Part 7
“Would you know the rest? How I came in the dusk to the village street and crept in the shadow to your father’s door, feeling that I could not at once bear the blaze of your beauty. When I had seen the old man open the casement and sit in the moonlight with a child upon his knee, my heart misgave me. Fainting for food, for I had been too eager to eat, I crept back to the inn. Slowly I questioned the _garçon_ concerning the people of the village, and gradually the truth dawned--you were untrue! I was like a madman that night. I wore a track in the floor, I doubt not, with my restless pacing, and when day broke I went forth with a wild intent to do murderous work. All through the hours of sunlight I examined the mill, and the dwelling-place where a false heart was beating, and at night I planned to carry out my work of destruction. I would fire the mill and the house and take care that, so quick would leap the flames, that no escape would be possible. And if, through some strange fatality, my plot was defeated, there, in the fierce distraction of a great conflagration, I would rush upon you with my knife and stab you to your death! Yes,” he leaned forward and hissed the words, “the woman who has taught me that there is no faith, that God and honor and love are myths, ought to die by the hand of the man whom she has wrecked.”
Again Dorcas stirred, and again he waved her into silence.
“And what was your excuse? Six years of silence. What were they to me? Six centuries might have waned, and I should have kept my faith. When I looked at this trysting string, I said alway and ever the same: ‘She is as strong as the threads she tore with so great an effort; she will never waver.’
“What was the good of nature’s brand that you bear: the mark of unyielding purpose, of faith and love as firm as God’s foundation, as broad as the firmament--you belie them all. There you stand now with your great eyes shining as if a _soul_ dwelt behind them; your rich smooth skin blooming with the color and purity of nature, not artifice; your red lips curved with a smile you cannot repress, and yet I swear you are as false as hell!
“Only this”--he touched the crimson stains--“only this defeated my plan, and enabled you to breath the sweet spring air once more; only this has made it possible for me to die cursing you with my latest breath without dealing that blow at your heart that should have mingled our blood in one stream.”
The exhausted man fell back upon his pillows, and Dorcas crept to his side and smoothed the rich waves of jet-black hair, and with a wet sponge moistened his lips. Presently he opened his eyes, and before he could speak she said calmly:
“I am going to take thee to our home. George Townsend will help me to nurse thee back to life and peace. I will tell thee, now, that I never knew thy full intent in asking me for the cap string; had I known it I should not have given it, for thy reason and my own would have rebelled against an alliance wholly at variance with Nature’s laws. Thee did not love _me_, the girl; thee loved my _faith_, my trust in thy honesty; and I bid thee go on loving it, for I shall trust thee now, just as I trusted thee then. I believed thee innocent of the crime for which thee had been confined. I believed it only because thee said it was so, and thy face told the same story. I believe in thee now, in despite thy _words_, for thy soul is speaking more truly through thy glance, and that tells me that thy devotion to thy _grandpère_ was no myth, while thy frenzy is. Thee shall find thy faith in me is rewarded, for thee shall live to be one of our household and to bless us all with thy goodness.”
She ceased speaking, summoned the jailer’s wife, and had the sick man borne to her carriage.
When she had reached her own door Dorcas entered alone, and quietly spoke to her husband, who still sat by the breakfast table.
“George, I have brought home a very ill man; will thee please attend to his removal from the carriage while I prepare a bed? I shall put him into the little room next our own that I may the more carefully tend him.”
That night, as Dorcas sat late by the invalid’s side, the only word that he spoke was the whispered question:
“Are you not afraid?”
And as she bent over him tenderly she answered:
“Not for a moment do I fear thee; I only wish thee well.”
Slowly the strength came to the feeble pulse, but when the frail man was permitted to leave his sick bed, it was found that his cough became less frequent and his fever had subsided. Then, too, he was moved into a large upper chamber, the best the house afforded, and although the kind attentions of Dorcas were unremitted, he lost all sense of care or espionage. Gradually he recognized himself as a member of the family, and never was there any allusion to his advent or expected departure. Before many months he was the dear “uncle,” of the household, taking his part in all that went on; teaching the little Lucretia; reading aloud bits of quaint wisdom or humor, from “Le Roman de la Rose,” and “Le Roman du Renart;” pages from Froissart, his beloved Pascal, and La Bruyère; or listening to the many schemes for lifting the burdens of others that were constantly suggested by George or Dorcas.
From 1820 to 1830 there was a great awakening on the subject of Prison Reform. The work of England’s noble Howard had been supplemented by that of the devoted Elizabeth Fry, and the whole world rang with their achievements. Slow, alas! was the motion across the water, but sure in its coming.
Henri Beauclaire, too feeble to exert great physical effort, was keenly alive to the necessity of introducing humanitarian methods in all places for the confinement of the accused.
He labored unceasingly toward an enlargement and purification of the county jail, for separate day rooms for the men and women, for decent food and lavatories, and for constant occupation. In all he did Henri was warmly seconded by his true friends, and when at last the summons came that called him from their midst, no one among the villagers was more regretted.
In the short will which was found amid his small effects, he had bequeathed the old chateau to his native town as a home for such discharged prisoners as were friendless and aged, and the closing clause read thus:
“To my more than sister, my earthly savior, Dorcas Townsend, I leave the testimony of my later years, and the contents of my strong-box.”
This contained some valuable silver and household linen bearing a coronet, and a sandalwood casket wherein reposed a yellow muslin cap string.
In the evening following the burial Dorcas sat with her family about her on the moonlit porch. She slid her hand softly into that of her husband, and said:
“George dear, thee has never asked me, but I should like to tell thee, the secret of my peculiar interest in our brother who has passed away.”
Then my grandame told the story, and the accurate memory of my mother gave it unto me as it is written.
At its conclusion her husband kissed her flushed cheek, saying:
“Thine was ever a romantic nature, and were romance always controlled by reason, how many lives might blossom into joy and usefulness, as did that of our beloved Henri.”
THE END.
IN UNIFORM STYLE:
THE PRISONER OF ZENDA:
Being the History of Three Months in the Life of an English Gentleman. By ANTHONY HOPE. 16mo, 75 cents.
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A SUBURBAN PASTORAL.
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Transcriber’s Notes
Errors in punctuation have been fixed.
Page 32: “henceforth seprate” changed to “henceforth separate”