Volume Iii Part 13 (1/2)

But Mary's lips could not utter a reply, her breath seemed choked, a mist was before her eyes, though the once most beloved face on earth was bending down upon her, so near that his very breath fanned her cheek. She saw it, but as in a frightful dream changed into the face of a demon, and she felt that breath to be upon her brow like a burning and a blighting flame. Yet in the strange terror, the perplexity of feeling which had come over her, a kind of fascination, which something in that dark, lurid glance fixed so steadfastly upon her, seemed to enthral her senses. She might perhaps, had it been possible, have forced her lips to give the required promise. But though they moved, they uttered no sound.

She grew paler and paler, more and more heavily she pressed against the retaining arm which encircled her, till finally her head lay back on the cus.h.i.+on of the couch; and Eugene Trevor started at perceiving her closed eyes and ghastly countenance, released her from his hold, for she had fainted!

CHAPTER XII.

For thee I panted, thee I prized, For thee I gladly sacrificed Whate'er I loved before; And shall I see thee start away, And helpless, hopeless, hear thee say-- Farewell! we meet no more.

COWPER.

Eugene Trevor's first impulse was to step back shocked and amazed; but the first paroxism of pa.s.sion into which he had worked himself, in a degree cooled by this unlooked for catastrophe, he felt that he had acted in a weak and unreasonable manner.

Yes, to say that he stood there, looking on that good and gentle being, whose pitiful condition only showed the climax to which he had distressed and unnerved her guileless spirit, by the course of conduct he had so unjustifiably pursued--the peace and happiness of whose life he had so selfishly blighted.

That he had looked on her thus, and thought chiefly of himself, was but too true a proof of the purity and genuineness of the feelings, which had prompted him to press upon her their union in so urgent and unjustifiable a manner.

Yes--dark and perplexing considerations as to the position of his own affairs came crowding upon his mind. Mary's suspicions, nay, even amounting to certainty, as to his brother's ident.i.ty, he had himself recklessly confirmed; but that mattered little, for suspicion once awakened on the subject, the truth in any case, must sooner or later have transpired.

No, he should have long ago have broken off with Mary, as his brother had required; that would have been the only means of keeping that mad enthusiast quiet till his father's death, and his own affairs satisfactorily settled. What infatuation had kept him hankering after that ”mess of pottage,” which after all, he felt had become far less valuable to him, than all that had been risked through its cause. He had been in love with Mary Seaham three years ago; then he was really and truly in love--in love with her sweet youth--her gentle excellence; and could he then have made her his wife without the trouble and annoyance to which the engagement had since subjected him, he had little doubt that the step would have been for his happiness and benefit; but as it had turned out, he should have long since have given up the inauspicious business--the strength and purity of his affection had not been such as could stand the test of their protracted separation. The crystal stream would soon have palled upon his vitiated taste, had it not been for the excitement of opposition, and the triumph over his brother it procured him.

Added to this, we must in justice say, there had ever remained in Eugene's heart at all times--and under every circ.u.mstance, a sort of fascinated feeling towards Mary which had never been wholly extinguished--an influence over his nature wonderful even to himself.

But this was nothing to the disquieting fears which now a.s.sailed him for the future; he could not well see his way before him, and impatiently--with feelings in which every bad pa.s.sion was combined, he turned away from the poor girl, who lay there so wan and faded before him; in this moment of excitement, considering her but as the source of the disturbance and perplexity, in which through her, he had involved himself. With but one more glance, therefore, at the pale, prostrate form, he rang the bell with careless violence; and leaving the room, contented himself with desiring the servant whom he met hurrying to obey the summons, to send Miss Seaham's maid to her, and hastily quitted the house.

In no happy mood of mind, Eugene Trevor regained his own hotel, and having made inquiries as to conveyances, started by the night mail from ----, and reached Montrevor the following afternoon.

His first inquiry was for Marryott. He was told that she had expired soon after his departure. ”Had any one been with her?” he asked.

”No one; they had supposed her to be asleep for some hours; but at length she had been found by the housemaid who took up her gruel, stiff and cold.”

Yes--the sin of that hardened and unrighteous woman had surely found her out. The curse breathed from the pale, meek features of the corpse of her, whose angel heart she had crushed and broken--whose death she had rendered lone and desolate as her life, had come back ”on her bosom with reflected blight,” she too had breathed forth her expiring sigh in agony unrelieved.

But who wept over her remains--who cared for, who mourned her death? not one within that mansion. Old Mr. Trevor heard of the event, with the satisfaction of a child released from the dominion of a harsh attendant, and took advantage of his disenthralment to creep from his chamber to his study, to enjoy the long restricted luxury of gloating over his beloved treasures; and from whence, overcome by that unwonted exertion, he had but just been carried back to his chamber by his servant, who had discovered him thus employed, when his son arrived.

Eugene's first act was to order the property of Marryott to be submitted to his inspection, and he had but just satisfied himself of there being no more forged notes in her possession, when the officers of the crown employed to make inquiries into the business, arrived at Montrevor.

Their examination of the deceased's effects proved, of course, equally unproductive, as was every inquiry which was afterwards made. A few questions put to the bewildered Mr. Trevor, to whose presence Eugene tremblingly admitted the officials, showed him incompetent to give any available evidence. Their warrant went no further.

With the death of the self-accused offender, ended every possibility of further enlightenment. She had gone to give an account of her actions to a Judge from before whom all hearts are open and no secrets are hid; and who require no human testimony to decide His just and terrible judgment.

They departed, and Eugene breathed more freely, though far was the removal of this one weight of anxiety from leaving peace and comfort at his heart. The gloom and darkness which brooded over the house of sin and death, lay with a leaden weight upon his soul. For the first time he seemed to be sensible of the foulness of the atmosphere in which for years he had breathed so contentedly--the dark maze in which he had entangled himself. Perhaps it was the influence of _her_ presence, which even still, as it had ever done, exercised a power over his feelings--a wish, a transitory yearning for better, purer things; for happiness such as he had never tasted in his world of sensuality.

From whatever it might have arisen, certainly his was no enviable frame of mind, and in the perplexity of the moment he was almost prompted to relax his immediate hold of all his anxious schemes and purposes; put his father under proper guardians.h.i.+p, and leaving the house, the country, for a time, abandon the issue to the future--to fate. If the old man died soon, well and good; he knew his present will would secure him the bulk of his large and long acc.u.mulated unentailed property. If he lingered on for years, why even then, he little feared his brother taking advantage of his absence. No, not his brother perhaps, but his friends. Might they not rise up in Eustace Trevor's behalf; and the old man become, as in his present state he was likely to do, a ready tool in their hands, to effect his ruin--for ruin to him any alteration in that will must prove--that will made under his own auspices; at the same time that the deed was executed, which in favour of his brother's alleged incompetency, put all power into his hands, with regard to the management of the entailed property.

No, he must retain his post even to the death, and above all he must gain a.s.surance as to the security of the deed, on which so much depended, and which it had been necessary to humour the old man, at the time, in the whim of keeping secreted in his own possession, without the farther security of a copy--a legal expense against which, he had strongly protested. There was another point too on which he was still painfully anxious. Were the remainder of those forged notes, which his father had evidently neglected to destroy, still in existence, and in the same place from which the rest had been extracted?

With these thoughts on his mind, Eugene went to his father, and with the usual address of which he was full master, broke to him the nature and the cause of the intrusion with which he had that day been terrified and annoyed--in short the whole history of Marryott's share in the forgery case, the origin of which he recalled to his darkened recollection.

The old man was confounded and dismayed--his old panic as regarded his son's youthful delinquency reviving in full force. He, however, held out still, that the notes had been destroyed, and that Marryott must have been a witch to have restored them to existence.