“Mother, mother, up in heaven!
Stand upon the jasper sea
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me;
Hope that blessed me, bliss that crowned,
Love that left me with a wound,
Life itself that turned around.”
—MRS. BROWNING.
An evil fatality seemed to attend all events connected with Margaret Helmstedt. The letter mailed at midnight night, by being one minute too late for the post, was delayed a whole week, and until it could do no manner of good.
The little packet schooner, Canvas Back, Captain Miles Tawney, from Washington to Norfolk, on board which Ralph Houston, the next morning, embarked, when but thirty-six hours out got aground below Blackstone’s Island, where she remained fast for a week.
And thus it unhappily chanced that Major Helmstedt, who reached Washington, on his way home, a few days after the departure of the Houstons from the city, and took passage in the first packet for Buzzard’s Bluff, arrived thither the first of the returning soldiers.
Having no knowledge or suspicion of the important events that had occurred, he caused himself and his baggage to be landed upon the beach, below the mansion, in which he naturally expected to find his daughter dwelling in honor and security.
Leaving his trunks in charge of a loitering negro—whom he had found upon the sands, and who, to his hasty inquiries, had answered that all the family were well—he hurried up to the house.
He was met at the door by a servant, who, with ominous formality, ushered him into the parlor, and retreated to call his mistress.
Mrs. Houston soon entered, with a pale face, trembling frame, and a half-frightened, half-threatening aspect, that greatly surprised and perplexed Major Helmstedt, who however, arose with stately courtesy to receive and hand the lady to a chair.
After respectfully saluting and seating his hostess, he said:
“My daughter Margaret, madam—I hope she is well?”
“Well, I am sure I hope so, too; but Margaret is not with us!” replied the little lady, looking more frightened and more threatening than before.
“How, madam, Margaret not with you?” exclaimed Major Helmstedt, in astonishment, that was not free from alarm.
“No, sir. You must listen to me, major—it could not be helped,” replied Nellie, who straightway began, and with a manner half-deprecating and half-defiant, related the story of Margaret’s indiscretions, humiliations, and final expulsion.
Major Helmstedt listened with a mighty self-control. No muscle of his iron countenance moved. When she had concluded, he arose, with a cold and haughty manner.
“Slanders, madam—slanders all! I can say no more to a lady, however unworthy of the courtesy due to her sex. But I shall know how to call the men of her family to a strict account for this insult.” And, throwing his hat upon his head, he strode from the room.
“Major Helmstedt—Major Helmstedt! Come back, sir. Don’t go; you must please to listen to me,” cried Nellie, running after him, the principle of fear now quite predominating over that of defiance.
But the outraged father, without deigning a word or look of reply, hurried onward toward the beach.
Nellie, in great alarm, dispatched a servant in haste after him, to beseech him, in her name, to return and stay to dinner—or, if he would not honor her so far, at least to accept the use of a carriage, or a boat, to convey him whithersoever he wished to go.
But Major Helmstedt, with arrogant scorn, repulsed all these offers. Throwing a half guinea to the negro to take temporary charge of his trunks, he strode on his way, following the windings of the waterside road for many miles, until late in the afternoon he reached Belleview, whence he intended to take a boat to the island.
His cause of indignation was reasonable, and his rage increased with time and reflection. That Margaret had been foully wronged by the Houstons he from his deepest convictions believed. That the charges brought against her had the slightest foundation in fact, he could not for a moment credit. All his own intimate knowledge of his pure-hearted child, from her earliest infancy to the day when he left her in Mrs. Houston’s care, conclusively contradicted these calumnies. But that, for some reason or other, unconfessed, the Houstons wished to break off the contemplated alliance with his family he felt assured. And that his daughter’s betrothed was in correspondence with Mrs. Houston, and in connivance with her plans, he had been left to believe, by the incoherence, if not by the intentional misrepresentations, of Nellie’s statement. That they should wish, without just cause, to break the engagement with his daughter, was both dishonorable and dishonoring—that they should attempt this through such means, was scandalous and insulting to the last degree. That Ralph Houston should be either an active or a passive party to this plan, was an offense only to be satisfied by the blood of the offender. His pride in an old, untainted name, not less than his affection for his only daughter, was wounded to the very quick.
There seemed but one remedy—it was to be found only in “the bloody code,” miscalled “of honor”—the code which required a man to wash out any real or fancied offense in the life-stream of the offender; the code which often made an honorable man responsible, with his life, for careless words uttered by the women of his family; that code which now enjoined Philip Helmstedt to seek the life of his daughter’s betrothed, his intended son-in-law, his brother-in-arms. Nor was this all. The feeling that prompted Major Helmstedt was not only that of an affronted gentleman, who deems it necessary to defend in the duel his assailed manhood—it was much more—it was the blood-thirsty rage of a scornful and arrogant man, whose honor had been wounded in the most vulnerable place, through the only woman of his name, his one fair daughter, who had been by her betrothed and his family rejected, insulted, and expelled from their house, branded with indelible shame.
“Ralph Houston must die!”
He said it with remorseless resolution, with grim satisfaction, and in his heart devoted the souls of his purposed victim and all his family to the infernal deities.
In this evil mood, and in an evil hour, Major Helmstedt unhappily arrived at Belleview, and, still more unhappily, there met Ralph, who, in pursuance of his vow never to set foot upon Buzzard’s Bluff again, had that morning landed at the village, with the intention there to engage a boat to take him to Helmstedt’s Island, whither he was going to seek Margaret.
It was in the principal street of the village, and before the only hotel that they chanced to meet.
Ralph advanced with eager joy to greet his father-in-law.
But Major Helmstedt’s mad and blind rage forestalled and rendered impossible all friendly words or explanations.
How he assailed and insulted Ralph Houston; how he hurled bitter scorn, taunt, and defiance in his teeth how in the presence of the gathering crowd, he charged falsehood, treachery, and cowardice upon him; how, to cap the climax of insult, the infuriate pulled off his glove and cast it sharply into the face of the young man; how, in short, he irremediably forced upon Ralph a quarrel, which the latter was, upon all accounts, most unwilling to take up, would be as painful, as needless, to detail at large.
Suffice it to say, that the circumstances of the case, and the public sentiment of the day considered, he left the young soldier, as a man of honor, no possible alternative but to accept his challenge.
“‘Needs must when the devil drives;’ and, as there is no honorable means of avoiding, I must meet this madman and receive his shot. I am not, however, obliged to return it. No code of honor can compel me to fire upon my Margaret’s father,” thought Ralph. Then aloud he said:
“Very well, sir; my brother Frank has doubtless by this time reached home, and will, with any friend whom you may appoint, arrange the terms of the meeting;” and, lifting his hat, Ralph Houston, “more in sorrow than in anger,” turned away.
“There is no honorable way of escaping it, Frank, else be sure that I should not give him this meeting. As it is, I must receive his fire; but, so help me Heaven; nothing shall induce me to return it,” said Captain Houston, as he talked over the matter with his brother that evening in the private parlor of the little inn at Belleview.
“Then, without a thought of defending yourself, you will stand up as a mark to be shot at by the best marksman in the country? You will be murdered! just simply murdered!” replied the younger man, in sorrow and disgust.
“There is no help for it, Frank. I must meet him, must receive his fire, and will not return it!”
“You will fall,” said the youth, in a voice of despair.
“Probably. And if I do, Frank, go to my dearest Margaret and bear to her my last words. Tell her that I never so sinned against our mutual faith as for one instant to doubt her perfect purity; tell her that I was on my way to take her to my heart, to give her my name and to defend her against the world, when this fatal quarrel was forced upon me; tell her that I never fired upon her father, but that I died with her name upon my lips and her love within my heart. If I fall, as I probably shall, will you tell my widowed bride this?”
“I will! I will!” exclaimed Frank, in a voice of deep emotion.
Meanwhile the innocent and most unhappy cause of the impending duel had passed a miserable week on the solitary island, in dread anticipation of her father’s and her lover’s return, and with no one near her to breathe one hopeful, comforting, or sustaining word to her fainting heart.
It was late on the evening of the day of her father’s arrival that she sat alone on the front piazza of her solitary dwelling, wrapped in despairing thought, yet with every nerve acute with involuntary vigilance, when, amid the low, musical semi-silence of the autumnal night, the sound of a boat, pushed gratingly up upon the gravelly beach, reached her listening ear.
And while she still watched and waited in breathless anxiety, she perceived by the clear starlight the tall figure of a man, dressed in the blue and buff uniform of an American officer, and in whose stature, air, and gait she recognized her father, approaching the house.
In joy, but still more in fear, she arose and hurried to meet him. But so terrible was the trouble of her mind and the agitation of her frame, that she could scarcely falter forth her inaudible words of welcome before she sank exhausted in his arms.
In silence the soldier lifted her up, noticing even then how very light was her wasted frame; in silence he kissed her cold lips, and bore her onward to the house, and into her mother’s favorite parlor which was already lighted up, and where he placed her in an easy-chair. She sank back half fainting, while he stood and looked upon her, and saw how changed she was.
Her attenuated form, her emaciated face, with its cavernous eyes, hollow cheeks and temples, and pallid forehead, in fearful contrast with her flowing black locks and mourning dress, gave her the appearance of a girl in the very last stage of consumption. Yet this was the work only of calumny, persecution, and abandonment.
Some one should write a book on Unindicted Homicides.
While Major Helmstedt gazed in bitterness of heart upon this beautiful wreck of his fair, only daughter, she fixed her despairing eyes upon him, and said:
“My father, do you wonder to find me here!”
For answer, he stooped and kissed her forehead.
“Father, my heart bleeds for you. This is a sorrowful welcome home for the returning soldier.”
“Trouble not yourself about me, my child. Your own wrongs are enough, and more than enough, to engage your thoughts. I know those wrongs, and, by the soul of your mother, they shall be terribly avenged!” said Major Helmstedt, in a low, deep, stern voice of relentless determination.
“Father, oh, God! what do you mean?” exclaimed Margaret, in alarm.
“I mean, my much injured child, that every tear they have caused you to shed, shall be balanced by a drop of heart’s blood, though it should drain the veins of all who bear the name of Houston!”
“Oh, Heaven of heavens, my father!” cried Margaret, wringing her pale hands in the extremity of terror. Then suddenly catching the first hope that came, she said:
“But you cannot war upon women.”
“Upon all men that bear the name of Houston, then! Yet did not they spare to war upon women—or rather worse, upon one poor, defenseless girl! Enough! they shall bitterly repay it!”
“But father! my father! it was not the men; they were ever kind to me. It was the women of the family, and even they were deceived by appearances,” pleaded Margaret.
“It is you who are deceived! Mrs. Houston acted in concert with her husband and his son!”
“Ralph? never, never, my father. My life, my soul, upon Ralph’s fidelity!” exclaimed Margaret, as a warm glow of loving faith flowed into and transfigured to angelic beauty her pale face.
“Miss Helmstedt, you are a fond and foolish girl, with all your sex’s weak credulity. It is precisely Ralph Houston whom I shall hold to be the most responsible party in this affair!”
“Oh! my God!”
These words were wailed forth in such a tone of utter despair, and were accompanied by such a sudden blanching and sharpening of all her features, that Major Helmstedt in his turn became alarmed, and with what diplomacy he was master of, endeavored to modify the impression that he had given. But his palpable efforts only confirmed Margaret in her suspicion that he intended to challenge Ralph, and made her more wary and watchful to ascertain if this really were his purpose, so that, if possible, she might prevent this meeting. That the challenge had been already given she did not even suspect.
But from this moment the father and daughter were secretly arrayed against each other; he to conceal from her the impending duel; she to discover and prevent the meeting. And while he talked to her with a view of gradually doing away the impression that his first violent words had made upon her mind, she watched his countenance narrowly, keeping the while her own counsel. But it was not entirely the wish to conceal her own anguish of doubt and anxiety, but affectionate interest in him, that caused her at length to say:
“But, my dear father, you are just off a long, harassing journey; you are, indeed, greatly exhausted; your countenance is quite haggard; you are needing rest and refreshment. Let me go now and give the orders, while you occupy my sofa. Say, what shall I bring you, dear father?”
“Nothing, nothing, Margaret; I cannot——” began Major Helmstedt; but then suddenly reflecting, he said: “Yes, you may send me up a cup of coffee, and any trifle with it that may be at hand. No, I thank you, Margaret, you need not draw the sofa forward. I am going to my study, where I have letters to write. Send the refreshments thither. And send—let me see—yes! send Forrest to me.”
“Very well, my dear father,” replied the maiden, leaving the room. “‘Letters to write!’ ‘letters to write!’ and ‘send Forrest.’ So late at night, and just as he has returned home, oh, my soul!” she cried, within herself, as she went into the kitchen to give her orders.
When the tray was ready, Forrest was told to take it up to his master’s study.
Margaret, after a little hesitation, drawn by her strong anxiety, followed, her light footsteps on the stairs and through the hall waking no echo. As she approached the door of her father’s study, she heard the words:
“Forrest, take this case of pistols downstairs and thoroughly clean them; let no one see what you are about. Then have a boat—the soundest in the fleet—ready to take me to the landing below the burial ground, at Plover’s Point. Do you prepare to go with me, and—listen farther. At about daybreak to-morrow, a gentleman will arrive hither. Be on the watch, and quietly bring him to this room. Have breakfast served for us here, and the boat ready for our departure when we rise from the table. And mind, execute all these orders in strict privacy, and breathe no word of their purport to any living creature. Do you understand?”
“I think I do, sir,” replied the astonished negro, who imperfectly comprehended the affair.
Margaret knew all now. Her father had challenged her betrothed. The only two beings whom she loved supremely on this earth, were in a few hours hence to meet in mortal combat.
With a heart that seemed paralyzed within her suffocating bosom, she crept, reeling, to her own chamber, and with the habitual instinct of soliciting Divine counsel and assistance, she sank upon her knees beside the bed. But no petition escaped her icy lips, or even took the form of words in her paralyzed brain; her intellect seemed frozen with horror; and her only form of prayer was the eloquent, mute attitude, and the intense yearning of the suffering heart after the All Merciful’s help and pity. She remained many minutes in this posture of silent prayer, before the power of reflection and of language returned to her, and even then her only cry was:
“Oh, God of pity, have mercy on them! Oh, God of strength, help and save!”
Then still looking to the Lord for guidance, she tried to think what was best to be done. It was now ten o’clock. Day would break at four. There were but six hours of a night to do all, if anything could be done. But what, indeed, could she do? Cut off by the bay from all the rest of the world, and with fifteen miles of water between herself and the nearest magistrate, what could the miserable maiden do to prevent this duel between her father and her lover? To a religious heart filled to overflowing with love and grief, and resolved upon risking everything for the safety of the beloved, almost all things are possible. Her first resolution was the nearly hopeless one of going to her father and beseeching him to abandon his purpose. And if that failed, she had in reverse a final, almost desperate determination. But there was not a moment to be lost.
Still mentally invoking Divine aid, she arose and went to the door of her father’s study. It was closed; but turning the latch very softly, she entered unperceived.
Major Helmstedt sat at his table, so deeply absorbed in writing as not to be conscious of her presence, although his face was toward the door. That face was haggard with care, and those keen, strong eyes that followed the rapid gliding of his pen over the paper were strained with anxiety. So profound was his absorption in his work that the candles remained unsnuffed and burning with a murky and lurid light, and the cup of coffee on his table sat cold and untouched.
Margaret approached and looked over his shoulder.
It was his last will and testament that he was engaged in preparing.
The sight thrilled his daughter with a new horror. Meekly she crept to his side and softly laid her hand upon his shoulder, and gently murmured:
“Father, my dear father!”
He looked up suddenly, and in some confusion.
“What, Margo! not asleep yet, my girl? This is a late hour for young eyes to be open. And yet I am glad that you came to bid me good-night before retiring. It was affectionate of you, Margo,” he said, laying down his pen, putting a blotter over his writing, and then drawing her to his side in a close embrace—“yes, it was affectionate of you, Margo; but ah, little one, no daughter loves as a true wife does. I have been thinking of your mother, dear.”
“Think of her still, my father,” replied the maiden, in a voice of thrilling solemnity.
Major Helmstedt’s countenance changed, but, controlling himself, he pressed a kiss upon his daughter’s brow, and said:
“Well, well, I will not keep you up. God bless you, my child, though I cannot. Good-night!” and with another kiss he would have dismissed her. But, softly laying her hand upon his right hand, she asked, in a voice thrilling with earnestness:
“Oh, my father, what is this that you are about to do?”
“Margaret, no prying into my private affairs—I will not suffer it!” exclaimed Major Helmstedt, in disturbed voice.
“My father, there is no need of prying; I know all! Providence, for His good purposes, has given the knowledge into my hands. Oh, did you think that He would permit this terrible thing to go on uninterruptedly to its bloody termination?”
“What mean you, girl?”
“Father, forgive me; but I overheard and understood your orders to Forrest.”
“By my soul, Margaret, this is perfectly insufferable!” exclaimed Major Helmstedt, starting up, and then sinking back into his chair.
But softly and suddenly Margaret dropped at his feet, clasped his knees, and in a voice freighted with her heart’s insupportable anguish, cried:
“Father! my father! hear me! hear me! hear your own lost Marguerite’s heartbroken child, and do not make her orphaned and widowed in one hour!”
“Orphaned and widowed in one hour!”
“Yes, yes, and most cruelly so, by the mutual act of her father and her husband.”
“By her father and husband?”
“Yes, yes. Am I not Ralph Houston’s promised, sworn wife? Oh, my father!”
“Death, girl! You call yourself his promised wife; you pray me to stay my hand, nor avenge your wrongs, nor vindicate my own honor; you who have been calumniated, insulted, and expelled from his house?”
“Not by him, father! not with his knowledge or consent! Oh, never! never! My life, my soul, upon his stainless faith!”
“My daughter, rise and leave, I command you,” said Major Helmstedt, giving his hand to assist her.
But she clung to his knees and groveled at his feet, crying:
“Father! father! pardon and hear me; hear me for my dead mother’s sake! hear your Marguerite’s orphan girl! do not make her a widow before she is a wife! My father, do not, oh, do not meet my betrothed in a duel! He was your oldest friend, your brother-in-arms, your promised son; he has stood by your side in many a well-fought battle; in camp and field you two have shared together the dangers and glories of the war. How can you meet as mortal foes? Crowned with victory, blessed with peace, you were both coming home—you to your only daughter, he to his promised bride—both to a devoted girl, who would have laid out her life to make your mutual fireside happy; but whose heart you are about to break! Oh, how can you do this most cruel deed? Oh! it is so horrible! so horrible, that you two should thus meet. Dueling is wicked, but this is worse than dueling! Murder is atrocious, but this is worse than murder! This is parricide! this is the meeting of a father and son, armed each against the other’s life! A father and a son!”
“Son! no son or son-in-law of mine, if that is what you mean.”
“Father, father, do not say so! He is the sworn husband of your only child. My hand, with your consent, was placed in his by my dying mother’s hand. He clasped my fingers closely, promising never to forsake me! A promise made to the living in the presence of the dying! A promise that he has never retracted, and wishes never to retract. My soul’s salvation upon Ralph Houston’s honor!”
“Margaret Helmstedt! put the last seal to my mortification, and tell me that you love this man—this man whose family has spurned you!”
“I love him—for life, and death, and eternity!” she replied, in a tone vibrating with earnestness.
“You speak your own degradation, miserable girl.”
“This is no time, Heaven knows, for the cowardice of girlish shame. Father, I love him! For three long years I have believed myself his destined wife. Long before our betrothal, as far back, or farther, perhaps, than memory reaches, I loved him, and knew that he loved me, and felt that in some strange way I belonged finally to him. Long, long before I ever heard of courtship, betrothal, or marriage, I felt in my deepest heart—and knew he felt it too—that Ralph was my final proprietor and prince, that I, at last and forever, was his own little Margaret—ay! as your Marguerite was yours, my father. And always and ever, in all the changes of our life, in joy and in sorrow, in presence and in absence, I seemed to repose sweetly in his heart as a little bird in its nest, loving him too quietly and securely to know how deeply and strongly. But oh, my father, it has remained for the anguish of this day to teach me how, above all creatures, I love my promised husband, even as my mother loved hers. The blow that reaches Ralph’s heart would break my own. Father, I can conceive this globe upon which we live, with all its seas and continents, its mountains, plains and cities, its whole teeming life, collapsing and sinking out of sight through space, and yet myself continuing to live, somewhere, in some sphere of being; but, my father, I cannot conceive of Ralph’s death and my own continued life, anywhere, as possible! for there, at that point, all sinks into darkness, chaos, annihilation! Swift madness or death would follow his loss! Oh, my father, say, is he not my husband? Oh, my father, will you make your child a widow, a widow by her father’s hand?”
“Margaret, this is the very infatuation of passion!”
“Passion! Well, since grief and terror and despair have made my bosom so stormy, you may call it so! else never should my lifelong, quiet, contented attachment to Ralph be termed a passion, as if it were the feverish caprice of yesterday. But oh, Heaven! all this time you are not answering me. You do not promise that you will not meet him. Father, I cannot die of grief, else had I long since been lying beside your other Marguerite! But I feel that I may go mad, and that soon. Already reason reels with dwelling on this impending duel! with the thought that a few hours hence——! Father, if you would not have your Marguerite’s child go mad, curse the author of her being, and lay desperate hands upon her own life, forgo this duel! do not make her a widowed bride!”
“Wretched girl, it were better that you were dead, for come what may, Margaret, honor must be saved.”
“Then you will kill him! My father will kill my husband!”
“Why do you harp upon this subject forever? Shall I not equally risk my own life?”
“No, no, no! he will never risk hurting a hair of your head. My life and soul upon it, he will fire into the air! I know and feel what he will do, here, deep in my heart. I know and feel what has been done. Father, you met him in your blind rage, you gave him no chance of explanation, but goaded and taunted, and drove him to the point of accepting your challenge. You will meet him, you will murder him! and I, oh, I shall go mad, and curse the father that gave me life, and him death!” she said, starting up and wildly traversing the floor.
“‘Still waters run deep!’ Who would have supposed this quiet maiden had inherited all Marguerite De Lancie’s strength of feeling?” thought Major Helmstedt, as in a deep trouble he watched his daughter’s distracted walk.
Suddenly, as that latent and final resolution, before mentioned, recurred to her mind, she paused, and came up to her father’s side, and said:
“Father, this thing must go no farther!”
“What mean you, Margaret?”
“This duel must not take place.”
“What absurdity—it must come off! Let all be lost so honor is saved!”
“Then listen well to me, my father,” she said, in the long, deep, quiet tone of fixed determination; “this duel shall not take place!”
“Girl, you are mad. ‘Shall not?’”
“Shall not, my father!”
“What preposterous absurdity! Who will prevent it?”
“I will!”
“You! Come, that is best of all. How do you propose to do it, fair daughter?”
“I shall lay the whole matter before the nearest magistrate!”
“Poor girl, if I did not pity you so deeply, I should smile at your folly. Why, Margaret, the nearest magistrate is fifteen miles off. It is now eleven o’clock at night, and the proposed meeting takes place at five in the morning!”
“Then the more reason for haste, my father, to save you from a crime. I will order a boat and depart immediately,” said Margaret, going to the bell-rope and giving it a sudden peremptory pull.
“Oh, then I see that this will not do. You are desperate, you are dangerous, you must be restrained,” said Major Helmstedt, rising and approaching his daughter.
“Father, what mean you now? You would not—you, a gentleman, an officer, would not lay violent hands on your daughter?” she said, shrinking away in amazement.
“In an exigency of this kind my daughter leaves me no alternative.”
“No, no! You would not use force to hinder me in the discharge of a sacred duty?”
“Margaret, no more words. Come to your room,” he said, taking her by the arm, and with gentle force conducting her to the door of her own chamber, in which he locked her securely.
Knowing resistance to be both vain and unbecoming, Margaret had, for the time, quietly submitted. She remained sitting motionless in the chair in which he had placed her, until she heard his retreating footsteps pause at the door of his study, and heard him enter and lock the door behind him.
Then she arose and stepped lightly over the carpeted floor, and looked from the front window out upon the night.
A dark, brilliant starlight night, with a fresh wind that swayed the branches of the trees.
Almost omnipotent is the religious heart; willing to sink all things for the salvation of the beloved.
The means of escape, and of preventing the duel, were quickly devised by her suggestive mind. Her chamber was on the second floor front. A grape vine of nearly twenty years’ growth reached her window, and climbed up its side and over its top. The intertwined and knotted branches, thick as a man’s wrist, and strong as a cable, presented a means of descent safe and easy as that of a staircase. And once free of the house, the course of the brave girl was clear.
There was no time to be lost. It was now half-past eleven o’clock. The household, except her father and the servant whom he had ordered to watch with him, was wrapped in sleep. Her father she knew to be deeply engaged in writing his will in the study. Forrest she supposed to be employed in cleaning the pistols in the back kitchen.
There was nothing then to interrupt her escape but the dogs, who before recognizing would surely break out upon her. But there was little to dread from that circumstance. The barking of the dogs was no unusual event of the night. Any noise in nature, the footstep of a negro walking out, the spring of a startled squirrel, the falling of a nut or a pine cone, was frequently enough to arouse their jealous vigilance, and provoke a canine concert. Only when the barking was very prolonged was attention usually aroused. Of this contingency there was no danger. They would probably break out in a furious onslaught, recognize her and be still.
But there was another serious difficulty. Margaret was very feeble; weeks of mental anguish, with the consequent loss of appetite and loss of sleep, had so exhausted her physical nature that not all the proverbial power of the mind over the body, the spirit over the flesh, could impart to her sufficient strength for an undertaking, that, in her stronger days, would have taxed her energies to the utmost. A restorative was absolutely necessary. A few drops of distilled lavender water—a favorite country cordial—gave her a fictitious strength.
Then tying on her black velvet hood, and her short black camlet riding cloak, she prepared to depart. First, she bolted the door on the inside that her father might not enter her room to ascertain her absence. Then she softly hoisted the window, and with perfect ease crossed the low sill and stepped upon the friendly vine, where she remained standing while she let down the window and closed the blinds.
Thus having restored everything to its usual order, she commenced her descent. Holding to the vines, stepping cautiously, and letting herself down slowly, she at length reached the ground safely.
Now for the dogs. But they were quiet. Their quick instincts were truer than her fears, and she passed on undisturbed.
How still and brilliant the starlight night. No sound but the sighing of the wind in the trees, and the trilling of the insects that wake at eve to chirp till day; and all distinctly, yet darkly visible, like a scene clearly drawn in Indian ink upon a gray ground.
She passed down through the garden, the orchard, and the stubble field to the beach, where her little sailboat, The Pearl Shell, lay.
For the trip that she contemplated of fifteen miles up the mouth of the river, a rowboat would have been far the safer. But Margaret was too weak for such prolonged labor as the management of the oar for two or three hours must necessitate. The sailboat would only require the trifling exertion of holding the tiller, and occasionally shifting the sails. Happily, the tide was in and just about to turn; the boat was, therefore, afloat, though chained to the boathouse, and so needed no exertion to push her off. Margaret went on board, untied the tiller, hoisted the sails, unlocked the chain and cast loose. She had but time to spring and seize the tiller before the wind filled the sails and the boat glided from the shore.
So far all had gone marvelously well. Let who would discover her escape now, she was safe from pursuit. Let who would follow, she could not be overtaken. Her boat was beyond measure the swiftest sailer of the island fleet. True, before this fresh wind the boat might capsize, especially as there was no one to manage it except herself, who to shift the sails must sometimes let go the tiller. But Margaret was without selfish, personal fear; her purpose was high, and had been so far providentially favored; she would, therefore, believe in no accidents, but trust in God.
And what a strange scene was this, in which the solitary girl-mariner was out upon the lonely sea.
The broad canopy of heaven, of that deep, dark, intense blue of cloudless night, was thickly studded with myriads of stars, whose reflection in the mirror of the sea seemed other living stars disporting themselves amid the waves. Far away over the wide waters, darker lines upon the dark sea suggested the distant shores and headlands of the main. Straight before her flying boat, two black points, miles apart, indicated the entrance to the mouth of the Potomac River. She steered for the lower, or Smith’s Point.
Under happier circumstances, the lonely night ride over the dark waters would have charmed the fancy of the fearless and adventurous girl. Now her only emotion was one of anxiety and haste. Taking Smith’s Point for her “polar star,” she gave all her sail to the wind. The boat flew over the water. I dare scarcely say in how marvelously short a time she reached this cape. This was the longest part of her voyage.
Hugging the Northumberland coast, she soon reached and doubled Plover’s Point, and ran up into the little cove, the usual landing place, and pushed her boat upon the sands.
She next sprang out, secured the boat to a post, and began to climb the steep bank, that was thickly covered with a growth of pines, from which the place took its name.
Here danger of another and more appalling form threatened her. Fugitive slaves, than whom a more dangerous banditti can nowhere be found, were known to infest this coast, where by day they hid in caves and holes, and by night prowled about like wild beasts in search of food or prey. More than to meet the wildcat or the wolf, that were not yet banished from these woods, the maiden dreaded to encounter one of these famished and desperate human beasts! Lifting her heart in prayer to God for assistance, she passed courageously on her dark and dangerous way; starting at the sound of her own light footsteps upon some crackling, fallen branch, and holding her breath at the slight noise made by the moving of a rabbit or a bird in the foliage. At last she reached the summit of the wooded hill, and came out of the pine thicket on to the meadow. Then there was a fence to climb, a field to cross, and a gate to open before she reached the wooded lawn fronting the house. There the last peril, that of the watchdogs, awaited her. One mastiff barked furiously as she approached the gate; as she opened it, the whole pack broke in full cry upon her.
She paused and stood still, holding out one hand, and saying, gently:
“Why, Ponto! Why, Fido! What is the matter, good boys?”
The two foremost recognized and fawned upon her, and under their protection, as it were, she walked on through the excited pack, that, one by one, dropped gently under her influence, and walked quietly by her side.
So she reached the front of the house, passed up the piazza, and rang the bell. Peal upon peal she rung before she could make any one in that quiet house hear.
At last, however, an upper window was thrown up, and the voice of Dr. Hartley asked:
“Who’s there?”
“It is I, Dr. Hartley. It is I, Margaret Helmstedt! come to you on a matter of life and death!”
“You! You, Margaret! You, at this hour! I am lost in wonder!”
“Oh, come down, quickly, quickly, or it will be too late!”
Evidently believing this to be an imminent necessity for his professional services, the doctor drew in his head, let down the window, hastily donned his apparel, and came down to admit his visitor.
Leading her into the sitting-room, he said:
“Now, my dear, who is ill? And what, in the name of all the saints, was the necessity of your coming out at this time of night with the messenger?”
“Dr. Hartley, look at me well. I came with no messenger. I left the island at midnight, and crossed the bay, and came up the river alone.”
“Good Heaven, Miss Helmstedt! Margaret! what is it you tell me? What has happened?” he asked, terrified at the strange words and the ghastly looks of the girl.
“Dr. Hartley, my father has challenged Ralph Houston. They meet this morning, in the woods above the family burial ground. I escaped from the room in which my father had locked me, and came to give information to the authorities, that they may, if possible, stop this duel. What I desire particularly of your kindness is that you will go with me to Squire Johnson’s, that I may lodge the necessary complaint. I regret to ask you to take this trouble; but I myself do not know the way to Squire Johnson’s house.”
“Margaret, my dear, I am exceedingly grieved to hear what you have told me. How did this happen? What was the occasion of it?”
“Oh, sir, spare me! in mercy spare me! There is, indeed, no time to tell you now. What we are to do should be done quickly. They meet very, very early this morning.”
“Very well, Margaret. There is no necessity for your going to Squire Johnson’s, for, indeed, you are too much exhausted for the ride. And I am now suffering too severely with rheumatism to bear the journey. But I will do better. I will put a servant on a swift horse, and dispatch a note that will bring Mr. Johnson hither. We can go hence to the dueling ground and prevent the meeting. Will not that be best?”
“So that we are in time—anything, sir.”
Dr. Hartley then went out to rouse the boy whom he purposed to send, and after a few moments returned, and while the latter was saddling the horse, he wrote the note, so that in ten minutes the messenger was dispatched on his errand.
Day was now breaking, and the house servants were all astir. One of them came in to make the fire in the parlor fireplace, and Dr. Hartley gave orders for an early breakfast to be prepared for his weary guest.
Missing Clare from her customary morning haunts, Margaret ventured to inquire if she were in good health.
At the mention of his daughter’s name, Dr. Hartley recollected now, for the first time, that there might be some good reason for treating his young visitor with rebuking coldness, and he answered, with distant politeness, that Clare had gone to pay her promised visit to her friends at Fort Warburton.
Margaret bore this change of manner in her host with her usual patient resignation. And when the cloth was laid, and breakfast was placed upon the table, and the doctor, with professional authority rather than with hospitable kindness, insisted that the exhausted girl should partake of some refreshment, she meekly complied, and forced herself to swallow a cup of coffee, though she could constrain nature no farther.
They had scarcely risen from the table, before the messenger returned with the news that Squire Johnson had left home for Washington City, and would be absent for several days.
“Oh, Heaven of heavens! What now can be done?” exclaimed Margaret, in anguish.
“Nothing can be done by compulsion, of course, but something may be accomplished by persuasion. I will go with you, Miss Helmstedt, to the ground, and use every friendly exertion to effect an adjustment of the difficulties between these antagonists,” said Dr. Hartley.
“Oh, then, sir, let us hasten at once. No time is to be lost!” cried Margaret, in the very extremity of anxiety.
“It is but a short distance, Miss Helmstedt. Doubtless we shall be in full time,” replied the doctor, buttoning up, his coat and taking down his hat from the peg.
Margaret had already, with trembling fingers, tied on her hood.
They immediately left the house.
“What time did you say they met, Miss Helmstedt?”
“I said, ‘very early,’ sir. Alas, I do not know the time to the hour. I fear, I fear—oh, let us hasten, sir.”
“It is but five o’clock, Margaret, and the distance is short,” said the doctor, beginning to pity her distress.
“Oh, God! perhaps it was at five they were to meet. Oh, hasten!”
Their way was first through the lawn, then through the stubble field, then into the copse wood that gradually merged in the thick forest behind the burial ground.
“Do you know the exact spot of the purposed meeting, Margaret?” inquired the doctor.
“Oh, no, sir, I do not. I only know that my father gave orders for the boat to be in readiness to take him (and his second, of course) to the beach below the burial ground at this point. Now, as the beach is narrow, and the burial ground too sacred a place for such a purpose, I thought of these woods above it.”
“Exactly; and there is a natural opening, a sort of level glade, on the top of this wooded hill, that I think likely to be the place selected. We will push forward to that spot.”
They hurried on. A walk of five minutes brought them to within the sound of voices, that convinced them that they were near the dueling ground.
A few more rapid steps led them to a small, level, open glade, on the summit of the wooded hill.
Oh, Heaven of heavens! What a sight to meet the eyes of a daughter and a promised wife!
The ground was already marked off. In the drawing of the lots it seemed that the best position had fallen to her father, for he stood with his back to the rising sun, which shone full into the face of Ralph, at the same time dazzling his eyes, and making him the fairest mark for the best marksman in the country.
At right angles with the principals stood the seconds, one of them having a handkerchief held in his hand, while the other prepared to give the word.
Margaret had not seen her betrothed for three years, and now, oh, agony insupportable, to meet him thus!
So absorbed were the duelists in the business upon which they met, and so quietly had she and her escort stolen upon the scene, that the antagonists had perceived no addition to their party, but went on with their bloody purpose.
At the very entrance of the newcomers upon the scene, the second of Major Helmstedt gave the word:
“One—two—three—fire!” Frank Houston dropped the handkerchief, Ralph fired into the air, and Margaret, springing forward, struck up the pistol of her father, so that it was discharged harmlessly into the upper branches of an old tree.
All this transpired in a single instant of time, so suddenly and unexpectedly, that until it was over no one knew what had happened.
Then followed a scene of confusion difficult or impossible to describe.
Major Helmstedt was the first to speak. Shaking Margaret’s hand from his arm, he demanded, in a voice of concentrated rage:
“Miss Helmstedt, what is the meaning of this? How durst you come hither?”
Margaret, dropping upon her knees between the combatants and lifting up both arms, exclaimed:
“Oh, father! father! Oh, Ralph! Ralph! bury your bullets in this broken heart if you will, but do not point your weapons against each other!”
“Margaret, my beloved!” began Ralph Houston, springing to raise her, but before he could effect his purpose, Major Helmstedt had caught up his daughter, and with extended hands, exclaimed:
“Off, sir! How durst you? Touch her not! Address her not at your peril! Dr. Hartley, since you attended this self-willed girl hither, pray do me the favor to lead her from the scene. Gentlemen, seconds, I look to you to restore order, that the business of our meeting may proceed.”
“Father, father!” cried Margaret, clasping his knees in an agony of prayer.
“Degenerate child, release me and begone! Dr. Hartley, will you relieve me of this girl?”
“Major Helmstedt, your daughter and myself came hither in the hope of mediating between yourself and your antagonist.”
“Mediating! Sir, there is no such thing as mediation in a quarrel like this! Since you brought my daughter hither, will you take her off, sir, I ask you?” thundered Major Helmstedt, striving to unrivet the clinging arms of his child.
“Father, father! Hear me, hear me!” she cried.
“Peace, girl, I command you. Fool that you are, not to see that this is a mortal question, that can only be resolved in a death meeting between us. Girl, girl, girl! are you a Helmstedt? Do you know that the family of this man have made dishonoring charges upon you? Charges that, by the Heaven above, can be washed out only in life’s blood? Take her away, Hartley.”
“Father, father! Oh, God! the charges! the charges that they have made! they are true! they are true!” cried Margaret, clinging to his arms, while she hid her face upon his bosom.
Had a bombshell exploded in their midst, it could not have produced a severer or more painful shock.
Ralph Houston, after the first agonized start and shudder, drew nearer to her, and paused, pale as death, to listen further, if, perchance, he had heard aright.
All the others, after their first surprise, stood as if struck statue still.
Major Helmstedt remained nailed to the ground, a form of iron. Deep and unearthly was the sound of his voice, as, lifting the head of his daughter from his breast, he said:
“Miss Helmstedt, look me in the face!”
She raised her agonized eyes to his countenance.
All present looked and listened. No one thought by word or gesture of interfering between the father and daughter.
“Miss Helmstedt,” he began, in the low, deep, stern tone of concentrated passion, “what was that which you said just now?”
“I said, my father, in effect, that you must not fight; that your cause is accurst; that the charges brought against me are—true!”
“You tell me that——”
“The charges brought against me are true!” she said, in a strange, ringing voice, every tone of which was audible to all present.
Had the fabled head of the Medusa, with all its fell powers, arisen before the assembled party, it could not have produced a more appalling effect. Each stood as if turned to stone by her words.
The father and daughter remained confronted like beings charged with the mortal and eternal destiny of each other. At length Margaret, unable to bear the scrutiny of his fixed gaze, dropped her head upon her bosom, buried her burning face in her hands, and turned away.
Then Major Helmstedt, keeping his eyes still fixed with a devouring gaze upon her, slowly raised, extended and dropped his hand heavily upon her shoulder, clutched, turned, and drew her up before him.
“Again! let fall your hands; raise your head; look me in the face, minion!”
She obeyed, dropping her hands, and lifting her face, crimsoned with blushes, to his merciless gaze.
“Repeat—for I can scarce believe the evidence of my own senses! The charges brought against you, by the Houstons, are——”
“True! They are true!” she replied, in a voice of utter despair.
“Then, for three years past, ever since your betrothal to Mr. Ralph Houston, you have been in secret correspondence with a strange young man, disapproved by your protectress?” asked Major Helmstedt, in a sepulchral tone.
“I have—I have!”
“And you have met this young man more than once in private?”
“Yes, yes!” she gasped, with a suffocating sob.
“On the day of the festival, and of the landing of the British upon our island, you passed several hours alone with this person in the woods?”
A deprecating wave of the hand and another sob was her only reply.
“Once, at least, you received this man in your private apartment at Buzzard’s Bluff?”
A gesture of affirmation and of utter despondency was her answer.
“The night of that same visit, you secretly left the room of your protectors for an unexplained absence of several days, some of which were passed in the company of this person?”
For all reply, she raised and clasped her hands and dropped them down before her, and let her head fall upon her bosom with an action full of irremediable despair.
Her father’s face was dark with anguish.
“Speak, minion!” he said, “these things must not be left to conjecture; they must be clearly understood. Speak! answer!”
“I did,” she moaned, in an expiring voice, as her head sank lower upon her breast, and her form cowered under the weight of an overwhelming shame and sorrow.
And well she might. Here, in the presence of men, in the presence of her father and her lover, she was making admissions, the lightest one of which, unexplained, was sufficient to brand her woman’s brow with ineffaceable and eternal dishonor!
Her lover’s head had sunk upon his breast, and he stood with folded arms, set lips, downcast eyes and impassable brow, upon which none could read his thoughts.
Her father’s face had grown darker and sterner, as he questioned and she answered, until now it was terrible to look upon.
A pause had followed her last words, and was broken at length by Major Helmstedt, who, in a voice, awful in the stillness and depth of suppressed passion, said:
“Wretched girl! why do you linger here? Begone! and never let me see you more!”
“Father, father! have mercy, have mercy on your poor child!” she exclaimed, clasping her hands and dropping at his feet.
“Minion! never dare to desecrate my name, or pollute my sight again. Begone!” he exclaimed, spurning her kneeling form and turning away.
“Oh, father, father! for the sweet love of the Saviour!” she cried, throwing her arms around his knees and clinging to him.
“Wretch! outcast! release me, avoid my presence, or I shall be driven to destroy you, wanton!” he thundered, giving way to fury, and shaking her as a viper from her clinging hold upon his feet; “wanton! courtez——”
But ere that word of last reproach could be completed, swift as lightning she flew to his bosom, clung about his neck, placed her hand over his lips to arrest his further speech, and gazing intensely, fiercely into his eyes—into his soul, exclaimed:
“Father, do not finish your sentence. Unless you wish me to drop dead before you, do not. As you hope for salvation, never apply that name to—her daughter.”
“Her daughter!” he retorted, violently, shaking her off, until she fell collapsed and exhausted at his feet—“her daughter! Changeling, no daughter of hers or of mine are you. She would disown and curse you from her grave! and——”
“Oh, mother, mother! oh, mother, mother!” groaned the poor girl, writhing and groveling like a crushed worm on the ground.
“And I,” he continued, heedless of her agony, as he stooped, clutched her arm, jerked her with a spring upon her feet, and held her tightly confronting him.
“I—there was a time when I was younger, that had any woman of my name or blood made the shameful confessions that you have made this day, I would have slain her on the instant with this, my right hand. But age somewhat cools the head, and now I only spurn you—thus!”
And tightening his grasp upon her shoulder, he whirled her off with such violence that she fell at several yards distant, stunned and insensible upon the ground.
Then, followed by his second, he strode haughtily from the place.
Dr. Hartley, who had remained standing in amazement through the latter part of this scene, now hurried to the assistance of the swooning girl.
But Ralph Houston, shaking off the dreadful apathy that had bound his faculties, hastened to intercept him. Kneeling beside the prostrate form, he lifted and placed it in an easier position. Then, turning to arrest the doctor’s steps, he said:
“Before you come nearer to her, tell me this: What do you believe of her?”
“That she is a fallen girl,” replied Dr. Hartley.
“Then, no nearer on your life and soul,” said Ralph, lifting his hand to bar the doctor’s further approach.
“What do you mean, Captain Houston?”
“That she still wears the betrothal ring I placed upon her finger. That I am, as yet, her affianced husband. And, by that name, I claim the right to protect her in this, her bitter extremity; to defend her bruised and broken heart from the wounds of unkind eyes! Had you had faith in her, charity for her, I should have accepted, with thanks, your help. As it is, you have none; do not let her awake to find a hostile countenance bending over her!”
“As you please, sir. But, remember, that if the assistance of a physician is absolutely required, my services, and my home also, await the needs of Marguerite De Lancie’s daughter,” said Dr. Hartley, turning to depart.
Frank also, at a sign from his brother, withdrew.
Ralph was alone with Margaret. He raised her light form, shuddering, amid all his deeper distress, to feel how light it was, and bore her down the wooded hill, to the great spreading oak, under which was the green mound of her mother’s last sleeping place.
He laid her down so that her head rested on this mound as on a pillow, and then went to a spring near by to bring water, with which, kneeling, he bathed her face.
Long and assiduous efforts were required before she recovered from that mortal swoon.
When at length, with a deep and shuddering sigh, and a tremor that ran through all her frame, she opened her eyes, she found Ralph Houston kneeling by her side, bending with solicitous interest over her.
With only a dim and partial recollection of some great agony passed, she raised her eyes and stretched forth her arms, murmuring, in tender, pleading tones:
“Ralph, my friend, my savior, you do not believe me guilty? You know me so thoroughly; you always trusted me; you are sure that I am innocent?”
“Margaret,” he said, in a voice of the deepest pain, “I pillowed your head here above your mother’s bosom; had I not believed you guiltless of any deeper sin than inconstancy of affection, I should not have laid you in this sacred place.”
“Inconstancy! Ralph?”
“Fear nothing, poor girl! it is not for me to judge or blame you. You were but a child when our betrothal took place; you could not have known your own heart; I was twelve years your senior, and I should have had more wisdom, justice, and generosity than to have bound the hand of a child of fourteen to that of a man of twenty-six. We have been separated for three years. You are now but seventeen, and I am in my thirtieth year. You have discovered your mistake, and I suffer a just punishment. It is natural.”
“Oh, my God! my God! my cup overflows with bitterness!” moaned the poor maiden, in a voice almost inaudible from anguish.
“Compose yourself, dear Margaret. I do not reproach you in the least; I am here to serve you as I best may; to make you happy, if it be possible. And the first step to be taken is to restore to you your freedom.”
“Oh, no! Oh, Lord of mercy, no! no! no!” she exclaimed, in an agony of prayer; and then, in sudden self-consciousness, she flushed all over her face and neck with maiden shame, and became suddenly silent.
“Dear Margaret,” said Ralph, in a tone of infinite tenderness and compassion, “you have suffered so much that you are scarcely sane. You hardly know what you would have. Our betrothal must, of course, be annulled. You must be free to wed this lover of your choice. I hope that he is, in some measure, worthy of you; nay, since you love him, I must believe that he is so.”
“Oh, Ralph, Ralph! Oh, Ralph, Ralph!” she cried, wringing her hands.
“Margaret, what is the meaning of this?”
“I have no lover except you. I never wronged you in thought, or word, or deed; never, never, never!”
“Dear Margaret, I have not charged you with wronging me.”
“But I have no lover; do you hear, Ralph? I never have had one! I never should have so desecrated our sacred engagement.”
“Poor Margaret, you are distracted! Much grief has made you mad! You no longer know what you say.”
“Oh, I do, I do! never believe but I know every word that I speak. And I say that my heart has never wandered for an instant from its allegiance to yourself! And listen farther, Ralph,” she said, sinking upon her knees beside that grave, and raising her hands and eyes to heaven with the most impressive solemnity, “listen while I swear this by the heart of her who sleeps beneath this sod, and by my hopes of meeting her in heaven! that he with whom my name has been so wrongfully connected was no lover of mine—could be no lover of mine!”
“Hold, Margaret! Do not forswear yourself even in a fit of partial derangement. Rise, and recall to yourself some circumstances that occurred immediately before you became insensible, and which, consequently, may have escaped your memory. Recollect, poor girl, the admissions you made to your father,” said Ralph, taking her hand and gently constraining her to rise.
“Oh, Heaven! and you believe—you believe——”
“Your own confessions, Margaret, nothing more; for had an angel from heaven told the things of you that you have stated of yourself, I should not have believed him!”
“Oh, my mother! Oh, my God!” she cried, in a tone of such deep misery, that, through all his own trouble, Ralph deeply pitied and gently answered her.
“Be at ease. I do not reproach you, my child.”
“But you believe. Oh, you believe——”
“Your own statement concerning yourself, dear Margaret; no more nor less.”
“Believe no more. Not a hair’s breadth more. Scarcely so much. And draw from that no inferences. On your soul, draw no inferences against me; for they would be most unjust. For I am yours; only yours; wholly yours. I have never, never had any purpose, wish, or thought at variance with your claims upon me.”
“You must pardon me, Margaret, if I cannot reconcile your present statement with the admissions lately made to your father. Allow me to bring them to your memory.”
“Oh, Heaven, have mercy on me!” she cried, covering her face.
“Remember, I do not reproach you with them; I only recall them to your mind. You have been in secret correspondence with this young man for three years past; you have given him private meetings; you have passed hours alone in the woods with him; you have received him in your chamber; you have been abroad for days in his company; you have confessed the truth of all this; and yet you declare that he is not, and cannot be a lover of yours. Margaret, Margaret, how can you expect me, for a moment, to credit the amazing inconsistency of your statements?”
While he spoke, she stood before him in an agony of confusion and distress, her form cowering; her face sunk upon her breast; her eyes shunning his gaze; her face, neck, and bosom crimsoned with fiery blushes; her hands writhed together; her whole aspect one of conscious guilt, convicted crime, and overwhelming shame.
The anguish stamped upon the brow of her lover was terrible to behold. Yet he governed his emotions, and compelled his voice to be steady in saying:
“Dear Margaret, if in any way you can reconcile these inconsistencies—speak!”
Speak. Ay, she might have done so. One word from her lips would have sufficed to lift the cloud of shame from her brow, and to crown her with an aureola of glory; would have averted the storm of calamity gathering darkly over her head, and restored her, a cherished daughter, to the protecting arms of her father; an honored maiden to the esteem of friends and companions; a beloved bride to the sheltering bosom of her bridegroom. A word would have done this; yet that word, which could have lifted the shadow from her own heart and life, must have bid it settle, dark and heavy, upon the grave of the dumb, defenseless dead beneath her feet. And the word remained unspoken.
“I can die for her; but I cannot betray her. I can live dishonored for her sake; but I cannot consign her memory to reproach,” said the devoted daughter to her own bleeding and despairing heart.
“Margaret, can you explain the meaning of these letters, these meetings in the woods, on the river, in your own chamber?”
“Alas! I cannot. I can only endure,” she moaned, in a voice replete with misery, as her head sunk lower upon her breast, and her form cowered nearer the ground, as if crushed by the insupportable weight of humiliation.
It was not in erring human wisdom to look upon her thus, to listen to her words, and not believe her a fallen angel!
And yet she was innocent. More than innocent. Devoted, heroic, holy.
But, notwithstanding this, and her secret consciousness of this, how could she—in her tender youth, with her maiden delicacy and sensitiveness to reproach—how could she stand in this baleful position, and not appear overwhelmed by guilt and shame?
There was a dread pause of some minutes, broken at length by Ralph, who said:
“Margaret, will you return me that betrothal ring?”
She answered:
“You placed it on my finger, Ralph! Will you also take it off? I was passive then; I will be passive now.”
Ralph raised the pale hand in his own and tried to draw off the ring. But since, three years before, the token had been placed upon the little hand of the child, that hand had grown, and it was found impossible to draw the ring over the first joint.
Ralph Houston, unwilling to give her physical pain, resisted in his efforts, saying quietly, as he bowed and left her:
“The betrothal ring refuses to leave your finger, Margaret. Well, good-morning!”
A smile, holy with the light of faith, hope, and love, dawned within her soul and irradiated her brow. In a voice, solemn, thrilling with prophetic joy, she said:
“The ring remains with me! I hail it as the bow of promise! In this black tempest, the one shining star!”