University of Virginia Library

24. CHAPTER XXIV.

Gradually I recovered from the mental and
physical prostration in which he left me. But
whither should I go? what should I do? I could
not return to the home I had dishonored and deserted,
and ask the recognition and affection of
friends and kindred I had thus abandoned. Though
my mother was pining for me day and night, I
could not go back to her, so changed, and with the
confession of his sins, whom I had so praised and
trusted in, against her will. I knew not what to
do; all was blank, dark, impenetrable night. But
at length I roused myself to action. The letters
which had given me so intense a happiness, the

sketches and paintings on which I had toiled so
industriously and long and with so loving an ambition,
all the dearest souvenirs of earlier and
brighter days, were now as a dead life to me. I
placed them in a small wooden box, and with them
buried all my hopes and ambitions. While waiting
for some opportunity that heaven should render
available for my determined but undirected will, I
saw an advertisement for a nurse, to take charge of
a little girl, and immediately decided to apply for
the situation.

The long tresses that had often been called beautiful,
I held a moment before my eyes, and with difficulty
suppressing the memory of his praises as he
had played with them, and struggling tears with
which they came to me, I cut them off, and disguised
myself with a dark plain braid of hair, in
which my appearance was so changed I scarcely
recognized myself.

My application was successful; I became an inmate
of the house of Mrs. Wurth. When asked my
name, I said it was Hagar; and without being
questioned, without questioning—performing my
duties without any fear or hope—I remained in
this place until the child grew into womanhood.

In the meanwhile I heard often of your other sister,
though for reasons which you may apprehend,
there was little intimacy between her family and

that of her better educated and more fashionable
niece, so that Mrs. Yancey had never seen me;
and I heard of you, and sometimes of this isolated
cottage in which I have been living.

I never saw my child again. The name of Mr.
Warburton gradually became familiar to the world;
he abandoned his profession—not in want of that
success which should have more than satisfied his
high reaching expectations, for he was master of a
refined and touching eloquence, and thoroughly accomplished
in all appropriate learning, so that
fame waited surely on his patient endeavor; but
that perhaps, I thought, some haunting memories
beckoned him from a vocation in which he was too
proud to appear without a conscious honesty. I
have not ever doubted the sincerity of his belief in
what he taught from the pulpit, or that his instincts
were religious, but he ventured accommodations
with conscience, and needed that bravery of nature
which is the best security of virtue. He went
abroad, and became a man of letters, and was fortunate.
I read his books—in that hopeless, homeless
life, and heard his old companions discuss his character
and genius. How my heart warmed when I
heard men praise him! and when ungenerous
thoughts of him were spoken, with what difficulty
I repressed the impulse to defend him! Though I
had no expectation that I should ever see him,

though I knew he bore in his heart the cruelest
feelings of injustice to me, I knew also that some
times I was remembered, and with tenderness.
And in all he wrote I saw that he was a wretched
wanderer, an outlaw of his own mind—so that the
poor servant who should have been his wife, did
not envy him his triumphs, but with a subtler
sense than others had of all the thoughts he gave
the world, pitied him.

In the maturity of his life, and the fullness of his
fame, he returned to his own country, and we
walked again in the streets of the same city.

Catharine Wurth had grown to be a beautiful
girl—

and the love of her gentle and trustful heart had
been almost entirely mine, and there was nothing
else in the world so dear to me. Imagine, then, if
it be possible, the torture which run through all
my nature, when I saw this affection, this last
solace of my life, weaned away from me, by him
who once had been my lover, and my promised
husband.

They met in society, and had been acquainted
for weeks, perhaps for months, when I first met
him at her house. I knew him instantly—changed
as he was with griefs and years; but how should
he know in the dark-haired Hagar, whom he saw

as one of the household of his expected bride, the
young and blooming Elsie of long ago?

He was not more changed in person than in character.
Yet there were signs still of the stern pride
of former days, though it was subdued and silent,
not assuming, ostentatious, and haughty.

Conscious of his powers and position, the fluctuations
of opinion, praise, or censure, had no effect
upon him.

Sometimes he talked with a gay air and apparent
joyousness, but it was only a playing of the surface;
all the while a quick observer might perceive
that below was a sea heaving with irresistible and
terrible currents—a sea which none who saw him
ever could fathom.

There seemed about him always something unnatural,
unreal; even when the circle in which he
moved was captivated by his wit, or awed by the
quickness and strength of his judgment, something
that made one distrustful, and half afraid.

With a burning in my bosom, that was anger
and sorrow, and jealousy, almost madness, I assisted
in the bridal preparations, saw the sacred ceremonial
of marriage, and was installed in the new
home, not so much the pensioned companion as the
confidante and dear friend of the young wife.

She, to her husband, was a beautiful toy, a pet,
a bird of brilliant plumage and a sweet song—to

see or hear when he was weary of thought or of
the outdoor world—but incapable of satisfying
either his mind or his heart.

“Catharine,” I heard him say one morning, as
she stood near me, while I pulled the yellow leaves
from some flowers and loosened the earth about the
roots; “my study, I wish you to remember, is
sacred to myself; when I am within, it must be
understood that I can never suffer any intrusion.”
The wife laughed, as she replied, that she had no
love for the monkish closet, and that even her
woman's curiosity should never tempt her to enter
the place, especially after nightfall. I laughed too,
and I suspect there was something of defiance in
my tone and manner, as, with the yellow leaves in
my hand, I walked past him, and entered the forbidden
room.

“Where did you get that Hagar?” I heard him
say, when I was out of sight. “There is something
in her voice and laughter, sometimes, that disturbs
me. You must dismiss her.”

In a moment afterward they entered the library
together. It was furnished with exquisite taste,
and the rich cases covering nearly all the walls
were filled with the choicest books, which he had
chosen to be his most intimate companions in an
isolated middle age and in the decline of life. They
did not notice me, and he proceeded in a gay manner

to exhibit to his wife the presentation copies of
works he had received from famous authors, while
abroad, and books curious for antiquity, or as specimens
of art, and opening a cabinet, he displayed
the souvenirs of his visits to many remarkable
places, she listening all the while with a kind of
childish pride and wonder, but I unmoved, though
I felt the ashes that had been my heart disturbed,
and a tremulous pain there, where I thought should
be only insensible stillness and silence.

There was one drawer of the cabinet, in the
centre, and larger than the others, which he did
not open, and touching it with her fan, his wife
said, “What is this? I wish to see all.”

A sudden pallor came over his face, and he put
his hand upon her arm and drew her away,
saying hastily, “Nothing—nothing that will interest
you—some old letters—papers—accumulations
of years—nothing for you to see.”

I thought I read the secrets of that drawer, as I
marked the flush upon his cheek when he precipitately
passed me, leading her from the room. As
he turned back he motioned my withdrawal, and
as soon as, mechanically, I passed the threshold, I
heard the turning of the key that secured to him
the secrecy he pined for in that solitude.

His wife, thus dismissed, retired with a light
heart, to amuse herself with flowers or birds, or

the new novel, or her music, but I lingered near
the door, and hearing soon a suppressed groan, I
looked and saw him, before that secret drawer,
which was slightly opened, on his knees, alternately
in passionate prayer, and with unmoving lips, his
face turned upward, with such repose of expression
as seemed to evince madness, and heavy
drops upon his pallid face—drops that were not
tears.

There are hours, as Manfred said, all tortured
into ages, which yet we can outlive. In the few
weeks since first I knew he had returned, who can
imagine the intensity of my anguish, the power of
that great passion which had slept through years,
to awake, under such circumstances, in the close
presence of its object. Yet I was calm—I was
very calm, as I turned away from observing how
he too struggled with the past—so calm that I wondered,
and placed my palm upon my brow to see if
there was no throbbing there, and on my heart, to
be assured it beat so slowly. It was true. I could
have walked that moment, every nerve as tranquil
as a sleeping child's, down from the blessed river
which flows in Paradise, into the red and burning
wastes of hell.

Another change awaited me; and whither should
I go? I knew not. I was friendless, homeless,
except in his home, where it was impossible to

remain. Heaven would not long uphold me if I
voluntarily braved so terrible a danger.

I could not depart without possessing myself of
that secret, which I felt was in some way connected
with my own history, but in every effort I made to
open the mysterious drawer I was baffled.

I did not avoid Warburton. Whatever the emotions
awakened by my presence, he certainly did
not know me, and probably had never in any way
associated the names of Hagar and Elsie. But
when we met I saw that there were fearful struggles
in his heart, and felt that I was seeing
God's retribution for the wrongs which I had suffered.

His wife, however, seemed insensible of his unhappiness,
or if some moment he forgot his difficult
but flimsy masque of peace, she had no doubt he
would be restored to cheerfulness by some such
poor resort as would have healed the deepest sorrow
she herself had ever known. She came to
me one morning with a face radiant with pleasant
expectations, saying, “We are to have such a delightful
time to-night! and I wish you to select the
most becoming of all my dresses for me to wear.”

“What do you propose?” I said.

“There is to be a splendid opera, with a new
prima donna, and Mr. Warburton is to take me—
we shall be so happy!”

I made every arrangement for her pleasure, but
with an oppressive sense of melancholy and vague
foreboding of terror that assured me the end of all
this doubt, of this life I had been leading with so
continual and painful an effort, was nearly accomplished.
Mr. Warburton had seemed through the
day unusually depressed and stern, and when on
the approach of evening he came from a long seclusion
in the library, not as if he dreamed of any
joy, but with a countenance shaded in gloom, and
restless glances, or fixed eyes that gazed on nothing,
I could have flung my arms about him as he passed
me, and said, Let me comfort you! with all your
triumphs you are more wretched than I, and God
pity you if you are more guilty! But my arms
fell powerless beside me, and my lips were mute.

I had been alone, perhaps an hour, after their
departure, when the resolved but undecided will
which occupied my brain took shape, and I made
instant preparation to leave the house forever. A
trunk containing the few things of mine most
necessary for my comfort, I had packed days before,
in anticipation of some sudden emergency,
and having confided it to a person from whom I
could privately regain it whenever I should have
another home, I went to my room for the little box
in which were preserved the mementos of my
youth—my drawings, and the elaborated pictures

he had gazed on, praising them, and the letters
which had filled my heart one time with sweeter
blisses than a century of common life would bring
to me. As I was passing through the hall the
key of the lock fel on the floor, and as I picked it
up I observed that it was of a size and form perhaps
to fit the lock of that drawer I had so
anxiously and vainly sought to open. Stealthily,
though no one could see me, I entered the library,
applied it, succeeded, and in a moment the fearful
enigma was revealed.

In a case of black and polished wood was a
coffin, decayed, as if it had been buried many
years; the lid was removed, and in it was a skeleton,
which instinctively I recognized as my child;
and from the accumulated dust, red beads glittered
in the light of the close lamp. My heart seemed
stiller than a grave, as I looked on and saw in the
drawer beside these dread memorials of guilt and
suffering, my picture, and the letters I had written
when I was like it, young and beautiful, and seeing
in the future vistas of flowers, and fairest skies
perpetually serene—those letters, so full of love
and confidence that had made me what I was, to
that hour in which I stood there in the presence of
such horrors, my forehead wet as with the crown
of a murderess.

I know not whence I had the strength to do so,

but mechanically I lifted the fragile coffin in my
arms, and pressed it to my heart, and on the skeleton
I placed the letters, and the miniature, under
which it crumbled, formless, which observing, a
tear would have struggled to my face, but it was
dried by the hot fire which burned intensely in my
brain. I took up the lamp, and turning, saw a
shadow on the wall, and in a moment, looking
down upon me as from the dark, large shining
eyes, so mournful that to have seen them might
have taught the very stones to be pitiful.