University of Virginia Library

8. CHAPTER VIII.
THE RETURN.

Griffitt had listened to the narrative of
Robert Burnside with the deepest interest.
It awakened all his sympathies, while it kindled
all the generous indignation of his spirit.
His face expressed his feelings like an open
volume. Red Beard read in its looks that
he felt with him as a friend and brother;
that he had poured the tale of heavy crime
into an ear that could truly and fully appreciate
it.

`It is a heavy and painful task,' said Red
Beard, as he prepared once more to command
the attention of his listener, `to bring
up again from the past, events like these I
have been unfolding to you; but I have not
yet ended.'

`I trust not, sir, for I am so deeply interested,'
said Ringold, `that I would fain learn
the result and consequences of what these
wicked people wrought. I trust that her
husband did not finally believe her guilty;
but had more faith in her purity, than in the
circumstances which he witnessed.'

`You shall hear how it went with my poor
mother. Alas, I wish I could say that he
trusted in her honor and truth; but his opinion
was formed upon the spot and at the time,
and nothing could move him. In vain my
mother, when her appalled brain was at
length able to comprehend that his epithets
of degradation, that his loathing of her presence
were not the hallucinations of delirium.'

“`Tell me, tell me, what have I done?
What do you charge me with?” she cried in
agony as she cast herself at his feet.

“`Do you mock me? Did I not see?
Have you the effrontery to deny your guilt?
Leave my presence! Go to your paramour!”

“`Who? what? of whom do you speak?”
she cried in the wildest distress, and clinging
to him, though he in vain tried to release
her grasp.

“`Lord—. Did I not see him by thy
side? His cheek touching thine? Go too.
Do not mock me, woman; it was this sight
that made my brain reel and cast me to the
floor.”

`She released her hold upon his robe; She
clasped her hands to her temples, and stood
like the statue of despair. She gazed in his
face with a look so dreadful, that he could
not meet it. She gasped forth at length the
broken cry—

“`Tell me, tell me, saw you this? Saw
you this man with his head upon my pillow
while I slept?”

“`I have told thee; do not add to thy
guilt, woman, by pretending innocence. Others
saw him as well as I; for others, shame
to me and thee, called my eye to the sight.
By the mass! you slept sweetly for an adulteress.
At seeing me, he fled.”

`My mother stood like one turned to marble.
All the color fled from her face. She
seemed ready to sink.

“`Who, who, saw this? Who directed
thee to-to this sight?” she gasped, as if each
word was choking her.

“`Lady—.”

“`It is enough. I see, I see it all. Heaven
be my support in this hour.”

`With these words she fainted away, falling
as one dead upon the cold marble, which
was warm and yielding compared with my

father's heart. He extended towards her
not a finger to break her fall, cast not a
glance upon her after she fell, but left her
to die or live, as might be, for he had cast
her forth from his heart.'

`I scarcely know which to pity, your father
or your mother; for his agony was terrible,
and to him she was as if guilty. But I
trust that she was suffered to explain.'

`No; she lay upon her bed, her soul
hovering between earth and Heaven for
many weeks. He came not near her, nay,
fled and went to the continent, hoping, doubtless,
by change of scene to find relief, and try
by the tumult of travel to forget temporarily
his dishonor! for in order that there might
be no room for reconciliation, which her
enemies began to fear inasmuch as the queen
who watched by her for hours at the time,
believed her perfectly innocent, and resolved
to convince my father of it, these demons
forged a correspondence between the nobleman
and my mother, he writing his own part
of it, and the others accurately imitating my
mother's hand. These letters were conveyed
privately to my father, and the next morning
he left for the continent!'

`And without seeking revenge of the man
whom he believed had dishonored him?' asked
Griffitt, earnestly.

`Without obtaining it, but not without
having sought it! But the nobleman kept
himself concealed, not only to escape my
father's vengeance, but the indignation of the
king and queen, who, whether he was as
guilty as my father believed, or not, but
brought scandal upon the royal household,
so he hid himself!'

`Your account has so moved me, sir, that
if I could meet that man to-morrow I would
make a quarrel with him!' answered Griffitt,
warmly.

`Your spirit gratifies me! But let me hasten
to the end of my sad tale. My mother
slowly recovered, but happiness, and even
hope had fled forever. But for the friendship
and sympathy of the queen, she would have
sunk beneath her load of grief. The queen,
herself, pure and good, was convinced of my
mother's purity. She believed her assertion,
and saw that the nobleman had done what he
had done in heartless bravado; for the suspicion
of a conspiracy never entered her mind!'

`I hope that she did not take that arch-traitoress
into favor again.'

`No,she had in her triumph at the supposed
fall of my mother, let fall some words of gratification,
which were conveyed to the queen's
ears; and this countess, her light character
being whispered about, was sent from the palace
in disgrace. Thus was she punished,
though unsuspected in being concerned in a
conspiracy; and thus does Providence always
reward the iniquitous and designing.
They are always sure to fall into the net which
they set for the fall of others.

`My mother, at length recovered so far as
to ride out, and by the good queen's advise,
she went down into the country to Scotland
and the house of her father, protected and
recommended to the paternal roof by a kind
letter from the queen, expressing her full conviction
of the innocence of my mother!'

`And how did her father receive her?'

`Alas, coldly, yet with the outward show
of civility, but she saw that in his heart he
believed her to be guilty; and when, taking
opportunity she sought, pale and tearful, to assert
her innocence, he turned from her haughtily,
saying, that

“`No woman was ever suspected without
having given some just ground for suspicion!”

`So she found no comforter or friend in
the heart and home which should have been
to her, however she were fallen and guilty,
a sacred asylum. The father's house is the
type of Heaven; and if Heaven is not shut
to the guilty sinner an earthly home should
not be closed to the guilty returning child!
The father who shuts his doors against a penitent
and returning child, however lost and
fallen, cannot but look for the mansion of
our Heavenly Father to be closed against him,
who in the sight of God is a guilty wanderer!

My mother's cup of bitterness was now full;
and what added to her woe, if ought could,
she found that she was about to become a
mother! The queen, in the mean while,
had addressed a long and touching letter to
my father who was in Rome. When he had
read it, and reflected upon its contents, the
conviction suddenly seized him that she was
blameless, and had been an innocent victim
of the nobleman's vain and daring bravado,
for so reasoned the queen.'

`Thank Heaven for this!' exclaimed Griffitt.

`Do not raise your hopes, Master Griffitt!
He at once hastened from Rome with the noble
resolution of seeking her and from her own
lips hear her innocence proclaimed. But
on the road the carriage was attacked by
banditti, and in the defence of it he was
wounded by a shot in the thigh. For four
months he was compelled to remain at an inn
unable to travel; but in the interval he had
written to the queen, informing her of his
conviction of his wife's innocence, and his
intention to hasten to her so soon as he should
recover. The queen in her great joy, not
willing that any one else should make known
this news to Lady Alice, but herself, at once
wrote to her and sent a messenger to the castle
in Scotland, with the letter, which was in
these words: