Part 30 (1/2)
”And didst thou nothing to alienate her affections from thy brother?”
inquired Holden, in a hoarse voice
”She never regarded hi, ”nor do I believe she had an idea of the fervor of his affection God be ean to exhibit indications of insanity By the advice of physicians he was taken to an asylum for the insane, where it was hoped, under proper treatht be restored May God pardon ligence of his keeper, he was permitted to escape--his body was found, after so paused and covered his face with both hands
”The body was recognized as thy brother's?” inquired Holden
”It had been in the water too long to be perfectly recognized, but the height, and age, and color of the hair, and what there was left to uishable, were sufficient to identify it as George's”
”There is no certainty then Thy brother may be yet alive”
”There can be no doubt of his death Thirty years have elapsed, and were he in existence he must have been heard of Twelve years afterwardshter God saw fit, in his providence, to take rave It will not be long before she will do , and silence succeeded, which was at last broken by the Solitary He bent his broith a keen, searching glance upon his guest, and said:
”Thou wert false to thy brother”
”Yes, and his blood cries against uilt?”
”Thou dost repent, then, of thy treachery?” inquired Holden, who seemed determined to probe the wound to the botto of life; place ain I should be irresistibly attracted by a heart that seeet the brother, whom thy cruelty had doomed to the e is graven on my heart I have never ceased to think of him”
”Thou wouldst know him should he stand before thee?”
”Know hies as to hide hirave, while his murderer lives”
”Thou didst find compensation for la?”
”True, too true While Frances lived, she was my heaven It was necessary that this idol should be torn from me My son, too Oh, Ja the conversation, had been unable to keep his seat, but with the restlessness of his nature had been walking across the roo The last expression of feeling evidently affected him The rapidity of his steps diminished; his motions became less abrupt; and presently he laid his hand upon the shoulder of Mr Ar
”Thy tale,” he said, ”is one of sorrow and suffering Thou didst violate thy duty, and art punished No wrong shall escape the avenger
As it is written, 'Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord'
But it is also written, 'He is gracious and reat kindness, and repenteth him of the evil' Thou art after all but an instruhty to do Even out of crime He works out the purposes of his will Thou knowest not froe Corieve as one without hope Thy brother liveth, and thou shalt yet behold hi, ”to upbraid ive, and to imprint upon thy brow the seal of reconciliation, as I now, by this token, vow to thee an everlasting love” So saying, Holden bent down, and his lips touched the forehead of Arht to be surprised at anything in the conduct of this extraordinary ulated himself, if he had any that were fixed and determinate, and was not impelled to his actions by the impulse of the moment, were so different from those of other men, that it is difficult to reduce then them to any standard Be it as it ular a thing did not ie He only looked up with eyes dimmed with tears, and, in broken accents, thanked the Solitary
The rest of the ti on the island, was passed in conversation of very much the same description It would see the lives of his wife and son, the reat impression upon him Happy in a wo fahts of business; and in the enjoy to complete his felicity He remembered, too, that there had been an instance of insanity in his family, some years before the birth of himself, which had terminated fatally, the cause of which could not be traced, and felt disposed, therefore, with the natural tendency to self-exculpation of the happy, to find the reason for the tragical end of his brother in hereditary infirmity, rather than attach any serious bla the affections of a lady, whom he was assured had never loved another But when after a few years of unclouded bliss, first his wife, and then his son, was taken away, all things assumed an altered aspect He found himself the last otten, with only one other being in the world in whose veins ran his blood, and for whose life his paternal solicitude almost daily trembled His mind brooded day by day an to wear the forments, the object and result of which rew up, his anxieties on her account diminished, but that only left hiinations and rave and reflective cast of mind, he had even froion, and now he turned to it for consolation But the very sources whence he should have derived comfort and peace were fountains of disquiet His diseased entle promises of pardon and acceptance, but trembled at the denunciations of punishment The universal Father caal, but froith the severity of a Judge about to pronounce sentence Whithersoever the unhappy ild the darkness, and he himself sometimes feared lest reason should desert her throne But his friends felt no apprehensions of the kind In their presence, though grave, he was always reasonable and on his guard--for he shrunk with the sensitiveness of a delicateits wounds--nor with the exception of the minister, and now Holden, was there one who suspected his condition, and they probably did not realize it fully
These remarks may serve to abate, if not to remove entirely the reader's surprise, that one with the education, and in the position of Arht counsel from Holden But itwas approaching--similar in some respects to that of the Solitary--established a sort of relation or elective affinity between thenet, to attract one to the other We have seen how fond Holden was of visiting the house of Mr Ar Could it be that this mysterious influence, all unconsciously to himself, led his steps thither, and that afar off he dimly espied the talisman that should establish a full community between them? Or was not this community already established? How else account for the visit of Are conversation, the confessions, concluded by an act, tender, and perhaps graceful, but only such as was to be expected froed man?