The Baronet's Bride Part 55

"Her husband has been some English grandee, like Captain Hunsden, I dare say," he thought, "proud as Lucifer, and when he discovered that about her mother, despised and ill-treated her."

The penitent wife of Captain Hunsden did not long survive to enjoy her new home. Two weeks after their arrival she lay upon her death-bed.

Nothing could save her. She had been doomed for months--life gave way when the excitement that had buoyed her up was gone.

By night and day Harriet watched by her bedside, and the repentant Magdalen's last hours were the most blessed she had ever known.

"I do not deserve to die like this," she said. "Oh, my darling, your love makes my death-bed very sweet!"

They laid her in Greenwood, and once more Harriet's desolation seemed renewed.

"I am doomed to lose all I love," she thought, despairingly--"father, husband, mother--all!"

She drooped day by day, despite the tenderest care. No smile ever lighted her pale face, no happy light ever shone from the mournful dark eyes.

"Her heart is broken," said Uncle Hugh; "she will die by inches before our very eyes!"

And Uncle Hugh's prediction might have been fulfilled had not a new excitement arisen to stimulate her to renewed life and send her back to England.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV.

MR. PARMALEE TURNS UP TRUMPS.

Mr. G. W. Parmalee went down to Dobbsville, Maine, and reposed again in the bosom of his family. He went to work on the paternal acres for awhile, gave that up in disgust, set up once more a picture-gallery, and took the portraits of the ladies and gentlemen of Dobbsville at fifty cents a head.

Mr. Parmalee was fast becoming a misanthrope. His speculation had failed, his love was lost; nothing lay before him but a long and dreary existence spent in immortalizing in tin-types the belles and beaus of Dobbsville.

Sometimes a fit of penitence overtook him when his thoughts reverted to the desolate young creature, worse than widowed, dragging out life in New York.

"I'd ought to tell her," Mr. Parmalee thought. "It ain't right to let her keep on thinking that her husband murdered her. But then it goes awfully against a feller's grain to peach on the girl he meant to marry. Still----"

The remorseful reflection haunted him, do what he would. He took to dreaming of the young baronet, too. Once he saw him in his shroud, lying dead on the stone terrace, and at sight of him the corpse had risen up, ghastly in its grave clothes, and, pointing one quivering finger at him, said, in an awful voice:

"G. W. Parmalee, it is you who have done this!"

And Mr. Parmalee had started up in bed, the cold sweat standing on his brow like a shower of pease.

"I won't stand this, by thunder!" thought the artist next morning, in a fit of desperation. "I'll write up to New York this very day and tell her all, so help me Bob!"

But "_l'homme propose_"--you know the proverb. Squire Brown, who lived half a mile off, and had never heard of Harriet in his life, altered Mr. Parmalee's plans.

The worthy squire, jogging along in his cart from market, came upon the artist, sitting on the top rail of the gate, whittling, and looking gloomily dejected.

"Hi! George, my boy!" cried out the squire, "what's gone wrong? You look as dismal as a graveyard!"

"W-a-a-l!" drawled the artist, who wasn't going to tell his troubles on the house-tops, "there ain't nothin' much to speak of. It's the all-fired dullness of this pesky one-horse village, where there ain't nothin' stirrin', 'cept flies in fly-time, from one year's end to t'other."

"See what comes of traveling," said Squire Brown. "If you had stayed at home, instead of flying round England, you'd have been as right as a trivet. My 'pinion is, you've been and left a gal behind. Here's a London paper for you. My missus gets 'em every mail. Perhaps you'll see your gal's name in the list of marriages."

Mr. Parmalee took the paper chucked at him with languid indifference.

"Any news?" he asked.

"Lots--just suited to your complaint. A coal mine in Cornwall's been and caved in and buried alive fifteen workmen; there's been a horrid riot in Leeds; and a baronet in Devons.h.i.+re is sentenced to be hung for murdering his wife."

Mr. Parmalee gave one yell--one horrid yell, like a Comanche war-whoop--and leaped off the fence.

"What did you say?" he roared. "A baronet in Devons.h.i.+re for murdering his wife?"

"Thunder!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Squire Brown. "You didn't know him, did you?

Maybe you took his picture when in England? Yes, a baronet, and his name it's Sir Everard Kingsland."

With an unearthly groan, Mr. Parmalee tore open the paper.

"They haven't hanged him yet, have they?" he gasped. "Oh, good Lord above! what have I done?"

Squire Brown stared, a spectacle of dense bewilderment.

"You didn't do the murder, I hope?" he asked.

The squire rode away, and Mr. Parmalee sat for a good hour, half stupefied over the account. The paper contained a resume of the trial, from first to last--dwelling particularly on Miss Silver's evidence, and ending with the sentence of the court.

The paper dropped from the artist's paralyzed hand. He covered his face and sat in a trance of horror and remorse. His mother came to call him to dinner, and as he looked up in answer to her call, she started back with a scream at sight of his unearthly face.

"Lor' a-ma.s.sy, George Was.h.i.+ngton! what ever has come to you?"

"Pack up my clean socks and s.h.i.+rts, mother," he said. "I'm going back to England by the first steamer."

Late next evening Mr. Parmalee reached New York. Early the following morning he strode up to the brownstone mansion of Mr. Denover and sharply rang the bell.

"Is Lady--I mean, is Mr. Denover's niece to home?"

The servant ushered him into the drawing-room.

"Who shall I say?"

Mr. Parmalee handed her his card.

"Give her that. Tell her it's a matter of life and death."

The servant stared, took the pasteboard and vanished. Ten minutes after, and Harriet, in a white morning robe, pale and terrified, hurried in.

"Mr. Parmalee, has anything--have you heard---- Oh, what is it?"

"It is this, Lady Kingsland: your husband has been arrested and tried for your murder!"

She clasped her hands together and sunk into a seat. She did not cry out or exclaim. She sat aghast.