University of Virginia Library

5. CHAPTER V.

The storm beat fiercely upon the black, silent
houses. Every window and door was closed
against night and the tempest. Lightnings enveloped
earth and sky. So intensely brilliant was the
glare, that every object in the street, every shape
of house and tree, the distinct outline of every
cloud, were sharply, vividly visible. Peal after
peal of thunder burst leaping through the heavens.
All nature seemed drenched in an ocean of rain,
and the wind roared in the air.

A single form, muffled in a heavy cloak, was the
only living thing desperate enough to encounter
this discord of the elements. It was Norman Leslie.
On the succeeding morning he was to embark
for Europe, with little prospect of ever again beholding
the country of his birth, his love, and his
ruin. Rendered, by his situation, a subject of the
most painful and even dangerous curiosity, he had
rarely of late ventured out by day. Indeed, from
several circumstances that swelled the proof of his
guilt, and perhaps from the active hatred and artifices
of Clairmont, the public mind was yet more
than ever bitterly disposed against him. The night
had then been his time for exercise and lonely

contemplation. Then he had forth issued like a
solitary ghost, prowling around the haunts of his
ancient pleasures; sometimes in the enchanting
moonlight, and sometimes in the tempest, his companionless
wanderings had been repeated often till
the breaking day warned him to retire.

One only idea had relieved his mind during these
solitary and brooding hours. It was the declaration
of Flora Temple while giving her testimony
at the trial, that she had never been affianced in
marriage, and that she had always believed Mr.
Leslie attached to Miss Romain. It burst upon
him like a heaven of warming light to the drooping
and benumbed victim of a wintry storm. For a
time, it had occupied his mind during the trial even
more than his own danger. Strange vicissitudes
of life! that in this, his most terrible and perilous
crisis, touched his soul with the sweetest bliss he
had ever known. Here, then, the whole mystery
of Flora's conduct was explained. He had half
confided to her the passion that gradually mastered
him; nor had his gentle tone, his unguarded looks,
been reproved. Nay, he had deemed it answered,
till Mrs. Temple, in her absorbing admiration of
Clairmont and his title, had crushed his opening
hopes. From that moment Flora Temple had
nearly lost his respect, and, [except when, as vague
surmises crossed him respecting Mrs. Temple's veracity,
his repressed affection had risen again,] his
manner to the unsuspecting girl had been cold,
and studiedly careless.

“Perhaps,” he thought, “had I then dared to
strive, I might have won an angel to my side.
But my rude change of manner, which to her must
have seemed the vilest caprice, the most unprin
cipled fickleness, has now lost her to me for
ever.”

With these sentiments, he had written to Flora
the letter mentioned in the previous chapter. We
will not transcribe all its deep and fervid outpourings
of love. He flung away every restraint, for
he wrote to one whom he never expected to behold
again till they met in a brighter world. It was,
therefore, not only a confession—it was a farewell;
and full it was of the melancholy poetry and tenderness
of his gentle and romantic, but despairing
nature. He sought no response—he expected, he
wished none. The decree of fate had gone forth.
He dared no longer to hope for love. He was
doomed to wander through the farthest climes,
alone and branded. He bade her, if she had ever
thought of him, to forget him—to consider him as
one swallowed in the raging sea. Other thoughts
than happiness, he said, were now to be his companions.
He solicited no love in return—such unmerited
bliss it would even be infamy for him to accept.
He would link no bright and joyous being
with his dark destiny. No beauteous head should
bow in darkness and shame by his side, to be pointed
out by the finger of scorn in the public street—to
be blighted with a name on the lips of ribalds and
mockers, now “common as the steps that mount
the capitol.” No! on this wild earth they would
meet no more. Her, his home, his country—he
turned his face from all; they were things to him
past, though they never could be forgotten. “But,”
added the glowing and eloquent lover, “I will strive
to hear of you even on the opposite side of the
globe. I will watch your fate with unsleeping solicitude.
I will think of you, love, adore you.
Every breeze that wanders, every star that rolls to
the beloved west, I will freight with gentle thoughts
of you, and blessings on your head. While I live
you shall influence me to all that I can accomplish

of high and holy; and when death is on me, I will
once more waft to you a message, to say how faithfully
I have worshipped, how I have fed upon memory,
and how I have cherished your image to my
latest hour.”

Perhaps, although to her he had disclaimed the
hope of a reply, he had not to himself. No reply,
however, reached him; and on this turbulent night,
the last he was to spend in America, he had resolved,
in spite of the raving elements, to walk forth
again, and with the deep but airy tenderness of a
true lover, to gaze, for the last time, on the mansion
where slept the being who had so deeply impressed
his soul.

As he approached within sight of it, the tempest
increased. Close, tremendous bursts of thunder
rolled in huge volumes and stupendous seas of
sound along the sky, crushing, mingling, and crashing,
as if the very earth rocked on its axle. The
blue and livid lightning shot fiercely from cloud to
cloud, cutting the eyeballs with sudden zigzag
lines of intolerable brightness, and wrapping all nature
in sheets of gleaming fire, that threatened utterly
to extinguish the sight.

The dwelling of Mr. Temple was a very large
and prominent one; and as the dazzling and quick-darting
fluid sometimes lingered with a less vivid
fire, Leslie could distinguish it at a considerable distance
high amid the elemental war. He was yet
far off, when a bolt, launched with maddened fury,
darted from a black cloud directly upon the building.
A towering chimney rolled from its height;
a blaze appeared rapidly mounting along the edges
of the roof, increasing each moment with almost
incredible power, which implied some highly combustible
material in the upper portion of the house.
Before he could reach the spot, the flames, aided

also by the frightful wind, were sweeping over the
whole mansion, while massy billows of lurid smoke
rolled up upon the gale.

The conflagration had gained a most ominous
height ere the surrounding inhabitants, or those
within, seemed conscious of the danger. Then a
bell rang sharply, and several cries of “Fire! fire!”
mingled with the crash. The pealing of the bells
immediately became general. A watchman thundered
at the door with his club. Norman had approached
before this universal alarm, but his presence
was but of little use. The doors were closed;
and although he knocked and rang violently, it was
long before he knew whether he had made himself
heard. At last came shrieks from within, and a
throng of people half dressed, domestics, and other
members of the family, appeared in confused, wild
haste, shrieking and clasping their hands: and, as
the light increased, their wild attitudes and vehement
motions and gestures, gave them a resemblance
to furies in their abode of eternal fire.

“Oh, God!” cried a voice of sudden and sharp
agony; “Flora—Flora—”

“Which way?” asked Norman, starting forward.

The speaker was Mrs. Temple.

“For the love of Heaven,” demanded the youth,
“direct me.”

But the terrified mother had fainted. Without
further delay he sprang forward, committing his
steps to the guidance of Heaven.

At this instant a figure rushed from the crackling
and crashing house. It was the desperate father.

“Where is she?” exclaimed a dozen voices.

“Here! she must be here!” he almost shrieked;
“her room is empty—I have sought her everywhere
in vain.”

“Not here! not here! She will perish in the
flames!” burst from every lip.

Again the agonized father started into the midst
of the conflagration. Leslie had already entered.
The flames had now reached a height perfectly furious
and appalling—spouting from the windows,
and rolling over the beautiful and doomed mansion
with ravenous and infernal fierceness: now in a
tall and gleaming pyramid, leaping high into the
sable heavens; now sloping back into a huge and
yawning gulf, that buried all things in a deluge and
mad whirlwind of fire. Surge after surge of quivering
flame and smoke swept hideously on the
gale, rendering it almost impossible for the rapidly
increasing multitude to approach. Far and wide
the surrounding scene lay strongly and magnificently
visible in the deep red glare. Street and
house, roof and chimney, dome and spire; the huge
dense crowd; and the mantle of cloud and storm,
that veiled the heavens: all glowed like objects in
the near reflection of some heated furnace. So
might have gleamed the buried Pompeii, when the
mountain heaved its fiery tempests to the night.

Leslie had rushed through the crowd, and, leaping,
springing, flying, mounted the steps. The intense
light, the fierce heat, the crackling, crashing,
and falling of rafters, announced too fatally the awful
progress of the element. Blackened, scorched,
almost suffocated, choking with an agony of suspense,
he shouted long and loud. At length he
clambered upon a half-consumed stairway, and,
through the spacious window of an ample cabinet,
beheld the object of his search. She had fallen in
her flight, and lay senseless on the floor. With
an exclamation of tumultuous joy and triumph, he
was in the act of leaping down to her rescue (oh
bliss unspeakable! to bear in his longing arms, from

a dreadful death, that angelic form, more precious
to him than all the world beside), when he felt a
sudden and violent hand on his shoulder. He turned—the
face of Clairmont was before him.

“Villain of villains!” shrieked Leslie, mad with
impatience, and striving to shake off the grasp of
his foe. The latter, with a sudden rush, threw him
from his height, fifteen feet down, upon the opposite
side of the stair, and himself leaped to relieve
the beautiful and unconscious girl.

Gnashing his teeth with impotent indignation,
alarmed for Flora and for himself, Norman only
with ponderous strength, and after repeated efforts,
broke through a way which had been blocked up
by piles of heavy furniture, that had nearly confined
him to a dreadful death. Again he sought the room
where he had seen Flora. She was gone. He
rushed once more into the open air. Clairmont
was just bearing her forth in safety. Her beautiful
form hung lifeless on his arm. Her long hair
streamed to the ground. Her arm and hand had
fallen heavily by her side. Her head was on his
bosom, and one hand he had daringly seized in his
own.

A shout of delight rose from the crowd as the
bold young noble appeared with his lovely prize.
Mrs. Temple received him with a shriek of joy.
He stood proud and high, the object of deep admiration
and clamorous applause.

With a bursting heart, and half exhausted, Norman
approached the group who were endeavouring
to recall to life the object of his love; when Clairmont,
in a loud voice, and directing the universal
attention with his finger, shouted—

“Ho! Leslie the murderer!”

Like the shock of agitated waves when a rising
wind sweeps the sea, the mass of human beings

all visible in that intense light, stirred and heaved
at the sound. The death of Mr. Romain on the
preceding day had fearfully augmented their indignation
against that now common and execrated
name. The cry arose, the shout went round, a
thousand lips repeated the words, a thousand faces
turned upon the victim, as he stood conspicuous
and in the full gleam of the fire—and “Leslie the
murderer!” rose higher than the surrounding tumult
of heaven and earth.

Bowed down, maddened, crushed to the dust—
his proud heart bursting with love, with indignation,
with despair—he turned and sought refuge in
flight.