University of Virginia Library

18. CHAPTER XVIII.

Two weeks after her interview with her supposed
brother, Adelaide might have been seen seated
in the room where that interview had taken
place. She sat lost in thought—her eyes fixed and
dilated, as if the subject, in which she was so absorbed,
was painful in its nature.

It may be remembered, that Mr. Gordon, on
learning from Glenham that there was danger of
La Salle's disclosing the plot, of which he had been
made the centre-wheel, had concluded that it would
be necessary to remove Adelaide from her present
place of abode, in order to prevent a discovery
which would materially interfere with the success
of his plans. On consulting with Mrs. Winfield,
they abandoned this idea. All that would be necessary
would be to prevent the Count's seeing Adelaide

in the event of his calling, and to persuade
him if possible that she had left the city, so that he
might discontinue his visits. The scheme thus
arranged was successfully carried out. La Salle
had been baffled in all his attempts to learn whether
or no she was in the house.

The same devices, which had been hitherto employed
to mislead Adelaide in regard to the cause
of Fleetwood's absence, were continued with success
for some days after the period which he had
fixed for their wedding. And then, as she began
to grow solicitous and alarmed, Glenham appeared
and helped to keep up the delusion, by assigning
new and specious reasons for his friend's apparent
neglect. In one of the forged letters which she
had received, Fleetwood had been made to commend
this young man to her confidence; and
though she experienced an indefinable sort of dislike
towards him, she had never yet distrusted the
genuineness of his professions or the truth of his
assertions. His inventive faculties were pretty
severely tasked by the questions which she put.
The absence of her supposed brother, as well as of
her lover, was a matter which required explanation.
Adelaide united a child-like ignorance of the
world, as experience shows it, to a premature knowledge
of it as exhibited in books. It was not difficult
to persuade her that “Ernest,” as she called
him, had encountered some opposition at the Custom
House, which required his immediate presence in
Washington, as well to vindicate his character as
to look after his interests.

But Adelaide had other reasons beside that natural
distrust, which must soon have sprung up in her
mind, for her present disturbed and anxiously
meditative mood. At his last two visits, Glenham
had thrown out mysterious hints in regard to Fleetwood,
which had awakened her intensest solicitude.

At first these givings-out were mere expressions
of amazement at his prolonged absence, and declarations
of inability to explain why he should suspend
writing to Adelaide. Then came the dark inuendo,
the deprecatory insinuation. the torturing doubt.
Under the mask of a disinterested concern for her
welfare, Glenham succeeded in winning her confidence.
He had promised her that he would satisfy
himself once for all whether Fleetwood was, as he
had pretended to be, at his country-place, detained by
engagements which he could not neglect, or whether
he had arrived in the city, and had deferred calling
from illness or any other cause. She was now
waiting, in a state of cruel suspense, the coming of
Glenham, who had promised to bring her some
definite information on the subject that morning.

To doubt was to despair with Adelaide. She
would not, therefore, even entertain a suspicion of
Fleetwood's truth; but she feared that some accident
had occurred to him, the effects of which were
dangerous, and which he was trying to keep concealed
from her, from motives of generosity.

Suddenly Glenham entered the room, and, without
pausing to salute her, began pacing the floor as
if agitated and indignant.

“What has happened, Mr. Glenham, that you
appear thus excited?” exclaimed Adelaide, in a tone
of alarm.

“Ah! how shall I communicate it to you, Miss
Adelaide?” said Glenham, shaking his head mournfully.
“I fear that you cannot bear it, or that you
will not believe it—and yet nothing can be more
true.”

“Does it concern Fleetwood?”

“It does.”

Adelaide was silent for nearly a minute, while
her heart beat violently and her cheeks grew pale,
and she grasped with both hands the arms of the

chair in which she sat. At length, as if nerving
herself to endure the worst, she said: “Speak
freely. I am prepared to hear.”

“To keep you no longer in suspense, then, Miss
Adelaide, Fleetwood has forsaken you—and he is
now affianced to another.”

Adelaide instantly rose, her hands resting upon
the arms of the chair. She surveyed Glenham a
moment with an expression of incredulous scorn,
uttered the simple exclamation, “Slanderer!” and
sank back into her seat.

“I was prepared for this incredulity,” said he;
“but you do me injustice; and—I grieve to say it—
I can point out to you the means of satisfying yourself
at once, that what I have told you is true.
The lady, to whom Fleetwood is engaged, resides
in this city. Her name is Gordon—Emily Gordon.”

“Emily Gordon!” exclaimed Adelaide—“and
does she reside in Camden Place?”

“It must be the same,” said Glenham, much
amazed. “Are you acquainted with her?”

“No; but I found a card bearing that name and
address, in a book which my mother procured for
me the other day. I will instantly call on Miss
Gordon.”

“No—n-n-no! that would never do!” stammered
Glenham, who did not know what might be the
result of such an encounter. “That would not be
the best way to satisfy your doubts.”

“Doubts! I have no doubts!” said Adelaide
scornfully, rising and moving towards the door.
“But I owe it to the lady to tell her what I have
heard this day. Good morning, sir.”

And she quitted the room.

Glenham rang the bell violently and asked for
Mrs. Winfield. She was not in the house. He
was in despair. Should he run to Mr. Gordon's,
and put him on his guard? The hour was one

when that gentleman was almost certain to be from
home. While Glenham was yet hesitating what to
do, Adelaide, who had donned her bonnet and
shawl, passed out of the front door into the street.
He thrust on his hat, and rushed after her—but
what could he do? Any remonstrances he might
make would excite her suspicions. He found himself
caught in his own toils. The straight forwardness
of Adelaide's character had been more than a match
for his own craft. Her decision had baffled his
calculating and elaborated policy. He slunk along
the streets keeping his eyes fixed upon her movements,
without daring to let her know that he was
following her, and without being able to invent any
new lie, by which he could defeat her purpose.

Adelaide had little difficulty in finding the house
of Mr. Gordon. She rang, and asked to see Miss
Emily. The servant replied that she had gone out
to walk. “I will wait for her return,” said Adelaide;
and the servant ushered her into the parlor,
bowed and left the room. The weather was warm;
and Adelaide, attracted by the sight of flowers and
falling water, moved towards the conservatory.
She had not been there two minutes when she heard
the sound of footsteps and a voice, which made her
tremble. Indeed so powerless did agitation render
her, that she was obliged to cling to the nearest object,
which happened to be the trunk of an orange
tree, for support. As she looked through the leaves,
which concealed her from view, into the suite of
rooms beyond, she saw Fleetwood enter with a
lady on his arm. They approached a sofa, upon
which they sat down as if fatigued by their stroll.
The sight seemed to paralyse the functions of motion
in Adelaide. For an instant, she could not
move—she could not speak. She thought she must
be under the influence of some horrid night-mare,

and that all that had passed and was passing before
her was but a dream.

“To-morrow, then, Emily,” said Fleetwood, “to-morrow
sees us united! Why do you sigh? One
would think you had half repented of this engagement.”

“Oh, no—no!” replied Emily. “We ought to
be very happy. I am sure I shall make one person
happy, and that is my father—and I shall try, Fleetwood,
to make you happy also.”

Adelaide had been from compulsion a listener to
these words. Their first effect was terrible; and
she thought she would have swooned. But a sense
of her situation, and, perhaps, an emotion of pride
came to her relief, and made her sinews bear her
“stiffly up.” The conclusion at which she at once
arrived was, that Fleetwood, surrounded by the
luxury and affluence visible in this abode, had become
ashamed of his allegiance to one, who was
the child of obscurity, perhaps of dishonor. The
sickening feeling of desertion, of desolation, then
came over her, and almost bowed her to the earth.
But she knew if she gave way to it she was lost.

What should she do? Should she pass out of
the room before the eyes of Fleetwood and the new
companion of his choice, or should she escape unobserved
by a side-door, which led into the passage
communicating with the front entrance of the
house? She feared that her remaining strength
would give way should she confront Fleetwood; and
what purpose could the meeting answer? The
evidence against him was irresistible. There could
be no delusion in what she had seen and heard.
What further testimony could she ask?

But even in that moment of doubt and desolation,
she could not endure the idea of skulking like a
criminal from the presence of her whom she had
come to seek; and severe as the trial was, she resolved

to take the bold and ingenuous alternative.
With a bearing at once modest and majestic she
stepped forth from her place of concealment, and
advanced towards Emily. Fleetwood started up
with amazement, as if appalled by the sight of a
spectre; for Adelaide, with a little aid from the imagination,
might well have passed for one, such was
the luminous pallor of her countenance.

“If this is Miss Gordon,” said Adelaide, “it is
she whom I came to seek. But I have already attained
the object of my errand, and it is unnecessary
that I should say more. I will take my leave.”

She was moving towards the door.

“Adelaide!” exclaimed Fleetwood, gasping for
utterance.

“Adelaide! And is this Adelaide?” asked Emily
in a tone of pity and surprise.

Adelaide turned, cast a glance full of mournful
dignity upon Fleetwood, and then slowly resumed
her steps towards the door.

“Adelaide! speak to me!” exclaimed Fleetwood
in a tone of the acutest anguish—“was it not all
some horrid delusion—a dream—a trick of the
senses?”

Adelaide paused; there was a mystery in Fleetwood's
interrogation, which she could not fathom.
The moment was a crisis in her fate. A straw
might turn the balance either way—so as to result
in a triumphant explanation of all doubtful circumstances
or in a renewed conviction of her unworthiness.
Alas! her evil genius prevailed.

At that juncture, Mrs. Winfield burst into the
room.

“Why, my dear, dear daughter, are you here?”
she exclaimed approaching Adelaide, who inadvertently
recoiled from her touch. “How could
you leave your old mother? Come home—come
home, and all shall be forgiven. Has the villain

forsaken you after promising you marriage? Never
mind, my dear—never mind!”

“Oh, this humiliation is too much!” groaned Adelaide,
rushing from the room.

“Poor thing! poor thing!” said Mrs. Winfield,
turning to Emily. “Was it not a sin and a shame.
Miss, for that Count what-d'ye-call-him to treat
the child so basely? I could tear his eyes out—
I could!”

Fleetwood was confounded. If the day-dream
had ever occurred to him that there was still a
possibility of Adelaide's innocence, this last occurrence
must forever dispel it.

“Poor, degraded Adelaide!” he exclaimed. “Did
ever sin so clothe itself in the vesture of an angel!”

Mrs. Winfield rejoined her daughter on the outer
steps, and hurrying her into the carriage, which
stood in waiting at the side-walk, drove home in
silence.

For days, Adelaide could not weep, although she
ever repaid with a faint smile any little office of
kindness proffered by those around her. But the
fountain of tears seemed to have been parched up.

It is related of Southey, that during the eclipse
of his magnificent intellect in his latter days, when
a gloomy derangement had shut out the immortal
soul from the regular use of its accustomed medium
of communication with the external world, he retained
to the last his old affection for books. He
would find his way to his splendid library, and there
sit with a black letter volume open on his lap, gazing
on one page for hours, and at times moving his
fingers, as if making written extracts.

And Adelaide, having been accustomed to find a
never failing solace in books, now sat with some
favorite volume in her hands, and her eyes fixed on
some page, although her thoughts might be far
away. At length a passage, which she had gazed

at for a long while without taking in its meaning
aroused her attention. The lines were these:

“Ay, it is true,” she said, with a melancholy
smile. “I feel that it is true—but this desolation of
the heart—this tearless, passionless sorrow seems
as if it were without a remedy—as if death only
could end it.”

The thought had hardly found utterance when a
strain of music from the street beneath the window
at which she sat, fell on her ear. It was the noisy
garish hour of noon, and the rumbling of cars over
the pavements, joined to the cries of the peripatetic
venders of radishes, strawberries and other articles
of summer consumption, afforded little opportunity
for the musicians, whosoever they might be, to make
themselves heard. But above all the chaotic tumult,
and running through it like a vein of pure
gold through a rocky mass composed of baser
substances, floated a melody, which at once made
her start and listen as if her very life depended on
the hearing.

Where and when had she heard that strain?
And why should it bring back such a throng of
happy images and thoughts? It was as if her soul
were suddenly transported over dreary years to a
time of contentment and joy in the sunny season of
childhood. She seemed to breathe

It was as if her spirit had thrown off the memory
of all intervening events, and, by some miracle, had
renewed its youth. While she listened, her tears
fell profusely—her breast heaved—and, when the
music ceased, she exclaimed half sobbing and half

laughing—“I have wept at last! I feared I should
never weep again!”

The melody was one which she was accustomed
to hear years before when she lived in the family
of Greutze, the German musician. Looking out
of the window she saw two females and a boy, who,
by their dress, were evidently foreigners. The
younger female, a pale and interesting girl, played
upon the harp, and the other sang in a feeble but
sweet and cultivated voice. From the strap over
the boy's shoulder, and the cap in his hand, it was
apparently his office to carry the harp and receive
the scanty pennies, which the passers-by, who lingered
to listen, might choose to bestow. There
was that in the appearance of each member of the
group, which spoke their superiority to the common
class of strolling melodists. Moved by the unobtrusive
and unsuccessful appeal, which they made
for charity to their audience, as well as by gratitude
for the effect which their music had produced, Adelaide
took a gold piece from her purse, and hurrying
down stairs into the street, placed it in the
hands of the harp-player. The young woman
looked at the gift and at the giver with astonishment.
She held the gold piece displayed in her
hand, as if tacitly enquiring whether there was not
some mistake—she could hardly realize that such
munificence was real.

“How long have you been in New York?” asked
Adelaide in German; for, from an exclamation,
which the boy had made, she at once guessed
the country of their birth.

“We came here last winter, Miss,” said the elder
of the two women, who was apparently agreeably
surprised to find that their benefactor could speak
their native language. “We came in the expectation
of meeting a brother, who had sent for us, and
who promised to provide for our wants. On arriving

in this city we learned that he had left for
Hamburgh in a ship, which has never since been
heard of. Our little supply of money was soon
exhausted; and had we not met a friend, who lent
us this harp, with which to earn what we may, we
should soon have been utterly destitute.”

“Is this your sister?” asked Adelaide, pointing
to the younger woman.

“I thank Heaven that I can say she is,” was the
reply—“for what would I and my five motherless
children do without her? Is she not our support
and our pride—laboring for us all day, although we
have no right to look to her for a penny?”

“Where did you learn that tune you played
last?” asked Adelaide turning to the younger sister.

“I lived for some months in the family of a
musician named Greutze,” replied the harp-player.
“He returned to the village where we dwelt, some
years since from this country. Seeing that I had a
taste for music he was kind enough to instruct me,
although, Miss, I was a mere servant in the family.”

“It was like him to do so!” exclaimed Adelaide,
while her eyes filled again with tears. “Did you
leave them well—the Greutzes?”

“And did you know them, Miss? Is it possible?”

“I lived with them for some years, and loved
them much. How could you have abandoned such
a home?”

The harp-player hung her head; and the elder
sister, leading Adelaide away a few steps, said, in
a whisper: “Poor child! it was no fault of hers.
A young man in the village had promised her marriage.
He forgot his promise one day, and having
thrived rapidly in the world, married a daughter of
the musician. Minnie (that's my sister) never
would tell her wrongs, for she saw that her young
mistress loved the man. About that time came

our brother's invitation to us to visit New York.
`Let us go,' said Minnie. `It is best for me that I
should leave this place.' I saw her meaning. We
straightway left Germany—and—and—you know
the rest.”

Adelaide had been visibly agitated while the woman
was relating these circumstances; but seeing
that several inquisitive individuals among the passers-by
had stopped to stare at her, she concluded
to bring the interview to a close, although anxious
to ask many questions about her old friend Greutze
and his family.

“In what part of the city do you live?” she asked,
turning to the younger and more intelligent woman.

“I see you have a pencil. I will write the direction
for you on the blank leaf of your book,” said
Minnie.

In her haste Adelaide had retained in her hand
the book, which she had been reading. She handed
it with her pencil to the harp-player, who wrote
and returned them.

“God bless you, sweet lady,” said the woman,
and the words were echoed both by the sister and
the boy.

“I hope to see you again soon,” said Adelaide;
and, with a smile and a wave of the hand, she left
them, and re-entered the house.