"Don't be rash, my dear," she said, as seated on the floor, she was coolly engaged in arranging her disheveled hair, "You can't strike me. I'm a woman."

"A woman?" he echoed incredulously.

"Yes,--and a very good looking one,--don't you think so?" and she looked at him in insolent composure, while her vest,--torn open in the struggle,--displayed a glimpse of her neck and bosom.

Who, in this calm shameless thing,--proud at once of her beauty, and her shame, would recognize the innocent Marion Merlin of other years? With an ejaculation of contempt and anger, Dermoyne turned away from her, and approached the bed of Alice.

Alice was indeed sleeping there, her cheek upon the pillow, her lips apart, and with a ray of sunshine upon her closed eyelids, and sunny hair.

Dermoyne felt his heart die within him at the sight. There are emotions upon which it is best to drop the vail, for words are too weak to picture their awful intensity.

He called her name, "Alice!" and spreading forth his arms, he fell insensible upon the bed, his lips pressing the forehead of the dead girl.

Godiva rose, closed her vest, and calmly surveyed the scene, with her eyes shadowed by her uplifted hand:--

"I believe upon my soul, he did love her!" was her comment, and a tear shone in her eye.

The key turned in the lock, and presently a man with flushed face, and unsteady step, appeared upon the threshold. It was Arthur Conroy.

"Halloo! what's up?" he cried, with a thick utterance.--"That you Divy?" and staggering over the floor, he attempted to put his arm about her neck.

"Beast!" she cried, and struck him in the face. And ere he had recovered from the surprise of the blow, she glided from the room.

Seating himself on the foot of the bed, his eyes rolling in the vacancy of intoxication, he began to mutter words like these,--

"I'd a-better have cut you up, when I had you on the dissectin' table--I had. 'Beast.' You've served the devil for very small wages, Arthur Conroy! Ha, ha,--its a queer world."

Shall we ever see Herman and Godiva, Conroy and Dermoyne again?