University of Virginia Library

39. CHAPTER XXXIX.

No words can describe the state of Marmaduke, when he again found himself alone.
Even while Chaloner was there, taunting and lashing him with his indignant eloquence,
he had been dreadfully shocked and horror-stricken by the tidings he had brought him;
and it was his pride only, that even then prevented him from yielding to the full agonies
of his remorse and despair. For he was very far, indeed, from being in his character
all evil—few men indeed are so—and Wyvil, had there been one or two traits in his
mind which were wanting, might have been as conspicuous for good, as he now had
become for ill. The great want, the great weakness of his character, was a lack of
resolute, energetic will—of an established principle. His impulses were, for the most
part, good and noble, and the resolves founded on those impulses right in the main, and
honorable—but the misfortune was, that the impulse was immediately succeeded by
another, and the first resolve supplanted by a new determination; so that from the one
radical defect of vacillation, there grew up with the growth of his mind inconstancy,
and inconsistency, and falsehood. He never, perhaps, in his life, had committed any
crime with deliberate premeditation; but suffering his passions of the moment to sweep

him into difficulty after difficulty, he was brought constantly into positions from which
he only could be extricated by a falsehood or a crime; and then he would say and do
things, the very possibility of which he would have ridiculed an hour before, and the
commission of which he repented, perhaps, before they were concluded. He was, in
short, a man whose intentions were ever better than his actions; as must be the case
always with those who act from impulse, not from principle. Had he been, strange as
it may seem to say, a greater villain, he would not have committed one of the offences
which rendered him so mean a wretch in the eyes of others, so miserable in his own—
and when he had committed them, he would have smiled upon the ruin he had wrought,
and lapped himself in his own security. A thorough villain, acting with a bad view,
would never have been guilty of the strange inconsistent folly by which, while really
as much in love as he could possibly be with one woman, he had been induced to flutter
and disport himself about another, till, gratifying neither passion nor ambition, he betrayed
both, and finally lost both—and himself likewise. That he could never have
been an originally and radically vicious man—that nature had not, in his composition,
mixed the ingredients necessary to make up a thorough villain—was now evident
enough, from the tremulous paroxysm of remorseful torture into which he was thrown.
He flung himself upon his knees, and strove to pray, but the words seemed to choke him.

“I cannot—I cannot!” he exclaimed; “how should I! Oh, my God! how should
I pray to thee? Repentance! how can I repent! whose deeds are done and registered
already? I can believe—I can believe right easily—that, for the thief upon the cross—
that, for Cain even, there might be pardon! but for me—no! no! It is impossible!
and I must on! on! on! deeper, yet deeper, into blood and murder!” and he sat
down, and buried his head for a while in his palms, and then rose up, muttering, “No!
I will not—I dare not meet him! Truly, he said, there was already too much blood
upon my soul! I will fly—fly? but whither? Wretch! wretch! there is no spot, no
foot of the wide world, to which I can escape; where my own name, my own black
deeds will not ring in my ears, and drown my soul with their eternal condemnation!
And how fly—how? with but one rouleau left of all my princely fortune? No! here
am I fettered down—meshed, as completely as the fly in the devouring spider's
toil—hemmed in, as the stag at bay, with the whole world hooting for the savage
pack that bay about me! Well! it is best so! It is fate! destiny! What fools
we are—what fools! to dream ourselves free agents—we, whose whole course of life,
from the cradle to the grave, is but one chain of chances, circumstances over which
we have no control, binding us in their adamantine links, dragging us onward, where
they will; now with the speed of the tornado, now slow and scarcely felt, but still omnipotent—inevitable!
Why struggle, then? why flutter our weak wings, where every
new convulsion but cumbers us with a new chain? Be it so! I, at least, will strive
no longer—I, at least, will go, henceforth, where fate leads and fortune. If they have
driven me to bay, let them beware the horn! I will die, now that all is over, bravely!
And yet, why die at all? why should my spirit sink, or my heart falter, at meeting this
mad fanatic—for mad he must be, thus to play prophet and avenger? Pshaw! have I
not crossed swords with Fairfax, and come off unscathed? and unhorsed the butcher
Harrison—both better men, I trow, than this precise and preaching Puritan? Ho!
Clement—without there—bring me more wine, and heap the fire! it is cold, and I
am still athirst!” And as the man came, he addressed him, speaking hastily—“Clement,”
he said, “thou art a faithful fellow, and hast well served me. Now, I have one
more service for thee—perchance it may be the last. I stand pledged to give General
Chaloner the meeting, at five o'clock to-morrow morning, for mortal combat in Près
aux Clercs. We are to be attended each but by one servant, as a witness. You will
go with me, Clement? If I should chance to fall, you shall be my executor; and to
secure your escape in case of trouble, here are a hundred louis—the last my purse holds
at present—if I survive, there are bright days defore us. You will go with me?”

“Surely I will, sir,” answered the servant; “else were I a poor Englishman, to
leave my master at a pinch like that. What weapons shall I take—my sword and
buckler?”

“No weapons, Clement,” replied his master; “you go but as a witness—not to fight.
Now, my good fellow, heap up the fire, leave me good store of wood, and let me not
lack wine—and then begone to bed, for you must be on foot by five at the latest. And
now good night—get thee away to bed!”

His orders were performed immediately—the fire blazed up on the old hearth, and
several flasks of wine stood ready on the board, strangely contrasted with some six or
seven swords of different lengths and sizes, the steel blades glittering blue and cold,
beside the crimson wine, which Wyvil was engaged in measuring. “Ay! this will
do,” he exclaimed at last, as he found one which matched exactly the strip of paper
that Chaloner had left. “I am very glad of it—it is my best blade—and a good omen
too—I never used it, save when our arms prevailed!” and as he spoke, he tried its
temper on the floor, bending it nearly double, and suffering it to spring back at once,
which it did, brilliantly clear and elastic. He then wiped it carefully with his cambric
kerchief, before he consigned it to the velvet-covered scabbard, and made two or three
graceful thrusts in carte and tierce with the sheathed weapon; and as he laid it on the
side-table, “This, and my art to boot,” he said in a tone of exultation—“and may the
Lord have mercy on his soul”—but after a moment's pause, he amended the sentence,
by adding the words—“who falls to morrow! And yet—what right have I to call on
Him for mercy?” he continued, relapsing again into his fearful and despondent gloom.
“For me He has no mercy—else would he not haunt me with these faces! They were
gone but awhile ago, and now they are everywhere around me! pale, wan, reproachful
faces! Tush! I will not be thus the fool of my own fancies. Let us see, if this will
not banish them!” he poured out, and quaffed four or five glasses in succession of the
strong rich Burgundy, and stirred the logs on the hearth into a hot fierce blaze, which
filled every corner of the room with cheerful light; then he looked around him with a
half-fearful gaze, and said, “They have vanished—they never brook a steady and determined
eye—yet it is passing strange, how they return for ever! and passing strange it
was, that I should see blood on his face and locks, when I knew not that any blood
had been spilt—that looks not like mere fancy! the empty phantoms of a guilty conscience!
And yet why guilty?” he went on—sometimes conversing with himself in a
low smothered tone, and sometimes merely meditating and arguing with his own mind
in silence: “Surely it was all fate! all fate or chance! I sought her not—it was not
my fault, that she sat there in the fish-house, as I rode down the hill—it was not my
fault, that she called to me in her tenderness of heart, and saved me from the Puritans,
and hid me in her father's house, and tended me, till love grew upon us both, and
has at last made both so wretched! No! it was fate—all fate! and I am guiltless.”
Meanwhile, he continued to apply himself continually to the wine, which now appeared
to take some hold on him, for his face began to get strangely flushed, though it had
been before as pale as marble; and the veins on his brow were fearfully disturbed,
and his eyes had a wild and almost insane glare, as they wandered through the vacancy
of the large room. Never was a more fearful spectacle, of a mind harassed and tormented
by the stings of a conscience; which, despite all his attempts at self-delusion,
persisted in pronouncing him miserably guilty! He spoke no more, however, but sat
quite still, fixing his eyes steadily upon the blazing embers; while past counts came to
his memory so palpably, that he almost believed he saw them with his bodily vision.
The last words he had uttered, struck a new chord; and a long, long array of pictures
came crowding one by one upon his soul with terrible distinctness. The gray and
misty evening when he first saw her—the sandy road winding down the steep hill—the
clump of shadowy beeches on the right hand—the swampy woodland on the left—the
sudden angle, and the scene that then flashed upon his eyes—the ivy-covered bridge,
and the small fishing-house, and the fair lovely creature standing upon the platform,
and beckoning him the road to safety! All! everything was clear, and tangible as
when it happened--every word that she spoke, every graceful gesture with which she
led him along the tangled deer-path; the very tones of her soft silvery voice, the very
touch of her warm hand, was present to him. The scene changed, and he lay in the
rude loft of the boat-house, with the harsh threats of the Puritans echoing under the

low vault, and the glare of their torches filling the nook in which he lay with smoky
radiance; while ever and anon he seemed to hear her gentle notes, inspired with calm
readiness of mind, diverting the suspicion of the vengeful searchers! Again, he was in
the secret vault, with that young innocent face bending compassionately over him,
soothing his weary hours by all that her simple skill in song, or music, or artless conversation
could effect; ministering to his wants, anticipating every wish, whispering
hope and consolation. He saw her, as the first deep blush irradiated her pale cheeks,
as her soft eyes swam in a softer tenderness, as her sweet bosom heaved as though it
would have burst, and her slight figure shook with the strong emotion, when he first
whispered love, and her soul—though not yet her tongue—confessed it mutual! He
heard her faint and interrupted words—like gentle music, half-lost amid the breeze
that wafts it—plighting her troth, and promising eternal confidence, and love, and
fidelity! He saw her again in the hall of princes, resplendent in her unmatched beauty,
worshipped by all that looked upon her, moving a star of a milder yet more glorious
lustre amid that galaxy of queenly beauty. And once—once more—outstretched, pale,
faint, and in the shadow of the grave, where she fell by an arrow from his quiver—that
quiver, whence the shaft was drawn that had slain her father! a witness of his wedding
with another! And how had her troth been kept, how had her love been proved, and
her fidelity? Betrayed—wronged—outraged—slighted, and scorned, and trampled on,
how had she borne her burthen? How been avenged upon the traitor? Betrayed,
she had but the more trusted—wronged, she had but loved more—slighted, scorned,
trampled on, she had been still—still faithful—till death had swallowed up fidelity!
To sacrifice her all—to win at any price his happiness—to pardon, and to love, and to
load with benefits—that was the sole revenge of Alice Selby! And all these things
rushed in at once upon his guilty soul, like to an entering flood-tide—and more than all
these things! For he could see the places, which she had made glad by her gentle
presence—lonely, and desolate, and sad! He could see her chair, vacant in her wonted
chamber; and her lute, hanging on the wall, never to sound again beneath her fairy
touch; and her old favorite bloodhound, stalking among the deserted haunts of his beloved
mistress, and filling the courts with his vain lamentations, and pining for her
love daily. He could see the merry villagers upon the May-day green, despoiled of half
their mirth by her absence, at whose coming all hearts bounded. He could see the
old poor, crouching round their fireless hearths, deprived of more than half their scanty
comforts by the loss of their benefactress. Now he could hear their mingled voices—
the stern and angry tones of manhood, the feeble mutterings of old age, and the shrill
babbling tongue of childhood—all swelling one great chorus of dread imprecation against
him, her slayer! Yet more! he saw yet more! His frenzied, fury-haunted conscience
seemed to draw back the curtains of the grave—to dissipate the gloom of the deathvault—to
lift the coffin-lid—and he saw—horror of horrors! the worm revelling, and
corruption, the worm's sister, creeping! It was too horrible, even for his imagination,
full-fed as it had been with terror. As the dread image came before him, he sprang up
—his hair bristling—his flesh quivering with a cold awe—his eyes fixed and glaring—
his hand pointing—

“Ha!” he cried aloud, with a wild and frightful sound, half shriek, half laughter,
“Ha! ha! who says that it is fancy? who says that she is dead! Lies! lies! Ye fool
me not! I see her—there, with her mild eyes full of love and radiant tenderness—
her sweet lips parted with a smile! Alice, my Alice—mine! I come—I come! Nay,
leave me not—fly not! She beckons, I will follow—I am here love—here! I will follow
if it were to the pit of—”

As he uttered this wild rhapsody, he had rushed from the hearth by which he was
sitting, as if in pursuit of something visible to his eyes only, to the farther end of the
room; and, as the last word left his lips—the most awful word that human lips can
syllable—he plunged headlong, with arms outstretched, to grasp the fancied fugitive,
against the curtain of the farthest window—it yielded to his furious impulse—there
was no casement there to check his impetus—no balustrade to save him—one moment
he was staggering in the vacant air—the next, he plunged, sheer downward, upon the

granite pavement! It was but indeed, as he said himself, one pang—perhaps not one!
for his head smote the stones first, that he never moved, nor even groaned. He was
dead—he had made no sign!