University of Virginia Library

19. CHAPTER XIX.
THE INTERVIEW.

As the reader may be curious to know the
cause of the sudden change in Mrs. Silby's
feelings and conduct, we will relate what
passed during her interview with Mr. Stripe.

“I see this is not an agreeable surprise to
you, madam,” said the vagabond, bitterly.
“But I am here — I am alive; and you may
as well make the best of your misfortune.”

“Do you come here to taunt me or defy
me?” cried Mrs. Silby, rising angrily. “O
wretched fool!”

The vagabond made no reply, but stood gazing
in silence at the proud woman, while she
gave way to the storm which raged in her
bosom.

“You have proved my curse!” she continued,
shutting him out from her sight with
her hands clasped over her brow and eyes.
“How you have deceived me! You left me
to believe you dead, that you might torment
me the more effectually.”

“Madam,” answered the vagabond in a husky
voice, “I have no desire to give you pain.
When I caused a report of my death to be
announced to you, it was to set your mind at
rest about me, for I knew how much you hated
me and desired to be rid of me. I was then
resolved to trouble you no more. But my
mind has been changed.”

“Well,” cried Mrs. Silby, sharply, recovering
from her consternation, “what is your
business?”

“I have not come to taunt you or defy you,”
replied the man. “I am here to talk to you
calmly, about ourselves, about our children.”

“Sir!” exclaimed Mrs. Silby, indignantly,
“what have you to say about them? What
right have you to speak of them?”

“A father's right!” answered the vagabond.

“A father's right!” echoed the other, with
contempt and anger. “A father's right, indeed
— you, who proved such a father to them!”

“Madam, I know what you would say,”
murmured the wanderer; “but it is useless to
reproach me now. My course is ended. This
is the last interview I shall ever seek; and let
us be calm, dispassionate in this. I acknowledge

all my faults; I grant the justice of all the
reproaches you have heart to utter. I have
wronged you, and you have returned evil for
evil. What there was of evil in me when we
married, you made worse by your uncharitable
treatment; what there was of good, you yourself
extinguished. Madam, what I once was, I
owed to my natural indolence and the errors
of my education; but what I now am, I partly
owe to you.”

Mrs. Silby regarded the wretched man with
astonishment, but she did not reply.

“You might have reclaimed me; but when
you saw me in the pit of degradation, you
plunged me deeper,” pursued the vagabond,
earnestly. “I left you — desperate, ready to
commit any act of folly or crime, for I fancied
that I could fall no lower. More than once I
repented, and returned to you; but you sent me
forth again, more wretched, farther removed
from salvation than ever. Well, I became a
hardened sinner; my faults led to crimes; I
scrupled at nothing. I felt that I was lost, and
had neither hope nor fear. After your last cold
act of humanity towards me, I resolved to
plunge deeper than ever into crime, circulating a

report of my death, and changing my name, in
order not to shame or degrade my children. But
remorse, and the natural feelings which nothing
could banish from my heart, led me once more
to go back to Woodboro', where none knew
me any longer. Imagine my consternation —
conceive, if you can, of my feelings — when I
learned that our son had left you, and entered
the world, so full of dangers; when I heard from
those who know you well that you were on the
point of marrying again. I know not what
brought me here; but I came. I speak not of
this visit, but of one I made to this place some
months ago.”

The vagabond paused. Mrs. Silby, gazing
at him in a sort of stupor, made no reply; and
he resumed.

“I was jealous, for I had loved you once;
I was angry, for you had wronged me, and
wronged my son; I felt a desire for revenge!
And when, meeting your intended husband, Mr.
Roger Brance, I found him insolent, my rage
knew no bounds. In the evening, I concealed
myself by the road near his house. I had not
the power to go openly to meet him. I desired
to come upon him suddenly; to tell him

that I was the husband of the woman he designed
to marry.”

Mrs. Silby started from her stupor; for she
remembered hearing Mr. Brance speak of the
wretch whom he encountered early on the evening
of the murder.

“Well,” she breathed; “go on.”

“Our meeting was somewhat different from
what I had anticipated,” continued the vagabond.
“He drove me away with curses. I
immediately formed a more terrible purpose of
revenge. While in my blind fury I was wandering
about, I entered the village. Feeling
too faint to execute my project of revenge, and
having no money to buy liquor, I resolved to
enter a physician's office, and beg some stimulant
which would keep me up.”

Mrs. Silby listened with intense interest.
“My God!” she gasped; “I see — but go on!”

“This was Dr. Corrinton's office. The door
was not locked, and I entered,” pursued the
vagabond, “although there was nobody within.
A lamp was burning on the table, and
by its light I discovered a pair of pistols. A
horrible idea seized me. Here was stimulant
enough! I reflected not a moment; I thought
not of consequences, only of revenge!”

“Proceed! proceed!” cried Mrs. Silby in a
voice hoarse with agitation.

“I returned to the spot where I had concealed
myself before, for I knew Mr. Brance was absent,
and thought he would return that night.
I examined the ground, calculated distances,
made up my mind how to fire with effect in the
darkness, and stationed myself close by where
Mr. Brance would pass.”

“I see it all! I see it all!” groaned Mrs.
Silby. “Go on!”

“I waited patiently for my victim,” pursued
the wretched man, with downcast eyes, and in
mournful accents. “My heart was panting for
revenge. I could have waited there an age!
At last I heard two men approach on horseback;
but as they came near, one turned back,
and cried, `Good night, Mr. Brance.' Thus I
was deceived; instead of the man I hated, it
was his son who died. I fired with deadly intent,
and, alas! with deadly effect! He tumbled
from his horse; and casting away the weapon
I had used, I fled. I felt no remorse, for my
heart had been hardened by a career of crime.
I rather gloried in my revenge, until I was
brought to my senses by learning the fatal
error I had committed. Still I felt but little

remorse. I went to the city, resolved to find
my son, and forgot every thing in this great
design.”

Mrs. Silby had sunk upon a sofa, and now
she lay there with her face hidden, and her
bosom heaving with the tempest in her breast.
At length she raised her head slowly; she had
conquered her emotions, and her brow was
calm. Fixing her glassy eyes upon the haggard
wretch before her, she said in a hoarse
whisper, —

“So, to your other crimes you have added
that of murder! Well, sir, if it was only for
the satisfaction of confessing your guilt to me
that you have come, you are at liberty to leave
me now.”

“Woman!” answered the vagabond, trembling
with earnestness, “it is for no such satisfaction
that I am here. I am compelled to this
step by the chidings of a conscience not altogether
seared, and by the promptings of a
heart, which, bad as it is, is not wholly evil.
O,” exclaimed the vagabond, smiting his breast,
while his features writhed in agony, “here,
here is a burning coal, a gnawing worm! O
woman, woman! do you feel no stings? But

what am I saying? There is something within
me which warns me that I have not long to
live. But I have felt that I could not die without
making a sacrifice, to atone in some measure
for my crimes. My last act shall be one
that will quiet my conscience. I am resolved
to save an innocent man from suspicion, by
confessing the crime of which he has been
accused.”

“Heavens!” gasped Mrs. Silby, “you will
not confess to the world! you will not. O, the
infamy!”

“You would not like to be called the wife of
a murderer!” replied the wretch, sinking exhausted
upon a chair. “Well, well; you shall
not be so called. If I have no regard for you,
I have for my children. They shall not blush
for this crime. The world shall not know that
their father was a murderer.”

“O, thank you! thank you!” cried the agitated
woman.

“I spoke of our son,” said the vagabond
after a pause. “I have seen him.”

“You! Where?” cried Mrs. Silby.

“In his exile.”

“Sir!”

“In the place to which your unwomanly,
unnatural severity banished him. I have heard
his story from his own mouth, and it condemns
you. Of his ruin you are not guiltless.”

At that moment the door of the room into
which Mr. Brance had retired was opened, and
that gentleman, weary of solitude, made his appearance.
At the vagabond he gazed confounded,
and beheld Mrs. Silby's agitation
with amazement.

“What does this mean?” he demanded,
eagerly. “What business has this beggar
here?”

The vagabond arose with a wrathful brow,
and striding between Mr. Brance and the lady,
turned his back upon the former in supreme
contempt.

“Woman,” he whispered fiercely, “if you
would keep our secret from him, turn him instantly
away; drive him from the room! Insolent
fool!” he added, turning angrily upon Mr.
Brance, “you are intruding here! Begone!”

Startled by the fierce gesture and the angry
tone, Mr. Brance stepped backward, raising his
arm; but before he could speak, Mrs. Silby
exclaimed, —

“I must request you to withdraw again for
a moment, Mr. Brance.”

“Very well,” replied that gentleman, his face
purple with rage, and his eyes darting lightnings
at the vagabond.

And he left the house forthwith.

“I have but a word more to say,” resumed
the vagabond, “and I will begone. It is with
regard to Alice. O, remember how much evil
you have done already, and do not suffer your
pride and hardness of heart to make her forever
unhappy. I know more of her than you
think; I love her as devotedly as ever a father
loved his child. Treat her more kindly than
you treated her father and her brother. And
if ever Edgar returns again, do not drive him
forth as you drove me, but keep him by you —
govern him with kindness, and reclaim him.”

Mrs. Silby did not seem to hear these words;
her face was averted, and her eyes fixed on vacancy.
When she looked around, a minute
after, the vagabond was gone. Groaning heavily,
she fell back upon the sofa, and lay there
some minutes, wringing her hands, and turning
her eyes upward with an expression of the
deepest misery.