University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

I followed her with all haste and raised her
from the floor. My cries brought her mother to her
assistance—a venerable and worthy dame, whom
years and disease had driven almost entirely to her
chamber. She received her daughter at my hands
in an almost lifeless condition. I assisted in bearing
the poor maiden to her room; and after giving the
mother a brief account of what had taken place—for
the circumstances of the scene would admit of no
more—I left her for my father's habitation. I shall
not undertake to describe my misery that night.
The thought, that, in my want of resolution, my
haste, my imperfect judgment, I had given a death
stoke to the poor heart that I had seen so paralysed
in a single instant before my eyes, was little less
than horrible to me. It was a constant and stalking
terror in my eyes. In my dreams, I beheld the

bloody body of William Carrington, and the lifeless
form of Katharine beside it, stretched out in
the same damp, cold, bed of death. If I awakened,
my active fancy represented a thousand similar objects—familiar
forms lying and gasping in all the agonies
of dissolution, or crouching in terror, as if beneath
some sudden bolt or blow. In all these visions
I never lost sight of the living and real scene of misery
through which I had so recently gone. At first,
the smiling, hopeful face of Katharine rose before
me; and I could distinguish the devoted love in the
look that asked after her betrothed, when her lips
refused all question. Then rose the wonder why
he came not—then the doubt—then the fear—the terror
next; and, lastly, the appalling and thunder-riving
blow, which hurled her to the ground in a stupor
scarcely less firm and freezing than was that
which had stricken down her lover, and from which
he could never more awake. Was it better that she
should awake? Could the light of returning life, be
grateful to her eyes? Impossible! The heart which
had been so suddenly overthrown, was never destined
to know any other than the consciousness of
sorrow. There was no light in life for her. The
eyes might kindle, and the lips might wear a smile,
in after days, even as the tree which the wanton
axe of the woodman has wounded, will sometimes
put forth a few sickly buds and imperfect branches.
But these do not speak for life always. The life of
the soul is wanting—carried off by untimely sap.
The heart is eaten out, and gone; and when the tree
falls, which it does when the night is at the stillest,
men wonder of what disease it perished. The natural
world abounds in similitudes for humanity,
which, it is our misfortune, perhaps, too infrequently
to regard.

The next day, to my surprise, I was sent for, by
Katharine. I had not thought it possible she should
recover in so short a time—she was, it seems, resolved
to hear all the dreadful particulars of my narrative;
and strove, with wonderful energy, to listen
to them calmly. Her words were subdued almost
to a whisper, and uttered as if measured by the stop-watch.
I could see that the tension of her mind was
doing her but little good.—That she was overtasking
herself, and exhausting the hoarded strength of
years, to meet the emergency of a moment. I implored
her to wait but a day, before she required
the intelligence she wished; I pleaded my own
mental suffering in excuse; but to this, she simply
answered, by touching her head with her finger,
and smiling in such a sort, as if to rebuke me
for arrogating to myself a greater degree of feeling
and suffering than was hers. I could not refuse, and
yet, I trembled to comply with her demand.
I shuddered as I thought upon the probable—nay,

the almost certain—consequences of evil which
must follow to her life, from the recital. Her features
denoted a latent war in the mind, in which my
details, like the spark to the combustible, I felt sure,
must bring about an explosion no less terrible than
sudden. Her eyes were bloodshot and dry—without
a sign of moisture. Had they been wet, I should
have been more free to speak. Her cheeks were
singularly pale; but in the very centre of her forehead,
there was a small spot of livid red—an almost
purple spot—that seemed like a warning beacon, fired
of a sudden in sign of an approaching danger. I
took her hand in mine, as I sat down by the couch
on which she lay, and found it cold and dry. There
was little, if any, pulse, at that moment. It was not
long after, however, when it bounded hotly beneath
my finger, like a blazing arrow, sent suddenly from
the bended bow.

“And now,” she said, “now that I am calm,
Richard—I can hear all that you have to say—you
need not be afraid to speak to me now, since the
worst is known.”

“You have heard, then, from your mother?” I
asked affirmatively.

“Yes, I have heard all—I have heard that he
is—” here she interrupted the sentence by a sudden
pause, which was followed by a long parenthesis.
“You will now see how strong I have become, when

you hear the words that I can calmly speak—know
then that you can tell me nothing worse than I already
know. I know that he is dead, to whom I had
given myself, and whom—I repeat it to you, Richard,
as his friend—and whom, as heaven is my witness, I
most truly loved.”

“I believe it—I know it, Katharine; and he knew
it too.”

“Did he? are you sure he knew it,” she asked,
putting her hand upon my arm as she spoke these
words in a tone of appealing softness. “Ah, Richard,
could I know that he felt this conviction to the
last—could I have been by to have heard him avow
it—to have laid bare my heart before him—to have
listened to the last words in which he received and
returned my affections. Oh, those last words, those
last words!—Let me hear them. What were they?
—it is for this I sent for you to come. It is these
words that I would hear. Tell me, then, Richard,
and set my heart at rest—give peace to my mind and
relieve me from this anxiety. What said he at the
last, what said he'?'

“Will it relieve you? I fear not, Katharine—I
fear it would only do you harm to listen to such
matters now. You could not bear it now.”

“Not bear it! Have I not heard all—have I not
borne the worst? What more can you have to say
to distress me? I tell you, I know that he is dead;

I know that I shall speak to him no more—that I
can never hear his voice in answer to mine. For
him, I might as well be dumb as he. You see now,
that I can speak the words which yesterday you
could not speak. What then have you to fear? Nothing—nothing.
Begin then, Richard—begin, my
brother, and tell me the particulars of this cruel
story. It will be a consolation, though a sad one,
to know the history of the sorrow that afflicts me.”

“Sad consolation, indeed, Katharine, if any, but I
will not believe that it can be a consolation now.
Some time hence, when you have learned calmly to
look upon your loss, and become reconciled to your
privation, I doubt not that you will receive a melancholy
satisfaction from a knowledge of the truth.
But I do not think that it will benefit you now. On
the contrary, I fear that it will do you infinite harm.
You are not well—there is a flushed spot upon your
brow which shows your blood to be in commotion;
to-morrow, perhaps—”

“No to-morrow, Richard;—all days are alike to
me now. I am already in the morrow—the present
is not mine—I live in the past or in the future, or I
live not at all. Let me then hear from you now—
let me know all at once—now, while the cup is at
the fullest, let me drink to the bottom, and not take
successive and hourly draughts of the same bitter
potion. I must hear it from you now, Richard,

without delay or evasion, or, I tell you, I cannot
sleep again. If I do, it will only be to dream a
thousand things, and conjure up a thousand fancies,
much more terrible than any you can bring me now.
Come, then! why should you fear to tell me, when
I already know the worst? I know that he perished
by the sudden stroke of the murderer, having no
time given him for prayer and preparation. Can
your story tell me worse than this? No! no! you
have no words of darker meaning in my ears, than
those which my own lips have spoken.”

“Katharine, dear Katharine, let me have time
for this. Let me put it off for awhile. Already the
blood is rising impetuously in your veins. Your
pulse beneath my finger is shooting wildly—”

“I am calm—you mistake, dear Richard—you
are no doctor, clearly—I was never more calm—
never more composed in all my life. My pulse, indeed!”

The impatient and irritable manner of this speech,
was its sufficient refutation.—I replied,

“Your will is calm and resolute, Katharine—I
doubt not your strength of mind and purpose—but
I doubt your command of nerve, Katharine, and
your blood. You are very feverish.”

She interrupted me almost petulantly.

“You are only too considerate, Richard. Perhaps,
had you been half so considerate, when a fellow

traveller with the man you called your friend,
and who certainly was yours, he had not perished.”

“Katharine!”

“Ay! I speak what I think, Richard—what I
feel. You are a grave physician when with me.
You talk sagely and shake your head. But with
him—with William Carrington—were you grave,
and wise, and considerate? You persuaded him to
this journey—you knew that he was hasty and
thoughtless—did you shake your head in warning,
and lift your finger when you saw him running
wide from prudence—from safety?”

“Katharine, my child,” exclaimed the mother.
“You are unkind—you do Richard injustice.”

“Let him show me that I do him injustice, mother.
That is what I wish him, and pray him, to
do. I do not desire to do him injustice.” Her tone
and manner, which were almost violent before, now
changed even into softness here, and turning to me,
she continued, “you know I do not wish to do you
injustice; but why will you not oblige me? Why
not tell me what I claim to know—what I have a
right to know?”

I could see that the blood was mounting in torrents
to her brain. Her pulse was momently quickening,
and the little speck of red, so small and unimposing
at first, had overspread her face, even as the
little cloud, that dots the eastern heavens at morning,

spreads by noon until it covers with storm and thunder
the whole bosom of the earth. It was more than
ever my policy to withhold a narrative so full of details,
which, though they could unfold no circumstance,
worse in substance than that which she already
knew, were yet almost certain to harrow up her
feelings by the gradual accumulation of events before
her imagination, to a pitch almost unendurable.
I resorted to every argument, plea, suggestion—
every thing which might move her to forego her
wish—at least for the present. But my efforts were
unavailing.

“You entirely mistake me,” she would say. “I
am earnest—not excited. My earnestness always
shows itself in this manner. I assure you that my
blood is quite as temperate as it would be under the
most ordinary affliction.”

And this she said in words that were uttered
with spasmodic effort! Her mother called me aside
for a moment.

“You will have to tell her,” she said; “the very
opposition to her desire makes her worse. Tell her
all, Richard, as she demands it, and God send, that
it be for the best.”

Thinking it probable that such might be the case,
though still reluctant, I waived my objections, and
determined to comply. When I resumed my seat
by the bedside, and avowed this determination, as

if to confirm the words of the mother, a sudden
change came over her. Her respiration, which had
been impeded and violent before, became easier; and,
closing her eyes, she leaned back upon the pillow,
from which, during the greater part of the previous
conference her head had been uplifted; and thus prepared
herself to listen. It was a strong effort which
she made to be, or seem, composed, and it was only
successful for a time. My confidence in it soon began
to waver, as I found, when fairly in my narrative,
that her eyes were re-opened, and with a fearful
resumption of light—her head once more raised
from the pillow; and her unconscious hand, when I
reached that part of my narrative which detailed
the first assault upon us at the hovel of Webber,
suddenly extended and grasping my arm which lay
on the bed beside her.

“Stop—stop awhile—a moment—I am not ready
yet to hear you—not yet—not yet.”

I paused at her direction, and she sank back upon
the pillow, and closed her eyes with a rigid pressure
of her fingers upon their lids as if to shut out from
sight some horrible vision. In this state she remained
for a space of several seconds; and I could
perceive, when she resumed her attitude of attention,
and bade me proceed with my narrative, that
though she might have succeeded in expelling the
phantom from her sight, the very effort requisite in

doing so, had accelerated the action of her blood. I
proceeded, however, striving to avoid every word,
phrase, or unnecessary incident, which might have
the effect of increasing the vividness of an event,
already too terribly impressive; but with all my caution,
I could perceive the constant flow and gathering
of excitement in her brain. Her words became
thick yet more frequent. She started constantly
from the pillow to which she as constantly and immediately
sank back, as if conscious of departing
from the tacit pledge which she had given me, but
which I had never relied on, to be calm and collected
while I spoke. At length, when I told of the
flight of Carrington, of his pursuit by the ruffians,
of the long interval, in which, bound to the floor, I
lay at their mercy, and after they had gone, before
the arrival of Grafton to my relief; and how I looked
for my friend in vain among those who rescued me;
her emotion grew utterly beyond constraint, and
she cried out aloud, and gasped with such effort between
her cries, that I dreaded lest suffocation
should follow from her fruitless endeavours at speech.
But she contrived to speak.

“Yes! yes; they came—they loosed you—they
set you free—but what did they for him—what did
you, who called yourself his friend? What did you
for him, who was yours? Tell me that—that!”

These were words of madness—certainly there

was madness in the wild and roving expression of
her fire-darting eye. I would even then have paused
if I could; but she would not suffer it. Resuming
a look of calmness—such a look as mocked itself
by its inadequacy to effect her object—when she
saw me hesitate, she begged me to continue.

“I am calm again, Richard—it was for a moment
only. Forgive me, I pray you, Richard—forgive
me and go on. Let me hear the rest. I will not
cry out again.”

I hastened to close the painful narrative, but she
did not hear me to the end. She was no longer capable
of knowing what she did, or said, but leaping
from the couch, in defiance of all my own and her
mother's efforts—short of absolute violence—to restrain
her, she strode across the chamber, as if with
a leading purpose in view. Then, suddenly turning,
she confronted me, with a face in which, if a
face might ever be said to blaze with fire and yet
maintain its natural expression, hers did. She
gazed on me for a few seconds with all the intensity
of an expression which was neither hate nor anger,
but blind ferocity, and destructive judgment; and
then she spoke, in accents which would have been
bitter enough to my heart, had I not well enough
understood the maddening bitterness in hers.

“And so he was murdered, and you led him on
this expedition to be murdered. You were his

friend—and while they pursued him for the accursed
money—you lay quietly—without effort—having
bonds, which a child—a woman—which I—weak and
feeble as I am—which I would have broken at such
a time—which you might have broken, had you
been warmed with a proper spirit to help your
friend. And he thought you a brave man, too—
he told me you were so, and I believed it—I gave
him in charge to you; and you suffered your villains
to murder him. Tell me nothing, I say, Richard
Hurdis—they were your villains, else how should
you, a brave man, submit, as you did, to be bound
and laughed at, while he could break from his bonds
and escape from the very snare to which you so
tamely submitted. I will not hear you—they were
your villains—else how should you, a brave man,
submit and do nothing. Would he—would William
have submitted thus? Would he have left his
friend to perish. Or, if he could not save his life,
would he have come sneaking home with the tidings
of his friend's murder and his own base cowardice?
No, Richard Hurdis—I tell you—I answer for the
dead—he would have pursued these murderers to
the ends of the earth. He would have dragged them
to justice, or slain them with his own hands. He
never would have slept in his bed till he had taken
this vengeance. Day and night would have been to
him the same. Day and night, he had pursued
them—through the forests—through the swamps,
in all haunts, in all disguises, till he had revenged
the murder of his friend. 'Till, for the holy blood of
friendship, he had drained the hearts of all having
any hand in his murder. But you—what have you
done! Ha! ha! ha! Bravely—bravely, Richard
Hurdis. William thought you had courage—he
did—and he relied on it. He relied too much.
You have shed no blood, though he is murdered.
You have neither shed the blood of his murderers,
nor your own. Show me a finger scratch if you
can. You are—ha! ha! ha! this is courage, is it?
and he thought you brave—well, the wisest may be
mistaken—the wisest—the very wisest.”

She went on much farther, but her ravings grew
incoherent, and at length, from imperfect thoughts
her strength being nigh exhausted, she only articulated
in broken words and sentences. On a sudden,
she stopped; her eye grew fixed while gazing upon
me, and her lower jaw became paralysed ere the
halting word was uttered. I saw that a crisis was at
hand, and rushed towards her at the fortunate moment.
I caught her as she fell; and she lay paralysed
and senseless, like the very marble, in my
arms.