University of Virginia Library

32. CHAPTER XXIX.

One more scene—the last which closes our story—
was reserved for Claude, as if Providence had wished
to teach, with the full force of contrast, the lesson which
we have feebly endeavoured to illustrate by giving this
true history to the world.

A few days afterward Claude received a visit from
Lavalle. The joy which he felt on seeing him was
checked by his sad air, his pale and thin face, and the
melancholy betrayed in his appearance and actions.

“What is the matter with my best of friends?” said
Claude.

“I am a fugitive from justice. I have killed a man.
You have followed your principles, and I mine. You
must know that Elkington, on leaving Berlin after Ida
rejected him, had made use of expressions derogatory
to her character. I determined to call him to
account; but, knowing him to be a fatal shot, I practised
with the pistol till I became as expert as he. I
thought I should revenge your wrongs—Denham's—
Ida's—and mankind's, by pursuing and killing such a
scourge to society. I had been also unhappy in my
own affairs. The young lady whom I had engaged to
marry betrayed me; and I thought, in case of my falling,
there was no one who could mourn my loss. I
therefore followed Elkington, and demanded of him an
apology for the slander he had circulated against Ida.
Perhaps it was more with the hope of falling myself
than of killing my antagonist, for I was really tired
and disgusted with life.”

“Against Ida! slander! ridiculous,” said Claude.

“Nevertheless, he had done so; the words he uttered
merited death; they were the blackest calumny a
man could utter.”

“And did you deem the poison from the foul lips
of such a man worth your attention?”

“Yes; he refused to explain, and I called him out.
We fought at Ostend. At the first fire he fell, mortally
wounded. I fled to London. He still survives,
but has been also brought over here. Since the event
his mind has undergone a great change. He has become
conscious of his baseness, and bitterly repents of
it. His terror of a future world has been so great that
it has driven him mad.”

“Can such a man as Elkington fear a future world?”
said Claude.

“Oh, yes, and more. I believe, from what I have
heard, he is completely repentant. In his intervals of
reason he has demanded to see both me and you.
He says he cannot, he will not die till he has obtained
our pardon. Of me, alas! he has nothing to ask;
but I am wretched with the thought of what I have
done. I did not know what it was to deprive a fellow-being
of existence—to behold the suffering I have inflicted—the
death I have caused. He deserved to die,
but I am sorry I am his executioner. Will you see
him?”

“I had rather not.”

“It is his desire to see us both before he dies.”

“Where is he?”

“I tremble to tell.”

“Where? You frighten me!”

“In a mad house! In Bedlam.”

“Gracious Heavens!”

“Deprived of his fortune, he was seized by creditors
and stripped of everything. When he fought, he
was without the means to live. Of this I knew nothing
till subsequently. The physician says he will
not, perhaps, last through the day. You must come
instantly.”

“I had rather not; strange feelings of indignation
arise at the mention of that man's name; he is the
murderer of my friend—”

“No matter; you will experience new emotions at
the sight of him, but neither anger nor revenge will be
among them.”

“Indeed, I had rather not; it would look so like triumphing
over a fallen enemy.”

“No, it is to soothe, to oblige, to forgive a dying
enemy. I go; it will give me much more pain.”

“Come, then, I will go. I have no right to refuse.”

They entered a carriage, and drove at once to the
building where lay the fallen, the dying Elkington.

He was lying in a small whitewashed room, entirely
destitute of furniture except the bed he lay on. His
arms and hands were confined in that kind of dress
they call a straight waistcoat, and a strap around his
waist prevented his leaving the bed, or rising farther
than in a sitting posture. His face was so dreadfully
altered that it was with difficulty they recognised him.
His hair, beard, and whiskers were unshorn, and had
grown very long and ragged, and his eyes seemed of
an unnatural size and brightness. Claude and Lavalle
both turned pale with horror as they gazed on this object:
Claude with horror and compassion, Lavalle
with bitter self-reproach.

The poor wretch did not hear them come in. He
was lying on his back, stretched out to his full length
—his chin raised in the air—his head thrown back,
and moving in sudden jerks, so as to describe a circle
around the room with his eyes — from the floor — up
the wall—over the ceiling—down to the floor again.
This he repeated continually, with that monotony of
motion peculiar to madness. Suddenly he exclaimed,
in the most touching voice possible,

“Oh, God! how well — how well I know this
place!”

Claude was thrilled to the soul with the pathos of
that voice. A hidden quality of character appeared in

it; a tenderness, a feeling, which he could not reconcile
with the nature of the cold, malignant, bad man he
had known and hated so.

“Yes—yes,” he exclaimed, in the same grief-strick
en, touching tones, “that I know full well!”

He threw up his eyes again, and measured the ceiling
and walls with them, his head flung back in an agony
of anguish.

“Well, well, we shall see—we shall see, in God's
own good time! Oh! how I know this place—how
well I know it!”

“Why, Elkington, my friend,” said Claude, thrilling
in every fibre of his frame, “how are you to-day?”

He stopped suddenly, like one caught unexpectedly
by observers when he was doing something he supposed
in complete solitude, and he looked at the speaker
fixedly, surprisedly, and sternly.

“How do you do, Mr. Wyndham?” he said, almost
in his natural voice.

“I have come to see you. I hope you are better,
and that you have everything comfortable.”

He gave another broad and stern gaze, which suddenly
changed into a silent laugh; then he closed one
eye, and looked slyly with the other into the corner of
the room, as if exchanging signs with some being there
invisible to all but himself. Then he began once more
the motion with his head—now laughing cunningly, as
if chuckling over some secret—then pausing to measure
his visiters from head to foot, with glances of such
scorn and malice—of hate and ferocity—as made it evident
that only his confinement kept them safe from his
violence. These changes of countenance were appalling
to behold. You could see though his face, as
into a mirror, the workings of the disturbed sea beneath;
the wild, disjointed clouds drifting gloomily
through his mind, sometimes breaking into a gleam of
sunshine, then gathering over in stormy masses black
as night.

“Ah! Mr. Wyndham,” he cried, suddenly, “we

want no dances; no, we had them once; we proved
them well—well—ah ha! ah ha! ah ha!”

Unable to endure this frightful scene, Lavalle moved
to go.

Elkington suddenly stopped.

“Don't go—don't go,” said he; “sit down—sit down
—sit down on that bed—lie down on that bed.”

“We will—we will,” said Lavalle, shocked and
trembling to behold the work of his rash hands, “we
will come and sit with you often, dear Elkington.”

He laughed.

“You have a pleasant room,” said Claude.

He looked at him as if he would tear him into a
thousand pieces.

“Clean and cool,” said Lavalle, in a tremulous
voice, hoping, by assuming an indifferent air, to calm
the agitation of his perturbed, wandering mind.

He fixed his glittering, wild, distended eyes on the
speaker, as if he knew he was a hypocrite—as if he
read his soul. Lavalle could not, without a painful
effort, stand the unearthly glance. Then suddenly he
smiled and said,

“Yes—cool!—very!”

With such another scornful glance—so full of hate
—of malice—of sarcasm—that both the young men
believed he knew he was mad, and hated them for pretending
not to see the hellish wreck of his mind.
Then he began to laugh, and mow, and wink at the
invisible beings who seemed to hold unearthly communion
with him in the corner.

The doctor came in as they stood beside this frightful
spectacle.

“Will he live, doctor?” said Claude.

“No; to-morrow, at farthest, will carry him off.”

“Will he recover his reason?”

“No, probably not. He will sink rapidly after this
excitement leaves him.”

“No rational communication with him?” asked Lavalle.

“Never again this side the grave,” said the doctor.
“Good-morning, gentlemen.”

In the carriage Lavalle covered his face with his
hands. He was of a livid whiteness.

“This horrible sight will never, never leave my
mind,” said he; “to think that this hand has hurled
that wretched being into his present state. Oh! how
much I wish I had followed your wiser counsel—your
example.”

“He struck me,” said Claude, “and I thanked God
every moment I was there that I had turned from his
blood and left his punishment to Heaven. Believe me,
my friend, He who placed us in this mysterious world
meant we should govern our rash passions which betray
us into such errors, and that our hands should
rather be lifted in humble supplication for mercy to
Him than be plunged into the—”

“Spare me, Wyndham, spare me! I would give
all I am worth in life to wipe that rash, bad act from
my conscience.”

The next day brought news of Elkington's death,
and nearly at the same hour Mrs. Denham breathed her
last. Lavalle left England and stayed many years
abroad. It is even said he once received a gross public
insult from a young blood, for which he refused to
seek redress by a duel. Lady Beverly also remained
all her life abroad. She received from the generosity
of Claude a sufficient amount to allow her to live as
she had been accustomed to. The old Jew who had
possessed himself of such a heavy mortgage on the
Beverly estates by the necessities of Elkington, was
some years afterward brought to punishment and transported.
He confessed that, in order to retain the estate
in Elkington's right, he had employed an assassin
to pursue Claude, having discovered his claim before
Elkington himself. The Digbys, on their return from

Berlin, so far from being cured of their penchant for
“déjoonies dong-song” and the “ho-tong,” came to
be very stylish people in their way. Miss Mary appeared
in society some years afterward as Madame la
Comtesse Lippe, that gentleman having married her,
and now flourished among the admiring and envying
company of the Digbys as a French count ruined by
the revolution.

Thomson returned to England and acquired quite
a reputation by killing a poor French officer in a duel,
because he said, in very bad English, “Jean Bull was
a bear!” He, however, fell off, in his latter years,
into a mere gambler, his idle love of whist having taken
a deeper hue. Notwithstanding his gallant feat with
the aforesaid French officer, he was horsewhipped and
had his nose tweaked by a little man at whose house
he was once playing a friendly rubber of whist; and
who, after having been beaten regularly all the evening,
caught him at a trick which exposed the secret.
Should we ever take up the story again, there are several
other explanations which we shall feel ourselves
bound to make to the reader; but we must not omit to
state, that the very pretty Miss Kühl, from whose power
Claude had been obliged to withdraw, lest his interesting
and amiable manners should prove too much
for her, appeared in London, in the course of a few
months after his union with Ida, as the lady of an extremely
handsome young Russian officer, named Count
Stroggonoffennhoff, and made a very good appearance
by the side of the young Countess Beverly. Indeed,
Claude and Strogg—that is, her husband — became
great friends; and from the care the young man took
to present his beautiful bride to Claude, and to inform
him who she was, &c., it was evident that, although
a tolerably well-informed man, he did not know everything
that had happened in Europe during this eventful
century.

Should there be other points which we have failed
to clear up—characters of whose fates we have said

nothing—mysteries which we have not satisfactorily
unravelled, or, in short, anything whatever, in the volumes
which we now bring to a conclusion, which may
appear in the least improbable, we can only assure
the reader that, by informing us of the same, we will
consult the MS. in the Bibliothèque du Roi, under the
care of Mr. Spiker, the courteous and learned librarian;
and we pledge ourselves that all such disputed
matters shall be immediately and satisfactorily put
right.