University of Virginia Library

121. CXXI.
WHERE MORDAUNT HAD BEEN, AND THE RESULT OF
HIS JOURNEY.

When Mordaunt spoke, his voice was grave and measured;
but his eyes had still that proud and brilliant light in them—not
for an instant did it change.

“Lieutenant Saltoun,” he said, looking steadily into the cold
and haughty face of the young man, “in this whole affair you
are the victim of a plot so deep and infamous, that no one but a
devil, in human shape, could have framed it. Your lip curls
with incredulity, and some scorn, I think—you naturally suspect
that I am going to defend myself, to offer explanations, to
acknowledge some things, palliate others, and endeavor to escape
the wrath of the son by smoothing over my treatment of the
father. Not at all, sir—I have not the least intention of doing
any thing of the sort. That father, you believe in, never had
any existence. I was never, in my life, near Frederick City,
until I went there at the head of my regiment, last year; your

mother's name was Frances Carleton—and that is the single
grain of truth in this mass of devilish falsehood!”

Mordaunt's voice sounded deep, sonorous, and rejoiceful, even
when he uttered the name of the woman he had loved. There
was not a trace in it now of the gloom and reluctance which
he had once shown in pronouncing it. Some greater emotion
seemed to have swallowed up every other.

“Give me your attention, Lieutenant Saltoun, and you, my
friend,” he added, turning to me. “I design nothing less than
to narrate my whole life—to conceal absolutely nothing. Then,
when I have done, you shall sit in judgment upon me and my
career—decide in what light I deserve to be regarded—and
then, if I am to fight in this quarrel, why, pardieu! I will fight!
Yes, to the death!”

What was it that made Mordaunt's face, his voice, the very
carriage of his person, as he spoke, so animated, proud, almost
resplendent? I looked and listened with a sort of wonder.

“Of every word I utter, you shall have the proofs!” he continued.
“Oh! be not afraid! You shall have a legal affidavit,
if that is necessary, for every incident! Listen, then, and do
not interrupt me, until I have finished my relation!”

Then, without appearing to observe the astounded looks of
Saltoun, or my fixed regard, Mordaunt deliberately—with
scarcely a change in his voice—related what I had heard from
the lips of Fenwick, on that night in the Wilderness. From the
journal of the poor, betrayed wife, he had learned almost every
thing—he had guessed the rest.

For more than two hours the deep voice resounded—the narrator
continued speaking without interruption. During this time,
Harry Saltoun's face turned red, then pale, at times—he had
leaned forward unconsciously with a fixed light in his eyes—
some vague conception seemed rising slowly like a midnight
moon upon the darkness of his mind.

Mordaunt continued his narrative to the very end, described
the burial of his wife on that night at the Stone House near
Manassas, and then spoke of his bitter years of exile, spent in
looking for his enemy, and then in fighting among the Arabs, to

drown his wretchedness. Then a few words were given to his
life in Virginia, his career in the army, and his meetings with
Fenwick, whose authorship of the letter was distinctly shown.
Lastly, he returned, all at once, to the subject of his wife's abduction,
and said, in a low voice, which trembled slightly, in
spite of every effort which he made to control it:

“The son, born thus, during my absence, did not die—he is
alive, and well, at this moment!”

“Alive!” I exclaimed; “and have you discovered him?”

“Wait, Surry! Let me proceed, step by step. It is a train
of events I am narrating—hear me without interruption. This
time I am going to give you written vouchers for my statements
—here they are.”

And Mordaunt drew from his breast a leather case, from which
he took and placed before him, on his desk, two or three
papers.

“The first I shall show you,” he continued, “is a note from
Miss Grafton, received a few days since. Read it aloud, Surry.”

I took the paper—it was the same which Mordaunt had drawn
from his breast as we conversed beside the camp-fire, four days
before—and read the following words:

“When that paper reached me,” said Mordaunt, speaking with
an effort, “I procured four days' leave of absence, and went to
Maryland.”

“You found the woman!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, and here is the result.”

He handed me, as he spoke, another paper, which I grasped
with eagerness, and read rapidly.

It was an affidavit from Mary Bates, of Frederick County,
Maryland, that, some time in the winter of 1844, a gentleman
named Fenwick had stopped at her house, with a lady whose
name the affiant did not discover—that the lady had, on the
night of her arrival, given birth to a son—been attacked by
puerperal fever—lost her reason—and was removed, the affiant
always understood and believed, to a private asylum, by her
companion, Fenwick. The son was taken by Fenwick, a week
after his birth, as affiant afterward discovered, to the house of
a gentleman some miles off, and left at his door, with nothing to
identify the child's parentage, unless there was some private
mark upon a watch which had belonged to the lady, and was
placed around his neck by her, in a lucid interval, when she
recognized her child. This watch had been left upon the person
of the infant, affiant knew, and was still in his possession,
unless Fenwick removed it after taking the child away.

The gentleman at whose door the infant was thus left, affiant
stated, was named Saltoun——

I dropped the paper, and looked at Harry Saltoun. He was as
pale as death, and trembled in every limb. By a mechanical
movement, he drew from his breast the watch which I had
brought from Maryland. Mordaunt seized it, and touched a
spring in the handle—the case flew open, and in a private compartment
I saw an exquisite miniature of Mordaunt—younger
and fresher-looking, but a wonderful likeness still—under which
was cut in the golden surface, the words: “For my own
Frances.”

Mordaunt pointed to it—his cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkling—and
said, in a voice of inexpressible tenderness:

“That is the likeness of your father, Harry—this watch his
wedding present to your mother!”

As he spoke, Mordaunt opened his arms, and the young man
fell sobbing on his breast.