West Lawn, and The rector of St. Mark's

Extract from Dora’s Diary.

“Is it I? Is it I? Oh, IS IT I, sitting here to-night with this pressure on my brain, this tightness about my eyes, this anguish in my heart, this feeling of desperation urging me on to meet anything, everything, even death itself? If he received Jessie’s letter, he did mine, of course, for they went together; and why not answer me, instead of sending that cold, mocking message? If people ever die of shame surely I ought to die, for did I not almost beg of him to say again what he said at Anna’s grave,—to tell me that he loved me and would save me? Yes, it all comes to me now,—all that I wrote and what it meant. And he does not respond. If he ever cared, he does not now, and he spurns my offered love. He wishes me happiness; aye, and why should I not be happy? Many a woman would gladly be the mother of Margaret’s six children; and shall I, her sister, who promised so solemnly, refuse? No, John; no, Johnnie; no, Margaret; I will grant your wish. Dr. West, when he comes home, shall have no reason to believe that Dora Freeman ever thought of him, or spoke of him, except in the ‘crisp, cross manner’ which Jessie has described. John must wait a year from the time Margaret died, but I can give him my decision now, and I will then go to Bell and Jessie, and ask them to be my bridesmaids.”

There was a pause made in the diary, and leaning her aching head upon her hands, Dora thought and thought until the hardness softened, when, resuming her pen, she wrote as follows:

“I believe it is my duty to be John’s wife, and the mother of Margaret’s children. It is true I did not so understand her, but that was what she meant, and I promised solemnly. I can love John, or at least I can keep myself from hating him, knowing how happy I make him, and I do love his children, especially Johnnie. O Johnnie, I should die if it were not for you!”

The pen dropped from the trembling fingers, and again the face was buried in the hands, while Dora nerved herself to do what she vainly imagined was her duty. Squire Russell she knew was in the library, Bell and Jessie in their room, Johnnie in the street, and the other children in bed. There was nothing in the way, and she would go at once, so that the worst might be over as soon as possible. Without a moment longer in which to consider, she rose, and gliding down the stairs, knocked at the library door.

“Come in,” the Squire said, his voice and manner changing at once when he saw who his visitor was.

“O Dora, is it you?” he said, rising to his feet, while his face glowed with pleasure.

“Yes, John,” and Dora spoke hurriedly. “It is most seven weeks since I said you must wait for my answer. I can give it now as well as any time. I will be your wife.”

Not a muscle changed as she said this, neither did her voice tremble, but rang out clear and decided, and it may be a little sharp and unnatural. Dora was very calm, far more so than the Squire, who, taken by surprise, started, and trembled, and blushed, and stammered like some guilty school-boy. This state of things, however, lasted only for a moment, and then rousing himself, Squire Russell drew the unresisting girl to his side, and kissing her forehead, said tenderly:

“God bless you, Dora. You have made me very happy. I was beginning to think it could not be, and was learning to live without you, but that makes my joy the greater. God bless my Dora, and show me how to make her happy!”

Had the Squire followed the promptings of his nature he would have caressed her lovingly, just as he did Margaret when she stood thus beside him; but remembering Johnnie’s warnings, he desisted, and it was well he did, else Dora had hated him. Now she suffered him to wind his arms around her, while he told her again how happy she had made him, and blessed her for it.

“Dora,” he said, and now he smoothed her hair, “a man of forty is not called old, and I am only that, but I am fourteen years your senior, while my six children make me seem older still, but my heart is young, and I will try so hard to stay with you till you too are old. I’ll go with you wherever you wish to go, do anything you like, and never frown upon the things which I know young girls love. I will not be an ogre guarding my girlish wife, but a proud, happy husband, doing that wife’s bidding.”

Dora could not repress her tears, he spoke so kindly, so earnestly, and she knew he meant all he was saying, while she was deceiving him. She did not think either that she was doing very wrong in thus deceiving him. It was her duty to be his wife, and it was not her duty to analyze her feelings in his sight, unless he asked her for such analysis, which he was not likely to do, for his was not a mind quick to perceive, while suspicion was something to which he was a total stranger. He had always admired Dora, and latterly he had learned to love her devotedly, feeling now that his affection was in part returned, else she had not deliberately come to him and said, “I will be your wife.” It made him very happy to know she had said so, and in his happiness he failed to notice the pallor of her face, the drooping of her swollen eyelids, and her apparent wish to get as far from him as possible. Margaret had never been demonstrative, and he hardly expected Dora to be different, so the poor, deluded man was satisfied, and when Dora, who would have everything settled at once, said to him:

“We will wait a year,—till next autumn,” he knew what she meant, and answered readily.

“Yes, if you like, though Margaret said it did not matter how soon, the earlier the better for the children’s sake.”

“I’d rather it should be a year,” was Dora’s quiet reply, to which the Squire assented, and then, though he so much wished her to stay, he opened the door for her to pass out, as he saw that she desired it.

Half an hour later and Bell Verner, who was just falling to sleep, was startled by a knock, and Dora asked permission to enter.

“What is it? Who’s come?” Jessie asked in a dreamy tone, lifting her curly head from the pillow, just as Bell unlocked the door, and Dora stepped into the room.

She was very calm now and decided. The matter was fixed now beyond recall, and she felt a great deal better. Sitting down upon the foot of the bed, she said to Bell and Jessie:

“I could not let you go home without telling you something which may perhaps surprise you.”

“Oh, I know. I can guess. You are going to marry Mr. Russell,” Jessie cried, and Dora answered:

“Yes. It was Margaret’s wish, expressed to both of us, but that is nothing. I begin to feel old; oh, so old,” and Dora shuddered as she said it. “John is good and will make me a kind husband. It is true that once, when a very young girl like Jessie, I had in my mind another idea for a husband. All girls do in their teens, I guess, but when we get to be twenty-six we begin to lose the fancy man and look for something solid.”

This she said to Bell, as if expecting her concurrence rather than that of madcap Jessie. But the contrary was the fact, for Jessie approved the match far more than her sister. Squire Russell was splendid, she said, and would let a body do just as she had a mind, which was a great deal nicer than a dictatorial, overbearing fellow of twenty-eight. Yes, she’d give her consent, and she began to whistle, “Come haste to the wedding,” as she nestled back among the pillows, wondering how she should feel to be engaged to Squire Russell. Bell on the contrary saw things in their true light, and she merely replied:

“I am somewhat surprised, I will acknowledge, but if you love him that is all that is necessary.”

She was looking directly at Dora, but in the dim moonlight the white, haggard face was not plainly discerned, and Bell continued:

“I did think you liked Dr. West, and was positive he liked you.”

“Oh, fie,” and Jessie sprang up again, “Dora hates him, while he,—well, I guess he likes all the girls,—that is, likes to talk with and flatter them; any way, he has said a great many complimentary things to me, and I knew he meant nothing. They say his heart is buried in that grave in Morrisville. I picked him out for Dora once, you know, and that’s all the good it did. Marry the Squire, and let me be bridesmaid.”

“Will you?” Dora asked. “Will you and Bell both officiate?”

Jessie assented eagerly, but Bell hesitated. She could not make it seem real that Dora Freeman was to become the wife of Squire Russell. Something would prevent it. At last, however, as Dora urged a reply, she said:

“Perhaps I will, if when the time arrives you still wish for two.”

The clock was striking eleven when Dora quitted the apartment of the Misses Verner, but late as it was Johnnie was waiting for her by her door. He had heard the glad news from his father, and he caught Dora round the neck, exclaiming:

“I know, I’ve heard,—the governor told me. You are,—you are my mother. I never was so happy in my life, was you?”

They were now in Dora’s room, where the gas was burning, disclosing to Johnnie a face which made him start with fear, it was so unnaturally white.

“Auntie,” he exclaimed, bending over her, as, reclining upon the bed, she buried her head in the pillows, “what makes you so white, when I’m so glad, and father, too? I never saw him so pleased. Why, the tears danced in his eyes as he told me, while I blubbered like a calf; and you are crying, too, but not as father did, or I. O my! what is it? This is so different. Auntie, Auntie, you are in a fit!” and Johnnie gazed awe-struck upon the little form which shook convulsively as Dora tried to smother her deep sobs. “I’ll go for father,” Johnnie continued, and then Dora looked up, telling him to stay there where he was.

“But, Auntie, what is the matter?” he asked. “Do girls always cry so when they are engaged? What makes your tears run so like rivers, and so big? It must hurt awfully to be engaged. O dear, dear! I am crying, too!” and then the excited boy wound both arms around Dora’s neck and drew her head upon his shoulder, where it lay, while Dora’s tears literally ran in rivers down her cheeks.

But the weeping did her good, and she grew very quiet at last, and listened while Johnnie told her how good he was going to be, and how he would influence the others to be good, too.

“We will all be so happy,” he said, “that mother, if she could look at us, would be so glad. Father will read to us winter nights, or you’ll play chess with him and sing to us youngsters, and summers we’ll go to lots of places, and you shall have heaps of handsome dresses. You’re not so tall as mother, and it won’t take so many yards, so you can have more. I mean to buy one anyhow, with some money I’ve laid up. I guess it will be red silk, like Jessie’s, and you’ll have it made low-neck, like hers, with little short sleeves. You’ve got nice, pretty arms, whiter than Jessie’s.”

Remembering how much his mother had thought of dress, Johnnie naturally concluded it to be the Open Sesame to every woman’s heart, and so talked on until she sent him away, for she would rather be alone with her own tumultuous thoughts.

“Do I believe it now, after the first stunning effect is over, and I sit here alone thinking calmly of what came to me in Jessie Verner’s letter? Do I believe that Dora will marry her brother-in-law, remembering as I do the expression of her face when she sat by the two graves and I told her of Anna? Can there be jealousy where there is no love? I think not, and she was jealous of my commendations of Jessie. Oh, was I deceived, and did her coldness and ill-nature mean more than I was willing to admit? It is very hard to give her up, loving her as I do, but God knows best what is for my good. When I set Anna above Him He took her away, and now He will take my Dora. It is sheer selfishness, I know, and yet I cannot help feeling that I would rather she were lying by Anna’s side than to see her Squire Russell’s wife. It is a most unnatural match, for there is no bond of sympathy in their natures. Dora must be unhappy after the novelty is gone. Darling Dora,—it is not wicked to speak thus of her now, as there is no certainty in the case, only a surmise, which, nevertheless, has almost broken my heart, for I feel sure that whether she marry the Squire or not, she is lost to me. She does not care for me. She never did, else why does she grow so cross and crisp when my name is mentioned? Alas! that I should ever have thought otherwise, and built up a beautiful future which only Dora was to share with me. I am afraid to record on paper how dear she is to me, or how constantly she has been in my mind since I parted from her. How anxiously I waited for some reply to my letter, and how disappointed I was in the arrival of every mail. I wonder if I did well to answer Jessie so soon, and send that message to Dora? I am confident now that it was not a right spirit which prompted me to act so hastily. I felt that Dora had broken faith with me,—that she should have waited at least the year,—that in some way she was injuring me, and so vindictive pride dictated the words I sent her. May I be forgiven for the wrong; and if Dora is indeed to be the bride of her sister’s husband, may she be happy with him, and never know one iota of the pain and suffering her marriage will bring to me.

“Our stay in California has been very pleasant, even though I have failed thus far in what was the secret motive which led me here, the hope of finding the man to whom that letter was addressed long years ago, Robin’s father, and, as I believe, Anna’s husband. We have been at this hotel just three weeks to-day, and mother likes it better than the private boarding-house we left. Friends seem to spring up around us wherever we go, and I believe I have nearly as many patients in San Francisco as I ever had at home. For this good fortune, which I did not expect, I thank my Heavenly Father, praying that the means I use may be blessed to the recovery of those who so willingly put their lives in my hands.

“How that poor fellow in the next room groans, and how the sound of his moaning makes me long to hasten to his side and alleviate, if possible, the fever which they say is consuming him. Poor fellow, he was making money so fast, I hear, and hoarding it so carefully for his mother, he told his acquaintance, and now he is dying here alone, far from his mother, who would so gladly smooth his dying pillow. I saw him when they carried him through the hall on his arrival from the mountains, and something in the shape of his head and the way the hair curled around it, made me start, it was so like Robert’s. But the name, when I asked it, drove the hope away: John Maxwell, or Max, as he is generally called by those who know him best. He has been here for years, steadily accumulating money, and winning, as it would seem, scores of friends. Even the head chamber-maid, when she heard ‘young Max’ was ill, and was to be brought here, evinced more womanly interest than I supposed her capable of doing. He must be growing worse, his moanings increase so fast, and there seems to be a consultation going on within his room, while my name is spoken by some one, a friend too it would seem, for he says:

“‘I wish you would try him at least. I have great faith in that mode of practice.’

“They are going to send for me; they are coming now to the door; they are saying to me:

“‘Dr. West, will you step in and see what you think of poor Max’s case?’”

That was what they called him at the hotel, which had been to him a home for years, and you would know by the intonation of their voices that he was a favorite with all. He was very sick, burning with fever, and talking at intervals of his mother, of Dick, and of another whose name the attendants could not well make out. It was of his sweetheart, the chamber-maid surmised, for in the pocket of his vest, which she hung away, she had found a daguerrotype of a young girl, whose marvellous beauty she had never seen excelled.

“Poor Mr. Max! he must have loved her so much! I wonder where she is to-day?” she said, softly, as she continued to scan the lovely face smiling upon her from the worn, old-fashioned case.

Alas! the original of that picture had for many a year been mouldering back to dust, and poor Max, who had loved and wronged her so much, was whispering her name in vain. He was growing worse, his nurse feared, and so at last she sent for Dr. West, of whose skill she had heard so much, and who in a few minutes stepped into the closely darkened room.

“It seemed as if the light worried him,” the nurse said, in a whisper, as she saw the doctor glance towards the curtained windows.

“Very likely; but I should like to see him for once,” was the doctor’s reply, as he took the hot hand in his.

Max’s face, which, within a day or two, had grown very thin and was now purple with fever, was turned away from the doctor, who counted the rapid pulse, while the nurse admitted a ray of light, which shone full upon the sick man’s pillow, and made Dr. West start suddenly, and turn whiter even than the broad forehead round which the damp brown hair was curling. Then he bent anxiously over his patient, turning him more to the light, where he could see him distinctly. Did he recognize anything familiar in that sunken face, where the beard was growing so heavily,—anything which carried him back to his Northern home, where in his childhood every pastime had been shared by another, and that other his twin brother? Did he see anything which brought to him thoughts of Anna, dead so long ago, or of Robin, who died when the last summer flowers were blooming? Yes; and kneeling by the bedside he whispered, “Robert, Robert, is it you?”

The bright eyes were open and fixed upon him, but with a vacant stare, while a second look at the flushed face brought a doubt into the doctor’s mind.

“He is like my brother Robert, and yet he is not like him,” he thought, as he continued to scrutinize the features which puzzled him so much.

“Mother will know,” he said at last; and going to his mother, he said to her hurriedly, “Come with me, and tell if you ever saw this Max before.”

He was greatly excited, but not more so than his mother, who felt intuitively the shock awaiting her.

“Open that blind wide, and put back that heavy curtain,” the doctor said to the frightened nurse, who quickly obeyed his orders, and then waited to see what would happen next.

Max was talking and counting on his fingers till he came to twenty.

“Yes, twenty, that’s it,” he said; “that’s the way the paper read; just twenty years of age, and Dick and I are six years older. Dick loved her, too; he ought to have married her. Dick was a trump.”

“What does he say? What does he say? O Richard, what does he say?” Mrs. West almost screamed, as she bent down so low that the hot fever breath lifted her silver hair.

Richard made no answer, nor was there need, for the mother instinct recognized the boy, the wayward, wandering Robert, mourned for as dead during so many dreary years, while the mother-love, forgetting all the past, cried out, “My boy, my boy, my Robert, my child! God has given you back to me at last! Praised be His name!”

For an instant something like reason flashed over the wasted face, but it passed away, and to the mother’s continued murmurings of love there came only incoherent mutterings of the mountains, the mines, and stocks which seemed to have been substituted for the thoughts of the twenty years and the trump of a Dick, now ministering to the mother, who had fainted and was carried from the room. But she did not stay away long. Her place was by Robert, she said, and she went back to his side, saying to those around her, “He is my boy: he left me years ago, but I have found him at last.”

People gossip in California as well as elsewhere, and the hotel was soon full of surmises and wonder, as people repeated to each other that the man known as Max was Robert West, who had taken another name and come among them, for what reason none could guess. The doctor and his mother knew the people would talk, but they did not heed it during the days when with agonizing suspense they hung over the bed of the prodigal, watching for some token of amendment, and praying that the erring one might not be taken from them now and leave the past a darker mystery than ever. He did not talk a great deal, but when he did it was mostly of home scenes in which Anna and Dick were always associated.

Once when they sat alone and Mrs. West was resting in her room, Richard said to Robert, who had spoken of Anna as of some one there with him, “You mean your wife, Anna West; you know you married her privately.”

For an instant the wild eyes flashed in Richard’s face, and then the delirious man replied, “Did she tell you so?”

“Not exactly, but I inferred as much, for when she lay dying, she said, ‘Call my baby for his father,’ and when I whispered ‘Robert,’ she nodded assent. They are both dead now, Anna and little Robin. Your wife, your baby, which never saw its father,” Richard continued, wishing to impress some idea upon his brother’s mind.

But in vain, for Robert did not take the sense of what he heard, except indeed the word baby, which he kept repeating to himself, laughing insanely as he did so, “Anna’s baby; very funny,—very queer, when she was only a child herself,” he would whisper, and that was all which Richard achieved by speaking of the dead.

But there came a day when the stupor passed from brain and head, leaving the latter free from pain and the former clear and bright. He had been sleeping, and when he woke only Richard was with him, and he was sitting where he did not at first observe the eyes fastened so curiously upon him, as Robert West’s heart alternately beat with hope and fear. He could not be mistaken, he said to himself. It was no dream that his brother had been there with him,—aye, was there still, looking older, sadder, but his brother all the same. Dick, the kindest, best brother in the world.

“Richard,” he said at last very softly, and Richard started, and bent over the sick man, whose eyes read his face for an instant, and then filled with great hot tears, as, winding his arms around the doctor’s neck, he sobbed, “It is my brother, ’tis Dick; and you will forgive me. I’ve got the money safe, honestly earned, too, every cent; more than enough to pay the debt, which I heard you were paying for me. Dear old Dick, we will be happy yet, but tell me first that you forgive me, tell me second how you found me, and tell me third of mother, and all—”

He did not mention Anna, and Richard, in his reply, only answered the questions directly put.

“Call mother,” Robert said, when told that she was there, and in a moment she was weeping on the pillow of her erring, but, as it would seem, deeply repentant child, for he repeated to her what he had said to Richard about the money, adding, “And this fall I was coming home to buy back the dear old place, if possible; I was, mother, I was; I’ve been so bad and wicked, but you will forgive me now, for since I left New York I have not been guilty of a single dishonorable act. Ask the people here, they know. They will tell you that among them all there is no one more popular than Max; I go by that name,” and Robert’s face crimsoned as he said this last.

In his anxiety that his mother should forgive and think well of him, he grew so much excited that all she and Richard could do was to soothe him into quiet by assurances of forgiveness and love. He was too weak to talk longer, and he lay perfectly still, holding his mother’s hand and gazing into the dear face which bent so fondly over him. Once his lips quivered with some deep emotion, and when Richard asked what he would say, he answered:

“Mother has changed so much,—her hair has all turned white. Was it for me, mother?”

“Not wholly, Robert; it turned about the time when we lost Anna,” was Mrs. West answer.

Instantly the sick man’s eyelids closed, and one after another the big tears rolled down his sunken cheeks, leaving a red, shining track, such as bitter, scalding tears always leave, but he made no comment, and Anna was not mentioned again until two days had passed, and he was so much better that he sat up in bed, propped on pillows, with his mother at his side, half supporting him. Then suddenly breaking a silence which had fallen upon them, he exclaimed:

“It was an unfortunate hour that saw me installed as our great Uncle Jason’s book-keeper and confidential clerk. He trusted me so entirely, and there were such large sums of money daily passing through my hands, that the temptation was a great one to a person of my expensive tastes and habits. I cannot tell just when I took the first five dollars, replacing it as soon as possible, and then finding the second sin so much easier than the first. It was not a sin, I said then, as did others of my companions who were in the habit of doing the same thing, and who led me on from bad to worse, while all the time my uncle believed me a pattern of honesty. If I had not heard that a part of Uncle Jason’s fortune rightfully belonged to us, I do not believe I should have fallen so low. As it was, I made myself think that what I took was mine, and after I learned to gamble it was ten times worse. There is a fascination about those dens of iniquity which you cannot understand, and it proved my ruin. I played every night, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, and gradually staking more and more, until at last I bet so heavily that forgery was the consequence. I don’t know what made me do it, for I knew I could not replace that 20,000 dollars, and when the deed was done there was no alternative but to run away. Assuming the name of John Maxwell, I went to England first, and then to California. Uncle Jason had so much faith in me that you know he believed me murdered, until the fraud was discovered, when it seems he behaved most generously, suppressing the facts, and after an interview with you, my brother, consented to keep the whole thing still, provided the money was in time refunded.”

“Who told you this?” both Richard and his mother exclaimed, but Robert only replied:

“I heard it, and resolved, if possible, to earn that money and pay it back myself. The voyage out sobered me into a better man, for, mother, your prayers, said over me when I was a child, rang continually in my ears, until I, too, ventured to whisper each day the words, ‘Lead us not into temptation,’ saying them at first more from habit than anything else, and afterwards because I learned to have faith in them, learned to believe there was something in that petition which did keep me from falling lower. I was not good as you term goodness, and had I died I should assuredly have been lost; but within a few short months there has been a change, so that what I once was doing for your sakes I now do, I trust, from higher, holier motives; and oh! I had so much need of forgiveness, for had I not wronged everybody, and you, my brother, most of all?”

There was a mutual pressure of hands between the brothers, and then they who listened hoped to hear of Anna next, but of her Robert was still silent, and they suffered him to take his own course, following him with breathless interest as he told of his life in the mines, and how he had been successful beyond his most sanguine hopes,—how friends had sprung up around him, and all things had conspired to make him happy, were it not for the dreadful memories of the past which haunted him continually.

“I should have written when I learned that I was safe from a felon’s doom,” he said, “but with this information came news of so terrible a nature that I was stunned for many months, so that I cared little what became of me, and when feeling came back again, I said I’ll wait until I have the money as a sure peace offering. I had it almost earned once, two years ago, but by a great reverse I lost so much that I was compelled to wait yet longer,—wait, as it seems, till you came here to find me. It is all a dream to me yet that you are here, and that I, perhaps, shall breathe again my native air, and visit the old home. Is it greatly changed?”

“Many would think West Lawn improved,” Richard replied, “but to us who loved Anna it can never be the same.”

There was another silence, and then Richard, who could no longer restrain himself, exclaimed:

“Robert, if you know aught which can throw a ray of light on Anna’s dark face, in pity tell us what it is! You do know,—you must know!—Was Anna your wife?”

Richard could hear the beatings of his own and his brother’s heart as he waited for the answer, which, when it came, was a decided “Yes, Anna was my wife!”

The summer moonlight was shining into the sick-room, where, with Richard and his mother beside him, Robert West was summoning nerve and courage to tell the story they were waiting so anxiously to hear. With the assertion that “Anna was my wife,” he had fainted, and since then a night and a day had intervened, during which no word of the past had escaped his lips. But now that he was stronger, he had said to his mother and brother, “Sit beside me, and if I can I will tell you of Anna.”

They needed no second bidding, but gathered closely to him, and there, in the quiet room, Robert West began the story, in which there was a slight recapitulation of what he had before told, but which will help to enlighten the reader with regard to Robert’s past.

“I cannot remember the time when I did not love Anna,” he said, fixing his eyes upon the ceiling. “As a boy I made no secret of it, but as I grew older I pretended not to care for her more than for any other, and called her a little doll, you know, but it was mere pretense, for I loved the very air she breathed; and when I heard she was engaged to Dick, I cried as young men of twenty-two seldom cry. You know I had then been in New York two years, and that soon after this I was received into Uncle Jason’s employ, and trusted by him with everything. For my father’s sake, he trusted me, he used to say, never dreaming how unlike the father was the son.

“After losing Anna I cared little for my self-respect, and then first commenced the process of taking five or ten dollars, as I chanced to need it. This I always replaced, and so conscience was satisfied, particularly after I found that other young men, who stood as well as myself, did the same. I cannot account for it, but I now believe that my apparent indifference to Anna attracted rather than repelled her, for when I was at home I used to try the experiment of being very attentive, just to see how she would brighten with pleasure, but it was not until my last visit, made the August before I ran away, that the idea entered my brain of taking her from Richard. He was gone for two weeks, you will remember, and I improved my time to so good advantage that when I finally left Morrisville, I had won a half promise from Anna that she would talk with him and ask to be released. She did not promise this willingly, for her strong sense of right made her question the justice of such an act, and all my arguments were necessary to wring that promise from her. We were out in the graveyard, Dick on that little bench,—you know where.”

“Yes, I know;” and Richard’s reply was like a groan, as Anna and Dora came up before him, connected with that rustic bench.

“It was a moonlight night, and we stayed there a long, long time, mother thinking we were at some neighbor’s house, while you, my brother, were away, never dreaming how falsely I was dealing with you. But Anna thought of you, pleading most for you, even while she confessed her love for me, and saying that daily interviews with you made you more like her brother. And there I had the advantage; I was comparatively a stranger, while the city air and manner I had studied to acquire were not without their effect on Anna. She was almost an angel, but human still, and so the old story was again repeated. The city fop, with sin enough upon his soul to have driven that pure young girl from his sight forever, could she have known it, was preferred to the country boy. But it was hard work, and more than once I gave up in despair, as, wringing her little hands, she cried:

“‘O Robert, don’t tempt me so. I do love Richard, or I did before you came, and he is so good, so noble. God will never forgive me if I deceive him so dreadfully. Please, Robert, don’t tempt me any more.’

“You can imagine how I answered her. There were kisses and caresses, and assurances that you would rather give her up than take her when her heart was not your own, and so the victory was won, and I acted a most cowardly part. I made Anna promise not to speak of me when talking with you, Richard, or hint in any way that I was the cause of her changed feelings toward you. I then returned to New York, while she asked to be released from her engagement. She wrote to me once, bitterly condemning herself for her deception, as she termed it, and earnestly begging permission to tell you all, but I refused, and held her to her promise; and so matters stood when you decided upon sending her to Boston. You know she came first to New York to Uncle Jason’s, whose wife is both deaf and half blind, so she was not in my way at all. After you returned home, Dick, I was there every night, and as Uncle Jason nodded over his paper in his study, while Aunt Eliza nodded over her knitting in the parlor, I had every opportunity for pressing my suit, rejoicing when I saw how I could sway Anna at my will. She was easily influenced by those she loved and trusted—”

Here Robert’s voice trembled, and he paused a moment ere he resumed:

“She believed that I was good, and this belief, more than anything I could say, led her to listen to me. She was to leave on Monday for Boston, and on Saturday I took her for a drive through the city, and when she returned at night she was my wife. How I accomplished it I can hardly tell, for at first Anna refused outright, but she was finally persuaded, and at the house of a clergyman whom I knew by reputation the ceremony was performed. It was the original plan that when her visit was over I should accompany her home and announce our marriage, after which she should return with me to New York, but subsequent events made this impossible. My uncle had commissioned me to telegraph to the friends in Boston that I would be there on Monday with Anna, and he kindly gave me permission to remain a few days, or even longer if I liked. This I professed to have done, but it was a lie I told my uncle, who, believing Anna to be Dick’s betrothed, had no suspicion that I cared for her in the least except as my sister. After leaving her at his door on Saturday night, I purposely did not see her again until Monday, when, according to arrangement, I went ostensibly to accompany her to Boston. Anna knew nothing of my real intentions, and it was some time before she understood that we were going to Albany instead of New Haven. In much surprise she questioned me, turning very white and bursting into tears when the truth dawned upon her, and she saw how she was becoming more entangled in the deception. We stayed in Albany at the City Hotel until Thursday morning, and in those three days I was, I believe, as perfectly happy as is possible for mortal man to be. And Anna was happy too. In her love for me she forgot all else, and I tasted fully of the bliss it was to call that lovely, gentle creature wife. I remained in Boston one night, but Friday found me again in New York, while one week from the next Saturday night,—O, mother! if I could only blot out that Saturday night from the past, but I cannot, and I must tell you how low your boy fell. Knowing how good and pure Anna was I resolved that henceforth my life should be such as she could approve, and to this end I would avoid all my old associates, I said, and never again frequent their haunts or come in contact with them. Chief among these associates was a Stanley, who had first taught me to play, and who had constantly hovered near me as my evil genius. On Saturday, he came into my office, and told me of a rare specimen from Cincinnati who was terribly conceited, but whom I could beat so easily. ‘He has heaps of money,’ he said, ‘and if you choose you can make a fortune in an hour. Come to-night, and you are sure to win.’

“Instantly there flashed over me the thought ‘if Anna could only dress and live like the ladies of Madison Square,’ but with it came the knowledge of how she would disapprove, and I hesitated. The temptation was a strong one, and as I continued to listen I felt my good resolutions giving way. Just for once, and that should be the last, I said, consenting to join my comrade, who evidently believed all he said of the stranger. Ten o’clock found me at Stanley’s rooms, opposite my antagonist, whom I at once pronounced a fool. Eleven found me the winner of a considerable amount. Twelve o’clock, my lucky star was still in the ascendant, but when two o’clock of that Sunday morning struck, I was ruined, and my opponent held my note for $20,000.

“Desperate, distracted, what could I do but forge my uncle’s name for the amount, taking the precaution to draw from three or four banks where he had funds deposited, and this I did without a thought of the consequences; but when I woke to the peril of my situation I was mad with fear, and determined to run away. But first I wrote to Anna, telling her I was going, but withheld the reason why. After the letter was sent I was seized with a terror lest she by some means should betray me, and so I be brought to justice. My love for her was strong, but dread of a prison life was stronger. Of Uncle Jason I asked and received permission to visit Morrisville for a week, and when I left him he thought I was going home, but I went instead to Boston, reaching there in the night, and next morning hiring a boy to take a note to Anna. She was alone when it was delivered, as the family were out on some shopping expedition. In much alarm she came to the Revere, where I was to meet her, and there the horrible truth was revealed that she was the wife of a felon. She had not received my letter, and what I told her was wholly unexpected. She did not faint, nor scream, nor even reproach me with my sin. She merely sank upon her knees and prayed that I might be forgiven, while into her eyes and face there stole a look which I know now to have been the germ of insanity which afterwards came upon her.

“‘Anna,’ I said, when her prayer was ended and she sat with her face upon the table, ‘I am going to England in a vessel which sails to-night, and from there to California, assuming the name of John Maxwell, and you must not betray me.’

“Betray you! O Robert!” and the face she lifted up looked as grieved as if I had struck her.

“‘I know you will not do it voluntarily,’ I said, ‘but you must not make yourself liable to be questioned. No one knows I am here. No one knows you are my wife, and no one must know it. Not yet, at least not till it is settled somehow, and I come back to claim you, or send for you to join me.’

“Again she looked wistfully at me, and I continued: ‘If Uncle Jason knew you were my wife, he would question and cross-question you until he frightened it out of you, and I should be captured. I deserve to go to prison, I know, but Anna, darling, think how terrible for one so young to be shut out from this world, wearing my life away. Promise, Anna, and I will be a better man; I will earn enough to pay it back. Promise, if, indeed, you love me.’

“I was kneeling at her feet, sueing almost for my life. I was her husband, and she loved me, erring as I was, and she promised at last to keep her marriage a secret until I said she might tell. I ought to have been satisfied with her word, but each moment the dread of arrest grew greater, and taking the Bible which lay upon the table, I said, ‘Swear with your hand on this.’

“Then she hesitated, but I carried my point, and with her hand on the book she loved so much, she took an oath not to tell, and fell fainting to the floor. I restored her as soon as possible, and led her through obscure streets back to Mr. Haverleigh’s dwelling. I dared not kiss her as I parted with her at the gate, for it was broad day, but I shall never forget the look in her eyes as they rested on my face, while she said, ‘Good-by, Robert. Ask God daily to forgive you as I shall do.’

“I wrung her cold, damp hand, and hurried away, seeing the Haverleigh carriage drive up the street just as I turned into another, and knew that Anna must have been safe in her room when the family returned.”

“Poor Anna,” sobbed Mrs. West. “That was the time when Rosa Haverleigh found her upon the floor totally unconscious. She was never herself after that, and as they could not rouse her to an interest in anything, they sent her back to us, a white-faced, frightened, half crazed creature even then. O Robert, my son, how much sorrow you have wrought,” and the poor mother wept piteously as she remembered the young girl whom she in thought had wronged, and who she now knew had died for the erring Robert, and kept silence even when to do so was to bring disgrace and death upon herself.

“Truly Anna died a martyr’s death,” Richard murmured, feeling now how glad he was that he had held her in his arms and kissed her quivering lips with the kiss of forgiveness, when all else stood aloof as from a sinful thing.

“Yes, a martyr’s death,” Robert repeated sadly; “and some time you will tell me how she died and about her child, but now I hasten on with the part which concerns myself. I went to England and then to California, working in the gold mines like a dog, and literally starving myself for the sake of gain. I would pay that debt, I said, and I would yet be worthy of Anna. It was some time in October that I stumbled upon a Boston paper in which was a notice of Anna’s death, put in by the Haverleighs, I presume, as they were greatly attached to her. I knew it was my Anna, and that I had killed her, and for a time reason and life forsook me. I was sick for weeks, and when I came back to life, Stanley, the man who first taught me to sin, was taking care of me. He, too, had come to the land of gold, finding me by mere chance, and knowing at once that I was not John Maxwell, as I had given out. But he betrayed no secrets, and since then has proved the old adage that there is honor even among thieves. By some means he had ascertained that in consideration of a sum of money paid by you, together with your promise of the whole, Uncle Jason had concluded to say nothing of my forgery. He had also heard that West Lawn was sold, and I knew well what prompted this sacrifice, and cursed myself for the sinful wretch I was. Stanley did not remain in California longer than spring, but returned to New York, from which place he has occasionally written and given me tidings of home. At my request he has at four different times been to Morrisville, and reported to me what he learned. In this way I heard of Robin, and I know that thoughts of him have helped to make me a better man.

“By some strange chance Stanley was there when Robin died, and mingling with those who followed my child to the grave, he saw you, mother, and Dick, and a young lady was with you, he said, a fair young girl, whom Dick called Dora. Is she to be your wife?” and he turned towards Richard, who, with a half moan, replied, “I hoped so once, but I have lost her now.”

Robert pressed the hands of his brother in token of sympathy, and then continued: “I never saw my boy, but I wept bitterly when I heard he was dead, while my desire to return was materially lessened; but this feeling wore away, and I came again to look eagerly forward to the time when with the gold in my hand I could go back and pay the heavy debt I owe you.”

“Did you never hear directly from Anna?” Richard asked, remembering the letter sent to California.

“Yes, once; and it made me for a time almost as mad as my darling. I was up in the mountains when I read it, and the live-long night I lay upon the ground, crying as men are not apt to cry. I have that letter now. It is in my wallet. Would you like to see it?”

A moment after Dr. West held in his hand a worn, yellow paper, on which were traced the last words ever written by the unfortunate Anna, words which made the doctor’s chest heave with anguish as he read them, while his mother sobbed hysterically. A part of this letter we transcribe for the reader:

* * * “I am in a mad-house, darling, where are so many, many crazy people, and they say that I am crazy too. It’s only the secret in my head and heart which makes them burn so cruelly. Richard and mother brought me here. Poor Richard looks so white and sorry, and speaks so kindly of you, wondering where you are, that once I bit my tongue until it bled, to keep from telling what I knew. If I had not promised with my hand upon the Bible, I am sure I should tell, but that oath haunts me day and night, and I dare not break it, so now I never talk, and I was glad when they brought me here, for it was safer so. It was dreadful at first, and sometimes I most wished I could die, but God is here just as He is in Morrisville, and at last I prayed to Him as I used to do. You see I forgot to pray for a while, it was so terrible, and I thought I was lost forever, but I’ve found God again, and I don’t mind the dreadful place. Everybody is kind to me, everybody says ‘poor girl,’ and you need not worry because I am here. I pray for you every minute, and God will hear and save you, because He has promised, and God never lies. Dear, darling Robert, if I dared tell you something, it might perhaps bring you home to spare me from the shame which is surely coming, unless I tell, and that I’ve sworn not to do. It makes me blush to write it, and so I guess I won’t; but just imagine, if I was your wife before all the world, and we were living somewhere alone, and Richard did not love me, as I know he does, and folks called me Mrs. West instead of poor Anna, and you always hurried home at night to see me, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a little baby between us to love, you because it was Anna’s, and I because it was Robert’s! But now, O Robert, what shall I do, with you away, and that Bible oath in my heart. God will help me, I hope, and perhaps take me home to him, where they know I am innocent. Poor Richard, I pity him most when he comes to know it, but God will care for him, and when I am gone he will find some other one more worthy than I for him to love.

“There came a young girl here yesterday, not to stay, for her brains all were sound, but with some more to look at us, and as they reached my door I heard the attendant whisper something of me, while the stranger came up to me and said:

“‘Poor girl, does your head ache very hard?’ and she put her hand so gently on my hair; but I would not look up, and she went on with her companion, who called her Dora. I don’t know why her voice made me think of Richard, but it did, it was so soft and pitiful, just like his when he speaks to me. It made me cry, and I prayed carefully to myself, ‘God send to Richard another love, with a voice and manner like Dora.’” * * *

Richard could read no farther, but dropping the letter upon the bed, he buried his face in his hands and moaned:

“Darling Anna, your prayer will never be answered, but I thank you for it all the same, and I am so glad that I never forsook nor quite lost faith in you. O Anna! O Dora! Dora!”

The last name was wrung from him inadvertently, but Robert caught it up and said:

“Was the Dora who was with you at Robin’s grave the same of whom Anna speaks?”

“I think so,—yes, I am sure, for she once told me of a visit made to the asylum, and related an incident similar to this which Anna mentions.”

“Then Dick,” and Robert spoke reverently but decidedly, “then she will be yours. Anna prayed for it once, and I have implicit faith in Anna’s prayers. They followed me over land and sea, bringing me at last to the fountain of all peace.”

Richard made no reply to this, but asked reproachfully why his brother did not hasten home after receiving that touching message from Anna.

“The letter was a long time coming,” Robert said. “And as I was not expecting it, I never inquired at the post-office until I saw it advertised. It was then the first of September, and Anna was already dead, but this I did not know, and I was making up my mind to brave even a prison for her sake, when I saw that paper which told me of her death. The rest you know, except, indeed, the debt of gratitude I owe to you and mother for all your kindness to my wife and boy, and for the love with which you have ever cherished me. If I get well, I trust my life will show that a wretch like me can reform. I have money enough to pay the debt with interest, and, Richard, it is all yours, earned for you, and hoarded as carefully as miser ever hoarded his gains. But now tell me of Anna at the last. Did no one suspect she was my wife?”

“No one but myself, and I did not till she was dying,” Richard replied. “No one dreamed of questioning her of you, and so she was spared that pain.”

And then he told Robert the sad story which our readers already know, the story of Anna’s death, of Robin’s birth, and his short life, while Robert, listening to it, atoned for all the wrong by the anguish he endured and the tears he shed, as the narrative proceeded. At last, when it was finished, he sank back upon his pillow, wholly exhausted with excitement and fatigue.

For weeks after that he hovered so near the verge of death that even the mother despaired, and looked each day to see the life go out from her child, who in his boyhood had never been so dear to her as now. But youth and a strong constitution triumphed, and again the fever abated, leaving the sick man as weak and helpless as a child, but anxious for the day when he would be able to make the homeward voyage.