The Forsaken Inn Part 14

"Leaving this place, I wandered aimlessly through the streets, studying each face that I met for intimations which should guide me in my search.

If not a madman, I was near enough to one to make the memory of that hour hideous to me; and when at last, worn out as much by my emotions as by the countless steps I had taken, I returned to my house for a bite and sup, something in the sight of its desolation overpowered me, and yielding to a despair which a.s.sured me that I should never again see her in this world, I sank on the floor inert and powerless, and continued thus till morning, without movement and almost without consciousness.

"Fatal repose! And yet I do not know if I should call it so. It only robbed me of a few hours less of conscious misery. For when I roused, when I became again myself, and looked about my house, there on the floor, underneath a curtain window which had been left unlatched, I saw a letter containing these words:

'HONORED AND MUCH ABUSED FRIEND:--When you read this, Marah will be no more. After all that has pa.s.sed--after our broken marriage and the departure of my cousin--life has become insupportable; and, believing that you would rather know me dead than miserable, I ventured to write you these words, and ask you to forgive me, now that I am gone.

'I loved him: let that explain everything.

'Despairingly yours, 'MARAH LEIGHTON.'

"With shrieks I tore from the house. Marah dying! Marah dead! I would see about that. Racing down to the gate, I paused. Some one was leaning on it. It was Caesar, and at the first glimpse I had of his face I knew I was too late--that all was over, and that the whole town knew it.

"'Oh, ma.s.sa, I wanted to go in, but I was frightened. I's been waiting here an hour, sah; when dey told me dat dey had found her bonnet floating on de ribber, I know'd how you'd feel, sah, and so I come here and--'

"I found words to ask him a question. 'When was this found, and where?'

"'This morning, sah, at daybreak. It was caught by one of the strings to that old log, sah, that lies out in the ribber back of--' he hesitated--'Ma.s.sa Urquhart's house, sah.'

"I knew; and I had glanced that way just as her bright head was perhaps sinking under the water. I threw up my arms in anguish and stumbled back into the house.

"'Then every one knows--' I managed to say on the threshold.

"'Dat she cared for him? Yes, sah; I fear so. How could dey help it, sah? Mor'n one person saw her run down de street and go into ma.s.sa's old house just before de carriage stopped thar, and as she didn't come out again, I 'specs it was from dat big log at the foot of the garden she jumped into de ribber. All de folks pities you very much, sah--'

"I choked him off with a look.

"'Who has been sent after Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart to inform them of what has happened?'

"'No one yet, sah. But Ma.s.sa Hatton--'

"'Mr. Hatton is an old man. We must have a young one for this business.

Go saddle me the quickest horse in your stables. I will ride after them, and overtake them, too, before they can reach Poughkeepsie. He shall know--'

"A glance from the negro's eye warned me to be careful. I smothered my impatience and let only my earnestness appear.

"'Mrs. Urquhart ought to know that her cousin is dead,' I declared.

"'I'll tell Ma.s.sa Hatton,' said the black.

"But my caution was now too much aroused for me to make Mr. Hatton the medium of my request--he was Mrs. Urquhart's old guardian and future agent; and subduing the extreme fury of my feelings, I obtained his permission to act as his messenger. Had he known of the letter which had been thrown into my window, he might not have given his consent so freely; but I had told no man of that, and he and others saw me ride away without a seeming suspicion of the murderous thoughts that struggled with my grief, and almost overwhelmed it.

"For to me her death--if she were dead--was the result of a compact entered into with the despicable Urquhart, who, if he could not have her for himself, was willing she should go where no other man could have her. Though the idea seemed quixotic, though it be an anomaly in human experience, for a woman thus to sacrifice herself, I could not ascribe any other motive to her deed; for the memory of that interview she had held with her cousin's future husband in the garden was still fresh in my mind. Do you remember the words as told me by the negro who overheard them? First, the question from his lips: 'Will you undertake it? Can you go through with it without shrinking and without fear?' And the reply from hers: 'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,'

followed by that a.s.surance which struck me as being so inexplicable at the time, and which, with all the light that this late horrible event has thrown upon it, still preserves its mystery for me. 'I shall give you nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.' If the conclusions I drew seemed wild, were they not warranted by these words?

Did she not speak of death, and did he not encourage her?

"If she were not dead--and sometimes this thought would cross my burning brain--then she was with him, forced into the company of his unwilling wife in that last interview which they must have held in his cottage. In either case he was a villain and a coward, deserving of death; and death he should have, and from the hand of him whom he had doubly outraged.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"But as I rode out of town and came in sight of the river, I found myself seized by terrifying thoughts. Should I have to ride by the place where I could see them stooping with boat hooks and bending with peering eyes over some snag they had brought up from the river bottom?

Could I endure to face this picture, then to pa.s.s it, then to ride on, feeling it ever at my back, blackening the morning, destroying the noontide, making more horrible the night? Could I go from this place till I knew whether or not the sullen waters would yield up their beautiful prey, and would my body proceed while my heart was on this river bank, and my jealousy divided between the wretch who had urged her on to death and these other men who might yet touch her unconscious form and gaze upon her disfigured beauty? And the answer which welled up from within me was, yes, I could go; I could pa.s.s that picture; I could feel it glooming ever and ever upon me from behind my back, and never turn my head;--such an impetus of hate was upon me, driving me forward after the wretch fleeing in self-complacency and triumph into a future of wealth and social consideration.

"But when I had done all this, when my too fleet horse had carried me beyond sight of the city, and nature, with its irresistible beauty, had begun to influence my understanding, other thoughts came trooping in upon me, and a vision of Honora Dudleigh's face as she took the dagger from my hands and an implied promise from my lips, rose before me till I could see nothing else. Honora, Honora, Honora who trusted me! who had suffered everything but the sight of blood! who was a bride, and whom it would be base ingrat.i.tude for me to plunge into the depths of dishonor and despair! And the struggle was so fierce, and the torture of it so keen, that ere long my brain succ.u.mbed to the strain, and from the height of anguished feeling I sank into apathy, and from apathy into unconsciousness, till I no longer knew where I was or possessed power to guide my horse. In this condition I was found wandering in a field and thence carried to a farm house, where I remained a prey to fever. When I returned to consciousness, three weeks had elapsed.

"As soon as I could be moved, I went back to Albany. I found the community there settled in the belief that I had joined in death the woman I so much loved, and was shown a letter which had been sent me, and which had been opened by the authorities after all hope had been given up of my return. It was from Mrs. Urquhart, and related how they had changed their plans upon reaching New York. Having found a s.h.i.+p on the point of sailing for France, they had determined to go there instead of to the Bermudas, and, consequently, requested me to inform Mr. Hatton of the fact, and also a.s.sure him that he would hear from them personally as soon as a letter could reach him from the other side. As she was in haste--in truth, was writing this in the post office on the way to the s.h.i.+p--she would only add that her health had been improved by her long journey down the river, and that when I heard from her again, she was sure she would be able to write that all her fondest hopes had been fully realized.

"And so Marah was in the river, and Urquhart on the seas. I had been robbed of everything, even vengeance, and life had nothing for me, and I was determined to leave it, not in the vulgar way of suicide, but by cloistering myself in the great forests. As no one said me nay, I at once carried out this scheme; and to show you how dead I had become to the world, I will tell you that as I turned the lock of my door and took my first step forward on the road which led to this spot, a great shout broke out in the market place:

"'The farmers of Lexington have fired upon the king's troops!'

"And I did not even turn my head!"

CHAPTER XVI.

A DREAM ENDED.

There was silence in the cave. Mark Felt's story was at an end.

For a moment I sat and watched him; then, as I realized all that I must yet gather from his lips, I broke the stillness by saying, in my lowest and most suggestive tone, these two words:

"And Marah?"

The name did not seem unwelcome. Striking his breast, he cried:

"She lies here! Though she despised me, deceived me, broke my heart in life, and in death betrayed a devotion for another that was at once my dishonor and the downfall of my every hope, I have never been able to cast her out of my heart. I love her, and shall ever love her, and so I am never lonely. For in my dreams I imagine that death has changed her.

That she can see now where truth and beauty lie; that she would fain come back to them and me; and that she does, walking with softened steps through the forest, beaming upon me in the moon rays and smiling upon me in the suns.h.i.+ne till--"

Great sobs broke from the man's surcharged breast. He flung himself down on the floor of the cave and hid his face in his hands. He had forgotten that I had come on an errand of vengeance. He had forgotten the object of that vengeance; he had forgotten everything but her.

I saw the mistake I had made, and for the moment I quailed before the prospect of rectifying it. He had shown me his heart. I had peered into its depths, and it seemed an impossible thing to tear the last hope from his broken life; to show her in her true light to his horrified eyes; to tell him she was not dead; that it was Honora Urquhart who was dead; and that the woman he mourned and beheld in his visions as a sanctified spirit was not only living upon the fruits of a crime, but triumphing in them; that, in short, he had thrown away communion with men to brood upon a demon.

My feelings were so strong, my shrinking so manifest, that he noticed them at last. Rising up, he surveyed me with a growing apprehension.

"How you look at me!" he cried. "It is not only pity for the past I see in your eyes, but fear for the future. What is it? What can threaten me now of importance enough to call up such an expression to your face?

Since Marah is dead--"

"Wait!" I cried. "First let me ask if Marah is dead." His face, which was turned toward me, grew so pale I felt my own heart contract.

"If--Marah--is--dead!" he gasped, growing huskier with each intonation till the last word was almost unintelligible.

"Yes," I continued, ignoring his glance and talking very rapidly; "her body was never found. You have no proof that she perished. The letter that she wrote you may have been a blind. Such things have happened. Try and remember that such things have happened."

He did not seem to hear me. Turning away, he looked about him with wide-open and questioning eyes, like a child lost in a wood.

"I cannot follow you," he murmured. "Marah living?" His own words seemed to give him life. He turned upon me again. "Do you know that she is living?" he asked. "Is it this you have come to tell me? If so, speak, speak! I can bear the news. I have not lost all firmness. I--I--"