O my Lord, do Thou direct and bless us. I cast all my cares upon Thee.” It was with this prayer in her heart that Isa laid her aching head on her pillow on that night. Cares had thickened around her: the danger of disease, disfigurement, perhaps an early death, was looming before her, yet Isa was not unhappy. Though scarcely able to frame a connected prayer, never had the maiden approached the mercy-seat with more childlike confidence than she did now. As the Christian goes from strength to strength, Isa’s late victory over malice, resentment, and self-will, had left a sweet sense of repose in the love and the wisdom of God. Isa had risked her happiness for the sake of conscience; or rather, she had placed her happiness in the hands of her Lord, where she felt it to be safer than in her own. He would guard her from sickness, suffering, and sorrow, or bless her in the midst of them all. God had given her—of this Isa now felt a sweet assurance—the heart of one whose affection to her outweighed the world. Even if it were God’s will that she should not again on earth meet her Henry, the union of those who are one in Christ is not for this life alone. Isa, and him whom she loved, had alike given themselves unreservedly to their Lord: in life or in death they were His, and no really good thing would their heavenly Father withhold from His children. Isa’s faith had greatly ripened during the last few days. She felt the sunshine on her soul—she felt the refreshing dew of God’s grace; and a mellowed sweetness was the result—while peace mantled her soul like the soft down on the peach, from whose surface the drops from the bursting thunder-cloud trickle harmlessly away.
Very different was it with the unhappy Gaspar. Little rest was to be his during that night. He was in an agony of irresolution: Isa’s words had not been without their effect. Sometimes he resolved to meet Cora with an open confession, and throw himself on her generosity to shield his character from reproach, while he made all the reparation in his power for the injury which he had done her. Then stronger than ever came the impulse to fly the country. He had enough of property on the premises to enable him to live in comfort in some part of Europe where his antecedents would be unknown. If he could not keep his plunder in England from the grasp of the law, he would bear it thence, beyond reach of loss or of shame. But would he be beyond the avenging arm of Divine Justice? Might not that arm be raised at that very moment to smite him in the person of his sister; to make her—the pure, the innocent, the generous—a victim for the crime of her brother?
The sound of footsteps in the sick-room above him made Gaspar restless and uneasy: prognostications of evil disturbed him. When he fell at length into a state of slumber, through his dreams sounded the measured toll of the death-bell: a funeral seemed moving slowly before him, the black plumes of the hearse nodding over the white-bordered pall. Gaspar awoke with a start of terror, raised himself on his elbow, and gazed around him. To his disordered fancy, it seemed as if the light, which was always kept in his chamber at night, were burning blue; the shadows which it cast on ceiling and wall took strange shapes, which appalled him, he knew not why. The dimly-seen portrait of his father above the mantelpiece seemed to Gaspar to look on him with stern and threatening eyes: as he gazed, he could fancy that they moved, and, wild as he knew the fancy to be, the idea made him strangely shiver.
Hark! was there not a moving of bolts and bars in the study adjoining, and a stealthy footstep heard on the creaking floor? Had Gaspar’s secret been betrayed? Attracted by rich hoards of plunder, were robbers entering the house? Mr. Gritton strained his ear and listened; till at length, unable longer to endure uncertainty, he started up from his couch and opened the door which divided his sleeping-room from the study. All there was perfectly dark, perfectly still: if there had been any sound, it must have been but caused by the night wind shaking the shutters or moaning under the door. Gaspar could not, however, return to his bed: he dressed, and, as he did so, marvelled to find his fingers trembling as if from palsied age.
Taking his candle to light him, Gaspar then proceeded to the vault which contained his treasure. He had perhaps no very definite purpose in visiting it, except that of removing a small sum required for household expenses; yet there was a floating idea in his mind of ascertaining how large a sum in gold he could convey away packed in so small a space as not to excite suspicion. Lottie’s accidental discovery of the vault had made her master more than usually on his guard against betraying his secret to others. He therefore carefully closed the trap-door behind him before descending the ladder, and as carefully closed the door which divided the outer vault from the inner, when he had entered the latter, the treasure-cave of his wealth.
GASPAR AMONGST HIS TREASURES.
There stood the miser, in the midst of his hoards of silver and gold—a lonely, miserable man. Those bags heavy with coin, won at the price of conscience and honour, had no more power to give peace to his soul than their hard, cold contents could afford nourishment to his frame. The place felt damp, the air oppressive. A deathly chill came over Gaspar Gritton. He had strange difficulty in unfastening the string round one of his canvas bags. His fingers shook violently as he did so: he overthrew the heavy bag, and had a dull perception that money was clinking and falling and rolling around him in every direction. Gaspar stooped with a vague intention of picking it up, but was utterly unable to find or even to see the coin; and equally impossible was it for him to regain his former standing posture. A strange numbness came over the unhappy man: thought and feeling were alike suspended, and he lay for hours in a senseless state on the damp, brick-paved floor, besprinkled with gold.
Some degree of consciousness returned at last; but it was that strange consciousness which may exist in a trance of catalepsy, such as that which now enchained the faculties of Gaspar Gritton. He lay as one dead, in the position in which he had fallen, unable to stir a muscle or to utter a sound—unable to give the smallest outward sign of life. And yet the mind was awake, alive to the horrors of his situation. Gaspar was buried in the midst of his treasures, in the living grave which he had so carefully prepared, so jealously concealed. Men would search for him, and never find him. But would they even search? Gaspar recalled with anguish the intention of sudden flight which he had expressed to his sister. She who cared for him—she who loved him—she who, under other circumstances, would never have rested until she had found him—would naturally conclude from his own words that he had fled from fear of exposure, and would not even make an attempt to discover the place of his retreat. It would never be discovered till perhaps ages hence, when the edifice above had crumbled away—the foundations might be dug up, and a nameless skeleton found surrounded by heaps of money and treasures of silver plate. Gaspar had meditated flying from duty, and stern judgment had arrested him on the threshold. In the gloomy, silent vault the sinner was left alone with God and his conscience. The candle which Gaspar had brought with him burned down, flickered in the socket, went out. All was darkness, all silence, all horror! It was as if the fearful sentence had already been passed upon him who had been enslaved by the love of money,—Your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire; ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.
