A Song of a Single Note Part 23

She rose and walked across the room a few times, and then, being cold, came back to the fire, knelt on the rug and warmed her hands. He watched her intently, but did not speak. She was trying to find something which should atone to her better self for such a contract. It came with the thought of Harry's father and Agnes. For their sakes, she ought to do all she could. Harry, for her sake, had taken his life in his hand and forfeited it; surely, then, it was right that she, having the power to do so, should redeem it. Better that he should live for others than die for her. Better that she should lose him in the living world than in the silent grave. Through Agnes she would hear of his comings and goings, his prosperity, and his happiness; but there would come no word to her from the dead whether at all he lived and loved, or not. With a quick, decisive motion she rose and looked at the man who was waiting in such motionless, but eager, silence.

"A life for a life!" she said simply, offering Medway her hand.

"You mean that you will be my wife?"

"Yes. I will marry you when the war is over."

"Or when you are twenty-one, even if it be not over?"

"Yes."

"Now, then," he said, "you are my betrothed;" and he drew her within his arm. "My honor, my hopes, my happiness, are in your hands."

"They are safe. Though I am only a girl, I know what my promise means. I shall keep it."

"I believe you. And you will love me? You will learn to love me, Maria?"

"I will do my best to make you happy, you ought not to ask more."

"Very well." He looked at her with a new and delightful interest. She was his own, her promise had been given. He could, indeed, tell by her eyes,--languid, but obstinately masterful--that she would not be easily won, but he did not dislike that; he would conquer her by the strength of his own love; he would make her understand what love really meant.

Still, he felt that for the present it would be better to go away, so he said:

"You shall hear from me as soon as possible. Try and sleep, my dear one.

You may tell yourself, 'Ernest is doing all that can be done.'" Then he took her hands and kissed them, and in a moment she was alone. Her heart was heavy as lead, and she was cold and trembling, but she was no longer in the shadow of Death. Medway's face, turned to her in the semi-darkness of the open door, was full of hope; and there was an atmosphere of power about the man which a.s.sured her of success; but she truly felt at that hour as if it was bought with her life. She was in the dungeon of despair; there seemed nothing to hope for, nothing to desire, in all the to-morrows of the years before her. "And I may have sixty years to live," she moaned; for youth exaggerates every feeling, and would be grieved to believe that its sorrows were not immortal.

She pushed the dying fire safely together, looked mournfully round the darksome room, closed and locked the door. Then Neil came toward her and asked if Lord Medway could do anything, and she answered, "He can save Harry's life; he has promised that. I suppose he will be imprisoned, but his life is saved. What did grandmother say about Lord Medway being here?"

"She has never been down stairs. She does not know he was here."

"Then we will not tell her. What is the use?"

"None at all. Father and mother have their own trouble. They are very anxious and almost broken-hearted at the indignity put upon our family.

I heard my father crying as I pa.s.sed his door and mother trying to comfort him, but crying, too. It made my heart stand still."

"It is my fault! It is my fault! Oh! what a wicked, miserable girl I am!

What can I do? What can I do?"

"Try and sleep, and get a little strength for tomorrow. Within the next twenty-four hours Harry Bradley will be saved or dead."

"I think he is saved. I am sure of it."

"Then try and sleep; will you try, Maria?"

"Yes."

She said the word with a hopeless indifference, half nullifying the promise. Then, lighting her candle, she went slowly to her room. Oh, but the joy that is dead weighs heavy! Maria could hardly trail her body upstairs. Her life felt haggard and thin, as if it was in its eleventh hour; and she was too physically exhausted to stretch out her hand into the dark and find the clasp of that Unseen Hand always waiting the hour of need, strong to uphold, and ready to comfort. No, she could not pray; she had lost Harry: there was nothing else she desired. In her room there was a picture of the crucifixion, and she cast her eyes up to the Christ hanging there, forsaken in the dark, and wondered if He pitied her, but the pang of unpermitted prayer made her dumb in her lonely grief.

Alas, G.o.d Christ! along the weary lands, What lone, invisible Calvaries are set!

What drooping brows with dews of anguish wet, What faint outspreading of unwilling hands Bound to a viewless cross, with viewless bands.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE HELP OF JACOB COHEN.

On leaving Maria, Lord Medway went straight to his friend General Clinton. He had just dined, and having taken much wine, was bland and good-tempered. Medway's entrance delighted him. "I have had my orderly riding about for a couple of hours looking for you," he said. "Where have you been Ernest? My dinner wanted flavor without you."

"I have been seeing some people about this son of Bradley's that the Police Court has in its clutches. By-the-bye, why don't you put a stop to its infamous blackmailing? As a court, it is only a part of Howe's treachery, formed for the very purpose of extortion, and of bringing His Majesty's Government into disrepute. Abolish the whole affair, Henry.

You are court sufficient, in a city under martial law."

"All you say is true, Ernest, and there is no doubt that Matthews and DuBois and the rest of them are the worst of oppressors. But I am expected to subjugate the whole South this winter, and I must leave New York in three or four weeks now."

"The Government expects miracles of you, Henry; but if military miracles are possible, you are the soldier to work them. I have found out to-day why you are not more popular; it is this Police Court, and they call it a _Military_ Police Court, I believe; and all its tyrannies are laid to you because your predecessor inst.i.tuted it. They might as well lay Howe's love for rebels to you."

"Speaking of rebels, I hear most suspicious things of Bradley's son. In fact, he is a spy. Matthews tells me that he ought to have been hung to-day. There is something unusual about the affair and I wanted to talk to you concerning it. Bradley himself has been here and said things that have made me uncomfortable--you know how he brings the next world into this one; Smith has been here, also, asking me to pardon the fellow, because the feeling in the city about Tryon's doings in Connecticut is yet like smoldering fire in the hearts of the burghers. Powell has been here asking me to pardon, because the spy's father has a thousand bridles to make for the troops going South, and he thinks hanging the youth would kill his father, or at least incapacitate him for work, and Rivington has just left, vowing he will not answer for consequences if his newspaper does not sympathize with the Bradleys. If Bradley's son had been the arch-rebel's son, there could hardly have been more pet.i.tions for his life. I don't understand the case. What do you say?"

"That Matthews and DuBois have made a tremendous blunder in fining the Semples for disloyalty in the matter. I will warrant the Semples'

loyalty with my own."

"So would I. It is indisputable."

"Yet the Elder has been fined two hundred pounds, and Mr. Neil Semple one hundred pounds, because Bradley's son tied his boat at their landing; a fact they were as ignorant of as you or I. And you get the blame and ill-will of such tyranny, Henry. It is shameful!"

"It is," answered Clinton in a tone of self-pity; "the boat, however, was full of goods, about which the young man would say nothing at all."

"Women's bits of lace and ribbons; a mended fan, and some gloves and stockings."

"There was also a Bradley saddle."

"Yes, Bradley acknowledged it."

"Then father or son ought to have given information about it."

"It was their business; and if either you or I were brought before such an irresponsible court and such autocratic judges, I dare say we should consider silence our most practical weapon of defense. In Harry Bradley's position, I should have acted precisely as he did. The whole affair resolves itself into a lovers' tryst; the lad would not give the lady a disagreeable publicity; he would die first. You yourself would s.h.i.+eld any good woman with your life, Henry, you know you would."

And Clinton thought of the bewitching Mrs. Badely and the lovely Miss Blundell, and answered with an amazing air of chivalry, "Indeed I would!"

"Have you ever noticed a Captain Macpherson, belonging to your own Highland regiment?"

"Who could help noticing him? He is always the most prominent figure in every room."

"He will be so no longer. He was almost hissed out of court to-day, and I was told the demonstrations on the street sent him stamping and swearing to his quarters. Well, he is the villain of this pitiful little drama. The heroine is that lovely granddaughter of Semples."

"I know her; a little darling! and as good as she is beautiful."