University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.
THE GUILTY IN TROUBLE.

It was far advanced toward midnight,
and in her own handsomely furnished
apartment, with a book in her hand, which
she seemed intently perusing, sat Arabella
Goldfinch. The lamp, on a center-table
by her side, was already growing dim, and
barely served to relieve the more obscure
portions of the chamber from utter dark
ness; but, faint as it was, its pale beams
seemed to gain additional strength as they
fell upon the white, marble-like countenance
of the haughty beauty. At length
Arabella paused in her reading, let her
book fall listlessly in her lap, and resting
her elbow on the table and her forehead
in the hollow of her hand, appeared to be
absorbed in deep thought. While thus
occupied, she heard a gentle tap on the
door; and supposing it to be her waiting-maid,
she said:

“Come in!”

Her surprise was great, therefore, when,
instead of the person she expected, her
brother entered and hurriedly shut the door
behind him. There was something frightful
in his look and manner; for his features
had assumed a ghastly, almost livid
hue—his lips were ashy and tremulous,
though compressed—his eyes strained,
bloodshot and rolling—his step eagar,
stealthy, frightened and uncertain—his
voice harsh, sepulchral and fearful—as, advancing
toward her, he glared cautiously
but wildly around, and, seizing her arm
with a grip that drew from her an exclamation
of pain, said:

“You are alone, sister?”

“To be sure I am, Acton,” she replied,
starting to her feet in alarm. “For God's
sake! what has happened, to make you
look and act thus, like one demented?”

Acton did not reply; but he gave her
one awful look of agony—such an expression
as one would expect to behold on the
faces of the damned—and then staggering
to a seat, sank down, buried his face in his
hands, and uttered a groan that seemed to
wrench his very soul.

“Great God! what is the meaning of
this?” cried Arabella, greatly terrified.
“Speak, Acton!—speak! and tell me what
has happened?”

“The earth has become an ocean of
blood!” groaned rather than spoke her brother,
with his face still hid in his hands.

“Speak understandingly, or I shall doubt
your sanity!”

“Do! do!” shouted Acton, starting to
his feet suddenly, and revealing his face,
now awfully distorted and haggard. “Do
doubt it, Arabella!—say I'm mad!—swear

I'm mad!—for I am mad—mad as the maniacs
men cage! My brain—my poor
brain burns with fire unquenchable—my
eyes see blood—and my ears ring with the
words of mortal forgiveness, and the curses
of a conscience whose torments shall be
forever and ever!”

“Merciful God!” screamed Arabella:
“his reason has deserted him truly!”

And seizing the cord connecting with a
bell in her waiting-maid's room, she was
about to ring, when Acton, springing forward,
grasped her hand, saying, in a low,
eager, emphatic tone:

“Call no one here, as you value your
life!”

“What means this strange manner of
yours?” Arabella now asked, in a clear,
distinct, unfaltering tone, fixing her dark
eyes steadily upon his, in the way she had
understood maniacs were the most completely
subdued.

“It means,” he groaned, “that I have a
hell in my breast, and a hell in my brain?”

“Speak! I charge you, Acton!—what
have you done? Ha! see!” she added, almost
wildly, “there is blood upon your
hands! Oh! Acton, my brother—Acton,
my brother—for God's sake, relieve me of
this suspense, and say you have done no
farther crime!”

“Where do you see blood?” cried Acton,
fiercely, looking wildly upon his hands,
which he turned over and over, rubbing
each hard against the other. “Where do
you see blood, Arabella?” he continued,
now holding them out for her examination.

“I do not see it now—it is gone,” she
replied.

“Ha! ha!” he laughed hysterically; “it
is gone, is it?—gone from your eyes, but
not from mine: I see an ocean of it!”

At this moment the street bell was rung
violently, accompanied by a heavy rap on
the door. Acton heard it, and for a moment
stood as one petrified with horror.
Then bounding forward, he seized both the
hands of Arabella, pressed them hard, and
cried piteously:

“Save me! save me! Quick, quick,
dear Arabella—save me! They come to
drag me to prison!”

“You are guilty of some foul crime,
then?” gasped the other. “That blood—
that blood—”

And sick with horror, she could utter no
more, but sank, half fainting, upon a seat.

“Ha!” cried Acton, “I hear voices.
They are coming: they inquire for me.
For the love of Heaven and eternal mercy,
tell me what I must do, Arabella!”

The latter started to her feet, gave her
brother a strange, peculiar look, in which
shame, horror, fear, pity, pride and resolution
confusedly mingled—the two last
being the last in ascendancy—and then
stamping her foot to make her words impressive,
exclaimed firmly:

“Be a man! Seat yourself—be calm—
and, if guilty, let not your looks betray
you! Sit down!—there is a book—read!”

“They are coming,” faltered Acton, as
he tremblingly complied with the instructions
of his sister.

Arabella seated herself and listened.
She heard steps upon the stairs, and confused
speaking. Presently she could distinguish
her father's voice in what seemed
angry expostulation.

“I tell you this is uncivil rudeness, to
disturb my house at this time of night, in
this manner. Acton has, I presume, been
abed and asleep these two hours.”

“We must do our duty, nevertheless,”
was the reply; “and the sooner we find
him, the sooner we leave you. Is this the
room?”

“No, yonder—this is my daughter's,”
replied Goldfinch.

“Go you to that, then,” said the other,
apparently addressing a third person. “I
see a light here and will examine this;”
and as he spoke, there came a loud rap on
the door.

“Be calm!” whispered Arabella to her
terrified and half-distracted brother; and
rising, she walked boldly to the door and
threw it open.

“I beg pardon!” said the sheriff, (for he
it was,) as he met the calm, cold, haughty
stare of Arabella; “but I am seeking Acton
Goldfinch.”

“Yonder he sits, sir,” nodded Arabella,
as if displeased at so unceremonious an interruption.

“It is my unpleasant duty,” said the

sheriff, advancing to the side of him he
sought, and placing a hand on his shoulder,
which fairly quivered at the touch, “to
arrest you for the crime of murder!”

“Murder?” screamed Arabella, staggering
against the wall, no longer able to
mask her feelings.

“Murder?” echoed her father, clinging
for support to the casing of the door.
“Oh God! can this be so?” he groaned.
“Oh, Acton, why do you not contradict
it?—say it is not true?”

But Acton made no reply; and the other
officer entering at this moment, the sheriff
bade him come with them, as they had no
time for delay. Acton arose, partly reeled
forward, and then seeming to gather
new courage, passed out of the room without
speaking.

As soon as he was out of sight, Goldfinch
moved slowly forward to a seat, where
he sunk down with a groan of mental anguish—a
groan wrung from the very soul
of one who had made others suffer the like
without the slightest compunctions of conscience.
And oh! what terrible thoughts
were now passing through the mind of this
dark man, loaded as he was with hidden
crime, but who had thus far appeared
to the world at large as the true embodiment
of all that was noble and virtuous!
And what schemes of proud ambition did
he feel were now dashed to the earth, by
one fell, annihilating blow! His son—in
whom so much of the pride, ambition and
fondness of even a mercenary father centered—to
be dragged to prison, from his
own stately roof, and there tried like a
common felon—perhaps be condemned
and executed for a heinous crime, which he
tacitly acknowledged by not openly refuting!
And then the disgrace—the lasting
disgrace—that would attach to even himself,
as the father of a murderer! Would
not men shun, rather than court his company,
and, with all his wealth to support
his dignity, point him out as an object
more worthy of commisseration than emulation?
And then that wealth—the all he
had to rely on—that wealth, so basely
gained, and which, by having supported
his son in a dissolute career of vice, was
already bringing upon him its own retri
bution—how soon might that be snatched
away by the strong arm of right and justice,
and he himself be left pennyless, and
friendless, to his own guilty thoughts, in
the cell of the criminal! Fortune, so ever
propitious before, now seemed to frown
darkly, and tell him his outwardly brilliant,
but inwardly dark career, was about to
close in ignominy! In his pride of wealth
and position, he had boasted he would
make his money save him; but now, since
so many of his plans had failed—since
those he hated and had striven to crush
had escaped his snares and were soaring
above him—now he felt how impotent was
the boast; and that so far from saving, his
ill-gotten gains might prove a mill-stone
round his neck to drag him down the dark
gulf of perdition! Oh, harrowing to the
soul, and black as the midnight cells of
Erebus, were these thoughts, as they rapidly
chased one another through his heated
and half-maddened brain!

And well mayest thou doubt, and tremble,
and lose confidence in thy own dark
resources, thou vain, proud, scheming hypocrite!
for already the sharp sword of
Justice hangs over thy guilty head, soon
to fall and sever the last hope that supports
thee!

For some minutes Goldfinch remained
buried in his own reflections, and then
starting suddenly to his feet, called Arabella.
But all unconscious of the call, or
even of her own existence, Arabella, partly
resting against the wall and partly extended
on the floor, lay in a death-like
swoon. Alarmed for his daughter, Goldfinch
now rang the bell and shouted for
his domestics. In a short time all the occupants
of the house rushed into the chamber,
their faces the picture of excitement
and dismay; and crowding round the suffer,
some chafed her hands, some her temples,
and some applied salts, while others
looked on bewildered.

Perceiving signs of returning animation,
Goldfinch ordered her to be placed in bed,
to have the family physician sent for immediately,
and all to withdraw save her
own waiting-maid. At length Arabella
slowly opened her eyes, and giving her
father and maid a stare of wonder, suddenly

raised herself, and glancing eagerly
round the apartment, in a low, eager voice
exclaimed:

“Acton—my brother—where is he?”

“He has just stepped out,” replied her
father, making an effort to appear composed.

Arabella looked at him steadily a moment,
with the expression of one endeavoring
to recall something that has slipped
the memory. Then her features gradually
assumed a look of heart-touching
anguish; and placing her hands to her
throbbing temples, she slowly fell back on
the pillow, and murmuring, “Oh, my God!
my God!” sunk into a state of apathy bordering
on unconsciousness.

When the physician came and examined
her, he shook his head dubiously, and,
to the anxious inquiries of her father, replied
that hers was a case beyond the
science of medicine, and that he could
only recommend the most careful nursing
and the avoidance of all topics productive
to her of excitement.

“Her reason,” he concluded, “totters
on its throne, and quiet for a few days will
either restore or make her a confirmed maniac.”

On hearing these words, Goldfinch, without
trusting his voice in reply, rushed almost
franticly to his own apartment, and
locking the door against all intrusion,
there passed an hour of such agonizing
wretchedness, as might, in some measure,
atone for his guilty career.