University of Virginia Library

31. CHAPTER XXXI.
ZELL.

“AND the silence of the grave” ought to swallow
such as poor Zell had become, is, perhaps,
the thought of some. All reference to her
and her class should be suppressed.

We firmly say, No! If so, the New Testament
must be suppressed. The Divine Teacher spoke
plainly both of the sin and the sinner. He had
scathing denunciation for the one, and compassion
and mercy for the other. Shall we enforce His
teachings against all other forms of evil, and not
against this deadliest one of all—and that, too, in
the laxity and wide demoralization of our age, when
temptation lurks on every hand, and parents are
often sleepless with just anxiety?

Evil is active, alluring, suggesting, insinuating
itself when least expected, and many influences are
at work, with the full approval of society, to poison
forever all pure thoughts. And temptation is sure
to come at first as an angel of light.

There is no safety save in solemn words of warning,
the wholesome terror which knowledge inspires,
the bracing of principle, and the ennobling of Christian
faith. There are too many incarnate fiends

who will take advantage of the innocence of ignorance.

Zell is not in her grave. She is sinning, but more
sinned against. He who said to one like her, of old,
“Her sins, which are many, are forgiven,” loves her
still, and Edith is praying for her. The grave cannot
close over her yet.

But as we look upon this long-lost one, as she reclines
on a sofa in Van Dam's luxurious apartments,
as we see her temples throbbing with pain,
and that her cheeks are flushed and feverish, it
would seem that the grave might soon hide her from
a contemptuous and vindictive world.

Her head does ache sadly, it seems bursting with
pain; but her heart aches with a bitterer anguish.
Zell had too fine a nature to sin brutally and unfeelingly.
Her betrayer's treachery wounded her more
deeply than he could understand. Even her first
strong love for him could not bridge the chasm of
guilt to which he led her, and her passionate nature
and remorse often caused her to turn upon him
with such scathing reproaches that even he, in his
hardihood, trembled.

Knowing how proud and high-strung she was, he
feared to reveal his treachery in New York, a
locality with which she was familiar; so he said that
very important business called him at once to Boston,
a city where he had very few acquaintances.
Zell reluctantly acquiesced to this further journey.
He meant to register in an assumed name, but the
landlord said to him as he entered the office,

“Why, Van Dam, how are you?”

“Where have you seen me?” was the gruff
reply.

“Why, don't you remember? We played poker
together all the way from Buffalo to Albany, and
you lightened my pocket-book wofully too. This is
your wife, I suppose.”

“Yes,” said Van Dam, thinking, “It will attract
less attention and be safest.”

“Well, I'm glad to see you—can give you a good
room. So register, and I will get a little of my lost
money back,” and the host slapped him on the back
with a hearty laugh.

Van Dam with a frown wrote,

“Guilliam Van Dam and wife.”

By no more sacred or gracious ceremony than
this did he ever reward her trust and love. They
jaunted about in the North and West through the
summer and autumn, and now have but recently
returned to New York.

With a wild terror she saw that his passion for
her was waning. Therefore her reproaches and
threats became at times almost terrific, and again
her servile entreaties were even more pitiable and
dreadful, in view of what a true wife's position and
right ought to be. He, wearying of her fierce and
alternating moods, and selfishly thinking of his own
ease and comfort, as was ever the case, had resolved
to throw her off at the first opportunity.

But retribution for both was near. The small-pox
was almost epidemic in the city: Zell's silk had

swept against a beggar's infected rags, and fourteen
days later appeared the fatal symptoms.

And truly she is weary and heart-sick this afternoon.
She never remembered feeling so ill. The
thought of death appalled her. She felt, as never
before, that she wanted some one to love and take
care of her.

Van Dam entered, and said, rather roughly,

“What's the matter?”

“I'm sick,” said Zell, faintly.

He muttered an oath.

She arose from the sofa and tottered to his easy
chair, knelt, and clasped his knees.

“Guilliam,” she pleaded, “I am very sick. I have
a feeling that I shall die. Won't you marry me?
Won't you take care of your poor little Zell, that
loved you so well as to leave all for you? Perhaps
I won't burden you much longer, but, if I do get
well, I will be your patient slave, if you will only
marry me;” and the tears poured over the hot,
feverish cheeks, that they could not cool.

His only reply was to ask, with some irritation,

“How do you feel?”

“Oh, my head aches, my bones ache, every part
of my body aches, but my heart aches worst of all.
You can ease that, Guilliam. In the name of God's
mercy, won't you?”

A sudden thought caused the coward's face to
grow white with fear. “I must have a doctor see
you,” was his only reply to her appeal, and he passed
hastily out.

Zell felt that a blow would have been better than
his indifference, and she crawled back to her couch.
A little later, she was conscious that a physician
was feeling her pulse, and examining her symptoms.
After he was gone she had strength enough to take
off her jewelry and rings—all, save one solitaire diamond,
that her father had given her. The rest
seemed to oppress her with their weight. She then
threw herself on the bed.

She was next conscious that some one was lifting
her up. She roused for a moment, and stared
around. There were several strange faces.

“What do you want? What are you going to do
with me?” she asked, in a thick voice, and a vague
terror.

“I am sorry, Miss,” said one of the men, in an
official tone; “but you have the small-pox, and we
must take you to the hospital.”

She gave one shriek of horror. A hand was
placed over her mouth. She murmured faintly:

“Guilliam—help!” and then, under the effects
of disease and fear, became partially unconscious;
but her hand clenched, and with some instinct hard
to understand, remained so, over the diamond ring
that was her father's gift.

She was conscious of riding in something hard
over the stony street, for the jolting hurt her cruelly.
She was conscious of the sound of water, for she
tried to throw herself into it, that it might cool her
fever. She was conscious of reaching some place,
and then she felt as if she had no rest for many

days, and yet was not awake. But through it all
she kept her hand closed on her father's gift. At
times it seemed to her that some one was trying to
take it off, but she instinctively struggled and cried
out, and the hand was withdrawn.

At last one night she seemed to really wake and
come to herself. She opened her eyes and looked
timidly around the dim ward. All was strange and
unaccountable. She feared that she was in another
world. But as she raised her hand to her head, as
if to clear away the mist of uncertainty, a sparkle
from the diamond caught her eye. For a long
time she stared vacantly at it, with the weak, vague
feeling that in some sense it might be a clue. Its
faint lustre was like the glimmer of a star through
a rift in the clouds to a lost traveler. Its familiar
light and position reminds him of home, and by its
ray he guesses in what direction to move; so the
crystallized light upon her finger threw its faint
glimmer into the past, and by its help Zell's weak
mind groped its way down from the hour it was
given to the moment when she became partially
unconscious in Van Dam's apartments. But the
word small-pox was burned into her brain, and she
surmised that she was in a hospital.

At last a woman passed. Zell feebly called her.

“What do you want?” said a rather gruff voice.

“I want to write a letter.”

“You can't. It's against the rules.”

“I must,” pleaded Zell. “Oh, as you are a
woman, and hope in God's mercy, don't refuse me.”

“Can't break the rules,” said the woman, and she
was about to pass on.

“Stop!” said Zell, in a whisper. “See there,”
and she flashed the diamond upon her, “I'll give
you that if you'll promise before God to send a letter
for me. It would take you many months to
earn the value of that.”

The woman was a part of the city government,
so she acted characteristically. She brought Zell
writing materials and a bit of candle, saying:

“Be quick!”

With her poor, stiff, diseased hand, Zell wrote:

Poor, poor Zell! Like to a tempest-tossed one
of old, “sun, moon, and stars” had long been hidden.

Almost fainting with weakness, she sealed and
directed the letter, drew off the ring, pressed it to
her lips, and then turned her eyes, unnaturally large
and bright, on the woman waiting at her side, and
said:

“Look at me! Promise me you will see that
this letter is delivered. Remember, I am going to
die. If you ever hope for an hour's peace,
promise!”

“I promise,” said the woman solemnly, for she
was as superstitious as avaricious, and though she
had no hesitancy in breaking the rules and taking a
bribe, she would not have dared for her life to have
risked treachery to a girl, whom she believed dying.

Zell gave her the ring and the letter, and sank
back for the time unconscious.

The woman had her means of communication
with the city, and before many hours elapsed the
letter was on its way.

Van Dam was in a state of nervous fear till the
fourteen days passed, and then he felt that he was
safe. He had his rooms thoroughly fumigated, and
was reassured by his physicians saying daily, “There
was not much danger of her giving you the disease
in its first stage. She is probably dead by this
time.”

But the wheels of life seemed to grow heavier and
more clogged every day. He was fast getting

down to the dregs, and now almost every pleasure
palled upon his jaded taste. At one time it seemed
that Zell might so infuse her vigorous young life
and vivacity into his waning years that his last days
would be his best. And this might have been the
case, if he had reformed his evil life and dealt with
her as a true man. In her strong and exceptional
love, considering their difference in age, there were
great possibilities of good for both. But he had
foully perverted the last best gift of his life, and
even his blunted moral sense was awakening to the
truth.

“Curse it all,” he muttered, late one morning,
“perhaps I had better have married her. I hoped
so much from her, and she has been nothing but a
source of trouble and danger. I wonder if she is
dead.”

He had been out very late the night before, and
had played heavily, but not with his usual skill. He
had kept muttering grim oaths against his luck, and
drinking deeper and deeper till a friend had half
forced him away. And now, much shaken by the
night's debauch, depressed by his heavy losses, conscience,
that crouches like a tiger in every bad
man's soul, and waits to rush from its lair and rend,
in the long hours—the long eternity of weakness and
memory—already had its fangs in his guilty heart.

Long and bitterly he thought, with a frown resting
like night on his heavy brow. The servant
brought him a dainty breakfast, but he sullenly
motioned it away. He had wronged his digestive

powers so greatly the night before that even brandy
was repugnant to him, and he leaned heavily and
wearily back in his chair, a prey to remorse.

He was in just the right physical condition to take
a contagion.

There was a knock at the door, and the servant
entered, bringing him a letter, saying, “This was
just left here for ye, sir.”

“A dun,” thought he, languidly, and he laid it
unopened on the stand beside him.

It was; and from one whom he owed a reparation
he could never make, though he paid with his
life.

With his eyes closed, he still leaned back in a
dull, painful lethargy. A faint, disagreeable odor
gradually pervaded the room, and at last attracted
his attention. The luxurious sybarite could not
help the stings of conscience, the odor he might.
He grew restless, and looked around.

Zell's letter caught his attention. “Might as
well see who it's from,” he muttered. Weakness,
pain, and emotion had so changed Zell's familiar
hand, that he did not recognize it.

But, as he opened and read, his eyes dilated with
horror. It seemed like a dead hand grasping him
out of the darkness. But a dreadful fascination
compelled him to read every line, and re-read them,
till they seemed burned into his memory. At last,
by a desperate effort, he broke the strong spell her
words had placed upon him, and, starting up, exclaimed,

“Go to her, in that pest-house! I would see her
dead a thousand times first. I hope she is dead,
for she is the torment of my life. What is it that
smells so queer?”

His eyes again rested on the letter. A suspicion
crossed his mind. He carried the letter to his
nose, and then started violently, uttering awful
oaths.

“She has sent the contagion directly to me,” he
groaned, and he threw poor Zell's appeal on the
grate. It burned with a faint, sickly odor. Then,
as the day was raw and windy, a sudden gust down
the chimney blew it all out into the room, and
scattered it in ashes, like Zell's hopes, around his
feet.

A superstitious horror, that made his flesh creep
and hair rise, took possession of him, and hastily
gathering a few necessary things, he rushed out
into the chill air, and made his way to a large hotel.
He wanted to be in a crowd. He wanted the hard,
material world's noise and bustle around him. He
wanted to hear men talking about gold and stocks,
and the gossip of the town—anything that would
make living on seem a natural, possible matter of
course.

But men's voices sounded strange and unfamiliar,
and the real world seemed like that which mocks us
in our dreams. Mingling with all he saw and heard
were Zell's despairing looks and Zell's despairing
words. He wrapped himself in his great coat, he
drank frequent and fiery potations, he hovered

around the registers, but nothing could take away
the chill at his heart. He tossed feverishly all
night. His sudden exposure to the raw wind in his
heated, excited condition caused a severe cold.
But he would not give up. He dared not stay alone
in his room, and so crept down to the public haunts
of the hotel. But his flushed cheeks and strange
manner attracted attention. As the days passed, he
grew worse, and the proprietor of the house said,

“You are ill, you must go to bed.”

But he would not. There was nothing that he
seemed to dread so much as being alone. But the
guests began to grow afraid of him. There was
general and wide-spread fear of the small-pox in
the city, and for some reason, it began to be associated
with his illness. As the suspicion was whispered
around, all shrank from him. The proprietor had
him examined at once by a physician. It was the
fatal fourteenth day, and the dreaded symptoms were
apparent.

“Have you no friends, no home to which you can
go?” he was asked.

“No,” he groaned, while the thought pierced his
soul. “She would have made me one and taken
care of me in it.” But he pleaded, “For God's
sake, don't send me away.”

“I must,” said the proprietor, frightened himself,
“the law requires it, and your presence here would
empty my house in an hour.”

So, in the dusk, like poor Zell, he was smuggled
down a back stairway, and sent to the “pest-house”

also, he groaning and crying with terror all the
way.

Zell did not die. Her vigorous constitution rallied,
and she rapidly regained strength. But with
strength and power of thought, came the certainty
to her mind of Van Dam's utter and final abandonment
of her. She felt that all the world would now
be against her, and that she would be driven from
every safe and pleasant path. The thought of taking
her shame to her home was a horror to her, and she
felt sure that Edith would spurn her from the door.
At first she wept bitterly and despairingly, and
wished she had died. But gradually she grew hard,
reckless, and cruel under her wrong, and her every
thought of Van Dam was a curse.

The woman who helped her to write the letter
greatly startled her one day, by saying,

“Ther's a man in the men's ward who in his
ravin' speaks of you.”

“Could he, in just retribution, have been sent
here also?” she thought. Pleading relationship,
she was admitted to see him. He shuddered as he
saw her advancing, with stony face and eyes in
which glared relentless hate.

“Curse you!” he muttered, feebly, with his parched
lips. “Go away, living or dead, I know not which you
are; but I know it was through you I came here!”

Her only answer was a mocking smile.

The doctor came and examined his symptoms.

“Will he get well?” she asked, following him
away a short distance.

“No,” said the physician. “He will die.”

Her cheek blanched for a moment; but from her
eyes glowed a deadly gleam of satisfaction.

“What did he say?” whispered Van Dam.

“He says you will die,” she answered, in a stony
voice. “You see, I am better than you were. You
would not come to me for even one poor moment.
You left me to die alone; but I will stay and watch
with you.”

“Oh, go away!” groaned Van Dam.

“I couldn't be so heartless,” she said, in a mocking
tone. “You need dying consolation. I want
to tell you, Guilliam, what was in my mind the
night I left all for you. I did doubt you a little.
That is where I sinned; but I shall only suffer for
that through all eternity,” she said, with a reckless
laugh that chilled his soul. “But then, I hoped, I
felt almost sure, you would marry me; and, oh,
what a heaven of a home I purposed to make you.
If you had only let even a magistrate say, `I pronounce
you man and wife,' I would have been your
patient slave. I would have kissed away even your
headaches, and had you ten contagions, they should
not have brought you here, for I would have taken
care of you and nursed you back to life.”

“Go away!” groaned Van Dam, with more
energy.

“Guilliam,” she said taking his hand, which shuddered
at her touch, “we might have had a happy
little home by this time. We might have learned
to live a good life in this world and prepared for a

better one in the next. Little children might have
put their soft arms around your neck, and with their
innocent kisses banished the memory and the
power of the evil past. Oh,” she gasped, “how
happy we might have been, and mother, Edith, and
Laura would have smiled upon us. But what is
now our condition?” she said bitterly, her grip
upon his hand becoming hard and fierce. “You
have made me a tigress; I must cower and hide
through life like a wild beast in a jungle. And you
are dying and going to hell,” she hissed in his ear,
“and by-and-bye, when I get to be an old ugly hag,
I will come and torment you there forever and forever.”

“Curse you, go away,” shrieked the terror-stricken
man.

An attendant hastened to the spot; Zell was
standing at the foot of the cot, glaring at him.

“I thought you was a relation of his'n,” said the
man roughly.

“So I am,” said Zell sternly. “As the one
stung is related to the viper that stung him,” and
with a withering look she passed away.

That night Van Dam died.

In process of time Zell was turned adrift in the
city. She applied vainly at stores and shops for a
situation. She had no good clothes, and appearances
were against her. She had a very little money
in her portmonnaie when she was taken to the hospital.
This was given to her on leaving, and she
made it go as far as possible. At last she went to

an intelligence office and sat among the others, who
looked suspiciously at her. They instinctively felt
that she was not of their ilk.

“What can you do?” was the frequent question.

She did not know how to do a single thing, but
thought that perhaps the position of waitress
would be the easiest.

“Where are your references?”

It was her one thought and effort to conceal all
reference to the past. At last the proprietor in pity
sent her to a lady who had told him to supply her
with a waitress; the place was in Brooklyn, and Zell
was glad, for she had less fear there of seeing any
one she knew.

The lady scolded bitterly about such an ignoramus
being sent to her, but Zell seemed so patient
and willing that she decided to try her. Zell gave
her whole soul to the work, and though the place
was a hard one, would have eventually learned to
fill it. The family were a little surprised sometimes
at her graceful movements, and the quick gleams of
intelligence in her large eyes, as some remark was
made naturally beyond one in her sphere. One
day they were trying to recall, while at the table,
the name of a famous singer at the opera. Before
she thought the name was almost out of her lips.
The poor girl tried to disguise herself by assuming,
as well as she could, the stolid, stupid manner of
those who usually blunder about our homes.

All might have gone well, and she have gained
an honest livelihood, had not an unforeseen circumstance

revealed her past life. Those who have
done wrong are never safe. At the most unexpected
time, and in the most unexpected way, their sin
may stand out before all and blast them.

Zell's mistress had told her to make a little extra
preparation, for she expected a gentleman to dine
that evening. With some growing pride and interest
in her work, she had done her best, and even
her mistress said:

“Jane” (her assumed name,) “you are improving,”
and a gleam of something like hope and pleasure
shot across the poor child's face. A passionate
sigh came up from her heart,

“Oh, I will try to do right if the world will let
me.”

But imagine her terror as she saw an old crony of
Van Dam's enter the room. The man recognized
her in a moment, and she saw that he did. She
gave him an imploring glance, which he returned
by one of cool contempt. Zell could hardly get
through the meal, and her manner attracted attention.
The cold-blooded fellow, whose soul was
akin to that of his dead friend, was considerate
enough to his hostess not to spoil her dinner,
or rob her of a waitress till it was over. But the
moment they returned to the parlor he told who
Zell was, and how she must have just come from
the small-pox hospital.

The lady (?) was in a frenzy of rage and fear.
She rushed down to where Zell was panting with
weakness and emotion, exclaiming:

“You shameful huzzy, how dare you come into
a respectable house, after your your loathsome life, and
loathsome disease?”

“Hear me,” pleaded Zell, “the doctor said there
was no danger, and I want to do what is right.”

“I don't believe a word you say. I wouldn't
trust you a minute. How much you have stolen
now it will be hard to tell, and I shouldn't wonder
if we all had the small-pox. Leave the house
instantly.”

“Oh, please give me a chance,” cried Zell, on her
knees. “Indeed, I am honest. I'll work for you
for nothing, if you will let me stay.”

“Leave instantly, or I will call for a policeman.”

“Then pay me my week's wages,” sobbed Zell.

“I won't pay you a cent, you brazen creature.
You didn't know how to do anything, and have been
a torment ever since you came. I might have
known there was something wrong. Now go, take
your old, pest-infected rags out of my house, or I
will have you sent to where you properly belong.
Thank Heaven, I have found you out.”

A sudden change came over Zell. She sprang
up, and a scowl black as night darkened her face.

“What has Heaven to do with your sending a
poor girl out into the night, I would like to know?”
she asked, in a harsh, grating voice; “I wouldn't do
it, therefore I am better than you are. Heaven has
nothing to do with either you or me,” and she
looked so dark and dangerous that her mistress was
frightened, and ran up to the parlor, exclaiming:

“She's an awful creature. I'm afraid of her.”

Then that manly being, her husband, towered up
in his wrath, saying majestically, “I guess I'm master
in my own house yet.”

He showed poor Zell the door. Her laugh rang
out recklessly, as she called:

“Good-bye. May the pleasant thought that you
have sent one more soul to perdition, lull you to
sweet sleep.”

But, for some reason, it did not. When they became
cool enough to think it over, they admitted
that perhaps they had been a “little hasty.”

They had a daughter about Zell's age. It would
be a little hard if any one should treat her so.

Zell had scarcely more than enough to pay her
way to New York. It seemed that people ought
to stretch out their hands to shield her, but they
only jostled her in their haste. As she stood, with
bundle, in the ferry entrance on the New York side,
undecided where to go, a man ran against her in his
hurry:

“Get out of the way,” he said, irritably.

She moved out one side into the darkness, and
with a pallid face, said:

“Yes, it has come to this. I must `get out of the
way' of all decent people. There is the river on
one side. There are the streets on the other.
Which shall it be?”

that no hand was stretched to her aid.

She shuddered. “I can't, I dare not die yet. It
must be a little easier here than there, where he
is.”

Her face became like stone. She went straight
to a liquor saloon, and drank deep of that spirit
that Shakespeare called “devil,” in order to drown
thought, fear, memory—every vestige of the woman.

Then—the depths of the gulf that Laura shrank
from with a dread stronger than her love of life.