Magdalen’s Vow E-Book

May Agnes Fleming

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

This is a goose bump story. In early October, on one stormy night, when the wind blew into a storm, and rain fell on her. The main character walked in all the rain from the station. This helped her strike a mortal blow. But she would still die. She didn’t want anything but to return to the old house and die.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

CHAPTER I

MAGDALEN

The month was October, very near its close; the time, late in the evening of a wet and dismal day; the place, a cottage kitchen, its only occupants an old woman and a baby, not twenty-four hours old. The soft patter of the ceaseless rain on the glass, the sobbing cry of the wind around the gables, the moaning surge of the pine woods near–these made their own tumult without.

Within a bright fire blazed in the shining cook stove; a big brass clock ticked loudly in a corner, a maltese cat purred on a mat, and the tea-kettle sung its pleasant song.

The little old woman, who swayed in her Boston rocker before the stove, was the trimmest little old woman ever firelight shone on.

The baby lay in her lap, a bundle of yellow flannel; and, as she rocked, she cried, miserable, silent tears.

“To think that this should be her welcome home!” she kept moaning drearily to herself. “Only one short year and all gone–father, sister, brother, home! My poor dear–my poor dear!”

The loud-voiced clock struck six, with a clatter. The last vibration was drowned in the shrill scream of a locomotive, rushing in. The shrill shriek rent the stormy twilight like the cry of a demon, and woke the sleeping child.

“Hush, baby, hush!” the old woman said, crooning a dismal lullaby. “There she is–there is Magdalen! Poor dear! poor dear! She’ll be here in ten minutes now.”

But the ten passed–twenty–half an hour–before the knock for which she listened came to the door.

“There she is!”

She plumped the baby into the rocker, made for thedoor with a rush, and flung it wide. On the threshold, all wet and dripping and worn-looking, a young girl stood. The rainy evening light was just strong enough to show a pale young face, a slender, girlish figure, and a pair of great, luminous dark eyes.

“My darling!” the old woman cried, catching her in her arms. “My own darling girl! And you are wet through and through! You must have walked all the way from the station in the rain.”

The girl slowly disengaged herself, entered the hall and stood looking at her.

“Rachel,” she said, “am I in time?”

The old woman broke suddenly out crying–loud, anguished sobs, that shook her from head to foot.

It was the girl’s most eloquent answer, and she leaned against the wall with a face of blank despair.

“Too late!” she said, slowly; “too late! Laura is dead!”

The old woman’s sobs grew louder and her pitiful attempts to stifle them were vain.

“I oughtn’t to, I know,” she cried, hysterically; “that you should come home like this, and only last year–”

She broke down, weeping wildly. But the girl stood, tearless and white, staring blankly at the opposite wall.

“Father and Laura dead–and Willie! Oh, my God! how can I bear it?”

The old woman hushed her sobs and looked up.

The despair of that orphaned cry smote her, with its unutterable pathos, to the heart.

“Magdalen! Magdalen!” she cried. “My darling, don’t look like that! Come in–you are worn and wet–come in to the fire. My child, don’t wear that sorrowful face; it breaks your poor old nurse’s heart! Come!”

She led the way; the girl followed. The old Scripture name–full of its own pathos always–seemed strangely appropriate here. Mary Magdalene herself might have worn those amber-dropping tresses–might have owned that white, young face, so indescribably sad.

“You poor child!” the old nurse said, “you are as white as a spirit! You must have a cup of tea and some dry clothes right away. Where is your trunk?”

Even in the midst of death and despair, these commonplace questions rise.

Magdalen looked at her with great, haggard eyes.

“I left it at the station. Rachel, when did Laura die?”

“Yesterday,” old Rachel answered, crying again; “an hour after her baby was born.”

“Her baby? Oh, Rachel!” with a wild start, “I did not know–I did not know–”

The old woman undid the bundle of flannel. The babe lay soundly asleep.

The girl covered her colorless face for a moment, her tears coming at last, falling like rain.

“Laura! Laura! My sister!”

Her tears were noiseless, burning, bitter. She looked up presently, to bend over the sleeping child and kiss its velvet cheek.

“Laura’s baby! Poor little motherless thing! Oh, Rachel, it is very, very hard!”

“Very hard, my dearest and terrible to bear; but it must be borne, for all that. My pet, go up to your room and change these dripping clothes. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

“Better so,” the girl said, wearily. “Better end it all, and lie down and die with them. Others would die of half this misery, but I only suffer and live on!”

Slowly and spiritlessly she ascended the stairs to her own familiar room. She changed her wet garments, bathed her aching head, brushed out the rippling, yellow ringlets–all in a weary, aimless sort of way–and then returned to the apartment below. It was a very simple toilet she had made, and her black dress was frayed and faded, and scant and ill-made; but for all that she was well worth looking at.

She was very pretty, in spite of her pallor–so brightly pretty, that it was a pleasure only to look at her.

“My own darling!” the old nurse said, fondly kissing her, “you are more beautiful than ever, and almost a woman at sixteen. It’s a sad pity, but oh dear, dear! how can I help it? To think you can go to school no more.”

“I must only study at home,” Magdalen said, “and practise my music as well as I can. I suppose no one would be willing to engage a governess only sixteen years old. Have we enough to live on for a year, Rachel?”

“More than enough, surely. Your poor papa’s lawyer, Mr. Hammond, will tell you. It is very hard, my poordear, you should have to go out into the big, wicked, cruel world, to earn your own living at all. You are a great deal too pretty.”

“Rachel,” said Magdalen, abruptly, “where is Laura? I want to see her.”

“She’s laid out in the parlor, poor darling! Widow Morgan sat up with me the last night, and she helped me afterward to lay her out. She makes a lovely corpse–sweet, pale lamb–and peaceful as an angel. Don’t go now. Take some tea first. You look fagged out and I shall have you sick on my hands, too.”

“You don’t know how strong I am,” said Magdalen. “I have grown of late tired of my life, of the world, of myself, of everything; but nothing hurts me. I suffer and live on. Others, more fortunate, would suffer and die.”

She drank the tea, strove to eat, and failed.

“It’s of no use, Rachel–I can’t. I feel as though it were choking me. Let me go and see my sister; then you shall tell me all.”

Rachel arose and led the way down the hall, bearing a light. In dead silence she opened the parlor door and Magdalen followed her in.

The cottage parlor was very like any other cottage parlor, plainly and prettily furnished. Carpet and furniture and pictures were all very simple and bright and nice: but one ghastly object was there to chill the quiet beauty of the picture.

In the center of the floor stood a long table, draped in ghostly white. Awfully stiff and rigid, under a white sheet, could be seen the outline of what lay stark and dead thereon.

Magdalen paused on the threshold and laid her hand on Rachel’s arm, her eyes fixed, large and dilated, on that ghastly sight. The dim lamplight showed her face, with its stare of white horror.

“Leave me alone, Rachel!” she said, in a hoarse whisper. “Go!”

There was that in her nursling’s face the old woman dared not disobey. She turned reluctantly away and left the room.

The girl advanced and stood beside the bed. Only the soft sobbing of the October rain, the shuddering wail ofthe night wind and the solemn surging of the pine trees, broke the silence of the room.

With a face like snow, like marble, she drew the sheet down, and gazed upon the sister she had loved so well. It was a face wonderfully beautiful in its last dreamless sleep–more beautiful, perhaps, than it had ever been in life. The straight, delicate features were like her own; so was the mass of burnished hair, combed away from the icy brow. The hands were folded together across the bosom; the sweet, beautiful lips were closed with an ineffable expression of rest. Too solemn for words to tell was the unutterable peace of that death sleep.

“And it all ends here!” Magdalen thought. “Youth and hope and innocence! Sweetness and beauty and tenderest love, could not save her one poor hour from ruin and the grave! Oh, my sister–my sister!”

She dropped on her knees and laid her face on the marble breast. No tear fell, no sob shook her slender frame. She seemed to have passed beyond all that. The steady drip, drip, of the ceaseless rain, the mournful sighing of the wind, sounded like a dirge for the dead. So long she knelt there that old Rachel, growing alarmed, opened the door and came in.

“My child! my child!” in an awe-struck whisper, “come away. This will never do!”

The girl got up at once, pale as the dead sister lying before her, and almost as rigid. One last look and she followed the old nurse out into the kitchen. She sat down before the fire, that icy calm still over all.

“And now, Rachel,” she said, “tell me the whole story.”

The dead girl’s sleeping child lay cozily in Rachel’s lap, as she rocked to and fro in her nurse chair.

“It’s a short enough story,” she said, with a heavy sigh, “to contain so much misery. Let me see. It was last September, twelve months, you went away to New Haven, to school?”

“Yes.”

“Well, one week after, the trouble began. Willie, you know, was not going to New York, to continue his medical studies, until December, and he spent a good deal of his time in the woods, fishing and shooting, and in the Village loitering about the hotel. It was there he met thevillain who brought all our misery–a wretch for whom hanging would be a great deal too good!”

Magdalen’s teeth clenched and her eyes suddenly blazed up.

“Go on,” she said; “tell me his name.”

“His name was Maurice Langley, and he was very handsome. Tall and fair, you know, with dark, curling hair, and a black mustache. He had come to the country for a month’s fishing and Willie and he grew as intimate as brothers. Willie brought him home and your poor papa and Laura were taken with him at once. He had such winning ways, such a pleasant laugh and such a charming, offhand manner, that he took people’s fancy at first sight. He could play the piano better than Laura and sing most beautiful, and he could talk to your papa like a book. He fascinated all of us the very first visit and I don’t know who sang his praises loudest when he went away. It was not Laura; she said nothing; but there was a look in her sweet face that told far more than words.

“After that Mr. Langley was every day and nearly all of every day, at the house. He and Laura were always together, playing and singing, and drawing and reading. And the more we saw of him, the better we liked him, and we never tried to check this intimacy. And that month passed, and the next came, and Mr. Langley began to talk of going home. I don’t know rightly where his home was, but I think in New York, where he was studying law, he told us. The middle of October he did go, shaking hands with the whole of us, the villain, and saying he would never forget the pleasant days he had spent amongst our New Hampshire hills.

“I was afraid Laura would droop and fret after him, but she didn’t. She sang as blithely about the house as ever, and how was I to know she was only waiting a letter from him to follow him? That they had it all arranged beforehand? Before the month closed the letter came. Laura bade us good-night the evening that brought it, and next morning, when I went to call her to breakfast, she was gone.”

There was a pause. Rachel’s tears were falling fast, but Magdalen sat staring straight at the fire, with dry, glittering eyes.

“There was a note for your papa, hurried and brief,telling him she loved Mr. Langley, and was gone to be married. It was necessary, for family reasons, Mr. Langley told her, that the marriage should be strictly private. His family wished him to marry his cousin, and he dared not oppose them openly. She begged her father not to search for her; she would be well and happy and would write again as soon as she was Mr. Langley’s wife.

“She never wrote again. It was a terrible suspense. Nobody would believe the story of the marriage in the village and she was disgraced forever. Willie was furious at first. He would seek out Langley and shoot him like a dog, if Laura was not his wife. But you know Willie; his rage flew over. December came; he went to New York and he had not even tried to find them.

“The next we heard he and Langley were as thick as ever. He met Langley in New York and he was Laura’s husband; but Laura was only the wretched shadow of herself. They were poor and lived in a shabby boarding-house, and she was miserably dressed. Langley was no law student–nothing but a professional gambler–and in a few months he had made a professional gambler of our poor, weak boy. He wrote and wrote perpetually for money, until there was no more to write for; he was deeply in debt to Langley and others; he grew desperate; he forged Doctor Wentworth’s name for two thousand dollars, was detected, arrested, tried and sentenced for six years.”

Rachel’s voice sank in a hoarse whisper. Magdalen’s face had dropped in her hand; she never lifted it during the remainder of the story.

“That blow finished what Laura had begun. Your father dropped down in a fit when he heard it, and never left his bed after; and in September–just one year after that matchless villain came amongst us–he was laid beside your mamma in the churchyard.

“I cannot tell you how desolate I felt here alone, Magdalen. They all wanted me to send for you right away, but I hadn’t the heart. I seemed to know poor Laura would come back and I waited for that.

“Early in October, one stormy night, when the wind blew a gale, and the rain fell in torrents, she came. She walked, in all the downpour, from the station, and I think that helped to give her her death blow. But she wouldhave died anyway. She wanted nothing but to get back to the old home and die. Oh, that changed face!–so haggard, so heart-broken! My poor nursling! And so wretched and miserably dressed! She gave one scream when I told her that her father was dead and dropped down in a dead faint.

“Ah, what a wretched, wretched time it was! I never saw despair before, and I pray God I never may again. I wanted to send for you, but she cried out, in a wild, frenzied sort of way:

“‘No! no! no! not for ten thousand worlds! I am not fit to breathe the same air she does! Magdalen is my name, not hers! Send for her when I am dead!’

“Once, and once only, I spoke of Langley. She had been quiet for hours, sitting crouching over the fire. At the sound of his name she started up and tossed the hair back from her face like a mad woman.

“‘Don’t speak of him!’ she cried out; ‘he is the blackest and basest villain on the face of the earth! My curse on him wherever he goes!’

“My poor Magdalen, it is terrible to have to tell you of such things. After that I never mentioned Langley’s name, nor your father’s, nor Willie’s. I left her to herself. The few days before her last illness she spent in writing a letter. It took her a long time, she was so very weak; but she finished it at last, and told me to give it to you when she was dead and buried.

“‘I have told my sister all,’ she said; ‘it may keep her from quite hating my memory when I am gone!’

“From that hour I could see death approaching. The doctor and the clergyman knew as well as I did she would never rise from her bed again. I wrote for you, but you came too late. Laura’s earthly troubles are over.”

With fast-falling tears, Rachel’s story of sin and suffering closed. The rain and wind, that had made a dismal accompaniment to her dismal words, the light fall of red cinders, the ticking of the old clock, had the silence to themselves; and Magdalen cowered before the fire, her face hidden, hearing all, and never moving or looking up.

CHAPTER II

THE DEAD SISTER’S LETTER

Through the gray gloom of another dull October day the scant funeral procession left the cottage, and took their way to the village churchyard. The coffin plate told the dead girl’s mournful but too common history:

Laura Allward. Aged 18.

Laura Allward! And her baby wailed in old Rachel’s faithful arms. That was why only one or two elderly matrons came near the cottage, and why such a handful of men followed the hearse, gloomily, to the grave!

It was not customary in that little New England village for women to attend funerals, but Magdalen Allward, with a thick veil over her face, and a heavy shawl drawn around her slender form, followed her sister to the grave. Curious eyes peeped from closed windows to scan that black-draped, girlish figure, and heads shook ominously, and croaking voices hoped she might come to a good end. But they doubted it–these good people; the taint of her sister’s shame, her brother’s disgrace, would cling to her like a garment of fire, through life.

The sods rattled down on the coffin lid, the men stood by with bare heads. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and then the sexton, blue and cold, in the bleak October weather, filled up the grave in a hurry, and slapped briskly on the sods. And all the time the veiled figure of the lonely girl stood apart, forlorn and shivering in the raw blasts. One by one the men straggled away and left her there, as desolate and forsaken a creature as the whole world held.

The new-made grave was under a clump of melancholy fir trees, worried by the high wind, and writhing like things in human agony. Side by side lay two others, sacred to the memory of John Allward and his wife Helen, but forever and ever that new-made grave must lie nameless.

Magdalen Allward looked up with a shiver at the low-lying sky, gray and desolate as her young life, and slowly, slowly turned away at last. Heaven knows what her thoughts had been while she stood there, alone among the dead, alone among the living, and felt that one man had wrought all this misery, and disgrace, and death. Her veiled face kept her secret well, as she walked wearily homeward through the windy twilight.

Rachel sat before the fire, holding the baby, and crooning softly as she rocked it asleep. Magdalen threw back her veil, stooped and kissed it.

“Then you are not going to dislike it,” the nurse said, looking relieved. “I was afraid you would.”

“Dislike it! Dislike a little babe!”

“You know what I mean, dear–for that villain’s sake.”

Magdalen rose up suddenly, her face darkening vindictively.

“You are right; I ought to hate it–spawn of a viper–as I hate him! But, no; it is Laura’s baby; I will try and like it, for Laura’s sake. I am going to my room now, Rachel. I am worn out. No, I want nothing but rest. Good night.”

She quitted the room, ascended to her own, with slow, weary steps, undressed, and then threw herself upon the bed. Worn out she surely was, and scarcely had her head touched the pillow than she was asleep–the sound, blessed sleep of youth and health.

It was almost noon next day when she came down-stairs. Breakfast awaited her and in dark silence and moody she ate it. As she arose from the table she said:

“Rachel, where is the letter Laura left for me?”

Rachel produced it at once. A thick letter, in a buff envelope, sealed and addressed:

To My Sister Magdalen. To be read when I am buried.

Magdalen stood silently gazing at the familiar handwriting for a few moments, then, silently still, she turned and walked out of the kitchen. Rachel looked after her uneasily.

“She is going to read it in her own room. Poor child! I hope it may not distress her much. Her troubles are too heavy for her sixteen years.”

Rachel was mistaken; she was not going to read it inher own room. She came down presently dressed for a walk, holding the letter in her hand.

“Where are you going with that letter, Magdalen?” the old woman asked, in alarm.

The girl paused on the threshold to answer her.

“I am going to read Laura’s letter beside Laura’s grave. It will seem like her voice speaking to me from the dead.”

Magdalen could not have chosen a more secluded or lonely spot. Shut in by firs and hemlock, a place where no one ever came, save on a sunny Sunday afternoon, she was not likely to be disturbed. On a rustic bench, under the gloomy firs, she sat down, threw back her veil and reverently opened the letter. It was long and closely written, and there, by the writer’s grave, seemed indeed a voice from the dead. Magdalen read:

My Dearest Sister:

When you read this the grave will have closed over me, and–and when you know the whole truth you may learn at least to think pityingly of the dead sister who has blighted your young life, but who has been more “sinned against than sinning.” It is a little more than a year ago, and yet what a century of sin and misery it seems. My little Magdalen! my pretty, gentle, golden-haired sister! How little I thought when I kissed you good-by, that sunny September morning, it would be good-by forever and ever.

Rachel will tell you how I left home–she can tell you no more. Not how I loved Maurice Langley; not how I believed in him; not how I trusted him. He was the veriest hero of romance–the prince of my silly girlish dreams–and I loved him madly, after the fashion of foolish, novel-reading girls, and thought the sunshine of heaven not half so bright as his smile. And he–oh, Magdalen; it was easy for him–false to the core of his deceitful heart–to take me in his arms, and make me think I was all the world to him. I listened and I trusted, and was wrapt in ecstasy–delirious with love and delight–and like plastic wax in the hands of a molder, I heard his plausible story, and I believed it as I believed the Scriptures. It must be a secret marriage, or a total separation. His parents would never consent to an open marriage, and my father would never consent to a clandestine one. SoI must fly. Separation to me was worse than death. I consented to anything–everything–rather than that.

He arranged it all that night, with the ready facility, I know now, of one well used to such deception. In two days he would start for New York–make all necessary arrangements–I was to follow, and join him there. A clergyman, a college friend of his, would perform the ceremony within an hour of my arrival, and then no more partings from his darling Laura in this lower world. Oh, never did Satan, in tempting Eve, paint the forbidden fruit in more dazzling colors than did my tempter in alluring me.

Magdalen, I consented. I left my home–my father–all that was dear to me in this world, for my lover.

I reached New York. He was there as I left the cars, impatiently awaiting me, for he loved me then, with a fierce, impetuous love–too burning to last. And he kept his promise–within the hour a marriage ceremony took place. A clergyman, white-haired and venerable, married us at the hotel, without witnesses, and immediately departed. I had no doubts of its validity–no thought of any horrible fraud. I was his wife, or death by torture would not have kept me by his side one moment, dearly as I loved him.

We lived in the hotel, quiet and retired, and I was unutterably happy, unutterably blessed. There was but one drawback to my perfect joy–he would not let me write home. And that refusal was the forerunner–the first of the misery that was to come. It came soon–very soon–bitter and heavy. Indifference began–coldness, neglect, cruelty. He left me alone, day after day, night after night. When he did return it was always brutally drunk, and in drunkenness the truth came out. The man I had married was a professed gambler.

After that bitter blow the others followed fast. Coldness and cruelty turned to loathing and hate. I was a nuisance and a burden to him. He wished he had never seen me; he was a fool for encumbering himself with a white-faced, pitiful, whimpering cry-baby. He took me from the hotel and placed me in a shabby boarding-house, reeking with foul smells and loathing sights; he swore at me when he came home reeling, beastly drunk, and often, often Magdalen, maddened with liquor and losses, he struck me. It was after that Willie came. They met and Maurice obtained his old ascendency over Willie’s weak mind. He could be so agreeable, so delightful, so fascinating, when he chose. He brought Willie home, apologizing in his laughing way for our Bohemian lodgings, and, knowing well I would never betray him. God knows I tried to save Willie. I warned him. I did what I could, but it was all in vain. In a few months he was in a felon’s cell, for forgery. It was through an anonymous letter the news reached me first, written in a man’s hand, very brief, but full of appalling facts. Maurice Langley was the most worthless of all worthless scoundrels, false and corrupt to the core of his heart. His name was not Langley; that name was as false as the dyed hair and mustache he wore to disguise himself. I was not his wife–that ceremony in the hotel was the most contemptible of shams; he had a bona-fide wife living before he ever saw me, and living still–deserted. I had been fooled from the first to last. If I doubted the charges, let me show the letter to Langley, and let him disprove them if he dare.

I did not doubt. Conviction, strong as death, seized upon me from the first. I was so stunned by repeated blows that I sat in a sort of numb despair, hardly conscious that I suffered. A horrible stupor held me–I sat without a tear or groan, waiting for my betrayer to come.

He came some time before midnight, drunk as usual, reeling into the room, singing a vulgar song. I rose up and put the letter in his hand, without saying a word. He read it through and burst out with an oath: “That scoundrel, Burns, I always knew he would peach! Well, my girl, it’s all true, and now what are you going to do about it?”

I stood there before him and looked him straight in the face until he quailed. I never spoke a word. I went over to the bed where my shawl and bonnet lay and put them on.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“I am going home.”

I don’t know what there was in my face that awed and sobered him. I dare say he thought me mad. He kept aloof, very pale, watching me.

“It’s the middle of the night, Laura,” he said, “don’t go. Wait until morning.”

I heard him, as we hear people talking in a dream. Inever heeded–I opened the door and walked out into a blind, black night, as wretched a creature as ever trod the pave.

I wandered about until morning. I think I was light-headed. There was a mad, reckless longing in my half-crazed brain to go home–to fall at my father’s feet, to sob out my sin and die. How I got to the station, how I knew enough to take my ticket and start on my journey, I cannot tell. It is all confused and bewildering. The first distinct impression I had was of being face to face with Rachel, and hearing her say my father was dead.

I have no more to tell–my story and my life are done.

You will think as pityingly and as forgivingly of me as you can, and if my child lives you will take its dead mother’s place. Never let its father look on it if you can prevent it–he is my murderer–your father’s–Willie’s. I cannot forgive him–I cannot! I am dying and I cannot.

Farewell, my sister; may your life be as happy as mine has been miserable. I leave this record in justice to myself. Don’t hate poor Laura’s memory when she is gone.

There the letter ended. Magdalen looked up, whiter than snow–whiter than death. The twilight had fallen, the stars swung silver-white, the young moon shimmered on the edge of an opal-tinted sky, and the evening wind sighed forlornly among the melancholy firs. The girl dropped the letter, fell on her knees by her sister’s grave, and, clasping her hands, held up her pale face to the starry sky.

“Hear me, oh God!” she cried, “hear the vow of a desolate orphan–of a blighted and ruined life! From this hour I swear to devote myself to the discovery of my sister’s murderer–to the avenging of my sister’s wrongs. Thou who hast said, ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life,’ hear me, and help me to keep my vow!”

She dropped down, her colorless, rigid face, lying on Laura’s grave as if waiting some response to her wild appeal. But no sound responded–only the dreary wailing of the cold October wind over the lonely graves.

CHAPTER III

MR. GEORGE BARSTONE

The cloudless sunshine of a June morning, streaming through the hotel windows, made squares of luminous glory on the gaudy Brussels carpet, and shone and scintillated on the china and silver of a freshly laid breakfast table. A white-aproned waiter had just borne in the steaming coffee and steak and rolls, and now stood anxiously awaiting the arrival of the gentleman who was to demolish these edibles before they grew cold. The early mail had just arrived, and, piled beside the hot plates, were about twenty letters in white envelopes, and in dainty–more or less–female hands. The Herald, all damp, and smelling very strong of printer’s ink, lay beside them.

“Good morning, William,” said Mr. Barstone. “Nice sort of day, isn’t it? Hey! The mail got in, and half a bushel of notes for me! All from ladies, William–every one from ladies, bless their precious little hearts! Pour out the coffee like a good fellow, and then go.”

William obeyed, whipped the silver covers off the steak and eggs, and took his departure, leaving Mr. Barstone to eat and read at his leisure.

Mr. Barstone seated himself at the table, tumbling over the pile of letters, shook his head reflectively as he counted twenty, buttered his first roll and unfolded the moist newspaper.

He was a big man–this Mr. George Barstone–six feet, if an inch, with broad shoulders, fair hair, blue eyes and a good-looking, good-humored face.

Very leisurely he ate and read, swallowing the “horrid murders,” and robberies, and awful accidents, with his coffee and underdone steak. By and by he turned to the advertisements and glanced down the long columns of “wants.” At one he suddenly paused.

WANTED–A Governess. Must be under twenty-five, of attractive appearance, willing to reside in the country,and proficient in music, drawing and French. Terms liberal. Address G. B., Herald Office.

Mr. Barstone perused this advertisement with extraordinary relish, considering how often he had read it before. Then he flung down the papers and turned to the letters with a look of commiseration.

“Poor little things!” he said, tossing them over; “twenty to-day, and eighteen yesterday; all under twenty-five–all attractive and all proficient in music, French and drawing. Poor little souls! I wish I could engage the whole of them, and take them to Connecticut with me, and settle them in a colony of pretty white cottages, and pension them off with husbands and dowries. But I can’t, I can only give thirty-seven my deepest compassion, and bring the thirty-eighth home with me to Golden Willows.”

Mr. Barstone plunged at once into business and began tearing open the white missives. They were all more or less alike; the writers were all twenty or thereabouts, prepossessing to look at, possessed of the requisite arts and all perfectly willing to reside in the country.

The gravity of Mr. Barstone’s face, as he read these piteous appeals, was a sight to see.

“Poor little soul! poor little thing!” he interjected, compassionately, after each, as it fluttered down among the white drifts on the carpet. “‘How happy could I be with either were t’other dear charmer away!’ Any one of them would do; but how in the world is a fellow to choose among so many? I wish Fanny was here to help me.”

The last of the twenty seemed to impress Mr. Barstone. There was no particular reason why it should, either. It was daintily written, but so were the rest, and it was briefer and less elaborate than most.

The writer did not even mention her good looks, and she was the only one who had omitted that important item. She was under twenty, she said–eighteen that very month–and had but a year’s experience as governess. A personal interview could be had by calling at No.–West Twenty-third Street, and the note was signed “Magdalen Wayne.”

Perhaps it was the pretty, peculiar name that struck his fancy, and Mr. Barstone was whimsical in his fancies;but he folded this note up and put it in his pocket, with the resolution of calling at No.–West Twenty-third Street. On the trifle of a name destinies hung–on the turning of a hair whole lives balance. He pulled out his watch and saw that it was nearly eleven.

“I’ll jump into an omnibus and go there at once,” thought the young man. “I’m very sorry for you,” apostrophizing the other letters as he picked them up–”deucedly sorry; but what’s a man to do? If Magdalen Wayne don’t suit, I’ll try some of you; but, I’ve a presentiment that she will.”

The house in Twenty-third Street was very easily found–a stately brownstone front. Mr. Barstone rang the bell, inquired for Miss Magdalen Wayne, and was ushered at once into a handsome parlor.

“What name, sir?” insinuated the damsel in calico, hovering, expectant, on the threshold, and the gentleman pulled Miss Wayne’s note out of his pocket by way of reply.

“Give her that,” he said, “and tell her I’m the person whose advertisement she answered.”

The girl departed and Mr. Barstone was left to his reflections.

“Silence and solitude,” he thought, glancing around and taking stock. “‘I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls, with vassals and’–nice style of thing this. Miss Wayne’s lines seem to have fallen in pleasant places. Inlaid tables, pretty pictures, velvet carpets, grand piano–remarkably nice, indeed! I hope she’ll hurry.”

But she didn’t hurry. Ten minutes passed–fifteen–half an hour. Mr. Barstone fidgeted in his cushioned chair as if it had been stuffed with squirming eels.

“I might have known how it would be,” he mused, despondingly; “she is doing up her hair. Fanny always does up her hair when gentlemen call. If one could only smoke, or if I had brought the Police Gazette, or something entertaining to read.”

But all things come to an end. Just there the door opened, and, with a mighty rustling of silk, a lady swept stormily in.

“I’m afraid I’ve kept you waiting an ‘orrid length of time,” burst out the lady, volubly; “but I was so busy with the children, and nobody knows what a tormentchildren are except those that have to deal with them. You really must excuse me, for I couldn’t have helped it anyway.”

Mr. Barstone gazed aghast. The lady was short and fat–dreadfully fat–with a high-colored, chubby face, and certainly never destined to see thirty-five again.

“Oh, my heavens!” thought Mr. Barstone, in consternation, “she’ll never do! To think of a woman of her inches and time of life answering my advertisement for an attractive-looking governess!”

He rose as he spoke, his dismay vividly depicted on his face and stared at the lady.

“You are Miss Wayne, are you not?”

“Oh, dear, no!” shrilly cried the fat lady. “I’m Mrs. ‘Oward. Miss Wayne is my governess, and a treasure of a governess she is; and I wouldn’t think of parting with her on any account if she’d stay, for she’s worth her weight in gold, and Mr. ‘Oward thinks everything of her, and so do the children; but it’s natural, you know, she shouldn’t care to leave her native county and go to Hingland, particularly ‘aving relatives ‘ere who are entirely dependent upon her, and very ‘ard that must be for her, poor dear! ‘Ow many children ‘ave you got?”

Mr. Barstone, with his breath quite taken away, and, sitting staring helplessly, was some time before he could realize this question was addressed to him.

“There are no children!” exclaimed the young man, desperately. “It’s a young lady–a ward of my aunt’s–a young lady of sixteen. Pray, ma’am,” cutting in briskly as he saw Mrs. Howard about to burst out afresh, “where is Miss Wayne, and when can I see her? My time is precious–very precious–and I want to close the business at once.”

“And so you can,” responded Mrs. Howard, “for she’ll be here directly. She’s just run across to Sixth Avenue, to Miss Simpkins’ store, to match my pea-green–oh, here she is, now!”

As she spoke the parlor door opened and a young girl entered, recoiling again immediately at sight of a stranger.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, hurriedly, “I thought you were alone.”

“Oh, come right in,” cried Mrs. Howard. “It is to see you this gentleman came, and he’s been waiting goodness knows how long. It’s about the advertisement, my dear–‘G. B.,’ you know, my love–and I’m sure the situation will suit you, seeing that there are no children, and only one young lady, which will be quite like a sister to you, I’m sure. My dear sir, my governess, Miss Magdalen Wayne.”

The young person named bowed respectfully. Mr. Barstone rose up and bowed respectfully also. He had seen, while good Mrs. Howard chattered, that she was a very pretty young person, with a pale face, deep dark eyes, and golden brown hair, and Mr. Barstone was always impressed by pretty people. She was stately, too, and tall, with a certain queenliness about her that, perhaps, was a trifle out of place in a governess.

“My name is Barstone,” said the gentleman, quite subdued by so much beauty; “and I am certain, Miss Wayne, from all Mrs. Howard says, I will be fortunate, indeed, if I can secure your services.”

“May I inquire, Mr. Barstone, where it is?”

“Millford, Connecticut,” responded Mr. Barstone. “Millford is our town. The place to which you are going–a country villa–is called Golden Willows.”

“And as to terms, now,” struck in Mrs. Howard, “Magdalen has no head for business, whatever, so you’ll excuse my asking, I hope. They’re liberal I trust, because, poor dear, she has an old nurse and a little niece, down in New Hampshire, to support. You mentioned in the advertisement, you know, Mr. Barstone, ‘terms liberal.’”

“Terms? Oh, yes; my aunt requested me to say five hundred dollars per annum.”

“And extremely liberal, I am sure, that is!” cried Mrs. Howard; “do you hear, Magdalen, my dear? Only one pupil and five hundred dollars per annum. I am certain, Mr. Barstone, Magdalen is delighted to close with your offer at once.”

Mr. Barstone bowed with a beaming face.

“I will call for you on Friday morning, at half-past seven. Good morning, Mrs. Howard–good morning, Miss Wayne. I congratulate myself on my success.”

Mr. Barstone soon reached his hotel, and ran up to pen a line to his aunt before descending to the three o’clock dinner:

“New York.

“My Dear Aunt:–

“It’s all right. I’ve got Fan a governess–a regular out-and-outer! Pardon the force of that expression, but it just conveys my meaning. She plays and sings like St. Cecilia–never heard St. Cecilia, but heard of her–her name is Miss Magdalen Wayne, eighteen years old, and pretty as a picture. Tell Fanny we will be down Friday evening, and let her be on her best behavior. Is Phil with you yet? Best regards if he is, and until Friday, my dear aunt, adieu. Affectionately,

George.”

Addressing this to “Miss Lydia Barstone, Golden Willows, Millford, Conn.,” Mr. Barstone, with a heavy weight off his manly mind, gave it to a waiter to post, and went down-stairs to dinner.

CHAPTER IV

THE MARK ON MAURICE LANGLEY’S ARM

Toiling slowly in the warm afternoon sunshine, up the village street, shut in from the world by those green New Hampshire hills, went George Barstone’s governess. There were few people abroad, for the train had dashed in just at tea time; but those few stopped to greet heartily the pretty girl in black.

“Dear me, now, if it’s not Magdalen Allward! Have you come to stay, or is it only a visit?”

“Only a visit,” Magdalen replied, to these good people. “I get lonely, sometimes, and homesick, in that great, dusty city yonder, and run down among our breezy hills to freshen up.”

She walked on, a rested look coming over her tired young face, after each of these greetings.

“The world is not such an unfeeling world after all,” she thought. “There are kindly hearts in it–stray roses among the thorns. It is worth enduring the pain of going away, for the pleasure of coming home.”

“Home! She paused before it at last–a little brown cottage, with June creepers running over it. The frontdoor stood wide to admit the pleasant evening coolness, and she could see through into the little yellow painted kitchen. There sat Rachel over her knitting–there lay pussy, coiled up on her mat–and there toddled about a little flaxen-haired, pink-cheeked fairy, very shaky on her fat legs. The golden sunset lit up the picture like amber rain.

“Dear old home!” Magdalen murmured. “Such a haven of rest and peace, after the turmoil and strife of the big, weary world. Thank God, I can keep it for them! thank God for my youth and strength that enables me to fight the battle of life. Such a happy, happy home as it once was, before that villain came. Father, Willie, Laura all gone–all their unavenged wrongs lying at his door. Heaven grant me patience to persevere until I find him, and then–then let him beware!”

Her face darkened vindictively, and her little hand clenched. Oh, to have him at her mercy now–to stand face to face with Laura’s murderer.

She pushed open the low white gate and walked in. Old Rachel’s blunt hearing failed to catch the light step, but the little toddler saw her and ran forward with a scream of delight.

“My pet! my pet!” Magdalen cried, catching her up and covering the bright baby face with kisses. “How glad I am to see you again!”

Rachel started up and stood with a face of doubt and delight. The girl laughed and kissed her, too.

“Dear old nursey! Yes, it’s I, and very tired, dusty and hungry I am. Is tea almost ready, Rachel, and have you got anything particularly nice?”

“My child! my darling! You don’t know what a happy surprise this is!” old Rachel exclaimed. “I cannot tell you how glad I am to see you! And Laura, too–look at that child’s eyes!”

“That’s because she’s waiting for candy,” said Magdalen. “Well, you shall have some, Laura. Here’s candy, peanuts, picture books, dolls, ad infinitum. Cry ‘havoc,’ and disembowel the bag yourself.”

She gave her reticule into the child’s hands, and little Laura, with a childish scream of ecstasy, sat down on the floor and proceeded to entrench herself in a breastwork of toys and sweetmeats.

Magdalen shook out her dusty robes, smoothed the shining tresses Mr. George Barstone had admired so much, and sat down and looked at her old nurse, with a face so brightly beautiful, that it was a delight only to see her. She was a fresh and sanguine girl of eighteen, and the happy radiance would break out, in spite of present drudgery and past troubles.

“It is so nice to be here,” she said, fetching a long breath. “You don’t know how homesick I get sometimes, Rachel. New York seems like a great stone prison, and I and the rest of the men and women, all in the treadmill. I feel as though I should die if I did not make my escape occasionally, and see the blue sky and the swelling fields, and breathe the fresh mountain wind.”

“You poor child! And how long are you going to stay?”

“Only until to-morrow afternoon. I have left Mrs. Howard’s, and put my head in a new yoke on Friday morning.”

“My dear–left your place?”

“Yes–for a better, I hope. The salary is higher, and the work, I take it, less; but I never expect to find a more indulgent employer than gossippy, good-natured Mrs. Howard. She is going home to England, you see, and I can’t go with her on account of the old lady and the bairnie here, so I answered an advertisement in the Herald, and secured this new place.”

“In New York?”

“No, the country–Millford, Conn. The name of the family is Barstone, and, from the sample I have seen, I think I shall like them. I don’t go until Friday, so I took time by the forelock and ran home to tell you the news. And now for supper–I told you I was famished.”

Nurse Rachel bustled about in a state of ecstasy. It was delightful to see her nursling at all–it was more delightful to see her in such good health and spirits.

“I wish I had you always,” Rachel said. “You bring sunshine wherever you go, my pretty darling. It is a great deal too hard on a delicate young creature like you, to have to work like a galley-slave or a kitchen maid, for a good-for-nothing old woman like me, and poor little Laura. But I hope it won’t last forever–that bright face of yours, my pet, will get you a handsome young husband one ofthese days, with plenty of money, and all your heart can wish.”

“Plenty of money and nothing to do!” sang Magdalen; “that would be bliss, Rachel; but the handsome young husband is very slow in coming, and I’m getting dreadfully old–eighteen last birthday. They advertise for husbands in New York, when they grow quite desperate. I’ll wait six months longer and if he doesn’t come of himself by the end of that time, I’ll send two dollars to the Herald office and try my fate in print.”

Rachel shook her head and replenished her young lady’s cup.

“Have patience, my dear, he’ll come, depend upon it. I was twenty-eight when I got married–you’ve time enough yet. Laura, you’ll be sick if you eat any more candy, and it’s time little girls were in bed.”

“Yes,” said Magdalen, “little girls should go to roost with little chickens. Come, Laura, auntie will put you to bed herself, and the biggest doll shall sleep with you all night.”

Magdalen bore her off and it was a long time before she came down. When she did the radiance had left her face and her cheeks were wet with tears.

“I have been singing Laura to sleep,” she said; “she is sleeping with dolly hugged tight in her arms, and, oh, Rachel! there is such a look of her mother in her face!”

“Yes,” Rachel said, very quietly, “she does look like her. Not at all like him!”

“Thank God she does not!” the girl cried passionately.

“My dear.”

“I tell you I should! I could not help it! I would forget she was Laura’s child if she had that monster’s face, and I should hate her as I hate him!”

“But, my dear!” very much shocked.

“Oh, don’t talk to me!” Magdalen cried. “I do forget sometimes, though never forget long, and I abhor myself for it! Two years, two long years, and no nearer the end yet! When I think of it, Rachel, it sets me wild! Two years and no nearer finding that villain than the day Laura was laid in her grave!”

“But, my child, what can you do? It is not your fault.”

“No, heaven knows. I have sought for him–I haveinquired for him–I have looked for him everywhere. Was it not in the hope of meeting him that I went to New York, under the name of Wayne? But all in vain I have tried, until I am tempted to give up in despair.”

“Better so, dear child. I wish you would.”

“Never!” Magdalen cried, her eyes flashing black in the twilight. “Never while my life lasts! I will keep the vow I made beside my dead sister’s grave, or he or I shall perish! Give up? I tell you, Rachel, when I think of my father, my sister, my brother, my hate and my wrongs burn in my heart and drive me nearly mad!”

She trod up and down like a young lioness, her eyes blazing, her hands clenched–a fierce young Nemesis.

“But, Magdalen, this is all very wrong, very wicked, very unchristian!”

“I don’t believe it! A life for a life was Jehovah’s command. It is justice–and justice should be done, though the heavens fall!”

“Ah, Magdalen, be merciful–be womanly! Not a life for a life, but ‘Vengeance is mine–I will repay.’”

“Don’t talk to me–don’t!” the girl exclaimed, passionately. “You cannot feel as I feel! It was my father, my sister, my brother, who were done to death! Oh, my God!” she cried, raising her clasped hands, “hear me! Help me to find this man!”

There was a pause. The old woman was awed by the impassioned vehemence and despair she could not comprehend.

“You never will,” she said, at last; “you never will find him. He may be dead, he may be at the other end of the universe, he may be in prison for life.”

“He may! he may be! but he also may not be! You and I are alive–why not he? It is not that makes me fear–makes me despair. It is that, if I met him to-morrow, I should not know him–if I stood face to face with him this hour, I should not recognize Laura’s destroyer. He is young, and he is tall–that is everything that I know about him. His name, his hair, his whiskers, all were false–you might hardly know him yourself if you met him again. I may have sat by his side, heard his voice, held his hand, and left him nothing the wiser. I suppose it is only in sensational novels and melodramas that peoplego about with convenient strawberry marks. There seems nothing left for me but give up in despair.”

She sank down wearily, but looked around the same instant in surprise, for old Rachel had started to her feet, all at once, violently excited.

“The mark!” she cried; “the mark! I never thought of it before! The mark on Maurice Langley’s arm!”

“What mark?” questioned Magdalen, breathlessly; “what mark? Speak, Rachel! One by which I may know him?”

“One by which you may know him among a thousand–a mark not to be mistaken. I recollect it as well, after three years, as if it had been three hours.”

“Thank heaven!” Magdalen fervently exclaimed; “thank heaven, I may then find him yet! Tell me what it is like, Rachel?”

“It was by mere accident I saw it,” said Rachel; “and you might meet Maurice Langley a million times, and never have an opportunity of seeing his arm. It was one day he had slightly sprained his wrist, and I had unfastened his shirt sleeve and rolled it up to the elbow to pour water on the sprain. That was how I saw the mark.”

“And what was it like?”

“Like nothing I ever saw before. It was no natural mark–it was tattooing, and covered almost the whole inside part of the arm, between elbow and wrist. It was so curious that Willie, and Laura, and I forgot for a while all about the sprain in examining it.”

“Well?”

“First,” said Rachel, “there was a sort of wreath, done in blue ink, grapes and leaves, quite perfect. Inside the wreath, done in red ink, there was a heart, with a dagger through it, and drops falling like drops of blood. Surmounting this, in black ink, was a big capital letter ‘B.’ And, now I think of it, ‘B’ must have been the initial of his family name, though he explained it away at the time. The device was the Bleeding Heart, and very well it was done, and very much it must have hurt him to get it done. He laughed over it, and said a sailor, with half his body illuminated in like manner, had tattooed it when he was a boy. But if ever you see an arm with that device (which isn’t likely), you may know the owner of that arm is Maurice Langley."

“Thank heaven!” Magdalen repeated, “I have found some distinct clue at last! Accident revealed it once to you–accident may reveal it once again to me.”

Rachel shook her head.

“It is very unlikely. You might live under the same roof with him for years and never see the mark. Oh, my dear, give up thinking about it! Be happy yourself, if you can, and let poor Laura rest in her grave.”

“No, Rachel–no!” Magdalen said, resolutely; “I will never give up. I could not rest in my own grave, if I died to-morrow, with my vow unfulfilled. Be happy? How can I be happy, with my only brother in a felon’s cell–my only sister in a disgraced grave? Am I a monster, that I should even try to forget, while the cold-blooded, matchless villain, who has wrought the ruin of all I love, goes free before the world? I tell you no, Rachel! If I live to be a hundred years old, I will never give up! Don’t try to alter my purpose. Sooner or later, so sure as there is a just and avenging God above, I will meet that man, and punish him for his crime!”

She strode up and down the room like a tragedy queen, her face pale, her eyes flashing, her voice ringing like a bell. If George Barstone could have seen her at that moment, I doubt if he would have known again the calm-eyed, gentle-voiced girl of Mrs. Howard’s parlor.

Old Rachel sighed heavily. She knew it was all very wicked and unwomanly, this wild talk of revenge; but she knew, too, the indomitable nature of her nursling. When she spoke, her words were commonplace, and far from the subject.

“You must be very tired, my dear, after your day’s travel. Hadn’t you better go to bed?”

The twilight had faded out in the pale gray blank, and on the edge of a turquoise sky glimmered palely the new moon. She rose, to draw the curtain and light the lamp, as she spoke.

“No,” replied Magdalen, abruptly turning away; “I am going out.”

“My dear! At this hour! Where?”

“To Laura’s grave.”

With that answer, the girl left the room and went up-stairs. Five minutes later, and she passed out the frontdoor, dressed for her walk. The old nurse sighed, and shook her head forebodingly.

“I wish she didn’t remember so well,” she said to herself. “She will ruin her whole life with this mad, unchristian scheme of revenge! I know that he deserves punishment, if ever man deserved it; but it is madness for her to think she will meet him, and know him, and inflict it. I wish she would ever forget!”

Vain wish! Magdalen Allward would never forget, never forgive. You could read that in the white rigidity of her face, in the dusky fire of her eyes, as she walked along in the silvery moonlight, to her sister’s grave. Like sheeted ghosts in the solemn light rose up the ghastly grave-stones; but there was no superstitious fear in her brave nature, and she walked steadily on, to the three graves under the firs.

“My poor Laura! my poor sister!” she sadly murmured, the slow tears welling up. “What a weary time you have lain in your unavenged grave! I have tried, oh, heaven knows how ardently! to meet the man who wronged you so cruelly, and tried in vain. But some day, sooner or later, I will cross his path–I will stand before him, his accuser, your avenger! And then, Laura–and then!”

Nearly an hour after, while she still knelt there, heedless how the moments sped, a hand fell upon her shoulder, and looking up, she saw her faithful nurse.

“Thinking still, my dear?” Rachel said, kindly. “Your poor brain will get dazed, Magdalen. What is it all about?” and she viewed with sad, somber eyes.

“I am thinking of the mark on Maurice Langley’s arm,” she said. “Rachel, I don’t know how it is, but I have a presentiment–a conviction–that I will meet that man before long!”

CHAPTER V

GOLDEN WILLOWS

Punctual to the moment, on Friday morning Mr. George Barstone made his appearance, in a cab, at the residence of Mrs. Howard, and by that lady (drowned in tears) Miss Wayne and her belongings were given into custody.