University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

Fate had me in its power, and I was blind.
If I were not weak enough, of myself, to reveal
the secrets of my soul, and its crimes, I was
not less the creature of a destiny, which, in the
end, set at nought my profoundest cunning,
and proved my wisdom to be the arrantest folly.
I look back now with wonder at my own
stupidity. A single survey into existing things,
as in all other concerns I had certainly made
it, and I should have laughed all inquisition to
scorn. Now, I am its victim—the shallow
victim of a most shallow design. Thus it is,
however, that the wisest suffer defeat through
a self-esteem which leads them into wrong, not

merely in their estimate of themselves, but in
their estimate of others. Thus was it with
me; and well, from my own experience, may
I exclaim with the ancient, “fata viam invenient
.'

Yet was I not unwarned—unthreatened. I
had a presentiment that something was to happen—I
was uneasy, discontented—wandering.
My spirits were dreadfully depressed, and but
half conscious, I took my way to the secluded
cottage of Harding. Unannounced, I entered
his study, and found him—on his knees, at
prayer. A strange feeling possessed me, and
I was almost tempted to kneel down beside
him. But I dared not—I had never been
taught to worship—I had never been taught to
bend the knee, and tones of supplication were
foreign to my sense and unfamiliar to my lips.

Could I have knelt at that moment and fervently
prayed for the grace I had not, I feel
satisfied the heart of my companion would have
relented of all its purposes. He would not,
at that moment, have arrested the new-born
exercises of a spirit so redeeming and atoning.
The moment of indulgence was permitted to
escape, and the fiat had gone forth. The
doom was upon me!

We sallied forth, as had been, for so long a
period, our morning custom. A grave solemnity
marked the expression of Harding's countenance,
mixed, at intervals, as we grew more
and more communicative, with a faltering hesitation
of manner, indicating a relaxing of purpose.
I can now comprehend all his feelings
and emotions. His position was, indeed, a
strange and sad one. Under a sense of duty

the most sacred, not merely to the community,
but to himself, he had undertaken the
punishment of a criminal with whom he was
in the daily habit of close communion—to
whom, in worldly matters, he was somewhat
indebted, and in whose welfare, he had at heart,
and sincerely, a deep interest. The task of
hypocrisy which he assumed, sufficiently painful
to a mind like his, was doubly irksome under
the operation of such circumstances; and,
I am assured that could he, at that moment,
have been persuaded of a change of heart in
me—had I given him the slightest reason to
believe that my crimes were regretted, and
that it was my fixed purpose to become a better
man,—he would, even then, just as the
curtain was about to be drawn, which would
unveil the whole catastrophe, have stayed his
uplifted hand—he would have rather suffered
the tortures of his imagination, and the rebukes
of his ambition, than have cut off the penitent
in his first approaches to pardon and atonement.
But, at this moment, I uttered some
vile jest—discreditable to manhood and morality,
alike—and the spell was broken. He
was strengthened in his purpose, and solemnly
he led the way, I following, unconsciously,
to my own sacrifice.

A sudden turn brought us directly upon the
scene of my crime, and there, to my surprise, a
goodly company were assembled.

“What is this!” was my exclamation. “Why
are so many of the villagers here. Know you
what is meant by this assemblage?”

“We shall see!” was his somewhat sudden
and stern reply, as we continued to approach.

My heart trembled, and leapt convulsively to
my mouth—my knees faltered, but there was no
retreat. We came up to the company before
whom my appearance had scarcely been made,
when, wildly from the group, rushed forth the
mother of Emily—she seized me by my arm.

“Give me back my daughter” was her frenzied
exclamation—“you will not keep her
from me. My daughter—my poor sweet Emily.”

They dragged her back to the spot, where,
feebly and with an expression of subdued idiocy,
old Andrews incessantly shook his stick in
the direction where I stood, while his palsied
head maintained a corresponding motion. I
recovered myself, but my tones were husky
and thick, and I am satisfied not so coherent
as I could have wished them.

“What does all this mean, my friends; why
this charge upon me—why this gathering—”
was my inquiry.

“This gentleman will explain” said the Justice,
pointing to Harding who had by this time
taken a place midway between the company
and myself, “you are charged, “continued the
officer, “with having first seduced, then spirited
away the daughter of these old people, one
Emily Andrews; and for your sake, Mr. Faber,
I sincerely hope that you may be able to establish
your innocence in spite of the strong
circumstances which will be brought against
you.”

I looked to Harding—I sought to crush him
with that look—but he was untroubled, unappalled
beneath it; and, though trembling with
emotion, as seemingly determined in intention,

as the martyr, fortifying if not establishing his
faith, by the free offering of his blood. He
proceeded, modestly, but confidently to his
narration. He recounted the history of our
intimacy—described once more the circumstances
of the revelation which I had made, in
his ears, of my crime. How it had burned in
his heart like so many living coals. How
he had come in his agony to me, and how
finally, in order to escape from the suggestions
of torture inflicted by conscience and
imagination, he had revealed it as it had before
been heard, to the officers of justice. He
showed how he had been overthrown by the
search made in accordance with the story—
how, writhing under the reproaches of the
public and crushed in their opinion, he had
been on the verge of madness and suicide—
how I had sought him out in his closet—repeated
my story, and how he had again believed
it. A certain something, he said, assured
him that I had told the truth, but not the
whole truth—that I had suppressed and altered,
so as to defeat inquiry; but that, though
the causes which had led me to disclose so
much unnecessarily, were unknown and unaccountable,
he was taught to believe in the commission
of the crime. A desire to regain his
station in society—to show that nothing of
malice had prompted him in the first instance,
inspired him with the design, which, carried
out perseveringly and properly, had resulted in
his being able, he thought, most satisfactorily
to prove the murder of Emily Andrews by
Martin Faber, and accordingly, he proceeded
to the development of his particulars. How
did I wonder at my own blindness as he proceeded
in his narration. How did I wonder at
the ingenuity with which, without any clue, he
had unravelled, as with my own fingers, all
my secret. He had watched all my motions—all
my looks—all my words. He had
suffered not a glance—not a whisper to escape
him. With the assistance of his mother,
who, herself, in disguise had sold them to the
barber, he had carried on the affair of the pictures—he
discovered who had bought them,
and conjecturing for what purpose, he defied me
to produce them. He described the involuntary
terrors which my face had exhibited on
approaching the spot upon which we stood—
how the same emotion, so exhibited, had led
him to suspect that the rock to which he pointed
had also some connexion with the transaction.
The facts gathered from the conversations
with the family, leading to the final, and,
as he thought, conclusive proof, in reference to
the jewelry he next dwelt upon; and, with a
brief but compact summary, he so concentrated
the evidence, that, though strictly speaking,
still inconclusive, there was not an individual
present but was persuaded of my guilt.

“And now,” said he, “there is but one more
witness for examination, and this is the rock
of which I have spoken. I am persuaded
that the body of Emily Andrews lies there.
The expression of Faber's eye—the whole
look with which he surveyed the chasm,
could not have come from nothing. That
rock, in some way or other, is associated with
his crime. I have made arrangements for its
examination and we shall soon judge.”

Placing a little ivory whistle to his lips, a
shrill sound went through the forest, and after
the lapse of a moment, a sudden flash illuminated,
and a loud explosion shook the earth
around us. We proceeded to the spot, and
when the smoke had cleared away, a shout
from those who traversed the fragments, torn
from the fissure which had been split by gun-powder,
announced the discovery of the victim,
and in her hands—conclusive evidence
against me—torn from my bosom without my
knowledge, while in the last convulsion of
death,—lay the large brooch, the loss of which
had given me so much concern at the time,
and, on its back, chased finely in the gold
setting, were the initials of my name.