Miriam Monfort by Catherine A. Warfield (page 3)

Claude Bainrothe than at this moment. If I can serve him in any way, but one, he may always command me. Let him go for the present to Copenhagen, I implore you; it will be best for him–for all of us. He will know his own mind better then, than he can now. When he returns, I would like to see him happy. I doubt if he will be so, if he remains here,” I faltered; “I should dislike, very much, to see him make shipwreck of his happiness.” I hesitated, choked again. “I acknowledge–“

“You have cut him off, Miriam, that is plain, for the present, at least,” he interrupted. “Yet you speak in enigmas; but, if he be the man I think he is, he will make all clear to you at last, for I am sure he is incapable of any act radically wrong, and is the soul of chivalrous honor; always ready to repair a folly, and avoid it in future. The very best fellow living.”

I had never seen Mr. Bainrothe so moved before as he now certainly was. The glitter of a tear was in his mottled eye, and it stirred me strangely. It was as if a snake should weep, and what in Nature could be more affecting than such a spectacle? Or, rather, what _out_ of Nature?

There must have been, despite this tender showing, an outbreak of some sort between father and son from the time of this call and the next visit of Mr. Bainrothe, which occurred some days later.

The expression of concentrated rage on his face was unmistakable on this occasion. Its usually placid, polished expression was laid aside, for one of unqualified displeasure. He was pale as marble too, which was a sign of excitement with him, with his complexion, usually clear and florid.

“Again I come to you, Miriam,” he said, “and this time with his permission to mediate between you and my unhappy son. Believe me, you attach too much consequence to hasty and half-comprehended expressions, uttered, as he avers, to appease the offended vanity of an angry and implacable–ay, and dangerous woman. There are few things a man will not say for such a purpose. He went too far in his anxiety to conciliate malice, and allay an evil temper. This is all that can be imputed to him. Be reasonable, my dear girl! you are alone in the world; we are your truest friends. It shall be our study–mine, as well as his–to guard your life from every care, every anxiety even–precaution so necessary in your case, and with your peculiar constitution. You love my son, or have loved him–in this I could not be mistaken–and his affection for you is sincere and unaffected, despite the concessions a designing woman, who conceives herself slighted, has wrung from his unwary lips, on purpose to mar his prospects, and blight your happiness, I well believe.”

“No, no, there was no design of this kind on her part, of that I am sure. She could not–did not know that I overheard them. You must do her justice there–I trust she may never know it. Claude promised me–“

“I know, I know–it was with this understanding,” he interrupted, “that he confided to me the extent of his indiscretion, for which I have rated him soundly, I assure you. Evelyn is not to know that you overheard them. This is the compact–a very sensible and politic one on your part, under the circumstances, for Evelyn, we all know, is, excuse me my dear, the devil, when fairly aroused. Now, as to this overhearing of yours–might not your mind, laboring under recent coma, and a sort of mental mirage as it were, have had a tendency to magnify and only partially comprehend the conversation thus suddenly forced upon your attention? For I understand you were unable to make yourself heard at all, or even to give signs of life when the curtains of your bed were lifted by the interlocutors.”

“This last is true–but that I could not have been mistaken, Claude’s own admissions confirm. He denied nothing that I suggested–much was left by me unquestioned.”

“Yes,” catching wildly at this straw, “he finds himself quite in the dark still, I perceive–as to the accusations brought against him; suppose you make your charges one by one, as it were in the shape of specifications?”

“There are no charges, no accusations brought–nothing of that sort,” I said, proudly; “and I must entreat that from this hour, Mr. Bainrothe, this subject be dropped between us utterly. It is wholly unprofitable, believe me.”

“You are a person of extraordinary obduracy,” he said, “for one of your years. I should like to know how much the Stanbury influence has had to do with strengthening your unwise, unamiable, and stiff-necked resolution! If I were Claude Bainrothe, I should lay heavy damages against you in the courts of law, for your unjustifiable evasion of a formal contract–one your father sanctioned, one of which all your friends are and were cognizant and proud, and which has subjected him, in its rupture, to so much distress and mortification; nay, even as I can prove, pecuniary loss.”

“If _money_ can repay your son Claude, for any wrong I have done him, he is welcome to a portion of mine,” I said, deeply disgusted, “without intervention of law–painful exposure of any kind. I cherish for him, however, even yet, too much regard and respect to believe him capable of such proceedings. The idea is worthy of the mind it springs from–worthy of the author of all this sorrow and confusion–worthy of Mr. Basil Bainrothe, the arch-conspirator himself.”

He turned upon me with clinched hands and blazing eyes. “You shall answer for these words, girl! if not now, years hence,” he said; “the seed of your insult has been thrown on fertile soil, I promise you!” and he laughed bitterly.

“I do not fear you,” I replied; all disguise was thrown off–it was war to the knife between us now; “never have–never can, in spite of your unmanly threats. Evelyn must protect me henceforth from any further contact with you, however, until I am of age to take in hand my own affairs; Evelyn Erie, my guardian, and your fellow-executor, owes me this safeguard. I trust, Mr. Bainrothe, we shall meet no more.”

I left the room–left him in possession of the library, in which he paced up and down for an hour or more, like a caged panther. There was a sealed note for me in his handwriting, under the massive paper-weight on the table, when I entered it again, which he had written and left there before his departure. It ran thus–for I read it derisively, and remember its contents still:

“We have both been wrong, dear Miriam. I, as the elder and more experienced offender–therefore, the more responsible one–claim it as my privilege to be the first to atone. I cannot think, from what I know of you, that you will be long in following my example. Let us forgive one another. Fate has thrown us together, and we must not afford a malicious world the spectacle of our inconsistency, or the satisfaction of seeing us quarrel, after so many years of harmony.

“As to Claude, you and he must settle your own matters. I wash my hands of the whole transaction from this hour, supposing that common-sense will triumph at last, and reconcile your differences.

“Yours as ever, truly and devotedly,

“BASIL BAINROTHE.”

I did not answer this note–I could not discreetly, although I tried to do so several times. I could not conquer sufficiently my deep disgust of his insupportable behavior to respond kindly, at that time, to any overture of Mr. Bainrothe’s, nor did I wish to write one rude word to him in connection with so delicate a subject as that of our late discussion.

He came no more until after Evelyn’s return, and then only on necessary business; inquiring for her alone, and holding on such occasions secret conclaves with her invariably in the library. Whenever we met casually, however, whether in the street or my own house, he was polite and easy in his deportment, even gracious.

With Claude it was otherwise; he avoided me sedulously, and, although I have reason to think he met and joined Evelyn frequently, and even by appointment in her long walks, he never called to see her or paid her open attentions. Yet I found that he had followed my counsels.

A day or two before he sailed for Copenhagen to join the legation in Denmark, an exception to this rule of avoidance was made by both father and son, who came in as had been usual with them in other days, informally, in the evening.

This was Claude’s farewell visit–a very unpleasant necessity evidently on his part. I was unconstrained in the cordiality with which I received both his father and himself–for it was heart-felt on this occasion. Old feelings came back to me so vividly that night, and my own dear father seemed so visibly recalled by the presence once more of our unbroken circle, that I lost sight, for a season, of my wrongs and sufferings in the memory of the past, and broke temporarily through the cloud that oppressed me and dimmed my existence.

I saw Mr. Bainrothe gazing at me several times, in the course of his visit, with an expression of interest and surprise.

He had expected very different manifestations, no doubt, and he told Evelyn afterward that “no woman of thirty could have carried off matters with a higher hand than did that chit of sixteen, Miriam Monfort.”

“All that talk of yours, Miriam, about ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Elsinore,’ ‘Wittenberg,’ and the ‘fiery Dane,’ probably imposed on those two unsophisticated men; but I saw through the whole proceeding; you were afraid of yourself, my dear, that was evident, and ashamed, as you ought to have been, of your capricious conduct to poor Claude, who shows, however, as uncompromising a spirit as your own, I perceive. What _was_ the matter, Miriam? I can get nothing out of him, and I have waited, until my patience is exhausted, for a voluntary communication from you.”

“Why have you not asked me before, Evelyn?” I questioned, calmly, in reply. “You have shown more than your usual forbearance, on this occasion.”

“My dear child, ‘Least said is soonest mended,’ is proverbial in quarrels of all kinds. I have no wish to pry or play mischief-maker, and, if Mr. Basil Bainrothe with his diplomatic talents could do nothing to mend the difficulty, I had no right to suppose that I could succeed better, with my very direct, straightforward disposition.”

“You were right, Evelyn, certainly, in your conclusion, and, if you please, will never ask for any explanation of the breach between Claude and myself. It is irrevocable; but I am sorry to see him so resentful. He cannot conceal his displeasure against me, and yet I have never offended him willingly, I am sure.”

“Caprice and coquetry are not so lightly estimated by every one, as you hold them, nor yet counted causes for gratitude by most men, let me assure you, Miriam.”

“Who has accused me of these?” I questioned, with a flashing eye, a flushing cheek.

“Does your own heart acquit you?” she asked, evasively.

“It does,” I answered, solemnly, “as does the God who reads all hearts, and to whom I am now alone answerable for any motives of mine.”

“Since when have you grown so independent, Miriam?” she asked, ironically.

“Since the death of my father,” I replied.

“Ah! you do not accredit delegated allegiance it seems,” turning her face aside.

“Not as far as my own feelings and their sources are concerned. As to my acts, I hope never to commit one of which all just men might not approve.”

“We shall see. However, a year more or less makes little difference. Claude Bainrothe, improved, will return within a year, probably, and all may still be well. Matters will then, I fancy, be in his own hands, pretty much.

“All _is_ well, Evelyn, if you could only think so, and now, once for all, make up your mind, definitely, to let _well_ alone, for I must not be approached again on this subject, I warn you!”

I spoke with a decision which, at times, had its effect even on the “indomitable Evelyn,” as my father often had called her, playfully, and again the broken engagement was consigned to silence.

Yet on my mind, my feelings, the effect of this severe and sudden trial was far more bitter and profound than met the outward eye.

I had been sustained at first by a sense of pride, self-respect, and womanly indignation, that prevented me from feeling the whole extent of the wound I had received; but with reaction came that dull, dumb, aching of the heart, which all who have felt it may recognize as more wearing than keener pain, or more declared suffering.

I suppose the Spartan who felt the gnawing of the hidden fox was a mere type of this species of anguish, which reproduces itself wherever wounded pride underlies concealment, or wherever injustice and ingratitude render us uncomplaining through a sense of moral dignity.

The first six months succeeding my rupture with Claude Bainrothe went by like a leaden dream. My heart lay like a stone in my bosom, and the gloss had dropped from life, and the glory from the face of Nature for me, in that dreary interval, as though I had grown suddenly old.

In routine, in occupation alone, I found relief and companionship. I compelled myself to teach Mabel, and pursue my own studies, lest my mind should fall back on my body, and destroy both.

A nervous peculiarity manifested itself about this time, that was singularly distressing to me, and which I confided to no one, not even that excellent physician who kept a quiet and observant eye fixed upon me during all this period of my probation.

I became nervously but not mentally convinced of the want of substance in every thing around me, and have repeatedly risen and crossed the room, and touched an article on the opposite side, to compel my better judgment to the conviction that it was indeed tangible and substantial, and not the merest shadow of a shade.

I was sustained in my resolution to conquer this besetting weakness, from a vague horror and fear that, should I suffer it to gain further ascendency, I might fall back into habitual lethargies, and, remembering what Dr. Pemberton had said, I was determined, if possible, to throw off that incubus of my being, by the strength of my own will, aided by God’s mercy.

There were no uttered prayers to this effect, that I remember, but an unceasing cry for strength, for light, went up from my heart, as continuously as the waters of a fountain, to the ear of my Creator. I have thought sometimes that, in this persistent wrestle of mind with matter, enduring so many weeks and months, so many weary, woful days and sleepless nights, the physical demon was exorcised at last, that had ruled my life so long, or was reduced to feeble efforts thereafter.

Once when Dr. Pemberton’s attendance had been necessary to me, during a severe spell of pleurisy, he said when I was recovering: “There is some favorable change at work in your constitution, Miriam, it seems to me. We hear no more of the ‘obliteration spells,'” for thus he called my seizures.

“Your drops have banished them, dear doctor, I suppose,” I rejoined, with a faint smile.

“They may have aided to do so,” he said, gravely, “but I think I have observed, Miriam, that you were doing good work lately for yourself. You have been struggling manfully, my little girl. Now, I am going for recreation to Magara, and the Northern cities, for a few weeks, next month, and I want you to go with me, in aid of this effort of yours. Quite alone, with Charity as sole attendant. My niece will be with me–a good, quiet girl, you know, some years older than yourself, and also in feeble health; and I will see that you are both well taken care of, medically at least, while you are absent. How would you like this, Miriam,” patting my shoulder, “just for a change?”

“Oh, very much!” I said, eagerly. “Yes, I will go gladly, in this quiet way, for I do not wish to visit gay places, or to make strange acquaintance, under the circumstances. My deep mourning must be respected, you know, and–” I hesitated; looked in his kind, sympathizing face; then hid mine on his shoulder–weeping. The first tears of relief I had shed for months.

He did not check me, for he knew full well the value of this outlet of feeling, to one situated as I was, physically as well as mentally.

“I would offer to take Mabel,” he added, after a time, “were I not solemnly convinced that it would be better for you both that she should stay here. Mrs. Austin seems necessary to her very existence; and that old woman is your vampire, I verily believe.”

“No, no, she is very good, indeed. You are mistaken.”

“No, I am not mistaken. There are persons who do sack away, unconsciously, the very life of others, from some peculiarity of organization in both. I have strong faith in this theory. I have been obliged sometimes to decree the separation of wife and husband for a time, to save the life of one or the other; of mother and child even. Every time you fall ill, I believe Mrs. Austin gains strength and energy at your expense. She absorbs your nervous fluid. It was from this conviction that I requested you two years ago to change your room, which, until then, she had shared on the pretence of your necessities, and to substitute a younger and less sponge-like attendant. You remember the stress I laid on this?”

“Yes, yes, one of your crotchets, dear doctor, nothing else. You are full of such vagaries–always were–but there is not another such dear old willful physician in Christendom for all that.”

“Little flatterer! But here is a piece of cassava bread, I brought you, as you thought you would like to taste it. My old West Indian patient keeps me well supplied. I fancy to nibble it as I drive about in my cabriolet, or whatever they call this French affair of mine.”

“For a wonder, you have the word right;” and I laughed in his honest face.

“I am going to France, next spring, when the Stanburys go over, just to see what strides medicine is making across the waters, and to rest myself a little, improve my Gallic pronunciation, and get the fashions, and I will take you as my interpreter, if you promise to be very good and obedient in the interval.”

“Oh, thank you; I would like it of all things. But what takes the Stanburys abroad? I have heard nothing of this plan of theirs before.”

“Pleasure and business combined, I believe. They will remain abroad some years, for the education of George Gaston. What an idol Mrs. Stanbury is making of that boy, to be sure, and Laura is just as foolish about him as her mother! By-the-by, she is to be married, they say, to that young Prussian nobleman, who was there so much last winter. I forget his unpronounceable name. They will reside in Berlin, I understand, should the marriage be ‘_unfait accompli_,’ as the French have it. Is not that right, Miriam?”

“Oh, admirably pronounced! You are becoming quite a Gaul in your old age.”

“I hope I shall never become gall and wormwood, in any event, like some old folks. Now, is not that being literal, Miriam?”

“And witty, as well! You must have been associating with Dr. C—-n, lately.”

“So you can’t give me credit for a little originality, because my facetious vein is new to you. Now, do your old friend justice, and believe even in his puns; if not pungent, he is self-sustaining and independent; but, remember, I count on you absolutely, next week. One trunk apiece and no bandboxes or baskets. A green-silk travelling-bonnet and pongee habit. This is my uniform, for my female guard. Carry Grey knows my whims, and will observe them. By-the-by, you will like my niece.”

We made a delightful tour, which occupied the whole month of August, and I came back refreshed, soul and body; as for Carry Grey, she revived, like a plant that had been newly tended and watered after long neglect. For the poor girl had been making a slave of herself for two years in her widowed brother’s household, consisting of many little children, and needed repose from her multifarious duties.

He was going to marry again soon, she told me, and then she hoped to feel at liberty to fulfill her own engagement of five years’ standing. Carry Grey was quite this many years over twenty-one, and was going to emigrate with her husband to Missouri, and to settle in the thriving young town of St. Louis, fast growing up then into a city. He was to have a church there, and they might be so happy, she thought, if God only smiled upon them! But all depended upon that.

It was a wholesome lesson to my morbid discontent and pride to hear what trials she had surmounted already, and how many more she was ready to encounter.

She had once been engaged to a very brilliant young man, she told me, but he was dissipated and careless of her feelings, and she let him go; since that he had drifted fast to destruction, and sometimes she reproached herself for not having held to him through thick and thin. It was just possible she might have saved him, she thought, but her friends had persuaded her that he would only drag her down, and so she broke with him forever.

“Did he love you?” I asked, eagerly. “Were you sure that he was not perfidious?”

“Oh, I believe he was true to me–however false to himself.”

“Then you were wrong,” I said. “Wrong, believe me. Carry Grey! A woman should bear every thing but infidelity of heart for the man she loves–every thing!”

“I am sorry to hear you say so,” she replied, somewhat coldly. “There is a great deal more than blind affection needful for a woman’s happiness, Miss Monfort–so experience tells us. What I mean is, perhaps he _might_ have reformed had I not broken with him; but it was the _merest_ chance–one too feeble to depend on; and I did wisely to discard him, I am convinced.”

“Forgive me! I did not mean to censure you,” I said; “I was only speaking generally–too generally, perhaps, for individual courtesy. This is a theory of mine which as yet I have had no opportunity to put in practice, for I have never been attached to a dissipated man.” I smiled. “I dare say I too should drop such a man like a pestilence.”

“I hope so. But the best way is to avoid all intimacy with such men from the first. You are very young. Let me give you my advice on this subject before you form any attachment: keep your affections for a worthy object, if you keep them locked up forever. Better be alone than mismated.”

“This is to shut the cage after the bird has flown,” I thought, sadly; but I thanked her, and promised to profit by her good counsel.

We were fast friends ever after, and, when she went away to her distant Western home, Carry Ormsby bore some memorials of her summer friend away with her, in the shape of books, plate, and jewels, such as her simple means could have ill afforded. I felt that I could not have devised any means more sure to gratify her worthy uncle, to whom such gifts had been dross. He was a widower–the father of sons–indifferent to show, and, besides that, unwilling to incur obligations from any one, such as gifts entail on some minds.

There are persons made to give and others to receive, and neither can do the work of the other gracefully. He and I were both of the same order, so we accorded perfectly.

The autumn and winter passed very quietly. In Mrs. Stanbury and Laura I again found my chief consolation. George Gaston was in the South, for his health, on his own decayed plantation, with his uncle, who took charge of it. But, in the spring, as Dr. Pemberton had stated, they were all to go to Europe for some years. Laura would be married in Paris, if at all. Every thing depended on some investigations Mr. Gerald Stanbury was to make in person as to the character and position of her betrothed. “For a Prussian nobleman may be a Prussian boot-black for aught I know,” he observed, “and without derogation to his dignity, no doubt, in that land of pipes and fiddlers. But an American sovereign requires something better than that when he gives away the hand of the princess, his relative, and endows her with a goodly dowry. Every man, we feel, is a king in America.”

Our circle of society was much enlarged by Evelyn after our first year of mourning had expired. She insisted on taking me with her in turn to Washington, Boston, and Saratoga Springs, then at their acme of fashion. Mr. Bainrothe, who had by this time glided back into his old grooves of apparent sociability in our household, accompanied us, and did all in his power, it seemed, to promote our enjoyment and success.

Yet it was astonishing what an icy barrier still remained between us two, and how perfectly I managed, without a conscious effort, to set a limit to his approaches, even while treating him with apparent courtesy and confidence.

Something in his eye, his manner, had become extremely unpleasant to me since our social relations had been resumed. There was a controlled ardor in his expression of face and even in his demeanor that I could not reconcile with his position toward me nor understand, and yet which froze my blood in spite of my best endeavors to repel the thoughts suggested.

“I am very morbid and fanciful, certainly,” I said to myself, “even to think such a thing possible. At his age, and knowing full well my opinion of him, my sentiments toward him–he surely would not dare–!” I could not even in my own heart finish out a conjecture that dyed my face and throat crimson, or mahogany-color, as Evelyn would have averred contemptuously could she have witnessed my solitary confusion.

“I have clung to him too much,” I thought; “it is my own fault if he throws too much of the tone of tenderness in his manner, when, distasteful as he is to me, his arm, his protection, have seemed to me preferable to those of a stranger, and I have accepted them merely to avoid the advances of others.

“I am not in the mood to be sentimental, or susceptible either, after my bitter experience, and the idea he so carefully instills is ever present to me–strive as I will to repel it–the thought that I am sought alone for my fortune!

“Yet I am not wholly unattractive, probably, though less beautiful than Evelyn. But what, after all, is beauty? Plainer women than I are loved and sought in marriage, who possess no gift of fortune or accomplishment.

“Why should I suffer him to fill my mind with suspicions that embitter it against all approaches? Why should I seal my soul away in endless gloom, because one man, out of all Adam’s race, was faithless and falsehearted?”

Thus reasoning, I gained strength and self-reliance to receive other attentions and mingle with the multitude. Nor should I have known to what extent Mr. Bainrothe had carried his injustice and perfidy toward me, but for the loquacity of Lieutenant Raymond, a young adorer of mine, who revealed to me, the very evening before I left Saratoga, along with his passion–a hopeless one of course, which, but for this connection, would not be noted here–the strategic course of my guardian.

“I ought to have been warned, by what I saw and heard, that my suit was a hopeless one,” he said; “I had been told of your engagement, but could not believe it possible, although confirmed by Mr. Bainrothe’s manner. A rival of his age and experience, possessed too of such physical attractions, and such charm of manner, seldom fails to carry the day over a raw, impulsive youth–who can only adore–bow down and worship his idol, and who possesses no arts of conquest.”

“Pause there, Lieutenant Raymond; of what are you speaking?” I asked, coldly; “you have probably confounded matters, names, and–“

“No, no, it is all too evident now to admit of a doubt I You are affianced to Mr. Bainrothe–your own timid and dependent manner might have enlightened me long ago, as well as his devoted one–but a man in love is blinder than the blindest bat even! He is the maddest fool certainly! Forgive me for my presumption, and forget it if you can;” and he turned away, smiting his brow impatiently.

I laid my hand on his arm–I drew it down from his face again, which he turned upon me with an expression of surprise. I felt that I was pale with rage and scorn as he looked at me. He misunderstood my feelings evidently, for he said, earnestly: “I am sorry to have caused you so much pain, Miss Monfort! I was premature, I have been indiscreet in my remarks. Your engagement is surely no concern of mine. I should have confined myself to my own disappointment exclusively, and respected your reserve;” adding, “I beg that you will pardon and look less angrily upon me, in this our parting.”

“I am not offended with you, Mr. Raymond.” (His boyish passion had, indeed, swept over me as lightly as the wing of a butterfly across a rose. I felt that it amounted to nothing but pastime on either hand–a careless throw of the dice on his part, that might, or might not, have resulted to his advantage. He probably staked but little feeling in the enterprise–I certainly none at all.)–“I am not angry with you, Lieutenant Raymond, nay, grateful rather for your impulsive homage, which I regret not to be able to reward as you deserve; but this you must tell me, as a true, as an honorable man, if you care one iota for my regard, or the cause of truth and justice: what has that man been saying about me?” And I laid my hand upon his arm and shook it slightly.

“What man, Miss Monfort? I–I, scarcely understand you! You surely do not mean Mr. Bainrothe–your–“

“Guardian, nothing more, scarcely that,” I interrupted, almost fiercely; thus finishing out his sentence as he probably might not have done. “Answer me truthfully, honorably, as you are a gentleman, has he propagated this vile slander, for as such I feel it, and as such shall resent it?”

“I do, do–not know positively–but I have reason to think that, either directly or indirectly, the rumor comes from him. You know some men have a way of insinuating things. I–I–cannot recall any thing positive or definite. I cannot, indeed. He never spoke to me on the subject at all. There was only an expression at times, as he bore you off, that seemed to tell me that all my efforts to win you were vain. I can’t see why you lay such stress on the matter at all, Miss Monfort.”

He had evidently the gentleman’s true reluctance to make mischief.

“Lieutenant Raymond, I simply dislike to be placed in a false position, or grossly misinterpreted or misrepresented. Do you see that unfortunate person there?” I asked suddenly, “with his head drawn completely to one side, and his arms and legs swathed in flannel bandages, hobbling feebly along, followed by a youth (a relation, probably, bearing a camp-stool) and a dingy little terrier-dog, on his way to the pool of Bethesda?” As if he knew that he was the object of our attention, the man alluded to stopped, and turned just then a face grotesquely hideous in our direction, and, seeing me, smiled, and nodded feebly–disclosing, as he did so, long, fang-like teeth, yellow, as if cut from lemon-rind, and fantastically irregular.

“You have the oddest acquaintance, Miss Monfort, for a young lady of fashion, certainly! This old man keeps a little one-horse book-store somewhere, I am told, and makes it his constant theme of conversation.”

“Yes, he has his hobby, like more distinguished men. I have known him from my childhood, however, and esteem him truly. He kept the choicest collection of children’s books I ever saw in former days, and was a child at heart himself, and an especial crony of mine. But I have other reasons for asking you to remark him now. He is old, diseased, and poor; yet, just as good and honorable as he is, I would rather put my hand in his as betrothed or married a thousand-fold, than become the wife of Basil Bainrothe. Repeat this, if you please, whenever you hear this very unpleasant and absurd report and subject agitated. It will be a simple act of justice to me, and a tribute to truth, such as I am sure you will be pleased to render and illustrate.”

“I will do so,” he said, quietly; “but I confess, you surprise me. I have always refused to give credit to the matter myself, blinded, I was assured, by my own impetuosity, but I acknowledge this engagement is very generally canvassed and believed at Saratoga; nor has Miss Erie in any instance refuted the impression. Of this I am quite certain, and deem it my duty now to tell you so.”

“Is it possible,” I thought, “that this can be one of Evelyn’s subtle schemes, reacting on Mr. Bainrothe? The father for me, the son for herself! My God! the grave would be preferable to me, to marriage with either one or the other, the loathed or the loathing! O papa, papa! why was I ever placed in hands like these? It must be so sweet, so delightful, to trust and love one’s associates, whether natural or accidental! I feel as if Fate had raised up for me this band of mocking fiends, to guard me from my kind, and mar my happiness. Day by day I hate and distrust them more and more–nay, learn to tremble through them at myself.”

“You are silent. Miss Monfort,” he said; “will you not bid me a kind, a pardoning farewell?”

“Oh, surely, Mr. Raymond; and let me beg that, when you are near me, you will come freely to my house. I shall be most happy to entertain you.” And I gave him my hand, frankly.

“One word more, Miss Monfort. Are you engaged to any other and more fortunate man than Mr. Bainrothe and myself? Is it for another’s sake you have felt so very indignant? Forgive a sailor’s frankness, and a sailor’s interest, even if bestowed in vain. I fear you will add to these, a sailor’s undue curiosity.”

“No, Mr. Raymond, neither engaged nor likely to be. But hinge no hope on this declaration of mine. I am probably destined to walk through life alone, and, like many better women, to live for the good of others, in self-defense, if for good at all. I shall never marry, Lieutenant Raymond.”

The hand that held mine, trembled slightly, relaxed, relinquished its eager hold, and fell listlessly to his side. He believed me, evidently, as I believed myself.

“I have loved you,” he said, hoarsely, “far more than you will ever understand. Do not forget me!”

“That is scarcely probable,” I murmured; “but we shall meet again,” and I spoke cheerfully and aloud, “and under happier auspices, I trust. The world is fair before you, Mr. Raymond; this much let me counsel, and the counsel is drawn from experience: do not surrender your freedom too lightly–it is a precious gift to man or woman, and those who drag broken fetters wear woful hearts. Farewell!”

We left Saratoga on the following day. It was autumn when we reached our home again–sad and strange September–my birth-month, and the grave of many hopes. Mabel was well, and finely grown for a child of her years; and the joy of seeing her, and holding her to my heart again, made me oblivious of all else for a season. After our brief separation even, her loveliness struck me afresh. How beautiful she was! not with the white radiance of Evelyn, but lovely as a young May rose, blushing among its leaves and peerless in grace, sweetness, and expression. She had her sainted mother’s great blue, soulful eyes, with finer features and more brilliant coloring, and her father’s gleaming teeth and clustering hair, “brown in the shadow, gold in the sun,” falling, like his, over a brow of sculptured ivory. I was not alone in my appreciation of her loveliness. It was a theme of universal remark. Even Mr. Bainrothe, who could never forgive my father for having married his children’s governess, confessed that she had the “air noble,” which he valued far above beauty. “And where she got it from, Miriam, is sufficiently plain,” he said, one day, glancing at me with undisguised admiration as he spoke. “Her mother was simple and unpretending enough, Heaven above knows, but you Monforts, and you, especially, Miriam, are truly _distingue_, which is a word that cannot often be justly applied in any land to man or woman either.”

“By-the-by, Miriam,” he continued, “you are growing into a very beautiful woman, after a somewhat unpromising childhood. You surpass Evelyn as rubies do garnets, or diamonds _aqua marine_, or sapphires the opaque turquoise. You do, indeed, my dear,” and he attempted to take my hand in the old fashion. I murmured something indicative of my disapprobation.

“It is an exquisite hand!” he remarked, as I coldly drew it away; “I have an artist’s eye, and can admire beauty in the abstract, even though I am an old man, you know.”

“Admire it also at a distance, I beg, hereafter,” I said, bowing coldly, smiling very bitterly, I fear, with lips white with anger and disgust.

“Those scars, Miriam!” he went on, as if unobservant of my manner, yet with the old sarcastic gleam in his eyes, in the most audacious way, “have nearly disappeared, have they not? I think I understood so from Dr. Pemberton. Let me see that on your arm, my dear,” and he extended his hand to grasp it.

“They are indelible, Mr. Bainrothe,” I replied, folding my arms tightly above my heart, “as are some other impressions; never allude to them again, I request you. It offends me.” And I left him, coldly and abruptly.

I give this little scene only as a specimen of his occasional behavior at this period, and of the humiliation to which his presence so often subjected me. But matters had not yet culminated.

CHAPTER VII.

Evelyn’s fortune and Mabel’s were, like much of my own, invested in the Bank of Pennsylvania, and deemed secure in that gigantic bubble. At twenty-three Evelyn, of course, consulted no one as to the disposition of her income, which she spent freely and magnificently on herself alone. Her jewels, silks, laces, were of the finest quality and fabric; she drove a peerless little equipage, had her own ponies and tiger and maid; travelled frequently, entertained splendidly, though this last, it must be confessed, was not at her expense, if redounding to her credit.

To her my father had decreed the first position in his household until my marriage (with her sanction) or majority should occur, and she kept it bravely. She possessed a leading spirit, and loved to rule whether by right or sufferance. Lovers she had in plenty; suitors, such as they were, manifold; yet she preferred so far her single estate to aught that could be or had been offered. I began to think that her constancy deserved to be rewarded, and to withdraw on such score the objection I had felt so strong in the outset against her union with Claude Bainrothe.

He had been already more than a year in Copenhagen when I discovered how it was between them, or rather thought I had done so, from seeing one night when she came into my room in her night-dress, which was accidentally parted at the bosom, the betrothal-ring, so peculiar as not readily to be mistaken, which Claude Bainrothe had once given to me, suspended from the button of her chemisette by a small gold chain, so as to lie constantly against her heart. How her pride had ever stooped to receive and wear the pledge originally given to another it was difficult for me to conceive, and little less bitter, I confess, at first to know. I thought all care was over as to Claude Bainrothe and his affairs, but a qualm of anguish surged through my whole being, the dying throe, I well believe, of trust and affection, when I beheld this carefully-guarded token.

As Evelyn raised her hand to fasten her night-robe, through the accidental opening of which I had caught sight of my repudiated treasure, I noticed on one of her slender fingers, from which all other incumbrances in the way of rings had been removed for the night, a circlet of plain gold such as is generally used for the symbol of the marriage-rite, an engagement-ring, I then supposed it.

“Let me see your wedding-ring, Evelyn,” I said, laughingly, to conceal my embarrassment. She colored slightly.

“What, that little affair of a philopoena?” she rejoined. “Oh, I promised not to take it off until certain things were accomplished, nor to tell the name of the giver either, so don’t question about it, ‘an you love me, Hal!'”

“Was it sent from beyond the seas?” I questioned, seriously, “I shall ask nothing more.”

“What an idea! No, on my honor, it was not. There! I will not tell you another word about it, so don’t bore me, Miriam. I thought you, yourself, despised a catechist, and undue curiosity. What I came here, to-night, for, was not to be catechised, or ‘put to the question,’ but to ask a favor which you must grant, dear prophetess, whether you will or no. Now, don’t refuse your Eva,” and she kissed me affectionately; “I am going to give a grand fancy ball, or rather, _we_ are, the same thing of course, and I want you to lay off your deep mourning for a time” (hers had been already entirely put aside), “and appear as night. You can still wear black, you know; I shall be Morning, and Mabel, Hesper. Now, won’t it be a lovely idea? Hesper, you know, is both morning and evening star, and can hover between us, bearing a torch, and dressed _a la Grecque_. Is not that appropriate–our little link of sisterhood? It cannot fail to make an impression. I consider it, myself, a capital idea. You can wear your mother’s diamonds at last, which Mr. Bainrothe means to hand over to you to-morrow as your birthday gift–not that, exactly, either,” seeing my rising scorn, “but as a token of respect suitable for the occasion. He might hold on to them two years longer you know, legally,” she added, carelessly.

“He is very magnanimous,” I remarked, coldly; “I shall be glad to have my diamonds though, in my own possession, I acknowledge, but why does he make any parade about it at all? They are mine all the same, whether in his hands or my own. Every thing that man does seems theatrical and affected to me!”

“I thought you were beginning to incline very favorably to Cagliostro! I am sure this was the opinion of all who saw you together at Saratoga, and I believe, between ourselves, it is his own.”

“Evelyn Erie, you know better than this! People, of themselves, would never have dreamed of such a thing, and he, too, knows my sentiments thoroughly. He only feigns ignorance.”

“My dear, dear girl! worse things than this have been said frequently, and stranger ones have come to pass. Mr. Bainrothe is certainly a splendid financier, that was your own father’s opinion. You will never marry any man who will take better care of your money, and that is a consideration with you, or ought to be, Miriam. Your estate is your chief distinction, child, if you only knew it; besides, with a knowledge of your constitutional malady, you should be very careful what hands you fall into. No woman that I know of demands such peculiar care and tenderness from a husband, nor such choice in her surroundings. After all, Mr. Bainrothe is still a very handsome man, and admirably well preserved if not exactly young; he does not look forty, he has not a gray hair, a false tooth, nor a wrinkle.”

“Have you done, Evelyn Erie?” I asked, almost ferociously. “Have you completed your catalogue of insult? Then listen, in turn, to my counsel. Marry him yourself by all means; he would suit you, body and soul, far better than me. Indeed, I have never seen any one else who seemed so thoroughly your counterpart, match and mate, as Cagliostro!”

“Thank you,” she said, furiously; “if I thought you were in earnest”–here she hesitated, clinching her hand, and biting her white lips.

“I am in earnest,” I rejoined, quietly; “what then?” and I looked coldly, resolutely in her face.

“Why I would perhaps marry the son, just to correct your fallacious idea about the father, that is all! This course is shut out from you, however, entirely, by your own folly, so _you_ must take what you can get now, for Claude Bainrothe, let me assure you, is lost to you forever.” And she went out, smiling triumphantly.

I suspected from that hour what I knew later, and I had suffered the last pang to agonize my heart that my broken troth should ever cost me. The corpse of my dead love had bled at the touch of its murderer, in accordance with ancient superstition. Now, calm and quiet oblivion and the sepulchre should surround and enshroud it forever more.

I think I kept my determination bravely from that hour, but others must judge of this for me. We are not gods, to say to the tide of feeling, “Thus far, and no farther shalt thou come.” We are only mortal Canutes at best, to lift back our chairs as the tide advances, and seat ourselves securely thereon beyond the surf. We all remember how it fared with the quaint old monarch and moralist when he tried the plan of the immortals, and commanded the sea to obey him–we perish if we arrogate too much when the surges sweep around us; but we can, we must avoid them if we hope to escape their force, and plant ourselves beyond them firmly on the shore.

Evelyn’s fancy ball was a magnificent affair, and a complete success, as the word goes. She chose to call it my _debut_ party, but I never felt that it was so, or that I was more than any other guest. I would not have chosen a fancy dress for my first appearance, and she certainly was the queen of the occasion.

She was dressed as Aurora, in exquisite, fleecy gauze draperies of white, azure, and rose color, so artistically arranged as irresistibly to remind the observer of those delicate, transparent tints of morning that greet the rising sun. On her brow was a diadem of opals and diamonds arranged in a crescent form, from beneath which, her fleecy white veil flowed backward to the hem of her garments like a mist of the early day-spring; a rosy exhalation of the dawn enveloping but not obscuring the radiance of her raiment, over which dew-drops seemed to have been shed by the lavish hand of wakening Nature.

Her face, so fair as to gain from this marble-like radiance its chief characteristic, was delicately tinted to-night on either cheek so as to emulate the early blushes of Aurora. Her colorless hair, of a tint so neutral as to defy description, curling in light spiral ringlets so as to drop profusely on her bosom, had been richly powdered with gold-dust for this occasion, and glistened like the sunlight, or, to fall in my comparison, the tresses of Lucretia Borgia, as her historians portray them.

Nothing could be more refined, more refulgent, more ethereal, than her whole appearance, nor had I ever seen the light-blue eyes so clear and brilliant, the thin, writhing lips so scarlet and smiling, the pearly teeth so glistening by contrast with the first, as on this occasion.

Her arms and neck, which wanted contour, and yet were of snowy whiteness, were skillfully draped in her many-colored robe so as to cover all defects; and a chaplet of pearls, mingled with diamonds, concealed the slight prominence of the collar-bones, and descended low on the white and well-veiled bosom. Every eye was turned on her with admiration, and the low murmur that followed her through the halls she trod so proudly, proclaimed her triumph far more loudly than more open flattery could have done.

“You, too, look well to-night, in your black-velvet robe and diamonds, Miriam, better than I have ever seen you!” said a low voice in my ear, as I echoed the passing praises lavished on Evelyn’s beauty by one of her admirers. “It is scarcely a fancy costume though, after all.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bainrothe,” I replied coldly. “For reasons of my own, I have preferred to make my costume as subdued as possible.”

“By Jove! I wish our young exile could see you this evening,” he went on, disregardful of my brief explanation. “He would strew his hair with ashes, and wear sackcloth in penance for the past, I doubt not; for I tell you frankly, Miriam, you have improved wonderfully of late, and you bear inspection far better than Evelyn with all her beauty; your figure is absolutely faultless; your face the most attractive woman ever wore, if not the most absolutely regular. I tell you simple truths. I am a disinterested critic, you see, and stand apart gazing upon women simply as specimens. Your hands and feet are models, your smile enchanting, your voice musical, your manner witchery itself, when you choose to let out your nature; what more could heart desire?” and he gazed steadily in my face, insolently I felt it!

I had been listening indignantly to this cool summary of my attractions, and the arrogant idea manifestly uppermost, that Sultan Claude Bainrothe had only to appear on the scene, and throw his handkerchief, for me to succumb, and I had been so confounded by this tirade of compliment and commonplace that I scarcely knew how to stay its tide without absolute rudeness, such as no lady should ever be guilty of–when he coolly continued his remarks as if wholly unobservant of my displeasure.

“Evelyn, with all her arts, is a little faded already; don’t you see it, Miriam? There is no corrosive poison equal to envy, and that, by-the-by, is her specialty. She is bitterly envious by nature. Most of those thin-lipped, sharp-elbowed, sharp-nosed women are, if you observe. Faded at twenty-three! Sad, but true of half our American morning-glory beauties. For my part, I love the statuesque in women, the enduring! those exquisitely-moulded proportions on which the gaze reposes with such delight, and that set a man to dreaming, whether he will or not.” And his eye dwelt on me from throat to waist in a manner that made my flesh crawl as if the worms that tortured Herod were passing over it. At this point I rebelled–I ground my teeth resolutely–my face flushed to the temples–I could willingly have stricken that audacious scrutinizer in the face with my clinched hand, and he knew it! How coarse coarseness makes us, even when most disinclined to it naturally! His sensuous brutality made me almost fiercely brutal in turn. As it was, I could only put him away with a gesture of contempt I sought not to command, and with which I swept past him into the thickest of the crowd, cursing at heart the bitter fate that had cast me bound and helpless, for a season, into such unscrupulous hands.

There was no one to turn to now. I knew Mr. Lodore thought Evelyn perfect, and me a sinner, because in the matter of church duties she was the more observant. Besides, my Jewish pedigree had always been a barrier between us. Dr. Pemberton, Mr. Stanbury, Laura, George Gaston, all that truly loved and believed in me, were gone for an indefinite time to Europe. I had not been suffered to accompany them, on many pleas and pretences, as I had wished to do, and this was the end of it all. Licentious persecution!

Evelyn, too! a blinded confederate in such schemes as should have nerved her woman’s heart to indignation rather! Marry that man! I would have cut off my own right hand, or burnt it to a cinder like Scaevola; sooner gone out to service–played chambermaid on the boards, or the tragedy-queen of the commonest melodrama, far rather! It was all insult, injury, degradation, in whatever light I could view it, and every feeling in my nature was stung to exasperation.

It was well understood that I was an heiress, and I did not want for adulation. I was surrounded by fashion and beauty, and wreathed with approbation from the noblest and most exalted, on that night of festal splendor; and again that beautiful face that had cast its spell above me in my inexperienced childhood, and that age never seemed to change nor chill, bent above me with its gracious and genial sweetness, and the princely banker on this occasion condescended to manifest his kindly and approving interest in the daughter of his dead friend. At any other time, such tribute would have been most grateful and acceptable to me, for this man was almost my _beau ideal_ at this period, but now the bitterness with which my heart was filled, permeated my whole being, and dashed every draught of enjoyment untasted from my lips.

Yet the memory of that time–that face–returned to me later with emotions irresistible, when the being who was then the idol of society, became its ostracized outcast, and, among all who bowed before him in his pride of place and power, were found, before two years had elapsed from this period,

“None so poor
To do him reverence.”

Already is the injustice of that decision forced on the convictions of his fellow-men. Our scales are not wisely balanced in this world–we cannot weigh motives against acts, thought against deeds, with atom-like precision, nor measure the tempted with the temptation grain by grain, hair by hair. Ambition was the fault of the seraphim in the commencement–be well assured that some of the old angelic leaven lingers still about all of its votaries and victims.

Ay–victims!–for he who was said to have made so many, was himself the victim of the society that spoiled and flattered him, and fostered his foibles, in the beginning, with its false and fawning breath, and, later, blew on him a blast of ice from its remorseless, pestilent jaws, that froze him out of his humanity.

He could not live–moulded, as he was, of all sweet elements–apart from social influences, from the regard, the affection, the approbation of his kind–and he died of heart-starvation; fortunate, indeed, in that he was mercifully permitted so to die, rather than have lived, as less fervent natures might have done, in cold and cheerless apathy.

I do not defend his errors; I only seek to extenuate them. Pity and justice are not the same; but one may still so temper the other that Mercy, the appointed angel of this earth, may be the result.

Let us, who are mortal and fallible, be wary how we condemn one whose head was rendered giddy by his very pinnacle of power! Peace be his!

I have diverged so widely from my subject–a most bitter and revolting one to me, eventually–that I will not return to it just now; nor, indeed, do I even in thought revert to it with any thing like patience or pardon. There are some things, paradoxical as this may seem, we must forget, in order to forgive.

I am lingering too long on this period of my story, uneventful as it is just yet, and circumscribed as I am in space; but, as the boldest rider draws rein with a beating heart beside the dark abyss over which he must fling his horse, or perish, so I pause here, on the threshold of despair, and take breath for a flying leap–for I shall clear it, reader, believe me!

It will be remembered that, at my father’s death, half of my means were invested in the stocks of the Bank of Pennsylvania; and that his directions were that, as the different loans he had made became due, they should, one after the other, be drawn in and invested in like manner by Mr. Bainrothe.

No details of my business had ever been discussed before me, nor had I any insight into the periods at which these loans were due, or how the money was cared for when paid in by my father’s executors, of whom, to my regret, Mr. Gerald Stanbury had refused to be one.

One thing alone I had heard them say, and it was said, I doubt not, expressly for my hearing. All debts should be paid in gold, as, according to law, this was the only legal tender. Paper, however excellent, should never be received in discharge of any liability of my estate, since it might render the executors responsible to me, to depart a hair’s-breadth from the very letter of the law, which enjoined specie payment.

“But why not receive bank stocks instead?” I had ventured to suggest, a little indignantly, “seeing all moneys are to be immediately reinvested in that form. Pennsylvania Bank stocks, I mean.”

“You know nothing about the matter, Miriam,” Evelyn had remarked, with some asperity. “Had your father deemed you capable of conducting your own affairs, he would not have appointed _us_ to manage and direct them during your minority. No sinecure, I assure you!”

But Mr. Bainrothe had only laughed, and turned away tapping his boot with his rattan cane, amused, it appeared to me, by my sister’s assumption of importance, and, probably, as well by her entire ignorance of his true motive in exacting gold, of which secret spring of action she, knowing nothing, still tried to make so profound a mystery.

Yet he flattered Evelyn very much, I saw, on her business qualifications, and her insight into financial matters, of which abilities, indeed, she was more proud than of her accomplishments, or even beauty.

The last she took as a matter of course; but it was something new and unexpected to her to be considered sagacious and strong-minded, and very gratifying to her arrogant and exacting spirit–ever alive to the delight of controlling the affairs of others, as well as her own–to have the reins of government given apparently into her hands.

My father had placed an iron chest in a secure niche in the dining-room, behind the great central mirror, made for the purpose of concealing it, and to which he alone had access. Here he had kept a store of plate, money, jewels, and papers, so as to defy all burglarious interference or foreign scrutiny, and, in dying, had bequeathed the secret of the patent lock to Mr. Bainrothe alone. Old Morton even was ignorant of the contrivance.

I knew of the niche and the iron chest by the merest accident, and had been requested, nay, commanded, by my father, not to speak of either; so, in silence the mystery had almost died out of my recollection, when it was rather singularly revived again in this wise:

During one of the hottest nights early in September, after our return from Saratoga, I descended, parched with thirst, to the dining-room, about four o’clock in the morning, to seek a glass of iced-water, always to be found there, I knew, by night or day, on the sideboard, in a small silver cistern.

The dawn was dimly breaking through the great window in the hall as I passed down the broad stairway, still in my night-dress and unslippered feet; but, on approaching the dining-room, I was surprised to see the gleam of a candle falling athwart the mirror, which had been swung from its place (as I had seen it once before swung by my father), so as to screen my advancing form from the person evidently at work behind it. The massive shutters of the room were closed and securely barred, as was the habit of the house, and the room was, consequently, still in darkness, or deep shadow.

As I stood half hidden now, by the arch of the hall, behind which I shrank instinctively, and uncertain how to proceed, I saw Mr. Bainrothe suddenly emerge from behind the mirror, and take from the table near it a canvas bag, small but evidently weighty, from the manner in which he carried it to its place of concealment.

Then I heard the slow, heavy fall of a shower of gold coins, dropping on others, the same sound that had greeted my ear on the day when I first detected this treasure-cave of my father, and as different from the sound of falling silver as is the gurgling of rich old wine from the dash of crystal water.

“The wretch is faithful to his trust, after all. So this is where he keeps my gold,” I thought; “but how did he find ingress into our castle, supposed at least to be inaccessible by night? Has he a false key I wonder, and are we above-stairs, with unlocked doors, subject to his visitations, should it occur to him to make them?”

I shuddered at the suggestions of my own fancy. Women only, who have been similarly situated, can know how dark these may become, even in an innocent mind, from circumstances like those that surrounded me, and what a nameless horror there is about the insidious and licentious approaches of the man we would fain dash away from us, and trample under foot like a serpent, did we dare openly to do so.

Yet I lingered under the archway, determined to observe to the last Mr. Bainrothe’s proceedings. When he had locked the chest and replaced the mirror, which swung out from its place, as I have said, like a door on invisible hinges and fastened with a spring, he passed hastily out of the dining-room into the pantry beyond, opening for convenience on a covered paved court, which divided the kitchen from the house and which led directly into the yard beyond. After that, all was silent.

Yet, the next day, Franklin assured me that he had carried the key of the pantry away with him, when he went home at night (he was a married man, and slept at his own house usually), and that he found it locked in the morning just as he had left it.

This was in answer to a question which I tried to make as careless as possible, with regard to some burglaries that had lately been committed in a neighboring street, adding, by way of caution: “Don’t forget to lock us up carefully at night, Franklin; remember we are all women in the house, except Morton, and he is old and sleeps like a top, no doubt having a good conscience for his pillow.”

“If you would have an _inside_ bolt put upon the pantry-door, it would be best, Miss Miriam,” he remarked; “that is, if your mind is really troubled about robbers. Then you could draw it yourself in my absence at night.”

“And who would let you in, in the morning, Franklin, if I did this? Our household would sleep until noon, were it not for your early summons, I verily believe.”

“I will throw a pebble at the cook’s window, miss, if she is not on foot by that time. But she usually is; cooks has to stir earlier than the rest, you know, by reason of the light rolls and muffins.”

“Oh, yes! true, I had forgotten this. Go at once, then, Franklin, for a smith, and let him put a massive bolt on the pantry-door, and I will be jailer of Monfort Hall in future, in your absence, for I am quite sure some one was trying that lock last night. I came to the dining-room for water just before daylight, and heard it distinctly.”

“One of your lady-like notions,” said Franklin, shaking his head, with an incredulous smile; “young ladies is always nervous like, and fearful about robbers, all but Miss Evelyn Erle–I never seen the like of her, for true grit! All was safe when I came, Miss Miriam, any way, and, if robbers had been about, it stands to reason the silver chest, setting out in the pantry, would have stood a poor chance.”

Again he smiled provokingly. “There are all sorts of robbers in this world,” I said, a little sternly; “some come for one purpose, some for another. Attend to the bolt, Franklin, at once; I am very sure of what I have said.” And so the parley ended.

I am certain that Mr. Bainrothe came no more by night to his treasure-cave, but there was a mocking smile on his lip–when Evelyn told him, before me, some time later, that I had caused a bolt to be placed on the pantry-door, for fear of burglars–that was significant to my mind.

“What is the use of this mystery with me,” I thought, “when I alone am concerned? Why not reveal to me at once the secret of the spring and the lock, as I only am to be the beneficiary of all this gold? The man’s cunning is short-sighted. Suppose he were to die suddenly, how does he know that I would ever be the wiser or the better of these deposits? Years hence, when the house was crumbling to decay, some stranger might be enriched by this concealed gold, for aught he knows, which is legitimately mine. Evelyn, too, is in complete ignorance of this hidden chest, I am convinced, and, as far as I am concerned, will probably remain so. After all, does Bainrothe mistrust her honesty or mine? Good Heavens! what a mole the man is by nature, how darkly, deeply underhand, even in his responsibility! And there are two long years yet, nay more to wait, before I can openly defy him and put him away forever. Loathing him as I do, patience, patience! Rome was not built in a day. I shall still prevail.”

Months after this occurrence, months that passed swiftly because monotonously to me, for by events alone we are told we measure time, I was roused one night from my early slumber by the sound of bitter weeping in Evelyn’s chamber. I had left her engaged over accounts with Mr. Bainrothe, having withdrawn rather than spend a long, lonely evening in the parlor, somewhat indisposed as I felt.

I rose from my bed and went to her precipitately. I found her indulging in a passionate burst of grief, almost choking with sobs of hysterical indignation.

“All gone–all gone!” she exclaimed, wildly, as I entered the room. “Your estate–mine–Mabel’s–all swept away with one fell swoop, Miriam! The Bank of Pennsylvania has failed; it is discovered that Mr. Biddle has proved defaulter, and we are ruined!”

“I will never believe it, Evelyn!” I exclaimed, vehemently, “until he tells me so with his own lips. This is one of Mr. Bainrothe’s fictions; he is trying to wake us up a little, that is all. Mr. Biddle is the Bayard of bankers–‘_sans peur et sans reproche_.’ As to that bank, did not my father believe it to be as indestructible as the United States, the government itself? Nay, did not Bainrothe himself do all he could to convince him of it, and induce him to invest in its stocks? The wily fox had his motive, no doubt, but it surely could not have been our ruin! Our own fortunes are too intimately involved in his prosperity for this. Besides, why have not the newspapers told us of this?”

All this time Evelyn was sobbing convulsively, and what I have told continuously here was said by me in a far more fragmentary way between her bursts of grief. She ceased now, and looked up, with some effort at calmness.

“The newspapers _have_ been discussing it for months past, all but Mr. Biddle’s organ, and that alone was permitted to enter our doors. Mr. Bainrothe acknowledges this now. Have you not noticed the irregularity of our Washington papers?”

“No; I so rarely read them, you know.”

“Mr. Bainrothe, with mistaken charity,” she resumed, “I fear, sought to shield us as long as possible from the blow, which was inevitable sooner or later; or perhaps he hoped still for an adjustment of affairs, that might have left us a competence at least. But he was deceived, Miriam; we are worth nothing–a round naught–” and she suited the action to the word by the union of the tips of her thumb and finger–“is the figure whereby to describe our fortunes now; and the heiress and her once dependent friend and sister are alike–beggars! All brought to one level at last–there is comfort in that thought, at least! Ha! ha! ha!” and she laughed wildly, horribly. I never before heard such laughter.

“Beggary is a word I repudiate, Evelyn, in any case,” I said, firmly; “and we, it seems, if this frightful thing be true, are not alone in ruin. Be calm, dear Evelyn! Learn to bear with dignity our fate. We must sustain each other now–be all in all to one another, as we have never been before. Thank God! let us both thank God, Evelyn, from our inmost hearts, that we still have this shelter–and–yes–I have reason to believe, much more.”

And, kneeling beside her bed, I told her impulsively of our concealed treasure behind the mirror (though I had once determined never to reveal this to her or any one)–treasure guarded so long by me with bolt by night and vigilance by day!

Oh, fatal error, never to be repaired or sufficiently repented of! Oh, utter misplacement of confidence, not warranted, surely, by any thing that had gone before, and the results of which I had subsequently such bitter cause to deplore!

She listened to me with an interest and zeal that were unmistakable. She sat up in her bed, with her large, blue, distended eyes fixed on mine, turning paler and paler, brighter and brighter, as she gazed, until their lustre seemed opaline rather than spiritual, and with her slender white hands wreathed together like the interlacing marble snakes in the grasp of the Laocoon, so long, and lithe, and sinuous, seemed the polished, flexile fingers. Her lips were livid, but on her cheek burned two flame-like spots, indicative ever with her of intense excitement. Surely the god Mammon has rarely possessed so sincere a worshiper! Let us do her this justice, at least. So far she was consistent; so far she was devout!’

“You are sure of the truth of what you utter, Miriam?” she questioned, eagerly.

“Sure as that I live,” I replied.

“It is wonderful! Why did he not mention this to me? I cannot conjecture his motive. But perhaps he has already removed and invested this gold, Miriam, of which you say there was such a quantity as to have represented a large portion of your landed estate, I think!”

“No, no; that is simply impossible. By night he has never done this, I know. By day he could not effect this unseen or unsuspected. That dining-room is so public, you know, that Morton sees every thing; besides, I gave him directions which he blindly obeyed, I am certain (you know his almost canine obedience to me, Evelyn), to remain, when engaged with the plate, in the adjoining pantry, with the door ajar between, and to be always on guard. Papa always allowed him the privilege of that room, and I love to continue it, you know, since we never use it except for meals. You remember I said this when you objected to his sitting there, Evelyn, and remarked that he might as well sit with the other servants, to whom he is so superior. But of late, I confess, I have had a motive, and Morton knew this”–I hesitated–“must have known it.”

“Do you mean to say you confided the secret of the mirror to Morton, and kept it from me? Thank you, Miriam!” loftily. “I might have expected this, however.”

“Not wholly this,” I replied, with embarrassment, for I saw how the matter looked externally. “Morton simply knew that I wanted, for purposes of my own, to exclude every one except himself from solitary possession of the dining-room as much as possible, Mr. Bainrothe especially. Yes, I told him this, but I kept papa’s secret. Believe me, Evelyn, I did this, and you know well enough what Morton’s devotion is to me not to believe that he religiously fulfilled my request without asking for an explanation.”

“Yes,” she mused, “I saw him perched up there tonight, as usual, with his old English newspapers, and I have observed that he never leaves his post there, while Mr. Bainrothe remains. You could not have procured a better watchman, surely; but why have you watched at all?”

“Because,” I said, “I felt sure that mystery lurked behind those nocturnal visits. You cannot doubt this yourself, Evelyn, and, with your opinion of Mr. Bainrothe, must see that I felt I had good reason for mistrust. I was determined to be present when that chest should next be opened by him.”

A smile quivered across her face. “I had not suspected you of so much diplomacy,” she observed, dryly; “but, after all, Miriam, how does this change the posture of affairs to me? I shall be all the same, poor and dependent.”

“No, Evelyn, no indeed! I promise you faithfully.–But what is this?” I exclaimed, rising hastily from my knees, “I am faint–blind! Quick, the drops Dr. Pemberton left for me, Evelyn, or I am lost again.”

I threw myself across the foot of her bed, sick and bewildered, yet feeling myself gradually–after a few moments of oppression–growing better, in spite of the dark effort of my evil genius to gain his fatal ascendency.

When she came with the drops, after some delay, I was, to her surprise, able to sit up and look around me. The spell was over.

“I believe I have troubled you uselessly,” I said; “I will go to bed without medicine to-night, I think, and strive to be calm, as Dr. Pemberton enjoined me to do, and there was good sense in his advice, certainly. We have so much to do to-morrow, Evelyn–we two must remove these deposits ourselves. But not a word to Bainrothe!”

“Miriam,” she said, eagerly, “can you doubt my discretion when you know, too, what your own promises have been now and long ago–to divide with me, ay, to the last cent, like a sister? Now, I insist on the drops! You are pale again, Miriam–collapsing visibly in my sight. Do take your remedy–so efficacious of late in warding off these distressing attacks. I have taken the trouble, too, to go after them. I was at some pains in hunting them up; they were not in the usual place. Come, now, as a punishment for your carelessness, I proclaim myself dictator, and command you to swallow them at once,” and she poured the medicine into a spoon.

“No, Evelyn,” I averred, putting the spoon aside, “I am better without the drops. I wish to see what my unaided _will_ and constitution can do, this time.”

“There is too much at stake to depend on these, Miriam. We must unearth this treasure-trove to-morrow at daylight, and defeat Bainrothe on his own grounds, or he may be beforehand with us. Take your drops, dear, and have a good night’s rest, and be ready for the contest. There, now, that is a good sister,” embracing me tenderly.

Persuasion and reason accomplished with me what _commands_ could not have done. I took the drops, went quietly to bed, and was soon lost to a sense of misfortunes, hopes, and the world itself.

I slept profoundly and long. When I awoke, the slant rays of the evening sun were pouring through the blinds of my window, in lines of moted light. Mrs. Austin was sitting close to the sash, with her invariable knitting-work, her aquiline profile and frilled cap strongly relieved against the jalousied shutters.

On the mantel-piece were the inevitable spirit-lamp and bowl of panada, recognized at once as part and parcel of my malady. In the chamber the usual smell of ether, the remedy so often ineffectually administered during the period of my lethargic attacks.

I understood everything now–I had experienced another seizure, and I had lost a day.

Whether it was this conviction that cleared my brain at once of those mephitic fogs that usually clung around it after a spell of lethargy, long after my consciousness returned, I never knew, but certain it is, I sat up in my bed like one refreshed by sleep, instead of feeling exhausted, and, greatly to her surprise, accosted Mrs. Austin in clear, strong accents.

“How long have I slept? And where is Evelyn?” I asked.

“You have not opened your eyes to-day, dear child, until just this moment; and Miss Evelyn has not been able to sit up in her bed since she went to it last night, that shock yesterday overcame her so completely.” By this time she was standing by my pillow, after laying aside her knitting, in a leisurely manner peculiar to her at all seasons. “But Mabel is in the next room; let me call her to you.”

“Let her stay there,” I interrupted, in a manner so unusual with me, whose first inquiry on reviving from illness had always been for Mabel, instead of Evelyn, that Mrs. Austin looked surprised and startled.

“What ails you, Miss Miriam? I thought Mabel was always your first thought; the little angel! She has been hanging over you tearfully all day; never going near Miss Evelyn at all. It is so strange she shows such partiality!”

Strange that one being on earth, and that one my sister, should love me better than Evelyn, in the eyes of her partial affection; and yet Evelyn treated her with positive disrespect every day of her life, as I never did; and often with severity as well. It was incomprehensible!

“Give me the panada,” I said, grimly; “I am half starved, and must grow strong again to do my work. I am not nearly so weak as I usually am, though, after one of my seizures.”

“You see you are outgrowing them, as Dr. Pemberton predicted you would. I declare, you _are_ hungry, poor child; you have not left a drop–pint-bowl too–with a gill of wine in it. Not going to get up, Miss Miriam? Oh, no; you must not venture to do that yet.”

And she tried gently to restrain me.

“Yes, I must get about again; I have much to do, and Evelyn must aid me, if able. Is she ill or only nervous?”

“Very ill, I think; she wrote a note to Dr. Craig and sent it last night, after you went to sleep; but he did not come.”

“Quite naturally, since he had been absent some weeks. I could have told her,” I said, sententiously; “indeed, I thought she knew it. Who carried her note?”

“Morton.”

“Poor old man! The idea of sending him on such a wild-goose chase, after night. Papa would turn in his grave could he know he had been forced out in the rain at such an hour, for a woman’s whim. I would have suffered tortures till morning first. Where was Franklin?”

“Franklin had gone home earlier than usual, and did not return to-day. He is sick with a chill, we hear, and his wife is again ill.”

“Who did the marketing?”

“Morton.”

“Morton again! Why, the old man seems to be becoming a _factotum_ in his declining years–he whose duties have always been so few, so simple! I am provoked, for some reasons, that he should have been sent away to-day. Fortunately, I bolted the pantry-door myself, before I came to bed last night,” I murmured, “and the front door is self-fastening. The house was well secured, at least, by night.”

“How long did Morton remain absent?” I asked, recommencing my system of cross-questions, very abruptly.

“About an hour, I believe; but what makes you so particular, all at once, Miss Miriam?”

“Some day you shall know, perhaps. In the mean while tell me, has Mr. Bainrothe been here to-day?”

“He called about one o’clock, but, as all were poorly, went away again without entering the house at all. I saw him go down-street, after dinner, in his phaeton, with another gentleman, and have not heard wheels since.”

“You are sure he was not here, this morning–while–while Morton was absent?”

“Quite sure; he breakfasted later than usual, I think, for I saw him throw open his side bedroom window at nine o’clock, and he was in his shirt-sleeves then. He sleeps in a large room in the ell, you know. I was standing at the pantry-door, and saw him distinctly, and he nodded to me, and called something, but I could not hear what it was at that distance.”

“Where was Charity at that time, Mrs. Austin?”

“Cleaning the house, Miss Miriam–hard at work in the parlors, washing windows–this is her cleaning-day, you know.”

“And cook, what was she about?”

“She got breakfast early, for us people, and went to mass, but was back by ten. Miss Evelyn had her breakfast after she returned, with Miss Mabel, and there was no one to eat dinner down-stairs so she thought–“

“Never mind what she thought,” I interrupted, “or who went and came, so that all be well.”

“You do ask such strange questions, this morning, Miss Miriam, and your eyes are so big! Do you feel light-headed at all after your turn–maybe you have fever?”

“Not at all–hard-headed, rather, Mrs. Austin–not even heavy-headed–though leaden-hearted enough, God knows! We are ruined, you know–or at least Evelyn tells me so. The rest I have still to learn–I must see Mr. Bainrothe this evening. There is a positive necessity for me to exert myself now, but first I have some examinations to make. Give me a shawl and wrapper, good nurse, and my slippers. Don’t disturb Evelyn, or call Mabel till my return; and stay where you are until then, if you wish to serve me.”

I sped rapidly down-stairs, and entered the dining-room so noiselessly that old Morton, who was a “little thick of hearing,” did not hear my steps nor move from his position by the fire, where he sat apparently absorbed by his newspapers. “Morton,” I said, and laid my quivering hand upon his arm, “the time has come to act. Come help me to secure my treasure.” He rose silently to obey me.

I touched the spring of the mirror; it swung silently open, and revealed to the astonished old man a square niche built in the wall–unsuspected before by him–in which fitted an iron chest, the existence of which he had never dreamed of until now. But the contents were gone–gone since yesterday! The chest was empty, with its lid propped open. There was not even a paper within.

With a bitter groan I tottered back against the wall, while the cold dew stood on my brow, and my limbs trembled under me. This was indeed despair!

“What ails you, Miss Miriam?” he asked, with an expression of anguish upon his kind, old, quivering face. “Do you miss any thing–what have you lost, Miss Miriam?”

“You left your post, Morton,” I said, at last, “and this is the consequence–I have lost every thing! Old man! old friend! did you think I charged you to watch every one who came, so earnestly, to stay here so constantly, without a good and sufficient reason? Some one has been here before us–my gold is gone! we are ruined, Morton!”

CHAPTER VIII.

Whatever my flash of conviction might have been, all suspicions against Evelyn must have been allayed by the manner in which she received the information of the loss of the deposits behind the mirror.

Her shrieks filled the house; another physician was hastily summoned in Dr. Craig’s absence, who gave her disease or seizure a Latin name–wrote a Greek or Hebrew prescription–or something equally unintelligible, and vanished ghost-like, in the manner most approved of by modern practitioners.

There was no hard epithet that Evelyn did not apply to Mr. Basil Bainrothe during her hysterical mania, and before the doctor’s arrival; but, on her recovery, she begged me to repeat nothing of the sort, if she had been indiscreet enough to let out her true opinion of him and his measures, in a moment of irrepressible emotion. “For,” she pursued, “it is expedient for us to keep on terms with the man, at least for the present, and in no way harass or exasperate him–we are completely in his hands now, Miriam–we must watch our opportunity–“

“I do not see that,” I interrupted; “less now than ever, it seems to me. What more can he do for or against us now? Our property is all gone–except this house, plate, and furniture, and my mother’s diamonds–all of winch are tangible and visible, and in our own possession. We have no debts–you pay house-bills monthly, and I, fortunately, have just settled off every account I have in the world, and have five hundred Spanish dollars to start anew with–my savings during papa’s lifetime. I hoarded it, fortunately, in this form for a missionary purpose you remember, Evelyn, but afterward changed my mind.”

“Yes, I remember; merely because the person it was intended for prayed that the Jews might finally be exterminated.”

“Was not that enough, Evelyn? The man who could utter such a prayer was no Christian, and unfit for religious teaching. Since then I have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of undue and very impertinent meddling with the heathen; who are entitled to their own mode of worship as well as of government, and who I think are not yet ripe for Christianity.”

“You have strange notions, Miriam; you talk like an old French philosopher.”

“I never knew there was such a thing–a French sophist I am afraid you mean. No, I am not a sophist, Evelyn; any thing else than that! I wish sometimes I did not see so clearly. I love, I idolize the truth alone!”

She colored–sighed. God knows I was not thinking of her at that moment, or speaking with that reference, however I may have had reason to do so.

Is it not strange that our dreams often present to us, in our own despite, the vivid, photographic pictures struck by sleep from the dim, unconscious negative of our waking judgment, which we refuse to recognize as verities in the light of our open-eyed, daytime responsibility? I, who had declared myself no sophist, knew later that I had deceived my own heart, which spoke out so truthfully in dreams of sleep, and refused to be silenced in the dead hour of night, however I might stifle its suggestions by day.

In one of these suggestive, or rather reflected, visions, I saw Evelyn groping through darkness to the side-gate which gave into the grounds of Mr. Bainrothe from our own, made years before by my father’s permission for the convenience of his friend; the night was a dark and stormy one, yet she went forth alone, or seemed to, in my vision, to seek a man she detested, and with him connive the destruction of the fortunes of the child of her benefactress, whose confidence she abused.

Then I saw them returning together, through that pantry-door which she had left unbolted, though locked when she went out by another egress, and which the man, who returned with her, readily unlocked with the duplicate key he carried, _not_ by my father’s permission. This last I knew.

Now the scene was changed to the dining-room. Again I saw the mirror swing back on its invisible and noiseless hinges, and now the glare of a shaded lamp fell in bands of light across its surface. But I was inside this time, by the glamour of my dream, and I saw them emptying the open chest painfully, laboriously, stealthily; stopping now and then to listen, to breathe, again working silently, industriously, at their vocation of theft and crime!

At last all seemed accomplished. A large, covered basket was partially loaded with the contents–heavy as lead–and, between them, they bore it out into the storm and darkness again, and I heard the sound of the spade and mattock at work on the graveled road.

Presently Evelyn came in again. Her air was wild and frightened; her trembling hands were stained with mud, seen by the light of the lantern she bore, and which she again hung in its accustomed place, stealing quietly away into the darkened hall, to grope her way up-stairs. All this while the farce of sending for Dr. Craig was being enacted, and Morton was out on his fruitless mission in the rain!

Again it was morning, and I saw them together in the library, while I still slept, consulting, planning, plotting, writing, erasing, whispering; soon to separate, however, this time. Their arrangements being completed without restraint, for again the old man was absent, doing the duties of another, who, knowing not the motive of such request or bribe, was content to work the will of a conspirator, and pass the day in idleness at home, for the sake of a purse of gold. Here ended my clairvoyance, if such it was.

All this may have been imaginary–part of it probably was–but the sense of the dream was no doubt what my untrammeled judgment would have suggested as truth, and what later–but let me not digress or anticipate here, in the thickest of my troubles, the jungle-pass of my story as it were, but strike on through a self-made path, it may be, to the light that shines beyond the forest, even if it lead into the desert!

Something in Evelyn’s suggestion had struck me as the best to pursue under the circumstances, although at first I so boldly repudiated the idea of Mr. Bainrothe’s power. Unless I could prove that he had removed the treasure for unworthy uses–why speak of it at all? I should only irritate and set him on his guard by such allusions; whereas, by a course of reticence, I still might learn, as she had suggested, the truth when he least suspected my purpose.

It would be so easy for him to deny all knowledge of the concealed chest–so easy to lay the robbery on Morton, even if the first were proved–or even on Evelyn!

I had sent impulsively for Mr. Bainrothe to come to me on the evening of my discovery, but his visit was delayed by a necessity that kept him from home all night, so that I had time to revolve and resolve on my course of action before I saw him, which was not until the following afternoon, and by this time my mind had undergone a change. He came, but not alone–his son accompanied him.

I have reason since then to think that Evelyn and Claude Bainrothe had met before their cold and measured interview in my presence. It was to me a painful and embarrassing one, and this time the graceful ease was all on the other side–I was preoccupied and agitated, Claude courteous and self-possessed, Evelyn lofty and confident, as though she had lived or trodden down her emotions, and, to my surprise, Mr. Basil Bainrothe wore his accustomed deliberate and self-poised demeanor, making no reference, not even by his expression of face or a glance of his kaleidoscopic eyes, to the sad catastrophe with which by this time I was but too well acquainted.

I had been reading newspapers eagerly all day, when he came, and, from a contradictory mass of evidence, had gleaned some grains of truth. One fact was beyond contradiction–a second Samson had drawn down the ruins of a temple, not on the heads of his foes alone, but his friends as well, blinded, as he of old, by the treachery of that basest of all Delilahs, a fawning public!

Yes, we were ruined; the only hope now was in the honesty of Mr. Basil Bainrothe. Should the gold I saw him hiding away not have been appropriated to the purchase of bank-stocks–should it have been saved for me–we might still rejoice in wealth beyond our deserts, and equal to our desires.

We still might keep the old, beloved roof above our heads, preserve one unbroken circle of family domestics–live without labor, or terror of the future. But would this be? I waited, as I still think I should have done, for Mr. Bainrothe to take the initiative in this proceeding.

Impatient and sick-hearted, I saw day after day glide past, without an effort on his part to explain or ameliorate my condition–one now of excessive and wearing anxiety.

At last he came. For the first time in his life when a matter of business was in question, he asked for me. I went to him alone at my own instance, and somewhat to Evelyn’s chagrin, I thought.

I found him in the library, of late our sole receiving-room; the rest were closed and fireless. For, since the certainty of our misfortune, we had received no society, and would not long be obliged to _decline_ it, Evelyn thought. Her opinion of the world little justified the pains she had taken to conciliate it.

I found Mr. Bainrothe buried in the deep reading-chair, always in his lifetime occupied by my father, his hand supporting his head, his hat and delicate ivory-headed cane thrown carelessly on the floor beside him–his whole attitude one of deep dejection.

He started a little when I addressed him by name, as if reviving from deep reverie–then arose and extended his hand to me, grasping mine firmly when I gave it to him, which I did unwillingly I confess.

“Miriam,” he said, “this is all very dreadful!” subsiding into his seat again with a groan, and looking steadily and silently into the fire for some minutes afterward. “Very dreadful!” he repeated, shaking his head dismally; “wholly unforeseen!”

He glanced at me furtively once or twice to observe the effect of his words–his manner. Disappointed probably by my silence and coolness, he again affected to be absorbed in contemplation.

“Have we any thing left?” I asked quietly, at last–weary as I was of this histrionic performance of his, and anxious for the truth.

“Nothing,” was the gloomy reply that fell on my ear–on my heart like molten lead; “nothing but what you know of. This house, this furniture, well preserved it is true, but old and out of style. Your carriage and horses–diamonds–in short, what you have in hand. That is all you have left of the great estate of your mother.”

“It is enough to keep the wolf from the door, at all events,” I remarked quietly, “and I am thankful for a bare competence; but why, under existing circumstances, were you in such haste to remove the contents of the iron chest behind the mirror, a portion of which you added to in September?”

He rose with dignity and advanced to the corner of the mantel-shelf, on which he leaned in a perfectly self-possessed position, one foot crossed lightly over the other, I remember, and one hand at his side–a favorite attitude of his. He interrupted my interrogatory with another, ever an effectual aid in browbeating.

“How did you become possessed of the knowledge that I kept gold there?” he asked, coolly; “I had meant to have preserved the secret of that spring until your majority, but you women penetrate every thing. No, my dear Miriam,” he continued, without waiting for an answer, “unfortunately, the gold you refer to was exchanged for worthless bank-stocks in September last, according to the requisitions of your father’s will; and, as that was the latest paid in of the loans he had made, and as all other means had been invested in like manner (and with a promptness characteristic of me, I believe I may say without vanity), as they fell into my hands. You will perceive, very clearly, that every thing, beyond the property I have here pointed out to you, is swept away.”

I sat confounded by his consummate mendacity. His manner was entirely changed now–from one of gloomy depression, and absence of mind, to jaunty self-complacency, and even a degree of defiance was blended with his habitual coolness. It was only from his lurid and kaleidoscopic eyes, on which the light from an opposite window fell sharply, as he was speaking, that a glimpse of the inner man could be obtained. There was something confused and excited in their expression that did not escape me, but I kept my counsel, bewildered as I was.

“She has betrayed me!” was my involuntary reflection; “he was on his guard for my question or accusation; unconscious of my daily examination, he has borne away my gold, and it is lost to me forever!” And I clasped my hands more closely.

All that I have stated in the last two paragraphs, of my observation and reflections, passed through my mind like a flash–so that there seemed scarce a momentary interruption between his last remarks and those which followed–although so much had been recognized in the interval.

“It is unfortunate–” I said, merely eying him calmly.

For the first time during our interview, his eyes quivered–drooped–fell before mine; but, recovering instantly, he gave me a clear, cool stare in return for the quiet look of scorn he encountered. I saw at once the hopeless nature of the case.

“You will show me your accounts, Mr. Bainrothe,” I observed, haughtily; “I require this at least!”

“When you have attained your majority, certainly, Miriam, not before. At present, I have only Evelyn Erle to satisfy on that score, and the law; I refer you to your guardian.”

“Or whomsoever I choose to substitute as my guardian,” I said; “I believe that privilege vests in me, being over eighteen.”

“There are outside provisions in your father’s will that debar you, unfortunately, from that usual privilege of minors of your age,” he rejoined, quietly. “I regret this for many reasons: I should be glad to quiet any doubts you may entertain at once, but it is impossible that, compatibly with self-respect, I can do this, after what you have insinuated this morning; so you must wait, with what patience you can command, for the coming of your majority.”

“Nearly two years to wait!” I cried; “I should die before then, if only of impatience. No, I will know at once. I will write to Mr. Gerald Stanbury–I will go to the president of the bank–nay, to Mr. Biddle himself. I will resolve this matter.”

“You will do no such thing, my very dear young friend,” said Mr. Bainrothe, advancing and laying his hand lightly on my arm–I shook it off, as if it had been a cold, crawling serpent. He retreated quietly but quickly. “You will do no such thing, Miriam,” he repeated, resuming his post by the mantel-shelf, without evincing the least discomposure at my behavior to him; “your own good sense, your own good feeling will come to your assistance when you look this matter fully in the face, and dispassionately, which I must say you are not doing now. I have not earned at your hands mistrust and obloquy like this, Miriam; but, for the sake of the past, I shall strive and bear with the present. Who has inspired you with such opinions of me?”

Accomplished hypocrite! He tried to assume a much-injured air, to mingle forbearance with his reproachful words; but my heart was as hard toward him as a nether millstone, and his words made no impression on my flinty feelings, not even enough to strike fire therefrom, or sparks.

“No one,” I replied, “no one; I judge for myself in all instances. Why did you secrete gold in the dead hour of the night, which, unless you bore it away in the same mysterious, or even more subtle manner, ought still to be in its hiding-place? Why did you preserve, even from Evelyn, your knowledge of that retreat, and the payment of the loan, which she asserts you have never communicated to her, from first to last? Why make mysteries of business transactions which, by the tenor of my father’s will, she had a right to participate in, and be consulted about. Why?”

“I will tell you,” he interrupted, gravely, and not without emotion. “Pause, and I will explain my reasons, painful as it is to me to do this, and greatly as I compromise myself by so doing, for, should you choose to be indiscreet, I shall have gained a dangerous enemy. I have no confidence in Evelyn Erie, in her truth, her sincerity, her honesty, even. I would not place temptation in her way. There, that is why I concealed the secrets of the spring-lock and recess in the wall from her, to secure them for you. As to the depositing of gold in that iron chest, I did it simply because I knew of no other place so safe and secret. In my own house none such exists, and, as I never kept gold for more than a few days after it was received, I thought it scarcely worth while to place it in the vaults of the bank. As I tell you, it was removed in September.”

Surely no art was ever greater of its kind than that he manifested on this trying occasion, yet it fell to the earth, like the shedding scales of a serpent, before my simple discernment. Yet his words, his manner, did in some strange and unexplained way greatly exonerate Evelyn in my estimation, at least for a time, of complicity.

How could I consistently believe that two persons, entertaining of each other such similar and degrading opinions, could trust one another sufficiently to become confederates? Alas! I did not reflect that it is of such conflicting elements conspirators and conspiracies themselves are usually made, and that union of guilt creates eternal enmity.

I could not penetrate such depths of guile! I surrendered myself readily, I confess, to these fresh convictions. Evelyn was narrow, selfish, scheming, but, at all events, was not in league with this vampire. That was much. We might still make common cause against him–she with her injuries to avenge, I with mine–and preserve intact, and without his hated interference, that which was left to us at least.

There was comfort in the thought.

While these considerations were photographing themselves on my brain, with that indescribable rapidity of process whereby the action of the mind excels even that of light, Mr. Bainrothe was again settling himself down in my father’s deep chair, and now once more addressed me in a sad and broken voice, perfectly well suited to the occasion.

“Miriam,” he said, “I too have been an extensive loser through the failure of the Bank of Pennsylvania. Like yourself, with the exception of the house I now reside in, and some few small tenements I hold for rent, I find every thing swept away from me. Claude, it is true, is comfortable, and on his slender estate we must both now manage to support ourselves. You see marriage on his part is now simply out of the question. He has his father to take care of.”

He said this last in so significant a tone, and apologetic a manner, that its intent was unmistakable, little dreaming how transparent my conviction of his crime had made his motives.

“As far as I am concerned, it was so eighteen months ago,” I responded, and the blood rushed indignantly to my brow. “Yet I hope,” I added, after a moment’s hesitation, “that Claude may still marry and be happy.”

“You are still vexed with that boy of mine, Miriam, I see that. Oh, you are wrong, there! It was not for him, unfledged and inexperienced, to weigh the precious diamond against the paste pretense! He could not see you with the eyes of riper judgment and deep feeling accorded to those who have studied life, and learned its loftiest lessons. Had he looked through my eyes, Miriam–” (he was standing before me now, his arms extended, his eyes blazing, his cheeks and lips strangely aglow), “he would have seen you as you are, the rose, the ruby of the world.” He seized my hand impetuously, and pressed it to his lips, then rushed wildly away. A moment later, he returned, silently. I was standing before the silver cistern, I remember, washing away with my handkerchief an invisible stain from my hand, child-fashion, a loathsome impress, when I felt his audacious arms thrown suddenly around me, and his hot, polluting kisses on my face.

“I love–I love you!” he hissed in my ear, “and sooner or later I will possess you!”

Before I could strike him, spit upon him, strangle him with my hands–the thief, the midnight robber, the slave of lust–he was gone again. I heard my own wild shrieks resounding through the house, like those of some strange lunatic. I was for a time frantic with rage and shame. But no one came to my succor, except poor old Morton. He crept feebly from the pantry, and found me sobbing in my father’s chair. As he stood meekly before me, leaning on his staff, and looking in my face, my only friend, so powerless to aid, the whole desolateness of my position burst upon me, like an overpowering avalanche, I bowed my head and wept.

“Bear up, bear up, my lamb,” he said, in his weak, tremulous voice; “we have the promise of the Lord to rely on. Has he not said the seed of the just man should never know want or beg bread? We must believe in the Gospel, and be strengthened, Miss Miriam.”

And he laid his quivering hand lightly on my head. I took it between both of my own, and kissed it fervently, bathing it with my tears. “Morton,” I said, “dear old Morton, I have had such a terrible blow to bear–shame!” and again I was choked with sobs.

“Shame! Oh, no, my dear young mistress! my birdie child; ruin is not shame! This could never come near a Monfort, poor or rich! See! such as these old hands are, they shall work for you to the bone, and, if I understand matters aright, we still have the good roof left over our heads, and some little means for all immediate wants. God will put some good thought in your mind before long. Consult with Miss Evelyn; she is wise. You are not the first high-born young ladies who have had to teach a school.”

“Oh, bless you, bless you, Morton, for the thought!”

All idea of telling him (helpless, as he was, to avenge it) of the degrading treatment I had received was now laid at rest, and the practical good sense of a suggestion, that, if successfully carried out, would take us so completely out of the hands of Mr. Bainrothe, and insure such complete independence, was felt at once.

At a glance I saw the expediency as well as the feasibility of the scheme.

Our large and secluded establishment was well fitted for a boarding-school. Our father’s spotless name, and our undeserved misfortunes, were calculated to enlist popular respect and sympathy.

Evelyn’s decided manners and liberal accomplishments, my better principles and more solid attainments (I viewed things with the naked eye of truth that day, and thus the balance was struck in its rapid survey), might all be brought to bear on our new vocation.

“This is the very thing for us to do, Morton,” I said, after a pause, wiping my eyes, and smiling up into his dear, old, withered face, “I will acquaint Evelyn with it before I sleep. Ay, and with other matters as well,” I added, mentally. “God help me now!–upon her verdict every thing depends.”

I met Mabel on the stairway as I ascended to my chamber. She hung about my neck, in a childish way she had, and kissed me fondly. Perhaps she had observed my agitated face, in which many emotions contended, probably (as in my heart), but I only said, “Let me pass now, darling!–One thing will,” I thought, “be secure, under the contemplated circumstances–your welfare and education, whatever else betide–beautiful, and good as an angel, you shall be wise as well.”

“Oh! I forgot to tell you, sister Miriam,” she cried, running up-stairs, after we had parted, “Evelyn has gone out, and left this note for you;” and she placed one in my hand, adding:

“Mr. Claude Bainrothe was here, while you were in the library with his father, and they went away together.”

“Where did she receive him, Mabel?–the parlors are closed, you know.”

“Yes, but she was all ready when he came. It was an appointment, I think he said, to take a walk, and he stood at the front-door, until she went down, only five minutes, sister Miriam. He did not mind it at all. He sent her up the letter he had brought from the office, and she read it out loud to Mrs. Austin. I was there–it was very short.”

“What letter, Mabel?”

“Oh, about her aunt! This note tells you, I suppose. Evelyn is rich now; but she had to go to New York to see the lawyer, so Mr. Claude Bainrothe said, before she could claim the fortune.”

More and more bewildered, I made haste to tear open the sealed note which Mabel had given me. Its contents were scanty, and not fully satisfactory.

“MY DEAR MIRIAM: The ways of Providence are truly strange and inscrutable, and its balance ever shifting. This morning I rose in despair, to-night I shall lie down rejoicing; for a way is again opened to us that will put it beyond _his_ power to annoy or oppress us further. God knows we have both suffered enough, already, at his hands! My maiden aunt, Lady Frances Pomfret, is dead, and makes me her heir. I will show you the lawyer’s letter when I return. The legacy is spoken of