Bessie's Fortune: A Novel

After the first great shock of surprise, when the word murderer dropped from his lips, and he reproached his sister so harshly and unreasonably, Burton Jerrold stood with folded arms, and a gloomy, unsympathetic face, as immovable at first as if he had been a stone, and listened to the tale as repeated by his father. But when the tragic part was reached, and he saw the dead man on the floor, his sister crouching in the corner of the room, with Rover at her side, the rude coffin, the open grave, and the secret midnight burial, his breath came in long, shuddering gasps, and the perspiration stood in great drops upon his forehead and about his pallid lips. And when his father said, "I buried him here in this room, under this bed, where I have slept ever since, and he is there now," he started backward as suddenly as if the ghost of the peddler had risen from the floor and confronted him. Then, staggering forward, he would have fallen if Mr. Sanford had not caught him by the arm and supported him a moment.

Bringing him a chair, the clergyman said to him, pityingly:

"Sit down, Mr. Jerrold, and try to compose yourself. You are not in fault: no one can blame you."

"No, no, I know it; but it hurts me just the same. The disgrace! I can never be happy again. Oh, Hannah, why did you let him tell me? I cannot bear it, I cannot!" the wretched Burton moaned, and his father replied:

"Your sister has borne it for thirty-one years. Are you less brave than she?"

"I don't know. Yes, I believe I am. I have more at stake than she. Our positions are not the same. There is Geraldine, and Grey, I can never look them in the face again, knowing what I know," Burton cried, impetuously, and covering his face with his hands, he sobbed as strong men never sob, save when some terrible storm, which they feel themselves inadequate to meet, is beating pitilessly upon them.

"Oh, brother," Hannah said, in her soft, entreating voice, "this is worse than all the rest. Don't take it so hard. It is not so bad as you think. You will not be disgraced. Geraldine will never know: the world will never know. Char—Mr. Sanford is just as safe as I. He will never tell," and the dark eyes looked for one moment at the man whom, in her excitement and forgetfulness, she had almost called by his Christian name, and who, in response to the call and the look, went to her side, and laying his hand upon her head, said, solemnly:

"As heaven is my witness, what I have heard here to-night shall never pass my lips."

Pressing his hand for an instant upon Hannah's bowed head, he withdrew it, but staid at her side until the recital was ended, and the old man, who was sinking fast, said to him, in a faint whisper:

"You know all now, and why I could not join the church. It was too late to tell the world of my guilt. God knew it. I believe he has baptized me with His Holy Spirit. Do you think that as His minister you can pray for my departing soul?"

"Yes, yes," the clergyman replied, and falling upon his knees, for he saw in the pinched face the look he could not mistake, he began the prayer for the dying one, who whispered, faintly:

"That is good, very good. And now, Hannah, the Lord's Prayer once more; it is the last. We have said it many times together, you and I, when the night was blackest and we could think of nothing else. Where are you, Hannah?" he added, in a tone of alarm, as if he had lost her. "It is growing dark and I cannot see. You must not leave me now. We have kept together so long."

"I am here, father; with my arm around your neck, and I am kissing your dear face," Hannah said, and then, bending over him, she commenced the prayer they had so often said together when no other words would come.

Faintly the old man's voice joined hers and that of the clergyman, and only Burton was silent. He could not pray, but sat silent, while his father whispered at short intervals:

"Forgive; yes, that's the good word, and I am forgiven. I feel it. I know it. Salvation is sure, even for me, and in heaven I shall wait and watch for you, Hannah, the best and truest daughter a man ever had. Oh, God bless my Hannah, and grant that some joy, some happiness may come to her when I am gone; and Grey, the baby Grey, oh, bless him, too, with every needful blessing—the baby Grey, whose little hands took the stain, the smart from mine—my Grey, whom I love so much."

"And Burton, too!" Hannah suggested, as her father ceased speaking without mentioning his son.

"Yes," he replied, rousing a little. "And Burton, my son; God bless him. But he is not like you, Hannah, nor like Grey. He could not forgive as you have; he will never forgive me. And yet he is very just, very good, very respectable, and the Hon. Burton Jerrold, of Boston. Tell him good-by and God bless him from me, the murderer!"

Those were the last words he ever spoke, for though he lingered for some hours it was in a kind of stupor, from which they could not rouse him.

Seeing that he could be of no further service, and remembering the careful Martha, who, he knew, was sitting up for him, armed with reproaches for the lateness of the hour, and various medicines as preventives for the cold he was sure to have taken, Mr. Sanford signified his intention to return home, and insisted that the boy Sam should not be awakened to drive him there.

The storm had ceased, the moon had come out, and he greatly preferred the walk, he said, even if the snow were deep. There were curious thoughts crowding in the brain of the grave, quiet man, tumultuous thoughts, which spanned a score of years and brought with them keen joy as well as a bitter pain. He was standing before the kitchen fire, with Hannah near him, holding the warm muffler he was to tie around his neck. Regarding her fixedly for a moment, he said, addressing her by the old pet name which had once been so familiar to him:

"Hanny, that is why you said 'no' to me that summer night when we walked together under the chestnut trees, and I felt that you had broken my heart?"

Any one who saw Hannah Jerrold at that moment would have called her beautiful, with the sudden light which shone in her dark eyes, the bright color which, came to her cheeks, and the softness which spread itself all over her upturned face, as she answered, promptly, and still very modestly:

"Yes, Charlie, that was the reason."

For an instant these two, whom a cruel fate had separated, looked into each other's eyes with a look in which the love of twenty years was embodied; then involuntarily the hands clasped, and the man and the woman who had walked together under the chestnut trees twenty years ago, kissed each other for the first time in their lives, she feeling that on her part there was nothing unwomanly, nothing wrong in the act, and he feeling that on his part there was not the shadow of infidelity to the woman who bore his name and looked so carefully after his welfare. The one was his wife, whom he respected greatly, and to whose wishes he sacrificed every wish of his own, when he could conscientiously do so; the other was the woman he had loved in the long ago, and whose "no," spoken so decidedly, and with no explanation except that it must be, had sent him from her with a heart-ache from which he now knew he had never fully recovered.

Twelve years after that summer, the memory of which was still half joy, half pain, he had married Miss Martha Adams, of Cambridge, because a mutual friend had told him he ought to do so, that a bachelor clergyman was never as useful as a married one, and that Miss Martha, a maiden lady of thirty-five, was eminently fitted to fulfill the duties of a rector's wife, for she came from a long line of clergy and for years had run the Sunday-school, and the sewing society, and the church generally in the parish to which she belonged. Added to this she had some money and excellent health, two good things in a minister's wife as everybody knew.

Mr. Sanford promised his friend to think about it, and then, one afternoon, walked across the fields to the house among the rocks and looked again at Hannah, who was twelve years older and graver and quieter than when she won the love of his young manhood; but there was something inexpressibly sweet in the pale, sad face, and the large dark eyes thrilled him as they did of old, so that he found his longing for her greater, if possible, than ever. But when he said to her, "Hanny, have you ever regretted your answer to me?" and she replied, "No, never," he turned away, and, walking back across the fields to his own home, wrote to his friend in Walpole, signifying his readiness to be introduced to Miss Martha Adams. The result of this was that Martha had been his wife for nearly eight years, and ruled him with a rod of iron, which she, however, sometimes covered, so that he did not feel it quite so much as he might otherwise have done. But it pressed heavily now, as in the clear, cold night he walked slowly home through the deep, untrodden snow, which he scarcely minded, so intent were his thoughts upon the past and what might have been.

Alas! for the many hearts, aching in secret and sending backward vain regrets for what might have been, what should have been, but what can never be. And, if sometimes the heart thus wrung cries out with a great cry for the happiness it has missed, is there disloyalty to him or her who stands where another should have stood? God only knows, and He is far more merciful and ready to forgive his erring children than are they to forgive each other. And he must have pitied the man who, with a thought of Hannah thrilling every fiber of his heart, went back to the home where Martha was waiting impatiently for him, with words of chiding upon her lips.

He knew it would be so, knew she would sit up for him until morning, if necessary, and knew, too, that in all probability bowls of herb tea and a hot foot-bath awaited him, for Martha was careful of his health, and sometimes oppressive with her attentions, and he sighed as he drew near his home and saw the light, and thought, "Oh, if she would only go to bed and leave me alone awhile, and not make me talk."

But she was up and waiting for him, in her purple flannel dressing-gown, which did not improve her ruddy complexion, and a frown on her face, which deepened into a scowl as he came in and she saw the condition of his boots and the lower part of his pants.

"Charles Sanford," she began, "do you mean to say you walked, and do you know what time it is?"

"Yes, Martha," he answered, meekly, "it is very late, but I could not help it, and I insisted upon walking rather than have the tired, sleeping boy come out in the cold. I needed the exercise. I am not cold."

"But you have taken cold. You needn't tell me, and I've got the water ready for a foot-bath, and some hot boneset tea. How did you leave Mr. Jerrold? and did he take the sacrament at last?" she said, and he replied:

"No, he did not; he—"

But before he could say more she burst out with growing irritability:

"Not take it! Why then did he send for you on such a night, and why did you stay so long?"

She was pouring the boiling water into the foot-tub, in which she had put a preparation of mustard and prickly ash and red pepper, which she kept on hand for extreme cases like this, and the odor of the steam made him sick and faint, as, grasping the mantel, he replied:

"He wished me to pray with him; he will not live till morning. Please don't talk to me any more. I am more tired than I thought, and something makes me very sick."

He was as white as ashes, and with all her better, softer nature roused, for Martha was at heart a very good woman, she helped him to a chair, and bathed his head in alcohol, and rubbed his hands, and did not question him again. But she made him swallow the herb tea, and she kept on talking herself, wondering what Hannah would do after her father was gone. Would she stay there alone, or live with her brother? Most likely the former, as Mrs. Jerrold would never have her in her family, and really, one could not blame her, Hannah was so peculiar and queer. Pity was that she had never married; an old maid was always in the way.

And then Mrs. Martha, as if bent on torturing her husband, to whom every word was a stab, wondered if any man ever had wanted Hannah Jerrold for his wife, and asked her husband if he had ever heard of any such thing.

"I should not be likely to know it," he replied, "for until you came, I never heard any gossip."

There was an implied rebuke in this answer, and it silenced Mrs. Martha, who said no more of Hannah, but as soon as possible got her lord to bed, with a soapstone at his feet and a blanket wrapped around him, in order to make him sweat and break up the cold she was certain he had taken.

Meanwhile at the farm-house Burton and his sister were standing together near the kitchen fire, where poor Grey had stood two hours before, and heard what changed the coloring of his whole life. They were speaking of him, and what they said was this:

"If it were only myself I might bear it," Burton said, "though life can never be to me again what it has been, and I shall think like Cain that the sin is branded on me; and I was so proud, and stood so high, and meant to make the name of Jerrold so honorable a name that Grey and his children would rejoice that they bore it. Of course Grey will never know, but I shall, and that will make a difference. Hannah," he added, quickly, struck by something in her face, "what did you mean, or rather what did father mean by your making restitution to the peddler's friends? What is there to restore?"

In his recital of his crime the old man had omitted to speak of the money and the will, or, at most, he had touched so lightly upon them that it had escaped the notice of his son, whose mind was wholly absorbed in one idea, and that of the body buried under the floor within a few feet of him. Hannah explained to him what her father meant, and told him of the box and the gold, to which she had every year added the interest—compound interest, too—so that the amount had more than quadrupled, and she had found it necessary to have another and larger box in which to keep the treasure.

"That is why I have so often asked you to change bills into gold for me," she said. "Paper might depreciate in value, or the banks go down, but gold is gold everywhere, and I have tried so hard to earn or save the interest, denying myself many things which I should have enjoyed as well as most women, and getting for myself the reputation of closeness and even stinginess, which I did not deserve. I had to be economical with myself to meet my payments, which increased as the years went on, until they are so large that sometimes I have not been able to put the whole in the box at the end of the year, and I am behindhand now, but I keep an exact account, and shall make it up in time."

"But, Hannah, I used to give you money willingly, and would have given you more if you had asked for it. I had no idea of this," Burton said, and she replied:

"Yes, I know you would, but I did not like to do it, for fear you would think me extravagant and wonder what I did with so much. Not a penny you gave us ever went into the box. That was my matter, not yours; and I have worked so hard to do it, for father was not able to look after the farm, which of itself is poor and barren, and as he was only willing to hire a boy, I have done a man's work myself at times."

"You, Hannah—you?" Burton said, gazing at the pale-faced, frail-looking woman, who had done the work of a man rather than ask money of him who sometimes spent more on one large party than she did in a whole year, and who said to him, with a sad smile:

"Yes; I have spaded the garden, and planted the corn in the field back of the hill, where no one could see me, and have helped Sam get in the hay, though I never attempted to mow; but I did lay up a bit of stone wall which had tumbled down, I have done what I could."

Poor Hannah! No wonder that her hands, once so small and shapely, were broad, and hard, and rough, and not much like Mrs. Geraldine's, on which there were diamonds enough to more than liquidate the debt due to Elizabeth Rogers and her heirs; and no wonder that her dress, which so often offended her brother's artistic and critical eye, was coarse, and plain, and selected with a view to durability rather than comeliness. She had done what she could, and what few women would have done, and Burton knew it, and was conscious of a great feeling of respect and pity, if not affection, for her, as she stood before him in a stooping posture, with her toil-worn hands clasped together as if asking his pardon for having intruded her own joyless life upon his notice. But above every other feeling in his heart was the horrible fear of exposure if she attempted restitution, and he said to her at last:

"I am sorry for you, Hannah, and I can understand how, with your extreme conscientiousness, you believed it your duty to do as you have done. But this must go no further. To discover Elizabeth Rogers is to confess ourselves the children of a murderer, and this I cannot allow. You have no right to visit father's sin upon Grey, who would be sure to find it out if you stirred in the matter. He is sensitive, very, and proud of his name. It would kill him to know what we do."

"No, brother, it would hurt him, but not kill him." Hannah said, with energy; "and ever since he was a little child I have depended upon him to comfort me, to help me, as I knew he would when he was older; and something tells me he will find the heirs. I do not mean to tell him until he is a man, able to understand."

"Hannah!" and there was fierce anger in the voice. "You are not my sister if you ever dare tell Grey this thing, or hint it to him in any way. He must never know it, both for his own sake and mine. I could not even look at him without shame if he knew what my father was. You have kept it thirty-one years; keep it thirty-one longer, and, as you vowed secrecy to my father, so swear to me solemnly, as you hope for Heaven, never to tell Grey or any one."

He had seized her wrist, and held it so tightly that she winced with pain as she cried out:

"Oh, Burton, I cannot; I must restore the money and the will."

"Stuff and nonsense!" he repeated, growing more and more excited. "That woman is dead before this, and her heirs, if she had any, scattered to the winds. People never miss what they never had, and they will not miss this paltry sum. Promise me, that you will drop this insane idea of restitution and never reveal what you know, even after Geraldine and I are dead, should you outlive us both. Think of the disgrace to the Greys."

And so, worried, and worn, and half crazed with fatigue and excitement, Hannah bound herself again, and, had not Grey already known the secret, Elizabeth Rogers' heirs would never have heard of the tin box in the chimney, from which place Hannah brought it at last to show the contents to her brother, who, perfectly sure that she would keep her word, could calmly examine the will and scan the features of the young girl upon the ivory.

"She is very lovely," he said, "though evidently she belongs to the working class; her dress indicates as much. But whoever she is or was, she is not like this now; she is old or dead. Put it back in the box, Hannah, and if ever you accidentally find to a certainty where the original is, or her heirs, send the will and the money to her from Boston or New York, and she will thus get her own without knowing where it came from."

This was rather a lame way to make restitution, but Hannah seized upon it as something feasible, and felt in a measure comforted. She would herself go to Europe some time, and hunt up the Rogers heirs so cautiously that no suspicion could attach to her, and then, having found them, she would send them the will and the money she was hoarding for them. This was a ray of hope amid the darkness—the straw to which she clung; and the future did not seem quite so cheerless, even when, a few hours later, she stood with her brother by the side of her dead father, who had died without a struggle or sigh, just as the chill morning was breaking in the east and giving promise of a fairer day than the previous one had been.

CHAPTER XV.

Breakfast was waiting in the pleasant dining-room at Grey's Park, where Burton Jerrold sat before the fire, with his head bent down and his face so white and ghastly that his wife, when she came in and saw him, was moved with a great pity for him, though she wondered much that his sorrow should be so acute for the father he had never seemed very fond of in life. Stooping over him she kissed him softly, and said:

"I am sorry you feel so badly, Burton. Your father was old, and quite ready to die; surely that should comfort you a little."

"Yes, yes, I know; but please don't talk to me now," he replied, with a gesture of the hand as if to silence her.

He was not sorry for his father's death, but he was willing, nay glad, that she should think so, for he could not tell her of the load of shame from which he should never be free.

"What would she say if she knew?" he asked himself, as he remembered all her pride of blood, and birth, and family. And Grey, his only boy, of whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill one of the highest posts in the land;—what would he say if he knew his father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly not of that. But he called it by the hard name murder, and shuddered as he thought of Grey.

"But he never will know," he said to himself, "Hannah will keep her promise, and I do not fear Mr. Sanford, though I'd give half my fortune—yes, all—if he had not been told. Grey will never know. But I know, and must meet his innocent eyes, and hear him talk of his grandfather as of saint."

It was at this point in his soliloquy that Grey came slowly in, his face whiter than his father's, with dark rings around his eyes, which were heavy and swollen with the tears he had shed. Grey had not slept at all, for the dreadful words, "I killed a man, and buried him under my bed," were continually ringing in his ears, while the ghost of the murdered man seemed present with him, urging him to vengeance for the wrong, until at last, when he could bear it no longer, he stretched his hands out into the darkness, and cried:

"What is it you want with me? I am not to blame, but if there is any thing I can do to make it right, I'll do it, when I am man. Now, go away and do not torment me so."

Grey knew there was nothing there, knew that the spirits of the departed do not come back again, but he was not in a frame of mind to reason clearly upon anything. He only knew how wretched he was, and that after his promise to redress the dead man's wrongs he grew calmer and more quiet, though there was still the terrible pain and disappointment in his heart, especially when he thought of his Aunt Hannah, whom he had held so high, and whom he now felt he had loved and revered more than any other person.

Remembering all the past, which at times had puzzled him, and which he now understood, he was certain that she had known from the first, and so was an accomplice. Possibly the law would not touch her, he reasoned, as he tried to fancy what might have been had this thing been known to the public; but he remembered having heard of a case which happened in an adjoining town many years before, where, at the instigation of his wife, a man was killed and thrown into his own well. The wife was hung in Worcester with her three accomplices, but a woman who was in the house at the time went free, though she was ever after known as "Old 'Scape Gallows," and shunned accordingly. Was his Aunt Hannah like her? Would people thus call her, if they knew?

"No, no; oh, no," he cried in agony. "She is not like that! Please God, grant that my Aunt Hannah is a good woman still. I cannot lose faith in her, and I love her so much."

And thus the dreadful night wore to an end, and the morning found Grey burning with fever, while a sharp pain, like a knife, cut through his temples every time he moved. He was not surprised when Lucy came and told him his grandfather was dead. He expected it, but with a moan he buried his face in his pillow, and sobbed:

"Oh, grandpa, where are you now, I wonder; and I thought you so good, so sure of Heaven. Please, God, have mercy on him. Oh, I can not bear it. I cannot bear to think that he is lost! And he loved me so, and blessed me on his death-bed."

This was the burden of Grey's grief, for he did not stop to consider all the years of sincere repentance which had purified the soul just gone, and made it fit for heaven, and his heart was very sore as he slowly dressed himself and went down to the breakfast-room to meet his father, who knew what he did, and who must feel it just as keenly.

Grey's first impulse was to fall upon his neck and cry out:

"I know it. I heard it. I was there. We will bear it together," but when he remembered that his grandfather had said: "that he was not to know," he restrained himself, and said very quietly:

"Grandpa is dead. Aunt Lucy told me. When is the funeral?"

The voice was not like Grey's, and Mr. Jerrold looked up quickly to meet the eyes which fell at once as did his own. Neither could look in the other's face with that secret which each knew and was hiding from the other. But both were outwardly calm, and the breakfast passed quietly, with no reference to the recent event occupying the minds of all. Mrs. Jerrold and her sister had expected that Grey would feel his loss keenly and possibly be noisy in his boyish demonstrations of grief, but they were not prepared for the torpor which seemed to have settled upon him, and which kept him indoors all day sitting by the fire over which he shivered as if in a chill, though his cheeks were crimson, and he sometimes wiped the drops of sweat from his lips and forehead. His head was still aching terribly, and he was cold and faint, and this was a sufficient reason for his declining to accompany his Aunt Lucy, when, after breakfast was over, she went with his father to the farm-house, where she spent nearly the entire day, seeing to the many little things necessary for the funeral, and which Hannah could not attend to.

Geraldine did not go. Her nerves were not equal to it and she should only be in the way, she said. So she sent her love to Hannah and remained at home with Grey, who seldom spoke to her, and scarcely stirred, though occasionally his mother saw his lips move and great tears roll down his cheeks.

"I supposed he would care, but not so much as this," she thought, as she watched him anxiously, wondering at the strength of his love for an old man in whom she had never even felt interested.

Once, moved with pity for him, she put her hand on his head, just as in the morning she had put it on her husband's, and stooping, kissed him tenderly, saying:

"I am sorry for you, Grey. It is really making you sick. Try and not feel so badly. Your grandfather was old and ready to die. You would not have him back, he is so happy now."

Just as his father had done when she tried to comfort him, so Grey did. He made a gesture for her to stop, and said piteously:

"Please don't talk to me now, I cannot bear it;" so she sat down again beside him, while he continued to nurse the bitter thoughts crowding so fast upon him:

Was his grandfather happy now? Was it well with him in the world to which he had gone? he kept asking himself over and over again all that dreary day and the drearier night which followed, and which left him whiter, sadder, if possible, than ever.

The funeral was appointed for half past two on Saturday afternoon, and Burton, who went over in the morning, asked Grey to go with him.

"Your Aunt Hannah will expect you. She was disappointed in not seeing you yesterday," but Grey said promptly:

"No, I'll wait, and go with mother."

So Mr. Jerrold went alone with Lucy, leaving his wife and Grey to join him about half past one, just before the neighbors began to assemble. When Grey came in, Hannah, who was already draped in her mourning robe which Lucy had provided for her, went up to him, and putting her arms around him, said, very low and gently, but with no sadness in the tone:

"Oh, Grey, I am so glad you have come and sorry you are suffering so from headache, but I know just how you loved him and how he loved you—better than anything else in the world. Will you come with me and see him now? He looks so calm and peaceful and happy, just as you never saw him look."

"Oh, no, no!" Grey cried, wrenching himself from her. "I cannot see him; don't ask me, please."

"Not see your grandfather who loved you so much? Oh, Grey!" Hannah exclaimed, with both wonder and reproach in her voice. "I want you to remember him as he looks now, so different from what he was in life."

"But I cannot," Grey said, "I never saw any one dead; I cannot bear it," and going from her he took a seat in the kitchen as far as possible from the bedroom which held so much horror for him.

He knew his grandfather was not there, for he was lying in his coffin in the front room, where Lucy Grey had put the flowers brought from the conservatory at Grey's Park. But the other one was there, under the floor where he had lain for thirty-one years, and Grey was thinking of him, wondering who he was and if no inquiries had ever been made for him. The room was a haunted place for him, and he was glad the door was closed, and once, when Lucy went into it for something, he started us if to keep her back. Then remembering that he must never be supposed to know the secret of that room, he sank again into his chair in the corner, where he staid until the people began to assemble, when he went with his mother into the adjoining room, where the coffin was and where he sat immovable as a stone through the service, which, was not very long. The hymn, which had been selected by Hannah, was the one commencing with, "Asleep in Jesus, that blest sleep, from which none ever wake to weep," and as the mournful music filled the rooms, and the words came distinctly to Grey's ears, he started as if struck a blow, while to himself he said:

"Is he asleep in Jesus? If I only knew! Can no one tell me? Poor grandpa!"

Then he was quiet again, and listened intently to what Mr. Sanford was saying of the deceased. Contrary to his usual custom, the rector spoke of the dead man, who had gone down to the grave like a sheaf of grain fully ripe and meet for the kingdom of Heaven.

"There can be no mistake," he said, "I was with him a few hours before he died. I heard his words of contrition for sins committed and his assurance that all was peace and joy and brightness beyond the tomb. His sins, of which he repented as few ever have, were all washed away in Jesus' blood, and while to-day we stand around his grave, he is safe with the Savior he loved and trusted to the end."

What else he said, Grey did not know, for the sudden reaction in his feelings. Mr. Sanford was with his grandfather at the last. He had heard the dreadful words, "I killed a man!" and yet he declared the sinner saved. He must know, he who had stood by so many death-beds.

"Yes, he is asleep in Jesus," Grey whispered, while over him there stole a feeling of deep joy, mingled with remorse that he had ever doubted the goodness of his grandfather, who had prayed for and blessed him on the Thanksgiving Day which seemed so long ago.

Grey could look upon him now, and when his Aunt Hannah and his father rose to take their leave of the corpse, he went with them, lingering by the coffin after they had returned to their seats, and bending over the white, still face, where death had left a smile, so peaceful, so inexpressibly sweet that it touched the boy keenly, and stooping down he kissed the stiffened lips, and murmured, through his tears:

"Dear grandpa, forgive me for doubting you, I know you were good. I know you are in heaven."

He spoke in a whisper and no one heard what he said, though all noted the pallor of his face and the heavy rings about his eyes, and when the next day it was rumored in town that he was very sick, no one was surprised. It was brain fever, induced by the strain upon his mental powers, and the cold he had taken that night when, unknown to any one, he had gone to the farm-house through the storm, and returned again.

For three weeks he lay at the very gates of death, watched and cared for as few boys have ever been cared for and watched, for he was the idol of hearts which would break if he were to die. The farm-house was shut up, and Hannah took her post as chief nurse to the boy she loved so much, and whose condition puzzled her a little. Once, in the first days of his illness, when, after an absence of an hour or so, she re-entered the room, where his father was keeping watch, he lifted his bright, fever-stricken eyes to her face, and asked:

"Who was the man?"

"What man?" Hannah and her brother asked, simultaneously, a great fear in the heart of each lest the other had betrayed what Grey was not to know.

"Have you told him?" Burton whispered to his sister, who answered:

"You know I have not." Then, turning to Grey, who was still looking at her, she said to him again: "What man?"

For a moment the wild, bright eyes regarded her fixedly; then there seemed to come over the boy a gleam of reason, and he replied:

"I don't know."

After that he never mentioned the man again, or in any way alluded to the secret weighing so heavily upon the two who watched him so constantly—Hannah and his father. Not a word ever passed between them either on the subject, so anxious were they for the life of the lad, who in his delirium talked constantly of the past, of Europe, and the ship, and the mountains he had climbed, and whose names were on his Alpenstock. Again he was at Carnarvon, going over the old castle, and again at Melrose, fighting on the fourth of July with Neil McPherson, who had said his mother was not a lady. Then there were quieter moods, when he talked of and to little Bessie McPherson, whom he had never seen, but who came to him in his delirium, and, with her sunny blue eyes and golden hair, hovered around his bed, while he questioned her of the little room high up in the hotel, where she went without her dinner so often, while her heartless mother dined luxuriantly.

"Send for her and bring her here, where she can have enough to eat. Why don't you send for Bessie?" he would say to them; and once he said it to Miss McPherson, who was standing by his bedside, and who replied:

"I have sent for her; she is coming."

"All right!" he answered. "Stuff her when she comes. Give her all the mince pie she can eat, and all the griddle cakes. She never saw any at home."

After that he was more quiet; but every morning and evening he asked, "Has Bessie come?" and when told, "Not yet," he would reply, "Send her to me when she comes; I want to see her."

And so the time went on until the fever spent itself, and there came a morning when Grey awoke to perfect consciousness of the present and a vague remembrance of the past. They told him how long he had been sick, and how anxious they had been.

"Did I talk much?" he asked his Aunt Lucy, when she was alone with him.

"Yes, most of the time," she replied, and over his face there flitted a shadow of fear lest he had talked of things he ought not.

"What did I say?" he asked; and she told him as nearly as she could remember.

"And Aunt Hannah was here all the time? Where is she now?" he inquired; and Lucy replied:

She went home last night, for the first time in two weeks. She had to go, as the snow had drifted under the eaves, and the house was leaking badly."

"Is she there alone?" Grey asked, with a shudder, as he thought of that hidden grave under the floor.

"No, Sam is there, and I sent Sarah with her," was Lucy's answer, and after a moment Grey continued:

"Wasn't Mr. Sanford here once; in the room, I mean?"

"Yes, many times," Lucy replied. "He prayed for you here two or three times, and in the church every Sunday."

"Send for him. I want to see him. Send now," Grey said, adding, as he saw the expression of joy on his aunt's face, and guessed what was in her mind. "Don't think I'm awful good, or going to join the church. It is not that, but I want to see the minister before Aunt Hannah comes back."

Fortunately Mr. Sanford was at that very moment below. He had stopped on his way to the post-office to inquire for Grey, at whose side he soon stood, holding the pale hand in his, and looking inquiringly into the eager face of the boy who had asked to see him alone, and who said to him as he had to his Aunt Lucy;

"Don't think I am good, or going to join the church, for I am not, I thank you for praying for me. I guess it helped me pull through, and I am going to pray myself by and by, but I don't want you to talk to me about that now. I want to ask you something. Grandpa never joined the church, and at the funeral you said he was good, that he was safe; did you mean it?"

Grey's eyes were fixed earnestly upon the rector, who answered, unhesitatingly:

"I wish I were as sure of heaven as he. I know he is safe."

"You are sure?" Grey rejoined, flushing a little, for now he was nearing the real object of his interview with the rector, "You are sure, and Aunt Hannah is sure. She ought to know. You believe her a good woman?"

Mr. Sanford could not understand the breathless eagerness with which Grey awaited his reply, which came quickly, decidedly:

"Your Aunt Hannah! Yes, she is the best, the truest, the purest woman who ever lived. She is a martyr, a saint, an angel. I never knew one like her."

"Thank you," Grey said, with a look of intense relief in his eyes. "You have made me very happy. I wanted to feel sure, about grandpa; and now, please go. I am very tired; some time I will see you again."

So the rector left him, feeling a little disappointed with the result of his interview. He had hoped that Grey wished to speak with him of himself, and of his new resolves for the future, when, in fact, it was only a wish to be reassured of his grandfather's safety, which the boy possibly doubted a little because he had never united himself with the church. That Hannah had anything to do with it the rector never suspected and did not dream of the great gladness in Grey's heart as he kept repeating to himself:

"She is good, even if she did know. She is a saint, a martyr, an angel; and I distrusted her; but all my life hereafter I will devote to her by way of atonement."

It was late in the afternoon when Hannah returned to Grey's Park, and went up to see her nephew, of whose improved condition she had heard.

"Oh, auntie," he cried, when he saw her. "I am so glad to have you back;" and Hannah did not guess that the boy had her back in more ways than one, but she kissed him, and cried over him, and told him how her heart had ached when she feared she might lose him, and how desolate the world would be without him, while he told her how much he loved her, and how he meant to care for her when he was a man, and take her to Europe, and everywhere.

"And you will grow young again," he said. "You have never had any youth, I guess. How old are you, auntie?"

She told him she was forty-six, and making a little mental subtraction he thought:

"Fifteen when it happened. No, she has had no youth, no girlhood;" but to her he said: "You do not look so old, and you are very pretty still; not exactly like Aunt Lucy or mother. You are different from them both, though more like Aunt Lucy, whose face is the sweetest I ever saw except yours, which looks as if Christ had put His hand hard upon it and left His impress there."

There were great tears upon the face where Christ had laid His hands so hard, and Grey kissed them away, and then asked about the old house, and said he was coming to spend the day with her just as soon as possible, and the night, too, adding, in a sudden burst of bravery and enthusiasm:

"And I'll sleep in grandpa's room, if you wish it, I am not afraid because he died in there."

"No, no," Hannah said, and her cheek paled a little. "It is not necessary for you to sleep there. No one will ever do that again. I shall always keep it as he left it."

Grey knew what she meant, but made no comment, and as he seemed very tired Hannah soon left him to rest.

Naturally strong and full of vigor, Grey's recovery was rapid, and in ten days from the time the fever left him, his father drove him to the farm-house, where Hannah was expecting him, with the south room made as cheerful as possible, and a most tempting lunch spread for him upon a little round table before the fire. Mr. Jerrold was going to Boston that afternoon, and so Grey was left alone with his aunt, as he wished to be, for he meant to tell her that he, too, shared her secret, and after his father had gone and his lunch was over, he burst out suddenly:

"Auntie, there is something I must tell you. I can't keep it any longer. I was here the night grandpa died. I was in the kitchen, and heard about—about that under the floor!"

"Grey!" Hannah gasped, as her work dropped from her nerveless hands, which shook violently.

"Yes," Grey went on. "I wanted to come with father, but he said no, and so I went to my room but could not go to bed, for I knew grandpa was dying, and I wished to see him, and I stole out the back way, and came across the fields and into the kitchen, where I stood warming myself by the stove and heard you all talking in the next room. I did not mean to listen, but I could not help it, and I heard grandpa say: 'Thirty-one years ago, to-night, I killed a man in the kitchen yonder, and buried him under the floor, under my bed, and have slept over him ever since.' You see I remember his very words, they affected me so much, I thought the floor came up and struck me in the face, and that my throat would burst with the lump which almost strangled me. I did not hear any more, for I ran from the house into the open air where I could breathe, and went back to Grey's Park, and up to my room without being missed at all. I thought I should die, and that was what made me sick, and why I did not come here till the funeral and why I did not want to see grandpa. I was so disappointed, so shocked, and afraid he was not in heaven, till I heard what Mr. Sanford said, and, auntie, I must tell you all, I thought dreadful things of you, too, because you knew. I thought you were what they said 'Old 'Scape Gallows' was, an accomplice."

"Oh, Grey, my boy, no, no," Hannah cried aghast. "This is worse than death, and from you. I cannot bear it."

In an instant Grey was kneeling at her side, imploring her forgiveness and telling her he did not think this of her now.

"I know you are good, a saint, a martyr, an angel, the best woman that ever lived. Mr. Sanford said so."

"Mr. Sanford!" Hannah, exclaimed. "What do you mean? You have not spoken to him?"

"Not of that," Grey said. "But I sent for him, you know, and Aunt Lucy thought I was going to be good and join the church, but I only wanted him to tell me sure that grandpa was safe, and that you were good, as I used to think you were. He never suspected I was inquiring about you, I brought it in so neat; but he said you were a martyr, a saint, an angel, and the best woman that ever lived, and I believed him, and love you so much, and pity you so much for all you must have suffered. And, now, tell me about it. Don't omit a single detail. I want to know it all."

So she told him everything, and when the story was ended, he took her white face between his two hands, and kissing it tenderly, said:

"Now, I am sure you are a saint, a martyr, an angel; but the martyrdom is over. I shall take care of you, I will help you find Elizabeth Rogers or her heirs, and father shall not know. I'll go to Europe when I am a man, and inquire at every house in Carnarvon for Joel Rogers or his sister; and when I find the heirs, I will send the money to them, and they shall never know where it came from; and if there are shares in quarries and mines, I'll manage that somehow. I am to be a lawyer, you know, and I can find some kink which will work."

How he comforted her with his cheery, hopeful words, and how fast the hours flew by until Tom came to take him back to Grey's Park. But Grey begged so hard to stay all night, that Hannah ventured to keep him, and Tom returned without him.

"I am not a bit afraid of the house now, and would as soon sleep in grandpa's room as anywhere," he said to Hannah, as they sat together in the evening, and then they talked of her future until Grey was old enough to take care of her, as he meant to do.

"Shall you stay here?" he asked, and Hannah replied:

"I don't know yet what I shall do, I shall let your father decide for me."

"You might live with us in Boston," Grey said. "That would be jolly for me; but I don't know how you and mother would hitch together, you are so unlike. I wish I was big, and married, and then I know just where you would go. But father will arrange it, I am sure."

And three weeks later, when Burton came up from Boston after his son, he did arrange it for her.

"It is of no use," he said to her. "I have tried meeting and mingling with my friends, and I feel as if they saw on my face what is always in my mind, and if I stay in Boston I shall some day scream out to the public that my father was a murderer. I could not help it, and I can understand now how Lucy was wrought upon to do what she did in church when they thought her crazy. I shall be crazy, too, if I stay here, and I am going away. Geraldine likes Europe, and so do I; and as I can leave my business as well as not, I shall shut up my house, and go abroad until I feel that I can look my fellowmen in the face."

"And Grey?" Hannah asked, sorrowfully, knowing how dreary her life would be with him so far away.

"I shall take him with me," her brother replied, "I shall put him in school somewhere in England or Germany, and send him eventually to Oxford. But you will stay here, won't you? I'd rather you would."

"Yes," she answered, still more sadly, for she fully understood the intense selfishness of the man, who went on:

"I shall be happier, knowing you are here, for I cannot have the house sold, or rented, or even left alone, lest by some chance the secret of our lives should be discovered. I am almost as morbid on the subject as father was: but with you here, I shall feel safe. You can have any one live with you whom you choose, and I will supply you with plenty of money. So I do not see why you should not in time be quite content."

"Yes, brother," Hannah said, very low; "but shall I not see Grey for years?"

"Perhaps not; I don't know," was her brother's reply, as he arose to go, without a single throb of pity for the woman who was to be left alone in the home so hateful to him.

But Grey, when he heard of the plan, which did not surprise him, comforted her with the assurance that he should spend all his long vacations with her, as he did not mind crossing the ocean at all.

"I may be with you oftener than if I were in America, and then some time I'll go to Carnarvon and begin the search. So, don't feel so badly," he said to her as he saw the great tears roll down her cheeks, and guessed in part her sorrow.

And so the necessary arrangements were made as rapidly as possible, and one Saturday about the middle of March, Hannah stood on the wharf in New York with a feeling like death in her heart, and saw Grey sail away and leave her there alone.

CHAPTER XVI.

After Miss McPherson had sent her letter to her nephew, Archie, asking him to give his little daughter to her keeping, her whole nature seemed to change, and there was on her face a look of happy expectancy rarely seen there before. Even her cook, Sarah, and her maid, Flora, noticed and discussed it as they sat together by the kitchen fire; but as Miss McPherson never encouraged familiarities with her domestics, they asked her no questions, and only wondered and speculated when she bade them remove everything from the small bedroom at the end of the upper hall, which communicated with her own sleeping apartment. But when this room was papered and painted, and furnished with a pretty carpet of drab and blue, and a single iron bedstead with lace hangings, and a child's bureau and rocking-chair, and more than all when a large doll was bought, with a complete wardrobe for it, Flora could no longer restrain her curiosity, but asked if her mistress were expecting a child.

"Yes," was the reply, "my grandniece, Betsey, who was named for me. She lives at Stoneleigh, my old home in Wales, and I may get a letter any day saying she has sailed. I shall go to New York to meet her so have my things ready for me to start at a moment's notice."

So confident was Miss McPherson that her nephew would be glad to have his daughter removed from the influences around her to a home where she was sure of enough to eat, and that his frivolous wife would be glad to be rid of a child who must be in the way of her flirtations, that she was constantly expecting to hear that she was coming. She did not believe Archie would bring her himself, but she thought he would probably consign her to the care of some reliable person, or put her in charge of the captain or stewardess, and in her anxiety to have the little girl she had written a second letter three days after she sent the first. In this she had suggested the stewardess of the Celtic, whom she knew, and with whom she assured Archie he could trust his child. But days and weeks went by, until it was past the middle of June, and still there were no tidings of Bessie; at last, however, there came a foreign letter, addressed in a woman's hand to: