66. CHAPTER LXVI.
THE BURGLARY.
“To come back to myself,” continued Harley. “Such had been
the unfortunate termination of all my romantic dreams.
“I could not find Gontran, and having thus nobody to wreak my
spite upon, I returned to Huntsdon, and proceeded to mope. It is
a poor occupation, whether indulged in by high or low. I would
rather be a ploughman, working cheerfully all day, and sleeping
soundly all night, than a duke with a dozen castles, who moped.
I became sour, misanthrophic, and never lost an occasion to indulge
in sneers at men and women—especially at the latter. This was
certainly not amiable, but there was some excuse for it, I think.
I had had an unfortunate experience, had been tricked and superseded
by the man with whom I had been brought up as a brother,
and treated with contempt by the woman I had loved. So I lived
here in this large, lonely house, with no one but my young brother,
gloomy, miserable, disenchanted, and old before my time. I never
visited any one, and paid no attention to my affairs; the estate was
managed by my father's old and faithful overseer, Saunders, else it
would have gone to ruin. I was going through one of those epochs
in a man's life which harden and sour him—taking from him all
the joys of life. I should, nevertheless, have returned, I think, to
a more healthy state of mind. Three or four years had passed, and
I was becoming far more cheerful, when an incident occurred which
made me, until within the last two or three days, one of the most
melancholy of human beings.
“This incident I will now proceed to relate in a few words.
“I had retired one night, and had slept for an hour or two. My
chamber was the one next to this, my younger brother sleeping up-stairs.
Well, I became aware, during my sleep, of a noise at one of
the windows of the apartment we are now in—a slight, grating
noise, which could be produced by nothing but a burglar's file. In
an instant I was awake, and had all my senses about me. The
night was stormy, and I could hear the distant muttering of thunder
through the closed shutters of my chamber, I could see from
moment to moment the vague glare of lightning.
“At first I thought I must be dreaming—an idea which is apt to
occur to the mind of any one suddenly roused from sleep by an unexpected
occurrence. But there was no doubt about the noise.
There it was—low, continuous, muffled; a file was biting at the old-fashioned
bolt holding down the window; some one was aiming to
gain access to the apartment.
“All at once I remembered that I had on that day received five
hundred pounds sterling for a portion of my tobacco; it had been
locked up in the drawer of the old secretary yonder, where I kept
my valuables; the burglar must have this money in view, and in
my sour and bitter mood, I resolved to make the intruder rue his
attempt.
“I went to the mantelpiece where I kept a pistol loaded, stole
into the passage, opened the door of this room, and reached it just
as the bolt fell in two, and the window yonder by the bed was
slowly and cautiously raised.
“The burglar was on the sill when I fired. As I did so, a brilliant
flash of lightning lit up the room. My bullet had struck the man
in the breast, and as he fell back with a cry, putting his hand to the
bloody spot, I recognized Gontran.
“I stood for a moment quite horrified at my act. I had not realized
that death must follow my shot, at a human being within
only a few feet of my pistol's muzzle, and the thought of Gontran
had never crossed my mind. I was utterly shocked, and would
have gone instantly to his succor, but I heard hasty, staggering
steps, then a man groaning and dragging himself up on horseback,
and then the quick hoof-strokes of the horse as he carried his
wounded rider off. In a few minutes the noise had ceased, and I
looked round me with the air of a man walking in his sleep. I then
proceeded to strike a light and examine the window; the bolt was
sawn in two, and the sash was raised. I shut it down, went back
to my chamber, and remained until daybreak in a chair, musing,
suffering remorse.
“Something told me that I had mortally wounded Gontran,
and on the next day his fate seemed to be ascertained. His horse
was found riderless on the other side of the Blackwater, which was
greatly swollen near the ford, in the vicinity of Puccoon's cabin.
The wounded man must have attempted to cross, I concluded, was
swept from the saddle, and had been drowned. Thus, whether my
bullet had inflicted a mortal wound, or only weakened him by loss
of blood, so that he could not keep his seat in the saddle, I was responsible
for his death, and horror seized upon me. My remorse
became even greater than before. I will explain what I mean.
There were some old and valuable jewels which had been the property
of Mrs. Gontran when she was married to my father; she
made no disposition of them at her death, and they had been presented
by my father to my mother, when he was again married,
and left by my mother to my younger brother, St. George. Well,
about these jewels there had been some bitter blood on Gontran's
part. My father had declined to surrender them to him, and I in
my turn did likewise. I locked them up, keeping them securely for
my brother.
“Well, what heightened my remorse at having caused, as I supposed,
the death of the man I had looked upon in my childhood as
my brother, was the sudden discovery of the fact that he had not
intended, in entering the house, to rob me of my five hundred
pounds sterling, but to obtain possession of property which he believed
to be, of right, his own—namely, his mother's jewels. He
had written a statement to that effect, to leave behind him. He
dropped it in his flight. I found it on the next morning, just after
discovering, as I supposed, that he was drowned, and from that instant,
my dear St. Leger, up to the day when I found a paper left by
my uncle George for me, I never enjoyed a moment's happiness or
peace of mind. I regarded myself as a murderer. I had killed the
son of my father's wife, and the provocation to this killing was not
burglary, the attempt to rob, but the simple desire to obtain possession
of what he believed to be his rightful property.”
