University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
CONCLUSION.

I FOUND him stretched upon a bed,
breathing heavily, and slightly moving
his head from side to side. His face
was pale and ghastly, and he was much
sunken about the eyes, cheeks, and
mouth. On one side stood the surgeon,
with his hand upon his pulse; and on
the opposite side stood Viola, weeping.
There were several other persons in the
room, and among them a minister of
the Gospel, who had called in to see
the sufferer, and perchance to speak
words of holy hope in his last moments.
On seeing me, Viola at once
came forward, and taking my hand,
said, earnestly, with tearful eyes:

“God bless you, Mr. Walton! I
owe my life to you, and more. This
is a sad scene; for though I have been
wrongly dealt with by him who now
lies dying, yet I cannot forget I have
ever called him father; and from my
heart I forgive him—may Heaven do
likewise.”

It was indeed a sad scene, and all
present were more or less affected. For
some minutes St. Auburn remained as
I have described him; and then opening
his eyes, and looking around, said,
in a feeble tone:

“Water—give me water.”

These were the first intelligible
sounds that had issued from his lips
since being brought hither. The doctor
took a glass of water, poured in a
few drops of mixture from a vial, and
gave him to drink. This seemed to
revive him in a wonderful degree; and
partly raising himself on his elbow, and
looking curiously around, he again
spoke, in a stronger tone than before:

“Where am I? Ah! my breast—
my head—let me think! Viola, my
child, is that you? Ah! I seem to remember
now: I was riding—we were
trying to escape, and we were attacked.
Yes, yes; and they were too much for
us—for me at least—I think so—were
they not?”

“You were badly wounded, father,”
said Viola, taking his hand.

“Father!” he repeated—“father?
No, no—you must not call me father—
I do not deserve the title Oh, Viola,
how deeply have I wronged you!”

“But I forgive you, father—for father
I must still call you—and oh! pray
Heaven to forgive you also!”

“I cannot pray—I never prayed in
my life,” he rejoined, with a look of
anguish I shall never forget; “and if I
did, God would not accept my petition
at the last moment.”

“It is never too late to repent in this
life,” interposed the divine, in a mild
tone, approaching the bed. “Remember
the thief on the cross.”

“And who are you that speak these
words of consolation?” inquired St.
Auburn, with a brightening of the countenance,
as he fixed his eyes upon the
minister.

“I profess to be an humble follower
of Him who said to the thief, `This
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise,' ”
was the reply.

St. Auburn extended him a hand, and
then fell back on his pillow, apparently
exhausted. He closed his eyes, and
seemed to be pondering upon what he
had just heard. Suddenly he looked up
and said:

“Am I dying?”

“We fear you have not long to live,”
replied the surgeon.

“Are you a physician?” inquired
the sufferer.

“I am.”

“Then I ask you to tell me, honestly,
whether there is, or is not, a chance for
me to recover?”

“You cannot recover.”

A painful expression swept over St.
Auburn's countenance, and he uttered a
deep groan.

“Tell me,” he continued, “and use
no deception—how long can I survive?”

“The chances are that you will never
behold the light of another sun.”

“I am justly punished,” rejoined the
sufferer. And then, after another pause,
he pursued, addressing the divine: “Is

it not the first duty of a repentant man
to right those he has wronged?”

“If you have wronged any one, and
can repair the wrong, it is certainly your
first duty to do so,” was the reply.

“I have wronged many, sir, and it is
beyond my power to right them; but
there are those here present, who have
had cause to curse my existence, that it
may still be in my power to serve, for
which I will hope for their forgiveness;”
and his eyes now rested on Viola, and
on Harley, who stood by her side.

“I forgive you all—every thing,”
said Viola, in a tremulous tone; “and
for my sake, if for no other consideration,
I feel assured Morton will also;”
and she appealed to him with her eyes.

“I do forgive you, Mr. St. Auburn,”
said Harley; “not, alone for the sake
of Viola, but because it is not in my nature
to harbor malice against one who is
doomed by the irrevocable decree of
Fate to go hence to a speedy and final
judgment.”

“Thank you! thank you! Oh! you
know not what a relief your generous
words afford me! But my time is short,
and I must do you and Viola the little
service that lays in my power. The
secret of her parentage, God willing, I
will now disclose. Something I have
told you, if my memory serves me
right—but there is much more to be
told. Bear witness all,” he continued,
solemnly, rolling his eyes slowly over
the by-standers: “Bear witness all of
you, to the words of a dying man!—
This young lady (extending his hand
to Viola, who clasped it in both of hers)
has ever been known as Viola St. Auburn,
my daughter. But she is not
akin to me, and has been most deeply
wronged by me, as have her parents
also, for which may Heaven forgive me!
Bear witness all, that in the presence of
Almighty God, before whom I must
shortly appear, to render up a strict account
of all the deeds done in the body,
I solemnly pronounce her to be the
daughter of Don Juan Gomez Alverda,
a Spanish gentleman now living in the
city of Mexico!”

“Alverda!” exclaimed Viola, in her
astonishment letting fall the hand of St.
Auburn, and clasping her own together.
“Alverda, say you? Don Juan Gomez
Alverda? did I hear aright? am I indeed
his daughter?”

“You are, Viola,” replied the sufferer,
“as I hope for mercy hereafter.”

“Oh, this is so strange! it bewilders
me,” she rejoined.

“Do you know him, Viola?” inquired
Harley.

“Oh, well, Morton—well—as well
indeed, if not better, than I know you.
A kinder, nobler hearted gentleman does
not live; and many and many a time
have I heard him speak of the loss of
his infant daughter, and wonder if she
were living, while tears of grief rolled
down his manly face. And to think
that I, who have so often sat and sympathised
with him, should prove to be
that lost daughter. Oh, it is so singular
—so strange—that I can hardly believe
it true!”

“It is indeed very strange,” said
Harley.

“But it is as true as strange,” pursued
St. Auburn. “And now, ere my
voice fails me, listen, and you shall learn
the secret of the mystery.

“Some eighteen months after my
marriage with the lady, concerning
whom your father, Mr. Harley, and myself
once had a quarrel, I spent the
Winter with my wife in New Orleans.
I went there, partly on business and
partly on pleasure, expecting to remain
but a few days or a month at the farthest—but
was detained there the whole
season by the illness of my wife. During
this period she gave birth to a
daughter, which survived but a week.
My wife being in a very weak, nervous
condition, was so affected by the loss,
that she became deranged, and continually
called for her child, which she declared
we had secreted for the purpose
of taking its life. Nothing could be
said to console her: and the physician
privately stated to me, that unless another
infant, about the same size and
age, could be substituted, and she be
brought to regard it as her own, he
feared she would never recover her
reason.”

Here St. Auburn paused, apparently

exhausted, although he had spoken in a
very low tone. The surgeon gave him
to drink of the mixture again; and
after lying with his eyes shut, and
breathing heavily for a few moments,
he revived a little, made an effort, and
resumed:

“My friends, I must be brief, for I
feel that my minutes are numbered.
May God spare me to relate my story,
and give me time to repent of my many
sins! For days I sought in vain for an
infant suited to my purpose. At length
one morning, on visiting one of the
asylums, I learned that a child had just
been brought there, whose parents, entire
strangers in the city, were both
lying at the point of death, from an
attack of something resembling ship
fever. I asked to see the child, and,
on beholding it was struck with its resemblance
to my own. I subsequently
learned that its father was a wealthy
Spanish gentleman, who had just arrived
here from the West Indies, where he
had held an office under the Spanish
Government, and that this child, and
the one I had lost, were both born on
the same day. To possess myself of
this child, and rear it as my own, I was
now determined, let the consequences
be what they might. To effect this object,
I thought over various plans, and
at length adopted one, which was successfully
carried out. I procured a
stylish conveyance, and bribed two
worthless fellows to dress in livery,
drive to the asylum, represent themselves
as Don Alverda's servants, and
say that, the parents of the child being
in a fair way of recovery, wished it to
be taken away, and conveyed to a certain
place, a few miles out of town,
where special provision had been made
for its reception. As I have said, my
plan was successful. That night I received
the child from the hands of my
accomplices, to whom I readily paid a
large sum, and advised them to leave
the country, which they did. I took
the little infant home, had my late
daughter's clothes put upon it, and presented
it to my wife. For several days,
however, no change for the better was
perceptible, and I was beginning to despair
of ever seeing her restored to
reason, when, with a degree of joy
which words cannot express, I saw her
take notice of the child. A week from
that time she had become perfectly rational,
and was fondling the pretty infant,
thinking it her own. Poor Mary!
sweet, confiding, gentle Mary! She
never knew otherwise; and died, believing
that the child she had reared as
her own, was of her own flesh and
blood. That child, which we named
Viola, is the lady that now stands by the
dying bed of him who so vilely wrouged
her and her parents.”

St. Auburn here uttered a deep groan,
and again became silent. All present
seemed amazed at the disclosure, and
Viola was deeply affected. For some
moments the heavy breathings of the
dying man alone broke the solemn stillness
of the chamber. Then Harley
ventured the question:

“But the parents of Viola—made
they no inquiry for her?”

“Yes,” replied the sufferer, speaking
with great difficulty; “on recovering
from their sickness, and learning in
what manner she had been taken away,
they became nearly distracted; and besides
setting the police to work in every
direction, her father offered an immense
reward to any one who would give
any information concerning her. The
affair, too, got into the papers, and for a
time created great excitement—no one
being able to advance a satisfactory
reason for her mysterious disappearance.
If any one suspected me of a hand in
the matter, they kept it to themselves. I
have sometimes thought that our attending
physician did; but he was a man
who paid particular attention to his
own business, and not a word ever
passed his lips to me on the subject. I
had but two confidants, and those were
my cousin and his wife, at whose house
we were staying. They never betrayed
me—though it has ever been in
their power to do so—for the clothes
worn by Viola, when taken from the
asylum, are still in their possession, and
are in fact the proofs to be brought forward

to substantiate this, my dying
confession.”

“This I believe to be true, Morton,”
said Viola, in a low, tremulous, excited
tone; “for often have I heard Don
Alverda tell how he once had a daughter
just my own age, stolen from him in the
manner related; while his good lady—
my mother as I must now term her—sat
by and listened, weeping bitter tears of
grief for the lost one;—but oh! little
then did I think, or little did they dream,
that I was that lost one—that they were
pouring their griefs into a daughter's
ear.”

“It is very strange!” remarked the
surgeon: “a tale savoring more of the
romance of the novelist, than of reality.”

“Reality often exceeds in romance
the inventions of the brain,” I replied;
“and I, with but little experience, speak
from experience.”

“Yes, is it not very singular,” resumed
St. Auburn, “that the very man
I had so deeply wronged, should afterward
become one of my most intimate
friends? We became acquainted in the
city of Mexico; and for a long time the
bare mention of his name made me
tremble with guilt; and when he first
related to me the story of his bereavement,
I was so affected that he called
for help, thinking I had suddenly been
taken ill. Had it not been for my lamented
wife, whom I dearly loved, and
whose happiness was paramount with
me to every other consideration, I
should then have told him the story,
and restored him a long lost daughter.
But this feeling of guilt and remorse
gradually wore away; and when at
last I consigned to dust the earthly remains
of my beloved Mary, and saw
my fortune a wreck, and myself little
better than an outcast, I suddenly became
embittered against the world, and
resolved to retrieve my fortune by the
basest means—no less than the selling
of this poor girl and her secret to a villain.
But Heaven has punished me,
and, I acknowledge, justly punished
me, for my baseness. Had I acted
uprightly, I should not be here now,
whatever other fate had been mine.
Sir,” he said, turning to the minister,
“can a man be saved, that dies without
forgiving his enemies?”

“We are strictly commanded, in
God's holy Word, to forgive our enemies,”
replied the divine, solemnly.

“Then,” rejoined St. Auburn, “I
will try to forgive him—I will pray for
aid from on high to forgive him.”

“Such is the fruit of a true repentance,”
responded the clergyman.

“Whom do you mean?” inquired
Harley.

“Our mutual foe, the Count.”

“Do you think it was his men that
assailed us?”

“I do, Mr. Harley. But I will try
and forgive him. There is none other
against whom I hold any hard feelings.
Ask your father, Morton, to forgive me,
when I am gone; and oh! Viola, if
you ever loved me, on your knees
crave pardon of your kind parents for
the wrong I have done them. Come
nearer, Mr. Harley—give me your
ear;” and the dying man made a private
communication, which I subsequently
learned related to the recovery
of the articles worn by Viola on leaving
the asylum. “These,” he said,
aloud, “may be of much importance to
you.”

“I will follow your instructions,”
replied my friend; “and had you been
permitted to go with us, I would have
kept my word with you.”

“I know you would, for you are
honorable, noble, and generous; but I
do not need it now, and it was wrong
in me to ask it. And now,” he
added, after a pause, “give me your
hands.”

Harley and Viola complied with
his request each placing a hand in
one of his. He with an effort joined
them.

“Suffer me to make one request
more,” he said.

“Name it,” returned Harley.

“That you will permit this gentleman
(glancing at the divine) to perform
the sacred ceremony of marriage in my
presence, that I may see you united ere
I go.”

“It accords with my own desire—
shall it be so, dear Viola?” said Harley,
in a low tone.

She drooped her head, and murmured
something only caught by her
lover's ear.

“Will you fulfill the request of
Mr. St. Auburn?” said Harley to the
divine.

The latter nodded assent; and after
a brief but appropriate prayer, proceeded
with the ceremony which made
them one by the most sacred of earthyl
ties.

It was solemn, very, very solemn,
and deeply impressive, to witness a
wedding by a bed of death—to see
the living so strangely grouped around
the dying—to behold that pair in the
bloom of life, taking upon them those
holy vows, in the presence of one
whose spirit was about to wing its
flight to the other world, as if to bear
the intelligence into the awful realm of
eternity. It was solemn—sadly, mournfully
solemn—and left an impression
upon the minds of all present that time
could never erase.

When the last words of the ceremony
had been said, a deep silence followed,
broken only by the quick, heavy respirations
of the sufferer. Then with an
effort he extended a hand to the newly
wedded pair, and said, in a voice husky
with conflicting emotions;

“May you live long and be happy!
I somehow feel that you have forgiven
me, and I can die more contentedly.
Go, now, my friends—go all—I would
be alone with this man of God. Farewell!”

Morton and Viola each took his
hand, gave it a farewell pressure, and
retired in silence, deeply affected with
the parting scene. I followed the example,
and a minute later the room
was cleared of all save the sufferer and
the divine.

The surgeon now attended to dressing
my wounds; and being greatly fatigued
by my recent exertions and excitement,
and weak from loss of blood,
I retired for the night. I soon fell into
a calm, refreshing sleep; and when I
awoke, the cloudless sun of another day
was streaming into my chamber. The
dark night of strife, and blood, and
storm, was past, and all nature was
smiling as sweetly as if such things had
never been.

I arose with some difficulty, for I was
far from feeling well and strong; but
my wounds proving rather painful, I
returned into bed. In a few minutes
Harley entered my apartment, looking
pale and serious.

“Well, what of St. Auburn?” was
my first question.

“He is at rest,” he replied, solemnly.
“A little before day-light his spirit took
leave of its mortal tenement, and is now
with its Maker. He died calmly; and
the reverend gentleman who was with
him in his last moments, was led to believe
that he had made his peace with
God.”

“And Viola?” I inquired, after a
pause.

“She is as well as can be expected
after such a night of excitement, fatigue,
and alarm. But you, Harry—how do
you find yourself this morning?”

“Not so well as I had hoped.”

“Ah! I am sorry to hear it. Do you
feel ill?”

“I feel bruised and lame, and am in
some pain. But give yourself no alarm,
Morton—it is nothing very serious. If
my wounds were dressed again, I think
I should be able to be about.”

“I will send the surgeon to you at
once.”

Harley went out, and in a few minutes
the doctor made his appearance.
An hour later I found myself able to
get down stairs, though advised by the
physician to keep myself quiet for a
day or two at least. As I had anticipated,
the events of the night had
caused quite a commotion in the village,
and the inn was thronged all day with
visitors. Every thing, however, passed
off without further disturbance; and the
day following we consigned to earth the
mortal remains of Henry St. Auburn,
his body being accompanied to its last
resting place by a large number of
citizens.

Early on the third morning we set
out for Galveston, travelling slow by a
four-wheeled conveyance. We reached
our destination before nightfall, without
the occurrence of any incident worthy
of note.

It was the intention of my friend to
proceed at once to New Orleans with
his bride, and have me accompany them;
but not having fully recovered my
strength, I pleaded indisposition, and
finally persuaded him to leave me behind.
The truth was, reader, I had resolved
to see Clara Moreland, once
more at least, before leaving the country;
but this was a secret which I did not
even disclose to Harley, though I
somehow fancied he more than suspected
it.

Viola having repeatedly urged me to
accompany them, finally took leave of
me, with tearful eyes, but looking more
sweet and beautiful than ever.

“Harry,” said Harley, as he held my
hand at parting, “we both owe you a
heavy debt of gratitude, which, if we live,
must be repaid, in one way or another.
But at all events, if you will not go with
us, I must see you again shortly. As
soon as the articles we are in quest of
are in our possession, we will return to
this place, and then you must accompany
us to the city of Mexico, to the
home of Viola.”

“I will take the matter into consideration,”
I replied.

“Nay, it must be so—I will take no
denial,” he rejoined, earnestly. “There
—God bless you! Adieu.”

And here, kind reader, we must also
part, at least for a season; for here ten
minates that portion of my narrative
which I have thought proper to record
under the title of “Viola.” If I come
before you again, it will be in new
scenes, and with new actors—though all
that I have introduced upon the stage,
must again appear ere the curtain falls
upon the close of my drama of life. It
has been my fortune, in a brief period
of time, to pass through many adventures—some
pleasing, and some vexatious—some
trying, and some thrilling
—and some perilous in the extreme.—
A portion of these—a small portion, it
is true—are before you: those untold, I
flatter myself, are not less interesting.
Shall I go on? or will you rest satisfied
with what you have seen? It is for you
to decide, and for me to abide by your
decision.