CHAPTER XXXVII.

"Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone."

"Where shall we go?" said the captain, in a whisper, as we paused in the hall irresolutely.

"What do you think of the dining-room, behind the tall clock for one of us?"

The captain shook his head.

"They'll look there the first thing; it will not do. But in the second story, there's a huge old wardrobe that I've noticed at the north end, that would be a capital place for one."

"Yes, I know where you mean, but I think it's locked, and we haven't the key, and it would take too long to hunt up the housekeeper and get it. There's the lower part of a bookcase in the library empty. Captain McGuffy, if you only could get into it! Not even Mr. Rutledge knows about it. Mrs. Roberts only cleared the books out of it last week, and you'd be as safe as possible. Do try if you can't arrange it, and I'll go somewhere upstairs; I know a place."

Captain McGuffy consented, and we hurried to the library. The hiding-place was not so large as I had fancied, but still my companion agreed to risk it. He doubled up like a jack-knife; it was perfectly wonderful to me how he ever got his long limbs into so small a compass.

"Are you comfortable?" I asked, smothering a laugh.

"Don't shut the door tight," he whispered, hoarsely. "I can't stand this long."

I had no time for more lengthened condolences, but hurried off to dispose of myself. The second story was entirely clear; the servants were all downstairs; Mrs. Roberts was busy about supper. I resolved to hide behind the linen-press outside her door; but first, I thought, if I were quick, I could go one instant to Victor's door, whisper my excuses, and promise to come back when they were all gone. It was rather a dangerous thing to do, but the moment I heard the parlor-door open, I could fly to my hiding-place; I dared not lose this chance.

Moving aside the wardrobe with some effort, I tapped low at the door. Again--and no answer. "Victor," I whispered at the key-hole, "come to the door one moment;" but not a sound from within.

Apprehension of I do not know what new danger overcame my prudence, and I wasted the few precious seconds I had to spare in irresolution. When it was too late to effect my escape, I heard the door of the parlor burst open, and Josephine's voice crying, "Allons!" They separated to all parts of the house, Grace, Janet, and Ellerton flying up the stairs. There was but one thing for me to do: I hurriedly pulled the wardrobe after me into its place, opened the door, entered, and closed it stealthily behind me. Only when I was in it, did I realize the folly of what I had done. The room was as dark and silent as the grave; such a silence and such a darkness as would have chilled a stouter heart than mine. I whispered Victor's name--there was no answer. Had he fled, then, and was I alone in this horrid room--shut up in it for hours perhaps? No! I would risk all and grope my way out, no matter if I encountered them all. I could endure this no longer. All Kitty had told me--all I ever fancied of the ghastly terrors of the room--crowded into my mind, and, starting forward, I attempted to find the door, but in my bewilderment and the utter blackness around me, I must have turned away, instead of toward it. My outstretched hand struck against an icy surface; I screamed and started back, my foot slipped and I fell, striking my temple heavily against some projection. The fall and the blow stunned me for awhile; then returning consciousness suggested all that they had mercifully absolved me from. Alice Rutledge's neglected, dishonored room--Alice Rutledge's sin-troubled spirit haunting it--the curses that had been spoken in it--the agony that had been endured in it--the years of silence that had passed over it--and now, a murderer's hiding-place--a murderer with crime fresh upon him. And oh! the horror of that crime! It seemed almost as if it had been me instead of Victor who had done it. My brain seemed reeling--had I not been there--had I not seen--heard--that of which I never lost the memory--or was it only haunting me from another's lips? Was _that_ avenging ghost here, too--within the limits of this dreadful room? Was that a touch of human hand upon my breast?--was it fancy, or--or--was that a breath upon my cheek? A thousand horrid whispers--hollow laughter--dying shrieks--filled the air; within these accursed walls, it was weird and unearthly all; without, I heard, but as through triple dungeon walls, the voices of those I had left behind; I heard their steps overhead, their searching, high and low, in every nook and corner for me; I heard them call my name, and pause for answer. I tried to call, but a nightmare stifled my voice. As one might feel who had buried himself yet living--who had pulled the coffin-lid down on his own head, and heard the devils eagerly filling the grave up and laughing at their work--and at each new shovelful of heavy clay had felt the distance between him and life grow shorter, and felt the weight press heavier and heavier, and the horror and the darkness grow tighter and tighter around him, and the remorse, and the helplessness, and the terror--so I felt that hideous night, and so I feel whenever I remember it.

The house quieted, I heard the carriages drive away, then the faint good-nights, and the closing of the many doors, and all grew into repose. That was cruel; they had forgotten me--they had given me up easily! But I would make them hear--I would get out of this sepulchral place, and I started to my feet. Just then the handle of the door turned, and a ray of light streamed across the room. It was Mr. Rutledge who entered; but the sternness and whiteness of his face repressed the cry of joy with which I had started forward. The light, though, had put all the ghastly train to flight, and I breathed freer as I looked around and saw that he and I were alone in the room. He closed the door, and pressing his hand for a moment before his eyes, looked up and around the apartment. I suppose he had never been in it since it had been closed upon the flight of his sister, and since his father's curse had doomed it to desolation. I followed his glance around the dim and dusky walls--the familiar pictures--the disordered, time-stained ornaments--the tall, canopied bed--the open wardrobe. A low groan escaped his lips, and sinking on a chair, he bowed his head in his hands upon the table. Some sound from me at last aroused him, and looking up, he said:

"I knew I should find you here. What evil spirit brought you to this place! Are you alone?"

"Yes," I faltered, coming to him, "I am alone. Take me out, for the love of heaven! I have been in such terror--Victor is not here--I have"----

I stopped, with an exclamation of alarm. I had betrayed my secret.

"It is better that he has gone," he said, but without any surprise; "it could not have been kept up much longer. I hope, for your sake, he may be safe. Flight would have been better a week ago. I could have managed it, but you would not trust me. Did you really think," he continued, rising slowly from his seat, and looking at me with an expression compounded of bitterness, and tenderness, and sadness, "did you really think I did not know you were hiding your lover in my house--that you were dying a thousand deaths in the midst of this careless crowd? Why, child," he said, laying his hand on my shoulder, and looking into my eyes, "I know every expression of this face better than I know my own. I know its flashes of fear, its white mantle of despair, and its crimson glow of love, too well to be deceived. If I had needed confirmation of my suspicions on the morning after Dr. Hugh's murder, that Victor Viennet was the guilty man, I should have had only to have looked in your face. And from that dreadful day to this, I have read there each event as it has come to pass. I have helped you in your lover's cause, though you did not know it. I have worked day and night to mislead his persecutors, to allay the suspicions and blind the eyes of the authorities; and I have nearly succeeded. There is very little danger now, if he is prudent and dexterous in his flight. Do not tremble so; you need not fear for him. By this time he is probably beyond the only part of his journey that was attended with much risk."

I burst into tears; it was so hard to hear him say all this, and talk to me as if I had nothing to be miserable about, now that Victor was safe. Ah! this was but the beginning. A life-time lay before me full of such hours as this.

"It is a heavy fate, poor child," he said, compassionately. "I would have saved you from it if I could."

"You don't know half how heavy!" I sobbed. "If you did, you wouldn't think it a sin for me to pray to die."

"Take the harder penance, and submit to live. Death doesn't always come for the asking. God has sent you a terrible trial, but he will help you through it if you will only keep that in mind."

"No, no. God did not send it. I have brought it on myself--it is all my own deed! Oh! if you only knew"----

"I do know. I know you are disappointed in the man you love--that you have found weakness where you fancied strength: but I know that, woman-like, you still love, if possible, more tenderly than before your idol was shattered, and that you are shrinking now from the prospect of a long and uncertain separation. I pity you, believe me, I pity you; but these are griefs that time has a cure for. Do not talk of despair till you have felt what it is to be unloved and unblest--to be without an interest on earth, with but a slender right to hope in heaven--to be thwarted in all you undertake, balked of all you desire--till you have seen another and an unworthier hand take down your crown of life, and wear it careless in your sight."

"Perhaps I know all that as well as you," was on my lips, but I only hid my face and turned away. He did not understand the gesture, and said sadly, after a pause:

"Why are you so wretched? I have assured you there is little danger, and what is there so insupportable in the separation of a year or two? Or is it something in the manner of parting; were you unprepared to find him gone? Did he leave no good bye?"

"No," I said, glad to have some excuse for my tears; "I never dreamed of his going--it is too unkind! And I shall never forgive myself either; when I saw him last, there was some misunderstanding, and I have not explained it to him! He has gone away in despair and in anger! Oh, I shall never, never forgive myself!"

"You may overrate the cause," said my companion, "perhaps he may have found it more prudent to fly now, and could not wait to see you. Look about the room, there may be a letter somewhere, or he may have left one with Kitty."

"Kitty knows nothing of it, and I do not see any letter."

"What is that little package--beyond you--there on the table?"

I seized it, and, bending eagerly over the light, read my name upon it. My hand trembled so that I could hardly open it. Within the first paper there was a letter; my eyes glanced hurriedly over it, but from another wrapping something dropped, one sight of which served to make me grasp the table for support, and drop the letter on the floor.

"What is it?" cried my companion, starting forward, and picking up my letter, leading me to a chair.

"Read it to me--I can't--I don't understand," I faltered, putting back the letter in his hand. He looked at me hesitatingly a moment, then read it aloud:

"I promised you freedom. Well! I have been a coward not to have given it to you sooner; but when you read this, there will be such a gulf between us, that you may well grant a little pity to the cowardice that only feared death as a separation from you--that only clung to life as sweetened by your love.

"It is trite to tell you of my love--to tell you to be happy--to say I forgive the coldness that you strove to hide--and to ask forgiveness for the pain I have given you. You know all this--better, much better than at this dreadful hour I can tell you--and though you can never know in its fullness the agony that the parting inflicts on me, there is no need that you should realize it: I have done enough to make you miserable already. Forget all this black dream; it will soon be over, and be again the happy girl I found you.

"But one thing more. Would you know who it is to whom you had affianced yourself--to whose life you had promised to unite yours--whose name you had promised to bear? It is a good name--_mon ange_--an ancient name--an honorable! Ask your proud host if it is not; ask him if there is a better in the country, or one that a woman need be prouder to bear. It is no new name to your ears; it is _Rutledge;_ the only name I have any claim to, though, perhaps, my host would say that was but a slender one: did his sister lose the ancient and honored name she was born with, when she lost her honor, when she stepped down from her high place, and stooped to sin? Or did she drag down that name with her in her fall? Did it cling to her, like a robe of mockery and scorn, only making her shame the greater; did it descend with the heritage of infamy, to the child of her shame? Or did it die with her, and has her neglected grave the only right to bear the record of it? Ask our host--he can tell you more of it than I. But tell him I am not inclined to dispute it with him: I am not as proud of the name as he; tell him I loathe--I execrate it! I could almost wish to live to show him my contempt for it--to show him what a low wretch could share with him his inheritance and his pride. If he doubts it--if he questions whether the same blood runs in our veins, show him the only souvenir I have to leave you--the picture of my father. Ask him if he remembers Alice Rutledge's lover. He will not need more damning proof; it came to me like a message from the dead--it may go to him as such. Tell him that a murderer wrenched it from his victim's dying grasp; that it has struck awe to his guilty soul at every glance; that it has hurried him on to perdition. But if he longs to be more certain, show him these two letters; one that I have worn next my heart for years--the other, that I found between the leaves of a forgotten book in this ghastly room.

"The God whom you believe in bless you, and, if he has the right--forgive me!

"VICTOR."

"I don't understand--what does he mean--where has he gone?" I said, wildly, pressing my hand to my head. "I am so bewildered, I can't think. Oh! don't look so awfully! There must be some mistake. You can't believe that--that--oh! heaven help me!"

My companion did not speak; my eyes searched his blanched face in vain for comfort--a wild impulse seized me; I grasped the candle in my hand, and, with a hasty look around the apartment, hurried to the bed and drew aside the curtains.

I did not swoon or cry; I did not even drop the candle from my hand, nor loose the grasp with which I held back the curtains; but, with glazed eyes and freezing veins, gazed steadily at what lay before me. Pale with the unmistakable pallor of death, one arm thrown above his head, the other buried in his bosom, his dark tangled curls lying distinct against the pillow, his manly limbs rigid--a crimson stream that had stained his breast, and was creeping down upon the bed, gave awful proof that Victor and I had indeed parted forever--that my wretched lover lay dead before me.

Brought so suddenly to my sight, there was nothing in that moment of the remorse and the lingering tenderness that after the first shock nearly deprived me of reason; it was only horror--staring, ghastly horror--at the sight of his dead body--at the thought of his lost soul; the words that rang in my head, and the first that struggled to my lips were: "God have mercy on his soul! God have mercy on his soul!" Dead--without a prayer--dead--by his own hand--cast out forever from God's mercy--a wailing, damned, lost soul through all eternity. I stood as if turned to stone; my companion, in an agony of grief and consternation, had thrown himself on his knees beside the bed; his iron fortitude broken down before this awful judgment that, laying bare the anguish of the past, had interwoven itself so strangely with the present; the unerring retribution that had worked out this end to sins so long ago committed.

But no sob or cry came from my lips; no tears dimmed my riveted eyes. I heard the broken words that burst from him as in a dream, and neither knew nor felt that there was anything in this world but blank horror--hopeless consternation--till from a slight movement of the candle, I caught the shine of a trinket that the unhappy man had worn around his neck. Bending forward, I saw in a moment what it was. A little ring of mine, and a link of the broken bracelet, worn on a chain next his heart while living, now wet with blood, was lying still above the heart that beat no more. At that sight a passion of tears came to my relief. His tender and devoted love, the miserable return I had made, the unkindness of our parting, my shameful injustice and deceit, the cruelty of his sufferings, all rushed over me and shook me with a tempest of tears and sobs. I threw myself beside him on the bed, and covered his cold hand with tears and caresses; wild with pain and remorse, I laid my cheek against his on the pillow, and implored him to forgive me, to speak to me but once, to say I had not killed him; with incoherent passion I called heaven to witness that I really loved him--that I would have been true to him--that I would have died for him--that I had nothing else to live for or to love.

It was long before, worn out by excess of weeping, I yielded to my companion, and was led faint and almost unresisting from the room. With a few words of pity, he left me in my own apartment, reluctantly turning away from me, so wretched and so lonely. But I shook my head; I did not want any one, I had rather be by myself.

"No one can do you much good, it is true," he said sadly. "God help you!" and he left me.

I stood motionless for some minutes after the door closed upon him. Then, stung by some fresh recollection and by the added terrors of solitude, I paced rapidly up and down the room, and flinging myself on my knees by the bedside, I prayed incoherently and passionately for Victor--for myself--for pardon and for death. I could not endure one thought or one occupation long: before I rose from my knees my resolution was taken; my brain would have given way if I had not had some necessity for exertion, some design to carry out. And strange and sudden as my determination was, I doubt whether I could have done anything wiser and better. There was one uncontrollable longing uppermost--to escape from this place, to hide myself forever from all who had ever known me here.

Stealthily and hurriedly, for Kitty was sleeping in the dressing-room, I went through my preparations. They were not many; there were some letters to be burned and one to be written, some clothes to be selected and made up into a package, a trinket to be clasped round Kitty's arm, and a coin slipped in her hand, and I was ready. I looked at my watch; it was half-past three, the faint grey dawn was just streaking the eastern sky, I must go. Where should I put my letter? I sat down and hurriedly wrote the address, then with a momentary indecision, the first that had marked my rapid movements since my resolution was taken, I opened and read it over:

"You will not be surprised when you find that I have gone away. You can understand, if you will think a moment about it, and try to realize what I should have to endure in concealing and controlling my feelings, that it is the only thing I could do. My life with Mrs. Churchill has grown so intolerable that I had before this resolved it should not continue. And now is the best time to do what at any other moment would be painful, but which at this, is only a relief. Inquiries and investigations as to where I go, will be just so many cruelties; will you do this last of many kindnesses, and help to cover my retreat, and keep them from any attempts to find me? It would kill me to have to face any of them now; will you not trust me enough to help me to the only comfort possible to me now, solitude and rest? You are ingenious, you can divert them from it, if you try; it is not as if they had any instincts of affection to guide them in finding me out. You need not let them know that I did not project the pastime of last night to accomplish a premeditated flight. If you ever had any kindness for me, do not try to find me out yourself, _do not let them_. You may trust me when I promise you I will do nothing rash, nothing that you would not approve if I could tell you. I promise you that I will remember my religion and my womanhood, and spend what length of life God sentences me to, as penitently, patiently and reasonably as He will grant me grace to do. If you will show this proof of confidence and friendship, you will never repent it.

"God knows, you have little reason to trust in me: but I am changed--I am much changed--I will not deceive you now. If you will believe in me this once, and shield me from exposure, and leave me in peace where I may choose to go, I will pledge you my word that as soon as I shall ascertain that you have sailed for Europe, I will write you fully and truthfully where I am, and what I intend to do, and will from that time make no secret of my place of abode and my plans.

"There is another thing--but I need not ask it of you. You, for your own sake are concerned to keep this cruel secret that I have so long been hiding, a secret still. It passes now from my hands to yours. Perhaps I should be insensible to disgrace and ignominy; they cannot harm _him_ now: but oh! shield me from them, save his memory from shame. Do not let the world know of it till that day when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed; when God shall commit all judgment to His Son, who is more merciful than man--more compassionate and more just.

"You have helped me hitherto, though I did not know whose hand was smoothing my way; do not give up now, despairing. Kitty and Stephen will be faithful, no one else need know the secrets of that dreadful room.

"I am not so selfish as you think. I do not forget that you are only less miserable than I am, as you have only grief and not remorse to bear. Heaven send you the peace I have no right to ask for myself."

I folded my letter quickly and sealed it; then with one more look at Kitty, and one hurried glance around the familiar room, I put out the candle, took the package from the table and stole out. Where should I put my letter? It must be within reach of no other hand than his; no one must know that I had written to him. The hall--no words can tell its gloom, the early dawn just turning its darkness into spectral dimness. If inevitable detection had been the result, I could not have helped the hurried, incautious steps with which I crossed it, and listened at Mr. Rutledge's door. Within the inner room I heard a step pacing restlessly up and down, but no other sound. He was awake, then; I stooped, and softly tried the handle of the door. It was locked; he would be the first to open it; so I slipped the letter under it, and springing up, fled down the stairs and through the hall, without a look behind, with no thought but that of escape, no fear so strong as that of detection. I had forgotten everything now but flight.

It was Heaven's mercy and nothing else, as poor Kitty would have said, that no one was aroused by the loud sliding of the bolts, that required all my strength to move; I hardly stopped to pull the heavy door to, after me; I should not have heard, if the whole household had been in pursuit, for the wild throbbing of my heart, the maddening pressure on my brain, the choking fear, kept me insensible to sight and sound. I flew on, through the shrubbery, across the unfrequented, dark orchard; my feet tangled in the rank, wet grass that lay in the field beyond it, my light dress tore to fragments in the thicket that bordered the western extremity of the park; but on, till the thickest of the forest sheltered me; then sinking exhausted and panting upon the ground, I hid my eyes and shuddered at the terrors I was flying, and the dismal blank, and dread uncertainty of what was beyond.