Bohemian Days Part 33

"That crack is wide open yet," said Calvin Van de Lear.

"Begorra," returned the Irishman, facing placidly around until he found the owner of the voice, "Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, it would take many such a blow, sur, to fracture your heart!"

"Go on now, Donovan, and finish your tale. You were carried off to Trieste?" spoke Duff Salter.

"I was, sir. At Wilmington no news had been recaved of any tragedy in Philadelphia, and when I told my story there to a gentleman he concluded I was ravin' and a seein' delusions. The Austrian was short av a crew, and the docthor said if they could get away to sea he could make me effective very soon. I was too helpless to go on deck or make resistance. Says I, 'It's the will av G.o.d.'"

A round of applause greeted this story as it was ended, and cheerful hands were extended to the witness and the prisoner. Calvin Van de Lear, however, exclaimed:

"Alderman, what has all this to do with the prisoner's ignominious flight for months from his home and from persons he abandoned to suspicion and shame? This man is an impostor."

"Will you take the stand, Mr. Andrew Zane?" asked Duff Salter.

"No," replied the late fugitive. "I have been hunted and slandered like a wolf. I will give no evidence in Kensington, where I have been so shamefully treated. Let me be sent to a higher court, and there I will speak."

"Alas!" Duff Salter said, with grave emphasis, "it is you father's old and obstinate spirit which is speaking. You are the ghost I thought was his at the door of my chamber. Mr. Magistrate, swear me!"

Duff Salter gravely kissed the Testament and stood ready to depose, when Calvin Van de Lear again interrupted.

"Are you not deaf?" asked the divinity student. "Where are your tablets that you carry every day? You seem to hear too well, I consider."

"You are right," cried Duff Salter, turning on his interrogator like a lion. "I am wholly cured of deafness, and my memory is as acute as my hearing."

Calvin Van de Lear turned pale to the roots of his dry, yellow whiskers.

"Devil!" he muttered.

"My testimony covers only a single point," resumed the strong, direct, and imposing witness. "I saw the face of this prisoner for the first time since his babyhood in his father's house not many weeks ago. It resembled his father's youthful countenance, as I knew it, so greatly that I really believed his parent haunted the streets of Kensington, according to the rumor. The supposed apparition drove me to investigate the mysterious death of William Zane. I believed that Agnes knew the story, but was under this prisoner's command of secrecy. Seeking an a.s.sistant, the witness, Donovan, forced himself upon me. In a short time I was confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing resided at different times two men: the one an agent, the other a princ.i.p.al; the one a reality, the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the duller and less observant of these doubles row me out upon the Delaware on such a night as marked the tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle of the river I forced the story of the coincidence from him by reasoning and threats."

"Ha! ha!" exclaimed Calvin Van de Lear. "Is this an Arkansas snake story?"

"The young Zane had gratified a wilful pa.s.sion to penetrate the residence of his father, and look at its inmates and the situation from safe harborage there. He found that Donovan in his roving sailor's life had played the crippled sea beggar in the streets of British cities, tying up his natural leg and fitting a wooden leg to the knee--a trick well known to British ballad singers. That leg was in Donovan's sea-chest, as it had been left in this city, and also the crutch necessary to walk with it. Mr. Zane and Donovan had exchanged the leg and crutch, and the former matched his fellow with a wig and patches.

Thus convertible, they had for a little while deceived everybody, but for further convenience Mr. Zane ensconced himself as a tenant in a neighboring house, and when the apparatus was in request by Donovan, he crossed on the roofs between the trap-doors, and still was master of his residence."

"What does all this disclose but the intrigue of despairing guilt?"

exclaimed young Van de Lear. "He had destroyed the purity of a lady and abandoned her, and was afraid to show his real face in Kensington."

"We will see as to that," replied Duff Salter. "I had hoped to respect the lady's privacy, but Mr. Zane has refused to testify. Call Agnes Wilt."

All in the magistrate's office rose at the mention of this name, only Andrew Zane keeping his seat amid the crowd. Calvin Van de Lear officiously sought to a.s.sist the witness in, but Duff Salter pressed him back and gave the sad and beautiful woman his arm. She was sworn, and stood there blus.h.i.+ng and pale by turns.

"What is your name?" asked Duff Salter gently. "Speak very plain, so that all these good friends of yours may make no mistake."

"My name," replied the lady, "is Agnes Zane. I am the wife of Mr. Andrew Zane."

"Very good," said Duff Salter soothingly. "You are the wife of Andrew Zane; wedded how long ago, madam?"

"Eight months."

"Do you see any person in this court-room, Mrs. Zane, that you wish to identify? Let all be seated."

Poor Agnes looked timidly around the place, and saw a person, at whom all were gazing, rise and reach his arms toward her.

"Gracious G.o.d!" she whispered, "is it he?"

"It is, dear wife," cried Andrew Zane. "Come to my heart."

CHAPTER X.

THE SECRET MARRIAGE.

Reverend Silas Van de Lear was drawing his latest breaths in the house of one of his elder sons, and only his lips were seen to move in silent prayer, when a younger fellow-clergyman entering, to a cl.u.s.ter of his cloth attending there, said audibly:

"This is a strange _denouement_ to the great Kensington scandal, which has happened this afternoon."

The large, voluptuous lady with the slowly declining eyelids raised them quietly as in languid surprise.

"You mean the Zane murder? What is it?" asked a minister, while others gathered around, showing the ministry to have human curiosity even in the hour and article of death.

"Miss Agnes Wilt, the especial favorite of our dying patriarch here, was married to young Andrew Zane some time before his father died. There was no murder in the case. Zane the elder, in one of his frequent fits of wild and arrogant rage, which were little less than insanity, killed his partner, Rainey, and in as sudden remorse took his own life."

"What was the occasion of Zane's rage?"

"That is not quite clear, but the local population here is in a violent reaction against the accusers of young Zane and his wife. The church recovers a valuable woman in Agnes Zane."

Mrs. Knox Van de Lear had a vial of smelling salts in her hand, and this vial dropping suddenly on the floor called attention to the fact that the lady had a little swooning turn. She was herself again in a minute, and her eyes slowly unclosed and lifted their tender curtains prettily.

"I am so glad for dear Agnes," she said with a natural loudness in that hushed room. "It even made me forget papa to find Agnes innocent."

The dying minister seemed to catch the words. A ministerial colleague bent down to hear his low articulation:

"Agnes innocent!" said Silas Van de Lear, and strove to clasp his hands.

"The praying of the righteous availeth much!"

The physician said the good man's pulse ceased to beat at that minute, and they raised around his scarcely cold remains a hymn to heaven.

Mean time, at the alderman's court, a surprising scene was witnessed.

For a few minutes everybody was in a frenzy of delight, and Duff Salter was the hero of the hour. The alderman made no effort to discipline any person; people hugged and laughed, and entreated to shake hands with Andrew Zane, and in the pleasing confusion Calvin Van de Lear slunk out, white as one condemned to be whipped.

"Now! now! We will! Yes!" said the sententious old alderman. "Come to order. Andrew Zane must be sworn!"

At this moment the Kensington volunteer fire apparatus stopped opposite the alderman's office and began to peal its bells merrily. The young husband's obstinacy slowly giving way, seemed to be gone entirely when, searching the room with his eye, he detected the flight of Calvin Van de Lear. He kissed the little book as if it were a box of divine balm, and raised his voice, looking still tenderly at Agnes, and addressing Duff Salter:

"Will you examine me, my father's friend?"