CHAPTER XXIII.
IN THE SECRET CHAMBER.
Have only twenty-four hours elapsed? Is it but yesternight that all theterrible events took place, the memory of which are now making my frametremble? So the clock says, and yet how hard it is to believe it. MadameLetellier-- But I will preserve my old method. I will not anticipateevents, but relate them as they occurred.
To go back then to the note which I received from madame. I did not likeit. I did not see its consistency, and I did not mean to be its dupe. Ifshe intended remaining in the oak parlor, then over the oak parlor Iwould keep watch; for from her alone breathed whatever danger theremight be for any of us, and to her alone did I look for the explanationof her mysterious presence in a spot that should have held a thousandrepellent forces for her and hers. As for her sudden illness, that wasnonsense. She was as well as I was myself. Had I not seen her standingat the window an hour or two before?
But here I made a mistake. Madame was really ill, as I presently hadoccasion to observe. For not only was a physician summoned, but wordcame that she wished to see me, also; and when I went to her room Ifound her in bed, her face pallid and distorted with pain, and her wholeaspect betraying the greatest physical suffering.
It was a rheumatic attack, affecting mainly her right limb, and made herso helpless that, for a moment, I stood aghast at what looked to me likea dispensation of Providence. But in another instant I began to doubtagain; for though I knew it was beyond anybody's power to simulate thesuffering under which she evidently labored, I was made to feel, by herpenetrating and restless looks, that her mind retained its hold upon itspurpose, whatever that purpose might be, and that for me to relax myvigilance now would be to give her an advantage that would beimmediately seized upon.
I therefore held my sympathies in check; and, while acting the part ofthe solicitous landlady, watched for that glance or word which shouldreveal her secret intentions. Her daughter, whose eyes were streamingwith tears, stood over her like a pitying angel, and not till we haddone all we could to relieve her mother, and subdue her pain, did sheallow her longing eyes to turn toward the clock that beat out thepassing moments with mechanical precision. It was just a quarter tonine.
The mother saw that glance, and hid her face for a moment; then she tookmademoiselle by the hand, and drawing her down to her, whisperedaudibly:
"I expect you to keep your appointment. Mrs. Truax will send one of thegirls to sit with me. Besides, I feel better, and as if I could sleep.Only remember your promise, dear. No look, no hint of your feelings."
Mademoiselle flushed scarlet. Stealing a look at me, she drew backembarrassed, but oh! how joyous. I felt my old heart quiver as Isurveyed her, and in spite of the dread form of the redoubtable womanstretched before me, in spite of the grewsome room and its more thangrewsome secrets, something of the fairy light of love seemed to fallupon my spirit and lift the darkness from the place for one short andglowing moment.
"Look in the glass," the mother now commanded. "You need to tie up yourcurls again and to put a fresh flower at your throat. I do not wish youto show weariness. Mrs. Truax"--these words to me in low tones, as herdaughter withdrew to the other side of the room--"you received my note?"
I nodded.
"You will do what I ask?"
I nodded again. Deliberate falsehood it was, but I showed no faltering.
"Then I will excuse you now."
I rose.
"And do not send any one to me. I wish to sleep, and another's presencewould disturb me. See, the pain is almost gone."
She did look better.
"Your wishes shall be regarded," I assured her. "If you do feel worse,ring this bell and Margery will notify me." And placing the bell ropenear her hand, I drew back and presently quitted the room.
Lingering in the hall just long enough to see the lovely Honora flitacross the threshold of the sitting-room which I had purposely orderedvacant for her use, I hurried to my room.
It was dark, dark as the secret chamber into which I now stole with thelightest and wariest of steps. Horror, gloom, and apprehension were inthe air, which brooded stiflingly in the narrow spot, and had it notbeen for the righteous purpose sustaining me, I should have fallen atthis critical moment, crushed beneath the terrible weight of my ownfeelings.
But one who has to listen, straining every faculty to catch the purportof what is going on behind an impenetrable wall, soon forgets himselfand his own sensations. As I pressed my ear to the wall and caught thesound of a prolonged and painful stir within, I only thought offollowing the movements of madame, who, I was now sure, had left her bedand was dragging herself, with what difficulty and distress I could butfaintly judge by the involuntary groans which now and then left her,across the floor toward the door, the key of which I presently heardturn.
This done, a heavy silence followed, then the slow, dragging sound beganagain, interrupted now by weary pants and heavy sobs that at firstchilled me and then shook me with such fear that it was with difficultythat I could retain my place against the wall. She was crawling in mydirection, and at each instant I heard the pants grow louder.
I gradually withdrew, step by step, till I found myself pressed upagainst the wall in the remotest corner I could find. And here was Istanding, enveloped in darkness and dread, when the sounds changed tothat of a shuddering, rushing noise which I had heard once before in mylife, and from a narrow gap through which the faint light in the roombeyond dimly shone in a thread of lesser darkness, the aperture grew,till I could feel rather than see her form, crawling, not walking,through the opening, and hear, distinct enough, her horrible, gurglingtones as she murmured:
"I shall have to grope for what I want--touch it, feel it, for I cannotsee. O God! O God! What horror! What punishment!"
Nearer, nearer over the floor she came, dragging her useless limb behindher. Her outstretched arm groped, groped about the floor, while I stoodtrembling and agonized with horror till her hand touched the skirt of mydress, when, with a great shriek of suddenly liberated feeling, I pushedher from me, and crying out, "Murderess! do you seek the bones of yourvictim?" I flung open the door against which I stood and let the lightfrom my own room stream in upon us two.
Her face as I saw it at that moment has never left my memory. She hadfallen in a heap at my first move, and now lay crushed before me, withonly her wide-staring eyes and shaking lips to tell me that she lived.
"You thought I did not know you," I burst forth. "You thought, because Ihad never seen your face, you could come back here, bringing yourinnocent daughter with you, and cast yourself into the very atmosphereof your crime without awakening the suspicion of the woman whose houseyou had made a sepulcher of for so many years. But crime was written tooplainly on your brow. The spirit of Honora Urquhart, breaking the boundsof this room, has walked ever beside you, and I knew you from the firstmoment that you strayed down this hall."
Broken sounds, unintelligible murmurings, were all that greeted me.
"You are punished," I went on, "in the misery of your daughter. Nemesishas reached you. The blood of Honora Urquhart has called aloud fromthese walls, and not yourself only, but the still viler being whose nameyou have so falsely shared, must answer to man and God for the life youso heartlessly sacrificed and the rights you so falsely usurped."
"Mercy!" came in one quick gasp from the crushed heap of humanity beforeme.
But I was inexorable. I remembered Honora Urquhart's sweet face, and atthat moment could think of nothing else. So I went on.
"You have had years of triumph. You have borne your victim's name, wornyour victim's clothes, sported with your victim's money. And he, herhusband, has looked on and smiled. Day after day, month after month,year after year, you have gone in and out before your friends,unmolested and unafraid; but God's vengeance, though it halts, is sureand keen. Across land and across water the memories of this room havedrawn you, and not content with awakening suspicion, you must makesuspicion certainty by moving a spring unknown even t
o myself, andentering this spot, from which the bones of your victim were taken onlytwo months ago, Marah Leighton!"
Moved by the name, she stood up. Tottering and agonized with pain, butfirm once more and determined, she towered before me, her face turnedtoward the room she had left, her hand lifted, her whole attitude thatof one listening.
"Hark!" she cried.
It was a knock, a faint, low, trembling knock that we heard, then theword "Mamma" came in muffled accents from the hallway.
A convulsion crossed the countenance of the miserable woman before me.
"Oh, God! my daughter, my daughter!" she cried. And falling at my feet,she groveled in anguish as she pleaded:
"Will you kill her? She knows nothing, suspects nothing. The wholefifteen years of her life are pure. She is a flower. I love her--I loveher, though she looks like the woman I hated and killed. She bears hername--why, I do not know--I could not call her anything else; she is myliving reproach, and yet I love her. Do you not see it was for her Icrossed the water, for her I plunged my living hand into this tomb tolearn if our secret had ever been discovered, and if there was any hopethat she might yet be made happy? Ah, woman, woman, you are not awretch--a demon! You will not sentence this innocent soul to disgraceand misery. Even if I must die--and I swear that I will die if you sayso--leave to my child her hopes; keep secret my sin, and take theblessing of the most miserable being that crawls upon the earth, as asolace for your old age. Hear me; hear a wretched mother's plea--"
"It is too late," I broke in. "Even were I silent there are others uponyour track. I doubt if your husband does not already know that the dayof his prosperity is at an end."
She gave a low cry, and tottered from the place. Entering her own room,she threw herself upon the bed. I followed, drawing the curtains abouther. Then closing the door of communication between the oak parlor andthe chamber beyond, I passed to the door behind which we could yet hearher daughter's soft voice calling, and, unlocking it, let the radiantcreature in.
"Oh, mamma!" she began, "I could not keep my word--"
But here I held up my hand, and drawing her softly out, told her thather mother needed rest just now, and that if she would come to my roomfor a little while it would be best; and so prevailed upon her that shepromised to do what I asked, though I saw her cast longing glancesthrough the partly opened door toward the somber bed so like a tomb, andwhich at that moment was a tomb, had she known it--a tomb of hope, ofjoy, of peace for evermore.
I was just going out, when a slight stir detained me. Looking back, Isaw a hand thrust out from between the falling curtains. Just a hand,but how eloquent it was! Pointing it out to mademoiselle, I said:
"Your mother's hand. Give it a kiss, mademoiselle, but do not part thecurtains."
She smiled and crossed to that ominous bed. Kneeling, she kissed thehand, which thereupon raised itself and rested on her head. In anotherinstant it was drawn slowly away, and, with a startled look, thehalf-weeping daughter rose and glided again to my side.
As I closed the door I thought of those words: "And the sins of thefather shall be visited upon the children to the third and fourthgeneration."