University of Virginia Library

26. CHAPTER XXVI.

And from the door of the next apartment
— suddenly opened — came the
speaker, a young woman, whose hair fell
disordered and in tangled masses about
her face.

Her bonnet was crushed upon her
head, as if by a heavy blow; her attire,
gay and tawdry, was damp with rain,
and soiled with the mud of the streets.
And framed in the crushed bonnet and
matted hair, appeared a face not long
ago rosy and blooming with all the life
of seventeen, but now as colorless as the
visage of a corpse; the only life in it was
the wild feverish glare of the expanded
eyes. Clenching her head, with her tawdry
shawl, dangling from one arm to the
floor, she came forward with a rapid
step.

“I did it. Am proud of the deed!

To-night—not an hour ago, I met him
at the corner of the next street. I asked
him for a dollar, for I was houseless. He
refused me and passed on. I ran side
by side with him, and clung to his arm,
telling him how he had brought me from
my home, and after all his oaths and
promises had left me to walk the streets
of New-York,—to—to—to—” her utterance
grew thick and hysterical. “And
he thrust me aside, and when I clung to
him again, he struck me—yes, he struck
me! And then passed on, not caring
whether I lay dead upon the side-walk
But I was not dead; I followed him and
found him here in his room, examining
his pistols by the light of the candle. As
I entered, I seized one of the pistols; it
was loaded, thank God! I fired—and,
killed him,—killed him, do you hear?”

She stopped, and the echoes of her
hysterical bursts of laughter sounded
strange and horrible in that room, where
death sat in hideous reality.

“Oh! you base, bad man she cried,
approaching the chair, and looking at the
corpse, as though it were still the living
Captain Burley Hayne. “Oh! you base,
bad man, had you no shame? Not one
throb of feeling? Were you indeed human?
How could you treat me thus?
You know what you told me when you
took me from my home; how you had
a better home for me here, in New-York;
and what a dear good wife I
would be to you; and now you sit there
dead—and I—O my God! look at me!
What am I?”

The violence of her emotions, the madness
which for an hour had filled her
veins, now flung her into a deathlike
swoon; she fell on her knees, her face
resting on her clenched hands, and her
hair falling in thick masses over the table.

Mr. Pittson, who was a grim, demure
man, much accustomed to the sight of
overy form of human misery, turned his
face from the sight, muttering, as he
rubbed the corner of each eye, “Bad papers
for you, cap'in! bad papers!” A
dead stillness prevailed for a few moments,
while the girl, in her swoon, knelt
beside the table, and the captain sat hideously
erect in his chair.

That silence was broken by the voices
of two gentlemen, who entered the room
from the stairway.

“What! Mr. Van Warner, here at this
hour!” was the remark of the bland Mr.
Morgan, who was evidently deeply surprised
when he beheld me.

“Come to offer an apology, I suppose?”
said his companion, the venerable and
wicked Eliphalet Cloud. “Won't do,
young man he'll wing you,—a dead shot,
a dead shot! He'll —” the words
hung on his lips, for his gaze encountered
the face of the dead man.

The idiotic stare which expanded his
eyes as I hurriedly related how, and by
whose hands the captain met his death,
could only be exceeded in repulsiveness
by the fixed glare of the dead man's
eyes. Even the composed Morgan grew
pale, and sunk back into a chair, covering
his face for a moment with his hands.
Suddenly, the horror printed on Eliphalet's
visage was succeeded by an expression
impossible to describe; an expression
which reminded you of nothing
save a grin on the visage of a corpse.

“Dead is he!” I heard him mutter to
himself—“D—n him! I rather guess,
captain, you won't use that little bit o'
paper now.”

It was just after day break when I ascended
the stairs which led to Eugenia's
home. Feverish, from loss of rest, to
say nothing of long-continued excitement,
I wished to see her at the earliest
moment, and tell her that it was no
longer needful for me to kill, or be killed
in a duel. I passed into the anteroom,
and knocked gently at the door. There
was no sound in reply, but the door was
slightly ajar; I pushed it open and entered.
A dim light—the ray of a candle
fluttering in its socket—was shed
around the humble features of that
room.

Eugenia was there, on her knees, all
unconscious of my presence; her hands
clasped, her eyes upraised, her black hair
floating over her neck and bosom.

There are two expressions, the most
inexpressibly beautiful, which by turns
pass over the face of a pure and lovely
woman. One is when religion fills her
being, and sends its calm, holy light to
the upraised eyes, shedding over every
feature the baptism of a deathless emotion;
the other, when pure love (in itself
a part—yes, the essence of religion,) first
courses in heaven-born sunshine over her

face, filling the eyes, blooming like young
June on the lip and cheek, while the first
time the words “my husband!” tremble
on the air.

Of these expressions, so beautiful beyond
the power of words, that of religion
now baptized the face of Eugenia.

She was praying; my name was in her
prayer and on her lips as I came into the
room.

As she saw me she bounded to her
feet, made a step forward, as though
about to spring into my arms, but, pausing
where she stood, blushing and beautiful,
gasped the words—“It is over
then! You are safe! There—there is
no stain of blood upon your hands?”

“It is over, Eugenia!” I replied.
“There is no stain of blood upon my
hands. In a word, there has been no
duel. Captain Burley Hayne has been
summoned to his last account.”

“Dead!” she gasped, opening wide her
eyes, and growing very pale, as she sunk
into a chair. I took my seat beside her,
and while she sat, pale and frightened,
related the details of the captain's fate.

“So sudden!” she interrupted me;
“and by a victim's hand. Gone in his
sins to his last account! Oh! it is horrible!”

A pause ensued, and we sat silently
gazing in each other's faces, by the light
of the flickering candle.

At length, while the early sunshine
began to mingle with the flickering light,
I began to talk of our future—of our marriage,
of the quiet home, far from the
atmosphere of the city's crimes, where
we would live when our fates were joined
in one.

“To-morrow is Saturday. Your brother's
pardon will arrive. I will place
him in good hands, afar from the temptations
and vices of New-York—and
then, Eugenia, your brother, safe from all
harm, we will be married.” I paused,
for her gaze no longer met mine; her
downcast eyes and half-averted face indicated
an emotion which I could not define.

“O Frank!” she said, calling me for
the first time by name, “something tells
me that our marriage had better not be.
Think me not ungrateful! think not that
I do not—love you! But our social condition
is unequal. The world in which
you move will say that I had married
you for your wealth. And—and—” she
now turned toward me her radiant eyes,—
“Oh! let me be to you as sister to dearest
brother!” Her words were hesitating,
but the look which shone in every
lineament of her face contradicted her
words.

“Eugenia!” I said, taking her hand,
“you love me! That is enough! On
Monday next you will be mine—my
wife!”

“Yes—yes—” she faltered “but there
is at my heart a presentiment of evil for
which I cannot account—”