CHAPTER XV.
THE CATASTROPHE.
I]
"I have but little more to tell," Mark Felt continued, "but that littleis everything to me.
"When we became positively assured that Miss Leighton had disappearedfrom the house and would not be on hand to take the stage toSchenectady, the excitement, which had been increasing on all sidessince the ceremony, culminated, and the whole town was set agog to findher, if only to solve the mystery of a nature whose actions had nowbecome inexplicable.
"I was the first to start the pursuit. Haunted by her last look, andthrilled to every extremity by the terror of the shriek she had uttered,I did not wait for the alarm to become public, but rushed immediately upstairs at the first intimation of her disappearance.
"Though I had never pierced those regions before, my good or evil fatetook me at once to a room which I saw at one glance to be hers. Theboxes waiting to be carried down, the tags and ends of ribbons that Irecognized, the nameless something which speaks of one particularpersonality and no other, all were there to assure me that I stood inthe chamber which for six months or more had palpitated with the breathof the one being I loved.
"But of that I dared not think; it was no time for dreams; and onlystopping to see that her bonnet had been taken, but her gloves left, Ihurried down again and out of the house.
"An impulse which I cannot understand took me to Edwin Urquhart's house,or, rather, to that portion of a house which he had hired for his usesince he had been looking forward to his marriage with Miss Dudleigh.Why I should go there I cannot say, unless jealousy whispered that onlyin this place could she hope for one final word with him, as he and hisbride stopped at the door for his portion of the baggage. Be this as itmay, I turned neither to right nor left till I came to his house, andwhen I had reached it I found that, with all my haste, I was too late,for not a soul was in its empty rooms, while far down the street whichleads to the bridge I saw a carriage disappearing, which, from the wagonfollowing it so closely, I knew to be the one containing Urquhart andhis bride.
"'She has not been here,' thought I, 'or I should have met her,unless--' and my eye stole with a certain shrinking terror toward theriver which skirted along the garden at the back--'unless'-- But even mythoughts stopped here. I would not, could not, think of what, if it weretrue, would end all things for me.
"Leaving this place, I wandered aimlessly through the streets, studyingeach face that I met for intimations which should guide me in my search.If not a madman, I was near enough to one to make the memory of thathour hideous to me; and when at last, worn out as much by my emotions asby the countless steps I had taken, I returned to my house for a biteand sup, something in the sight of its desolation overpowered me, andyielding to a despair which assured me that I should never again see herin this world, I sank on the floor inert and powerless, and continuedthus till morning, without movement and almost without consciousness.
"Fatal repose! And yet I do not know if I should call it so. It onlyrobbed me of a few hours less of conscious misery. For when I roused,when I became again myself, and looked about my house, there on thefloor, underneath a curtain window which had been left unlatched, I sawa letter containing these words:
'HONORED AND MUCH ABUSED FRIEND:--When you read this, Marah will be no more. After all that has passed--after our broken marriage and the departure of my cousin--life has become insupportable; and, believing that you would rather know me dead than miserable, I ventured to write you these words, and ask you to forgive me, now that I am gone.
'I loved him: let that explain everything.
'Despairingly yours, 'MARAH LEIGHTON.'
"With shrieks I tore from the house. Marah dying! Marah dead! I wouldsee about that. Racing down to the gate, I paused. Some one was leaningon it. It was Caesar, and at the first glimpse I had of his face I knew Iwas too late--that all was over, and that the whole town knew it.
"'Oh, massa, I wanted to go in, but I was frightened. I's been waitinghere an hour, sah; when dey told me dat dey had found her bonnetfloating on de ribber, I know'd how you'd feel, sah, and so I come hereand--'
"I found words to ask him a question. 'When was this found, and where?'
"'This morning, sah, at daybreak. It was caught by one of the strings tothat old log, sah, that lies out in the ribber back of--' hehesitated--'Massa Urquhart's house, sah.'
"I knew; and I had glanced that way just as her bright head was perhapssinking under the water. I threw up my arms in anguish and stumbled backinto the house.
"'Then every one knows--' I managed to say on the threshold.
"'Dat she cared for him? Yes, sah; I fear so. How could dey help it,sah? Mor'n one person saw her run down de street and go into massa's oldhouse just before de carriage stopped thar, and as she didn't come outagain, I 'specs it was from dat big log at the foot of the garden shejumped into de ribber. All de folks pities you very much, sah--'
"I choked him off with a look.
"'Who has been sent after Mr. and Mrs. Urquhart to inform them of whathas happened?'
"'No one yet, sah. But Massa Hatton--'
"'Mr. Hatton is an old man. We must have a young one for this business.Go saddle me the quickest horse in your stables. I will ride after them,and overtake them, too, before they can reach Poughkeepsie. He shallknow--'
"A glance from the negro's eye warned me to be careful. I smothered myimpatience and let only my earnestness appear.
"'Mrs. Urquhart ought to know that her cousin is dead,' I declared.
"'I'll tell Massa Hatton,' said the black.
"But my caution was now too much aroused for me to make Mr. Hatton themedium of my request--he was Mrs. Urquhart's old guardian and futureagent; and subduing the extreme fury of my feelings, I obtained hispermission to act as his messenger. Had he known of the letter which hadbeen thrown into my window, he might not have given his consent sofreely; but I had told no man of that, and he and others saw me rideaway without a seeming suspicion of the murderous thoughts thatstruggled with my grief, and almost overwhelmed it.
"For to me her death--if she were dead--was the result of a compactentered into with the despicable Urquhart, who, if he could not have herfor himself, was willing she should go where no other man could haveher. Though the idea seemed quixotic, though it be an anomaly in humanexperience, for a woman thus to sacrifice herself, I could not ascribeany other motive to her deed; for the memory of that interview she hadheld with her cousin's future husband in the garden was still fresh inmy mind. Do you remember the words as told me by the negro who overheardthem? First, the question from his lips: 'Will you undertake it? Canyou go through with it without shrinking and without fear?' And thereply from hers: 'I will undertake it, and I can go through with it,'followed by that assurance which struck me as being so inexplicable atthe time, and which, with all the light that this late horrible eventhas thrown upon it, still preserves its mystery for me. 'I shall giveyou nothing till I am dead, and then I will give you everything.' If theconclusions I drew seemed wild, were they not warranted by these words?Did she not speak of death, and did he not encourage her?
"If she were not dead--and sometimes this thought would cross my burningbrain--then she was with him, forced into the company of his unwillingwife in that last interview which they must have held in his cottage. Ineither case he was a villain and a coward, deserving of death; and deathhe should have, and from the hand of him whom he had doubly outraged.
"But as I rode out of town and came in sight of the river, I foundmyself seized by terrifying thoughts. Should I have to ride by the placewhere I could see them stooping with boat hooks and bending withpeering eyes over some snag they had brought up from the river bottom?Could I endure to face this picture, then to pass it, then to ride on,feeling it ever at my back, blackening the morning, destroying thenoontide, making more horrible the night? Could I go from this placetill I knew whether or not the
sullen waters would yield up theirbeautiful prey, and would my body proceed while my heart was on thisriver bank, and my jealousy divided between the wretch who had urged heron to death and these other men who might yet touch her unconscious formand gaze upon her disfigured beauty? And the answer which welled up fromwithin me was, yes, I could go; I could pass that picture; I could feelit glooming ever and ever upon me from behind my back, and never turn myhead;--such an impetus of hate was upon me, driving me forward after thewretch fleeing in self-complacency and triumph into a future of wealthand social consideration.
"But when I had done all this, when my too fleet horse had carried mebeyond sight of the city, and nature, with its irresistible beauty, hadbegun to influence my understanding, other thoughts came trooping inupon me, and a vision of Honora Dudleigh's face as she took the daggerfrom my hands and an implied promise from my lips, rose before me till Icould see nothing else. Honora, Honora, Honora who trusted me! who hadsuffered everything but the sight of blood! who was a bride, and whom itwould be base ingratitude for me to plunge into the depths of dishonorand despair! And the struggle was so fierce, and the torture of it sokeen, that ere long my brain succumbed to the strain, and from theheight of anguished feeling I sank into apathy, and from apathy intounconsciousness, till I no longer knew where I was or possessed power toguide my horse. In this condition I was found wandering in a field andthence carried to a farm house, where I remained a prey to fever. When Ireturned to consciousness, three weeks had elapsed.
"As soon as I could be moved, I went back to Albany. I found thecommunity there settled in the belief that I had joined in death thewoman I so much loved, and was shown a letter which had been sent me,and which had been opened by the authorities after all hope had beengiven up of my return. It was from Mrs. Urquhart, and related how theyhad changed their plans upon reaching New York. Having found a ship onthe point of sailing for France, they had determined to go there insteadof to the Bermudas, and, consequently, requested me to inform Mr. Hattonof the fact, and also assure him that he would hear from them personallyas soon as a letter could reach him from the other side. As she was inhaste--in truth, was writing this in the post office on the way to theship--she would only add that her health had been improved by her longjourney down the river, and that when I heard from her again, she wassure she would be able to write that all her fondest hopes had beenfully realized.
"And so Marah was in the river, and Urquhart on the seas. I had beenrobbed of everything, even vengeance, and life had nothing for me, and Iwas determined to leave it, not in the vulgar way of suicide, but bycloistering myself in the great forests. As no one said me nay, I atonce carried out this scheme; and to show you how dead I had become tothe world, I will tell you that as I turned the lock of my door and tookmy first step forward on the road which led to this spot, a great shoutbroke out in the market place:
"'The farmers of Lexington have fired upon the king's troops!'
"And I did not even turn my head!"