XXV.
EDGAR AND FRANK.
Frank, who had been reading these words as if swept along by a torrent,started to his feet with a hoarse cry, as he reached this point. Hecould not believe his eyes, he could not believe his understanding. Heshrank from the paper that contained the deadly revelation, as though asnake had suddenly uncoiled itself from amid the sheets. With hairslowly rising on his forehead, he stared and stared, hoping wildly,hoping against hope, to see other words start from the sheet, and blotout of existence the ones that had in an instant made his love a horror,his life a desert.
But no, Heaven works no such miracle, even in sight of such an agony ashis; and the words met his gaze relentlessly till his misery was morethan he could endure, and he rushed from the room like a madman.
Edgar, who was busy over some medical treatise, rose rapidly as he heardthe unsteady footsteps of his friend.
"What is the matter?" he cried, as Frank came stumbling into hispresence. "You look----"
"Never mind how I look; comfort me, Edgar, comfort me!" and in hisanguish he burst into irrepressible sobs "Hermione is----" He could notsay what, but drew his friend after him to the room where the letterlay, and pointed to the few ghastly lines which had undone him. "Readthose," he panted. "She had suffered; she was not herself, but, oh----"He broke down again, and did not try to speak further till Edgar hadread the hideous confession contained in those closing lines, and someof the revelations which had led up to it. Then he said: "Do not speakto me yet; let me bear the horror alone. I loved her so; ah, I did loveher!"
Edgar, who had turned very pale, was considerate enough to respect thisgrief, and silently wait for Frank to regain sufficient composure totalk with him. This was not soon, but when the moment came, Edgar showedthat his heart beat truly under all his apparent indifference. He didnot say, "I bade you beware"; he merely took his friend's hand and wrungit. Frank, who was almost overwhelmed with shame and sorrow, mutteredsome words of acknowledgment.
"I must get out of the town," said he. "I feel as if the very atmospherehere would choke me."
Here came again the long, doleful drone of the foghorn. "How like agroan that is," said he. "An evil day it was for me when I first camewithin its foreboding sound."
"We will say that when all is over," ventured Edgar, but in no veryhopeful tones. "You should not have shown me these words, Frank; thewonder is that she was willing to show them to you."
"She could not otherwise get rid of my importunities. I would take nohint, and so she tells me the truth."
"That shows nobleness," remarked Edgar. "She has some virtues which mayexcuse you to yourself for the weakness you have shown in her regard."
"I dare not think of it," said Frank. "I dare not think of her again.Yet to leave her when she is suffering so! Is not that almost as cruel afate as to learn that she is so unworthy?"
"I would you had never come here!" exclaimed Edgar, with unwontedfervency.
"There are more words," observed Frank, "but I cannot read them. "Wordsof sorrow and remorse, no doubt, but what do they avail? The factremains that she gave her father in his agony another dose of the poisonthat was killing him, instead of the antidote for which he prayed."
"Yes," said Edgar, "only I feel bound to say that no antidote would havesaved him then. I know the poison and I know the antidote; we havetested them together often."
Frank shuddered.
"He had the heart of a demon," declared Edgar, "to plan and carry outsuch a revenge, even upon a daughter who had so grievously disappointedhim. I can hardly believe the tale, only that I have learned that onemay believe anything of human nature."
"She--she did not kill him, then?"
"No, but her guilt is as great as if she had, for she must have had themomentary instinct of murder."
"O Hermione, Hermione! so beautiful and so unhappy!"
"A momentary instinct, which she is expiating fearfully. No wonder shedoes not leave the house. No wonder that her face looks like a tragicmask."
"No one seems to have suspected her guilt, or even his. We have neverheard any whispers about poison."
"Dudgeon is a conceited fool. Having once said overwork, he would stickto overwork. Besides that poison is very subtle; I would have difficultyin detecting its workings myself."
"And this is the tragedy of that home! Oh, how much worse, how much morefearful than any I have attributed to it!"
The Doctor sighed.
"What has not Emma had to bear," he said.
"Emma!" Frank unconsciously roused himself. "If I remember rightly,Hermione has said that Emma did not know all her trouble."
"Thank God! May she never be enlightened."
"Edgar," whispered Frank, "I do not think I can let you read all thatletter, though it tells much you ought to know. I have yet someconsideration--for--for Hermione--" (How hard the word came from lipswhich once uttered it with so much pride!)--"and she never expected anyother eyes than mine to rest upon these revelations of her heart ofhearts. But one thing I must tell you in justice to yourself and thegirl upon whom no shadow rests but that of a most loyal devotion to amost wretched sister. Not from her heart did the refusal come whichblighted your hopes and made you cynical towards women. There werereasons she could not communicate, reasons she could not even dwell uponherself, why she felt forced to dismiss you, and in the seeminglyheartless way she did."
"I am willing to believe it," said Edgar.
"Emma is a pure and beautiful spirit," observed Frank, and gave himselfup to grief for her who was not, and yet who commanded his pity for hersufferings and possibly for her provocations.
Edgar now had enough of his own to think of, and if Frank had been lessabsorbed in his own trouble he might have observed with what longingeyes his friend turned every now and then towards the sheets whichcontained so much of Emma's history as well as her sister's. Finally hespoke:
"Why does Emma remain in the house to which the father only condemnedher sister?"
"Because she once vowed to share that sister's fate, whatever it mightbe."
"Her love for her sister is then greater than any other passion she mayhave had."
"I don't know; there were other motives beside love to influence her,"explained Frank, and said no more.
Edgar sank again into silence. It was Frank who spoke next.
"Do you think"--He paused and moistened his lips--"Have you doubted whatour duty is about this matter?"
"To leave the girl--you said it yourself. Have you any other idea,Frank?"
"No, no; that is not what I mean," stammered Etheridge. "I meanabout--about--the father's death. Should the world know? Is it a matterfor the--for the police?"
"No," cried Edgar, aghast. "Mr. Cavanagh evidently killed himself. It isa dreadful thing to know, but I do not see why we need make it public."
Frank drew a long breath.
"I feared," he said,--"I did not know but you would think my duty wouldlie in--in----"
"Don't speak of it," exclaimed Edgar. "If you do not wish to finishreading her confession, put it up. Here is a drawer, in which you cansafely lock it."
Frank, recoiling from the touch of those papers which had made such ahavoc with his life, motioned to Edgar to do what he would with them.
"Are you not going to write--to answer this in some way?" asked Edgar.
"Thank God she has not made that necessary. She wrote somewhere, in thebeginning, I think, that, if I felt the terror of her words too deeply,I was to pass by her house on the other side of the street at an earlyhour in the morning. Did she dream that I could do anything else?"
Edgar closed the drawer in which he had hidden her letter, locked it,and laid the key down on the table beside Frank.
Frank did not observe the action; he had risen to his feet, and inanother moment had left the room. He had reached the point of feelingthe need of air and a wider space in which to breathe. As he steppedinto the street, he turned in a contrary direction to that in which hehad been
wont to walk. Had he not done this; had he gone southward, asusual, he might have seen the sly and crouching figure which was drawnup on that side of the house, peering into the room he had just leftthrough the narrow opening made by an imperfectly lowered shade.
BOOK III.
UNCLE AND NIECE.