"Will you go down to the post-office, and inquire if Mr. Fenwick has received his letters this morning?"
"Certainly, I will." And the clerk went on the errand without a moment's delay.
"Mr. Fenwick received his letters over two hours ago," said the young man, on his return. He looked disappointed and perplexed.
"And you know nothing of him?" was said.
"Nothing, gentlemen, I do assure you. His absence is to me altogether inexplicable."
"Where's Fenwick?" was now asked, in an imperative voice, by a new comer.
"Not been seen this morning," replied Markland.
"Another act in this tragedy! Gone, I suppose, to join his accomplice on the Pacific coast, and share his plunder," said the man, passionately.
"You are using very strong language, sir!" suggested one.
"Not stronger than the case justifies. For my own assurance, I sent out a secret agent, and I have my first letter from him this morning. He arrived just in time to see our splendid schemes dissolve in smoke. Lyon is a swindler, Fenwick an accomplice, and we a parcel of easy fools. The published intelligence we have to-day is no darker than the truth. The bubble burst by the unexpected seizure of our lands, implements, and improvements, by the—Government. It contained nothing but air! Fenwick and Lyon had just played one of their reserved cards—it had something to do with the flooding of a shaft, which would delay results, and require more capital—when the impatient grantors of the land foreclosed every thing. From the hour this catastrophe became certain, Lyon was no more seen. He was fully prepared for the emergency."
In confirmation of this, letters giving the minutest particulars were shown, thus corroborating the worst, and extinguishing the feeblest rays of hope.
All was too true. The brilliant bubble had indeed burst, and not the shadow of a substance remained. When satisfied of this beyond all doubt, Markland, on whose mind suffering had produced a temporary stupor, sought his room at the hotel, and remained there for several days, so hopeless, weak, and undecided, that he seemed almost on the verge of mental imbecility. How could he return home and communicate the dreadful intelligence to his family? How could he say to them, that, for his transgressions, they must go forth from their beautiful Eden?
"No—no!" he exclaimed, wringing his hands in anguish. "I can never tell them this! I can never look into their faces! Never! never!"
The moment had come, and the tempter was at his ear. There was, first, the remote suggestion of self-banishment in some distant land, where the rebuking presence of his injured family could never haunt him. But he felt that a life in this world, apart from them, would be worse than death.
"I am mocked! I am cursed!" he exclaimed, bitterly.
The tempter was stealthily doing his work.
"Oh! what a vain struggle is this life! What a fitful fever! Would that it were over, and I at rest!"
The tempter was leading his thoughts at will.
"How can I meet my wronged family? How can I look my friends in the face? I shall be to the world only a thing of pity or reproach. Can I bear this? No—no—I cannot—I cannot!"
Magnified by the tempter, the consequence looked appalling. He felt that he had not strength to meet it—that all of manhood would be crushed out of him.
"What then?" He spoke the words almost aloud, and held his breath, as if for answer.
"A moment, and all will be over!"
It was the voice of the tempter.
Markland buried his face in his hands, and sat for a long time as motionless as if sleep had obscured his senses; and all that time a fearful debate was going on in his mind. At last he rose up, changed in feeling as well as in aspect. His resolution was taken, and a deep, almost leaden, calmness pervaded his spirit. He had resolved on self-destruction!
With a strange coolness, the self-doomed man now proceeded to select the agent of death. He procured a work on poisons, and studied the effects of different substances, choosing, finally, that which did the fatal work most quickly and with the slightest pain. This substance was then procured. But he could not turn forever from those nearest and dearest, without a parting word.
The day had run almost to a close in these fearful struggles and fatal preparations; and the twilight was falling, when, exhausted and in tears, the wretched man folded, with trembling hands, a letter he had penned to his wife. This done, he threw himself, weak as a child, upon the bed, and, ere conscious that sleep was stealing upon him, fell off into slumber.
Sleep! It is the great restorer. For a brief season the order of life is changed, and the involuntary powers of the mind bear rule in place of the voluntary. The actual, with all its pains and pleasures, is for the time annihilated. The pressure of thought and the fever of emotion are both removed, and the over-taxed spirit is at rest. Into his most loving guardianship the great Creator of man, who gave him reason and volition, and the freedom to guide himself, takes his creature, and, while the image of death is upon him, gathers about him the Everlasting Arms. He suspends, for a time, the diseased voluntary life, that he may, through the involuntary, restore a degree of health, and put the creature he has formed for happiness in a new condition of mental and moral freedom.
Blessed sleep! Who has not felt and acknowledged thy sweet influences? Who has not wondered at thy power in the tranquil waking, after a night that closed around the spirit in what seemed the darkness of coming despair?
Markland slept; and in his sleep, guided by angels, there came to him the spirits of his wife and children, clothed in the beauty of innocence. How lovingly they gathered around him! how sweet were their words in his ears! how exquisite the thrill awakened by each tender kiss! Now he was with them in their luxurious home; and now they were wandering, in charmed intercourse, amid its beautiful surroundings. Change after change went on; new scenes and new characters appeared, and yet the life seemed orderly and natural. Suddenly there came a warning of danger. The sky grew fearfully dark; fierce lightning burned through the air, and the giant tempest swept down upon the earth with resistless fury. Next a flood was upon them. And now he was seized with the instinct of self-preservation, and in a moment had deserted his helpless family, and was fleeing, alone to a place of safety. From thence he saw wife and children borne off by the rush of waters, their white, imploring faces turned to him, and their hands stretched out for succour. Then all his love returned; self was forgotten; he would have died to save them. But it was too late! Even while he looked, they were engulfed and lost.
From such a dream Markland was awakened into conscious life. The shadowy twilight had been succeeded by darkness. He started up, confused and affrighted. Some moments passed before his bewildered thoughts were able to comprehend his real position; and when he did so, he fell back, with a groan, horror-stricken, upon the bed. The white faces and imploring hands of his wife and children were still vividly before him.
"Poor, weak, coward heart!" he at last murmured to himself. "An evil spirit was thy counsellor. I knew not that so mean and base a purpose could find admittance there. What! Beggar and disgrace my wife and children, and then, like a skulking coward, leave them to bear the evil I had not the courage to face! Edward Markland! Can this, indeed, be true of thee?"
And the excited man sprang from the bed. A feeble light came in through the window-panes above the door, and made things dimly visible. He moved about, for a time, with an uncertain air, and then rung for a light. The first object that met his eyes, when the servant brought in a lamp, was a small, unopened package, lying on the table. He knew its contents. What a strong shudder ran through his frame! Seizing it the instant the attendant left the room, he flung it through the open window. Then, sinking on his knees, he thanked God fervently for a timely deliverance.
The fierce struggle with pride was now over. Weak, humbled, and softened in feeling almost to tears, Markland sat alone, through the remainder of that evening, with his thoughts reaching forward into the future, and seeking to discover the paths in which his feet must walk. For himself he cared not now. Ah! if the cherished ones could be saved from the consequences of his folly! If he alone were destined to move in rough and thorny ways! But there was for them no escape. The paths in which he moved they must move. The cup he had made bitter for himself would be bitter for them also.
Wretched man! Into what a great deep of misery had he plunged himself!
CHAPTER XXXIV
IT was near the close of the fifth day since Mr. Markland left his home to commence a long journey southward; and yet, no word had come back from him. He had promised to write from Baltimore, and from other points on his route, and sufficient time had elapsed for at least two letters to arrive. A servant, who had been sent to the city post-office, had returned without bringing any word from the absent one; and Mrs. Markland, with Fanny by her side, was sitting near a window sad and silent.
Just one year has passed since their introduction to the reader. But what a change one year has wrought! The heart's bright sunshine rested then on every object. Woodbine Lodge was then a paradise. Now, there is scarcely a ray of this warm sunshine. Yet there had been no bereavement—no affliction; nothing that we refer to a mysterious Providence. No,—but the tempter was admitted. He came with specious words and deceiving pretences. He vailed the present good, and magnified the worth of things possessing no power to satisfy the heart. Too surely has he succeeded in the accomplishment of his evil work.
At the time of the reader's introduction to Woodbine Lodge, a bright day was going down in beauty; and there was not a pulse in nature that did not beat in unison with the hearts of its happy denizens. A summer day was again drawing to its close, but sobbing itself away in tears. And they were in tears also, whose spirits, but a single year gone by, reflected only the light and beauty of nature.
By the window sat the mother and daughter, with oppressed hearts, looking out upon the leaden sky and the misty gusts that swept across the gloomy landscape. Sad and silent, we have said, they were. Now and then they gazed into each other's faces, and the lips quivered as if words were on them. But each spirit held back the fear by which it was burdened—and the eyes turned wearily again from the open window.
At last, Fanny's heavy heart could bear in silence the pressure no longer. Hiding her face in her mother's lap, she sobbed out violently. Repressing her own struggling emotions, Mrs. Markland spoke soothing, hopeful words; and even while she sought to strengthen her daughter's heart, her own took courage.
"My dear child," she said, in a voice made even by depressing its tone, "do you not remember that beautiful thought expressed by Mrs. Willet yesterday? 'Death,' said she, 'signifies life; for in every death there is resurrection into a higher and purer life. This is as true,' she remarked, 'of our affections, which are but activities of the life, as of the natural life itself.'"
The sobs of the unhappy girl died away. Her mother continued, in a low, earnest voice, speaking to her own heart as well as to that of her child, for it, too, needed strength and comfort.
"How often have we been told, in our Sabbath instructions, that natural affections cannot be taken to heaven; that they must die, in order that spiritual affections may be born."
Fanny raised herself up, and said, with slight warmth of manner—
"Is not my love for you a natural affection for my natural mother? And must that die before I can enter heaven?"
"May it not be changed into a love of what is good in your mother, instead of remaining only a love of her person?"
"Dear mother!" almost sobbed again the unhappy child,—clasping eagerly the neck of her parent,—"it is such a love now! Oh! if I were as good, and patient, and self-denying as you are!"
"All our natural affections," resumed Mrs. Markland, after a few moments were given to self-control, "have simple regard to ourselves; and their indulgence never brings the promised happiness. This is why a wise and good Creator permits our natural desires to be so often thwarted. In this there is mercy, and not unkindness; for the fruition of these desires would often be most exquisite misery."
"Hark!" exclaimed Fanny, starting up at this moment, and leaning close to the window. The sound that had fallen upon her ear had also reached the ears of the mother.
"Oh! it's father!" fell almost wildly from the daughter's lips, and she sprang out into the hall, and forth to meet him in the drenching rain. Mrs. Markland could not rise, but sat, nerveless, until the husband entered the room.