Mr. Gerald Stanbury had been especially invited to attend the reading of my father’s will, by a polite note from Mr. Bainrothe, in which the interest that both bore in this testament was plainly set forth. With the exception of our excellent old neighbor and the two Mr. Bainrothes, the circle assembled for the solemn occasion was composed entirely of Mr. Monfort’s household and was truly a funereal one. I wore my deep-mourning dress for the first time that day, and Mabel, similarly attired, sat beside me. Claude Bainrothe was alone on a distant sofa.

Evelyn assumed my father’s chair, and wore, with the weeds customary to widows, a demeanor of great dignity and reserve suitable to the head of the family. Mr. Gerald Stanbury had a seat near mine, on which he sat uneasily, and Mrs. Austin, Franklin, and Morton, were ranged together stiffly in chairs placed against the wall, likewise attired in deep mourning. Mr. Bainrothe was seated near the study-table, looking unusually pale and subdued, from one of the drawers of which he had drawn forth the will, unlocking and locking it again with a key suspended to his guard-chain.

“This key was placed in my hand,” he said, “during my friend’s last illness, and, although he could not speak to me at the time, his expressive eye indicated its importance and to what drawer it belonged. This was before he was removed from the study in which he was stricken, dear friends, as you may all remember, on Christmas-morning, and which he never again reentered. From that day to this the key which I wear has not left my charge, nor been placed in the lock to which it belongs, and to the guardianship of which this will, as soon as made and legally attested, was probably committed. We will now, with your permission, break the seal that I see has been placed upon this document since I beheld it, the contents of which are already familiar to me.” He then opened and read in a clear, monotonous voice my father’s will and its provisions.

The property, as I knew already, was all mine by marriage contract, except such sums as my father had accumulated and set aside from his yearly income for his own purposes. With these he richly endowed Evelyn Erle, and comfortably the three servants or attendants, as he preferred to call them, who had followed him from England, and by their lives of fidelity and duty shown themselves worthy of his regard. Half of my estate was already in stocks of the United States Bank, and half loaned at interest on sound mortgages. This last was to be called in as speedily as possible and invested also in stocks of the above-mentioned bank, in that peculiar institution known as the Pennsylvania Bank, and still supposed to be under Mr. Biddle’s superintendence. This was done, the testator said, to simplify his daughter’s property, and render it more manageable to her hand, should she by her own will remain single, or by that of Providence be widowed, and he hoped in any case she would suffer it to remain in this shape as long as Mr. Biddle or Mr. Bainrothe lived.

All this I heard with satisfaction and even indifference, but the part that stung me almost to exasperation was reserved for the last. Mr. Bainrothe and Mr. Stanbury were named as executors conjointly with Evelyn Erie, in the last mentioned of whom all power over my actions was to vest until I should be of age, and in whose hands, as guardian, Mabel and her property were exclusively intrusted until that time should arrive; after that period her sisters were to act jointly, unless my marriage were made without consent of Evelyn, in which case Mabel was to be her charge alone.

No security was to be required of either executor, but, across Mr. Gerald Stanbury’s name two lines in ink had been drawn with a wavering hand, as if for erasure.

I heard this last clause of the will with a beating, bounding, indignant heart. Evelyn, who so hated Claude Bainrothe, had us both completely in her power for the present, and might defer our marriage for years if it so pleased her. And Mabel, toward whom she did not disguise her indifference, was to be hers on this ground perhaps forever! Slavery for four of the best years of my life was entailed on me, and bondage forever on her, perhaps my idol my darling mine all mine by every right of man or God!

The injustice was too palpable. It was almost incomprehensible to me how he had been wrought upon to do these things he, “a just man made perfect.” All this flashed stunningly across my brain. Suddenly I threw my hand wildly to my head the whirl of waters was in my ears; yet I struggled against the surging tide, and Claude Bainrothe’s grasp upon my hand strengthened and revived me. I was roused from my apathy by hearing Mr. Gerald Stanbury’s loud, sonorous voice speaking out clearly: “I decline to serve, Mr. Bainrothe, after that erasure. You understand that, of course. It was a farce to send for me to-day, tinder these circumstances.”

“How could I know, my dear sir, that this erasure had been made?” was the soft and specious rejoinder. “It must have been done in the last few months. This will was drawn up in August last. I was ignorant of the whole subsequent proceeding, and at that time Mr. Monfort laid peculiar stress on your coincidence as executor. Has any thing occurred since that time to mar your good understanding?”

“Nothing of any consequence,” said Mr. Stanbury, coldly “nothing bearing on the esteem of man for man. Nevertheless, Mr. Monfort, as we all know, was a man easy to offend and difficult to appease, and I suppose” (he swallowed hard as he spoke) “he weighed old friendship and some good offices as nothing against his wounded self-love, and against the flatterers who beset him with their snares.”

“Sir, you intend to be insulting, no doubt,” Mr. Bainrothe observed, with a semblance of calm dignity; “but it is not on such an occasion as this, and in the disinterested discharge of my duty, that I will suffer myself to be ruffled by the bitter injustice of an irritable and disappointed old man.”

“Be guarded, Mr. Bainrothe,” Mr. Stanbury rejoined, “in your expressions to me, or I will look into that illegal erasure and still stand to my oar in this golden galley of yours, in which you expect to float with the stream, and so soon to have every thing your own way. I like plain sailing, sir; am a plain, straightforward man myself, to whom truth is second nature; and, were it not for the violence it might do the feelings of the person chiefly concerned in this testament, so soon to be allied to you and yours, if I understand things properly and report speaks truly, I would defy you, Mr. Basil Bainrothe, in the public courts, and claim my executorship under the wing of the law.”

Mr. Bainrothe had turned ashy pale during the deliverance of this fiery rebuke. But he controlled himself admirably, merely contenting himself with saying, in a low voice: “No threats, if you please, Mr. Stanbury; act out your intentions when and where you choose, but have consideration just now for the feelings of others.” And he waved his hand, trembling with rage, toward me, including in his gesture Evelyn, who by this time was beside me with her salts, chafing my hands. “I am sure we are all willing to yield our executorships if Miriam desires it,” she said. “I, for one, should be glad to lift such a yoke from my shoulders, unaccustomed to such a burden. Mr. Stanbury, desirable as you seem to think it, this post of mine is no sinecure. But spare Miriam this scene, I beg of you; she is much overcome much exhausted; excitement in her case is very injurious, Dr. Pemberton says. Let me beg you, my dear sir, to retire. All shall be done properly and in order. Her interest is our chief concern, of course.”

“Evelyn Erle, I have nothing to say to you,” I heard Mr. Stanbury exclaim, in a loud, excited tone. “It is not with women I wish to wage war, and so understand me! But there is One above to whom you will have to account rigidly some day for your stewardship and guardianship of these friendless girls, and be prepared, I counsel you, with your accounts, to meet Him when the day of reckoning comes! And it may come sooner than you suspect. I, for one, shall keep an unslumbering eye upon you and your devices while I live, even though at a distance. Miriam, I am always ready to assist you, my dear, in any way possible to me call on me freely. Remember, I am your friend.” He came to me, he took me to his breast, he kissed my brow, his tears were on my cheek. I cast my arms about his dear, old, noble neck; I leaned my quivering face against his bosom. “I always loved you,” I said. “I am so sorry, so sorry, Mr. Stanbury!” I knew no more the words forsook my lips. Again that wild whirl of waters surged upon my ears; I seemed to be falling, falling down a black, steep, bottomless shaft, beneath which the sea was roaring falling head-foremost hurled as if with a strong impulse down the abyss to certain destruction.

Then all was still. The jaws of my dark malady had opened to receive me.

I woke as from a long, deep, and unrefreshing slumber. I was lying in my bed, with the curtains, drawn closely around it the heavy crimson curtains, with their white inside draperies and snowy tufted fringes. I had a vague consciousness that some hand had recently parted them, and the tassels on the valance were quivering still with the impulse they had thus received. Then I heard voices.

“How much longer will it endure, Evelyn?”

“Five or six hours, I suppose. What time is it now?” The clock in the hall struck ten before the question could be answered.

“Ten! It was about three when she was seized,” rejoined the voice of Evelyn; “you can calculate for yourself the turns are invariably twelve and twenty-four hours in duration; if one period is transcended the other is accomplished. Dr. Pemberton himself told me this.”

“Might not the term in some way be shortened? I was very sure I heard her stirring just now, and my heart was in my mouth.” After which a pause.

“I knew you were mistaken, but I examined to satisfy your mind. No, she still lies in a lethargy, and will lie in that comatose condition until after noon. Then Dr. Pemberton will be here, and she will revive.”

“That seizure was very dreadful, but I saw no foam on her lips like most epileptics, and I watched narrowly.”

“There are modifications of the disease, Claude; hers is of a passive kind, with very few or no convulsive struggles more like syncope. Had you not better retire now?”

“Still, it is epilepsy? No, do not banish me yet.”

“That is what the doctors call it, I believe, Claude. Dr. Pemberton is too guarded or politic, one or the other all Quakers are, you know to give it a name, however. Dr. Physick told papa what it was very plainly, years ago.”

“Ah I he was good authority, certainly a great physician and a philosopher as well; but, Evelyn, it is very awful,” with a groan, and perhaps a shudder. “Very hard to get over or to bear.”

“Yes, and the worst of it is it will increase with age, and the end is so deplorable idiocy or madness, you know, invariably. Early death is desirable for Miriam. Her best friends should not wish to see her life prolonged. It is an inheritance, probably. Her mother died of some inscrutable incurable disease, I suppose like this.”

“O God! O God! it is almost more than I can stand.”

I heard him pacing the room slowly up and down, and my impulse was to part the curtains, to call him to me and comfort him, but I could not; I was too weak even to speak as yet, and bound as with a spell, a nightmare.

A whirl of vivid joy passed through me like an electric flash, however, as I recognized in his disquietude the strength of his affection. Evelyn’s malignant cruelty and falsehood were lost sight of in the bliss of this conviction; yet my triumph was but brief.

“Evelyn,” he said, speaking low, and pausing in his slow, continued pace. “Evelyn, just as she lies there sleeping, I would she could lie forever! Then happiness could dawn for us again.”

“Never, Claude Bainrothe!”

“You are unforgiving, my Evelyn! you have no mercy on me nor my sufferings. You make no allowance for necessity, or the desperation of my condition. In debt myself, and so long a cause of expense and anxiety to my father, whose sacrifices for me have been manifold, and before whom ruin is grimly yawning even now, how could I act otherwise, consistently with the duty of a son? Nay, what manhood would there have been in consigning you to such a fate as awaited penniless wife of mine?

“I did not think of these things, did not know them even, when we first met, and when I told you of my sudden passion I was sincere, Evelyn, then, as I am now, for it is unchanged, and you know that it is so.

“When the dark necessity was laid bare to me, and I felt it my duty to cancel our engagement, you bore it bravely, you kept my counsel, you assisted me in my projects; you proved yourself all that was noble and magnanimous in woman. What marvel, then, that I more than ever loved you, and wished the obstacle removed that divides us, and yearn for my lost happiness now dearer to me than before, only to be renewed through you, Evelyn! that I still adore! woman most beautiful, most beloved!”

“Claude, this is mockery; release my hand; arise, this position becomes you not, nor yet me. Go! I am lost to you forever! your own cowardice, your own weak worship of expediency, have been your real obstacles. For your sake I was willing to brave poverty, debt, expatriation. It was you who preferred the dross of gold, and the indulgence of your own luxury and that of the sybarite, your father, to the passionate affection I bore you. It is too late now for regret or recrimination. Go, I command you! accomplish your destiny; continue to beguile Miriam with the tale of your affection, and in return reap your harvest of deluded affection and golden store from her! and from me receive your guerdon of scorn. For I, Claude Bainrothe, know you as you are, and despise you utterly!” Her voice trembled with anger, I knew of old its violent ring of rage.

“No, Evelyn, you only know me as I seem” he spoke mildly, humbly “not as I am. I am not a very bad man, Evelyn, nor even a very weak one; in all respects, vile as I appear to you, only a very unhappy wretch, and as such entitled to your respectful compassion at least all I dare ask for now. I will not receive your scorn as my fit guerdon. Is there no strength in overcoming inclination as I have done, in compelling words of affection to flow from loathing lips? for those scars alone, Evelyn, in contrast to your speckless beauty, would of themselves be enough to shock a fastidious man like me, those hideous livid scars which I have yet to behold, and shudder over, marking one whole side as you assure me of neck, shoulder, and arm, things that in woman are of such inestimable value, of almost more importance than the divine face itself.”

“Yes, but the other side is statuesque enough to satisfy the requisitions of a sensuous sculptor,” she rejoined, coldly; “you are wrong, Claude, let us be just! Miriam is very well formed, to say no more, and her skin is like a magnolia-leaf, where sun and wind have not touched or tanned it; then those scars will turn white after a while like the rest, and perhaps scarcely be visible.”

“O Heavens! hideous white seams!” he exclaimed, passionately. “I have seen such, like small-pox marks, only ten times more frightful and indelible.” In his impotent weakness he moaned aloud.

“Worse and worse! I will tell you frankly, had I known of them, the engagement never would have been contracted no, not though the inferno had opened beneath me as my only alternative but honor binds me now.”

“You are fastidious truly, and your sense of honor supreme,” she sneered.

“Beauty there was not,” he continued, without regarding her rejoinder, “in any remarkable degree. I could have borne its absence with common patience, but absolute disfigurement, deformity, such as you assure me those burns have left behind them, is too dreadful! Had not Dr. Pemberton bared her arm in bleeding, as he did, I should never have known of it at all probably until too late. That one mark was suggestive.”

“You attach too much consequence to mere externals, Claude,” said Evelyn, coldly. “I trust such fastidious notions may be laid at rest before your marriage, or poor Miriam, with her warm, affectionate, and unsuspicious nature will be the sufferer. I pity her fate, sincerely.”

“No, Evelyn, you wrong me there; I respect and esteem her far too much ever to wound her feelings. Against this I shall carefully guard. My bargain would be broken, otherwise. It is a clear case of barter and sale, you see. One’s honor is concerned in keeping such an obligation. I shall never be ungrateful.”

“You have European ideas, you tell me,” she said, bitterly; “is this one of them?”

“It is, and the least among them, perhaps; yet it is, nevertheless, hard to overcome positive repulsion.”

There was a pause now, during which I could count every throb of my heart, and throat, and temples my whole frame was transfigured into an anvil, on which a thousand tiny hammers seemed to ring. Yet I could not move, nor speak, nor weep no wretchedness was ever more supreme than this cataleptic seizure. Evelyn was the first to break the transient silence.

“Your path is a plain one, Claude Bainrothe; fulfill your contract, sealed with gold, and bear patiently your selected lot.”

“Evelyn, one word let it be sincere: do you hate and scorn me? Answer me as you would speak to your own soul.”

“No, Claude, no, yet the blow was hard to bear struck, too, as you must reflect, so suddenly! Only the day before abandonment, remember, you had made protestations of such undying constancy. Your conduct was surely inconstant, at least.”

“I make them still, those professions you scorn so deeply.”

“Away, false man, lest the sleeper awaken!”

“You say there is no danger of that, and that in their coffins the dead are not more insensible.”

“To see you kneeling at my feet might bring the dead even to life,” she laughed, contemptuously. “I am sick of this drama; be natural for once. We can both afford to be so now.”

“Do not spurn me, Evelyn! Never was my love for you so wild as now.” I heard him kissing her hands passionately, and his voice, as he spoke these words, was choked with grief.

“O Claude, let my hand go; at least consider appearances. Mrs. Austin will be here in a moment now; what will she think of you? What am I to think of such caprice?”

“One word, then, Evelyn tell me that you forgive me on such conditions I will release your hands.”

“When I forgive you, Claude, I shall be wholly indifferent to you,” she said, gently. “Do you still claim forgiveness? I am not angry, though, take that assurance for all comfort. Then, if you will have it” (and I heard a kiss exchanged), “this confirmation.”

“Then you are not wholly indifferent to me, Evelyn?” he said, in eager tones, “you care for me still a little?”

“A very little, Claude” hesitatingly.

“Say that you love me, Evelyn, just once more I can then die happy.”

“Claude Bainrothe, arise unhand me this is child’s play let me breathe freely again. Well do you know I love you. O God! why do you return to a theme so bitter and profitless to both? Come, let us look together on Miriam sleeping, and gather strength and courage from such contemplation. Come, my friend!”

The curtains were lifted still I lay rigidly and with closed eyelids before them not from any notion of my own, but from the helplessness of my agony and the condition into which I was fast drifting. Once or twice during the progress of this conversation I had tried to lift my voice, my hand both were alike powerless. I lay bound, for a while, in a cataleptic reverie, and then I passed away once more into darkness and syncope.

It was evening when I revived Dr. Pemberton was sitting beside me, holding my pulse Mrs. Austin and Mabel were at the bedside. This was, at last, the end I craved; of all, I hoped.

“The wine, Mrs. Austin,” the doctor said, in low accents.

“Quick! one spoonful instantly. You know how it was before you were too slow; she fell back before she could swallow it. Now another, Miriam. Say, are you better?”

Most anxiously as my eyes opened and were fixed upon his face, were these words spoken:

“No, dying, I believe at least, I hope so!”

The shrieks of the child aroused me to a sense of what I owed myself and her. “You shall not die, sister Miriam,” she cried. “Papa does not want you I want you I will not stay with Evelyn and Claude I will go down in the ground too, if you die. My sister, you shall not go to God! I will hold you tight, if He comes for you. He shall not have my Miriam nor His angels either.”

Her cries did for me what medicine had failed to do. They tried in vain to silence her. My pulse returned under the stimulus of emotion. I put out my hand blindly to Mabel.

“Hush, darling,” I said, “I will live for you if I can ask Dr. Pemberton to save me.”

“You are better, already, Miriam,” he whispered. “Mrs. Austin, take Mabel away until she can be quiet and behave like a lady; her sister is getting well tell her I say so. Call Miss Evelyn here, instantly.”

“No, no!” with an impatient movement of the hand. “Not Evelyn;” again my arm fell nervelessly.

“Well, then, don’t call her, of course. I will stay a while myself; we don’t want anybody at all, Miriam and I, only each other. Go you and make that panada ready, and sent it when I ring. Let Charity bring it, she will do. Keep every one else away.”

His word was law in our household in times of illness, and Mabel’s cries were hushed at once by his assurances, and she was led passively away. She was capable of great self-control on emergencies, like her own dear sainted mamma, who always thought first what was best for others, and afterward for herself, if there was room at all for such latter consideration.

“You must have revived hours ago,” said Dr. Pemberton, after I had rallied sufficiently to prove to him that my crisis was over, and the usual symptoms of returning convalescence had been manifested. “I have marked your seizures narrowly, the periods are perfect have limited them to eighteen hours latterly nay, sometimes to twelve; they used to be four-and-twenty. You were due back again in port, little craft, at nine or ten o’clock this morning.”

“Back again from where, Dr. Pemberton?”

“How should I know, my dear? Some unknown shore Hades, perhaps. Who knows what becomes of the soul when the body is wrapped in stupor or sleep, any more than when it is dead? You came partially to yourself at five this afternoon. I had just come in then, having been unavoidably detained. We administered, or tried to administer, wine but too slowly; you fell back again into unconsciousness drifted off to sea once more; but this last effort of Nature was successful. It is all very mysterious to me. Have you no memory of having revived before?”

“Yes, I was conscious for some time this morning for nearly an hour, I think.”

“At what hour? Who was with you?”

“At ten o’clock. I heard the hall clock strike that hour soon after I opened my eyes. I counted every stroke. There were persons in the room at the time, but no one knew of my recovery of consciousness. I lay as if spellbound. I heard conversation and understood it; I remember every word of it yet I shall ever remember it. But, when they came to me, I was unable to speak or make a sign.”

“Unable, or unwilling? I have said before, Miriam, the will has much to do with all this. It is a sort of magnetic seizure, I sometimes think.”

“Both, perhaps, involuntary; but I certainly did not wish to grow unconscious again.”

“Yet you wanted to die a while ago child, child, there is something wrong here! What is it? Tell me frankly. I heard of the scene with Mr. Stanbury the passionate old man was very unwise to excite you so; he meant well, though, no doubt he always does. What more has occurred? Now, tell me candidly much depends on the truth has any one been unkind?”

“Whatever I say to you, Dr. Pemberton, must be under the pledge of confidence,” I replied; “otherwise I shall keep my own counsel.”

“Surely, Miriam.”

“Well, then, I overheard some one saying, when I revived this morning, that I was epileptic, and it troubled me. Now, I call upon you solemnly to answer me truthfully on this point. Of what character is my disease? speak earnestly.”

“I do not know not epilepsy, certainly; partially nervous, I think one of Nature’s strange safety-valves, I suppose.”

“You would not deceive me?”

“Not under present circumstances, surely; not at any time after such an appeal as yours.”

“Did Dr. Physick ever pronounce my disease epilepsy? You consulted together about it once, I believe. Do tell me the truth about this matter,” laying my hand on his arm.

“Never, so help me God!” he said, earnestly.

“You have relieved me greatly,” I said, pressing my lips on that dear and revered hand which had so often ministered to me and mine in sorest agony a hand spotless as the heart within yet, brown and withered as the leaves of autumn.

“Now you, in turn, must relieve me,” he said, gravely. “Who was it that alleged these things? They were slanders, and deserve to be nailed to the wall, and shall be if power be mine to do so.”

“I cannot tell you. Do not ask me. It was not asserted that you pronounced my disease epilepsy, but insinuated that you thought so. Dr. Physick’s opinion was given to confirm this impression.”

“Have you traitors in your own household, Miriam?” he asked, sternly.

I was silent shedding quiet tears, however.

“I have thought so before,” he said, low, between his set teeth. “But, thank God, you can put your foot on them all before very long! This seems a nice young man you are going to marry, but I never liked his father. I say this frankly to you, child; but, in truth, I have had no sufficient reason for this distaste or prejudice it is no more, I confess. You are very much in their hands for the present, I fear; but I hope they will do you justice.”

“I shall not marry Claude Bainrothe,” I rejoined at last, firmly. “Let this be perfectly understood between us two, Dr. Pemberton. That marriage will never take place!”

“Why, your own father told me you were engaged in October last!”

“I have changed my mind since then. Understand me, I admire Mr. Bainrothe for many qualities I am attached to him even; and he is infinitely to be pitied for some reasons, certainly; but marry him I never will!”

“And this is your resolution?”

“It is. But, on second thoughts, I will ask you to keep your knowledge of it strictly to yourself. I cannot tell you my motives of action now, but they are good.”

“Miriam, you must not ask me to be your confederate in any scheme of coquetry or caprice such as this concealment points to. You must deal with this young man openly no double dealings, my child, or I shall come to the rescue.”

“Have you ever known me to play fast and loose, Dr. Pemberton? Is that my characteristic? Ask Mr. Gerald Stanbury ask all who know me if I have ever been guilty of deceit, or time-serving, or caprice, or perfidy. No, Dr. Pemberton, it is on his own account solely that I wish to keep this matter quiet for the present. Should he wish to proclaim it, I surely shall not object. But I seek only to shield him from mortification, from reproach, in the line of conduct that I am adopting best for both.”

“And to give yourself margin for a change of mind again little fox! Ah, Miriam, it is the old story a lovers’ quarrel! I understand it all perfectly now. Don’t be too hard on the young fellow; he seemed very much in love. Relent in time; he will value your mercy more than your justice, perhaps.”

“Have you ever seen us together, that you pronounce him very much in love?” I asked, in a hard, cold, subdued voice that startled my own ear, and made him serious at once.

“Never. But he wears the absent, dreamy air of a lover; even when alone it is noticeable, Miriam. I can always tell when a man is preoccupied in that way.”

“If you could go a little further, and divine the object of such preoccupation, you would be better prepared to counsel me, dear friend. He is no lover of mine, I assure you!”

“Ah, the old story again, Miriam! Have patience, my dear child.” And, strong in his belief that my change of resolution arose only from pique and jealousy, that would soon be over, the good doctor went his way, all the more ready to keep my secret for such conviction.

I passed a miserable night. The great bed seemed to inclose me like a sepulchre, which yet I was too feeble, too irresolute, to leave. The conversation I had heard seemed stereotyped on plates of brass, that rang like cymbals in my ears. Toward morning I slept. I dreamed that mamma came to me, and said, in tones so natural that they seemed to sound in my ears after I had awakened:

“Miriam, your mother and father have sent me to say to you that they are united and happy. I, too, have found my mate at last. It was for this I was called. The sea has given up its dead, and I am blessed. Now, dearest, Mabel is all yours;” and then she kissed me.

I woke with that kiss upon my cheek.

The brief and distinct vision made a deep impression on me. I awoke refreshed and strengthened, as from a magnetic slumber.

At first, a sense of joy alone possessed me, but soon the great bitter burden came rolling back upon my soul, like the stone of Sisyphus, which my sleeping soul had heaved away.

It is a beautiful law of our being, that we rarely dream of that which occupies and troubles us most in the daytime. Compensation is carried out in this way, as in many others, insensibly, and the balance of thought kept equal. I have heard persons complain frequently that they could not dream of their dead, with whom their waking thoughts were ever filled. But madness must have been the consequence, had there been no repose for the mind from one engrossing image.

Relaxation comes to us in dreams at times when the brain needs it most, and to lose the consciousness of a sorrow is to cast off its burden for a time, and gain new strength to bear it.

I thought, when I first arose from my bed, that I would write to Claude Bainrothe, and thus save myself the trial of an interview. But the necessity of secrecy, in the commencement at least of the rupture, on his own account, presented itself too forcibly to my mind to permit me such self-indulgence. I felt assured in the first bitterness of feeling, that he would lay my letters before Evelyn, from whom I especially wished, for household peace, to preserve the knowledge of what had passed in my chamber between herself and him.

I had no wish either to mortify or wound the man I had loved so tenderly, but from whom I felt now wholly severed, as though the shadow of a grave had intervened between us.

Never again, never, could he be more to me than a memory, a regret.

Glaring faults, impulsive offenses, crime even it may be, I could have forgiven, so long as his allegiance had been mine, and his affection proof against change, but coldness, perfidy, loathing, such as he had avowed, these could never be redeemed in any way, nor considered other than they were, insuperable objections to our honorable union.

My heart recoiled from him so utterly, that I could conceive of no fate more bitter than to be compelled again to receive his profession of affection, his lover-like caresses; yet, in recoiling, it had been bruised against its prison-bars, bruised and crushed like a bird that seeks refuge in the farthest limits of its cage from an approaching foe, and suffers almost as severely as if given to its fangs.

I determined, after mature consideration, to see him once again, privately, and beyond the range of all foreign observation and hearing. In order to do this, I might have to wait, and in the mean time how should I deport myself, how conceal my change of feeling from his observant eyes?

I was relieved by an unlooked-for contingency. Evelyn announced her intention of going, as soon as I should be able to spare her, with a party of young friends, to hear a celebrated singer perform in an oratorio in the cathedral of an adjacent city, her specialty being vocal music, and her mourning permitting only sacred concerts. Her own highly-cultivated voice, it is true, had ill repaid the care that had been lavished on it, sharp and thin as it was by nature. I urged her to set forth at once, declaring myself convalescent, but I did not leave my room, nor see Claude Bainrothe, save for five minutes in her presence, until after she had gone. Then I was at liberty to work my will.

I wrote on the very evening of her departure, requesting him to defer his accustomed visit, until the next morning, when I hoped to have an hour’s private conversation with him in the library, a room most dear to me, once as the chosen haunt of my father, but shunned of late as vault-like and melancholy, now that his ever-welcome and dear presence was removed from it forever.

Punctual as the hand to the hour or the dial to the sun, Claude Bainrothe came at the time I had appointed, and I was there to meet him, nerved and calm as a spirit of the past, in that great quiet sarcophagus of books at least, I so deceived myself to believe. I had made up my mind, during the time I had been sitting alone in that sombre room, as to what I would say to him, and how clearly and concisely I would array my wrongs in words, and pronounce his sentence. But, when he came, all this was forgotten. A tumult of wild feeling surged through my brain. My very tongue grew icy, and trembled in my mouth. My eyes were dimmed, and my forehead was cold and rigid. I was silent from emotion. I felt like a dying wretch.

“You are very pale, Miriam,” he said, as he advanced to me with outstretched hands, and wearing that beaming, candid, devoted look he knew so well how to assume; “are you sure you are not going to be ill again, my love? You must be careful of yourself, my own darling; you must indeed, for my sake, if not your own.”

I was strengthened now to speak, by the indignation that possessed me, at his perfidious words, his wholly artificial manner, which broke on me as suddenly and as glaringly on the eye as rouge will do on a woman’s cheek in sunshine, which we have thought real bloom in shadow. I wondered then, how I ever could have been deceived. I wonder less now.

“Sit down, Mr. Bainrothe,” I said, coldly, withdrawing my hands quietly from his grasp, and recovering with my composure my strength. “Do not concern yourself about my health, I beg. It is quite good just now, and will probably remain so for some time. My spells occur at distant intervals.”

“I know how that is, or has been; but we must try to break them up altogether. We will go to Paris next year, and have the best advice; in the mean time Dr. Pemberton must try some new remedy for you, or call in counsel. On this point I am quite determined.”

“I am satisfied that Dr. Pemberton, who understands my constitution thoroughly, is my best adviser. I shall decline all other medical aid,” I replied. “Nature is on my side I am young, vigorous, growing still, probably, in strength, and shall fling off my malady eventually, as a strong man casts a serpent from his thigh. I have little fear on that score. Nor do I think, with some others, that my disease is epilepsy; though, if it were, God knows I should have little need for shame.”

“Miriam, what an idea! Epilepsy, indeed!” He was very nervous now, I saw. “Epilepsy, indeed!” he faltered again.

“As to those scars, Claude,” I said, fixing my eyes upon him, “they were honorably earned in my sister’s service. Your father knows the details, which I spare your fastidious ear. I cannot wonder, however, that they shocked you, with your previous feelings to me. I do not like to look upon them myself, yet I have never felt them a humiliation until now.” I knew that my forehead flushed hotly as I proceeded, and my lips trembled. The reaction was complete.

“Miriam, what does all this mean?” he asked, rising suddenly from his seat as pale as ashes, and clinging to the mantel-shelf for support as he did so.

“It means, Claude Bainrothe,” I said, firmly, “it means simply this: that our engagement is at an end; that you are free from all claims of mine from this moment, and that henceforth we can only meet as friends or strangers as the first, I trust!” I stretched forth my hand toward him kindly, irresistibly. He did not seem to notice it.

“Who has done this?” he asked, huskily. “Evelyn? This is her work, I feel; a piece of her bitter vengeance! Tell me the truth, Miriam who has done this devil’s mischief?”

He suffered greatly, I saw was terribly excited.

“So far from your surmise being just, Claude, I enjoin upon you, as a man of honor, never to let her know the subject of this conference, in which she has had no voluntary part. Placed as I am by my father’s will, which I never will gainsay, however bitter it may be to me; bound hand and foot; indeed, in her power by its decisions for a term of years, her knowledge of the fact that I had overheard her conversation with you in my chamber when I lay stricken, helpless, if not unconscious (an unwilling listener, I assure you, Claude, to every word you uttered), would be a cause of endless misery to me and her. No, Evelyn has told me nothing, believe me.”

He staggered back from the mantel to his chair, sat down again helplessly, and covered his face with his hands. The blush of shame mounted above his fingers and crimsoned the very roots of his silken hair. He trembled visibly.

O God! how I pitied him then! Self sank out of sight at that moment, and I thought only of his confusion. Had I obeyed my impulse, I would have cast my arms about his neck as about a brother’s, and whispered, to that stormy nature, “Peace, be still!” But I refrained from a manifestation that might have deceived him utterly as to its source. I only said:

“I am very sorry, Claude, for all this; but bear it like a man. Believe me, no one shall ever know the occasion of this rupture the management of which I leave entirely in your hands. Of what I overheard I shall never speak, I promise you, even though sorely pressed for my reasons for our separation. My own pride would prevent such a revelation, you know, putting principle aside.” And again I extended my hand to him frankly, with the words, “Let us be friends.”

He had glanced up a moment while I was speaking, evidently relieved by my voluntary promise. He took my hand humbly now, and reverently kissed it, bowing his head above it long and mutely.

“My poor, outraged, offended, noble Miriam!” I heard him murmur at last. The words affected me.

“I am all these, Claude,” I said, withdrawing my hand gently but firmly, “but none the less your friend, if you will have it so. And now let us think what will be best for you to do. I wish to spare your feelings as much as possible, and I will say all I can with truth to exonerate you in your father’s eyes. Go to Copenhagen, as you proposed at one time to do, and leave the rest to me. That will be best, I think.”

“To Copenhagen!” he exclaimed. “You issue thus coldly your edict of banishment! Are you implacable then, Miriam?” and the cold dew stood in beads on his now pallid brow as he rose before me. He had not fully realized his situation until now.

“‘Implacable’ is scarcely the word for this occasion, Claude. It implies anger or hatred, it seems to me. Now, I feel neither of these only the truest sympathy.”

“Your anger, your hatred, were far more welcome, Miriam more natural under the circumstances. This cool philosophy in one so young is monstrous! Mock me no longer with your calm compassion it maddens me it sinks me below contempt!”

He spoke gloomily, angrily, pushing away the clustering hair from his brow in the way peculiar to him when excited, as he proceeded, stamping slightly with his foot on the marble hearthstone in his impotent way. I could but smile!

“I will not offend you further, Claude,” I said, mildly. “Receive your ring;” and I gave him back the diamond cross on a black enamel ground set on its circle of gold that he had placed upon my finger as a pledge of our betrothal; an ominous one, surely for another cross was now to be borne.

“Understand me distinctly, Claude, all is finally at an end between us from this forever more! And now, farewell!”

“Go, Miriam, go!” he murmured. “Leave me to my fate I have deserved it all, and more. I have been weak and wicked you shall not find me ungrateful. Go, queenly spirit! go, soul of tenderness, pity, and most unselfish faith, that ever folded its wings in human breast! go, and find a fitter mate! For me, the world is wide, I shall offend your gaze no more.”

Without another word I left him. I could not trust myself to speak. Too much of the past returned to render any further intercourse between us wise, or other than torture at that season. Besides, my confidence in him was gone forever, and with it had vanished respect, esteem, affection!