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 Cornell University Library 
 PR 4494.T9 
 
 The two destinies; a novel. 
 
 3 1924 013 466 564 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013466564 
 
I TOOK OFF MY HAT AND SPOKE TO HER. — [PAGE 127. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ^ Jtoel. 
 
 By WILKIE COLLINS, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 "THE WOMAN IN WHITE," "MAN AND WIFE," "THE LAW AND 
 THE LADY," "THE NEW MAGDALEN," &C. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 
 
 FRANKLIN SQUARE. 
 187 6. 
 
WILKIE COLLINS'S NOVELS. 
 
 HARPER'S ILLUSTRATED LIBRARY EDITION. 
 
 i2mo, Cloth, Jj5i 50 per Vol. 
 
 AFTER DARK, and Other Stories. 
 
 ANTONINA. 
 
 ARMADALE. 
 
 BASIL. 
 
 HIDE - A ND -SEEK. 
 
 MAN AND WIFE. 
 
 MY MISCELLANIES. 
 
 NO NAME. 
 
 POOR MISS FINCH. 
 THE DEAD SECRET. 
 THE LAW AND THE LADY. 
 THE MOONSTONE. 
 THE NEW MAGDALEN. 
 THE QUEEN OF HEARTS. 
 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 THE WOMAN IN WHITE. 
 
 Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 
 
 Copyright, 1875, by Harper & Brothers. 
 
r 
 
The Two Destinies. 
 
 &!)e flrdttte. 
 
 THE GUEST WRITES, AND TELLS THE STORY OF THE DIKNER 
 
 PARTY. 
 
 Many years have passed since my wife and I left the 
 United States to pay our first visit to England. 
 
 We were provided with letters of introduction, as a matter 
 of course. Among them, there was a letter which had been 
 written for us by my wife's brother. It presented us to an 
 English gentleman who held a high rank on the list of his old 
 and valued friends. 
 
 " You will become acquainted with Mr. George Germaine," 
 my brother-in-law said, when we took leave of him, "at a 
 very interesting period of his life. My last news of him tells 
 me that he is just married. I know nothing of the lady, or 
 of the circumstances under which my friend first met with 
 her. But of this I am certain : married or single, George 
 Germaine will give you and your wife a hearty welcome to 
 England, for my sake." 
 
 The day after our arrival in London, we left our letter of 
 introduction at the house of Mr. Germaine. 
 
 The next morning we went to see a favorite object of 
 American interest, in the metropolis of England — the Tower 
 of London. The citizens of the United States find this relic 
 of the good old times of great use in raising their national 
 estimate of the value of republican institutions. On getting 
 
 1* 
 
10 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 back to the hotel, the cards of Mr. and Mrs. Germaine told us 
 that they had already returned our visit. The same evening 
 we received an invitation to dine with the newly married 
 couple. It was inclosed in a little note from Mrs. Germaine 
 to my wife, warning us that we were not to expect to meet a 
 large party. " It is the first dinner we give, on our return 
 from our wedding tour " (the lady wrote) ; " and you will 
 only be introduced to a few of my husband's old friends." 
 
 In America, and (as I hear) on the continent of Europe 
 also, when your host invites you to dine at a given hour, you 
 pay him the compliment of arriving punctually at his house. 
 In England alone, the incomprehensible and discourteous cus- 
 tom prevails of keeping the host and the dinner waiting for 
 half an hour or more — without any assignable reason, and 
 without any better excuse than the purely formal apology 
 that is implied in the words, " Sorry to be late." 
 
 Arriving at the appointed time at the house of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Germaine, we had every reason to congratulate ourselves 
 on the ignorant punctuality which had brought us into the 
 drawing-room half an hour in advance of the other guests. 
 
 In the first place, there was so much heartiness, and so lit- 
 tle ceremony, in the welcome accorded to us, that we almost 
 fancied ourselves back in our own country. In the second 
 place, both husband and wife interested us the moment we 
 set eyes on them. The lady, especially, although she was 
 not, strictly speaking, a beautiful woman, quite fascinated us. 
 There was an artless charm in her face and manner, a simple 
 grace in all her movements, a low, delicious melody in her 
 voice, which we Americans felt to be simply irresistible. 
 And then, it was so plain (and so pleasant) to see that here 
 at least was a happy marriage ! Here were two people who 
 had all their dearest hopes, wishes, and sympathies in com- 
 mon — who looked, if I may risk the expression, born to be 
 man and wife. By the time when the fashionable delay of 
 the half hour had expired, we were talking together as famil- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 11 
 
 iarly and as confidentially as if we had been all four of us old 
 friends. 
 
 Eight o'clock struck, and the first of the English guests ap- 
 peared. 
 
 Having forgotten this gentleman's name, I must beg leave 
 to distinguish him by means of a letter of the alphabet. Let 
 me call him Mr. A. When he entered the room alone, our 
 host and hostess both started, and both looked surprised. 
 Apparently, they expected him to be accompanied by some 
 other person. Mr. Germaine put a curious question to his 
 friend. 
 
 " Where is your wife ?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. A answered for the absent lady by a neat little apolo- 
 gy, expressed in these words : 
 
 " She has got a bad cold. She is very sorry. She begs 
 me to make her excuses." 
 
 He had just time to deliver his message, before another un- 
 accompanied gentleman appeared. Reverting to the letters 
 of the alphabet, let me call him Mr. B. Once more, I noticed 
 that our host and hostess started when they saw him enter 
 the room alone. And, rather to my surprise, I heard Mr. Ger- 
 maine put his curious question again to the new guest : 
 
 " Where is your wife ?" 
 
 The answer — with slight variations — was Mr. A's neat lit- 
 tle apology, repeated by Mr. B : 
 
 " I am very sorry. Mrs. B has got a bad headache. She 
 is subject to bad headaches. She begs me to make her ex- 
 cuses." 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Germaine glanced at one another. The hus- 
 band's face plainly expressed the suspicion which this second 
 apology had roused in his mind. The wife was steady and 
 calm. An interval passed— a silent interval. Mr. A and Mr. 
 B retired together guiltily into a corner. My wife and I 
 looked at the pictures. 
 
 Mrs. Germaine was the first to relieve us from our own in- 
 
12 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 tolerable silence. Two more guests, it appeared, were still 
 wanting to complete the party. " Shall we have dinner at 
 once, George ?" she said to her husband. " Or shall we wait 
 for Mr. and Mrs. C ?" 
 
 " "We will wait five minutes," he answered, shortly — with 
 his eye on Mr. A and Mr. B, guiltily secluded in their corner. 
 
 The drawing-room door opened. We all knew that a third 
 married lady was expected; we all looked toward the door 
 in unutterable anticipation. Our unexpressed hopes rested 
 silently on the possible appearance of Mrs. C. Would that 
 admirable, but unknown, woman at once charm and relieve us 
 by her presence ? I shudder as I write it. Mr. C walked into 
 the room — and walked in, alone. 
 
 Mr. Germaine suddenly varied his formal inquiry in receiv- 
 ing the new guest. 
 
 " Is your wife ill ?" he asked. 
 
 Mr. C was an elderly man ; Mr. C had lived (judging by 
 appearances) in the days when the old-fashioned laws of po- 
 liteness were still in force. He discovered his two married 
 brethren in their corner, unaccompanied by their wives ; and 
 he delivered his apology for his wife with the air of a man 
 who felt unaffectedly ashamed of it : 
 
 " Mrs. C is so sorry. She has got such a bad cold. She 
 does so regret not being able to accompany me." 
 
 At this third apology, Mr. Germaine's indignation forced 
 its way outward into expression in words. 
 
 " Two bad colds and one bad headache," he said, with iron- 
 ical politeness. " I don't know how your wives agree, gentle- 
 men, when they are well. But when they are ill, their una- 
 nimity is wonderful !" 
 
 The dinner was announced as that sharp saying passed his 
 lips. 
 
 I had the honor of taking Mrs. Germaine to the dining- 
 room. Her sense of the implied insult offered to her by the 
 wives of, her husband's friends only showed itself in a trem- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 13 
 
 bling, a very slight trembling, of the hand that rested on my 
 arm. My interest in her increased tenfold. Only a woman 
 who had been accustomed to suffer, who had been broken and 
 disciplined to self-restraint, could have endured the moral 
 martyrdom inflicted on her as this woman endured it, from 
 the beginning of the evening to the end. 
 
 Am I using the language of exaggeration when I write of 
 my hostess in these terms? Look at the circumstances as 
 they struck two strangers like my wife and myself. 
 
 Here was the first dinner party which Mr. and Mrs. Ger- 
 maine had given since their marriage. Three of Mr. Ger- 
 maine's friends, all married men, had been invited with their 
 wives to meet Mr. Germaine's wife, and had (evidently) ac- 
 cepted the invitation without reserve. What discoveries had 
 taken place between the giving of the invitation and the giv- 
 ing of the dinner it was impossible to say. The one thing 
 plainly discernible was, that in the interval the three wives 
 had agreed in the resolution to leave their husbands to repre- 
 sent them at Mrs. Germaine's table ; and, more amazing still, 
 the husbands had so far approved of the grossly discourteous 
 conduct of the wives as to consent to make the most insult- 
 ingly trivial excuses for their absence. Could any crueler 
 slur than this have been cast on a woman at the outset of her 
 married life, before the face of her husband, and in the pres- 
 ence of two strangers from another country ? Is " martyr- 
 dom " too big a word to use in describing what a sensitive 
 person must have suffered, subjected to such treatment as 
 this ? Well, I think not. 
 
 We took our places at the dinner table. Don't ask me to 
 describe that most miserable of mortal meetings, that weariest 
 and dreariest of human festivals ! It is quite bad enough to 
 remember that evening — it is indeed. 
 
 My wife and I did our best to keep the conversation mov- 
 ing as easily and as harmlessly as might be. I may say that 
 we really worked hard. Nevertheless, our success was not 
 
14 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 very encouraging. Try as we might to overlook them, there 
 were the three empty places of the three absent women, speak- 
 ing in their own dismal language for themselves. Try as we 
 might to resist it, we all felt the one sad conclusion which 
 those empty places persisted in forcing on our minds. It 
 was surely too plain that some terrible report, affecting the 
 character of the unhappy woman at the head of the table, had 
 unexpectedly come to light, and had at one blow destroyed 
 her position in the estimation of her husband's friends. In 
 the face of the excuses in the drawing-room, in the face of 
 the empty places at the dinner table, what could the friend- 
 liest guests do, to any good purpose, to help the husband and 
 wife in their sore and sudden need ? They could say good- 
 night at the earliest possible opportunity^ and mercifully leave 
 the married pair to themselves. 
 
 Let it at least be recorded to the credit of the three gentle- 
 men, designated in these pages as A, B, and C, that they were 
 sufficiently ashamed of themselves and their wives to be the 
 first members of the dinner party who left the house. In a 
 few minutes more we rose to follow their example. Mrs. 
 Germaine earnestly requested that we would delay our de- 
 parture. 
 
 " "Wait a few minutes," she whispered, with a glance at her 
 husband. " I have something to say to you before you go." 
 
 She left us, and, taking Mr. Germaine by the arm, led him 
 away to the opposite side of the room. The two held a little 
 colloquy together in low voices. The husband closed the con- 
 sultation by lifting the wife's hand to his lips. 
 
 " Do as you please, my love," he said to her. " I leave it 
 entirely to you." 
 
 He sat down sorrowfully, lost in his thoughts. Mrs. Ger- 
 maine unlocked a cabinet at the farther end of the room, and 
 returned to us, alone, carrying a small port-folio in her hand. 
 
 " No words of mine can tell you how gratefully I feel your 
 kindness," she said, with perfect simplicity, and with perfect 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 15 
 
 dignity at the same time. " Under very trying circumstances, 
 you have treated me with the tenderness and the sympathy 
 which you might have shown to an old friend. The one re- 
 turn I can make for all that I owe to you is to admit you to 
 my fullest confidence, and to leave you to judge for yourselves 
 whether I deserve the treatment which I have received to- 
 night." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. She paused to control herself. 
 "We both begged her to say no more. Her husband, join- 
 ing us, added his entreaties to ours. She thanked us, but 
 she persisted. Like most sensitively organized persons, she 
 could be resolute when she believed that the occasion called 
 for it. 
 
 " I have a few words more to say," she resumed, address- 
 ing my wife. "You are the only married woman who has 
 come to our little dinner party. The marked absence of the 
 other wives explains itself. It is not for me to say whether 
 they are right or wrong in refusing to sit at our table. My 
 dear husband — who knows my whole life as well as I know 
 it myself — expressed the wish that we should invite these la- 
 dies. He wrongly supposed that his estimate of me would 
 be the estimate accepted by his friends ; and neither he nor I 
 anticipated that the misfortunes of my past life would be re- 
 vealed by some person acquainted with them, whose treach- 
 ery we have yet to discover. The least I can do, by way of 
 acknowledging your kindness, is to place you in the same po- 
 sition toward me which the other ladies now occupy. The 
 circumstances under which I have become the wife of Mr. 
 Germaine are, in some respects, very remarkable. They are 
 related, without suppression or reserve, in a little narrative 
 which my husband wrote, at the time of our marriage, for 
 the satisfaction of one of his absent relatives, whose good 
 opinion he was unwilling to forfeit. The manuscript is in 
 this port-folio. After what has happened, I ask you both to 
 read it, as a personal favor .to me. It is for you to decide, 
 
16 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 when you know all, whether I am a fit person for an honest 
 woman to associate with or not." 
 
 She held out her hand, with a sweet, sad smile, and bid us 
 good-night. My wife, in her impulsive way, forgot the for- 
 malities proper to the occasion, and kissed her at parting. 
 At that one little act of sisterly sympathy, the fortitude which 
 the poor creature had preserved all through the evening gave 
 way in an instant. She burst into tears. 
 
 I felt as fond of her and as sorry for her as my wife. But 
 (unfortunately) I could not take my wife's privilege of kiss- 
 ing her. On our way down -stairs, I found the opportunity 
 of saying a cheering word to her husband as he accompanied 
 us to the door. 
 
 " Before I open this," I remarked, pointing to the port-folio 
 under my arm, " my mind is made up, sir, about one thing. 
 If I wasn't married already, I tell you this — I should envy 
 you your wife." 
 
 He pointed to the port-folio in his turn. 
 
 " Read what I have written there," he said ; " and you will 
 understand what those false friends of mine have made me 
 suffer to-night." 
 
 The next morning my wife and I opened the port-folio, and 
 read the strange story of George Germaine's marriage. 
 
MY WIFE, IN HBK IMPULSIVE WAT KISSED HEK AI PARTING. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 19 
 
 <frj)e iNarratitJC 
 
 GEORGE GERMAINE WRITES, AND TELLS HIS OWN LOVE STORY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 GEEENWATER BEOAD. 
 
 Look back, my memory, through the dim labyrinth of the 
 past, through the mingling joys and sorrows of twenty years. 
 Rise again, my boyhood's days, by the winding green shores 
 of the little lake. Come to me once more, my child-love, in 
 the innocent beauty of your first ten years of life. Let us 
 live again, my angel, as we lived in our first paradise, before 
 sin and sorrow lifted their flaming swords, and drove us out 
 into the world. 
 
 The month was March. The last wild fowl of the season 
 were floating on the waters of the lake which, in our Suffolk 
 tongue, we called Greenwater Broad. 
 
 Wind where it might, the grassy banks and the overhang- 
 ing trees tinged the lake with the soft green reflections from 
 which it took its name. In a creek at the south end, the 
 boats were kept — my own pretty sailing boat having a tiny 
 natural harbor all to itself. In a creek at the north end stood 
 the great trap (called a " decoy "), used for snaring the wild 
 fowl which flocked every winter, by thousands and thousands, 
 to Greenwater Broad. 
 
 My little Mary and I went out together, hand in hand, to 
 see the last birds of the season lured into the decoy. 
 
20 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 The outer part of the strange bird-trap rose from the wa- 
 ters of the lake in a series of circular arches, formed of elastic 
 branches bent to the needed shape, and covered with folds of 
 fine net-work, making the roof. Little by little diminishing 
 in size, the arches and their net- work followed the secret 
 windings of the creek inland to its end. Built back round 
 the arches, on their landward side, ran a wooden paling, high 
 enough to hide a man kneeling behind it from the view of 
 the birds on the lake. At certain intervals a hole was broken 
 in the paling just large enough to allow of the passage 
 through it of a dog of the terrier or the spaniel breed. And 
 there began and ended the simple yet sufficient mechanism of 
 the decoy. 
 
 In those days I was thirteen, and Mary was ten years old. 
 Walking on our way to the lake, we had Mary's father with 
 us for guide and companion. The good man served as bailiff 
 on my father's estate. He was, besides, a skilled master in 
 the art of decoying ducks. The dog that helped him (we 
 used no tame ducks as decoys in Suffolk) was a little black 
 terrier: a skilled master also, in his way; a creature who 
 possessed, in equal proportions, the enviable advantages of 
 perfect good humor and perfect common sense. 
 
 The dog followed the bailiff, and we followed the dog. 
 
 Arrived at the paling which surrounded the decoy, the 
 dog sat down to wait until he was wanted. The bailiff and 
 the children crouched behind the paling, and peeped through 
 the outermost dog-hole, which commanded a full view of the 
 lake. It was a day without wind : not a ripple stirred the 
 surface of the water; the soft gray clouds filled all the sky, 
 and hid the sun from view. 
 
 We peeped thi-ough the hole in the paling. There were 
 the wild ducks — collected within easy reach of the decoy — 
 placidly dressing their feathers on the placid surface of the 
 lake. 
 
 The bailiff looked at the dog, and made a sign. The dog 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 21 
 
 looked at the bailiff; and, stepping forward quietly, passed 
 through the hole, so as to show himself on the narrow strip 
 of ground shelving down from the outer side of the paling to 
 the lake. 
 
 First one duck, then another, then half a dozen together, 
 discovered the dog. 
 
 A new object showing ftself on the solitavy scene instantly 
 became an object of all -devouring curiosity to the ducks. 
 The outermost of them began to swim slowly toward the 
 strange four-footed creature, planted motionless on the bank. 
 By twos and threes, the main body of the water-fowl gradual- 
 ly followed the advanced guard. Swimming nearer and near- 
 er to the dog, the wary ducks suddenly came to a halt, and, 
 poised on the water, viewed from a safe distance the phe- 
 nomenon on the land. 
 
 The bailiff, kneeling behind the paling, whispered, " Trim I" 
 
 Hearing his name, the terrier turned about, and, retiring 
 through the hole, became lost to the view of the ducks. Mo- 
 tionless on the water, the wild fowl wondered and waited. 
 In a minute more, the dog had trotted round, and had shown 
 himself through the next hole in the paling, pierced farther 
 inward where the lake ran up into the outermost of the wind- 
 ings of the creek. 
 
 The second appearance of the terrier instantly produced a 
 second fit of curiosity among the ducks. With one accord, 
 they swam forward again, to get another and a nearer view 
 of the dog; then, judging their safe distance once more, they 
 stopped for the second time, under the outermost arch of the 
 decoy. Again the dog vanished, and the puzzled ducks 
 waited. An interval passed, and the third appearance of 
 Trim took place, through a third hole in the paling, pierced 
 farther inland up the creek. For the third time irresistible 
 curiosity urged the ducks to advance farther and farther in- 
 ward, under the fatal arches of the decoy. A fourth and a 
 fifth time the game went on, until the dog had lured the wa- 
 
22 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ter-fowl from point to point into the inner recesses of the de- 
 coy. There a last appearance of Trim took place. A last 
 advance, a last cautious pause, was made by the ducks. The 
 bailiff touched the strings, the weighted net-work fell vertic- 
 ally into the water, and closed the decoy. There, by dozens 
 and dozens, were the ducks, caught by means of their own cu- 
 riosity — with nothing but a little dog for a bait ! In a few 
 hours afterward they were all dead ducks on their way to the 
 London market. 
 
 As the last act in the curious comedy of the decoy came 
 to its end, little Mary laid her hand on my shoulder, and, rais- 
 ing herself on tiptoe, whispered in my ear : 
 
 " George, come home with me. I have got something to 
 show you that is better worth seeing than the ducks." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " It's a surprise. I won't tell you." 
 
 " Will you give me a kiss ?" 
 
 The charming little creature put her slim sunburned arms 
 round my neck, and answered, 
 
 "As many kisses as you like, George." 
 
 It was innocently said, on her side. It was innocently 
 done, on mine. The good easy bailiff, looking aside at the 
 moment from his ducks, discovered us pursuing our boy- 
 and-girl courtship in each other's arms. He shook his 
 big forefinger at us, with something of a sad and doubting 
 smile. 
 
 " Ah, Master George, Master George !" he said. " When 
 your father comes home, do you think he will approve of his 
 son and heir kissing his bailiff's daughter?" 
 
 "When my father comes home," I answered, with great 
 dignity, "I shall tell him the truth. I shall say I am going 
 to marry your daughter." 
 
 The bailiff burst out laughing, and looked back again at his 
 ducks. 
 
 " Well, well 1" we heard him say to himself. " They're 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 23 
 
 only children. There's no call, poor things, to part them yet 
 a while." 
 
 Mary and I had a great dislike to be called children. Prop- 
 erly understood, one of us was a lady aged ten, and the other 
 was a gentleman aged thirteen. We left the good bailiff in- 
 dignantly, and went away together, hand in hand, to the cot- 
 tage. 
 
24 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 TWO YOUNG HEABTS. 
 
 " He is growing too fast," said the doctor to my mother ; 
 "and he is getting a great deal too clever for a boy at his 
 age. Remove him from school, ma'am, for six months ; let 
 him run about in the open air at home ; and if you find him 
 with a book in his hand, take it away directly. There is my 
 prescription." 
 
 Those words decided my fate in life. 
 
 In obedience to the doctor's advice, I was left an idle boy 
 — without brothers, sisters, or companions of my own age — 
 to roam about the grounds of our lonely country-house. The 
 bailiff's daughter, like me, was an only child ; and, like me, 
 she had no playfellows. We met in our wanderings on the 
 solitary shores of the lake. Beginning by being inseparable 
 companions, we ripened and developed into true lovers. Our 
 preliminary courtship concluded, we next proposed (before I 
 returned to school) to burst into complete maturity by becom- 
 ing man and wife. 
 
 I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to 
 " sensible people," we two children were lovers, if ever there 
 were lovers yet. 
 
 We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleas- 
 ure which we found in each other's society. We objected to 
 the night, because it parted us. We entreated our parents, 
 on either side, to let us sleep in the same room. I was angry 
 with my mother, and Mary was disappointed in her father, 
 when they laughed at lis, and wondered what we should want 
 next. Looking onward, from those days to the days of my 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 25 
 
 manhood, I can vividly recall such hours of happiness as have 
 fallen to my share. But I remember no delights of that later 
 time comparable to the exquisite and enduring pleasure that 
 filled my young being when I walked with Mary in the 
 woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the lake; 
 when I met Mary, after the cruel separation of the night, and 
 flew into her open arms as if we had been parted for months 
 and months together. 
 
 What was the attraction thaVdrew us so closely one to the 
 other, at an age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in 
 her and in me ? 
 
 We neither knew nor sought to know. We obeyed the 
 impulse to love one another, as a bird obeys the impulse to 
 
 fly- 
 
 Let it not be supposed that we possessed any natural gifts 
 or advantages which singled us out as differing in a marked 
 way from other children at our time of life. We possessed 
 nothing of the sort. I had been called a clever boy at school ; 
 but there were thousands of other boys, at thousands of oth- 
 er schools, who headed their classes and won their prizes, like 
 me. Personally speaking, I was in no way remarkable — ex- 
 cept for being, in the ordinary phrase, " tall for -my age." On 
 her side, Mary displayed no striking attractions. She was a 
 fragile child, with mild gray eyes and a pale complexion ; sin- 
 gularly undemonstrative, singularly shy and silent, except 
 when she was alone with me. Such beauty as she had, in 
 those early days, lay in a certain artless purity and tenderness 
 of expression, and in the charming reddish-brown color of her 
 hair, varying quaintly and prettily in different lights. To all 
 outward appearance two perfectly commonplace children, we 
 were mysteriously united by some kindred association of the 
 spirit in her and the spirit in me, which not only defied dis- 
 covery by our young selves, but which lay too deep for in- 
 vestigation by far older and far wiser heads than ours. 
 
 You will naturally wonder whether .any thing was done by 
 
 2 
 
26 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 our elders to check our precocious attachment, while it was 
 still an innocent love union between a boy and a girl. 
 
 Nothing was done by my father, for the simple reason 
 that he was away from home. 
 
 He was a man of a restless and speculative turn of mind. 
 Inheriting his estate burdened with debt, his grand ambition 
 was to increase his small available income by his own exer- 
 tions; to set up an establishment in London; and to climb 
 to political distinction by the ladder of Parliament. An old 
 friend, who had emigrated to America, had proposed to him a 
 speculation in agriculture, in one of the Western States, which 
 was to make both their fortunes. My father's eccentric fancy 
 was struck by the idea. For more than a year past he had 
 been away from us in the United States ; and all we knew of 
 him (instructed by his letters) was, that he might be shortly 
 expected to return to us in the enviable character of one of 
 the richest men in England. 
 
 As for my poor mother — the sweetest and softest-hearted 
 of women — to see me happy was all that she desired. 
 
 The quaint little love romance of the two children amused 
 and interested her. She jested with Mary's father about the 
 coming union between the two families, without one serious 
 thought of the future — without even a foreboding of what 
 might happen when my father returned. " Sufficient for the 
 day is the evil (or the good) thereof," had been my mother's 
 motto all her life. She agreed with the easy philosophy of 
 the bailiff, already recorded in these pages : " They're only 
 children. There's no call, poor things, to part them yet a 
 while !" 
 
 There was one member of the family, however, who took a 
 sensible and serious view of the matter. 
 
 My father's brother paid us a visit in our solitude ; discov-1 
 ered what was going on between Mary and me ; and was, at 
 first, naturally enough, inclined to laugh at us. Closer inves- 
 tigation altered his way of thinking. He became convinced 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 27 
 
 that my mother was acting like a fool; that the bailiff (a 
 faithful servant, if ever there was one yet) was cunningly ad- 
 vancing his own interests by means of his daughter ; and that 
 I was a young idiot, who had developed his native reserves of 
 imbecility at an unusually early period of life. Speaking to 
 my mother under the influence of these strong impressions, 
 my uncle offered to take me back with him to London, and 
 keep me there until I had been brought to my senses by asso- 
 ciation with his own children, and by careful superintendence 
 under his own roof. 
 
 My mother hesitated about accepting this proposal: she 
 had the advantage over my uncle of understanding my dispo- 
 sition. While she was still doubting, while my uncle was still 
 impatiently waiting for her decision, I settled the question for 
 my elders by running away. 
 
 I left a letter to represent me in my absence ; declaring that 
 no mortal power should part me from Mary, and promising to 
 return and ask my mother's pardon as soon as my uncle had 
 left the house. The strictest search was made for me with- 
 out discovering a trace of my place of refuge. My uncle de- 
 parted for London, predicting that I should live to be a dis- 
 grace to the family, and announcing that he should transmit 
 his opinion of me to my father in America by the next mail. 
 
 The secret of the hiding-place in which I contrived to defy 
 discovery is soon told. I was hidden (without the bailiff's 
 knowledge) in the bedroom of the bailiff's mother. And did 
 the bailiff's mother know it? you will ask. To which I an- 
 swer : the bailiff's mother did it. And, what is more, glo- 
 ried in doing it — not, observe, as an act of hostility to my rel- 
 atives, but simply as a duty that lay on her conscience. 
 
 What sort of old woman, in the name of all that is wonder- 
 ful, was this ? Let her appear, and speak for herself — the 
 wild and weird grandmother of gentle little Mary ; the Sibyl 
 of modern times, known, far and wide, in our part of Suffolk, 
 as Dame Dermody. 
 
28 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I see her again, as I write, sitting in her son's pretty cot- 
 tage parlor, hard by the window, so that the light fell over 
 her shoulder while she knitted or read. A little, lean, wiry 
 old woman was Dame Dermody — with fierce black eyes, sur- 
 mounted by bushy white eyebrows, by a high wrinkled fore- 
 head, and by thick white hair gathered neatly under her old- 
 fashioned " mob-cap." Report whispered (and whispered 
 truly) that she had been a lady by birth and breeding, and 
 that she had deliberately closed her prospects in life by mar- 
 rying a man greatly her inferior in social rank. Whatever 
 her family might think of her marriage, she herself never re- 
 gretted it. In her estimation her husband's memory was a 
 sacred memory; his spirit was a guardian spirit, watching 
 over her, waking or sleeping, morning or night. 
 
 Holding this faith, she was in no respect influenced by those 
 grossly material ideas of modern growth which associate the 
 presence of spiritual beings with clumsy conjuring tricks and 
 monkey antics performed on tables and chairs. Dame Der- 
 mody's nobler superstition formed an integral part of her re- 
 ligious convictions — convictions which had long since found 
 their chosen resting-place in the mystic doctrines of Emanuel 
 Swedenborg. The only books which she read were the works 
 of the Swedish Seer. She mixed up Swedenborg's teachings 
 on angels and departed spirits, on love to one's neighbor and 
 purity of life, with wild fancies, and kindred beliefs of her 
 own ; and preached the visionary religious doctrines thus de- 
 rived, not only in the bailiff's household, but also on prosely- 
 tizing expeditions to the households of her humble neighbors, 
 far and near. 
 
 Under her son's roof — after the death of his wife — she 
 reigned a supreme power ; priding herself alike on her close 
 attention to her domestic duties, and on her privileged com- 
 munications with angels and spirits. She would hold long 
 colloquys with the spirit of her dead husband before any body 
 who happened to be present — colloquys which struck the 
 
THE SIBYL LAID HER DKT, FLESHLESS HAND ON MY SHOULDER. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 31 
 
 simple spectators irmte with terror. To her mystic view, the. 
 love union between Mary and me was something too sacred 
 and too beautiful to be tried by the mean and matter-of-fact 
 tests set up by society. She wrote for us little formulas of 
 prayer and praise, which we were to use when we met and 
 when we parted, day by day. She solemnly warned her son 
 to look upon us as two young consecrated creatures, walking 
 unconsciously on a heavenly pafoi of their own, whose begin- 
 ning was on earth, but whose buight end was among the an- 
 gels in a better state of being. Imagine my appearing before 
 such a woman as this, and telling her with tears of despair 
 that I, was determined to die, rather than let my uncle part 
 me from little Mary, and you will no longer be astonished 
 at the hospitality which threw open to me the sanctuary of 
 Dame Dermody's own room. 
 
 When the safe time came for leaving my hiding-place, I 
 committed a serious mistake. In thanking the old woman at 
 parting, I said to her (with a boy's sense of honor), "I won't 
 tell upon you, Dame. My mother sha'n't know that you hid 
 me in your bedroom." 
 
 The Sibyl laid her dry, fleshless hand on my shoulder, and 
 forced me roughly back into the chair from which I had just 
 risen. 
 
 " Boy !" she said, looking through and through me with 
 her fierce black eyes. " Do you dare suppose that I ever did 
 any thing that I was ashamed of? Do you think I am 
 ashamed of what I have done now? Wait there. Your 
 mother may mistake me too. I shall write to your moth- 
 er." 
 
 She put on her great round spectacles with tortoise -shell 
 rims, and sat down to her letter.. Whenever her thoughts 
 flagged, whenever she was at a loss for an expression, she 
 looked over her shoulder, as if some visible creature were sta- 
 tioned behind her, watching what she wrote ; consulted the 
 spirit of her husband, exactly as she might have consulted a 
 
32 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 living man ; smiled softly to herself, and went on with her 
 writing. 
 
 " There !" she said, handing me the completed letter with 
 an imperial gesture of indulgence. "His mind and my mind 
 are written there. Go, boy. I pardon you. Give my letter 
 to your mother." 
 
 So she always spoke, with the same formal and measured 
 dignity of manner and language. 
 
 I gave the letter to my i|jpther. We read it, and marveled 
 over it together. Thus, counseled by the ever-present spirit 
 of her husband, Dame Dermody wrote : 
 
 "Madam, — I have taken what you may be inclined to 
 think a great liberty. I have assisted your son George in 
 setting his uncle's authority at defiance. I have encouraged 
 your son George in his resolution to be true, in time and in 
 eternity, to my grandchild, Mary Dermody. 
 
 "It is due to you and to me that I should tell you with 
 what motive I have acted in doing these things. 
 
 " I hold the belief that all love that is true is foreordained 
 and consecrated in heaven. Spirits destined to be united in 
 the better world are divinely commissioned to discover each 
 other and to begin their union in this world. The only hap- 
 py marriages are those in which the two destined spirits have 
 succeeded in meeting one another in this sphere of life. 
 
 " When the kindred spirits have once met, no human pow- 
 er can really part them. Sooner or later, they must, by di- 
 vine law, find each other again, and become united spirits 
 once more. Worldly wisdom may force them into widely 
 different ways of life ; worldly wisdom may delude them, or 
 may make them delude themselves, into contracting an earth- 
 ly and a fallible union. It matters nothing. The time will 
 certainly come when that union will manifest itself as earthly 
 and fallible ; and the two disunited spirits, finding each other 
 again, will become united here for the world beyond this — 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 33 
 
 united, I tell you, in defiance of all human laws and of all hu- 
 man notions of right and wrong. 
 
 "This is my belief. I have proved it by my own life. 
 Maid, wife, and widow, I have held to it, and I have found it 
 good. 
 
 " I was born, madam, in the rank of society to which you 
 belong. I received the mean, material teaching which fulfills 
 the worldly notion of education. Thanks be to God, my kin- 
 dred spirit met my spirit whil^K was still young. I knew 
 true love and true union before I was twenty years of age. 
 I married, madam, in the rank from which Christ chose his 
 apostles — I married a laboring-man. No human language 
 can tell my happiness while we lived united here. His death 
 has not parted us. He helps me to write this letter. In my 
 last hours I shall see him standing among the angels, waiting 
 for me on the banks of the shining river. 
 
 " You will now understand the view I take of the tie which 
 unites the young spirits of our children at the bright outset 
 of their lives. 
 
 " Believe me, the thing which your husband's brother has 
 proposed to you to do is a sacrilege and a profanation. I 
 own to you freely that I look on what I have done toward 
 thwarting your relative in this matter as an act of virtue. 
 Tou can not expect me to think it a serious obstacle to a 
 union predestined in heaven, that your son is the squire's heir, 
 and that my grandchild is only the bailiff's daughter. Dis- 
 miss from your mind, I implore you, the unworthy and un- 
 christian prejudices of rank. Are we not all equal before 
 God ? Are we not all equal (even in this world) before dis- 
 ease and death? Not your son's happiness only, but your 
 own peace of mind, is concerned in taking heed to my words. 
 I warn you, madam, you can not hinder the destined union 
 of these two child -spirits, in after -years, as man and wife. 
 Part them now — and tou will be responsible for the sacri- 
 fices, degradations, and distresses through which your George 
 
 2* 
 
34 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 and my Mary may be condemned to pass on their way back 
 to each other in later life. 
 
 " Now my mind is unburdened. Now I have said all. 
 
 " If I have spoken too freely, or have in any other way un- 
 wittingly offended, I ask your pardon, and remain, madam, 
 your faithful servant and well-wisher, 
 
 "Helen Deemodt." 
 
 So the letter ended. w 
 
 To me it is something more than a mere curiosity of 
 epistolary composition. I see in it the prophecy — strangely 
 fulfilled in later years — of events in Mary's life, and in mine, 
 which future pages are now to tell. 
 
 My mother decided on leaving the letter unanswered. 
 Like many of her poorer neighbors, she was a little afraid of 
 Dame Dermody ; and she was, besides, habitually averse to 
 all discussions which turned on the mysteries of spiritual life. 
 I was reproved, admonished, and forgiven ; and there was the 
 end of it. 
 
 For some happy weeks Mary and I returned, without hin- 
 derance or interruption, to our old intimate companionship. 
 The end was coming, however, when we least expected it. 
 My mother was startled, one morning, by a letter from my fa- 
 ther, which informed her that he had been unexpectedly 
 obliged to sail for England at a moment's notice ; that he 
 had arrived in London, and that he was detained there by 
 business which would admit of no delay. We were to wait 
 for him at home, in daily expectation of seeing him the mo- 
 ment he was free. 
 
 This news filled my mother's mind with foreboding doubts 
 of the stability of her husband's grand speculation in Amer- 
 ica. The sudden departure from the United States,and the 
 mysterious delay in London, were ominous, to her eyes, of 
 misfortune to come. I am now writing of those dark days 
 in the past, when the railway and the electric telegraph were 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 35 
 
 still visions in the minds of inventors. Rapid communication 
 with my father (even if he would have consented to take us 
 into his confidence) was impossible. We had no choice but 
 to wait and hope. 
 
 The weary days passed ; and still my father's brief letters 
 described him as detained by his business. The morning 
 came when Mary and I went out with Dermody, the bailiff, 
 to see the last wild fowl of the season lured into the decoy ; 
 and still the welcome home waitfled for the master, and wait- 
 ed in vain. 
 
36 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SWEDENBOKG AND THE SIBYL. 
 
 My narrative may move on again from the point at which 
 it paused in the first chapter. 
 
 Mary and I (as you may remember) had left the bailiff 
 alone at the decoy, and had set forth on our way together to 
 Dermody's cottage. 
 
 As we approached the garden gate, I saw a servant from 
 the house waiting there. He carried a message from my 
 mother — a message for me. 
 
 " My mistress wishes you to go home, Master George, as 
 soon as you can. A letter has come by the coach. My mas- 
 ter means to take a post-chaise from London, and sends word 
 that we may expect him in the coarse of the day." 
 
 Mary's attentive face saddened when she heard those 
 words. 
 
 " Must you really go away, George," she whispered, " be- 
 fore you see what I have got waiting for you at home ?" 
 
 I remembered Mary's promised "surprise," the secret of 
 which was only to be revealed to me when we got to the cot- 
 tage. How could I disappoint her ? My poor little lady-love 
 looked ready to cry at the bare prospect of it. 
 
 I dismissed the servant with a message of the temporizing 
 sort. My love to my mother — and I would be back at the 
 house in half an hour. 
 
 We entered the cottage. 
 
 Dame Dermody was sitting in the light of the window, as 
 usual, with one of the mystic books of Emanuel Swedenborg 
 open on her lap. She solemnly lifted her hand on our ap- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 37 
 
 pearance, signing to us to occupy our customary corner with- 
 out speaking to her. It was an act of domestic high treason 
 to interrupt the Sibyl at her books. We crept quietly into 
 our places. Mary waited until she saw her grandmother's 
 gray head bend down, and her grandmother's bushy eyebrows 
 contract attentively, over her reading. Then, and then only, 
 the discreet child rose on tiptoe, disappeared noiselessly in 
 the direction of her bed-chamber, and came back to me car- 
 rying something carefully wrapped up in her best cambric 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Is that the surprise ?" I whispered. 
 
 Mary whispered back, " Guess what it is !" 
 
 " Something for me ?" 
 
 " Yes. Go on guessing. What is it ?" 
 
 I guessed three times, and each guess was wrong. Mary 
 decided on helping me by a hint. 
 
 " Say your letters," she suggested ; " and go on till I stop 
 you." 
 
 I began : "A, B, C, D, E, F— " There she stopped me. 
 
 " It's the name of a Thing," she said ; " and it begins with 
 F." 
 
 I guessed, " Fern," " Feather," " Fife." And there my re- 
 sources failed me. 
 
 Mary sighed, and shook her head. " You don't take 
 pains," she said. " You are three whole years older than I 
 am. After all the trouble I have taken to please you, you 
 may be too big to care for my present when you see it. 
 Guess again." 
 
 " I can't guess." ^ 
 
 " You must !" 
 
 " I give it up." 
 
 Maiy refused to let me give it up. She helped me by 
 another hint. 
 
 " What did you once say you wished you had in your 
 boat ?" she asked. 
 
38 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " Was it long ago ?" I inquired, at a loss for an answer. 
 
 " Long, long ago ! Before the winter. When the autumn 
 leaves were falling, and you took me out one evening for a 
 sail. Ah, George, you have forgotten !" 
 
 Too true, of me and of my brethren, old and young alike ! 
 It is always his love that forgets, and her love that remem- 
 bers. We were only two children, and we were types of 
 the man and the woman already. 
 
 Mary lost patience with me. Forgetting the terrible pres- 
 ence of her grandmother, she jumped up, and snatched the 
 concealed object out of the handkerchief. 
 
 " There !" she cried, briskly, " now do you know what it 
 is?" 
 
 I remembered at last. The thing I had wished for in my 
 boat, all those months ago, was a new flag. And here was 
 the flag, made for me in secret by Mary's own hand ! The 
 ground was green silk, with a dove embroidered on it in 
 white, carrying in its beak the typical olive-branch, wrought 
 in gold thread. The work was the tremulous, uncertain work 
 of a child's fingers. But how faithfully my little darling 
 had remembered my wish! how patiently she had plied the 
 needle over the traced lines of the pattern ! how industrious- 
 ly she had labored through the dreary winter days! and all 
 for my sake ! What words could tell my pride, my grati- 
 tude, my happiness ? I too forgot the presence of the Sibyl 
 bending over her book. I took the little work-woman in my 
 arms, and kissed her till I was fairly out of breath and could 
 kiss no longer. 
 
 " Mary !" I burst out, in the first heat of my enthusiasm, 
 " my father is coming home to-day. I will speak to him to- 
 night. And I will marry you to-morrow !" 
 
 " Boy !" said the awful voice at the other end of the room. 
 " Come here." 
 
 Dame Dermody's mystic book was closed ; Dame Dermo- 
 dy's weird black eyes were watching us in our corner. I ap- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 39 
 
 proached her ; and Mary followed me timidly, by a footstep 
 at a time. 
 
 The Sibyl took me by the hand, with a caressing gentleness 
 which was new in my experience of her. 
 
 " Do you prize that toy ?" she inquired, looking at the flag. 
 " Hide it !" she cried, before I could answer. " Hide it — or 
 it may be taken from you !" 
 
 " Why should I hide it ?" I asked. " I want to fly it at the 
 mast of my boat." 
 
 " You will never fly it at the mast of your boat!" With 
 that answer, she took the flag from me, and thrust it impa- 
 tiently into the breast-pocket of my jacket. 
 
 " Don't crumple it, grandmother !" said Mary, piteously. 
 
 I, repeated my question : 
 
 " Why shall I never fly it at the mast of my boat ?" 
 
 Dame Dermody laid her hand on the closed volume of 
 Swedenborg lying in her lap. 
 
 " Three times I have opened this book since the morning," 
 she said. " Three times the words of the prophet warn me 
 that there is trouble coming. Children, it is trouble that is 
 coming to You. I look there," she went on, pointing to the 
 place where a ray of sunlight poured slantingly into the room, 
 " and I see my husband in the heavenly light. He bows his 
 head in grief, and he points his unerring hand at You. 
 George and Mary, you are consecrated to each other ! Be 
 always worthy of your consecration; be always worthy of 
 yourselves." She paused. Her voice faltered. She looked 
 at us with softening eyes, as those look who know sadly that 
 there is a parting at hand. " Kneel !" she said, in low tones 
 of awe and grief. " It may be the last time I bless you — it 
 may be the last time I pray over you, in this house. Kneel !" 
 
 We knelt close together at her feet. I could feel Mary's 
 heart throbbing, as she pressed nearer and nearer to my side. 
 I could feel my own heart quickening its beat, with a fear 
 that was a mystery to me. 
 
40 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " God bless and keep George and Mary, here and here- 
 after ! God prosper, in future days, the union which God's 
 wisdom has willed ! Amen. So be it. Amen." 
 
 As the last words fell from her lips the cottage door was 
 thrust open. My father — followed by the bailiff — entered 
 the room. 
 
 Dame Dermody got slowly on her feet, and looked at him 
 with a stern scrutiny. 
 
 " It has come," she said to herself. " It looks with the 
 eyes — it will speak with the voice — of that man." 
 
 My father broke the silence that followed, addressing him- 
 self to the bailiff. 
 
 " You see, Dermody," he said, " here is my son in your 
 cottage — when he- ought to be in my house." He turned, 
 and looked at me as I stood with my arm round little Mary, 
 patiently waiting for my opportunity to speak. " George," 
 he said, with the hard smile which was peculiar to him, when 
 he was angry and was trying to hide it, " you are making a 
 fool of yourself there. Leave that child, and come to me." 
 
 Now, or never, was my time to declare myself. Judging 
 by appearances, I was still a boy. Judging by my own sen- 
 sations, I had developed into a man at a moment's notice. 
 
 " Papa," I said, " I am glad to see you home again. This 
 is Mary Dermody. I am in love with her, and she is in love 
 with me. I wish to marry her as soon as it is convenient to 
 my mother and you." 
 
 My father burst out laughing. Before I could speak again, 
 his humor changed. He had observed that Dermody, too, 
 presumed to be amused. He seemed to become mad with 
 anger, all in a moment. 
 
 " I have been told of this infernal tomfoolery," he said, 
 " but I didn't believe it till now. Who has turned the boy's 
 weak head? Who has encouraged him to stand there hug- 
 ging that girl ? If it's you, Dermody, it shall be the worst 
 day's work you ever did in your life." He turned to me 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 41 
 
 again, before the bailiff could defend himself. " Do you hear 
 what I say? I tell you to leave Dermody's girl, and come 
 home with me." 
 
 " Yes, papa," I answered. " But I must go back to Mary, 
 if you please, after I have been with you." 
 
 Angry as he was, my father was positively staggered by 
 my audacity. 
 
 " You young idiot, your insolence exceeds belief !" he burst 
 out. "I tell you this: you will never darken these doors 
 again ! You have been taught to disobey me, here. You 
 have had things put into your head, here, which no boy of 
 your age ought to know — I'll say more, which no decent peo- 
 ple would have let you know." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, sir," Dermody interposed, very re- 
 spectfully and very firmly at the same time. "There are 
 many things which a master in a hot temper is privileged to 
 say to the man who serves him. But you have gone beyond 
 your privilege. You have shamed me, sir, in the presence of 
 my mother, in the hearing of my child — " 
 
 My father checked him there. 
 
 " You may spare the rest of it," he said. " We are master 
 and servant no longer. When my son came hanging about 
 your cottage, and playing at sweethearts with your girl 
 there, your duty was to close the door on him. You have 
 failed in your duty. I trust you no longer. Take a month's 
 notice, Dermody. You leave my service." 
 
 The bailiff steadily met my father on his own ground. He 
 was no longer the easy, sweet-tempered, modest man who was 
 the man of my remembrance. 
 
 " I beg to decline taking your month's notice, sir," he an- 
 swered. " You shall have no opportunity of repeating what 
 you have just said to me. I will send in my accounts to- 
 night. And I will leave your service to-morrow." 
 
 " We agree for once," retorted my father. " The sooner 
 you go, the better." 
 
42 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 He stepped across the room, and put his hand on my shoul- 
 der. 
 
 " Listen to me," he said, making a last effort to control 
 himself. "I don't want to quarrel with you before a dis- 
 carded servant. There must be an end to this nonsense. 
 Leave these people to pack up and go, and come back to the 
 house with me." 
 
 His heavy hand, pressing on my shoulder, seemed to press 
 the spirit of resistance out of me. I so far gave way as to 
 try to melt him by entreaties. 
 
 " Oh, papa ! papa !" I cried. " Don't part me from Mary ! 
 See how pretty and good she is! She has made me a flag 
 for my boat. Let me come here and see her sometimes. I 
 can't live without her !" 
 
 I could say no more. My poor little Mary burst out cry- 
 ing. Her tears and my entreaties were alike wasted on my 
 father. 
 
 " Take your choice," he said, " between coming away of 
 your own accord, or obliging me to take you away by force. 
 I mean to part you and Dermody's girl." 
 
 " Neither you nor any man can part them," interposed a 
 voice, speaking behind us. " Kid your mind of that notion, 
 master, before it is too late." 
 
 My father looked round quickly, and discovered Dame 
 Dermody facing him in the full light of the window.. She 
 had stepped back, at the outset of the dispute, into the corner 
 behind the fire-place. There she had remained, biding her 
 time to speak, until my father's last threat brought her out of 
 her place of retirement. 
 
 They looked at each other for a moment. My father 
 seemed to think it beneath his dignity to answer her. He 
 went on with what he had to say to me. 
 
 " I shall count three slowly," he resumed. " Before I get 
 to the last number, make up your mind to do what I tell you, 
 or submit to the disgrace of being taken away by force." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 43 
 
 " Take him where you may," said Dame Devmody, " he 
 will still be on his way to his marriage' with my grandchild." 
 
 " And where shall I be, if you please ?" asked my father, 
 stung into speaking to her this time. 
 • The answer followed instantly in these startling words : 
 
 " You will be on your way to your ruin and your death." 
 
 My father turned his back on the prophetess with a smile 
 of contempt. 
 
 " One !" he said, beginning to count. 
 
 I set my teeth, and clasped both arms round Mary as he 
 spoke. I had inherited some of his temper, and he was now 
 to know it. 
 
 " Two !" proceeded my father, after waiting a little. 
 
 Mary put her trembling lips to my ear, and whispered, 
 " Let me go, George ! I can't bear to see it. Oh, look how 
 he frowns ! I know he'll hurt you." 
 
 My father lifted his forefinger as a preliminary warning 
 before he counted Three. 
 
 " Stop !" cried Dame Dermody. 
 
 My father looked round at her again with sardonic aston- 
 ishment. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, ma'am — have you any thing particular 
 to say to me ?" he asked. 
 
 " Man !" returned the Sibyl, " you speak lightly. Have I 
 spoken lightly to You? I warn you to bow your wicked 
 will before a Will that is mightier than yours. The spirits 
 of these children are kindred spirits. For time and for eter- 
 nity they are united one to the other. Put land and sea be- 
 tween them — they will still be together ; they will communi- 
 cate in visions, they will be revealed to each other in dreams. 
 Bind them by worldly ties; wed your son, in the time to 
 come, to another woman, and my granddaughter to another 
 man. In vain ! I tell you, in vain ! You may doom them 
 to misery, you may drive them to sin — the day of their union 
 on earth is still a day predestined in heaven. It will come'! 
 
44 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 it will come ! Submit, while the time for submission is yours. 
 You are a doomed man. I see the shadow of disaster, I see 
 the seal of death, on your face. Go ; and leave these conse- 
 crated ones to walk the dark ways of the world together, in 
 the strength of their innocence, in the light of their love. Go 
 — and God forgive you !" £» 
 
 In spite of himself, my father was struck by the irresisti- 
 ble strength of conviction which inspired those words. The 
 bailiff's mother had impressed him as a tragic actress might 
 have impressed him on the stage. She had checked the 
 mocking answer on his lips, but she had not shaken his iron 
 will. His face was as hard as ever when he turned my way 
 once more. 
 
 " The last chance, George," he said, and counted the last 
 number : " Three !" 
 
 I neither moved nor answered him. 
 
 " You will have it ?" he said, as he fastened his hold on my 
 arm. 
 
 I fastened my hold on Mary ; I whispered to her, " I won't 
 leave you !" She seemed not to hear me. She trembled 
 from head to foot in my arms. A faint cry of terror flutter- 
 ed from her lips. Dermody instantly stepped forward. Be- 
 fore my father could wrench me away from her, he had said 
 in my ear, " You can give her to me, Master George," and 
 had released his child from my embrace. She stretched her 
 little frail hands out yearningly to me, as she lay in Dermody's 
 arms. " Good-bye, dear," she said, faintly. I saw her head 
 sink on her father's bosom as I was dragged to the door. In 
 my helpless rage and misery, I struggled against the cruel 
 hands that had got me with all the strength I had left. I 
 cried out to her, " I love you, Mary ! I will come back to 
 you, Mary ! I will never marry any one but you !" Step 
 by step, I was forced farther and farther away. The last I 
 saw of her, my darling's head was still resting on Dermody's 
 breast. Her.grandmother stood near, and shook her withered 
 
III Wmm ■ i. , ■ •'•■' ■ ■r'4' 
 
 MY DARLING S HEAD WAS STILL RESTING ON DERMODY S BREAST. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 47 
 
 hands at my father, and shrieked her terrible prophecy, in 
 the hysteric frenzy that possessed her when she saw the sep- 
 aration accomplished. " Go ! — you go to your ruin ! you go 
 to your death !" While her voice still rang in my ears, the 
 cottage door was opened and closed again. It was all over. 
 The modest world of my boyish love and my boyish joy dis- 
 appeared like the vision of a dream. The empty outer wil- 
 derness, which was my father's world, opened before me void, 
 of love and void of joy. God forgive me — how I hated him 
 at that moment ! 
 
48 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CURTAIN FALLS. 
 
 Fob the rest of the day, and through the night, I was kept 
 a close pi'isoner in my room, watched by a man on whose 
 fidelity my father could depend. 
 
 The next morning I made an effort to escape, and was dis- 
 covered before I had got free of the house. Confined again 
 to my room, I contrived to write to Mary, and to slip my 
 note into the willing hand of the house-maid who attended 
 on me. Useless ! The vigilance of my guardian was not to 
 be evaded. The woman was suspected and followed, and the 
 letter was taken from her. My father tore it up with his 
 own hands. 
 
 Later in the day, my mother was permitted to see me. 
 
 She was quite unfit, poor soul, to intercede for me, or to 
 serve my interests in any way. My father had completely 
 overwhelmed her by announcing that his wife and his son 
 were to accompany him, when he returned to America. 
 
 " Every farthing he has in the world," said my mother, " is 
 to be thrown into that hateful speculation. He has raised 
 money in London ; he has let the house to some rich trades- 
 man for seven years; he has sold the plate, and the jewels 
 that came to me from his mother. The land in America 
 swallows it all up. We have no home, George, and no choice 
 but to go with him." 
 
 An hour afterward the post-chaise was at the door. 
 
 My father himself took me to the carriage. I broke away 
 from him, with a desperation which not even his resolution 
 could resist. I ran, I flew, along the path that led to Der- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 49 
 
 mody's cottage. The door stood open ; the parlor was emp- 
 ty. I went into the kitchen ; I went into the upper rooms. 
 Solitude everywhere. The bailiff had left his place ; and his 
 mother and his daughter had gone with him. No friend or 
 neighbor lingered near with a message ; no letter lay waiting 
 for me ; no hint was left to tell me in what direction they had 
 taken their departure. After the insulting words which his 
 master had spoken to him, Dermody's pride was concerned in 
 leaving no trace of his whereabouts : my father might con- 
 sider it as a trace purposely left, with the object of reuniting 
 Mary and me. I had no keepsake to speak to me of my lost 
 darling but the flag which she had embroidered with her own 
 hand. The furniture still remained in the cottage. I sat 
 down in our customary corner, by Mary's empty chair, and 
 looked again at the pretty green flag, and burst out crying. 
 
 A light touch roused me. My father had so far yielded as 
 to leave to my mother the responsibility of bringing me back 
 to the traveling-carriage. 
 
 " We shall not find Mary here, George," she said, gently. 
 "And we may hear of her in London. Come with me." 
 
 I rose and silently gave her my hand. Something low 
 down on the clean white door-post caught my eye as we 
 passed it. I stooped, and discovered some writing in pencil. 
 I looked closer — it was writing in Mary's hand ! The un- 
 formed childish characters traced these last words of farewell : 
 
 " Good-bye, dear. Don't forget Mary." 
 
 I knelt down and kissed the writing. It comforted me — it 
 was like a farewell touch from Mary's hand. I followed my 
 mother quietly to the carriage. 
 
 Late that night we were in London. 
 
 My good mother did all that the most compassionate kind- 
 ness could do (in her position) to comfort me. She privately 
 wrote to the solicitors employed by her family, inclosing a 
 description of Dermody and his mother and daughter, and 
 directing inquiries to be made at the various coach-offices in 
 
 3 
 
50 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 London. She also referred the lawyers to two of Dermody's 
 relatives, who lived in the city, and who might know some- 
 thing of his movements after he left my. father's service. 
 When she had done this, she had done all that lay in her 
 power. "We neither of us possessed money enough to ad- 
 vertise in the newspapers. 
 
 A week afterward we sailed for the United States. Twice 
 in that interval I communicated with the lawyers ; and twice 
 I was informed that the inquiries had led to nothing. 
 
 With this the first epoch in my love story comes to an 
 end. 
 
 For ten long years afterward I never again met with my 
 little Mary ; I never even heard whether she had lived to 
 grow to womanhood or not. I still kept the green flag, with 
 the dove worked on it. For the rest, the waters of oblivion 
 had closed over the old golden days at Greenwater Broad. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MY STORY. 
 
 When you last saw me, I was a boy of thirteen. You 
 now see me a man of twenty-three. 
 
 The story of my life, in the interval between these two 
 ages, is a story that can be soon told. 
 
 Speaking of my father first, I have to record that the end 
 of his career did indeed come as Dame Dermody had fore- 
 told it. Before we had been a year in America, the total 
 collapse of his land speculation was followed by his death. 
 The catastrophe was complete. But for my mother's little 
 income (settled on her at her marriage) we should both have 
 been left helpless at the mercy of the world. 
 
 We made some kind friends among the hearty and hospi- 
 table people of the United States, whom we were unaffectedly 
 sorry to leave. But there were reasons which inclined us to 
 return to our own country after my father's death ; and we 
 did return accordingly. 
 
 Besides her brotheivin-law (already mentioned in the earli- 
 er pages of my narrative), my mother had another relative — 
 a cousin named Germaine — on whose assistance she mainly 
 relied for starting me, when the time came, in a pi-ofessional 
 career. I remember it as a family rumor, that Mr. Germaine 
 had been an unsuccessful suitor for my mother's hand in the 
 days when they were young people together. He was still a. 
 bachelor at the later period when his eldest brother's death 
 without issue placed him in possession of a handsome for- 
 tune. The accession of wealth made no difference in his hab- 
 its of life : he was a lonely old man, estranged from his other 
 
52 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 relatives, -when my mother and I returned to England. If I 
 could only succeed in pleasing Mr. Germaine, I might consid- 
 er my prospects (in some degree, at least) as being prospects 
 assured. 
 
 This was one consideration that influenced us in leaving 
 America. There was another — in which I was especially in- 
 terested — that drew me back to the lonely shores of Green- 
 water Broad. 
 
 My only hope of recovering a trace of Mary was to make 
 inquiries among the cottagers in the neighborhood of my old 
 home. The good bailiff had been heartily liked and respect- 
 ed in his little sphere. It seemed at least possible that some 
 among his many friends in Suffolk might have discovered 
 traces of him, in the year that had passed since I had left 
 England. In my dreams of Mary — and I dreamed of her 
 constantly — the lake and its woody banks formed a frequent 
 background in the visionary picture of my lost companion. 
 To the lake shores I looked, with a natural superstition, as to 
 my way back to the one life that had its promise of happiness 
 for me — my life with Mary. 
 
 On our arrival in London, I started for Suffolk alone — at 
 my mother's request. At her age she naturally shrunk from 
 revisiting the home scenes now occupied by the strangers to 
 whom our house had been let. 
 
 Ah, how my heart ached (young as I was) when I saw the 
 familiar green waters of the lake once more ! It was even- 
 ing. The first object that caught my eye was the gayly 
 painted boat, once mine, in which Mary and I had so often 
 sailed together. The people in possession of our house were 
 sailing now. The sound of their laughter floated toward me 
 merrily over the still water. Their flag flew at the little 
 mast-head, from which Mary's flag had never fluttered in the 
 pleasant breeze. I turned my eyes from the boat; it hurt 
 me to look at it. A few steps onward brought me to a prom- 
 ontory on the shore, and revealed the brown archways of the 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 53 
 
 decoy on the opposite bank. There was the paling behind 
 which we had knelt to watch the snaring of the ducks ; there 
 was the hole through which " Trim," the terrier, had shown 
 himself to rouse the stupid curiosity of the water-fowl ; there, 
 seen at intervals through the trees, was the winding wood- 
 land path along' which Mary and I had traced our way to 
 Dermody's cottage on the day when my father's cruel hand 
 had torn us from each other. How wisely my good mother 
 had shrunk from looking again at the dear old scenes ! I 
 turned my back on the lake, to think with calmer thoughts in 
 the shadowy solitude of the woods. 
 
 An hour's walk along the winding banks brought me round 
 to the cottage which had once been Mary's home. 
 
 The door was opened by a woman who was a stranger to 
 me. She civilly asked me to enter the parlor. I had suf- 
 fered enough already ; I made my inquiries, standing on the 
 door-step. They were soon at an end. The woman was a 
 stranger in our part of Suffolk ; neither she nor her husband 
 had ever heard of Dermody's name. 
 
 I pursued my investigations among the peasantry, passing 
 from cottage to cottage. The twilight came; the moon 
 rose; the lights began to vanish from the lattice-windows; 
 and still I continued my weary pilgrimage ; and still, go 
 where I might, the answer to my questions was the same. 
 Nobody knew any thing of Dermody. Every body asked if 
 I had not brought news of him myself. It pains me even 
 now to recall the cruelly complete defeat of every effort which 
 I made on that disastrous evening. I passed the night in 
 one of the cottages ; and I returned to London the next day, 
 broken by disappointment, careless what I did, or where I 
 went next. 
 
 Still, we were not wholly parted. I saw Mary— as Dame 
 Dermody said I should see her — in dreams. 
 
 Sometimes she came to me with the green flag in her hand, 
 and repeated her farewell words— "Don't forget Mary!" 
 
54 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Sometimes she led me to our well-remembered corner in the 
 cottage parlor, and opened the paper on which her grand- 
 mother had written our prayers for us. We prayed together 
 again, and sung hymns together again, as if the old times 
 had come back. Once she appeared to me, with tears in her 
 eyes, and said, " "We must wait, dear : our time has not come 
 yet." Twice I saw her looking at me, like one disturbed by 
 anxious thoughts ; and twice I heard her say, " Live patient- 
 ly, live innocently, GeOrge, for my sake." 
 
 We settled in London, where my education was undertaken 
 by a private tutor. Before we had been long in our new 
 abode, an unexpected change in our prospects took place. 
 To my mother's astonishment she received an offer of mar- 
 riage (addressed to her in a letter) from Mr. Germaine. 
 
 " I entreat you not to be startled by my proposal !" (the 
 old gentleman wrote). "You can hardly have forgotten that 
 I was once fond of you, in the days when we were both young 
 and both poor. No return to the feelings associated with 
 that time is possible now. At my age, all I ask of you is to 
 be the companion of. the closing years of my life, and to give 
 me something of a father's interest in promoting the future 
 welfare of your son. Consider this, my dear, and tell me 
 whether you will take the empty chair at an old man's lone- 
 ly fireside." 
 
 My mother (looking almost as confused, poor soul ! as if 
 she had become a young girl again) left the whole responsi- 
 bility of decision on the shoulders of her son! I was not 
 long in making up my mind. If she said Yes, she would ac- 
 cept the hand of a man of worth and honor, who had been 
 throughout his whole life devoted to her ; and she would re- 
 cover the comfort, the luxury, the social prosperity and posi- 
 tion of which my father's reckless course of life had deprived 
 her. Add to this, that I liked Mr. Germaine, and that Mr. 
 Germaine liked me. Under these circumstances, why should 
 my mother say No ? She could produce no satisfactory an- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 55 
 
 swer to that question when I put it. As the necessary con- 
 sequence, she became, in due course of time, Mrs. Germaine. 
 
 I have only to add that, to the end of her life, my good 
 mother congratulated herself (in this case at least) on having 
 taken her son's advice. 
 
 The years went on, and still Mary and I were parted, ex- 
 cept in my dreams. The years went on, until the perilous 
 time which comes in every man's life came in mine. I 
 reached the age when the strongest of all the passions seizes 
 on the senses, and asserts its mastery over mind and body 
 alike. 
 
 I had hitherto passively endured the wreck of my earliest 
 and dearest hopes : I had lived patiently, and lived innocent- 
 ly, for Mary's sake. Now my patience left me ; my innocence 
 was numbered among the lost things of the past. My days, 
 it is true, were still devoted to the tasks set me by my tutor ; 
 but my nights were given, in secret, to a reckless profligacy, 
 which (in my present frame of mind) I look back on with dis- 
 gust and dismay. I profaned my remembrances of Mary in 
 the company of women who had reached the lowest depths of 
 degradation. I impiously said to myself : " I have hoped for 
 her long enough ; I have waited for her long enough. The 
 one thing now to do is to enjoy my youth and to forget her." 
 
 From the moment when I dropped into this degradation, I 
 might sometimes think regretfully of Mary — at the morning 
 time, when penitent thoughts mostly come to us ; but I ceased 
 absolutely to see her in my dreams. We were now, in the 
 completest sense' of the word, parted. Mary's pure spirit 
 could hold no communion with mine ; Mary's pure spirit had 
 left me. 
 
 It is needless to say that I failed to keep the secret of my 
 depravity from the knowledge of my mother. The sight of 
 her grief was the first influence that sobered me. In some 
 degree at least I restrained myself : I made the effort to re- 
 turn to purer ways of life. Mr. Germaine, though I had dis- 
 
56 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 appointed him, was too just a man to give me up as lost. He 
 advised me, as a means of self-reform, to make my choice of 
 a profession, and to absorb myself in closer studies than any 
 that I had yet pursued. 
 
 I made my peace with this good friend and second father, 
 not only by following his advice^ but by adopting the profes- 
 sion to which he had been himself attached before he inher- 
 ited his fortune — the profession of medicine. Mr. Germaine 
 had been a surgeon : I resolved on being a surgeon too. 
 
 Having entered, at rather an earlier age than usual, on my 
 new way of life, I may at least say for myself that I worked 
 hard. I won, and kept, the interest of the professors under 
 whom I studied. On the other hand, it can not be denied 
 that my reformation was, morally speaking, far from being 
 complete. I worked ; but what I did was done selfishly, bit- 
 terly, with a hard heart. In religion and morals I adopted 
 the views of a materialist companion of my studies — a worn- 
 out man of more than double my age. I believed in nothing 
 but what I could see, or taste, or feel. I lost all faith in hu- 
 manity. With the one exception of my mother, I had no re- 
 spect for women. My remembrances of Mary deteriorated 
 until they became little more than a lost link of association 
 with the past. I still preserved the green flag as a matter of 
 habit ; but it was no longer kept about me : it was left undis- 
 turbed in a drawer of my writing-desk. Now and then a 
 wholesome doubt, whether my life was not utterly unworthy 
 of me, would rise in my mind. But it held no long posses- 
 sion of my thoughts. Despising others, it was in the logical 
 order of things that I should follow my conclusions to their 
 bitter end, and consistently despise myself. 
 
 The term of my majority arrived. I was twenty-one years 
 old ; and of the illusions of my youth not a vestige remained. 
 
 Neither my mother nor Mr. Germaine could make any posi- 
 tive complaint of my conduct. But they were both thor- 
 oughly uneasy about me. After anxious consideration, my 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 51 
 
 step-father arrived at a conclusion. He decided that the one 
 chance of restoring me to my better and brighter self was to 
 try the stimulant of a life among new people and new scenes. 
 
 At the period of which I am now writing, the home gov- 
 ernment had decided on sending a special diplomatic mission 
 to one of the native princes ruling over a remote province of 
 our Indian empire. In the disturbed state of the province 
 at that time, the mission, on its arrival in India, was to be ac- 
 companied to the prince's court by an escort, including the 
 military as well as the civil servants of the crown. The sur- 
 geon appointed to sail with the expedition from England was 
 an old friend of Mr. Germaine's, and was in want of an as- 
 sistant on whose capacity he could rely. Through my step- 
 father's interest, the post was offered to me. I accepted it 
 without hesitation. My only pride left was the miserable 
 pride of indifference. So long as I pursued my profession, 
 the place in which I pursued it was a matter of no impor- 
 tance to my mind. 
 
 It was long before we could persuade my mother even to 
 contemplate the new prospect now set before me. When 
 she did at length give way, she yielded most unwillingly. I 
 confess I left her with the tears in my eyes — the first I had 
 shed for many a long year past. 
 
 The history of our expedition is part of the history of Brit- 
 ish India. It has no place in this narrative. 
 
 Speaking personally, I have to record that I was rendered 
 incapable of performing my professional duties in less than a 
 week from the time when the mission reached its destination. 
 We were encamped outside the city; and an attack was 
 made on us, under cover of darkness, by the fanatical natives. 
 The attempt was defeated with little difficulty, and with only 
 a trifling loss on our side. I was among the wounded, hav- 
 ing been struck by a javelin, or spear, while I was passing 
 from one tent to another. 
 
 Inflicted by a European weapon, my injury would have 
 
 3* 
 
58 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 been of no serious consequence. But the tip of the Indian 
 spear had been poisoned. I escaped the mortal danger of 
 lock-jaw ; but, through some peculiarity in the action of the 
 poison on my constitution (which I am quite unable to ex- 
 plain), the wound obstinately refused to heal. 
 
 I was invalided and sent to Calcutta, where the best sur- 
 gical help was at my disposal. To all appearance, the wound 
 healed there — then broke out again. Twice this happened; 
 and the medical men agreed that the best course to take 
 would be to send me home. They calculated on the invigor- 
 ating effect of the sea-voyage, and, failing this, on the salu- 
 tary influence of my native air. In the Indian climate I was 
 pronounced incurable. 
 
 Two days before the ship sailed a letter from my mother 
 brought me startling news. My life to come — if I had a life 
 to come — had been turned into a new channel. Mr. Ger- 
 maine had died suddenly, of heart-disease. His will, bearing 
 date at the time when I left England, bequeathed an income 
 for life to my mother, and left the bulk of his property to me, 
 on the one condition that I adopted his name. I accepted 
 the condition, of course, and became George Germaine. 
 
 Three months later, my mother and I were restored to 
 each other. 
 
 Except that I still had some trouble with my wound, be- 
 hold me now to all appearance one of the most enviable of 
 existing mortals : promoted to the position of a wealthy gen- 
 tleman; possessor of a house in London, and of a country- 
 seat in Perthshire; and, nevertheless, at twenty -three years 
 of age, one of the most miserable men living ! 
 
 And Mary? 
 
 In the ten years that had now passed over, what had be- 
 come of Mary ? 
 
 You have heard my story. Read the few pages that fol- 
 low, and you will hear hers. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 59 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HEE STOEY. 
 
 What I have now to tell you of Mary is derived from in- 
 formation obtained at a date in my life later by many years 
 than any date of which I have written yet. Be pleased to re- 
 member this. 
 
 Dermody, the bailiff, possessed relatives in London, of 
 whom he occasionally spoke, and relatives in Scotland, whom 
 he never mentioned. My father had a strong prejudice 
 against the Scotch nation. Dermody knew his master well 
 enough to be aware that the prejudice might extend to him, 
 if he spoke of his Scotch kindred. He was a discreet man, 
 and he never mentioned them. 
 
 On leaving my father's service, he had made his way, part- 
 ly by land and partly by sea, to Glasgow — in which city his 
 friends resided. With his character and his experience, Der- 
 mody was a man in a thousand to any master who was lucky 
 enough to discover him. His friends bestirred themselves. 
 In six weeks' time he was placed in charge of a gentleman's 
 estate on the eastern coast of Scotland, and was comfortably 
 established with his mother and his daughter in a new home. 
 
 The insulting language which my father had addressed to 
 him had sunk deep in Dermody's mind. He wrote privately 
 to his relatives in London, telling them that he had found a 
 new situation which suited him, and that he had his reasons 
 for not at present mentioning his address. In this way he 
 baffled the inquiries which my mother's lawyers (failing to 
 discover a trace of him in other directions) addressed to his 
 
60 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 London friends. Stung by his old master's reproaches, he 
 sacrificed his daughter and he sacrificed me — partly to his 
 own sense of self-respect, partly to his conviction that the 
 difference between us in rank made it his duty to check all 
 further intercourse before it was too late. 
 
 Buried in their retirement in a remote part of Scotland, 
 the little household lived, lost to me, and lost to the world. 
 
 In dreams, I had seen and heard Mary. In dreams, Mary 
 saw and heard me. The innocent longings and wishes which 
 filled my heart while I was still a boy were revealed to her in 
 the mystery of sleep. Her grandmother, holding firmly to her 
 faith in the predestined union between us, sustained the girl's 
 courage and cheered her heart. She could hear her father 
 say (as my father had said) that we were parted to meet no 
 more, and could privately think of her happy dreams as the 
 sufficient promise of another future than the future which 
 Dermody contemplated. So she still lived with me in the 
 spirit— and lived in hope. 
 
 The first affliction that befell the little household was the 
 death of the grandmother, by the exhaustion of extreme old 
 age. In her last conscious moments, she said to Mary, 
 " Never forget that you and George are spirits consecrated 
 to each other. Wait — in the certain knowledge that no hu- 
 man power can hinder your union in the time to come." 
 
 While those words were still vividly present to Mary's 
 mind, our visionary union by dreams was abruptly broken on 
 her side, as it had been abruptly broken on mine. In the 
 first days of my self-degradation, I had ceased to see Mary. 
 Exactly at the same period Mary ceased to see me. 
 
 The girl's sensitive nature sunk under the shock. She had 
 now no elder woman to comfort and advise her; she lived 
 alone with her father, who invariably changed the subject 
 whenever she epoke of the old times. The secret sorrow that 
 preys on body and mind alike preyed on her. A cold, caught 
 at the inclement season, turned to fever. For weeks she was 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 61 
 
 in danger of death. When she recovered, her head had been 
 stripped of its beautiful hair by the doctor's order. The sac- 
 rifice had been necessary to save her life. It proved to be, in 
 one respect, a cruel sacrifice — her hair never grew plentiful- 
 ly again. When it did re-appear, it had completely lost its 
 charming mingled hues of deep red and brown : it was now 
 of one monotonous light-brown color throughout. At first 
 sight, Mary's Scotch friends hardly knew her again. 
 
 But Nature made amends for what the head had lost by 
 what the face and the figure gained. 
 
 In a year from the date of her illness, the frail little child 
 of the old days at Greenwater Broad had ripened, in the bra- 
 cing Scotch air and the healthy mode of life, into a comely 
 young woman. Her features were still, as in her early years, 
 not regularly beautiful ; but the change in her was not the 
 less marked on that account. The wan face had filled out, 
 and the pale complexion had found its color. As to her fig- 
 ure, its remarkable development was perceived even by the 
 rough people about her. Promising nothing when she was a 
 child, it had now sprung into womanly fullness, symmetry, 
 and grace. It was a strikingly beautiful figure, in the strict- 
 est sense of the word. 
 
 Morally as well as physically, there were moments, at this 
 period of their lives, when even her own father hardly recog- 
 nized his daughter of former days. She had lost her child- 
 ish vivacity — her sweet, equable flow of good humor. Silent 
 and self-absorbed, she went through the daily routine of her 
 duties enduringly. The hope of meeting me again had sunk 
 to a dead hope in her by this time. She made no complaint. 
 The bodily strength that she had gained in these later days 
 had its sympathetic influence in steadying her mind. When 
 her father once or twice ventured to ask if she was still think- 
 ing of me, she answered quietly that she had brought herself 
 to share his opinions. She could not doubt that I had long 
 since ceased to think of her. Even if I had remained faith- 
 
62 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ful to her, she was old enough now to know that the differ- 
 ence between us in rank made our union by marriage an im- 
 possibility. It would be best (she thought) not to refer any 
 more to the past, best to forget me, as I had forgotten her. 
 So she spoke now. So, tried by the test of appearances, 
 Dame Dermody's confident forecast of our destinies had 
 failed to justify itself, and had taken its place among the pre- 
 dictions that are never fulfilled. 
 
 The next notable event in the family- annals which followed 
 Mary's illness happened when she had attained the age of 
 nineteen years. Even at this distance of time my heart sinks, 
 my courage fails me, at the critical stage in my narrative 
 which I have now reached. 
 
 A storm of unusual severity burst over the eastern coast of 
 Scotland. Among the ships that were lost in the tempest 
 was a vessel bound from Holland, which was wrecked on the 
 rocky shore near Dermody's place of abode. Leading the 
 way in all good actions, the bailiff led the way in rescuing 
 the passengers and crew of the lost ship. He had brought 
 one man alive to land, and was on his way back to the vessel, 
 when two heavy seas, following in close succession, dashed 
 him against the rocks. He was rescued, at the risk of their 
 own lives, by his neighbors. The medical examination dis- 
 closed a broken bone and severe bruises and lacerations. So 
 far, Dermody's sufferings were easy of relief. But, after a 
 lapse of time, symptoms appeared in the patient which re- 
 vealed to his medical attendant the presence of serious inter- 
 nal injury. In the doctor's opinion, he could never hope to 
 resume the active habits of his life. He would be an invalid- 
 ed and a crippled man for the rest of his days. 
 
 Under these melancholy circumstances, the bailiff's employ- 
 er did all that could be strictly expected of him. He hired 
 an assistant to undertake the supervision of the farm-work, 
 and he permitted Dermody to occupy his cottage for the 
 next three months. This concession gave the poor man time 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 63 
 
 to recover such relics of strength as were still left to him, and 
 to consult his friends in Glasgow on the doubtful question of 
 his life to come. 
 
 The prospect was a serious one. Dermody was quite unfit 
 for any sedentary employment ; and the little money that he 
 had saved was not enough to support his daughter and him- 
 self. The Scotch friends were willing and kind ; but they 
 had domestic claims on them, and they had no money to 
 spare. 
 
 In this emergency, the passenger in the wrecked vessel 
 (whose life Dermody had saved) came forwai'd with a pro- 
 posal which took father and daughter alike by surprise. He 
 made Mary an offer of marriage ; on the express understand- 
 ing (if she accepted him) that her home was to be her fa- 
 ther's home also to the end of his life. 
 
 The person who thus associated himself with the Der- 
 modys in the time of their trouble was a Dutch gentleman, 
 named Ernest Van Brandt. He possessed a share in a fishing 
 establishment on the shores of the Zuyder Zee ; and he was 
 on his way to establish a correspondence with the fisheries in 
 the North of Scotland when the vessel was wrecked. Mary 
 had produced a strong impression on him when they first 
 met. He had lingered in the neighborhood, in the hope of 
 gaining her favorable regard, with time to help him. Per- 
 sonally he was a handsome man, in the prime of life ; and he 
 was possessed of a sufficient income to marry on. In making 
 his proposal, he produced references to persons of high social 
 position in Holland, who could answer for him, so far as the 
 questions of character and position were concerned. 
 
 Mary was long in considering which course it would be 
 best for her helpless father, and best for herself, to adopt. 
 
 The hope of a marriage with me had been a hope aban- 
 doned by her years since. No woman looks forward willing- 
 ly to a life of cheerless celibacy. In thinking of her future, 
 Mary naturally thought of herself in the character of a wife. 
 
64 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Could she fairly expect in the time to come to receive any 
 more attractive proposal than the proposal now addressed to 
 her ? Mr. Van Brandt had every personal advantage that a 
 woman could desire ; he was devotedly in love with her ; and 
 he felt a grateful affection for her father as the man to whom 
 he owed his life. With no other hope in her heart — with no 
 other prospect in view — what could she do better than marry 
 Mr. Van Brandt? 
 
 Influenced by these considerations, she decided on speaking 
 the fatal word. She said, "Yes." 
 
 At the same time, she spoke plainly to Mr. Van Brandt, un- 
 reservedly acknowledging that she had contemplated another 
 future than the future now set before her. She did not con- 
 ceal that there had once been an old love in her heart, and that 
 a new love was more than she could command. Esteem, grat- 
 itude, and regard she could honestly offer; and, with time, 
 love might come. For the rest, she had long since disassoci- 
 ated herself from the past, and had definitely given up all the 
 hopes and wishes once connected with it. Repose for her fa- 
 ther, and tranquil happiness for herself, were the only favors 
 that she asked of fortune now. These she might find under 
 the roof of an honorable man who loved and respected her. 
 She could promise, on her side, to make him a good and faith- 
 ful wife, if she could promise no more. It rested with Mr. 
 Van Brandt to say whether he really believed that he would 
 be consulting his own happiness in marrying her on these 
 terms. 
 
 Mr. Van Brandt accepted the terms without a moment's 
 hesitation. 
 
 They would have been married immediately but for an 
 alarming change for the worse in the condition of Dermody's 
 health. Symptoms showed themselves, which the doctor con- 
 fessed that he had not anticipated when he had given his 
 opinion on the case. He warned Mary that the end might be 
 near. A physician was summoned from Edinburgh, at Mr. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 65 
 
 Van Brandt's expense. He confirmed the opinion entertained 
 by the country doctor. For some days longer the good bail- 
 iff lingered. On the last morning, he put his daughter's hand 
 in Van Brandt's hand. " Make her happy, sir," he said, in 
 his simple way, " and you will be even with me for saving 
 your life." The same day he died quietly in his daughter's 
 arms. 
 
 Mary's future was now entirely in her lover's hands. The 
 relatives in Glasgow had daughters of their own to provide 
 for. The relatives in London resented Dermody's neglect of 
 them. Van Brandt waited, delicately and considerately, until 
 the first violence of the girl's grief had worn itself out, and 
 then he pleaded irresistibly for a husband's claim to console 
 her. 
 
 The time at which they were married in Scotland was also 
 the time .at which I was on my way home from India. Mary 
 had then reached the age of twenty years. 
 
 The story of our ten years' separation is now told; the 
 narrative leaves us at the outset of our new lives. 
 
 I am with my mother, beginning my career as a country 
 gentleman on the estate in Perthshire which I have inherited 
 from Mr. Germaine. Mary is with her husband, enjoying her 
 new privileges, learning her new duties, as a wife. She, too, 
 is living in Scotland — living, by a strange fatality, not very 
 far distant from my country-house. I have no suspicion that 
 she is so near to me : the name of Mrs. Van Brandt (even if 
 I had heard it) appeals to no familiar association in my mind. 
 Still the kindred spirits are parted. Still there is no idea on 
 her side, and no idea on mine, that we shall ever meet again. 
 
66 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WOMAN ON THE BRIDGE. 
 
 My mother looked in at the library door, and disturbed me 
 over my books. 
 
 "I have been hanging a little picture in my room," she 
 said. " Come upstairs, my dear, and give me your opinion 
 of it." 
 
 I rose and followed her. She pointed to a miniature por- 
 trait, hanging above the mantel-piece. 
 
 " Do you know whose likeness that is ?" she asked, half 
 sadly, half playfully. " George ! Do you really not recognize 
 yourself at thirteen years old ?" 
 
 How should I recognize myself ? Worn by sickness and sor- 
 row ; browned by the sun on my long homeward voyage ; my 
 hair already growing thin over my forehead ; my eyes already 
 habituated to their one sad and weary look; what had I in 
 common with the fair, plump, curly-headed, bright-eyed boy 
 who confronted me in the miniature ? The mere sight of the 
 portrait produced the most extraordinary effect on my mind. 
 It struck me with an overwhelming melancholy; it filled me 
 with a despair of myself too dreadful to be endured. Making 
 the best excuse I could to my mother, I left the room. In 
 another minute I was out of the house. 
 
 I crossed the park, and left my own possessions behind me. 
 Following a by - road, I came to our well - known river ; so 
 beautiful in itself, so famous among trout-fishers throughout 
 Scotland. It was not then the fishing season. No human 
 being was in sight as I took my seat on the bank. The old 
 stone bridge which spanned the stream was within a hun- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 67 
 
 dred yards of me ; the setting suu still tinged the swift-flow- 
 ing water under the arches with its red and dying light. 
 
 Still the boy's face in the miniature pursued me. Still the 
 portrait seemed to reproach me in a merciless language of its 
 own : " Look at what you were once ; think of what you are 
 now !" 
 
 I hid my face in the soft, fragrant grass. I thought of the 
 wasted years of my life between thirteen and twenty-three. 
 
 How was it to end? If I lived to the ordinary life of 
 man, what prospect had I before me ? 
 
 Love ? Marriage ? I burst out laughing as the idea crossed 
 my mind. Since the innocently happy days of my boyhood I 
 had known no more of love than the insect that now crept 
 over my hand as it lay on the grass. My money, to be sure, 
 would buy me a wife ; but would my money make her dear 
 to me ? dear as Mary had once been, in the golden time when 
 my portrait was first painted ? 
 
 Mary !_ Was she still living ? Was she married ? Should 
 I know her again if I saw her ? Absurd ! I had not seen 
 her since she was ten years old : she was now a woman, as I 
 was a man. Would she know me if we met ? The portrait, 
 still pursuing me, answered the question : " Look at what you 
 were once ; think of what you are now !" 
 
 I rose and walked backward and forward, and tried to turn 
 the current of my thoughts in some new direction. 
 
 It was not to be done. After a banishment of years, Mary 
 had got back again into my mind. I sat down once more on 
 the river-bank. The sun was sinking fast. Black shadows 
 hovered under the arches of the old stone bridge. The red 
 light had faded from the swift-flowing water, and had left it 
 overspread with one monotonous hue of steely gray. The 
 first stars looked down peacefully from the cloudless sky. 
 The first shiverings of the night-breeze were audible among 
 the trees, and visible here and there in the shallow places of 
 the stream. And still, the darker it grew, the more persist- 
 
68 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ently my portrait led me back to the past, the more vividly 
 the long-lost image of the child Mary showed itself to me in 
 my thoughts. 
 
 Was this the prelude to her coming back to me in dreams ; 
 in her perfected womanhood, in the young prime of her life ? 
 
 It might be so. 
 ■I was no longer unworthy of her, as I had once been. The 
 effect produced on me by the sight of my portrait was in it-' 
 self -due to moral and mental changes in me for the better, 
 which had been steadily proceeding since the time when my 
 wound ihad laid me helpless among strangers in a strange 
 land. Sickness, which has made itself teacher and friend to 
 many a man, had made itself teacher and friend to me. I 
 looked back with horror at the vices of my youth ; at the 
 fruitless after-days when I had impiously doubted all that is 
 most noble, all that is most consoling in human life. Conse- 
 crated by sorrow, purified by repentance, was it vain in me to 
 hope that her spirit and my spirit might yet be united again ? 
 Who could tell ? 
 
 I rose once more. It could serve no good purpose to -lin- 
 ger until night by the banks of the river. I had left the 
 house, feeling the impulse which diives us, in certain excited 
 conditions of the mind, to take refuge in movement and 
 change. The remedy had failed ; my mind was as strangely 
 disturbed as ever. My wisest course would be to go home, 
 and keep my good mother company over her favorite game 
 of piquet. 
 
 I turned to take the road back, and stopped, struck by the 
 tranquil beauty of the last faint light in the western sky, 
 shining behind the black line formed by the parapet of the 
 bridge. 
 
 In the grand gathering of the night shadows, in the deep 
 stillness of the dying day, I stood alone and watched the 
 sinking light. 
 
 As I looked, there came a change over the scene. Sudden- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 69 
 
 ]y and softly a living figure glided into view on the bridge. 
 It passed behind the black line of the parapet, in the last long 
 rays of the western light. It crossed the bridge. It paused, 
 and crossed back again half-way. Then it stopped. The 
 minutes passed ; and there the figure stood, a motionless 
 black object, behind the black parapet of the bridge. 
 
 I advanced a little, moving near enough to obtain a closer 
 view of the dress in which the figure was attired. The dress 
 showed me that the solitary stranger was a woman. 
 
 She did not notice me in the shadow which the trees cast 
 on the bank. She stood with her arms folded in her cloak, 
 looking down at the darkening river. 
 
 Why was she waiting there at the close of evening alone ? 
 
 As the question occurred to me, I saw her head move. 
 She looked along the bridge, first on one side of her, then on 
 the other. "Was she waiting for some person who was to 
 meet her? Or was she suspicious of observation, and anx- 
 ious to make sure that she was alone? 
 
 A sudden doubt of her purpose in seeking that solitary 
 place, a sudden distrust of the lonely bridge and the swift- 
 flowing river, set my heart beating quickly, and roused me 
 to instant action. I hurried up the rising ground which led 
 from the river-bank to the bridge, determined on speaking to 
 her while the opportunity was still mine. 
 
 She neither saw nor heard me until I was close to her. I 
 approached with an irrepressible feeling of agitation; not 
 knowing how she might receive me when I spoke to her. 
 The moment she turned and faced me, my composure came 
 back. It was as if, expecting to see a stranger, I had unex- 
 pectedly encountered a friend. 
 
 And yet she was a stranger. I had never before looked on 
 that grave and noble face, on that grand figure whose exqui- 
 site grace and symmetry even her long cloak could not whol- 
 ly, hide. She was not, perhaps, a strictly beautiful woman. 
 There were defects in her which were sufficiently marked to 
 
70 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 show themselves in the fading light. Her hair, for example; 
 seen under the large garden hat that she wore, looked almost 
 as short as the hair of a man ; and the color of it was of that 
 dull, lustreless brown hue which is so commonly seen in En- 
 glish women of the ordinary type. Still, in spite of these 
 drawbacks, there was a latent charm in her expression, there 
 was an inbred fascination in her manner, which instantly 
 found its way to my sympathies and its hold on my admira- 
 tion. She won me in the moment when I first looked at her. 
 
 " May I inquire if you have lost your way?" I asked. 
 
 Her eyes rested on my face with a strange look of inquiry 
 in them. She did not appear to be surprised or confused at 
 my venturing to address her. 
 
 " I know this part of the country well," I went on. " Can 
 I be of any use to you ?" 
 
 She still looked at me with steady, inquiring eyes. For a 
 moment, stranger as I was, my face seemed to trouble her as 
 if it had been a face that she had seen and forgotten again. 
 If she really had this idea, she at once dismissed it with a lit- 
 tie toss of her head, and looked away at the river as if she 
 felt no further interest in me. 
 
 " Thank you. I have not lost my way. I am accustomed 
 to walking alone. Good-evening." 
 
 She spoke coldly, but courteously. Her voice was deli- 
 cious ; her bow, as she left me, was the perfection of unaf- 
 fected grace. She left the bridge on the side by which I had 
 first seen her approach it, and walked slowly away along the 
 darkening track of the high-road. 
 
 Still I was not quite satisfied. There was something un- 
 derlying the charming expression and the fascinating manner 
 which my instinct felt to be something wrong. As I walked 
 away toward the opposite end of the bridge, the doubt began 
 to grow on me whether she had spoken the truth. In leaving 
 the neighborhood of the river, was she simply trying to get 
 rid of me ? 
 
SHE WAS STANDING ON THE PARAPET. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 73 
 
 I at once resolved to put this suspicion of her to the test. 
 Leaving the bridge, I had only to cross the road beyond, and 
 to enter a plantation on the bank of the river. Here, conceal- 
 ed behind the first tree which was large enough to hide me, I 
 could command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count 
 on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there was 
 a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the 
 obscurity of the plantation : I had almost to grope my way 
 to the nearest tree that suited my purpose: 
 
 I had just steadied my foot-hold on the uneven ground be- 
 hind the tree, when the stillness of the twilight hour was sud- 
 denly broken by the distant sound of a voice. 
 
 The voice was a woman's. It was not raised to any high 
 pitch ; its accent was the accent of prayer, and the words it 
 uttered were these : 
 
 " Christ have mercy on me !" 
 
 There was silence again. A nameless fear crept over me, 
 as I looked out on the bridge. 
 
 She was standing on the parapet. Before I could move, 
 before I could cry out, before I could even breathe again free- 
 ly, she leaped into the river. 
 
 The current ran my way. I could see her, as she rose to 
 the surface, floating by in the light on the mid-stream. I ran 
 headlong down the bank. She sunk again, in the moment 
 when I stopped to throw aside my hat and coat and to kick 
 off my shoes. I was a practiced swimmer. The instant I 
 was in the water my composure came back to me — I felt like 
 myself again. 
 
 The current swept me out into the mid-stream, and great- 
 ly increased the speed at which I swam. I was close behind 
 her when she rose for the second time — a shadowy thing, just 
 visible a few inches below the surface of the river. One 
 more stroke, and my left arm was round her ; I had her face 
 out of the water. She was insensible. I could hold her in 
 the right way to leave me master of all my movements; I 
 
 4 
 
74 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 could devote myself, without flurry or fatigue, to the exertion 
 of taking her back to the shore. 
 
 My first attempt satisfied me that there was no reasonable 
 hope, burdened as I now was, of breasting the strong current 
 running toward the mid-river from either bank. I tried it on 
 one side, and I tried it on the other, and gave it up. The 
 one choice left was to let myself drift with her down the 
 stream. Some fifty yards lower, the river took a turn round 
 a promontory of land, on which stood a little inn much fre- 
 quented by anglers in the season. As we approached the 
 place, I made another attempt (again an attempt in vain) to 
 reach the shore. Our last chance now was to be heard by 
 the people of the inn. I shouted at the full pitch of my voice 
 as we drifted past. The cry was answered. A man put off 
 in a boat. In five minutes more I had her safe on the bank 
 again; and the man and I were carrying her to the inn by 
 the river-side. 
 
 The landlady and her servant-girl were equally willing to 
 be of service, and equally ignorant of what they were to do. 
 Fortunately, my medical education made me competent to di- 
 rect them. A good fire, warm blankets, hot water in bottles, 
 were all at my disposal. I showed the women myself how to 
 ply the work of revival. They persevered, and I persevered ; 
 and still there she lay, in her perfect beauty of form, without 
 a sign of life perceptible ; there she lay, to all outward ap- 
 pearance, dead by drowning. 
 
 A last hope was left — the hope of restoring her (if I could 
 construct the apparatus in time) by the process called " arti- 
 ficial respiration." I was just endeavoring to tell the land- 
 lady what I wanted, and was just conscious of a strange dif- 
 ficulty in expressing myself, when the good woman started 
 back, and looked at me, with a scream of terror. 
 
 " Good God, sir, you're bleeding !" she cried. " What's 
 the matter ? Where are you hurt ?" 
 
 In the moment when she spoke to me I knew what had 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 15 
 
 happened. The old Indian wound (irritated, doubtless, by the 
 violent exertion that I had imposed on myself) had opened 
 again. I struggled against the sudden sense of faintness that 
 seized on me ;■ I tried to tell the people of the inn what to 
 do. It was useless. I dropped to my knees ; my head sunk 
 on the bosom of the weman stretched senseless upon the low 
 couch beneath me. The death-in-life that had got her had 
 got me. Lost to the world about us, we lay, with my blood 
 flowing on her, united in our deathly trance. 
 
 Where were our spirits at that moment ? Were they to- 
 gether, and conscious of each other ? United by a spiritual 
 bond, undiscovered and unsuspected by us in the flesh, did 
 we two, who had met as strangers on the fatal bridge, know 
 each other again in the trance? You who have loved and 
 lost — you whose one consolation it has been to believe in 
 other worlds than this — can you turn from my questions in 
 contempt ? Can you honestly say that they have never been 
 your questions too ? 
 
If) THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 THE KHSTDEED SPIRITS. 
 
 The morning sunlight shining in at a badly curtained win- 
 dow; a clumsy wooden bed, with big twisted posts that 
 reached to the ceiling ; on one side of the bed, my mother's 
 welcome face ; on the other side, an elderly gentleman unre- 
 membered by me at that moment — such were the objects 
 that presented themselves to my view, when I first conscious- 
 ly returned to the world that we live in. 
 
 " Look, doctor, look ! He has come to his senses at last." 
 
 " Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." 
 
 My mother was rejoicing over me on one side of the bed ; 
 and the unknown gentleman, addressed as " doctor," was of- 
 fering me a spoonful of whisky-and-water on the other. He 
 called it the " elixir of life ;" and he bid me remark (speaking 
 in a strong Scotch accent) that he tasted it himself to show 
 he was in earnest. 
 
 The stimulant did its good work. My head felt less giddy, 
 my mind became clearer. I could speak collectedly to my 
 mother ; I could vaguely recall the more marked events of 
 the previous evening. A minute or two more, and the image 
 of the person in whom those events had all centred became a 
 living image in my memory. I tried to raise myself in the 
 bed ; I asked, impatiently, " Where is she ?" 
 
 The doctor produced another spoonful of the elixir of life, 
 and gravely repeated his first address to me. 
 
 " Open your mouth, sir, and take a sup of this." 
 
 I persisted in repeating my question: 
 
 "Where is she?" 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 11 
 
 The doctor persisted in repeating his formula : 
 
 " Take a sup of this." 
 
 I was too weak to contest the matter ; I obeyed. My med- 
 ical attendant nodded across the bed to my mother, and said, 
 " Now, he'll do." My mother had some compassion on me. 
 She relieved my anxiety in these plain words : 
 
 "The lady has quite recovered, George, thanks to the doc 
 tor here." 
 
 I looked at my professional colleague with a new interest. 
 He was the legitimate fountain-head of the information that 
 I was dying to have poured into my mind. 
 
 " How did you revive her?" I asked. " Where is she now?" 
 
 The doctor held up his hand, warning me to stop. 
 
 "We shall do well, sir, if we proceed systematically," he 
 began, in a very positive manner. "You will understand, 
 that every time you open your mouth, it will be to take a sup 
 of this, and not to speak. I shall tell you, in due course, and 
 the good lady, your mother, will tell you, all that you have 
 any need to know. As I happen to have been first on what 
 you may call the scene of action, it stands in the fit order of 
 things that I should speak first. You' will just permit me to 
 mix a little more of the elixir of life, and then, as the poet 
 says, my plain unvarnished tale I shall deliver." 
 
 So he spoke, pronouncing in his strong Scotch accent the 
 most carefully selected English I had ever heard. A hard- 
 headed, square -shouldered, pertinaciously self-willed man — 
 it was plainly useless to contend with him. I turned to my 
 mother's gentle face for encouragement; and I let my doctor 
 have his own way. 
 
 " My name," he proceeded, " is MacGlue. I had the honor 
 of presenting my respects at your house yonder when yovi 
 first came to live in this neighborhood. You don't remember 
 me at present, which is natural enough in the unbalanced con- 
 dition of your mind, consequent, you will understand (as a 
 professional person yourself), on copious loss of blood." 
 
78 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 There my patience gave way. 
 
 " Never mind me !" I interposed. " Tell me about the 
 lady!" 
 
 " You have opened your mouth, sir !" cried Mr. MacGlue, 
 severely. " You know the penalty — take a sup of this. I 
 told you we should proceed systematically," he went on, after 
 he had forced me to submit to the penalty. "Every thing 
 in its place, Mr. Germaine — every thing in its place. I was 
 speaking of your bodily condition. "Well, sir, and how did 
 I discover your bodily condition? Providentially for you 
 I was driving home yesterday evening by the lower road 
 (which is the road by the river-bank) ; and, drawing near to 
 the inn here (they call it a hotel ; it's nothing but an inn), I 
 heard the screeching of the landlady half a mile off. A good 
 woman enough, you will understand, as times go ; but a poor 
 creature in any emergency. Keep still, I'm coming to it now. 
 Well, I went in to see if the screeching related to any thing 
 wanted in the medical way; and there I found you and the 
 stranger lady in a position which I may truthfully describe as 
 standing in some need of improvement on the score of pro- 
 priety. Tut ! tut ! I speak jocosely — you were both in a dead 
 swoon. Having heard what the landlady had to tell me, and 
 having, to the best of my ability, separated history from hys- 
 terics in the course of the woman's narrative, I found myself, 
 as it were, placed between two laws. The law of gallantry, 
 you see, pointed to the lady as the first object of my profes- 
 sional services, while the law of humanity (seeing that you 
 were still bleeding) pointed no less imperatively to you. I 
 am no longer a young man : I left the lady to wait. My 
 word ! it was no light matter, Mr. Germaine, to deal with your 
 case, and get you carried up here out of the way. That old 
 wound of yours, sir, is not to be trifled with. I bid you be- 
 ware how you open it again. The next time you go out for 
 an evening walk, and you see a lady in the water, you will do 
 well for your own health to leave her there. What's that I 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 79 
 
 see? Are you opening your mouth again? Do you want 
 another sup already ?" 
 
 " He wants to hear more about the lady," said my mother, 
 interpreting my wishes for me. 
 
 " Oh, the lady," resumed Mr. MacGlue, with the air of a 
 man who found no great attraction in the subject proposed to 
 him. "There's not much that I know of to be said about the 
 lady. A fine woman, no doubt. If you could strip the flesh 
 off her bones, you would find a splendid skeleton underneath. 
 For, mind this ! there's no such thing as a finely made wom- 
 an without a good bony scaffolding to build her on at start- 
 ing. I don't think much of this lady — morally speaking, you 
 will understand. If I may be permitted to say so in your 
 presence, ma'am, there's a man in the background of that dra- 
 matic scene of hers on the bridge. However, not being the 
 man myself, I have nothing to do with that. My business 
 with the lady was just to set her vital machinery going again. 
 And, Heaven knows, she proved a heavy handful ! It was 
 even a more obstinate case to deal with, sir, than yours. I 
 never, in all my experience, met with two people more un- 
 willing to come back to this world and its troubles than you 
 two were. And when I had done the business at last, when 
 I was well-nigh swooning myself with the work and the worry 
 of it, guess — I give you leave to speak for this once — guess 
 what were the first words the lady said to me when she came 
 to herself again." 
 
 I was too much excited to be able to exercise my ingenui- 
 ty. " I give it up !" I said, impatiently. 
 
 " You may well give it up," remarked Mr. MacGlue. " The 
 first words she addressed, sir, to the man who had dragged 
 her out of the very jaws of death were these: 'How dare you 
 meddle with me ? why didn't you leave me to die ?' Her ex- 
 act language — I'll take my Bible oath of it. I was so pro- 
 voked that I gave her the change back (as the saying is) in 
 her own coin. ' There's the river handy, ma'am,' I said ; * do 
 
80 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 it again. I, for one, won't stir a hand to save you; I promise 
 you that.' She looked up sharply. 'Are you the man who 
 took me out of the river ?' she said. ' God forbid !' says I. 
 'I'm only the doctor who was fool enough to meddle with 
 you afterward.' She turned to the landlady. ' Who took me 
 out of the river ?' she asked. The landlady told her, and men- 
 tioned your name. ' Germaine ?' she said to herself ; ' I know 
 nobody named Germaine ; I wonder whether it was the man 
 who spoke to me on the bridge ?' ' Yes,' says the landlady ; 
 ' Mr. Germaine said he met you on the bridge.' Hearing 
 that, she took a little time to think ; and then she asked if she 
 could see Mr. Germaine. ' Whoever he is,' she says, ' he has 
 risked his life to save me, and I ought to thank him for doing 
 that.' ' Tou can't thank him to-night,' I said ; ' I've got him 
 upstairs between life and death, and I've sent for his mother : 
 wait till to-morrow.' She turned on me, looking half fright- 
 ened, half angry. ' I can't wait,' she says ; ' you don't know 
 what you have done among you in bringing me back to life. 
 I must leave this neighborhood ; I must be out of Perthshire 
 to-morrow: when does the first coach southward pass this 
 way ?' Having nothing to do with the first coach southward, 
 I referred her to the people of the inn. My business (now I 
 had done with the lady) was upstairs in this room, to see how 
 you were getting on. You were getting on as well as I could 
 wish, and your mother was at your bedside. I went home to 
 see what sick people might be waiting for me in the regular 
 way. When I came back this morning, there was the foolish 
 landlady with a new tale to tell. ' Gone !' says she. ' Who's 
 gone ?' says I. ' The lady,' says she, ' by the first coach this 
 morning !' " 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me that she has left the house ?" 
 I exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, but I do !" said the doctor, as positively as ever. 
 "Ask madam your mother here, and she'll certify it to your 
 heart's content. I've got other sick ones to visit, and I'm 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 81 
 
 away on my rounds. You'll see no more of the lady; and so 
 much the better, I'm thinking. In two hours' time I'll be 
 back again; and if I don't find you the worse in the interim, 
 I'll see about having you transported from this strange place 
 to the snug bed that knows you at home. Don't let him talk, 
 ma'am, don't let him talk." 
 
 "With those parting words, Mr. MacGlue left us to ourselves. 
 
 "Is it really true?" I said to my mother. "Has she left 
 the inn, without waiting to see me ?" 
 
 " Nobody could stop her, George," my mother answered. 
 " The lady left the inn this morning by the coach for Edin- 
 burgh." 
 
 I was bitterly disappointed. Yes : " bitterly " is the word 
 — though she was a stranger to me. 
 
 " Did you see her yourself ?" I asked. 
 
 " I saw her for a few minutes, my dear, on my way up to 
 your room." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 " She begged me to make her excuses to you. She said, 
 ' Tell Mr. Germaine that my situation is dreadful ; no human 
 creature can help me. I must go away. My old life is as 
 much at an end as if your son had left me to drown in the 
 river. I must find a new life for myself, in a new place. Ask 
 Mr. Germaine to forgive me for going away without thank- 
 ing him. I daren't wait ! I may be followed and found out. 
 There is a person whom I am determined never to see again 
 — never ! never ! never ! Good-bye ; and try to forgive me !' 
 She hid her face in her hands, and said no more. I tried to 
 win her confidence : it was not to be done ; I was compelled 
 to leave her. There is some dreadful calamity, George, in 
 that wretched woman's life. And such an interesting creat- 
 ure, too ! It was impossible not to pity her, whether she de- 
 served it or not. Every thing about her is a mystery, my 
 dear. She speaks English without the slightest foreign ac- 
 cent, and yet she has a foreign name." 
 
 4* 
 
82 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " Did she give you her name ?" 
 
 " No, and I was afraid to ask her to give it. But the 
 landlady here is not a very scrupulous person. She told me 
 she looked at the poor creature's linen while it was. drying by 
 the fire. The name marked on it was, ' Van Brandt.' " 
 
 " Van Brandt ?" I repeated. " That sounds like a Dutch 
 name. And yet you say she spoke like an Englishwoman. 
 Perhaps she was born in England." 
 
 "Or perhaps she may be married," suggested my mother; 
 " and Van Brandt may be the name of her husband." 
 
 The idea of her being a married woman had something in 
 it repellent to me. I wished my mother had not thought of 
 that last suggestion. I refused to receive it. I persisted in 
 my own belief that the stranger was a single woman. In that 
 character, I could indulge myself in the luxury of thinking of 
 her ; I could consider the chances of my being able to trace 
 this charming fugitive, who had taken so strong a hold on 
 my interest — whose desperate attempt at suicide had so near- 
 ly cost me my own life. 
 
 If she had gone as far as Edinburgh (which she would 
 surely do, being bent on avoiding discovery), the prospect of 
 finding her again — in that great city, and in my present weak 
 state of health — looked doubtful indeed. Still, there was an 
 underlying hopefulness in me which kept my spirits from be- 
 ing seriously depressed. I felt a purely imaginary (perhaps 
 I ought to say, a purely superstitious) conviction that we who 
 -had nearly died together, we who had been brought to life 
 together, were surely destined to be involved in some future 
 joys or sorrows common to us both. " I fancy I shall see her 
 again," was my last thought before my weakness overpowered 
 me, and I sunk into a peaceful sleep. 
 
 That night I was removed from the inn to my own room 
 at home ; and that night I saw her again in a dream. 
 
 The image of her was as vividly impressed on me as the 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 83 
 
 far different image of the child Mary, when I used to see it 
 in the days of old. The dream- figure of the woman was 
 robed as I had seen it robed on the bridge. She wore the 
 same broad -brimmed garden -hat of straw. She looked at 
 me as she had looked when I approached her in the dim even- 
 ing light. After a little her face brightened with a divinely 
 beautiful smile ; and she whispered in my ear, " Friend, do 
 you know me ?" 
 
 I knew her, most assuredly ; and yet it was with an incom- 
 prehensible after-feeling of doubt. Recognizing her in my 
 dream as the stranger - who had so warmly interested me, I 
 was, nevertheless, dissatisfied with myself, as if it had not 
 been the right recognition. I awoke with this idea; and I 
 slept no more that night. 
 
 In three days' time I was strong enough to go out driving 
 with my mother, in the comfortable, old-fashioned, open car- 
 riage which had once belonged to Mr. Germaine. 
 
 On the fourth day we" arranged to make an excursion to a 
 little water-fall in our neighborhood. My mother had a great 
 admiration of the place, and had often expressed a wish to 
 possess some memorial of it. I resolved to take my sketch- 
 book with me, on the chance that I might be able to please 
 her by making a drawing of her favorite scene. 
 
 Searching for the sketch-book (which I had not used for 
 years), I found it in an old desk of mine that had remained 
 unopened since my departure for India. In the course of my 
 investigation, I opened a drawer in the desk, and discovered 
 a relic of the old times — my poor little Mary's first work in 
 embroidery, the green flag! 
 
 The sight of the forgotten keepsake took my mind back to 
 the bailiff's cottage, and reminded me of Dame Dermody, and 
 her confident prediction about Mary and me. 
 
 I smiled as I recalled the old woman's assertion that no hu- 
 man power could " hinder the union of the kindred spirits of 
 the children in the time to come." What had become of the 
 
84 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 prophesied dreams in which we were to communicate with 
 each other through the term of our separation? Years had 
 passed ; and, sleeping or waking, I had seen nothing of Mary. 
 Tears had passed ; and the first vision of a woman that had 
 come to me had been my dream a few nights since of the 
 stranger whom I had saved from drowning. I thought of 
 these chances and changes in my life, but not contemptuous- 
 ly or bitterly. The new love that was now stealing its way 
 into my heart had softened and humanized me. I said to 
 myself, "Ah, poor little Mary !" and I kissed the green flag, 
 in grateful memory of the days that were gone forever. 
 
 We drove to the water-fall. 
 
 It was a beautiful day ; the lonely sylvan scene was at its 
 brightest and best. A wooden summei'-house, commanding 
 a prospect of the falling stream, had been built for the ac- 
 commodation of pleasure parties by the proprietor of the 
 place. My mother suggested that I should try to make a 
 sketch of the view from this point. I did my best to please 
 her, but I was not satisfied with the result ; and I abandoned 
 my drawing before it was half finished. Leaving my sketch- 
 book and pencil on the table of the summer-house, I proposed 
 to my mother to cross a little wooden bridge which spanned 
 the stream, below the fall, and to see how the landscape look- 
 ed from a new point of view. 
 
 The prospect of the water -fall, as seen from the opposite 
 bank, presented even greater difficulties, to an amateur artist 
 like me, than the prospect which we had just left. We re- 
 turned to the summer-house. 
 
 I was the first to approach the open door. I stopped, 
 checked in my advance by an unexpected discovery. The 
 summer-house was no longer empty as we had left it. A lady 
 was seated at the table with my pencil in her hand, writing in 
 my sketch-book ! 
 
 After waiting a moment, I advanced a few steps nearer to 
 the door, and stopped again in bi'eathless amazement. The 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 85 
 
 stranger in the summer-house was now plainly revealed to 
 me as the woman who had attempted to destroy herself from 
 the bridge ! 
 
 There was no doubt about it. There was the dress ; there 
 was the memorable face which I had seen in the evening 
 light, which I had dreamed of only a few nights since ? The 
 woman herself — I saw her as plainly as I saw the sun shining 
 on the water-fall — the woman herself, with my pencil in her 
 hand, writing in my book ! 
 
 My mother was close behind me. She noticed my agitation. 
 " George !" she exclaimed, " what is the matter with you ?" 
 
 I pointed through the open door of the summer-house. 
 
 " Well ?" said my mother. " What am I to look at ?" 
 
 " Don't you see somebody sitting at the table and writing 
 in my sketch-book?" 
 
 My mother eyed me quickly. " Is he going to be ill 
 again ?" I heard her say to herself. 
 
 At the same moment the woman laid down the pencil, and 
 rose slowly to her feet. 
 
 She looked at me with sorrowful and pleading eyes: she 
 lifted her hand and beckoned me to approach her. I obeyed. 
 Moving without conscious will of my own, drawn nearer and 
 nearer to her by an irresistible power, I ascended the short 
 flight of stairs which led into the summer-house. Within a 
 few paces of her I stopped. She advanced a step toward 
 me, and laid her hand gently on my bosom. Her touch fill- 
 ed me with strangely united sensations of rapture and awe. 
 After a while, she spoke in low melodious tones, which 
 mingled in my ear with the distant murmur of the falling 
 water, until the two sounds became one. I heard in the 
 murmur, I heard in the voice, these words : " Remember me. 
 Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom; a mo- 
 mentary obscurity passed like a flying shadow over the bright 
 daylight in the room. I looked for her when the light came 
 back. She was gone. 
 
86 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 My consciousness of passing events returned. 
 
 I saw the lengthening shadows outside, which told me that 
 the evening was at hand. I saw the carriage approaching 
 the summer-house to take us away. I felt my mother's hand 
 on my arm, and heard her voice speaking to me anxiously. I 
 was able to reply by a sign entreating her not to be uneasy 
 about me, but I could do no more. I was absorbed, body 
 and soul, in the one desire to look at the sketch-book. As 
 certainly as I had seen the woman, so certainly I had seen 
 her, with my pencil in her hand, writing in my book. 
 
 I advanced to the table on which the book was lying open. 
 I looked at the blank space on the lower part of the page, 
 under the foreground lines of my unfinished drawing. My 
 mother, following me, looked at the page too. 
 
 There was the writing ! The woman had disappeared, but 
 there were her written words left behind her: visible to my 
 mother as well as to me, readable by my mother's eyes as well 
 as by mine ! 
 
 These were the words we saw, arranged in two lines, as I 
 copy them here : 
 
 When the full moon shines 
 On Saint Anthony's Well. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 87 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 NATURAL AND SITPEENATUBAL. 
 
 I pointed to the writing in the sketch-book, and looked at 
 my mother. I was not mistaken. She had seen it, as I had 
 seen it. But she refused to acknowledge that any thing had 
 happened to alarm her — plainly as I could detect it in her 
 face. 
 
 " Somebody has been playing a trick on you, George," she 
 said. 
 
 I made no reply. It was needless to say any thing. My 
 poor mother was evidently as far from being satisfied with 
 her own shallow explanation as I was. The carriage waited 
 for us at the door. We set forth in silence on our drive 
 home. 
 
 The sketch-book lay open on my knee. My eyes were fast- 
 ened on it; my mind was absorbed in recalling the moment 
 when the apparition beckoned me into the summer-house and 
 spoke. Putting the words and the writing together, the con- 
 clusion was too plain to be mistaken. The woman whom I 
 had saved from drowning had need of me again. ' 
 
 And this was the same woman who, in her own proper per- 
 son, had not hesitated to seize the first opportunity of leaving 
 the house in which we had been sheltered together — without 
 stopping to say one grateful word to the man who had pre- 
 served her from death ! Four days only had elapsed since 
 she had left me, never (to all appearance) to see me again. 
 And now the ghostly apparition of her had returned as to a 
 tried and trusted friend; had commanded me to remember 
 her and to go to her ; and had provided against all possibili- 
 
88 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ty of my memory playing me false, by writing the words 
 which invited me to meet her " when the full moon shone on 
 Saint Anthony's Well." 
 
 What had happened in the interval ? What did the super- 
 natural manner of her communication with me mean ? What 
 ought my next course of action to be ? 
 
 My mother roused me from my reflections. She stretched 
 out her hand, and suddenly closed the open book on my knee, 
 as if the sight of the writing in it were unendurable to her. 
 
 " Why don't you speak to me, George ?" she said. " Why 
 do you keep your thoughts to yourself ?" 
 
 " My mind is lost in confusion," I answered. " I can sug- 
 gest nothing and explain nothing. My thoughts are all bent 
 on the one question of what I am to do next. On that point 
 I believe I may say that my mind is made up." I touched 
 the sketch-book as I spoke. " Come what may of it," I said, 
 " I mean to keep the appointment." 
 
 My mother looked at me as if she doubted the evidence 
 of her own senses. 
 
 "He talks as if it were a real thing!" she exclaimed. 
 " George, you don't really believe that you saw somebody in 
 the summer-house ? The place was empty. I tell you posi- 
 tively, when you pointed into the summer-house, the place 
 was empty. You have been thinking and thinking of this 
 woman till you persuade yourself that you have actually seen 
 her." . 
 
 I opened the sketch-book again. "I thought I saw her 
 writing on this page," I answered. " Look at it, and tell me 
 if I was wrong." 
 
 My mother refused to look at it. Steadily as she persisted 
 in taking the rational view, nevertheless the writing frighten- 
 ed her. 
 
 " It is not a week yet," she went on, " since I saw you ly- 
 ing between life and death in your bed at the inn. How can 
 you talk of keeping the appointment, in your state of health? 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 89 
 
 An appointment with a shadowy Something in your own 
 imagination, which appears and disappears, and leaves sub- 
 stantial writing behind it ! It's ridiculous, George ; I won- 
 der you can help laughing at yourself." 
 
 She tried to set the example of laughing at me — with the 
 tears in her eyes, poor soul ! as she made the useless effort. 
 I began to regret having opened my mind so freely to her. 
 
 "Don't take the matter too seriously, mother," I said. 
 " Perhaps I may not be able to find the place. I never heard 
 of Saint Anthony's Well; I have not the least idea where it 
 is. Suppose I make the discovery, and suppose the journey 
 turns out to be an easy one, would you like to go with me ?" 
 
 " God forbid !" cried my mother, fervently. " I will have 
 nothing to do with it, George. You are in a state of delu- 
 sion ; I shall speak to the doctor." 
 
 " By all means, my dear mother. Mr. MacGlue is a sensi- 
 ble person. "We pass his house on our way home, and we 
 will ask him to dinner. In the mean time, let us say no more 
 on the subject till we see the doctor." 
 
 I spoke lightly, but I really meant what I said. My mind 
 was sadly disturbed; my nerves were so shaken that the 
 slightest noises on the road startled me. The opinion of a 
 man like Mr. MacGlue, who looked at all mortal matters from 
 the same immovably practical point of view, might really have 
 its use, in my case, as a species of moral remedy. 
 
 We waited until the dessert was on the table, and the 
 servants had left the dining-room. Then I told my story to 
 the Scotch doctor as I have told it here ; and, that done, I 
 opened the sketch-book to let him see the writing for him- 
 self. 
 
 Had I turned to the wrong page ? 
 
 I started to my feet, and held the book close to the light 
 of the lamp that hung over the dining -table. No: I had 
 found the right page. There was my half- finished drawing 
 
90 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 of the water-fall — but where were the two lines of writing 
 beneath ? 
 
 Gone! 
 
 I strained my eyes ; I looked and looked. And the blank 
 white paper looked back at me. 
 
 I placed the open leaf before my mother. " Tou saw it as 
 plainly as I did," I said. "Are my own eyes deceiving me? 
 Look at the bottom of the page." 
 
 My mother sunk back in her chair with a cry of terror. 
 
 "Gone?" I asked. 
 
 " Gone !" 
 
 I turned to the doctor. He took me completely by sur- 
 prise. No incredulous smile appeared on his face; no jest- 
 ing words passed his lips. He was listening to us attentive- 
 ly. He was waiting gravely to hear more. 
 
 " I declare to you, on my word of honor," I said to him, 
 " that I saw the apparition writing # with my pencil at the 
 bottom of that page. I declare that I took the book in my 
 hand, and saw these words written in it, 'When the full 
 moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' Not more than three 
 hours have passed since that time; and, see for yourself, not 
 a vestige of the writing remains." 
 
 " Not a vestige of the writing remains," Mr. MacGlue re- 
 peated, quietly. 
 
 " If you feel the slightest doubt of what I have told you," 
 I went on, " ask my mother ; she will bear witness that she 
 saw the writing too." 
 
 "I don't doubt that you both saw the writing," answered 
 Mr. MacGlue, with a composure that surprised me. 
 
 " Can you account for it ?" I asked. 
 
 " Well," said the impenetrable doctor, " if I set my wits at 
 work, I believe I might account for it to the satisfaction of 
 some people. For example, I might give you what they call 
 the rational explanation, to begin with. I might say that you 
 are, to my certain knowledge, in a highly excited nervous 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 91 
 
 condition ; and that, when you saw the apparition (as you 
 call it), you simply saw nothing but your own strong im- 
 pression of an absent woman, who (as I greatly fear) has got 
 on the weak or amatory side of you. I mean no offense, Mr. 
 Germaine — " 
 
 "I take no offense, doctor. But excuse me for speak- 
 ing plainly — the rational explanation is thrown away on 
 me." 
 
 "I'll readily excuse you," answered Mr. MacGlue; "the 
 rather that I'm entirely of your opinion. I don't believe in 
 the rational explanation myself." 
 
 This was surprising, to say the least of it. " What do you 
 believe in ?" I inquired. 
 
 Mr. MacGlue declined to let me hurry him. 
 
 " Wait a little," he said. " There's the irrational explana- 
 tion to try next. Maybe it will fit itself to the present state 
 of your mind better than the other. We will say this time 
 that you have really seen the ghost (or double) of a living 
 person. Very good. If you can suppose a disembodied spirit 
 to appear in earthly clothing — of silk or merino, as the case 
 may be — it's no great stretch to suppose, next, that this same 
 spirit is capable of holding a mortal pencil, and of writing 
 mortal words in a mortal sketching-book. And if the ghost 
 vanishes (which your ghost did), it seems supernaturally ap- 
 propriate that the writing should follow the example and van- 
 ish too. And the reason of the vanishment may be (if you 
 want a reason), either that the ghost does not like letting a 
 stranger like me into its secrets, or that vanishing is a settled 
 habit of ghosts and of every thing associated with them, or 
 that this ghost has changed its mind in the course of three 
 hours (being the gb,ost of a woman, I am sure that's not won- 
 derful), and doesn't care to see you ' when the full moon shines 
 on Saint Anthony's Well.' There's the irrational explanation 
 for you. And, speaking for myself, I'm bound to add that I 
 don't set a pin's value on that explanation either." 
 
92 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Mr. MacGlue's sublime indifference to both sides of the 
 question began to irritate me. 
 
 " In plain words, doctor," I said, " you don't think the cir- 
 cumstances that I have mentioned to you worthy of serious 
 investigation ?" 
 
 " I don't think serious investigation capable of dealing with 
 the circumstances," answered the doctor. "Put it in that 
 way, and you put it right. Just look round you. Here we 
 three persons are alive and hearty at this snug table. If 
 (which God forbid!) good Mistress Germaine or yourself 
 were to fall down dead in another moment, I, doctor as I am, 
 could no more explain what first principle of life and move- 
 ment had been suddenly extinguished in you than the dog 
 there sleeping on the hearth-rug. If I am content to sit down 
 ignorant in the face of such an impenetrable mystery as this 
 — presented to me, day after day, every time I see a living 
 creature come into the world or go out of it — why may I not 
 sit down content in the face of your lady in the summer-house, 
 and say she's altogether beyond my fathoming, and there is 
 an end of her ?" 
 
 At those words my mother joined in the conversation for 
 the first time. 
 
 "Ah, sir," she said, " if you could only persuade my son to 
 take your sensible view, how happy I should be ! Would you 
 believe it ? — he positively means (if he can find the place) to 
 go to Saint Anthony's Well !" 
 
 Even this revelation entirely failed to surprise Mr. MacGlue. 
 
 "Ay, ay. He means to keep his appointment with the 
 ghost, does he ? Well, I can be of some service to him if he 
 sticks to his resolution. I can tell him of another man who 
 kept a written appointment with a ghost, and what came of 
 it." 
 
 This was a startling announcement. Did he really mean 
 what he said ? 
 
 "Are you in jest or in earnest?" I asked. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 93 
 
 "I never joke, sir," said Mr. MacGlue. "No sick person 
 really believes in a doctor who jokes. I defy you to show me 
 a man at the head of our profession who has ever been dis- 
 covered in high spirits (in medical hours) by his nearest and 
 dearest friend. You may have wondered, I dare say, at see- 
 ing me take your strange narrative as coolly as I do. It 
 comes naturally, sir. Yours is not the first story of a ghost 
 and a pencil that I have heard." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," I said, "that you know of an- 
 other man who has seen what I have seen ?" 
 
 "That's just what I mean to tell you," rejoined the doctor. 
 "The man was a far-away Scots cousin of my late wife, who 
 bore the honorable name of Bruce, and followed a sea-faring 
 life. I'll take another glass of the sherry wine, just to wet 
 my whistle, as the vulgar saying is, before I begin. Well, you 
 must know, Bruce was mate of a bark at the time I'm speak- 
 ing of, and he was on a voyage from Liverpool to New Bruns- 
 wick. At noon one day, he and the captain, having taken 
 their observation of the sun, were hard at it below, working 
 out the latitude and longitude on their slates. Bruce, in his 
 cabin, looked across through the open door of the captain's 
 cabin opposite. ' What do you make it, sir ?' says Bruce. 
 The man in the captain's cabin looked up. And what did 
 Bruce see ? The face of the captain ? Devil a bit of it — the 
 face of a total stranger ! Up jumps Bruce, with his heart go- 
 ing full gallop all in a moment, and searches for the captain 
 on deck, and finds him much as usual, with his calculations 
 done, and his latitude and longitude off his mind for the day. 
 "There's somebody at your desk, sir,' says Bruce. 'He's 
 writing on your slate ; and he's a total stranger to me.' ' A 
 stranger in my cabin ?' says the captain. ' Why, Mr. Bruce, 
 the ship has been six weeks out of port. How did he get 
 on board ?' Bruce doesn't know how, but he sticks to his 
 story. Away goes the captain, and bursts like a whirlwind 
 into his cabin, and finds nobody there. Bruce himself is 
 
94 TUB TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 obliged to acknowledge that the place is certainly empty. 
 'If I didn't know you were a sober man,' says the cap- 
 tain, ' I should charge you with drinking. As it is, I'll hold 
 you accountable for nothing worse than dreaming. Don't 
 do it again, Mr. Bruce.' Bruce sticks to his story; Bruce 
 swears he saw the man writing on the captain's slate. The 
 captain takes up the slate and looks at it. 'Lord save us 
 and bless us !' says he ; ' here the writing is, sure enough !' 
 Bruce looks at it too, and sees the writing as plainly as 
 can be, in these words : ' Steer to the nor'- west.' That, and 
 no more. — Ah, goodness me, narrating is dry work, Mr. Ger- 
 maine. With your leave, I'll take another drop of the sherry 
 wine. 
 
 " Well (it's fine old wine, that ; look at the oily drops run- 
 ning down the glass) — well, steering to the north-west, you 
 will understand, was out of the captain's course. Neverthe- 
 less, finding no solution of the mystery on board the ship, and 
 the weather at the time being fine, the captain determined, 
 while the daylight lasted, to alter his course, and see what 
 came of it. Toward three o'clock in the afternoon an ice- 
 berg came of it ; with a wrecked ship stove in, and frozen fast 
 to the ice ; and the passengers and crew nigh to death with 
 cold and exhaustion. Wonderful enough, you will say ; but 
 more remains behind. As the mate was helping one of the 
 rescued passengers up the side of the bark, who should he 
 turn out to be but the very man whose ghostly appearance 
 Bruce had seen ip the captain's cabin writing on the cap- 
 tain's slate ! And more than that — if your capacity for being 
 surprised isn't clean worn out by this time— the passenger 
 recognized the bark as the very vessel which he had seen in 
 a dream at noon that day. He had even spoken of it to one 
 of the officers on board the wrecked ship when he woke. 
 ' We shall be rescued to-tlay,' he had said ; and he had ex- 
 actly described the rig of the bark hours and hours before 
 the vessel herself hove in view. Now you know, Mr. Ger- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 95 
 
 maine, how my wife's far-away cousin kept an appointment 
 with a ghost, and what came of it."* 
 
 Concluding his story in these words, the doctor helped 
 himself to another glass of the "sherry wine." I was not 
 satisfied yet ; I wanted to know more. 
 
 " The writing on the slate," I said. " Did it remain there, 
 or did it vanish like the writing in my book ?" 
 
 Mr. MacGlue's answer disappointed me. He had never 
 asked, and had never heard, whether the writing had remain- 
 ed or not. He had told me all that he knew, and he had but 
 one thing more to say, and that was in the nature of a re- 
 mark with a moral attached to it. "There's a marvelous 
 resemblance, Mr. Germaine, between your story and Bruce's 
 story. The main difference, as I see it, is this. The passen- 
 ger's appointment proved to be the salvation of a whole ship's 
 company. I very much doubt whether the lady's appoint- 
 ment will prove to be the salvation of You." 
 
 I silently reconsidered the strange narrative which had just 
 been related to me. Another man had seen what I had seen 
 — had done what I proposed to do ! My mother noticed with 
 grave displeasure the strong impression which Mr. MacGlue 
 had produced on my mind. 
 
 " I wish you had kept your story to yourself, doctor," she 
 said, sharply. 
 
 " May I ask why, madam ?" 
 
 " You have confirmed my son, sir, in his resolution to go 
 to Saint Anthony's Well." 
 
 Mr. MacGlue quietly consulted his pocket almanac before 
 he replied. 
 
 " It's the full moon on the ninth of the month," he said. 
 
 * The doctor's narrative is not imaginary. It will be found related in full 
 detail, and authenticated by names and dates, in Robert Dale Owen's very 
 interesting work called " Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World." The 
 
 jiauthor gladly takes this opportunity of acknowledging his obligations to Mr. 
 
 1 'Owen's remarkable book. 
 
96 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " That gives Mr. Germaine some days of rest, ma'am, before 
 he takes the journey. If he travels in his own comfortable 
 carriage — whatever I may think, morally speaking, of his en- 
 terprise — I can't say, medically speaking, that I believe it will 
 do him much harm." 
 
 " Tou know where Saint Anthony's "Well is?" I interposed. 
 
 "I must be mighty ignorant of Edinburgh not to know 
 that," replied the doctor. 
 
 "Is the Well in Edinburgh, then?" 
 
 "It's just outside Edinburgh — looks down on it, as you 
 may say. You follow the old street called the Canongate to 
 the end. Tou turn to your right, past the famous Palace of 
 Holyrood ; you cross the Park and the Drive, and take your 
 way upward to the ruins of Anthony's Chapel, on the shoul- 
 der of the hill — and there you are ! There's a high rock be- 
 hind the chapel, and at the foot of it you will find the spring 
 they call Anthony's Well. It's thought a pretty view by 
 moonlight ; and they tell me it's no longer beset at night by 
 bad characters, as it used to be in the old time." 
 
 My mother, in graver and graver displeasure, rose to retire 
 to the drawing-room. 
 
 " I confess you have disappointed me," she said to Mr. 
 MacGlue. " I should have thought you would have been the 
 last man to encourage my son in an act of imprudence." 
 
 " Craving your pardon, madam, your son requires no en- 
 couragement. I can see for myself that his mind is made up. 
 Where is the use of a person like me trying to stop him ? 
 Dear madam, if he won't profit by your advice, what hope 
 can I have that he will take mine ?" 
 
 Mr. MacGlue pointed this artful compliment by a bow of 
 the deepest respect, and threw open the door for my mother 
 to pass out. 
 
 When we were left together over our wine, I asked the 
 doctor how soon I might safely start on my journey to Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 97 
 
 " Take two days to dw the journey, and you may start, if 
 you're bent on it, at the beginning of the week. But mind 
 this," added the prudent doctor, " though I own I'm anxious 
 to hear what comes of your expedition — understand at the 
 same time, so far as the lady is concerned, that I wash my 
 hands of the consequences." 
 
 5 
 
98 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 I stood on the rocky eminence in front of the ruins of 
 Saint Anthony's Chapel, and looked on the magnificent view 
 of Edinburgh and of the old Palace of Holyrood, bathed in 
 the light of the full moon. 
 
 The Well, as the doctor's instructions had informed me, 
 was behind the chapel. I waited for some minutes in front 
 of the ruin, partly to recover my breath after ascending the 
 hill ; partly, I own, to master the nervous agitation which the 
 sense of my position at that moment had aroused in me. 
 The woman, or the apparition of the woman — it might be 
 either — was perhaps within a few yards of the place that I 
 occupied. Not a living creature appeared in front of the 
 chapel. Not a sound caught my ear from any part of the 
 solitary hill. I tried to fix my whole attention on the beau- 
 ties of the moonlit view. It was not to be done. My mind 
 was far away from the objects on which my eyes rested. 
 My mind was with the woman whom I had seen in the sum- 
 mer-house writing in my book. 
 
 I turned to skirt the side of the chapel. A few steps 
 more over the broken ground brought me within view of the 
 Well, and of the high bowlder or rock from the foot of which 
 the waters gushed brightly in the light of the moon. 
 
 She was there. 
 
 I recognized her figure as she stood leaning against the 
 rock, with her hands crossed in front of her, lost in thought. 
 I recognized her face as she looked up quickly, startled by the 
 sound of my footsteps in the deep stillness of the night. 
 
"i don't understand you," she said. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 101 
 
 Was it the woman, or the apparition ol the woman? I 
 waited, looking at her in silence. 
 
 She spoke. The sound of her voice was not the mysteri- 
 ous sound that I had heard in the summer-house. It was 
 the sound I had heard on the bridge when we first met in the 
 dim evening light. 
 
 " Who are you? What do you want?" 
 
 As those words passed her lips, she recognized me. " You 
 here !" she went on, advancing a step, in uncontrollable sur- 
 prise. " What does this mean ?" 
 
 " I am here," I answered, " to meet you, by your own ap- 
 pointment." 
 
 She stepped back again, leaning against the rock. The 
 moonlight shone full upon her face. There was terror as well 
 as astonishment in her eyes while they now looked at me. 
 
 " I don't understand you," she said. " I have not seen you 
 since you spoke to me on the bridge." 
 
 "Pardon me," I replied. "I have seen you — or the ap- 
 pearance of you — since that time. I heard you speak. I 
 saw you write." 
 
 She looked at me with the strangest expression of mingled 
 resentment and curiosity. "What did I say?" she asked. 
 "What did I write?" 
 
 " You said, ' Remember me. Come to me.' You wrote, 
 ' When the full moon shines on Saint Anthony's Well.' " 
 
 " Where ?" she cried. " Where did I do that ?" 
 
 " In a summer-house which stands by a water-fall," I an- 
 swered. " Do you know the place ?" 
 
 Her head sunk back against the rock. A low cry of terror 
 burst from her. Her arm, resting on the rock, dropped at 
 her side. I hurriedly approached her, in the fear that she 
 might fall on the stony ground. 
 
 She rallied her failing strength. "Don't touch me!" she 
 exclaimed. " Stand back, sir. You frighten me." 
 
 I tried to soothe her. "Why do I frighten you? You 
 
102 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 know who I am. Can you doubt my interest in you, after I 
 have been the means of saving your life ?" 
 
 Her reserve vanished in an instant. She advanced without 
 hesitation, and took me by the hand. 
 
 " I ought to thank you," she said. "And I do. I am not 
 so ungrateful as I seem. I am not a wicked woman, sir — I 
 was mad with misery when I tried to drown myself. Don't 
 distrust me ! Don't despise me !" She stopped ; I saw the 
 tears on her cheeks. With a sudden contempt for herself, 
 she dashed them away. Her whole tone and manner altered 
 once more. Her reserve returned ; she looked at me with a 
 strange flash of suspicion and defiance in her eyes. " Mind 
 this!" she said, loudly and abruptly, " you were dreaming 
 when you thought you saw me writing. You didn't see me ; 
 you never heard me speak. How could I say those familiar 
 words to a stranger like you? It's all your fancy — and you 
 try to frighten me by talking of it as if it was a real thing !" 
 She changed again ; her eyes softened to the sad and tender 
 look which made them so irresistibly beautiful. She drew 
 her cloak round her with a shudder, as if she felt the chill 
 of the night air. " What is the matter with me ?" I heard 
 her say to herself. " Why do I trust this man in my dreams ? 
 And why am I ashamed of it when I wake ?" 
 
 That strange outburst encouraged me. I risked letting her 
 know that I had overheard her last words. 
 
 " If you trust me in your dreams, you only do me justice," 
 I said. "Do me justice now; give me your confidence. 
 You are alone — you are in trouble — you want a friend's help. 
 I am waiting to help you." 
 
 She hesitated. I tried to take her hand. The strange 
 creature drew it away with a cry of alarm : her one great 
 fear seemed to be the fear of letting me touch her. 
 
 " Give me time to think of it," she said. " You don't 
 know what I have got to think of. Give me till to-morrow ; 
 and let me write. Are you staying in Edinburgh ?" 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 103 
 
 I thought it wise to be satisfied — in appearance at least 
 — with this concession. Taking out my card, I wrote on 
 it in pencil the address of the hotel at which I was staying. 
 She read the card by the moonlight when I put it into her 
 hand. 
 
 " George !" she repeated to herself, stealing another look 
 at me as the name passed her lips. " ' George Germaine.' 
 I never heard of ' Germaine.' But ' George ' reminds me of 
 old times." She smiled sadly at some passing fancy or re- 
 membrance in which I was not permitted to share. " There 
 is nothing very wonderful in your being called ' George,' " she 
 went on, after a while. " The name is common enough : one 
 meets with it everywhere as a man's name. And yet — " 
 Her eyes finished the sentence ; her eyes said to me, " I am 
 not so much afraid of you, now I know that you are called 
 ' George.' " 
 
 So she unconsciously led me to the brink of discovery ! 
 
 If I had only asked her what associations she connected 
 with my Christian name — if I had only persuaded her to 
 speak in the briefest and most guarded terms of her past life 
 — the barrier between us, which the change in our names and 
 the lapse of ten years had raised, must have been broken 
 down; the recognition must have followed. But I never 
 even thought of it ; and for this simple reason — I was in love 
 with her. The purely selfish idea of winning my way to her 
 favorable regard by taking instant advantage of the new in- 
 terest that I had awakened in her was the one idea which 
 occurred to my mind. 
 
 " Don't wait to write to me," I said. " Don't put it off till 
 to-morrow. Who knows what may happen before to-mor- 
 row? Surely I deserve some little return for the sympathy 
 that I feel with you ? I don't ask for much. Make me hap- 
 py by making me of some service to you before we part to- 
 night." 
 
 I took her hand, this time, before she was aware of me. 
 
104 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 The whole woman seemed to yield at my touch. Her hand 
 lay unresistingly in mine ; her charming figure came by soft 
 gradations nearer and nearer to me; her head almost touch- 
 ed my shoulder. She murmured in faint accents, broken by 
 sighs, " Don't take advantage of me. I am so friendless : I 
 am so completely in your power." Before I could answer, 
 before I could move, her hand closed on mine ; her head sunk 
 on my shoulder : she burst into tears. 
 
 Any man, not an inbred and inborn villain, would have re- 
 spected her at that moment. I put her hand on my arm and 
 led her away gently past the ruined chapel, and down the 
 slope of the hill. 
 
 " This lonely place is frightening you," I said. " Let us 
 walk a little, and you will soon be yourself again." 
 
 She smiled through her tears like a child. 
 
 " Yes," she said, eagerly. " But not that way." I had ac- 
 cidentally taken the direction which led away from the city : 
 she begged me to turn toward the houses and the streets. 
 We walked back toward Edinburgh. She eyed me, as we 
 went on in the moonlight, with innocent, wondering looks. 
 " What an unaccountable influence you have over me !" she 
 exclaimed. " Did you ever see me, did you ever hear my 
 name, before we met that evening at the river ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "And I never heard your name, and never saw you be- 
 fore. Strange ! very strange ! Ah ! I remember somebody 
 • — only an old woman, sir — who might once have explained 
 it. Where shall I find the like of her now ?" 
 
 She sighed bitterly. The lost friend or relative had evi- 
 dently been dear to her. "A relation of yours ?" I inquired 
 — more to keep her talking than because I felt any interest in 
 any member of her family but herself. 
 
 We were again on the brink of discovery. And again it 
 was decreed that we were to advance no farther. 
 
 " Don't ask me about my relations !" she broke out. " I 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 105 
 
 daren't think of the dead and gone, in the trouble that is try- 
 ing me now. If I speak of the old times at home, I shall only 
 burst out crying again, and distress you. Talk of something 
 else, sir — talk of something else." 
 
 The mystery of the apparition in the summer-house was 
 not cleared up yet. I took my opportunity of approaching 
 the subject. 
 
 " You spoke a little while since of dreaming of me," I be- 
 gan. " Tell me your dream." 
 
 " I hardly know whether it was a dream or whether it was 
 something else," she answered. " I call it a dream for want 
 of a better word." 
 
 " Did it happen at night ?" 
 
 " No. In the day-time — in the afternoon." 
 
 " Late in the afternoon ?" 
 
 " Yes — close on the evening." 
 
 My memory reverted to the doctor's story of the ship- 
 wrecked passenger, whose ghostly " double " had appeared in 
 the vessel that was to rescue him, and who had himself seen 
 that vessel in a dream. 
 
 "Do you remember the day of the month and the hour?" 
 I asked. 
 
 She mentioned the day, and she mentioned the hour. It 
 was the day when my mother and I had visited the water- 
 fall ! It was the hour when I had seen the apparition in the 
 summer-house writing in my book ! 
 
 I stopped in irrepressible astonishment. "We had walked 
 by this time nearly as far on the way back to the city as the 
 old Palace of Holyrood. My companion, after a glance at 
 me, turned and looked at the rugged old building, mellowed 
 into quiet beauty by the lovely moonlight. 
 
 "This is my favorite walk," she said, simply, " since I have 
 been in Edinburgh. I don't mind the loneliness. I like the 
 perfect tranquillity here at night." She glanced at me again. 
 
 5* 
 
106 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" she asked. " You say nothing ; you 
 only look at me." 
 
 " I want to hear more of your dream," I said. " How did 
 you come to be sleeping in the day-time ?" 
 
 "It is not easy to say what I was doing," she replied, as 
 we walked on again. "I was miserably anxious and ill. I 
 felt my helpless condition keenly on that day. It was dinner- 
 time, I remember, and I had no appetite. I went upstairs 
 (at the inn where I am staying), and lay down, quite worn 
 out, on my bed. I don't know whether I fainted or whether 
 I slept ; I lost all consciousness of what was going on about 
 me, and I got some other consciousness in its place. If this 
 was dreaming, I can only say it was the most vivid dream I 
 ever had in my life." 
 
 " Did it begin by your seeing me ?" I inquired. 
 
 "It began by my seeing your drawing-book — lying open 
 on a table in a summer-house." 
 
 " Can you describe the summer-house as you saw it?" 
 
 She described not only the summer-house, but the view of 
 the water-fall from the door. She knew the size, she knew 
 the binding, of my sketch-book — locked up in my desk, at 
 that moment, at home in Perthshire ! 
 
 "And you wrote in the book," I went on. "Do you re- 
 member what you wrote ?" 
 
 She looked away from me confusedly, as if she were 
 ashamed to recall this part of her dream. 
 
 "You have mentioned it already," she said. "There is no 
 need for me to go over the words again. Tell me one thing 
 — when you were at the summer-house, did you wait a little 
 on the path to the door before you went in ?" 
 
 I had waited, surprised by my first view of the woman 
 writing in my book. Having answered her to this effect, I 
 asked what she had done or dreamed of doing at the later 
 moment when I entered the summer-house. 
 
 " I did the strangest things," she said, in low, wondering 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 107 
 
 tones. " If you had been my brother, I could hardly have 
 treated you more familiarly. I beckoned to you to come to 
 me. I even laid my hand on your bosom. I spoke to you as 
 I might have spoken to my oldest and dearest friend. I said, 
 ' Remember me. Come to me.' Oh, I was so ashamed of 
 myself when I came to my senses again, and recollected it ! 
 Was there ever such familiarity — even in a dream — between 
 a woman and a man whom she had only once seen, and then 
 as a perfect stranger ?" 
 
 "Did you notice how long it was," I asked, "from the 
 time when you lay down on the bed to the time when you 
 found yourself awake again ?" 
 
 " I think I can tell you," she replied. " It was the dinner- 
 time of the house (as I said just now) when I went upstairs. 
 Not long after I had come to myself I heard a church clock 
 strike the hour. Reckoning from one time to the other, it 
 must have been quite three hours from the time when I first 
 lay down to the time when I got up again." 
 
 Was the clue to the mysterious disappearance of the writ- 
 ing to be found here ? 
 
 Looking back by the light of later discoveries, I am in- 
 clined to think that it was. In three hours the lines traced 
 by the apparition of her had vanished. In three hours she 
 had come to herself, and had felt ashamed of the familiar 
 manner in which she had communicated with me in her sleep- 
 ing state. While she had trusted me in the trance — trusted 
 me because her spirit was then free to recognize my spirit — 
 the writing had remained on the page. When her waking 
 will counteracted the influence of her sleeping will, the writ- 
 ing disappeared. Is this the explanation ? If it is not, where 
 is the explanation to be found ? 
 
 We walked on until we reached that part of the Canongate 
 street in which she lodged. We stopped at the door. 
 
108 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THE LETTEK OF INTRODUCTION. 
 
 I looked at the house. It was an inn, of no great size, but 
 of respectable appearance. If I was to be of any use to her 
 that night, the time had come to speak of other subjects than 
 the subject of dreams. 
 
 "After all that you have told me," I said, "I will not ask 
 you to admit me any farther into your confidence until we 
 meet again. Only let me hear how I can relieve your most 
 pressing anxieties. What are your plans? Can I do any 
 thing to help them before you go to rest to-night ?" 
 
 She thanked me warmly, and hesitated, looking up the street 
 and down the street in evident embarrassment what to say 
 next. 
 
 " Do you propose staying in Edinburgh ?" I asked. 
 
 " Oh no ! I don't wish to remain in Scotland. I want to 
 go much farther away. I think I should do better in Lon- 
 don ; at some respectable milliner's, if I could be properly 
 recommended. I am quick at my needle, and I understand 
 cutting out. Or I could keep accounts, if — if any body would 
 trust me." 
 
 She stopped, and looked at me doubtingly, as if she felt far 
 from sure, poor soul, of winning my confidence to begin with. 
 I acted on that hint, with the headlong impetuosity of a man 
 who was in love. 
 
 " I can give you exactly the recommendation you want," I 
 said, " whenever you like. Now, if you would prefer it." 
 
 Her charming features brightened with pleasure. " Oh, 
 you are indeed a friend to me !" she said, impulsively. Her 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 109 
 
 face clouded again — she saw my proposal in a new light. 
 " Have I any right," she asked, sadly, " to accept what you 
 offer me ?" 
 
 " Let me give you the letter," I answered, " and you can de- 
 cide for yourself whether you will use it or not." 
 
 I put her arm again in mine, and entered the inn. 
 
 She shrunk back in alarm. What would the landlady think 
 if she saw her lodger enter the house at night in company 
 with a stranger, and that stranger a gentleman? The land- 
 lady appeared as she made the objection. Reckless what I 
 said or what I did, I introduced myself as her relative, and 
 asked to be shown into a quiet room in which I could write a 
 letter. After one sharp glance at me, the landlady appeared 
 to be satisfied that she was dealing with a gentleman. She 
 led the way into a sort of parlor behind the "bar," placed 
 writing materials on the table, looked at my companion as 
 only one woman can look at another under certain circum- 
 stances, and left us by ourselves. 
 
 It was the first time I had ever been in a room with her 
 alone. The embarrassing sense of her position had height- 
 ened her color and brightened her eyes. She stood, leaning 
 one hand on the table, confused and irresolute, her firm and 
 supple figure falling into an attitude of unsought grace which 
 it was literally a luxury to look at. I said nothing; my eyes 
 confessed my admiration ; the writing materials lay untouched 
 before me on the table. How long the silence might have 
 lasted I can not say. She abruptly broke it. Her instinct 
 warned her that silence might have its dangers, in our posi- 
 tion. She turned to me with an effort ; she said, uneasily, " I 
 don't think you ought to write your letter to-night, sir." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " You know nothing of me. Surely you ought not to rec- 
 ommend a person who is a stranger to you ? And I am worse 
 than a stranger. I am a miserable wretch who has tried to 
 commit a great sin— I have tried to destroy myself. Perhaps 
 
110 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 the misery I was in might be some excuse for me, if you knew 
 it. You ought to know it. But it's so late to-night, and I 
 am so sadly tired — and there are some things, sir, which it is 
 not easy for a woman to speak of in the presence of a man." 
 
 Her head sunk on her bosom ; her delicate lips trembled a 
 little; she said no more. The way to re-assure and console 
 her lay plainly enough before me, if I chose to take it. With- 
 out stopping to think, I took it. 
 
 Reminding her that she had herself proposed writing to me 
 when we met that evening, I suggested that she should wait 
 to tell the sad story of her troubles until it was convenient 
 to her to send me the narrative in the form of a letter. " In 
 the mean time," I added, " I have the most perfect confidence 
 in you ; and I beg as a favor that you will let me put it to 
 the proof. I can introduce you to a dress-maker in London 
 who is at the head of a large establishment, and I will do it 
 before I leave you to-night." 
 
 I dipped my pen in the ink as I said the words. Let me 
 confess frankly the lengths to which my infatuation led me. 
 The dress-maker to whom I had alluded had been my moth- 
 er's maid in former years, and had been established in busi- 
 ness with money lent by my late step-father, Mr. Germaine. I 
 used both their names without scruple ; and I wrote my rec- 
 ommendation in terms which the best of living women and 
 the ablest of existing dress-makers could never have hoped to 
 merit. Will any body find excuses for me ? Those rare per- 
 sons who have been in love, and who have not completely for- 
 gotten it yet, may perhaps find excuses for me. It matters 
 little ; I don't deserve them. 
 
 I handed her the open letter to read. 
 
 She blushed delightfully; she cast one tenderly grateful 
 look at me, which I remembered but too well for many and 
 many an after-day. The next moment, to my astonishment, 
 this changeable creature changed again. Some forgotten con- 
 sideration seemed to have occurred to her. She turned pale ; 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. Ill 
 
 ie soft lines of pleasure in her face hardened, little by little ; 
 tie regarded me with the saddest look of confusion and dis- 
 •ess. Putting the letter down before me on the table, she 
 lid, timidly, 
 
 " Would you mind adding a postscript, sir ?" 
 
 I suppressed all appearance of surprise as well as I could, 
 nd took up the pen again. 
 
 " Would you please say," she went on, " that I am only to 
 e taken on trial, at first ? I am not to be engaged for more " 
 -her voice sunk lower and lower, so that I could barely hear 
 ie next words — " for more than three months, certain." 
 
 It was not in human nature — perhaps I ought to say it was 
 ot in the nature of a man who was in my situation — to re- 
 gain from showing some curiosity, on being asked to supple- 
 lent a letter of recommendation by such a postscript as this. 
 
 " Have you some other employment in prospect ?" I asked. 
 
 " None," she answered, with her head down, and her eyes 
 voiding mine. 
 
 An unworthy doubt of her — the mean offspring of jealousy 
 -found its way into my mind. 
 
 " Have you some absent friend," I went on, " who is likely 
 ) prove a better friend than I am, if you only give him 
 me?" 
 
 She lifted her noble head. Her grand, guileless gray eyes 
 ;sted on me with a look of patient reproach. 
 
 " I have not got a friend in the world," she said. " For 
 od's sake, ask me no more questions to-night !" 
 
 I rose and gave her the letter once more — with the post- 
 iript added, in her own words. 
 
 We stood together by the table ; we looked at each other 
 i a momentary silence. 
 
 " How can I thank you ?" she murmured, softly. " Oh, 
 r, I will indeed be worthy of the confidence that you have 
 town in me !" Her eyes moistened ; her variable color came 
 id went ; her dress heaved softly over the lovely outline of 
 
112 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 her bosom. I don't believe the man lives who could have re- 
 sisted her at that moment. I lost all power of restraint; I 
 caught her in my arms ; I whispered, " I love you !" I kissed 
 her passionately. For a moment she lay helpless and trem- 
 bling on my breast; for a moment her fragrant lips softly 
 returned the kiss. In an instant more it was over. She tore 
 herself away with a shudder that shook her from head to 
 foot, and threw the letter that I had given to her indignantly 
 at my feet. 
 
 " How dare you take advantage of me ! How dare you 
 touch me !" she said. " Take your letter back, sir ; I refuse 
 to receive it; I will never speak to you again. You don't 
 know what you have done. You don't know how deeply you 
 have wounded me. Oh !" she cried, throwing herself in de- 
 spair on a sofa that stood near her, " shall I ever recover my 
 self-respect ? shall I ever forgive myself for what I have done 
 to-night ?" 
 
 I implored her pardon; I assured her of my repentance 
 and regret in words which did really come from my heart. 
 The violence of her agitation more than distressed me — I 
 was really alarmed by it. 
 
 She composed herself after a while. She rose to her feet 
 with modest dignity, and silently held out her hand in token 
 that my repentance was accepted. 
 
 "You will give me time for atonement?" I pleaded. 
 "You will not lose all confidence in me? Let me see you 
 again, if it is only to show that I am not quite unworthy of 
 your pardou — at your own time; in the presence of another 
 person, if you like." 
 
 " I will write to you," she said. 
 
 " To-morrow ?" 
 
 " To-morrow." 
 
 I took up the letter of recommendation from the floor. 
 
 " Make your goodness to me complete," I said. " Don't 
 mortify me by refusing to take my letter." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 113 
 
 " I will take your letter," she answered, quietly. " Thank 
 you for writing it. Leave me now, please. Good-night." 
 
 I left her, pale and sad, with my letter in her hand. I left 
 her, with my mind in a tumult of contending emotions, which 
 gradually resolved themselves into two master-feelings as I 
 walked on : Love, that adored her more fervently than ever ; 
 and Hope, that set the prospect before me of seeing her again 
 on the next day. 
 
114 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DISASTERS OF MRS. VAN BRANDT. 
 
 A man who passes his evening as I had passed mine, may 
 go to bed afterward if he has nothing better to do. But he 
 must not rank among the number of his reasonable anticipa- 
 tions the expectation of getting a night's rest. The morning 
 was well advanced, and the hotel was astir, before I at last 
 closed my eyes in slumber. When I awoke, my watch in- 
 formed me that it was close on noon. 
 
 I rang the bell. My servant appeared with a letter in his 
 hand. It had been left for me, three hours since, by a lady 
 who had driven to the hotel door in a carriage, and had then 
 driven away again. The man had found me sleeping when 
 he entered my bed-chamber, and, having received no orders 
 to wake me overnight, had left the letter on the sitting-room 
 table until he heard my bell. 
 
 Easily guessing who my correspondent was, I opened the 
 letter. An inclosure fell out of it — to which, for the moment, 
 I paid no attention. The letter was the one object of interest 
 to me. I turned eagerly to the first lines. They announced 
 that the writer had escaped me for the second time : early 
 that morning she had left Edinburgh. The paper inclosed 
 proved to be my letter of introduction to the dress-maker re- 
 turned to me. 
 
 I was more than angry with her — I felt her second flight 
 from me as a downright outrage. In five minutes I had hur- 
 ried on my clothes, and was on my way to the inn in the 
 Canongate as fast as a horse could draw me. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 1 15 
 
 The servants could give me no informatisn. Her escape 
 had been effected without their knowledge. 
 
 The landlady, to whom I next addressed myself, deliberate- 
 ly declined to assist me in any way whatever. 
 
 " I have given the lady my promise," said this obstinate 
 person, " to answer not one word to any question that you 
 may ask me about her. In my belief, she is acting as be- 
 comes an honest woman in removing herself from any fur- 
 ther communication with you. I saw you through the key- 
 hole last night, sir. I wish you good-morning." 
 
 Returning to my hotel, I left no attempt to discover her 
 untried. I traced the coachman who had driven her. He 
 had set her down at a shop, and had then been dismissed. I 
 questioned the shop-keeper. He remembered that he had 
 sold some articles of linen to a lady with her veil down and a 
 traveling-bag in her hand, and he remembered no more. I 
 circulated a description of her in the different coach offices. 
 Three "elegant young ladies, with their veils down, and with 
 traveling-bags in their hands," answered to the description ; 
 and which of the three was the fugitive of whom I was in 
 search, it was impossible to discover. In the days of railways 
 and electric telegraphs I might have succeeded in tracing her. 
 In the days of which I am now writing, she set investigation 
 at defiance. 
 
 I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip 
 of the pen might furnish the clue which I had failed to find 
 in any other way. Here is the narrative that she addressed 
 to me, copied from the original, word for word : 
 
 " Dear Sir, — Forgive me for leaving you again, as I left 
 you in Perthshire. After what took place last night, I have 
 no other choice (knowing my own weakness, and the influence 
 that you seem to have over me) than to thank you gratefully 
 for your kindness, and to bid you farewell. My sad position 
 must be my excuse for separating myself from you in this 
 
116 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 rude manner, and for venturing to send you back your letter 
 of introduction. If I use the letter, I only offer you a means 
 of communicating with me. For your sake, as well as for 
 mine, this must not be. I must never give you a second 
 opportunity of saying that you love me; I must go away, 
 leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly discover 
 me. 
 
 "But I can not forget that I owe my poor life to your 
 compassion and your courage. Ton, who saved me, have a 
 right to know what the provocation was that drove me to 
 drowning myself, and what my situation is, now that I am 
 (thanks to you) still a living woman. You shall hear my sad 
 story, sir ; and I will try to tell it as briefly as possible. 
 
 " I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentle- 
 man, whose name is Van Brandt. Please excuse my enter- 
 ing into family particulars. I have endeavored to write and 
 tell you about my dear lost father and my old home. But 
 the tears come into my eyes when I think of my happy past 
 life. I really can not see the lines as I try to write them. 
 
 " Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was weli rec- 
 ommended to my good father before I married. I have only 
 now discovered that he obtained these recommendations from 
 his friends under a false pretense, which it is needless to 
 trouble you by mentioning in detail. Ignorant of whatjie 
 had done, I lived with him happily. I can not truly declare 
 that he was the object of my first love, but he was the one 
 person in the world whom I had to look up to after my fa- 
 ther's death. I esteemed him and respected him, and, if I 
 may say so without vanity, I did indeed make him a good 
 wife. 
 
 " So the time went on, sirj prosperously enough, until the 
 evening came when you and I met on the bridge. 
 
 " I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when 
 the maid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady 
 in a carriage at the door who desired to say a word to Mrs. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 117 
 
 Van Brandt. I sent the maid on before to show her into the 
 sitting-room, and I followed to receive my visitor as soon as 
 I had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman, with a 
 flushed, fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. 
 Van Brandt ?' she said. I answered, ' Yes.' 'Are you really 
 married to him?' she asked me. That question (naturally 
 enough, I think) upset my temper. I said, 'How dare you 
 doubt it ?' She laughed in my face. ' Send for Van Brandt,' 
 she said. I went out into the passage, and called him down 
 from the room upstairs in which he was writing. 'Ernest,' 
 I said, 'here is a person who has insulted me. Come down 
 directly.' He left his room the moment he heard me. The 
 woman followed me out into the passage to meet him. She 
 made him a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the mo- 
 ment he set eyes on her. That frightened me. I said to him, 
 ' For God's sake, what does this mean ?" He took me by the 
 arm, and he answered, ' You shall know soon. Go back to 
 your gardening, and don't return to the house till I send for 
 you.' His looks were so shocking, he was so unlike himself, 
 that I declare he daunted me. I let him take me as far as 
 the garden door. He squeezed my hand. 'For my sake, 
 darling,' he whispered, ' do what I ask of you.' I went into 
 the garden and sat me down on the nearest bench, and waited 
 impatiently for what was to come. 
 
 " How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got 
 to such a pitch at last that I could bear it no longer. I vent- 
 ured back to the house. 
 
 "I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went 
 close to the parlor door, and still there was silence. I took 
 coui"age, and opened the door. 
 
 " The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. 
 It was in my husband's handwriting, and it was addressed to 
 me. I opened it and read it. The letter told me that I was 
 deserted, disgraced, ruined. The woman with the fiery face 
 and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt's lawful wife. She 
 
118 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 had given him his choice of going away with her at once or 
 of being prosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with 
 her — gone, and left me. 
 
 " Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. 
 I had no friends. I was alone in the world, without a creat- 
 ure near to comfort or advise me. And please to bear in 
 mind that I have a temper which feels even the smallest 
 slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder at what I 
 had it in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge ? 
 
 "Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to 
 destroy myself if I could only have burst out crying. No 
 tears came to me. A dull, stunned feeling took hold like a 
 vise on my head and on my heart. I walked straight to the 
 river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along, 'There 
 is the end of it, and the sooner the better.' 
 
 " What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I 
 may get on to the next morning — the morning when I so un- 
 gratefully left you at the inn by the river-side. 
 
 " I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first con- 
 veyance that I could find to take me, and this was the fear 
 that Van Brandt might discover me if I remained in Perth- 
 shire. The letter that he had left on the table was full of 
 expressions of love and remorse, to say nothing of excuses 
 for his infamous behavior to me. He declared that he had 
 been entrapped into a private marriage with a profligate 
 woman when he was little more than a lad. They had long 
 since separated by common consent. When he first courted 
 me, he had every reason to believe that she was dead. How 
 he had been deceived in this particular, and how she had 
 discovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. 
 Knowing her furious temper, he had gone away with her, as 
 the one means of preventing an application to the justices 
 and a scandal in the neighborhood. In a day or two he 
 would purchase his release from her by an addition to the 
 allowance which she had already received from him : he would 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 119 
 
 return to me and take me abroad, oat of the way of further 
 annoyance. I was his wife in the sight of Heaven; I was 
 the only woman he had ever loved ; and so on, and so on. 
 
 "Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discov- 
 ering me if I remained in your neighborhood? The bare 
 thought of it made my flesh creep. I was determined never 
 again to see the man who had so cruelly deceived me. I am 
 in the same mind still — with this difference, that I might con- 
 sent to see him, if I could be positively assured first of the 
 death of his wife. That is not likely to happen. Let me get 
 on with my letter, and tell you what I did on my arrival in 
 Edinburgh. 
 
 " The coachman recommended me to the house in the Can- 
 ongate where you found me lodging. I wrote the same day 
 to relatives of my father, living in Glasgow, to tell them where 
 I was, and in what a forlorn position I found myself. 
 
 " I was answered by return of post. The head of the fam- 
 ily and his wife requested me to refrain from visiting them 
 in Glasgow. They had business then in hand which would 
 take them to Edinburgh, and I might expect to see them 
 both with the least possible delay. 
 
 " They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed 
 themselves civilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend 
 me a small sum of money when they found how poorly my 
 purse was furnished. But I don't think either husband or 
 wife felt much for me. They recommended me, at parting, 
 to apply to my father's other relatives, living in England. I 
 may be doing them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager 
 to get me (as the common phrase is) off their hands. 
 
 " The day when the departure of my relatives left me 
 friendless was also the day, sir, when I had that dream or 
 vision of you which I have already related. I lingered on 
 at the house in the Canongate, partly because the landlady 
 was kind to me, partly because I was so depressed by my 
 position that I really did not know what to do next. 
 
120 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "In this wretched condition you discovered me on that 
 favorite walk of mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's 
 Well. Believe me, your kind interest in my fortunes has 
 not been thrown away on an ungrateful woman. I could ask 
 Providence for no greater blessing than to find a brother and 
 a friend in you. You have yourself destroyed that hope by 
 what you said and did when we were together in the parlor. 
 I don't blame you: I am afraid my manner (without my 
 knowing it) might have seemed to give you some encourage- 
 ment. I am only sorry — very, very sorry — to have no honor- 
 able choice left but never to see you again. 
 
 "After much thinking, I have made up my mind to speak 
 to those other relatives of my father to whom I have not yet 
 applied. The chance that they may help me to earn an hon- 
 est living is the one chance that I have left. God bless 
 you, Mr Germaine ! I wish you prosperity and happiness 
 from the bottom of my heart; and remain, your grateful 
 servant, M. Van Bkandt. 
 
 "P.S. — I sign my own name (or the name which I once 
 thought was mine) as a proof that I have honestly written 
 the truth about myself, from first to last. For the future I 
 must, for safety's sake, live under some other name. I should 
 like to go back to my name when I was a happy girl at home. 
 But Van Brandt knows it ; and, besides, I have (no matter 
 how innocently) disgraced it. Good-bye again, sir ; and thank 
 you again." 
 
 So the letter concluded. 
 
 I read it in the temper of a thoroughly disappointed and 
 thoroughly unreasonable man. Whatever poor Mrs. Van 
 Brandt had done, she had done wrong. It was wrong of her, 
 in the first place, to have married at all. It was wrong of her 
 to contemplate receiving Mr. Van Brandt again, even if his 
 lawful wife had died in the interval. It was wrong of her to 
 return my letter of introduction, after I had given myself the 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 121 
 
 trouble of altering it to suit her capricious fancy. It was 
 wrong of her to take an absurdly prudish view of a stolen 
 kiss and a tender declaration, and to fly from me as if I were 
 as great a scoundrel as Mr. Van Brandt himself. And last, 
 and more than all, it was wrong of her to sign her Christian 
 name in initial only. Here I was, passionately in love with a 
 woman, and not knowing by what fond name to identify her 
 in my thoughts ! " M. Van Brandt !" I might call her Maria, 
 Margaret, Martha, Mabel, Magdalen, Mary — no, not Mary. 
 The old boyish love was dead and gone, but I owed some 
 respect to the memory of it. If the " Mary " of my early 
 days were still living, and if I had met her, would she have 
 treated me as this woman had treated me ? Never ! It was 
 an injury to "Mary" to think even of that heartless creat- 
 ure by her name. Why think of her at all ? Why degrade 
 myself by trying to puzzle out a means of tracing her in her 
 letter ? It was sheer folly to attempt to trace a woman who 
 had gone I knew not whither, and who herself informed me 
 that she meant to pass under an assumed name. Had I lost 
 all pride, all self-respect ? In the flower of my age, with a 
 handsome fortune, with the world before me, full of interest- 
 ing female faces and charming female figures, what course 
 did it become me to take ? To go back to my country-house, 
 and mope over the loss of a woman who had deliberately 
 deserted me? or to send for a courier and a traveling car- 
 riage, and forget her gayly among foreign people and foreign 
 scenes ? In the state of my temper at that moment, the idea 
 of a pleasure tour in Europe fired my imagination. I first 
 astonished the people at the hotel by ordering all further 
 inquiries after the missing Mrs. Van Brandt to be stopped ; 
 and then I opened my writing-desk and wrote to tell my 
 mother frankly and fully of my new plans. 
 
 The answer arrived by return of post. 
 
 To my surprise and delight, my good mother was not sat- 
 isfied with only formally approving of my new resolution. 
 
122 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 With an energy which I had not ventured to expect from her, 
 she had made all her arrangements for leaving home, and had 
 started for Edinburgh to join me as my traveling companion. 
 " You shall not go away alone, George," she wrote, " while I 
 have strength and spirits to keep you company." 
 
 In three days from the time when I read those words our 
 preparations were completed, and we were on our way to the 
 Continent. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 123 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 NOT CUBED TET. 
 
 We visited Prance, Germany, and Italy; and we were ab- 
 sent from England nearly two years. 
 
 Had time and change justified my confidence in them? 
 Was the image of Mrs. Van Brandt an image long since dis- 
 missed from my mind ? 
 
 No ! Do what I might, I was still (in the prophetic lan- 
 guage of Dame Dermody) taking the way to reunion with 
 my kindred spirit in the time to come. For the first two or 
 three months of our travels I was haunted by dreams of the 
 woman who had so resolutely left me. Seeing her in my 
 sleep, always graceful, always charming, always modestly ten- 
 der toward me, I waited in the ardent hope of again behold- 
 ing the apparition of her in my waking hours — of again be- 
 ing summoned to meet her at a given place and time. My 
 anticipations were not fulfilled ; no apparition showed itself. 
 The dreams themselves grew less frequent and less vivid, and 
 then ceased altogether. Was this a sign that the days of 
 her adversity were at an end ? Having no further need of 
 help, had she no further remembrance of the man who had 
 tried to help her ? Were we never to meet again ? 
 
 I said to myself, " I am unworthy of the name of man if I 
 don't forget her now !" She still kept her place in my mem- 
 ory, say what I might. 
 
 I saw all the wonders of Nature and Art which foreign 
 countries could show me. I lived in the dazzling light of the 
 best society that Paris, Rome, Vienna, could assemble. I 
 passed hours on hours in the company of the most accom- 
 
124 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 plished and most beautiful women whom Europe could pro- 
 duce — and still that solitary figure at Saint Anthony's Well, 
 those grand gray eyes that had rested on me so sadly at part- 
 ing, held their place in my memory, stamped their image on 
 my heart. 
 
 Whether I resisted my infatuation, or whether I submitted 
 to it, I still longed for her. I did all I could to conceal the 
 state of my mind from my mother. But her loving eyes dis- 
 covered the secret : she saw that I suffered, and suffered with 
 me. More than once she said, " George, the good end is not 
 to be gained by traveling ; let us go home." More than once 
 I answered, with the bitter and obstinate resolution of de- 
 spair, "No. Let us try more new people and more new 
 scenes." It was only when I found her health and strength 
 beginning to fail under the stress of continual traveling that 
 I consented to abandon the hopeless search after oblivion, 
 and to turn homeward at last. 
 
 I prevailed on my mother to wait and rest at my house in 
 London before she returned to her favorite abode at the coun- 
 try-seat in Perthshire. It is needless to say that I remained 
 in town with her. My mother now represented the one in- 
 terest that held me nobly and endearingly to life. Politics, 
 literature, agriculture — the customary pursuits of a man in 
 my position — had none of them the slightest attraction for 
 me. 
 
 We had arrived in London at what is called " the height 
 of the season." Among the operatic attractions of that year 
 — I am writing of the days when the ballet was still a popu- 
 lar form of public entertainment — there was a certain dancer 
 whose grace and beauty were the objects of universal admi- 
 ration. I was asked if I had seen her, wherever I went, un- 
 til my social position, as the one man who was indifferent to 
 the reigning goddess of the stage, became quite unendurable. 
 On the next occasion when I was invited to take a seat in a 
 f riend's box, I accepted the proposal ; and (far from willing- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 125 
 
 ly) I went the way of the world — in other words, I went to 
 the opera. 
 
 The first part of the performance had concluded when we 
 got to the theatre, and the ballet had not yet begun. My 
 friends amused themselves with looking for familiar faces in 
 the boxes and stalls. I took a chair in a corner and waited, 
 with my mind far away from the theatre, for the dancing that 
 was to come. The lady who sat nearest to me (like ladies in 
 general) disliked the neighborhood of a silent man. She de- 
 termined to make me talk to her. 
 
 " Do tell me, Mr. Germaine," she said. " Did you ever see 
 a theatre anywhere so full as this theatre is to-night?" 
 
 She handed me her opera-glass as she spoke. I moved to 
 the front of the box to look at the audience. 
 
 It was certainly a wonderful sight. Every available atom 
 of space (as I gradually raised the glass from the floor to the 
 ceiling of the building) appeared to be occupied. Looking 
 upward and upward, my range of view gradually reached the 
 gallery. Even at that distance, the excellent glass which had 
 been put into my hands brought the faces of the audience 
 close to me. I looked first at the persons who occupied the 
 front row of seats in the gallery stalls. 
 
 Moving the opera-glass slowly along the semicircle formed 
 by the seats, I suddenly stopped when I reached the middle. 
 
 My heart gave a great leap as if it would bound out of my 
 body. There was no mistaking that face among the com- 
 monplace faces near it. I had discovered Mrs. Van Brandt ! 
 
 She sat in front — but not alone. There was a man in the 
 stall immediately behind her, who bent over her and spoke to 
 her from time to time. She listened to him, so far as I could 
 see, with something of a sad and weary look. "Who was the 
 man ? I might, or might not, find that out. Under any cir- 
 cumstances, I determined to speak to Mrs. Van Brandt. 
 
 The curtain rose for the ballet. I made the best excuse I 
 could to my friends, and instantly left the box. 
 
126 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 It was useless to attempt to purchase my admission to the 
 gallery. My money was refused. There was not even stand- 
 ing room left in that part of the theati'e. 
 
 But one alternative remained. I returned to the street, to 
 wait for Mrs. Van Brandt at the gallery door until the per- 
 formance was over. 
 
 Who was the man. in attendance on her — the man whom I 
 had seen sitting behind her, and talking familiarly over her 
 shoulder ? While I paced backward and forward before the 
 door, that one question held possession of my mind, until the 
 oppression of it grew beyond endurance. I went back to my 
 friends in the box, simply and solely to look at the man 
 again. 
 
 What excuses I made to account for my strange conduct I 
 can not now remember. Armed once more with the lady's 
 opera-glass (I borrowed it and kept it without scruple), I 
 alone, of all that vast audience, turned my back on the stage, 
 and riveted my attention on the gallery stalls. 
 
 There he sat, in his place behind her, to all appearance 
 spell-bound by the fascinations of the graceful dancer. Mrs. 
 Van Brandt, on the contrary, seemed to find but little attrac- 
 tion in the spectacle presented by the stage. She looked at 
 the dancing (so far as I could see) in an absent, weary man- 
 ner. When the applause broke out in a perfect frenzy of 
 cries and clapping of hands, she sat perfectly unmoved by the 
 enthusiasm which pervaded the theatre. The man behind 
 her (annoyed, as I supposed, by the marked indifference 
 which she showed to the performance) tapped her impatient- 
 ly on the shoulder, as if he thought that she was quite capa- 
 ble of falling asleep in her stall. The familiarity of the ac- 
 tion — confirming the suspicion in my mind which had al- 
 ready identified him with Van Brandt — so enraged me that, 
 I said or did something which obliged one of the gentlemen 
 in the box to interfere. " If you can't control yourself," he 
 whispered, " you had better leave us." He spoke with the 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 127 
 
 authority of an old friend. I had sense enough left to take 
 his advice, and return to my post at the gallery door. 
 
 A little before midnight the performance ended. The au- 
 dience began to pour out of the theatre. 
 
 I drew back into a corner behind the door, facing the gal- 
 lery stairs, and watched for her. After an interval which 
 seemed to be endless, she and her companion appeared, slowly 
 descending the stairs. She wore a long dark cloak ; her head 
 was protected by a quaintly shaped hood, which looked (on 
 her) the most becoming head-dress that a woman could wear. 
 As the two passed me, I heard the man speak to her in a tone 
 of sulky annoyance. 
 
 " It's wasting money," he said, " to go to the expense of 
 taking you to the opera." 
 
 " I am not well," she answered, with her head down and her 
 eyes on the ground. " I am out of spirits to-night." 
 
 " Will you ride home or walk ?" 
 
 " I will walk, if you please." 
 
 I followed them unperceived, waiting to present myself to 
 her until the crowd about them had dispersed. In a few 
 minutes they turned into a quiet by-street. I quickened my 
 pace until I was close at her side, and then I took off my hat 
 and spoke to her. 
 
 She recognized me with a cry of astonishment. For an in- 
 stant her face brightened radiantly with the loveliest expres- 
 sion of delight that I ever saw on any human countenance. 
 The moment after, all was changed. The charming features 
 saddened and hardened. She stood before me like a woman 
 overwhelmed by shame — without uttering a word, without 
 taking my offered hand. 
 
 Her companion broke the silence. 
 
 " Who is this gentleman ?" he asked, speaking in a foreign 
 accent, with an under-bred insolence of tone and manner. 
 
 She controlled herself the moment he addressed her. " This 
 is Mr. Germaine," she answered : " a gentleman who was very 
 
128 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 kind to me in Scotland." She raised her eyes for a moment 
 to mine, and took refuge, poor soul, in a conventionally polite 
 inquiry after my health. " I hope you are quite well, Mr. 
 Germaine," said the soft, sweet voice, trembling piteously. 
 
 I made the customary reply, and explained that I had seen 
 her at the opera. "Are you staying in London?" I asked. 
 " May I have the honor of calling on you ?" 
 
 Her companion answered for her before she could speak. 
 
 " My wife thanks you, sir, for the compliment you pay her. 
 She doesn't receive visitors. "Y^e both wish you good-night." 
 
 Saying those words, he took off his hat with a sardonic as- 
 sumption of respect ; and, holding her arm in his, forced her 
 to walk on abruptly with him. Feeling certainly assured by 
 this time that the man was no other than Van Brandt, I was 
 on the point of answering him sharply, when Mrs. Van Brandt 
 checked the rash words as they rose to my lips. 
 
 " For my sake !" she whispered, over her shoulder, with an 
 imploring look that instantly silenced me. After all, she was 
 free (if she liked) to go back to the man who had so vilely de- 
 ceived and deserted her. I bowed and left them, feeling with 
 no common bitterness the humiliation of entering into rivalry 
 with Mr. Van Brandt. 
 
 I crossed to the other side of the street. Before I had 
 taken three steps away from her, the old infatuation fastened 
 its hold on me again. I submitted, without a struggle against 
 myself, to the degradation of turning spy and following them 
 home. Keeping well behind, on the opposite side of the way, 
 I tracked them to their own door, and entered in my pocket- 
 book the name of the street and the number of the house. 
 
 The hardest critic who reads these lines can not feel more 
 contemptuously toward me than I felt toward myself. Could 
 I still love a woman after she had deliberately preferred to 
 me a scoundrel who had married her while he was the hus- 
 band of another wife ? Yes ! Knowing what I now knew, 
 I felt that I loved her just as dearly as ever. It was incredi- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 129 
 
 ble, it was shocking; but it was true. For the first time in 
 my life, I tried to take refuge from my sense of my own deg- 
 radation in drink. I went to my club, and joined a convivial 
 party at a supper table, and poured glass after glass of Cham- 
 pagne down my throat, without feeling the slightest sense of 
 exhilaration, without losing for an instant the consciousness of 
 my own contemptible conduct. I went to my bed in despair ; 
 and through the wakeful night I weakly cursed the fatal 
 evening at the river -side when I had met her for the first 
 time. But revile her as I might, despise myself as I might, I 
 loved her — I loved her still ! 
 
 Among the letters laid on my table the next morning there 
 were two which must find their place in this narrative. 
 
 The first letter was in a handwriting which I had seen once 
 befoi - e, at the hotel in Edinburgh. The writer was Mrs. Van 
 Brandt. 
 
 " For your own sake " (the letter ran) " make no attempt to 
 see me, and take no notice of an invitation which I fear you 
 will receive with this note. I am living a degraded life. I 
 have sunk beneath your notice. You owe it to yourself, sir, 
 to forget the miserable woman who now writes to you for the 
 last time, and bids you gratefully a last farewell." 
 
 Those sad lines were signed in initials only. It is needless 
 to say that they merely strengthened my resolution to see her 
 at all hazards. I kissed the paper on which her hand had 
 rested, and then I turned to the second letter. It contained 
 the " invitation " to which my correspondent had alluded, and 
 it was expressed in these terms : 
 
 " Mr. Van Brandt presents his compliments to Mr. Ger- 
 maine, and begs to apologize for the somewhat abrupt manner 
 in which he received Mr. Germaine's polite advances. Mr. 
 Van Brandt suffers habitually from nervous irritability, and 
 he felt particularly ill last night. He trusts Mr. Germaine 
 will receive this candid explanation in the spirit in which it is 
 offered ; and he begs to add that Mrs. Van Brandt will be de- 
 
 6* 
 
130 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 lighted to receive Mr. Germaine whenever he may find it con- 
 venient to favor her with a visit." 
 
 That Mr. Van Brandt had some sordid interest of his own 
 to serve in writing this grotesquely impudent composition, 
 and that the unhappy woman who bore his name was heartily 
 ashamed of the proceeding on which he had ventured, were 
 conclusions easily drawn after reading the two letters. The 
 suspicion of the man and of his motives which I naturally felt 
 produced no hesitation in my mind as to the course which I 
 had determined to pursue. On the contrary, I rejoiced that 
 my way to an interview with Mrs. Van Brandt was smoothed, 
 no matter with what motives, by Mr. Van Brandt himself. 
 
 I waited at home until noon, and then I could wait no long- 
 er. Leaving a message of excuse for my mother (I had just 
 sense of shame enough left to shrink from facing her), I has- 
 tened away to profit by my invitation on the very day when 
 I received it. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 131 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 MRS. VAST BRANDT AT HOME. 
 
 As I lifted my hand to ring the house bell, the door was 
 opened from. within, and no less a person than Mr. Van Brandt 
 himself stood before me. He had his hat on. We had evi- 
 •dently met just as he was going out. 
 
 " My dear sir, how good this is of you ! Tou present the 
 best of all replies to my letter in presenting yourself. Mrs. 
 Van Brandt is at home. Mrs. Van Brandt will be delighted. 
 Pray walk in." 
 
 He threw open the door of a room on the ground -floor. 
 His politeness was (if possible) even more offensive than his 
 insolence. "Be seated, Mr. Germaine, I beg of you." He 
 turned to the open door, and called up the stairs, in a loud 
 and confident voice, 
 
 " Mary ! come down directly." 
 
 " Mary !" I knew her Christian name at last, and knew it 
 through Van Brandt. No words can tell how the name 
 jarred on me, spoken -by his lips. For the first time for 
 years past my mind went back to Mary Dermody and Green- 
 water Broad. The next moment I heard the rustling of Mrs. 
 Van Brandt's dress on the stairs. As the sound caught my 
 ear, the old times and the old faces vanished again from my 
 thoughts as completely as if they had never existed. What 
 had she in common with the frail, shy little child, her name- 
 sake, of other days ? What similarity was perceivable in the 
 sooty London lodging-house to remind me of the bailiff's 
 flower-scented cottage by the shores of the lake ? 
 
132 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Van Brandt took off his hat, and bowed to me with sicken- 
 ing servility. 
 
 "I have a business appointment," he said, "which it is im- 
 possible to put off. Pray excuse me. Mrs. Van Brandt will 
 do the honors. Good-morning." 
 
 The house door opened and closed again. The rustling of 
 the dress came slowly nearer and nearer. She stood before 
 me. 
 
 " Mr. Germaine !" she exclaimed, starting back, as if the 
 bare sight of me repelled her. " Is this honorable ? Is this 
 worthy of you ? You allow me to be entrapped into receiv- 
 ing you, and you accept as your accomplice Mr. Van Brandt ! 
 Oh, sir, I have accustomed myself to look up to you as a high- 
 minded man. How bitterly you have disappointed me !" 
 
 Her reproaches passed by me unheeded. They only height- 
 ened her color ; they only added a new rapture to the luxury 
 of looking at her. 
 
 " If you loved me as faithfully as I love you," I said, " you 
 would understand why I am here. No sacrifice is too great 
 if it brings me into your presence again after two years of 
 absence." 
 
 She suddenly approached me, and fixed her eyes in eager 
 scrutiny on my face. 
 
 " There must be some mistake," she said. " You can not 
 possibly have received my letter, or you have not read it ?" 
 
 " I have received it, and I have read it." 
 
 "And Van Brandt's letter — you have read that too?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 She sat down by the table, and, leaning her arms on it, cov- 
 ered her face with her hands. My answers seemed not only 
 to have distressed, but to have perplexed her. "Are men all 
 alike?" I heard her say. "I thought I might trust in his 
 sense of what was due to himself and of what was compas- 
 sionate toward me." 
 
 I closed the door and seated myself by her side. She re- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 133 
 
 moved her hands from her face when she felt me near her. 
 She looked at me with a cold and steady surprise. 
 * " What are you going to do ?" she asked. 
 
 " I am going to try if I can recover my place in your esti- 
 mation," I said. "I am going to ask your pity for a man 
 whose whole heart is yours, whose whole life is bound up in 
 you." 
 
 She started to her feet, and looked round her incredulous- 
 ly, as if doubting whether she had rightly heard and rightly 
 interpreted my last words. Before I could speak again, she 
 suddenly faced me, and struck her open hand on the table 
 with a passionate resolution which I now saw in her for the 
 first time. 
 
 " Stop !" she cried. " There must be an end to this. And 
 an end there shall be. Do you know who that man is who 
 has just left the house? Answer me, Mr. Germaine ! lam 
 speaking in earnest." 
 
 There was no choice but to answer her. She was indeed 
 in earnest — vehemently in earnest. 
 
 "His letter tells me," I said, "that he is Mr. Van Brandt." 
 
 She sat down again, and turned her face away from me. 
 
 " Do you know how he came to write to you ?" she asked. 
 " Do you know what made him invite you to this house ?" 
 
 I thought of the suspicion that had crossed my mind when 
 I read Van Brandt's letter. I made no reply. 
 
 "You force me to tell you the truth," she went. on. "He 
 asked me who you were, last night on our way home. I knew 
 that you were rich, and that he wanted money. I told him 
 I knew nothing of your position in the world. He was too 
 cunning to believe me; he went out to the public-house and 
 looked at a directory. He came back and said, ' Mr. Ger- 
 maine has a house in Berkeley Square and a country-seat in 
 the Highlands. He is not a man for a poor devil like me to 
 offend ; I mean to make a friend of him, and I expect you to 
 make a friend of him too.' He sat down and wrote to you. 
 
134 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I am living under that man's protection, Mr. Germaine. His 
 wife is not dead, as you may suppose ; she is living, and I 
 know her to be living. I wrote to you that I was beneath 
 your notice, and you have obliged me to tell you why. Am 
 I sufficiently degraded to bring you to your senses ?" 
 
 I drew closer to her. She tried to get up and leave me. 
 I knew my power over her, and used it (as any man in my 
 place would have used it) without scruple. I took her hand. 
 
 "I don't believe you have voluntarily degraded yourself," 
 I said. " You "have been forced into your present position : 
 there are circumstances which excuse you, and which you are 
 purposely keeping back from me. Nothing will convince me 
 that you are a base woman. Should I love you as I love you, 
 if you were really unworthy of me?" 
 
 She struggled to free her hand ; I still held it. She tried 
 to change the subject. "There is one thing you haven't told 
 me yet," she said, with a faint, forced smile. " Have you 
 seen the apparition of me again since I left you ?" 
 
 " No. Have you ever seen me again, as you saw me in 
 your dream at the inn in Edinburgh ?" 
 
 " Never. Our visions of each other have left us. Can you 
 tell why?" 
 
 If we had continued to speak on this subject, we must 
 surely have recognized each other. But the subject dropped. 
 Instead of answering her question, I drew her nearer to me — 
 I returned to the forbidden subject of my love. 
 
 " Look at me," I pleaded, " and tell me the truth. Can you 
 see me, can you hear me, and do you feel no answering sym- 
 pathy in your own heart? Do you really care nothing for 
 me? Have you never once thought of me in all the time 
 that has passed since we last met ?" 
 
 I spoke as I felt — fervently, passionately. She made a last 
 effort to repel me, and yielded even as she made it. Her 
 hand closed on mine, a low sigh fluttered on her lips. She 
 answered with a sudden self-abandonment; she recklessly 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 135 
 
 cast herself loose from the restraints which had held her up 
 to this time. 
 
 " I think of you perpetually," she said. " I was thinking 
 of you at the opera last night. "My heart leaped in me 
 when I heard your voice in the street." 
 
 " Tou love me !" I whispered. 
 
 " Love you !" she repeated. " My whole heart goes out to 
 you in spite of myself. Degraded as I am, unworthy as I 
 am — knowing as I do that nothing can ever come of it — I 
 love you ! I love you !" 
 
 She threw her arms round my neck, and held me to her 
 with aU-her strength. The moment after, she dropped on her 
 knees. " Oh, don't tempt me !" she murmured. " Be merci- 
 ful — and leave me." 
 
 I was beside myself. I spoke as recklessly to her as she 
 had spoken to me. 
 
 " Prove that you love me," I said. " Let me rescue you 
 from the degradation of living with that man. Leave him at 
 once and forever. Leave him, and come with me to a future 
 that is worthy of you — your future as my wife." 
 
 " Never!" she answered, crouching low at my feet. 
 
 « Why not ? What obstacle is there ?" 
 
 " I can't tell you — I daren't tell you." 
 
 "Will you write it?" 
 
 " No, I can't even write it — to you. Go, I implore you, 
 before Van Brandt comes back. Go, if you love me and pity 
 me." 
 
 She had roused my jealousy. I positively refused to leave 
 her, 
 
 " I insist on knowing what binds you to that man," I said. 
 " Let him come back ! If you won't answer my question, I 
 will put it to him." 
 
 She looked at me wildly, with a cry of terror. She saw 
 my resolution in my face. 
 
 " Don't frighten me," she said. " Let me think." 
 
136 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 She reflected for a moment. Her eyes brightened, as if 
 some new way out of the difficulty had occurred to her. 
 
 " Have you a mother living ?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Do you think she would come and see me ?" 
 
 " I am sure she would if I asked her." 
 
 She considered with herself once more. " I will tell your 
 mother what the obstacle is," she said, thoughtfully. 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " To-morrow, at this time." 
 
 She raised herself on her knees; the tears suddenly filled 
 her eyes. She drew me to her gently. " Kiss me," she whis- 
 pered. " You will never come here again. Kiss me for the 
 last time." 
 
 My lips had barely touched hers, when she started to her 
 feet and snatched up my hat from the chair on which I had 
 placed it. 
 
 " Take your hat," she said. " He has come back." 
 
 My duller sense of hearing had discovered nothing. I rose 
 and took my hat to quiet her. At the same moment the 
 door of the room opened suddenly and softly. Mr. Van 
 Brandt came in. I saw in his face that he had some vile mo- 
 tive of his own for trying to take us by surprise, and that the 
 result of the experiment had disappointed him. 
 
 " You are not going yet ?" he said, speaking to me with his 
 eye on Mrs. Van Brandt. " I have hurried over my business 
 in the hope of prevailing on you to stay and take lunch with 
 us. Put down your hat, Mr. Germaine. No ceremony !" 
 
 " You are very good," I answered. " My time is limited 
 to-day. I must beg you and Mrs. Van Brandt to excuse me." 
 
 I took leave of her as I spoke. She turned deadly pale 
 when she shook hands with me at parting. Had she any 
 open brutality to dread from Van Brandt as soon as my back 
 was turned ? The bare suspicion of it made my blood boil. 
 But I thought of her. In her interests, the wise thing and 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 137 
 
 the merciful thing to do was to conciliate the fellow before I 
 left the house. 
 
 " I am sorry not to be able to accept your invitation," I 
 said, as we walked together to the door. " Perhaps you will 
 give me another chance ?" 
 
 His eyes twinkled cunningly. " What do you say to a 
 quiet little dinner here ?" he asked. "A slice of mutton, you 
 know, and a bottle of good wine. Only our three selves, and 
 one old friend of mine to make up four. We will have a 
 rubber of whist in 'the evening. Mary and you partners — 
 eh? When shall it be? Shall we say the day after to- 
 morrow ?" 
 
 She had followed us to the door, keeping behind Van 
 Brandt while he was speaking to me. When he mentioned 
 the " old friend " and the " rubber of whist," her face express- 
 ed the strongest emotions of shame and disgust. The next 
 moment (when she had heard him fix the date of the dinner 
 for " the day after to-morrow ") her features became com- 
 posed again, as if a sudden sense of relief had come to her. 
 What did the change mean ? " To-morrow " was the day 
 she had appointed for seeing my mother. Did she really be- 
 lieve, when I had heard what passed at the interview, that I 
 should never enter the house again, and never attempt to see 
 her more ? And was this the secret of her composure when 
 she heard the date of the dinner appointed for " the day aft- 
 er to-morrow?" 
 
 Asking myself these questions f I accepted my invitation, 
 and left the house with a heavy heart. That farewell kiss, 
 that sudden composure when the day of the dinner was fixed, 
 weighed on my spirits. I would have given twelve years of 
 my life to have annihilated the next twelve hours. 
 
 In this frame of mind I reached home, and presented my- 
 self in my mother's sitting-room. 
 
 "You have gone out earlier than usual to-day," she said. 
 " Did the fine weather tempt you, my dear ?" She paused, 
 
138 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 and looked at me move closely. " George !" she exclaimed, 
 " what has happened to you ? Where have you been ?" 
 
 I told her the truth as honestly as I have told it here. 
 
 The color deepened in my mother's face. She looked at 
 me, and spoke to me with a severity which was rare indeed 
 in my experience of her. 
 
 " Must I remind you, for the first time in your life, of what 
 is due to your mother ?" she asked. " Is it possible that you 
 expect me to visit a woman, who, by her own confession — " 
 
 " I expect you to visit a woman who lias only to say the 
 word and to be your daughter-in-law," I interposed. "Sure- 
 ly I am not asking what is unworthy of you, if I ask that ?" 
 
 My mother looked at me in blank dismay. 
 
 "Do you mean, George, that you have offered her mar- 
 riage ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And she has said No?" 
 
 " She has said No, because there is some obstacle in her 
 way. I have tried vainly to make her explain herself. She 
 has promised to confide every thing to you." 
 
 The serious nature of the emergency had its effect. My 
 mother yielded. She handed me the little ivory tablets on 
 which she was accustomed to record her engagements. 
 " Write down the name and address," she said, resignedly. 
 
 " I will go with you," I answered, " and wait in the carriage 
 at the door. I want to hear what has passed between you 
 and Mrs. Van Brandt the instant you have left her." 
 
 " Is it as serious as that, George ?" 
 
 " Yes, mothei - , it is as serious as that." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 139 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE OBSTACLE BEATS ME. 
 
 How long was I left alone in the carriage at the door of 
 Mrs. Van Brandt's lodgings ? Judging by my sensations, I 
 waited half a life-time. Judging by my watch, I waited half 
 an hour. 
 
 When my mother returned to me, the hope which I had en- 
 tertained of a happy result from her interview with Mrs. Van 
 Brandt was a hope abandoned before she had opened her 
 lips. I saw, in her face, that an obstacle which was beyond 
 my power of removal did indeed stand between me and the 
 dearest wish of my life. 
 
 " Tell me the worst," I said, as we drove away from the 
 house, " and tell it at once." 
 
 " I must tell it to you, George," my mother answered, sadly, 
 "as she told it to me. She begged me herself to do that. 
 ' We must disappoint him,' she said, ' but pray let it be done 
 as gently as possible.' Beginning in those words, she con- 
 fided to me the painful story which you know already — the 
 story of her marriage. From that she passed to her meeting 
 with you at Edinburgh, and to the circumstances which have 
 led her to live as she is living now. This latter part of her 
 narrative she especially requested me to repeat to you. Do 
 you feel composed enough to hear it now ? Or would you 
 rather wait ?" 
 
 " Let me hear it now, mother ; and tell it, as nearly as you 
 can, in her own words." 
 
 " I will repeat what she said to me, my dear, as faithfully 
 as I can. After speaking of her father's death, she told me 
 
140 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 that she had only two relatives living. ' I have a married 
 aunt in Glasgow, and a married aunt in London,' she said. 
 ' When I left Edinburgh, I went to my aunt in London. She 
 and my father had not been on good terms together; she 
 considered that my father had neglected her. But his death 
 had softened her toward him and toward me. She received 
 me kindly, and she got me a situation in a shop. I kept my 
 situation for three months, and then I was obliged to leave it.' " 
 
 My mother paused. I thought directly of the strange post- 
 script which Mrs. Van Brandt had made me add to the letter 
 that I wrote for her at the Edinburgh inn. In that case also 
 she had only contemplated remaining in her employment for 
 three months' time. 
 
 " Why was she obliged to leave her situation ?" I asked. 
 
 "I put that question to her myself," replied my mother. 
 " She made no direct reply — she changed color, and looked 
 confused. 'I will tell you afterward, madam,' she said. 
 ' Please let me go on now. My aunt was angry with me for 
 leaving my employment — and she was more angry still, when 
 I told her the reason. She said I had failed in duty toward 
 her in not speaking frankly at first. We parted coolly. I 
 had saved a little money from my wages ; and I did well 
 enough while my savings lasted. When they came to an end, 
 I tried to get employment again, and I failed. My aunt 
 said, and said truly, that her husband's income was barely 
 enough to support his family : she could do nothing for me, 
 and I could do nothing for myself. I wrote to my aunt at 
 Glasgow, and received no answer. Starvation stared me in 
 the face, when I saw in a newspaper an advertisement ad- 
 dressed to me by Mr. Van Brandt. He implored me to write 
 to him ; he declared that his life without me was too desolate 
 to be endured ; he solemnly promised that there should be 
 no interruption to my tranquillity if I would return to him. 
 If I had only had myself to think of, I would have begged 
 my bread in the streets rather than return to him — ' " 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 141 
 
 I interrupted the narrative at that point. 
 
 " What other person could she have had to think of ?" I 
 said. 
 
 "Is it possible, George," my mother rejoined, "that you 
 have no suspicion of what she was alluding to when she said 
 those words?" 
 
 The question passed by me unheeded : my thoughts were 
 dwelling bitterly on Van Brandt and his advertisement. 
 " She answered the advertisement, of course ?" I said. 
 
 "And she saw Mr. Van Brandt," my mother went on. 
 " She gave me no detailed account of the interview between 
 them. ' He reminded me,' she said, ' of what I knew to be 
 true — that the woman who had entrapped him into marrying 
 her was an incurable drunkard, and that his ever living with 
 her again was out of the question. Still she was alive, and 
 she had a right to the name at least of his wife. I won't at- 
 tempt to excuse my returning to him, knowing the circum- 
 stances as I did. I will only say that I could see no other 
 choice before me, in my position at the time. It is needless 
 to trouble you with what I have suffered since, or to speak of 
 what I may suffer still. I am a lost woman. Be under no 
 alarm, madam, about your son. I shall remember proudly to 
 the end of my life that he once offered me the honor and the 
 happiness of becoming his wife ; but I know what is due to 
 him and to you. I have seen him for the last time. The 
 one thing that remains to be done is to satisfy him that our 
 marriage is impossible. You are a mother; you will under- 
 stand why I reveal the obstacle which stands between us — 
 not to him, but to you.' She rose saying those words, and 
 opened the folding-doors which led from the parlor into a 
 back room. After an absence of a few moments only, she 
 returned." 
 
 At that crowning point in the narrative, my mother stopped. 
 Was she afraid to go on ? or did she think it needless to say 
 more ? 
 
142 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "Well?" I said. 
 
 " Must I really tell it to you in words, George ? Can't you 
 guess how it ended, even yet ?" 
 
 There were two difficulties in the way of my understand- 
 ing her. I had a man's bluntness of perception, and I was 
 half maddened by suspense. Incredible as it may appear, I 
 was too dull to guess the truth even now. 
 
 " When she returned to me," my mother resumed, " she 
 was not alone. She had with her a lovely little girl, just old 
 enough to walk with the help of her mother's hand. She 
 tenderly kissed the child, and then she put it on my lap. 
 ' There is my only comfort,' she said, simply ; ' and there is 
 the obstacle to my ever becoming Mr. Germaine's wife.' " 
 
 Van Brandt's child ! Van Brandt's child ! 
 
 The postscript which she had made me add to my letter ; 
 the incomprehensible withdrawal from the employment in 
 which she was prospering ; the disheartening difficulties which 
 had brought her to the brink of starvation ; the degrading 
 return to the man who had cruelly deceived her — all was ex- 
 plained, all was excused now ! With an infant at the breast, 
 how could she obtain a new employment ? With famine star- 
 ing her in the face, what else could the friendless woman do 
 but return to the father of her child ? What claim had I on 
 her, by comparison with him f What did it matter, now that 
 the poor creature secretly returned the love that I felt for 
 her ? There was the child, an obstacle between us — there was 
 his hold on her, now that he had got her back ! What was 
 my hold worth? All social propiieties and all social laws 
 answered the question : Nothing ! 
 
 My head sunk on my breast ; I received the blow in silence. 
 
 My good mother took my hand. " You understand it now, 
 George ?" she said, sorrowfully. 
 
 " Yes, mother ; I understand it." 
 
 " There was one thing she wished me to say to you, my 
 dear, which I have not mentioned yet. She entreats you not 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 143 
 
 to suppose that she had the faintest idea of her situation when 
 she attempted to destroy herself. Her first suspicion that it 
 was possible she might become a mother was conveyed to her 
 at Edinburgh, in a conversation with her aunt. It is impos- 
 sible, George, not to feel compassionately toward this poor 
 woman. Regrettable as her position is, I can not see that she 
 is to blame for it. She was the innocent victim of a vile 
 fraud when that man married her ; she has suffered unde- 
 servedly since ; and she has behaved nobly to you and to me. 
 I only do her justice in saying that she is a woman in a thou- 
 sand — a woman worthy, under happier circumstances, to be 
 my daughter and your wife. I feel for you, and feel with 
 you, my dear — I do, with my whole heart." 
 
 So this scene in my life was, to all appearance, a scene 
 closed forever. As it had been with my love, in the" days of 
 my boyhood, so it was again now with the love of my riper 
 age! 
 
 Later in the day, when I had in some degree recovered my 
 self-possession, I wrote to Mr. Van Brandt — as she had fore- 
 seen I should write ! — to apologize for breaking my engage- 
 ment to dine with him. 
 
 Could I trust to a letter also, to say the farewell words for 
 me to the woman whom I had loved and lost? No ! It was 
 better for her, and better for me, that I should not write. 
 And yet the idea of leaving her in silence was more than my 
 fortitude could endure. Her last words at parting (as they 
 were repeated to me by my mother) had expressed the hope 
 that I should not think hardly of her in the future. How 
 could I assure her that I should think of her tenderly to the 
 end of my life ? My mother's delicate tact and true sympa- 
 thy showed me the way. " Send a little present, George," 
 she said, " to the child. You bear no malice to the poor little 
 child ?" God knows I was not hard on the child ! I went 
 out myself and bought her a toy. I brought it home, and 
 
144 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 before I 6ent it away, I pinned a slip of paper to it, bearing 
 this inscription : " To your little daughter, from George Ger- 
 maine." There is nothing very pathetic, I suppose, in those 
 words. And yet I burst out crying when I had written 
 them. 
 
 The next morning my mother and I set forth for my coun- 
 try-house in Perthshire. London was now unendurable to 
 me. Traveling abroad I had tried already. Nothing was 
 left but to go back to the Highlands, and to try what I could 
 make of my life, with my mother still left to live for. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 145 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 There is something repellent to me, even at this distance 
 of time, in looking back at the dreary days of seclusion which 
 followed each other monotonously in my Highland home. 
 The actions of my life, however trifling they may have been, 
 I can find some interest in recalling : they associate me with 
 my fellow -creatures; they connect me, in some degree, with 
 the vigorous movement of the world. But I have no sympa- 
 thy with the purely selfish pleasure which some men appear 
 to derive from dwelling on the minute anatomy of their own, 
 feelings, under the pressure of adverse fortune. Let the do- 
 mestic record of our stagnant life in Perthshire (so far as I 
 am concerned in it) be presented in my mother's words, not 
 in mine. A few lines of extract from the daily journal which 
 it was her habit to keep will tell all that need be told before 
 this narrative advances to later dates and to newer scenes. 
 
 " 20th August. — "We have been two months at our home in 
 Scotland, and I see no change in George for the better. He 
 is as far as ever, I fear, from being reconciled to his separa- 
 tion from that unhappy woman. Nothing will induce him to 
 confess it himself. He declares that his quiet life here with 
 me is all that he desires. But I know better ! I have been 
 into his bedroom late at night. I have heard him talking of 
 her in his sleep, and I have seen the tears on his eyelids. My 
 poor boy ! What thousands of charming women there are 
 who would ask nothing better than to be his wife ! And the 
 
 1 
 
146 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 one woman whom he can never marry is the only woman 
 whom he loves ! 
 
 " 25t/i. — A long conversation about George with Mr. Mac- 
 Glue. I have never liked this Scotch doctor since he en- 
 couraged my son to keep the fatal appointment at Saint An- 
 thony's "Well. But he seems to be a clever man in his profes- 
 sion — and I think, in his way, he means kindly toward George. 
 His advice was given as coarsely as usual, and very positive- 
 ly at the same time. ' Nothing will cure your son, madam, 
 of his amatory passion for that half-drowned lady of his but 
 change — and another lady. Send him away by himself this 
 time; and let him feel the want of some kind creature to 
 look after him. And when he meets with that kind creature 
 (they are as plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head 
 about it if there's a flaw in her character. I have got a 
 cracked tea- cup which has served me for twenty years. 
 Marry him, ma'am, to the new one with the utmost speed and 
 impetuosity which the law will permit.' I hate Mr. MacGlue's 
 opinions — so coarse and so hard-hearted ! — but I sadly fear 
 that I must part with my son for a little while, for his own 
 sake. 
 
 "26th. — Where is George to go? I have been thinking 
 of it all through the night, and I can not arrive at a conclu- 
 sion. It is so difficult to reconcile myself to letting him go 
 away alone. 
 
 "29th. — I have always believed in special providences; 
 and I am now confirmed in my belief. This morning has 
 brought with it a note from our good friend and neighbor at 
 Belhelvie. Sir James is one of the commissioners for the 
 Northern Lights. He is going in a Government vessel to in- 
 spect the light-houses on the North of Scotland, and on the 
 Orkney and Shetland Islands — and, having noticed how worn 
 and ill my poor boy looks, he most kindly invites George to 
 be his guest on the voyage. They will not be absent for 
 more than two months ; and the sea (as Sir James reminds 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 147 
 
 me) did wonders for George's health when he returned from 
 India. I could wish for no better opportunity than this of 
 trying what change of air and scene will do for him. How- 
 ever painfully I may feel the separation myself, I shall put a 
 cheerful face on it ; and I shall urge George to accept the in- 
 vitation. 
 
 "30th. — I have said all I could; but he still refuses to 
 leave me. I am a miserable, selfish creature. I felt so glad 
 when he said No. 
 
 "31st. — Another wakeful night. George must positively 
 send his answer to Sir James to-day. I am determined to do 
 my duty toward my son — he looks so dreadfully pale and ill 
 this morning! Besides, if something is not done to rouse 
 him, how do I know that he may not end in going back to 
 Mrs. Van Brandt after all ? From every point of view, I 
 feel bound to insist on his accepting Sir James's invitation. 
 I have only to be firm, and the thing is done. He has never 
 yet disobeyed me, poor fellow. He will not disobey me now. 
 
 "2d /September. — He has gone! Entirely to please me — 
 entirely against his own wishes. Oh, how is it that such a 
 good son can not get a good wife ! He would make any 
 woman happy. I wonder whether I have done right in send- 
 ing him away ? The wind is moaning in the fir plantation at 
 the back of the house. Is there a storm at sea ? I forgot to 
 ask Sir James how big the vessel was. The ' Guide to Scot- 
 land ' says the coast is rugged ; and there is a wild sea be- 
 tween the north shore and the Orkney Islands. I almost re- 
 gret having insisted so strongly — how foolish I am ! "We are 
 all in the hands of God. May God bless and prosper my 
 good son ! 
 
 "10th. — Very uneasy. No letter from George. Ah, how 
 full of trouble this life is ! and how strange that we should 
 cling to it as we do ! 
 
 "15th. — A letter from George ! They have done with the 
 north coast ; and they have crossed the wild sea to the Ork- 
 
148 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 neys. Wonderful weather has favored them so far; and 
 George is in better health and spirits. Ah ! how much hap- 
 piness there is in life if we will only have the patience to wait 
 for it. 
 
 " 2d October. — Another letter. They are safe in the har- 
 bor of Lerwick, the chief port in the Shetland Islands. The 
 weather has not latterly been at all favorable. But the 
 amendment in George's health remains. He writes most 
 gratefully of Sir James's unremitting kindness to him. I am 
 so happy, I declare I could kiss Sir James — though he is a 
 great man, and a Commissioner for Northern Lights ! In 
 three weeks more (wind and weather pennitting) they hope 
 to get back. Never mind my lonely life here, if I can only 
 see George happy and well again ! He tells me they have 
 passed a great deal of their time on shore; but not a word 
 does he say about meeting any ladies. Perhaps they are 
 scarce in those wild regions? I have heard of Shetland 
 shawls and Shetland ponies. Are there any Shetland ladies, 
 I wonder ?" 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 149 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 SHETLAND HOSPITALITY. 
 
 " Guide ! Where are we ?" 
 
 " I can't say for certain." 
 
 " Have you lost your way ?" 
 
 The guide looks slowly all round him, and then looks at me. 
 That is his answer to my question. And that is enough. 
 
 The lost persons are three in number. My traveling com- 
 panion, myself, and the guide. We are seated on three Shet- 
 land ponies — so small in stature, that we two strangers were 
 at first literally ashamed to get on their backs. We are sur- 
 rounded by dripping white mist so dense that we become in- 
 visible to one another at a distance of half a dozen yards. 
 We know that we are somewhere on the main-land of the 
 Shetland Isles. We see under the feet of our ponies a mixt- 
 ure of moor -land and bog — here, the strip of firm ground 
 that we are standing on ; and there, a few feet off, the strip 
 of watery peat-bog, which is deep enough to suffocate us if 
 we step into it. Thus far, and no farther, our knowledge ex- 
 tends. This question of the moment is, What are we to do 
 next? 
 
 The guide lights his pipe, and reminds me that he warned 
 us against the weather before we started for our ride. My 
 traveling companion looks at me resignedly, with an expres- 
 sion of mild reproach. I deserve it. My rashness is to 
 blame for the disastrous position in which we now find our- 
 selves. 
 
 In writing to my mother, I have been careful to report fa- 
 vorably of my health and spirits. But I have not confessed 
 
150 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 that I still remember the day when I parted with the one 
 hope and renounced the one love which made life precious to 
 me. My torpid condition of mind, at home, has simply given 
 place to a perpetual restlessness, produced by the excitement 
 of my new life. I must now always be doing something — no 
 matter what, so long as it diverts me from my own thoughts. 
 Inaction is unendurable ; solitude has become horrible to me. 
 While the other members of the party which has accompa- 
 nied Sir James on his voyage of inspection among the light- 
 houses are content to wait in the harbor of Lerwick for a fa- 
 vorable change in the weather, I am obstinately bent on leav- 
 ing the comfortable shelter of the vessel to explore some in- 
 land ruin of prehistoric times, of which I never heard, and 
 for which I care nothing. The movement is all I want ; the 
 ride will fill the hateful void of time. I go, in defiance of 
 sound advice offered to me on all sides. The youngest mem- 
 ber of our party catches the infection of my recklessness (in 
 virtue of his youth) and goes with me. And what has come 
 of it ? We are blinded by mist ; we are lost on a moor ; and 
 the treacherous peat-bogs are round us in every direction ! 
 
 What is to be done ? 
 
 " Just leave it to the pownies," the guide says. 
 
 " Do you mean leave the ponies to find the way ?" 
 
 " That's it," says the guide. " Drop the bridle, and leave 
 it to the pownies. See for yourselves. I'm away on my 
 powny." 
 
 He drops his bridle on the pommel of his saddle, whistles 
 to his pony, and disappears in the mist ; riding with his hands 
 in his pockets, and his pipe in his mouth, as composedly as if 
 he were sitting by his own fireside at home. 
 
 We have no choice but to follow his example, or to be left 
 alone on the moor. The intelligent little animals, relieved 
 from our stupid supervision, trot off with their noses to the 
 ground, like hounds on the scent. Where the intersecting 
 tract of bog is wide, they skirt round it. Where it is narrow 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 151 
 
 enough to be leaped over, they cross it by a jump. Trot! 
 trot ! — ; away the hardy little creatures go ; never stopping, 
 never hesitating. Our " superior intelligence," perfectly use- 
 less in the emergency, wonders how it will end. Our guide, 
 in front of us, answers that it will end in the ponies finding 
 their way certainly to the nearest village or the nearest house. 
 " Let the bridles be," is his one warning to us. " Come what 
 may of it, let the bridles be." 
 
 It is easy for the guide to let his bridle be — he is accus- 
 tomed to place himself in that helpless position under stress 
 of circumstances, and he knows exactly what his pony can do. 
 
 To us, however, the situation is a new one ; and it looks 
 dangerous in the extreme. More than once I check myself, 
 not without an effort, in the act of resuming the command of 
 my pony on passing the more dangerous points in the jour- 
 ney. The time goes on ; and no sign of an inhabited dwell- 
 ing looms through the mist. I begin to get fidgety and irri- 
 table; I find myself secretly doubting the trustworthiness of 
 the guide. While I am in this unsettled frame of mind, my 
 pony approaches a dim, black, winding line, where the bog 
 must be crossed for the hundredth time at least. The breadth 
 of it (deceptively enlarged in appearance by the mist) looks 
 to my eyes beyond the reach of a leap by any pony that ever 
 was foaled. I lose my presence of mind. At the critical mo- 
 ment before the jump is taken, I am foolish enough to seize 
 the bridle, and suddenly check the pony. He starts, throws 
 up his head, and falls instantly as if he had been shot. My 
 right hand, as we drop on the ground together, gets twisted 
 under me, and I feel that I have sprained my wrist. 
 
 If I escape with no worse injury than this, I may consider 
 myself well off. But no such good fortune is reserved for 
 me. In his struggles to rise, before I have completely extri- 
 cated myself from him, the pony kicks me ; and, as my ill-luck 
 will have it, his hoof strikes just where the poisoned spear 
 struck me in the past days of my service in India. The old 
 
152 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 wound opens again — and there I lie bleeding on the barren 
 Shetland moor ! 
 
 This time my strength has not been exhausted in attempt- 
 ing to breast the current of a swift-flowing river with a drown- 
 ing woman to support. I preserve my senses ; and I am able 
 to give the necessary directions for bandaging the wound with 
 the best materials which we have at our disposal. To mount 
 my pony again is simply out of the question. I must remain 
 where I am, with my traveling companion to look after me ; 
 and the guide must trust his pony to discover the nearest 
 place of shelter to which I can be removed. 
 
 Before he abandons us on the moor, the man (at my sug- 
 gestion) takes our " bearings," as correctly as he can by the 
 help of my pocket-compass. This done, he disappears in the 
 mist, with the bridle hanging loose, and the poDy's nose to 
 the ground, as before. I am left, under my young friend's 
 care, with a cloak to lie on, and a saddle for a pillow. Our 
 ponies composedly help themselves to such grass as they can 
 find on the moor ; keeping always near us as companionably 
 as if they were a couple of dogs. In this position we wait 
 events, while the dripping mist hangs thicker than ever all 
 round us. 
 
 The slow minutes follow each other wearily in the majes- 
 tic silence of the moor. We neither of us acknowledge it in 
 words, but we both feel that hours may pass before the guide 
 discovers us again. The penetrating damp slowly strength- 
 ens its clammy hold on me. My companion's pocket-flask of 
 sherry has about a tea-spoonful of wine left in the bottom of 
 it. "We look at one another — having nothing else to look at 
 in the present state of the weather — and we try to make the 
 best of it. So the slow minutes follow each other, until our 
 watches tell us that forty minutes have elapsed since the guide 
 and his pony vanished from our view. 
 
 My friend suggests that we may as well try what our voices 
 can do toward proclaiming our situation to any living creat- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 153 
 
 ure who may, by the barest possibility, be within hearing of 
 us. I leave him to try the experiment, having no strength 
 to spare for vocal efforts of any sort. My companion shouts 
 at the highest pitch of his voice. Silence follows his first 
 attempt. He tries again ; and, this time, an answering hail 
 reaches us faintly through the white fog. A fellow-creature 
 of some sort, guide or stranger, is near us — help is coming at 
 last! 
 
 An interval passes ; and voices reach our ears — the voices 
 of two men. Then the shadowy appearance of the two be- 
 comes visible in the mist. Then the guide advances near 
 enough to be identified. He is followed by a sturdy fellow 
 in a composite dress, which presents him under the double 
 aspect of a groom and a gardener. The guide speaks a few 
 words of rough sympathy. The composite man stands by 
 impenetrably silent ; the sight of a disabled stranger fails en- 
 tirely either to surprise or to interest the gardener-groom. 
 
 After a little private consultation, the two men decide to 
 cross their hands, and thus make a seat for me between them. 
 My arms rest on their shoulders; and so they carry me off. 
 My friend trudges behind them, with the saddle and the 
 cloak. The ponies caper and kick, in unrestrained enjoy- 
 ment of their freedom ; and sometimes follow, sometimes pre- 
 cede us, as the humor of the moment inclines them. I am, 
 fortunately for my bearers, a light weight. After twice rest- 
 ing, they stop altogether, and set me down on the driest place 
 they can find. I look eagerly through the mist for some signs 
 of a dwelling-house — and I see nothing but a little shelving 
 beach, and a sheet of dark water beyond. Where are we ? 
 
 The gardener- groom vanishes, and appears again on the 
 water, looming large in a boat. I am laid down in the bot- 
 tom of the boat, with my saddle-pillow ; and we shove off, 
 leaving the ponies to the desolate freedom of the moor. 
 They will pick up plenty to eat (the guide says) ; and when 
 night comes on they will find their own way to shelter in a 
 
154 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 village hard by. The last I see of the hardy little creatures 
 they are taking a drink of water, side by side, and biting each 
 other sportively in higher spirits than ever ! 
 
 Slowly we float over the dark water — not a river, as I had 
 at first supposed, but a lake — until we reach the shores of a 
 little island ; a flat, lonely, barren patch of ground. I am car- 
 ried along a rough pathway made of great flat stones, until 
 we reach the firmer earth, and discover a human dwelling- 
 place at last. It is a long, low house of one story high ; form- 
 ing (as well as I can see) three sides of a square. The door 
 stands hospitably open. The hall within is bare and cold and 
 dreary. The men open an inner door, and we enter a long 
 corridor, comfortably warmed by a peat fire. On one wall I 
 notice the closed oaken doors of rooms ; on the other, rows 
 on rows of well-filled book-shelves meet my eye. Advancing 
 to the end of the first passage, we turn at right angles into 
 a second. Here a door is opened at last : I find myself in 
 a spacious room, completely and tastefully furnished, having 
 two beds in it, and a large fire burning in the grate. The 
 change to this warm and cheerful place of shelter from the 
 chilly and misty solitude of the moor is so luxui'iously de- 
 lightful that I am quite content, for the first few minutes, to 
 stretch myself on a bed, in lazy enjoyment of my new posi- 
 tion ; without caring to inquire into whose house we have in- 
 truded; without even wondering at the strange absence of' 
 master, mistress, or member of the family to welcome our ar- 
 rival under their hospitable roof. 
 
 After a while, the first sense of relief passes away. My 
 dormant curiosity revives. I begin to look about me. 
 
 The gardener-groom has disappeared. I discover my trav- 
 eling companion at the farther end of the room, evidently oc- 
 cupied in questioning the guide. A word from me brings 
 him to my bedside. What discoveries has he made ? whose 
 is the house in which we are sheltered ? and how is it that no 
 member of the family appears to welcome us ? 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 155 
 
 My friend relates his discoveries. The guide listens as at- 
 tentively to the second-hand narrative as if it were quite new 
 to him. 
 
 The house that shelters us belongs to a gentleman of an- 
 cient Northern lineage, whose name is Dunross. He has lived 
 in unbroken retirement on the barren island for twenty years 
 past, with no other companion than a daughter, who is his 
 only child. He is generally believed to be one of the most 
 learned men living. The inhabitants of Shetland know him 
 far and wide, under a name in their dialect which means, be- 
 ing interpreted, " The Master of Books." The one occasion 
 on which he and his daughter have been known to leave their 
 island retreat was at a past time when a terrible epidemic 
 disease broke out among the villages in the neighborhood. 
 Father and daughter labored day and night among their poor 
 and afflicted neighbors, with a courage which no danger could 
 shake, with a tender care which no fatigue could exhaust. 
 The father had escaped infection, and the violence of the epi- 
 demic was beginning to wear itself out, when the daughter 
 caught the disease. Her life had been preserved, but she 
 never completely recovered her health. She is now an in- 
 curable sufferer from some mysterious nervous disorder which 
 nobody understands, and which has kept her a prisoner on 
 the island, self- withdrawn from all human observation, for 
 years past. Among the poor inhabitants of the district, the 
 father and daughter are worshiped as semi -divine beings. 
 Their names come after the Sacred Name in the prayers 
 which the parents teach to the children. 
 
 Such is the household (so far as the guide's story goes) on 
 whose privacy we have intruded ourselves ! The narrative 
 has a certain interest of its own, no doubt, but it has one de- 
 fect — it fails entirely to explain the continued absence of Mr. 
 Dunross. Is it possible that he is not aware of our presence 
 in the house ? We apply to the guide, and make a few fur- 
 ther inquiries of him. 
 
156 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "Are we here," I ask, " by permission of Mr. Dunross ?" 
 
 The guide stares. If I had spoken to him in Greek or He- 
 brew, I could hardly have puzzled him more effectually. My 
 friend tries him with a simpler form of words. 
 
 " Did you ask leave to bring us here when you found your 
 way to the house ?" 
 
 The guide stares harder than ever, with every appearance 
 of feeling perfectly scandalized by the question. 
 
 " Do you think," he asks, sternly, " that I am fool enough 
 to disturb the Master over his books for such a little matter 
 as bringing you and your friend into this house ?" 
 
 " Do you mean that you have brought us here without first 
 asking leave ?" I exclaim, in amazement. 
 
 The guide's face brightens ; he has beaten the true state of 
 the case into our stupid heads at last ! "That's just what I 
 mean !" he says, with an air of infinite relief. 
 
 The door opens before we have recovered the shock inflict- 
 ed on us by this extraordinary discovery. A little, lean, old 
 gentleman, shrouded in a long black dressing-gown, quietly 
 enters the room. The guide steps forward, and respectfully 
 closes the door for him. We are evidently in the presence 
 of The Master of Books ! 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE DARKENED BOOM. 
 
 The little gentleman advances to my bedside. His silky 
 white hair flows over his shoulders; he looks at us with 
 faded blue eyes ; he bows with a sad and subdued courtesy, 
 and says, in the simplest manner, " I bid you welcome, gentle- 
 men, to my house." 
 
 We are not content with merely thanking him ; we natu- 
 rally attempt to apologize for our intrusion. Our host de- 
 feats the attempt at the outset by making an apology on his 
 own behalf. 
 
 "I happened to send for my servant a minute since," he 
 proceeds, " and I only then heard that you were here. It is 
 a custom of the house that nobody interrupts me over my 
 books. Be pleased, sir, to accept my excuses," he adds, ad- 
 dressing himself to me, " for not having sooner placed myself 
 and my household at your disposal. You have met, as I am 
 sorry to hear, with an accident. Will you permit me to send 
 for medical help ? I ask the question a little abruptly, fear- 
 ing that time may be of importance, and knowing that our 
 nearest doctor lives at some distance from this house." 
 
 He speaks with a certain quaintly precise choice of words 
 — more like a man dictating a letter than holding a conversa- 
 tion. The subdued sadness of his manner is reflected in the 
 subdued sadness of his face. He and sorrow have apparently 
 been old acquaintances, and have become used to each other 
 for years past. The shadow of some past grief rests quietly 
 and impenetrably over the whole man; I see it in his faded 
 blue eyes, on his broad forehead, on his delicate lips, on his 
 
158 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 pale shriveled cheeks. My uneasy sense of committing an in- 
 trusion on him steadily increases, in spite of his courteous 
 welcome. I explain to him that I am capable of treating my 
 own case, having been myself in practice as a medical man ; 
 and this said, I revert to my interrupted excuses. I assure 
 him that it is only within the last few moments that my trav- 
 eling companion and I have become aware of the liberty 
 which our guide has taken in introducing us, on his own sole 
 responsibility, to the house. Mr. Dunross looks at me, as if 
 he, like the guide, failed entirely to understand what my scru- 
 ples and excuses mean. After a while the truth dawns on 
 him. A faint smile flickers over his face ; he lays his hand 
 in a gentle, fatherly way on my shoulder. 
 
 "We are so used here to our Shetland hospitality," he 
 says, " that we are slow to understand the hesitation which a 
 stranger feels in taking advantage of it. Your guide is in no 
 respect to blame, gentlemen. Every house in these islands 
 which is large enough to contain a spare room has its Guests' 
 Chamber, always kept ready for occupation. When you 
 travel my way, you come here as a matter of course ; you stay 
 here as long as you like ; and, when you go away, I only do 
 my duty as a good Shetlander in accompanying you on the 
 first stage of your journey to bid you godspeed. The cus- 
 toms of centuries past elsewhere are modern customs here. 
 I beg of you to give my servant all the directions which are 
 necessary to your comfort, just as freely as you could give 
 them in your own house." 
 
 He turns aside to ring a hand-bell on the table as he speaks ; 
 and notices in the guide's face plain signs that the man has 
 taken offense at my disparaging allusion to him. 
 
 "Strangers can not be expected to understand our ways, 
 Andrew," says The Master of Books. " But you and I un- 
 derstand one another — and that is enough." 
 
 The guide's rough face reddens with pleasure. If a crown- 
 ed king on a throne had spoken condescendingly to him, he 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 159 
 
 could hardly have looked more proud of the honor conferred 
 than he looks now. He makes a clumsy attempt to take the 
 Master's hand and kiss it. Mr. Dunross gently repels the at- 
 tempt, and gives him a little pat on the head. The guide 
 looks at me and my friend, as if he had been honored with 
 the highest distinction that an earthly being can receive. 
 The Master's hand had touched him kindly ! 
 
 In a moment more, the gardener-groom appears at the door 
 to answer the bell. 
 
 " You will move the medicine-chest into this room, Peter," 
 says Mr. Dunross. "And you will wait on this gentleman, 
 who is confined to his bed by an accident, exactly as you 
 would wait on me if I were ill. If we both happen to ring 
 for you together, you will answer his bell before you answer 
 mine. The usual changes of linen are, of course, ready in the 
 wardrobe there ? Very good. Go now, and tell the cook to 
 prepare a little dinner ; and get a bottle of the old Madeira 
 out of the cellar. You will spread the table, for to-day at 
 least, in this room. These two gentlemen will be best pleased 
 to dine together. Return here in five minutes' time, in case 
 you are wanted ; and show my guest, Peter, that I am right 
 in believing you to be a good nurse as well as a good serv- 
 ant." 
 
 The silent and surly Peter brightens under the expression 
 of the Master's confidence in him, as the guide brightened 
 under the influence of the Master's caressing touch. The 
 two men leave the room together. 
 
 We take advantage of the momentary silence that follows 
 to introduce ourselves by name to our host, and to inform 
 him of the circumstances under which we happen to be visit- 
 ing Shetland. He listens in his subdued, courteous way ; but 
 he makes no inquiries about our relatives ; he shows no in- 
 terest in the arrival of the Government yacht and the Com- 
 missioner for Northern Lights. All sympathy with the doings 
 of the outer world, all curiosity about persons of social posi- 
 
160 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 tion and notoriety, is evidently at an end in Mr. Dunross. 
 For twenty years the little round of his duties and his occu- 
 pations has been enough for him. Life has lost its priceless 
 value to this man ; and when Death comes to him, he will re- 
 ceive the king of terrors as he might receive the last of his 
 guests. 
 
 " Is there any thing else I can do," he says, speaking more 
 to himself than to us, " before I go back to my books ?" 
 
 Something else occurs to him, even as he puts the question. 
 He addresses my companion, with bis faint, sad smile. " This 
 will be a dull life, I am afraid, sir, for you. If you happen to 
 be fond of angling, I can offer you some little amusement in 
 that way. The lake is well stocked with fish; and I have a 
 boy employed in the garden, who will be glad to attend on 
 you in the boat." 
 
 My friend happens to be fond of fishing, and gladly accepts 
 the invitation. The Master says his parting words to me 
 befoi-e he goes back to his books. 
 
 " You may safely trust my man Peter to wait on you, Mr. 
 Germaine, while you are so unfortunate as to he confined to 
 this room. He has the advantage (in cases of illness) of be- 
 ing a very silent, undemonstrative person. At the same time 
 he is careful and considerate, in his own reserved way. As 
 to what I may term the lighter duties at your bedside — such 
 as reading to you, writing your letters for you while your 
 right hand is still disabled, regulating the temperature in the 
 room, and so on — though I can not speak positively, I think 
 it likely that these little services may be rendered to you by 
 another person whom I have not mentioned yet. We shall 
 see what happens in a few hours' time. In the mean while, 
 sir, I ask permission to leave you to your rest." 
 
 With those words, he walks out of the room as quietly as 
 he walked into it, and leaves his two guests to meditate grate- 
 fully on Shetland hospitality. We both wonder what those 
 last mysterious words of our host mean; and we exchange 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 161 
 
 more or less ingenious guesses on the subject of that name- 
 less "other person" who may possibly attend on me — until 
 the arrival of dinner turns our thoughts into a new course. 
 
 The dishes are few in number, but cooked to perfection 
 and admirably served. I am too weary to eat much : a glass 
 of the fine old Madeira revives me. We arrange our future 
 plans while we are engaged over the meal. Our return to the 
 yacht in Lerwick harbor is expected on the next day at the 
 latest. As things are, I can only leave my companion to go 
 back to the vessel, and relieve the minds of our friends of 
 any needless alarm about me. On the day after, I engage 
 to send on board a written report of the state of my health, 
 by a messenger who can bring my portmanteau back with 
 him. 
 
 These arrangements decided on, my friend goes away (at 
 my own request) to try his skill as an angler in the lake. 
 Assisted by the silent Peter and the well-stocked medicine- 
 chest, I apply the necessary dressings to my wound, wrap 
 myself in the comfortable morning -gown which is always 
 kept ready in the Guests' Chamber, and lie down again on 
 the bed to try the restorative virtues of sleep. 
 
 Before he leaves the room, silent Peter goes to the win- 
 dow, and asks in fewest possible words if he shall draw the 
 curtains. In fewer words still — for I am feeling drowsy al- 
 ready — I answer No. I dislike shutting out the cheeriug 
 light of day. To my morbid fancy, at that moment, it looks 
 like resigning myself deliberately to the horrors of a long ill- 
 ness. The hand-bell is on my bedside table; and I can al- 
 ways ring for Peter if the light keeps me from sleeping. On 
 this understanding, Peter mutely nods his head, and goes 
 out. 
 
 For some minutes I lie in lazy contemplation of the com- 
 panionable fire. Meanwhile the dressings on my wound and 
 the enibrocation on my sprained wrist steadily subdue the 
 pains which I have felt so far. Little by little, the bright fire 
 
162 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 seems to be fading. Little by little, sleep steals on me, and 
 all my troubles are forgotten. 
 
 I wake, after what seems to have been a long repose — I 
 wake, feeling the bewilderment which we all experience on 
 opening our eyes for the first time in a bed and a room that 
 are new to us. Gradually collecting my thoughts, I find my 
 perplexity considerably increased by a trifling but curious 
 circumstance. The curtains which I had forbidden Peter to 
 touch are drawn — closely drawn, so as to plunge the whole 
 room in obscurity. And, more surprising still, a high screen 
 with folding sides stands before the fire, and confines the 
 light which it might otherwise give exclusively to the ceil- 
 ing. I am literally enveloped in shadows. Has night come ? 
 
 In lazy woDder, I turn my head on the pillow, and look on 
 the other side of my bed. 
 
 Dark as it is, I discover instantly that I am not alone. 
 
 A shadowy figure stands by my bedside. The dim outline 
 of the dress tells me that it is the figure of a woman. Strain- 
 ing my eyes, I fancy I can discern a wavy black object cov- 
 ering her head and shoulders which looks like a large veil. 
 Her face is turned toward me, but no distinguishing feature 
 in it is visible. She stands like a statue, with her hands cross- 
 ed in front of her, faintly relieved against the dark substance 
 of her dress. This I can see — and this is all. 
 
 There is a moment of silence. The shadowy being finds its 
 voice, and speaks first. 
 
 "I hope you feel better, sir, after your rest?" 
 
 The voice is low, with a certain faint sweetness of tone 
 which falls soothingly on my ear. The accent is unmistak- 
 ably the accent of a refined and cultivated person. After 
 making my acknowledgments to the unknown and half-seen 
 lady, I venture to ask the inevitable question, " To whom 
 have I the honor of speaking ?" 
 
 The lady answers, " I am Miss Dunross ; and I hope, if you 
 have no objection to it, to help Peter in nursing you." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 163 
 
 This, then, is the " other person" dimly alluded to by our 
 host ! I think directly of the heroic conduct of Miss Dun- 
 ross among her poor and afflicted neighbors; and I do not 
 forget the melancholy result of her devotion to others which 
 has left her an incurable invalid. My anxiety to see this 
 lady more plainly increases a hundred -fold. I beg her to 
 add to my grateful sense of her kindness by telling me why 
 the room is so dark. " Surely," I say, " it can not be night 
 already ?" 
 
 " You have not been asleep," she answers, " for more than 
 two hours. The mist has disappeared, and the sun is shin- 
 ing." 
 
 I take up the bell, standing on the table at my side. 
 
 "May I ring for Peter, Miss Dunross ?" 
 
 " To open the curtains, Mr. Germaine ?" 
 
 "Yes — with your permission. I own I should like to see 
 the sunlight." 
 
 " I will send Peter to you immediately." 
 
 The shadowy figure of my new nurse glides away. In an- 
 other moment, unless I say something to stop her, the woman 
 whom I am so eager to see will have left the room. 
 
 " Pray don't go !" I say. " I can not think of troubling 
 you to take a trifling message for me. The servant will come 
 in, if I only ring the bell." 
 
 She pauses — more shadowy than ever — half-way between 
 the bed and the door, and answers a little sadly, 
 
 " Peter will not let in the daylight while I am in the room. 
 He closed the curtains by my order." 
 
 The reply puzzles me. Why should Peter keep the room 
 dark while Miss Dunross is in it ? Are her eyes weak ? No ; 
 if her eyes were weak, they would be protected by a shade. 
 Dark as it is, I can see that she does not wear a shade. Why 
 has the room been darkened — if not for me ? I can not vent- 
 ure on asking the question — I can only make my excuses in 
 due form. 
 
164 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " Invalids only think of themselves," I say. " I supposed 
 that you had kindly darkened the room on my account." 
 
 She glides back to my bedside before she speaks again. 
 When she does answer, it is in these startling words : 
 
 " Tou were mistaken, Mr. Germaine. Your room has been 
 darkened — not on your account, but on mine." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 165 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 THE CATS. 
 
 Miss Duneoss had so completely perplexed me, that I was 
 at a loss what to say next. 
 
 To ask her plainly why it was necessary to keep the room 
 in darkness while she remained in it, might prove (for all I 
 knew to the contrary) to be an act of positive rudeness. To 
 venture on any general expression of sympathy with her, 
 knowing absolutely nothing of the circumstances, might place 
 us both in an embarrassing position at the outset of our ac- 
 quaintance. The one thing I could do was to beg that the 
 present arrangement of the room might not be disturbed, and 
 to leave her to decide as to whether she should admit me to 
 her confidence or exclude me from it, at her own sole dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 She perfectly understood what was going on in my mind. 
 Taking a chair at the foot of the bed, she told me simply and 
 unreservedly the sad secret of the darkened room. 
 
 " If you wish to see much of me, Mr. Germaine," she be- 
 gan, " you must accustom yourself to the world of shadows 
 in which it is my lot to live. Some time since, a dreadful 
 illness raged among the people in our part of this island; 
 and I was so unfortunate as to catch the infection. When I 
 recovered — no ! ' Recovery ' is not the right word to use — 
 let me say, when I escaped death, I found myself afflicted by 
 a nervous malady which has defied medical help from that 
 time to this. I am suffering (as the doctors explain it to me) 
 from a morbidly sensitive condition of the nerves near the 
 surface to the action of light. If I were to draw the cur- 
 
166 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 tains, and look out of that window, I should feel the acutest 
 pain all over my face. If I covered my face, and drew the 
 curtains with my bare hands, I should feel the same pain in 
 my hands. Tou can just see, perhaps, that I have a very 
 large and very thick veil on my head. I let it fall over my 
 face and neck and hands, when I have occasion to pass along 
 the corridors or to enter my father's study — and I find it 
 protection enough. Don't be too ready to deplore my sad 
 condition, sir ! I have got so used to living in the dark that 
 I can see quite well enough for all the purposes of my poor 
 existence. I can read and write in these shadows — I can see 
 you, and be of use to you in many little ways, if you will let 
 me. There is really nothing to be distressed about. My 
 life will not be a long one — I know and feel that. But I 
 hope to be spared long enough to be my father's companion 
 through the closing years of his life. Beyond that, I have no 
 prospect. In the mean while, I have my pleasures ; and I 
 mean to add to my scanty little stock the pleasure of attend- 
 ing on you. You are quite an event in my life. I look for- 
 ward to reading to you and writing for you, as some girls 
 look forward to a new dress, or a first ball. Do you think it 
 very strange of me to tell you so openly just what I have in 
 my mind ? I can't help it ! I say what I think to my father, 
 and to our poor neighbors hereabouts — and I can't alter 
 my ways at a moment's notice. I own it when I like peo- 
 ple ; and I own it when I don't. I have been looking at you 
 while you were asleep ; and I have read your face as I might 
 read a book. There are signs of sorrow on your forehead 
 and your lips which it is strange to see in so young a face as 
 yours. I am afraid I shall trouble you with many questions 
 about yourself when we become better acquainted with each 
 other. Let me begin with a question, in my capacity as 
 nurse. Are your pillows comfortable ? I can see they want 
 shaking up. Shall I send for Peter to raise you ? I am un- 
 happily not strong enough to be able to help you in that way. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 167 
 
 No ? You are able to raise yourself ? Wait a little. There ! 
 Now lie back — and tell me if I know how to establish the 
 right sort of sympathy between a tumbled pillow and a weary 
 head." 
 
 She had so indescribably touched and interested me, stran- 
 ger as I was, that the sudden cessation of her faint, sweet 
 tones affected me almost with a sense of pain. In trying 
 (clumsily enough) to help her with the pillows, I accidentally 
 touched her hand. It felt so cold and so thin, that even the 
 momentary contact with it startled me. I tried vainly to see 
 her face, now that it was more within reach of my range of 
 view. The merciless darkness kept it as complete a myste- 
 ry as ever. Had my curiosity escaped her notice ? Nothing 
 escaped her notice ! Her next words told me plainly that I 
 had been discovered. 
 
 "You have been trying to see me," she said. "Has my 
 hand warned you not to try. again ? I felt that it startled 
 you when you touched it just now." 
 
 Such quickness of perception as this was not to be de- 
 ceived; such fearless candor demanded as a right a similar 
 frankness on my side. I owned the truth, and left it to her 
 indulgence to forgive me. 
 
 She returned slowly to her chair at the foot of the bed. 
 
 " If we are to be friends," she said, " we must begin by 
 understanding one another. . Don't associate any romantic 
 ideas of invisible beauty with me, Mr. Germaine. I had but 
 one beauty to boast of before I fell ill — my complexion — and 
 that has gone forever. There is nothing to see in me now 
 but the poor reflection of my former self ; the ruin of what 
 was once a woman. I don't say this to distress you — I say 
 it to reconcile you to the darkness as a perpetual obstacle, so 
 far as your eyes are concerned, between you and me. Make 
 the best instead of the worst of your strange position here. 
 It offers you a new sensation to amuse you while you are ill. 
 You have a nurse who is an impersonal creature — a shadow 
 
168 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 among shadows ; a voice to speak to you, and a hand to help 
 you, and nothing more. Enough of myself !" she exclaimed, 
 rising and changing her tone. "What can I do to amuse 
 you ?" She considered a little. " I have some odd tastes," 
 she resumed; "and I think I may entertain you if I make 
 you acquainted with one of them. Are you like most other 
 men, Mr. Germaine ? Do you hate cats ?" 
 
 The question startled me. However, I could honestly an- 
 swer that, in this respect at least, I was not like other men. 
 
 " To my thinking," I added, " the cat is a cruelly misunder- 
 stood creature — especially in England. Women, no doubt, 
 generally do justice to the affectionate nature of cats. But 
 the men treat them as if they were the natural enemies of 
 the human race. The men drive a cat out of their presence 
 if it ventures upstairs, and set their dogs at it if it shows it- 
 self in the street — and then they turn round and accuse the 
 poor creature (whose genial nature must attach itself to 
 something) of being only fond of the kitchen !" 
 
 The expression of these unpopular sentiments appeared to 
 raise me greatly in the estimation of Miss Dunross. 
 
 " We have one sympathy in common, at any rate," she 
 said. " Now I can amuse you ! Prepare for a surprise." 
 
 She drew her veil over her face as .she spoke, and, partially 
 opening the door, rang my hand-bell. Peter appeared, and 
 received his instructions. 
 
 "Move the screen," said Miss Dunross. Peter obeyed; 
 the ruddy fire-light streamed over the floor. Miss Dunross 
 proceeded with her directions. " Open the door of the cats' 
 room, Peter; and bring me my harp. Don't suppose that 
 you are going to listen to a great player, Mr. Germaine," she 
 went on, when Peter had departed on his singular errand, 
 " or that you are likely to see the sort of harp to which you 
 are accustomed, as a man of the modern time. I can only 
 play some old Scotch airs ; and my harp is an ancient instru- 
 ment (with new strings) — an heir-loom in our family, some 
 

 III - ISiPSilHiis 
 
 SHE TOUCHED THE STRINGS OF HEK INSTRUMENT. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 171 
 
 centuries old. "When you see my harp, you will think of 
 pictures of St. Cecilia — and you will be treating my per- 
 formance kindly if you will remember, at the same time, that 
 I am no saint !" 
 
 She drew her chair into the fire-light ; and sounded a whis- 
 tle which she took from the pocket of her dress. In another 
 moment the lithe and shadowy figures of the cats appeared 
 noiselessly in the red light, answering their misti-ess's call. I 
 could just count six of them, as the creatures seated them- 
 selves demurely in a circle round the chair. Peter followed 
 with the harp, and closed the door after him as he went out. 
 The streak of daylight being now excluded from. the room, 
 Miss Dunross threw back her veil, and took the harp on her 
 knee; seating herself, I observed, with her face turned away 
 from the fire. 
 
 " You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said, 
 " without having too much light for me. Fire-light does not 
 give me the acute pain which I suffer when daylight falls on 
 my face — I feel a certain inconvenience from it, and nothing 
 more." 
 
 She touched the strings of her instrument — the ancient 
 harp, as she had said, of the pictured St. Cecilia ; or, rather, 
 as I thought, the ancient harp of the Welsh bards. The 
 sound was at first unpleasantly high in pitch, to my untutor- 
 ed ear. At the opening notes of the melody — a slow, wailing, 
 dirge-like air — the cats rose, and circled round their mistress, 
 marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly ; 
 now, at a change in the melody, they walked two and two; 
 and, now again, they separated into divisions of three each, 
 and circled round the chair in opposite directions. The mu- 
 sic quickened, and the cats quickened their pace with it. 
 Faster and faster the notes rang out, and faster and faster in 
 the ruddy fire-light, the cats, like living shadows, whirled 
 round the still black figure in the chair, with the ancient harp 
 on its knee. Any thing so weird, wild, and ghost-like I nev- 
 
172 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 er imagined before even in a dream ! The music changed, 
 and the whirling cats began to leap. One perched itself at a 
 bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung up togeth- 
 er, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders. 
 The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and light- 
 ed on her head ! There the six creatures kept their positions, 
 motionless as statues ! Nothing moved but the wan, white 
 hands over the harp-strings ; no sound but the sound of the 
 music stirred in the room. Once more the melody changed. 
 In an instant the six cats were on the floor again, seated 
 round the chair as I had seen them on their first entrance; 
 the harp was laid aside; and the faint, sweet voice said quiet- 
 ly, " I am soon tired — I must leave my cats to conclude their 
 performances to-morrow." 
 
 She rose, and approached the bedside. 
 
 " I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she 
 said. "From the coming of the darkness to the coming of 
 breakfast-time, you must not count on my services — I am 
 taking my rest. I have no choice but to remain in bed 
 (sleeping when I can) for twelve hours or more. The long 
 repose seems to keep my life in me. Have I and my cats 
 surprised you very much? Am I a witch; and are they my 
 familiar spirits? Remember how few amusements I have, 
 and you will not wonder why I devote myself to teaching 
 these pretty creatures their tricks, and attaching them to me 
 like dogs ! They were slow at first, and they taught me ex- 
 cellent lessons of patience. Now they understand what I 
 want of them, and they learn wonderfully well. How you 
 will amuse your friend, when he comes back from fishing, 
 with the story of the young lady who lives in the dark, and 
 keeps a company of performing cats ! I shall expect you to 
 amuse me to-morrow — I want you to tell me all about your- 
 self, and how you came to visit these wild islands of ours. 
 Perhaps, as the days go on, and we get better acquainted, you 
 will take me a little more into your confidence, and tell me 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 173 
 
 the true meaning of that story of sorrow which I read on 
 your face while you were asleep ? I have just enough of the 
 woman left in me to be the victim of curiosity, when I meet 
 with a person who interests me. Good-bye till to-morrow ! 
 I wish you a tranquil night, and a pleasant waking. Come, 
 my familiar spirits ! Come, my cat-children ! it's time we 
 went back to our own side of the house." 
 
 She dropped the veil over her face — and, followed by her 
 train of cats, glided out of the room. 
 
 Immediately on her departure, Peter appeared, and drew 
 back the curtains. The light of the setting sun streamed in 
 at the window. At the same moment my traveling compan- 
 ion returned in high spirits, eager to tell me about his fishing 
 in the lake. The contrast between what I saw and heard 
 now, and what I had seen and heard only a few minutes since, 
 was so extraordinary and so startling that I almost doubted 
 whether the veiled figure with the harp, and the dance of 
 cats, were not the fantastic creations of a dream. I actually 
 asked my friend whether he had found me awake or asleep 
 when he came into the room ! 
 
 Evening merged into night. The Master of Books made 
 his appearance, to receive the latest news of my health. He 
 spoke and listened absently, as if his mind were still pre-occu- 
 pied by his studies — except when I referred gratefully to his 
 daughter's kindness to me. At her name his faded blue eyes 
 brightened; his drooping head became erect; his sad, sub- 
 dued voice strengthened in tone. 
 
 "Do not hesitate to let her attend on you," he said. 
 '•Whatever interests or amuses her, lengthens her life. In 
 her life is the breath of mine. She is more than my daugh- 
 ter; she is the guardian-angel of the house. Go where she 
 may, she carries the air of Heaven with her. When you say 
 your prayers, sir, pray God to leave my daughter here a little 
 longer." 
 
174 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 He sighed heavily ; his head dropped again on his breast 
 — he left me. 
 
 The hour advanced ; the evening meal was set by my bed- 
 side. Silent Peter, taking his leave for the night, developed 
 into speech. "I sleep next door," he said. "Ring when 
 you want me." My traveling companion, taking the second 
 bed in the room, reposed in the happy sleep of youth. In 
 the house there was dead silence. Out of the house, the low 
 song of the night-wind, rising and falling over the lake and 
 the moor, was the one sound to be heard. So the first day 
 ended in the hospitable Shetland house. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 1?5 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 THE GREEN FLAG. 
 
 " I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, on your power of 
 painting in words. Your description gives me a vivid idea 
 of Mrs. Van Brandt." 
 
 " Does the portrait please you, Miss Dunross ?" 
 
 " May I speak as plainly as usual ?" 
 
 " Certainly !" 
 
 " Well, then, plainly, I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt." 
 
 Ten days had passed; and thus far Miss Dunross had 
 made her way into my confidence already ! 
 
 By what means had she induced me to trust her with those 
 secret and sacred sorrows of my life which I had hitherto 
 kept for my mother's ear alone ? I can easily recall the rap- 
 id and subtle manner in which her sympathies twined them- 
 selves round mine; but I fail entirely to trace the infinite 
 gradations of approach by which she surprised and conquer- 
 ed my habitual reserve. The strongest influence of all, the 
 influence of the eye, was not hers. When the light was ad- 
 mitted into the room she was shrouded in her veil. At all 
 other times the curtains were drawn, the screen was before 
 the fire — I could see dimly the outline of her face, and I 
 could see no more. The secret of her influence was perhaps 
 partly attributable to the simple and sisterly manner in which 
 she spoke to me, and partly to the indescribable interest 
 which associated itself with her mere presence in the room. 
 Her father had told me that she " carried the air of Heaven 
 with her." In my experience, I can only say that she carried 
 something with her which softly and inscrutably possessed 
 
176 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 itself of my will, and made me as unconsciously obedient to 
 her wishes as if I had been her dog. The love-story of my 
 boyhood, in all its particulars, down even to the gift of the 
 green flag; the mystic predictions of Dame Dermody; the 
 loss of every trace of my little Mary of former days; the 
 rescue of Mrs. Van Brandt from the river ; the apparition of 
 her in the summer-house; the after -meetings with her in 
 Edinburgh and in London; the final parting which had left 
 its mark of sorrow on my face — all these events, all these suf- 
 ferings, I confided to her as unreservedly as I have confided 
 them to these pages. And the result, as she sat by me in the 
 darkened room, was summed up, with a woman's headlong 
 impetuosity of judgment, in the words that I have just writ- 
 ten — " I don't like your Mrs. Van Brandt !" 
 
 "Why not?" I asked. 
 
 She answered instantly, " Because you ought to love no- 
 body but Mary." 
 
 " But Mary has been lost to me since I was a boy of thirteen." 
 
 " Be patient, and you will find her again. Mary is patient 
 — Mary is waiting for you. "When you meet her, you will 
 be ashamed to remember that you ever loved Mrs.Van Brandt 
 — you will look on your separation from that woman as the 
 happiest event of your life. I may not live to hear of it — 
 but you will live to own that I was right." 
 
 Her perfectly baseless conviction that time would yet bring 
 about my meeting with Mary, partly irritated, partly amused 
 me. 
 
 " You seem to agree with Dame Dermody," I said. " You 
 believe that our two destinies are one. No matter what time 
 may elapse, or what may happen in the time, you believe my 
 marriage with Mary is still a marriage delayed, and nothing 
 more ?" 
 
 " I firmly believe it." 
 
 " Without knowing why — except that you dislike the idea 
 of my marrying Mrs. Van Brandt ?" ' 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 177 
 
 She knew that this view of her motive was not far from, 
 being the right one — and, woman-like, she shifted the dis- 
 cussion to new ground. 
 
 " Why do you call her Mrs. Van Brandt ?" she asked. 
 " Mrs. Van Brandt is the namesake of your first love. If you 
 are so fond of her, why don't you call her Mary ?" 
 
 I was ashamed to give the true reason — it seemed so utterly 
 unworthy of a man of any sense or spirit. Noticing my hes- 
 itation, she insisted on my answering her; she forced me to 
 make my humiliating confession. 
 
 " The man who has parted us," I said, " called her Maiy. I 
 hate him with such a jealous hatred that he has even disgust- 
 ed me with the name ! It lost all its charm for me when it 
 passed his lips." 
 
 I had anticipated that she would laugh at me. No ! She 
 suddenly raised her head as if she were looking at me intent- 
 ly in the dark. 
 
 " How fond you must be of that woman !" she said. " Do 
 you dream of her now ?" 
 
 " I never dream of her now." 
 
 " Do you expect to see the apparition of her again ?" 
 
 "It may be so — if a time comes when she is in sore need 
 of help, and when she has no friend to look to but me." 
 
 " Did you ever see the apparition of your little Mary ?" 
 
 " Never !" 
 
 " But you used once to see her — as Dame Dermody predict- 
 ed — in dreams?" 
 
 " Ves — when I was a lad." 
 
 "And, in the after -time, it was not Mary, but Mrs. Van 
 Brandt who came to you in dreams — who appeared to you 
 in the spirit, when she was far away from you in the body ? 
 Poor old Dame Dermody. She little thought, in her life-time, 
 that her prediction would be fulfilled by the wrong woman !" 
 
 To that result her inquiries had inscrutably conducted her ! 
 If she had only pressed them a little farther— if she had not 
 
 8* 
 
178 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 unconsciously led me astray again by the very next question 
 that fell from her lips — she must have communicated to my 
 mind the idea obscurely germinating in hers — the idea of a 
 possible identity between the Mary of my first love and Mrs. 
 Van Brandt ! 
 
 " Tell me," she went on. " If you met with your little 
 Mary now, what would she be like ? What sort of woman 
 would you expect to see ?" 
 
 I could hardly help laughing. "How can I tell," I rejoin- 
 ed, " at this distance of time ?" 
 
 " Try !" she said. 
 
 Reasoning my way from the known personality to the un- 
 known, I searched my memory for the image of the frail and 
 delicate child of my remembrance : and I drew the picture of 
 a frail and delicate woman — the most absolute contrast imag- 
 inable to Mrs. Van Brandt ! 
 
 The half-realized idea of identity in the mind of Miss Dun- 
 ross dropped out of it instantly, expelled by the substantial 
 conclusion which the contrast implied. Alike ignorant of the 
 after-growth of health, strength, and beauty which time and 
 circumstances had developed in the Mary of my youthful 
 days, we had alike completely and unconsciously misled one 
 another. Once more, I had missed the discovery of the truth, 
 and missed it by a hair-breadth ! 
 
 " I infinitely prefer your portrait of Mary," said Miss Dun- 
 ross, " to your portrait of Mrs. Van Brandt. Mary realizes 
 my idea of what a really attractive woman ought to be. How 
 you can have felt any sorrow for the loss of that other person 
 (I detest buxom women !) passes my understanding. I can't 
 tell you how interested I am in Mary ! I want to know more 
 about her. Where is that pretty present of needle-work which 
 the poor little thing embroidered for you so industriously? 
 Do let me see the green flag !" 
 
 She evidently supposed that I carried the green flag about 
 me ! I felt a little confused as I answered her. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 119 
 
 "I am sorry to disappoint you. The green flag is some- 
 where in my house in Perthshire." 
 
 " You have not got it with you ?" she exclaimed. " You 
 leave her keepsake lying about anywhere ? Oh, Mr. Germaine, 
 you have indeed forgotten Mary ! A woman, in your place, 
 would have parted with her life rather than part with the one 
 memorial left of the time when she first loved 1" 
 
 She spoke with such extraordinary earnestness — with such 
 agitation, I might almost say — that she quite startled me. 
 
 "Dear Miss Dunross," I remonstrated, "the flag is not 
 lost." 
 
 " I should hope not !" she interposed, quickly. "If you lose 
 the green flag, you lose the last relic of Mary — and more than 
 that, if my belief is right." 
 
 "What do you believe?" 
 
 " You will laugh at me if I tell you. I am afraid my first 
 reading of your face was wrong — I am afraid you are a hard 
 man." 
 
 "Indeed you do me an injustice. I entreat you to answer 
 me as frankly as usual. What do I lose in losing the last 
 relic of Mary?" 
 
 "You lose the one hope I have for you," she answered, 
 gravely — " the hope of your meeting and your marriage with 
 Mary in the time to come. I was sleepless last night, and I 
 was thinking of your pretty love story by the banks of the 
 bright English lake. The longer I thought, the more firmly I 
 felt the conviction that the poor child's green flag is destined 
 to have its innocent influence in forming your future life. 
 Your happiness is waiting for you in that artless little keep- 
 sake ! I can't explain or justify this belief of mine. It is 
 one of my eccentricities, I suppose — like training my cats to 
 perform to the music of my harp. But, if I were your old 
 friend, instead of being only your friend of a few days, I would 
 leave you no peace — I would beg and entreat and persist, as 
 only a woman can persist — until I had made Mary's gift as 
 
180 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 close a companion of yours, as your mother's portrait in the 
 locket there at your watch-chain. While the flag is with you, 
 Mary's influence is with you ; Mary's love is still binding you 
 by the dear old tie ; and Mary and you, after years of separa- 
 tion, will meet again !" 
 
 The fancy was in itself pretty and poetical; the earnestness 
 which had given expression to it would have had its influence 
 over a man of a far harder nature than mine. I confess she 
 had made me ashamed, if she had done nothing more, of my 
 neglect of the green flag. 
 
 " I will look for it the moment I am at home again," I said ; 
 " and I will take care that it is carefully preserved for the 
 future." 
 
 " I want more than that," she rejoined. " If you can't wear 
 the flag about you, I want it always to be with you — to go 
 wherever you go. When they brought your luggage here 
 from the vessel at Lerwick, you were particularly anxious 
 about the safety of your traveling writing-desk — the desk 
 there on the table. Is there any thing very valuable in it ?" 
 
 "It contains my money, and other things that I prize far 
 more highly — my mother's letters, and some family relics 
 which I should be very sorry to lose. Besides, the desk itself 
 has its own familiar interest as my constant traveling com- 
 panion of many years past." 
 
 Miss Dunross rose, and came close to the chair in which I 
 was sitting. 
 
 " Let Mary's flag be your constant traveling companion," 
 she said. "You have spoken far too gratefully of my services 
 here as your nurse. Reward me beyond my deserts. Make 
 allowances, Mr. Germaine, for the superstitious fancies of 
 a lonely, dreamy woman. Promise me that the green flag 
 shall take its place among the other little treasures in your 
 desk !" 
 
 It is needless to say that I made the allowances and gave 
 the promise — gave it, resolving seriously to abide by it. For 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 181 
 
 the first time since I had known her, she put her poor, wasted 
 hand in mine, and pressed it for a moment. Acting heed- 
 lessly under my first' grateful impulse, I lifted her hand to 
 my lips before I released it. She started — trembled — and 
 suddenly and silently passed out of the room. 
 
182 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 SHE COMES BETWEEN US. 
 
 What emotion had I thoughtlessly aroused in Miss Dun- 
 ross ? Had I offended or distressed her ? Or had I, without 
 meaning it, forced on her inner knowledge some deeply seated 
 feeling which she had thus far resolutely ignored? 
 
 I looked back through the days of my sojourn in the house j 
 I questioned my own feelings and impressions, on the chance 
 that they might serve me as a means of solving the mystery 
 of her sudden flight from the room. 
 
 What effect had she produced on me? 
 
 In plain truth, she had simply taken her place in my mind, 
 to the exclusion of every other person and every other sub- 
 ject. In ten days she had taken a hold on my sympathies of 
 which other women would have failed to possess themselves 
 in so many years. I remembered, to my shame, that my 
 mother had but seldom occupied my thoughts. Even the 
 image of Mrs. Van Brandt — except when the conversation 
 had turned on her — had become a faint image in my mind ! 
 As to my friends at Lerwick, from Sir James downward, they 
 had all kindly come to see me — and I had secretly and un- 
 gratefully rejoiced when their departure left the scene free for 
 the return of my nurse. In two days more the Government 
 vessel was to sail on the return voyage. My wrist was still 
 painful when I tried to use it; but the far more serious in- 
 jury presented by the re-opened wound was no longer a sub- 
 ject of anxiety to myself or to any one about me. I was suf- 
 ficiently restored to be capable of making the journey to Ler- 
 wick, if I rested for one night at a farm half-way between 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 183 
 
 the town and Mr. Dunross's house. Knowing this, I had nev- 
 ertheless left the question of rejoining the vessel undecided to 
 the very latest moment. The motive which T pleaded to my 
 friends was — uncertainty as to the sufficient recovery of my 
 strength. The motive which I now confessed to myself was 
 reluctance to leave Miss Dunross. 
 
 What was the secret of her power over me? What emo- 
 tion, what passion, had she awakened in me ? Was it love ? 
 
 No: not love. The place which Mary had once held in 
 my heart, the place which Mrs. Van Brandt had taken in the 
 after- time, was not the place occupied by Miss Dunross. 
 How could I (in the ordinary sense of the word) be in love 
 with a woman whose face I had never seen? whose beauty 
 had faded, never to bloom again ? whose wasted life hung by 
 a thread which the accident of a moment might snap ? The 
 senses have their share in all love between the sexes which 
 is worthy of the name. They had no share in the feeling 
 with which I regarded Miss Dunross. What was the feeling, 
 then? I can only answer the question in one way. The 
 feeling lay too deep in me for my sounding. 
 
 What impression had I produced on her ? What sensitive 
 chord had I ignorantly touched, when my lips touched her 
 hand? 
 
 I confess I recoiled from pursuing the inquiry which I had 
 deliberately set myself to make. I thought of her shattered 
 health ; of her melancholy existence in shadow and solitude ; 
 of the rich treasures of such a heart and such a mind as hers, 
 wasted with her wasting life ; and I said to myself, Let her 
 secret be sacred ! let me never again, by word or deed, bring 
 the trouble which tells of it to the surface ! let her heart be 
 veiled from me in the darkness which veils her face ! 
 
 In this frame of mind toward her, I waited her return. 
 
 I had no doubt of seeing her again, sooner or later, on that 
 day. The post to the south went out on the next day; and 
 the early hour of the morning at which the messenger called 
 
184 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 for our letters made it a matter of ordinary convenience to 
 write overnight. In the disabled state of my hand, Miss 
 Dunross had been accustomed to write home for me, under 
 my dictation : she knew that I owed a letter to my mother, 
 and that I relied as usual on her help. Her return to me, 
 under these circumstances, was simply a question of time: 
 any duty which she had once undertaken was an imperative 
 duty in her estimation, no matter how trifling it might be. 
 
 The hours wore on ; the day drew to its end — and still she 
 never appeared. 
 
 I left my room to enjoy the last sunny gleam of the day- 
 light in the garden attached to the house; first telling Peter 
 where I might be found, if Miss Dunross wanted me. The 
 garden was a wild place, to my southern notions ; but it ex- 
 tended for some distance along the shore of the island, and 
 it offered some pleasant views of the lake and the moor-land 
 country beyond. Slowly pursuing my walk, I proposed to 
 myself to occupy ray mind to some useful purpose by arran- 
 ging beforehand the composition of the letter which Miss 
 Dunross was to write. 
 
 To- my great surprise, I found it simply impossible to fix 
 my mind on the subject. Try as I might, my thoughts per- 
 sisted in wandering from the letter to my mother, and con- 
 centrated themselves instead — on Miss Dunross? No. On 
 the question of my returning, or not returning, to Perthshire 
 by the Government vessel ? No. By some capricious revul- 
 sion of feeling which it seemed impossible to account for, my 
 whole mind was now absorbed on the one subject which had 
 been hitherto so strangely absent from it — the subject of 
 Mrs. Van Brandt ! 
 
 My memory went back, in defiance of all exercise of my 
 own will, to my last interview with her. I saw her again ; I 
 heard her again. I tasted once more the momentary rapture 
 of our last kiss; I felt once more the pang of sorrow that 
 wrung me when I had parted with her and found myself 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 185 
 
 alone in the street. Tears — of which I was ashamed, though 
 nobody was near to see them — filled my eyes when I thought 
 of the months that had passed since we had last looked on 
 one another, and of all that she might have suffered, must 
 have suffered, in that time. Hundreds on hundreds of miles 
 were between us — and yet she was now as near me as if she 
 were walking in the garden by my side ! 
 
 This strange condition of my mind was matched by an 
 equally strange condition of my body. A mysterious trem- 
 bling shuddered over me faintly from head to foot. I walk- 
 ed without feeling the ground as I trod on it ; I looked about 
 me with no distinct consciousness of what the objects were 
 on which my eyes rested. My hands were cold — and yet I 
 hardly felt it. My head throbbed hotly — and yet I was not 
 sensible of any pain. It seemed as if I were surrounded and 
 enwrapped in some electric atmosphere which altered all the 
 ordinary conditions of sensation. I looked up at the clear, 
 calm sky, and wondered if a thunder-storm was coming. I 
 stopped, and buttoned my coat round me, and questioned my- 
 self if I had caught a cold, or if I was going to have a fever. 
 The sun sunk below the moor-land horizon ; the gray twilight 
 trembled over the dark waters of the lake. I went back to 
 the house ; and the vivid memory of Mrs. Van Brandt, still 
 in close companionship, went back with me. 
 
 The fire in my room had burned low in my absence. One 
 of the closed curtains had been drawn back a few inches, so 
 as to admit through the window a ray of the dying light. 
 On the boundary limit where the light was crossed by the 
 obscurity which filled the rest of the room, I saw Miss Dun- 
 ross seated, with her veil drawn and her writing-case on her 
 knee, waiting my return. 
 
 I hastened to make my excuses. I assured her that I had 
 been careful to tell the servant where to find me. She gently 
 checked me before I could say more. 
 
 "It's not Peter's fault," she said. "I told him not to 
 
186 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 hurry your return to the house. Have you enjoyed your 
 walk?" 
 
 She spoke very quietly. The faint, sad voice was fainter 
 and sadder than ever. She kept her head bent over her writ- 
 ing-case, instead of turning it toward me as usual while we 
 were talking. I still felt the mysterious trembling which had 
 oppressed me in the garden. Drawing a chair near the fire, 
 I stirred the embers together, and tried to warm myself. Our 
 positions in the room left some little distance between us. I 
 could only see her sideways, as she sat by the window in the 
 sheltering darkness of the curtain which still remained drawn. 
 
 " I think I have been too long in the garden," I said. " I 
 feel chilled by the cold evening air." 
 
 " Will you have some more wood put on the fire ?" she ask- 
 ed. " Can I get you any thing ?" 
 
 " No, thank you. I shall do very well here. I see you are 
 kindly ready to write for me." 
 
 " Yes," she said, " at your own convenience. When you are 
 ready, my pen is ready." 
 
 The unacknowledged reserve that had come between us 
 since we had last spoken together, was, I believe, as painfully 
 felt by her as by me. We were no doubt longing to break 
 through it on either side — if we had only known how. The 
 writing of the letter would occupy us, at any rate. I made 
 another effort to give my mind to the subject — and once more 
 it was an effort made in vain. Knowing what I wanted to 
 say to my mother, my faculties seemed to be paralyzed when 
 I tried to say it. I sat cowering by the fire — and she sat 
 waiting, with her writing-case on her lap. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. \S1 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 SHE CLAIMS ME AGAIN. 
 
 The moments passed; the silence between us continued. 
 Miss Dunross made an attempt to rouse me. 
 
 "Have you decided to go back to Scotland with your 
 friends at Lerwick ?" she asked. 
 
 " It is no easy matter," I replied, " to decide on leaving my 
 friends in this house." 
 
 Her head drooped lower on her bosom; her voice sunk as 
 she answered me. 
 
 " Think of your mother," she said. " The first duty yon 
 owe is your duty to her. Your long absence is a heavy trial 
 to her — your mother is suffering." 
 
 " Suffering ?" I repeated. " Her letters say nothing — " 
 
 " You forget that you have allowed me to read her letters," 
 Miss Dunross interposed. "I see the unwritten and uncon- 
 scious confession of anxiety in every line that she writes to 
 you. You know, as well as I do, that there is cause for her 
 anxiety. Make her happy by telling her that you sail for 
 home with your friends. Make her happier still by telling 
 her that you grieve no more over the loss of Mrs. Van Brandt. 
 May I write it, in your name and in those words ?" 
 
 I felt the strangest reluctance to permit her to write in 
 those terms, or in any terms, of Mrs. Van Brandt. The un- 
 happy love-story of my manhood had never been a forbidden 
 subject between us on former occasions. Why did I feel as 
 if it had become a forbidden subject now ? Why did I evade 
 giving her a direct reply ? 
 
 " We have plenty of time before us," I said. " I want to 
 speak to you about yourself." 
 
188 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 She lifted her hand in the obscurity that surrounded her, 
 as if to protest against the topic to which I had returned. I 
 persisted, nevertheless, in returning to it. 
 
 " If I must go back," I went on, " I may venture to say to 
 you at parting what I have not said yet. I can not, and will 
 not, believe that you are an incurable invalid. My education, 
 as I have told you, has been the education of a medical man. 
 I am well acquainted with some of the greatest living physi- 
 cians, in Edinburgh as well as in Loudon. Will you allow 
 me to describe your malady (as I understand it) to men who 
 are accustomed to treat cases of intricate nervous disorder? 
 And will you let me write and tell you the result ?" 
 
 I waited for her reply. Neither by word nor sign did she 
 encourage the idea of any future communication with her. 
 I ventured to suggest another motive which might induce 
 her to receive a letter from me. 
 
 " In any case, I may find it necessary to write to you," I 
 went on. " You firmly believe that I and my little Mary are 
 destined to meet again. If your anticipations are realized, 
 you will expect me to tell you of it, surely ?" 
 
 Once more I waited. She spoke — but it was not to reply : 
 it was only to change the subject. 
 
 " The time is passing," was all she said. " We have not 
 begun your letter to your mother yet." 
 
 It would have been cruel to contend with her any longer. 
 Her voice warned me that she was suffering. The faint gleam 
 of light through the parted curtains was fading fast. It was 
 time, indeed, to write the letter. I could find other opportu- 
 nities of speaking to her before I left the house. 
 
 " I am ready," I answered. " Let us begin." 
 
 The first sentence was easily dictated to my patient secre- 
 tary. I informed my mother that my sprained wrist was 
 nearly restored to use, and that nothing prevented my leaving 
 Shetland when the light-house commissioner was ready to re- 
 turn. This was all that it was necessary to say on the sub- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 189 
 
 ject of my health ; the disaster of my re-opened wound having 
 been, for obvious reasons, concealed from my mother's knowl- 
 edge. Miss Dunross silently wrote the opening lines of the 
 letter, and waited for the words that were to follow. 
 
 In my next sentence, I announced the date at which the 
 vessel was to sail on the return voyage ; and I mentioned the 
 period at which my mother might expect to see me, weather 
 permitting. Those words, also, Miss Dunross wrote — and 
 waited again. I set myself to consider what I should say 
 next. To my surprise and alarm, I found it impossible to fix 
 my mind on the subject. My thoughts wandered away, in 
 the strangest manner, from my letter to Mrs. Van Brandt. I 
 was ashamed of myself ; I was angry with myself — I resolved, 
 no matter what I said, that I would positively finish the let- 
 ter. No ! try as I might, the utmost effort of my will availed 
 me nothing. Mrs. Van Brandt's words at our last interview 
 were murmuring in my ears — not a word of my own would 
 come to me ! 
 
 Miss Dunross laid down her pen, and slowly turned her 
 head to look at me. 
 
 " Surely you have something more to add to your letter ?" 
 she said. 
 
 " Certainly," I answered. " I don't know what is the mat- 
 ter with me. The effort of dictating seems to be beyond my 
 power this evening." 
 
 " Can I help you ?" she asked. 
 
 I gladly accepted the suggestion. "There are many things," 
 I said, " which my mother would be glad to hear, if I were 
 not too stupid to think of them. I am sure I may trust your 
 sympathy to think of them for me." 
 
 That rash answer offered Miss Dunross the opportunity of 
 returning to the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt. She seized the 
 opportunity with a woman's persistent resolution when she 
 has her end in view, and is determined to reach it at all haz- 
 ards. 
 
190 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " You have not told your mother yet," she said, " that your 
 infatuation for Mrs. Van Brandt is at an end. Will you put 
 it in your own words ? Or shall I write it for you, imitating 
 your language as well as I can ?" 
 
 In the state of my mind at that moment, her perseverance 
 conquered me. I thought to myself indolently, " If I say No, 
 she will only return to the subject again, and she will end 
 (after all I owe to her kindness) in making me say Yes." 
 Before I could answer her she had realized my anticipations. 
 She returned to the subject ; and she made me say Yes. 
 
 " What does your silence mean ?" she said. " Do you ask 
 me to help you, and do you refuse to accept the first sugges- 
 tion I offer?" 
 
 " Take up your pen," I rejoined. " It shall be as you wish." 
 
 "Will you dictate the words?" 
 
 "I will try." 
 
 I tried; and this time I succeeded. With the image of 
 Mrs. Van Brandt vividly present to my mind, I arranged the 
 first words of the sentence which was to tell my mother that 
 my "infatuation" was at an end ! 
 
 " You will be glad to hear," I began, " that time and change 
 are doing their good work." 
 
 Miss Dunross wrote the words, and paused in anticipation 
 of the next sentence. The light faded and faded; the room 
 grew darker and darker. I went on : 
 
 " I hope I shall cause you no more anxiety, my dear moth- 
 er, on the subject of Mrs. Van Brandt." 
 
 In the deep silence, I could hear the pen of my secre- 
 tary traveling steadily over the paper while it wrote those 
 words. 
 
 " Have you written ?" I asked, as the sound of the pen 
 ceased. 
 
 "I have written," she answered, in her customary quiet 
 tones. 
 
 I went on again with my letter. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 191 
 
 "The days pass now, and I seldom or never think of her; 
 I hope I am resigned at last to the loss of Mrs. Van Bi-andt." 
 
 As I reached the end of the sentence, I heard a faint cry 
 ::from Miss Dunross. Looking instantly toward her, I could 
 just see, in the deepening darkness, that her head had fallen 
 on the back of the chair. My first impulse was, of course, to 
 rise and go to her. I had barely got to my feet, when some 
 indescribable dread paralyzed me on the instant. Supporting 
 myself against the chimney-piece, I stood perfectly incapable 
 of advancing a step. The effort to speak was the one effort 
 that I could make. 
 
 "Are you ill?" I asked. 
 
 She was hardly able to answer me ; speaking in a whisper, 
 without raising her head. 
 
 " I am frightened," she said. 
 
 " What has frightened you ?" 
 
 I heard her shudder in the darkness. Instead of answer- 
 ing me, she whispered to herself, " What am I to say to him ?" 
 
 "Tell me what has frightened you," I repeated. "You 
 ^know you may trust me with the truth." 
 
 She rallied her sinking strength. She answered in these 
 i strange words: 
 
 " Something has come between me and the letter that I am 
 writing for you." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "I can't tell you." 
 
 "Can you see it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Can you feel it?" 
 
 "Yes!" 
 
 "What is it like?" 
 
 " Like a breath of cold air between me and the letter." 
 
 " Has the window come open ?" 
 
 " The window is close shut." 
 
 "And the door?" 
 
192 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " The door is shut also — as well as I can see. Make sure 
 of it for yourself. Where are you ? What are you doing ?" 
 
 I was looking toward the window. As she spoke her last 
 words, I was conscious of a change in that part of the room. 
 
 In the gap between the parted curtains there was a new 
 light shining — not the dim gray twilight of Nature, but a 
 pure and starry radiance, a pale, unearthly light. While I 
 watched it, the starry radiance quivered as if some breath of 
 air had stirred it. When it was still again, there dawned on 
 me through the unearthly lustre the figure of a woman. By 
 fine and slow gradations, it became more and more distinct. 
 I knew the noble figure ; I knew the sad and tender smile. 
 For the second time, I stood in the presence of the apparition 
 of Mrs. Van Brandt. 
 
 She was robed, not as I had last seen her, but in the dress 
 which she had worn on the memorable evening when we met 
 on the bridge — in the dress in which she had first appeared 
 to me, by the water-fall in Scotland. The starry light shone 
 round her like a halo. She looked at me with sorrowful and 
 pleading eyes, as she had looked when I saw the apparition 
 of her in the summer-house. She lifted her hand — not beck- 
 oning me to approach her, as before, but gently signing to 
 me to remain where I stood. 
 
 I waited — feeling awe, but no fear. My heart was all hers 
 as I looked at her. 
 
 She moved ; gliding from the window to the chair in which 
 Miss Dunross sat ; winding her way slowly round it, until she 
 stood at the back. By the light of the pale halo that encir- 
 cled the ghostly Presence, and moved with it, I could see the 
 dark figure of the living woman seated immovable in the 
 chair. The writing-case was on her lap, with the letter and 
 the pen lying on it. Her arms hung helpless at her sides; 
 her veiled head was now bent forward. She looked as if she 
 had been struck to stone in the act of trying to rise from her 
 seat. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 193 
 
 A moment passed — and I saw the ghostly Presence stoop 
 <over the living woman. It lifted the writing-case from her 
 lap. It rested the writing-case on her shoulder. Its white 
 fingers took the pen, and wrote on the unfinished letter. It 
 put the writing-case back on the lap of the living woman. 
 Still standing behind the chair, it turned toward me. It look- 
 ed at me once more. And now it beckoned — beckoned to me 
 to approach. 
 
 Moving without conscious will of my own, as I had moved 
 when I first saw her in the summer-house — drawn nearer and 
 nearer by an irresistible power — I approached, and stopped 
 within a few paces of her. She advanced, and laid her hand 
 on my bosom. Again I felt those strangely mingled sensa- 
 tions of rapture and awe, which had once before filled me 
 when I was conscious, spiritually, of her touch. Again she 
 spoke, in the low melodious tones which I recalled so well. 
 Again she said the words : " Remember me. Come to me." 
 Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light in which 
 she stood quivered, sunk, vanished. I saw the twilight glim- 
 mering between the curtains — and I saw no more. She had 
 spoken. She had gone. 
 
 I was near Miss Dunross — near enough, wben I put out my 
 hand, to touch her. " 
 
 She started and shuddered, like a woman suddenly awaken- 
 ed from a dreadful dream. 
 
 " Speak to me !" she whispered. " Let me know that it is 
 you who touched me." 
 
 I spoke a few composing words before I questioned her. 
 
 " Have you seen any thing in the room ?" 
 
 She answered. " I have been filled with a deadly fear. I 
 have seen nothing but the writing-case lifted from my lap." 
 
 "Did you see the hand that lifted it?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Did you see a starry light, and a figure standing in it ?" 
 
 "No." 
 
194 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "Did you see the writing-case after it was lifted from 
 your lap ?" 
 
 " I saw it resting on my shoulder." 
 
 " Did you see writing on the letter, which was not your 
 writing?" 
 
 " I saw a darker shadow on the paper than the shadow in 
 which I am sitting." 
 
 " Did it move ?" 
 
 " It moved across the paper." 
 
 " As a pen moves in writing ?" 
 
 " Yes. As a pen moves in writing." 
 
 "May I take the letter?" 
 
 She handed it to me. 
 
 "May I light a candle?" 
 
 She drew her veil more closely over her face, and bowed 
 in silence. 
 
 I lighted the candle on the mantel-piece, and looked for the 
 writing. 
 
 There, on the blank space in the letter, as I had seen it be- 
 fore on the blank space in the sketch-book — there were the 
 written words which the ghostly Presence had left behind it ; 
 arranged once more in two lines, as I copy them here : 
 
 At the month's end, 
 
 In the shadow of Saint Paul's. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 195 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 THE KISS. 
 
 She had need of me again. She had claimed me again. I 
 felt all the old love, all the old devotion owning her power 
 once more. Whatever had mortified or angered me at our 
 last interview was forgiven and forgotten now. My whole 
 being still thrilled with the mingled awe and rapture of be- 
 holding the Vision of her that had come to me for the second 
 time. The minutes passed — and I stood by the fire like a 
 man entranced ; thinking only of her spoken words, " Re- 
 member me. Come to me ;" looking only at her mystic writ- 
 ing, "At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint Paul's." 
 
 The month's end was still far off ; the apparition of her 
 had shown itself to me, under some subtle prevision of trou- 
 ble that was still in the future. Ample time was before me 
 for the pilgrimage to which I was self-dedicated already — 
 my pilgrimage to the shadow of Saint Paul's. 
 
 Other men, in my position, might have hesitated as to the 
 right understanding of the place to which they were bidden. 
 Other men might have wearied their memories by recalling 
 the churches, the institutions, the streets, the towns in for- 
 eign countries, all consecrated to Christian reverence by the 
 great apostle's name, and might have fruitlessly asked them- 
 selves in which direction they were first to turn their steps. 
 No such difficulty troubled me. My first conclusion was the 
 one conclusion that was acceptable to my mind. "Saint 
 Paul's " meant the famous Cathedral of London. Where the 
 shadow of the great church fell, there, at the month's end, I 
 should find her, or the trace of her. In London once more, 
 
196 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 and nowhere else, I was destined to see the woman I loved, 
 in the living body, as certainly as I had just seen her in the 
 ghostly presence. 
 
 "Who could intei'pret the mysterious sympathies that still 
 united us, in defiance of distance, in defiance of time ? Who 
 could predict to what end our lives were tending in the years 
 that were to come ? 
 
 Those questions were still present to my thoughts; my 
 eyes were still fixed on the mysterious writing — when I be- 
 came instinctively aware of the strange silence in the room. 
 Instantly the lost remembrance of Miss Dunross came back 
 tome. Stung by my own sense of self - reproach, I turned 
 with a start, and looked toward her chair by the window. 
 
 The chair was empty. I was alone in the room. 
 
 Why had she left me secretly, without a word of farewell ? 
 Because she was suffering, in mind or body? Or because 
 she resented, naturally resented, my neglect of her ? 
 
 The bare snspicion that I had given her pain was intoler- 
 able to me. I rang my bell, to make inquiries. 
 
 The bell was answered, not, as usual, by the silent servant 
 Peter, but by a woman of middle age, very quietly and neatly 
 dressed, whom I had once or twice met on the way to and 
 from my room, and of whose exact position in the house I 
 was still ignorant. 
 
 " Do you wish to see Peter?" she asked. 
 
 " No. I wish to know where Miss Dunross is." 
 
 "Miss Dunross is in her room. She has sent me with this 
 letter." 
 
 I took the letter, feeling some surprise and uneasiness. It 
 was the first time Miss Dunross had communicated with me 
 in that formal way. I tried to gain further information by 
 questioning her messenger. 
 
 "Are you Miss Dunross's maid?" I asked. 
 
 "I have served Miss Dunross for many years," was the 
 answer, spoken very ungraciously. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 197 
 
 " Do you think she would receive me if I sent you with a 
 message to her ?" 
 
 " I can't say, sir. The letter may tell you. You will do 
 well to read the letter." 
 
 We looked at each other. The woman's preconceived im- 
 pression of me was evidently an unfavorable one. Had I in- 
 deed pained or offended Miss Dunross ? And had the serv- 
 ant — perhaps the faithful servant who loved her — discovered 
 and resented it ? The woman frowned as she looked at me. 
 It would be a mere waste of words to persist in questioning 
 her. I let her go. 
 
 Left by myself again, I read the letter. It began, without 
 any form of address, in these lines : 
 
 " I write, instead of speaking to you, because my self-control 
 has already been severely tried, and I am not strong enough 
 to bear more. For my father's sake — not for my own — I 
 must take all the care I can of the little health that I have left. 
 
 " Putting together what you have told me of the visionary 
 creature whom you saw in the summer-house in Scotland, and 
 what you said when you questioned me in your room a little 
 while since, I can not fail to infer that the same Vision has 
 shown itself to you, for the second time. The fear that I 
 felt, the strange things that I saw (or thought I saw), may 
 have been imperfect reflections in my mind of what was pass- 
 ing in yours. I do not stop to inquire whether we are both 
 the victims of a delusion, or whether we are the chosen re- 
 cipients of a supernatural communication. The result, in ei- 
 ther case, is enough for me. You are once more under the 
 influence of Mrs. Van Brandt. I will not trust myself to tell 
 you of the anxieties and forebodings by which I am oppress- 
 ed : I will only acknowledge that my one hope for you is in 
 your speedy reunion with the worthier object of your con- 
 stancy and devotion. I still believe, and I am consoled in be- 
 lieving, that you and your first love will meet again. 
 
198 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "Having written so far, I leave the gubject — not to return 
 to it, except in my own thoughts. 
 
 " The necessary preparations for your departure to-morrow 
 are all made. Nothing remains but to wish you a safe and 
 pleasant journey home. Do not, I entreat you, think me in- 
 sensible of what I owe to you, if I say my farewell words 
 here. 
 
 " The little services which you have allowed me to render 
 you have brightened the closing days of my life. You have 
 left me a treasury of happy memories which I shall hoard, 
 when you are gone, with miserly care. Are you willing to 
 add new claims to my grateful remembrance? I ask it of 
 you, as a last favor — do not attempt to see me again ! Do 
 not expect me to take a personal leave of you ! The saddest 
 of all words is ' Good-bye :' I have fortitude enough to write 
 it, and no more. God preserve and prosper you — farewell ! 
 
 " One more request. I beg that you will not forget what 
 you promised me, when I told you my foolish fancy about 
 the green flag. Wherever you go, let Mary's keepsake go 
 with you. No written answer is necessary — I would rather 
 not receive it. Look up, when you leave the house to-mor- 
 row, at the centre window over the door-way — that will be 
 answer enough." 
 
 To say that these melancholy lines brought the tears into 
 my eyes is only to acknowledge that I had sympathies which 
 could be touched. When I had in some degree recovered 
 my composure, the impulse which urged me to write to Miss 
 Dunross was too strong to be resisted. ' I did not trouble her 
 with a long letter ; I only entreated her to reconsider her de- 
 cision with all the art of persuasion which I could summon to 
 help me. The answer was brought back by the servant who 
 waited on Miss Dunross, in four resolute words : "It can not 
 be." This time the woman spoke out before she left me. 
 " If you have any regard for my mistress," she said, sternly, 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 199 
 
 " don't make her write to you again." She looked at me with 
 a last lowering frown, and left the room. 
 
 It is needless to say that the faithful servant's words only 
 increased my anxiety to see Miss Dunross once more hefore 
 we parted — perhaps forever. My one last hope of success in 
 attaining this object lay in approaching her indirectly through 
 the intercession of her father. 
 
 I sent Peter to inquire if I might be permitted to pay my 
 respects to his master that evening. My messenger return- 
 ed with an answer that was a new disappointment to me. 
 Mr. Dunross begged that I would excuse him, if he deferred 
 the proposed intei*view until the next morning. The next 
 morning was the morning of my departure. Did the mes- 
 sage mean that he had no wish to see me again until the time 
 had come to take leave of him ? I inquired of Peter whether 
 his master was particularly occupied that evening. He was 
 unable to tell me. " The Master of Books " was not in his 
 study, as usual. When he sent his message to me, he was 
 sitting by the sofa in his daughter's room. 
 
 Having answered in those terms, the man left me by my- 
 self until the next morning. I do not wish my bitterest ene- 
 my a sadder time in his life than the time I passed during 
 the last night of my residence under Mr. Durness's roof. 
 
 After walking to and fro in the room until I was weary, I 
 thought of trying to divert my mind from the sad thoughts 
 that oppressed it by reading. The one candle which I had 
 lighted failed to sufficiently illuminate the room. Advancing 
 to the mantel- piece to light the second candle which stood 
 there, I noticed the unfinished letter to my mother lying where 
 I had placed it, when Miss Dunross's servant first presented 
 herself before me. Having lighted the second candle, I took 
 up the letter to put it away among my other papers. Doing 
 this (while my thoughts were still dwelling on Miss Dunross), 
 I mechanically looked at the letter again — and instantly dis- 
 covered a change in it. 
 
200 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 The written characters traced by the hand of the appari- 
 tion had vanished! Below the last lines written by Miss 
 Dunross nothing met my eye now but the blank white paper! 
 
 My first impulse was to look at my watch. 
 
 When the ghostly presence had written in my sketch-book, 
 the characters had disappeared after an interval of three 
 hours. On this occasion, as nearly, as I could calculate, the 
 writing had vanished in one hour only. 
 
 Reverting to the conversation which I had held with Mrs. 
 Van Brandt when we met at Saint Anthony's Well, and to 
 the discoveries which followed at a later period of my life, I 
 can only repeat that she had again been the subject of a 
 trance or dream, when the apparition of her showed itself to 
 me for the second time. As before, she had freely trusted 
 me and freely appealed to me to help her, in the dreaming 
 state, when her spirit was free to recognize my spirit. When 
 she had come to herself, after an interval of an hour, she had 
 again felt ashamed of the familiar manner in which she had 
 communicated with me in the trance — had again unconscious- 
 ly counteracted by her waking-will the influence of her sleep- 
 ing-will ; and had thus caused the writing once more to dis- 
 appear, in an hour from the moment when the pen had traced 
 (or seemed to trace) it. 
 
 This is still the one explanation that I can offer. At the 
 time when the incident happened, I was far from being fully 
 admitted to the confidence of Mrs. Van Brandt ; and I was 
 necessarily incapable of arriving at any solution of the mys- 
 tery, right or wrong. I could only put away the letter, 
 doubting vaguely whether my own senses had not deceived 
 me. After the distressing thoughts which Miss Dunross's 
 letter had roused in my mind, I was in no humor to employ 
 my ingenuity in finding a clue to the mystery of the vanished 
 writing. My nerves were irritated ; I felt a sense of angry 
 discontent with myself and with others. " Go where I may " 
 (I thought impatiently), " the disturbing influence of women 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 201 
 
 seems to be the only influence that I am fated to feel." As 
 I still paced backward and forward in- my room — it was use- 
 less to think now of fixing my attention on a book — I fancied 
 I understood the motives which made men as young as I 
 was retire to end their lives in a monastery. I drew aside 
 the window curtains, and looked out. The only prospect that 
 met my view was the black gulf of darkness in which the 
 lake lay hidden. I could see nothing ; I could do nothing ; 
 I could think of nothing. The one alternative before me was 
 that of trying to sleep. My medical knowledge told me 
 plainly that natural sleep was, in my nervous condition, one 
 of the unattainable luxuries of life, for that night. The med- 
 icine-chest which Mr. Dunross had placed at my disposal re- 
 mained in the room. I mixed for myself a strong sleeping 
 draught, and sullenly took refuge from my troubles in bed. 
 
 It is a peculiarity of most of the soporific drugs that they 
 not only act in a totally different manner on different consti- 
 tutions, but that they are not even to be depended on to act 
 always in the same manner on the same person. I had taken 
 care to extinguish the candles before I got into my bed. 
 Under ordinary circumstances, after I had lain quietly in the 
 darkness for half an hour, the draught that I had taken 
 would have sent me to sleep. In the present state of my 
 nerves the draught stupefied me, and did no more. 
 
 Hour after hour I lay perfectly still, with my eyes closed, 
 in the semi-sleeping, semi-wakeful state which is so curiously 
 characteristic of the ordinary repose of a dog. As the night 
 wore on, such a sense of heaviness oppressed my eyelids that 
 it was literally impossible for me to open them — such a mas- 
 terful languor possessed all my muscles that I could no more 
 move on my pillow than if I had been a corpse. And yet, in 
 this somnolent condition, my mind was able to pursue lazy 
 trains of pleasant thought. My sense of hearing was so acute 
 that it caught the faintest sounds made by the passage of the 
 night-breeze through the rushes of the lake. Inside my bed- 
 
 9* 
 
202 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 chamber, I was even more keenly sensible of those weird 
 night-noises in the heavy furniture of a room, of those sud- 
 den settlements of extinct coals in the grate, so familiar to 
 bad sleepers, so startling to overwrought nerves ! It is not 
 a scientifically correct statement, but it exactly describes my 
 condition, that night, to say that one half of me was asleep 
 and the other half awake. 
 
 How many hours of the night had passed, when my irri- 
 table sense of hearing became aware of a new sound in the 
 room, I can not tell. I can only relate that I found myself 
 on a sudden listening intently, with fast-closed eyes. The 
 sound that disturbed me was the faintest sound imaginable, 
 as of something soft and light traveling slowly over the sur- 
 face of the carpet, and brushing it just loud enough to be 
 heard. 
 
 Little by little, the sound came nearer and nearer to my 
 bed — and then suddenly stopped just as I fancied it was 
 close by me. 
 
 I still lay immovable, with closed eyes ; drowsily waiting 
 for the next sound that might reach my ears ; drowsily con- 
 tent with the silence, if the silence continued. My thoughts 
 (if thoughts they could be called) were drifting back again 
 into their former course, when I became suddenly conscious 
 of soft breathing just above me. The next moment I felt a 
 touch on my forehead — light, soft, tremulous, like the touch 
 of lips that had kissed me. There was a momentary pause. 
 Then a low sigh trembled through the silence. Then I 
 heard again the still, small sound of something brushing its 
 way over the carpet ; traveling this time from my bed, and 
 moving so rapidly that in a moment more it was lost in the 
 silence of the night. 
 
 Still stupefied by the drug that I had taken, I could lazily 
 wonder what had happened, and I could do no more. Had 
 living lips really touched me? Was the sound that I had 
 heard really the sound of a sigh ? Or was it all delusion, be- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 203 
 
 ginning and ending in a dream ? The time passed without 
 my deciding, or caring to decide, those questions. Minute 
 by minute, the composing influence of the draught began at 
 last to strengthen its hold on my brain. A cloud seemed to 
 pass softly over my last waking impressions. One after an- 
 other, the ties broke gently that held me to conscious life. I 
 drifted peacefully into perfect sleep. 
 
 Shortly after sunrise, I awoke. When I regained the use 
 of my memory, my first clear recollection was the recollection 
 of the soft breathing which I had felt above me — then of the 
 touch on my forehead, and of the sigh which I had heard aft- 
 er it. Was it possible that some one had entered my room 
 in the night? It was quite possible. I had not locked the 
 door — I had never been in the habit of locking the door dur- 
 ing my residence under Mr. Dunross's roof. 
 
 After thinking it over a little, I rose to examine my room. 
 
 Nothing in the shape of a discovery rewarded me, until I 
 reached the door. Though I had not locked it overnight, I 
 had certainly satisfied myself that it was closed before I went 
 to bed. It was now ajar. Had it opened again, through be- 
 ing imperfectly shut? or had a person, after entering and leav- 
 ing my room, forgotten to close it ? 
 
 Accidentally looking downward while I was weighing these 
 probabilities, I noticed a small black object on the carpet, ly- 
 ing just under the key, on the inner side of the door. I pick- 
 ed the thing up, and found that it was a torn morsel of black 
 lace. 
 
 The instant I saw the fragment, I was reminded of the long 
 black veil, hanging below her waist, which it was the habit of 
 Miss Dunross to wear. Was it her dress, then, that I had 
 heard softly traveling over the carpet; her kiss that had 
 touched my forehead; her sigh that had trembled through 
 the silence? Had the ill-fated and noble creature taken her 
 last leave of me in the dead of night, trusting the preser- 
 
204 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 vation of her secret to the deceitful appearances which per- 
 suaded her that I was asleep? I looked again at the frag- 
 ment of black lace. Her long veil might easily have been 
 caught, and torn, by the projecting key, as she passed rapidly 
 through the door on her way out of my room. Sadly and 
 reverently I laid the morsel of lace among the treasured me- 
 morials which I had brought with me from home. To the 
 end of her life, I vowed it, she should be left undisturbed in 
 the belief that her secret was safe in her own breast ! Ar- 
 dently as I still longed to take her hand at parting, I now re- 
 solved to make no further effort to see her. I might not be 
 master of my own emotions ; something in my face or in my 
 manner might betray me to her quick and delicate percep- 
 tion. Knowing what I now knew, the last sacrifice I could 
 make to her would be to obey her wishes. I made the sacri- 
 fice. 
 
 In an hour more Peter informed me that the ponies were 
 at the door, and that the Master was waiting for me in the 
 outer hall. 
 
 I noticed that Mr. Dunross gave me his hand, without look- 
 ing at me. His faded blue eyes, during the few minutes while 
 we were together, were not once raised from the ground. 
 
 " God speed you on your journey, sir, and guide you safely 
 home," he said. " I beg you to forgive me if I fail to accom- 
 pany you on the •first few miles of your journey. There are 
 reasons which oblige me to remain with my daughter in the 
 house." 
 
 He was scrupulously, almost painfully, courteous ; but there 
 was something in his manner which, for the first time in my 
 experience, seemed designedly to keep me at a distance from 
 him. Knowing the intimate sympathy, the perfect confi- 
 dence, which existed between the father and daughter, a 
 doubt crossed my mind whether the secret of the paBt night 
 was entirely a secret to Mr. Dunross. His next words set 
 that doubt at rest, and showed me the truth. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 205 
 
 In thanking him for his good wishes, I attempted also to 
 express to him (and through him to Miss Dunross) my sin- 
 cere sense of gratitude for the kindness which I had received 
 under his roof. He stopped me, politely and resolutely, 
 speaking with that quaintly precise choice of language which 
 I had remarked as characteristic of him at our first interview. 
 
 " It is in your power, sir," he said, " to return any obliga- 
 tion which you may think you have incurred on leaving my 
 house. If you will be pleased to consider your residence here 
 as an unimportant episode in your life, which ends — absolute- 
 ly ends— with your departure, you will more than repay any 
 kindness that you may have received as my guest. In saying 
 this, I speak under a sense of duty which does entire justice 
 to you as a gentleman and a man of honor. In return, I can 
 only trust to you, not to misjudge my motives, if I abstain 
 from explaining myself any further." 
 
 A faint color flushed his pale cheeks. He waited, with a 
 certain proud resignation, for my reply. I respected her se- 
 cret, respected it more resolutely than ever, before her father. 
 
 "After all that I owe to you, sir," I answered, "your wish- 
 es are my commands." Saying that, and saying no more, I 
 bowed to him with marked respect, and left the house. 
 
 Mounting my pony at the door, I looked up at the centre 
 window, as she had bidden me. It was open ; but dark cur- 
 tains, jealously closed, kept out the light from the room with- 
 in. At the sound of the pony's hoofs on the rough island 
 road, as the animal moved, the curtains were parted for a 
 few inches only. Through the gap in the dark draperies a 
 wan white hand appeared ; waved tremulously a last fare- 
 well ; and vanished from my view. The curtains closed 
 again on her dark and solitary life. The dreary wind sound- 
 ed its long, low dirge over the rippling waters of the lake. 
 The ponies took their places in the ferry-boat which was kept 
 for the passage of animals to and from the island. With 
 slow, regular strokes the men rowed us to the main-land, and 
 
206 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 took their leave. I looked back at the distant house. I 
 thought of her in the dark room, waiting patiently for death. 
 Burning tears blinded me. The guide took my bridle in his 
 hand : " You're not well, sir," he said ; " I will lead the pony." 
 When I looked again at the landscape round me, we had 
 descended in the interval from the higher ground to the low- 
 er. The house and the lake had disappeared, to be seen no 
 more. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 207 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 IN THE SHADOW OP SAINT PAUL'S. 
 
 In ten days I was at home again — and my mother's arms 
 were round me. 
 
 I had left her for my sea-voyage very unwillingly — seeing 
 that she was in delicate health. On my return, I was grieved 
 to observe a change for the worse, for which her letters had 
 not prepared me. Consulting our medical friend, Mr. Mac- 
 Glue, I found that he, too, had noticed my mother's failing 
 health, but that he attributed it to an easily removable cause 
 — to the climate of Scotland. My mother's childhood and 
 early life had been passed on the southern shores of England. 
 The change to the raw, keen air of the North had been a try- 
 ing change to a person at her age. In Mr. MacGlue's opin- 
 ion, the wise course to take would be to return to the South 
 before the autumn was further advanced, and to make our 
 arrangements for passing the coming winter at Penzance or 
 Torquay. 
 
 Resolved as I was to keep the mysterious appointment 
 which summoned me to London at the month's end, Mr. 
 MacGlue's suggestion met with no opposition on my part. 
 It had, to my mind, the great merit of obviating the necessi- 
 ty of a second separation from my mother — assuming that 
 she approved of the doctor's advice. I put the question to 
 her the same day. To my infinite relief, she was not only 
 ready, but eager to take the journey to the South. The 
 season had been unusually wet, even for Scotland ; and my 
 mother reluctantly confessed that she " did feel a certain 
 longing " for the mild air and genial sunshine of the Devon- 
 shire coast. 
 
208 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 We arranged to travel in our own comfortable carriage by 
 post — resting, of course, at inns on the road at night. In the 
 days before railways it was no easy matter for an invalid to 
 travel from Perthshire to London — even with a light carriage 
 and four horses. Calculating our rate of progress from the 
 date of our departure, I found that we had just time, and no 
 more, to reach London on the last day of the month. 
 
 I shall say nothing of the secret anxieties which weighed 
 on my mind, under these circumstances. Happily for me, on 
 every account, my mother's strength held out. The easy 
 and (as we then thought) the rapid rate of traveling had its 
 invigorating effect on her nerves. She slept better when we 
 rested for the night than she had slept at home. After twice 
 being delayed on the road, we arrived in London at three 
 o'clock on the afternoon of the last day of the month. Had 
 I reached my destination in time ? 
 
 As I interpreted the writing of the apparition, I had still 
 some hours at my disposal. The phrase, " at the month's 
 end," meant, as I understood it, at the last hour of the last 
 day in the month. If I took up my position "under the 
 shadow of Saint Paul's," say, at ten that night, I should ar- 
 rive at the place of meeting with two hours to spare, before 
 the last stroke of the clock marked the beginning of the new 
 month. 
 
 At half-past nine, I left my mother to rest after her long 
 journey, and privately quit the house. Before ten, I was 
 at my post. The night was fine and clear; and the huge 
 shadow of the cathedral marked distinctly the limits within 
 which I had been bid to wait, on the watch for events. 
 
 The great clock of Saint Paul's struck ten — and nothing 
 happened. 
 
 The next hour passed very slowly. I walked up and down ; 
 at one time absorbed in my own thoughts; at another, en- 
 gaged in watching the gradual diminution in the number of 1 
 foot passengei's who passed me as the night advanced. The 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 209 
 
 City (as it is called) is the most populous part of London in 
 the day-time ; but at night, when it ceases to be the centre 
 of commerce, its busy population melts away, and the empty 
 streets assume the appearance of a remote and deserted quar- 
 ter of the metropolis. As the half hour after ten struck — 
 then the quarter to eleven — then the hpur — the pavement 
 steadily became more and more deserted. I could count the 
 foot passengers now by twos and threes ; and I could see the 
 places of public refreshment within my view beginning al- 
 ready to close for the night. 
 
 I looked at the clock: it pointed to ten minutes past 
 eleven. At that hour, could I hope to meet Mrs. Van Brandt 
 alone in the public street ? 
 
 The more I thought of it, the less likely such an event 
 seemed to be. The more reasonable probability was that I 
 might meet her once more, accompanied by some friend — 
 perhaps under the escort of Van Brandt himself. I won- 
 dered whether I should preserve my self-control, in the pres- 
 ence of that man, for the second time. 
 
 While my thoughts were still pursuing this direction, my 
 attention was recalled to passing events by a sad little voice, 
 putting a strange little question, close at my side. 
 
 " If you please, sir, do you know where I can find a chem- 
 ist's shop open at this time of night ?" 
 
 I looked round, and discovered a poorly clad little boy, with 
 a basket over his arm, and a morsel of paper in his hand. 
 
 " The chemists' shops are all shut," I said. " If you want 
 any medicine, you must ring the night-bell." 
 
 " I dursn't do it, sir," replied the small stranger. " I am 
 such a little boy, I'm afraid of their beating me if I ring them 
 up out of their beds, without somebody to speak for me." 
 
 The little creature looked at me under the street lamp with 
 such a forlorn experience of being beaten for trifling offenses 
 in his face, that it was impossible to resist the impulse to help 
 him. 
 
210 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " Is it a serious case of illness ?" I asked. 
 
 " I don't know, sir." 
 
 " Have you got a doctor's prescription ?" 
 
 He held out his morsel of paper. 
 
 " I have got this," he said. 
 
 I took the paper from him, and looked at it. 
 
 It was an ordinary prescription for a tonic mixture. I 
 looked first at the doctor's signature : it was the name of a 
 perfectly obscure person iu the profession. Below it was 
 written the name of the patient for whom the medicine had 
 been prescribed. I started as I read it. The name was 
 "Mrs. Brand." 
 
 The idea instantly struck me that this (so far as sound 
 went, at any rate) was the English equivalent of Van Brandt. 
 
 " Do you know the lady who sent you for the medicine?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh yes, sir ! She lodges with mother — and she owes for 
 rent. I have done every thing she told me, except getting 
 the physic. I've pawned her ring, and I've bought the bread 
 and batter and eggs, and I've taken care of the change. 
 Mother looks to the change for her rent. It isn't my fault, 
 sir, that I've lost myself. I am but ten years old — and all the 
 chemists' shops are shut up !" 
 
 Here my little friend's sense of his unmerited misfortunes 
 overpowered him, and he began to cry. 
 
 "Don't cry, my man !" I said; "I'll help you. Tell me 
 something more about the lady first. Is she alone ?" 
 
 " She's got her little girl with her, sir." 
 
 My heart quickened its beat. The boy's answer reminded 
 me of that other little girl whom my mother had once seen. 
 
 "Is the lady's husband with her?" I asked next. 
 
 " No, sir — not now. He was with her ; but he went away 
 — and he hasn't come back yet." 
 
 I put a last conclusive question. 
 
 " Is her husband an Englishman ?" I inquired. 
 
I TOOK THE PAPEK PROM HIM, AND LOOKED AT IT. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 213 
 
 " Mother says he's a foreigner," the boy answered. 
 
 I turned away to hide my agitation. Even the child might 
 have noticed it ! 
 
 Passing under the name of " Mrs. Brand " — poor, so poor 
 that she was obliged to pawn her ring — left, by a man who 
 was a foreigner, alone with her little girl — was I on the trace 
 of her at that moment? Was this lost child destined to be 
 the innocent means of leading me back to the woman I loved, 
 in her direst need of sympathy and help ? The more I thought 
 of it, the more strongly the idea of returning with the boy to 
 the house in which his mother's lodger lived fastened itself 
 on my mind. The clock struck the quarter past eleven. If 
 my anticipations ended in misleading me, I had still three- 
 quarters of an hour to spare before the month reached its 
 end. 
 
 " Where do you live ?" I asked. 
 
 The boy mentioned a street, the name of which I then heard 
 for the first time. All he could say, when I asked for further 
 particulars, was that he lived close by the river — in which di- 
 rection, he was too confused and too frightened to be able to 
 tell me. 
 
 While we were still trying to understand each other, a cab 
 passed slowly at some little distance. I hailed the man, and 
 mentioned the name of the street to him. He knew it perfect- 
 ly well. The street was rather more than a mile away from 
 us, in an easterly direction. He undertook to drive me there, 
 and to bring me back again to Saint Paul's (if necessary), in 
 less than twenty minutes. I opened the door of the cab, and 
 told my little friend to get in. The boy hesitated. 
 
 "Are we going to the chemist's, if you please, sir?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " No. You are going home first, with me." 
 
 The boy began to cry again. 
 
 " Mother will beat me, sir, if I go back without the medi- 
 
214 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " I will take care that your mother doesn't beat you. I am 
 a doctor myself ; and I want to see the lady before we get the 
 medicine." 
 
 The announcement of my profession appeared to inspire 
 the boy with a certain confidence. But he still showed no 
 disposition to accompany me to his mother's house. 
 
 " Do you mean to charge the lady any thing ?" he asked. 
 " The money I've got on the ring isn't much. Mother won't 
 like having it taken out of her rent." 
 
 " I wont charge the lady a farthing," I answered. 
 
 The boy instantly got into the cab. "All right," he said, 
 " as long as mother, gets her money." 
 
 Alas for the poor! The child's education in the sordid 
 anxieties of life was completed already at ten years old ! 
 
 We drove away. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 215 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 I KEEP MY APPOINTMENT. 
 
 The poverty-stricken aspect of the street when we entered 
 it, the dirty and dilapidated condition of the house when we 
 drew up at the door, would have warned most men, in my po- 
 sition, to prepare themselves for a distressing discovery when 
 they were admitted to the interior of the dwelling. The first 
 impression which the place produced on my mind "suggested, 
 on the contrary, that the boy's answers to my questions had 
 led me astray. It was simply impossible to associate Mrs. 
 Van Brandt (as I remembered her) with the spectacle of such 
 squalid poverty as I now beheld. I rang the door-bell, feel- 
 ing persuaded beforehand that my inquiries would lead to no 
 useful result. 
 
 As I lifted my hand to the bell, my little companion's dread 
 of a beating revived in full force. He hid himself behind 
 me ; and when I asked what he was about, he answered, con- 
 fidentially, " Please stand between us, sir, when mother opens 
 the door !" 
 
 A tall and truculent woman answered the bell. No intro- 
 duction was necessary. Holding a cane in her hand, she 
 stood self-proclaimed as my small friend's mother. 
 
 " I thought it was that vagabond of a boy of mine," she ex- 
 plained, as an apology for the exhibition of the cane. " He 
 has been gone on an errand more than two hours. What did 
 you please to want, sir ?" ■ 
 
 I interceded for the unfortunate boy before I entered on 
 my own business. 
 
 " I must beg you to forgive your son this time," I said. 
 
216 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " I found him lost in the streets ; and I have brought him 
 home." 
 
 The woman's astonishment when she heard what I had 
 done, and discovered her son behind me, literally struck her 
 dumb. The language of the eye, superseding on this occa- 
 sion the language of the tongue, plainly revealed the impres- 
 sion that I had produced on her : " You bring my lost brat 
 home in a cab ! Mr. Stranger, you are mad." 
 
 " I hear that you have a lady named Brand lodging in the 
 house," I went on. " I dare say I am mistaken in supposing 
 her to be a lady of the same name whom I know. But I 
 should like to make sure whether I am right or wrong. Is it 
 too late to disturb your lodger to-night?" 
 
 The woman recovered the use of her tongue. 
 
 "My lodger is up and waiting for that little fool, who 
 doesn't know his way about London yet !" She emphasized 
 those words by shaking her brawny fist at her son — who in- 
 stantly returned to his place of refuge behind the tail of my 
 coat. " Have you got the money ?" inquired the terrible per- 
 son, shouting at her hidden offspring over my shoulder. " Or 
 have you lost that as well as your own stupid little self ?" 
 
 The boy showed himself again, and put the money into his 
 mother's knotty hand. She counted it, with eyes which sat- 
 isfied themselves fiercely that each coin was of genuine silver 
 — and then became partially pacified. 
 
 " Go along upstairs !" she growled, addressing her son ; 
 " and don't keep the lady waiting any longer. They're half 
 starved, she and her child," the woman proceeded, turning to 
 me. " The food my boy has got for them in his basket will 
 be the first food the mother has tasted to-day. She's pawned 
 every thing by this time ; and what she's to do unless you 
 help her is more than I can say. The doctor does what he 
 can ; but he told me to-day, if she wasn't better nourished, it 
 was no use sending for him. Follow the boy; and see for 
 yourself if it's the lady you know." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 217 
 
 I listened to the woman, still feeling persuaded that I had 
 acted under a delusion in going to her house. How was it 
 possible to associate the charming object of my heart's wor- 
 ship with the miserable story of destitution which I had 
 just heard? I stopped the boy on the first landing, and 
 told him to announce me simply as a doctor, who had been 
 informed of Mrs. Brand's illness, and who had called to see 
 her. 
 
 We ascended a second flight of stairs, and a third. Ar- 
 rived now at the top of the house, the boy knocked at the 
 door that was nearest to us on the landing. No audible 
 voice replied. He opened the door without ceremony, and 
 went in. I waited outside to hear what was said. The door 
 was left ajar. If the voice of " Mrs. Brand " was (as I be- 
 lieved it would prove to be) the voice of a stranger, I re- 
 solved to offer her delicately such help as lay within my pow- 
 er, and to return forthwith to my post under " the shadow of 
 Saint Paul's." 
 
 The first voice that spoke to the boy was the voice of a 
 child. 
 
 " I'm so hungry, Jemmy — I'm so hungry !" 
 
 "All right, missy — I've got you something to eat." 
 
 " Be quick, Jemmy ! Be quick !" 
 
 There was a momentary pause ; and then I heard the boy's 
 voice once more. 
 
 "There's a slice of bread-and-butter, missy. You must 
 wait for your egg till I can boil it. Don't you eat too fast, 
 or you'll choke yourself. What's the matter with your mam- 
 ma? Are you asleep, ma'am ?" 
 
 I could barely hear the answering voice — it was so faint; 
 and it uttered but one word : " No !" 
 
 The boy spoke again. 
 
 " Cheer up, missus. There's a doctor outside waiting to 
 see you." 
 
 This time there was no audible reply. The boy showed 
 
 10 
 
218 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 himself to me at the door. "Please to come in, sir. I can't 
 make any thing of her." 
 
 It would have been misplaced delicacy to have hesitated 
 any longer to enter the room. I went in. 
 
 There, at the opposite end of a miserably furnished bed- 
 chamber, lying back feebly in a tattered old arm-chair, was 
 one more among the thousands of forlorn creatures, starv- 
 ing that night in the great city. A white handkerchief 
 was laid over her face as if to screen it from the flame of 
 the fire hard by. She lifted the handkerchief, startled by 
 the sound of my footsteps as I entered the room. I looked 
 at her, and saw in the white, wan, death-like face the face 
 of the woman I loved ! 
 
 For a moment the horror of the discovery turned me faint 
 and giddy. In another instant I was kneeling by her chair. 
 My arm was round her — her head lay on my shoulder. She 
 was past speaking, past crying out: she trembled silently, 
 and that was all. I said nothing. No words passed my 
 lips, no tears came to my relief. I held her to me; and 
 she let me hold her. The child, devouring its bread-and- 
 butter at a little round table, stared at us. The boy, on his 
 knees before the grate, mending the fire, stared at us. And 
 the slow minutes lagged on ; and the buzzing of a fly in a 
 corner was the only sound in the room. 
 
 The instincts of the profession to which I had been train- 
 ed, rather than any active sense of the horror of the situa- 
 tion in which I was placed, roused me at last. She was 
 starving ! I saw it in the deadly color of her skin ; I felt 
 it in the faint, quick flutter of her pulse. ' I called the boy 
 to me, and sent him to the nearest public -house for wine 
 and biscuits. " Be quick, about it," I said ; " and you shall 
 have more money for yourself than ever you had in your 
 life!" The boy looked at me, spit on the coins in his hand, 
 said, " That's for luck !" and ran out of the room as never 
 boy ran yet. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 221 
 
 I turned to speak my first words of comfort to the mother. 
 The cry of the child stopped me. 
 
 " I'm so hungry ! I'm so hungry !" 
 
 I set more food before the famished child, and kissed her. 
 She looked up at me with wondering eyes. 
 
 "Are you a new papa?" the little creature asked. "My 
 other papa never kisses me." 
 
 I looked at the mother. Her eyes were closed ; the tears 
 flowed slowly over her worn, white cheeks. I took her frail 
 hand in mine. " Happier days are coming," I said ; " you 
 are my care now." There was no answer. She still trem- 
 bled silently, and that was all. 
 
 In less than five minutes the boy returned, and earned his 
 promised reward. He sat on the floor by the fire counting 
 his treasure, the one happy creature in the room. I soaked 
 some crumbled morsels of biscuit in the wine, and, little by 
 little, I revived her failing strength by nourishment adminis- 
 tered at intervals in that cautious form. After a while she 
 raised her head, and looked at me with wondering eyes that 
 were pitiably like the eyes of her child. A faint, delicate 
 flush began to show itself in her face. She spoke to me, for 
 the first time, in whispering tones that I could just hear as 
 I sat close at her side. 
 
 "How did you find me? Who showed you the way to 
 this place?" 
 
 She paused ; painfully recalling the memory of something 
 that was slow to come back. Her color deepened ; she found 
 the lost remembrance, and looked at me with a timid curiosi- 
 ty. "What brought you here?" she asked. "Was it my 
 dream?" 
 
 " Wait, dearest, till you are stronger, and I will tell you 
 all." 
 
 I lifted her gently, and laid her on the wretched bed. The 
 child followed us, and, climbing to the bedstead with my 
 help, nestled at her mother's side. I sent the boy away to 
 
222 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 tell the mistress of the house that I should remain with my 
 patient, watching her progress toward recovery, through the 
 night. He went out, jingling his money joyfully in his 
 pocket. We three were left together. 
 
 As the long hours followed each other, she fell at intervals 
 into a broken sleep ; waking with a start, and looking at me 
 wildly as if I had been a stranger at her bedside. Toward 
 morning, the nourishment which I still carefully administer- 
 ed wrought its healthful change in her pulse, and composed 
 her to quieter slumbers. When the sun rose she was sleeping 
 as peacefully as the child at her side. I was able to leave 
 her, until my return later in the day, under the care of the 
 woman of the house. The magic of money transformed this 
 termagant and terrible person into a docile and attentive 
 nurse — so eager to follow my instructions exactly that she 
 begged me to commit them to writing before I went away. 
 For a moment, I still lingered alone at the bedside of the 
 sleeping woman, and satisfied myself for the hundredth time 
 that her life was safe, before I left her. It was the sweetest 
 of all rewards to feel sure of this — to touch her cool forehead 
 lightly with my lips — to look, and look again, at the poor 
 worn face, always dear, always beautiful, to my eyes, change 
 as it might. I closed the door softly, and went out in the 
 bright morning, a happy man again. So close together rise 
 the springs of joy and sorrow in human life ! So near in 
 our heart, as in our heaven, is the brightest sunshine to the 
 blackest cloud ! 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 223 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 CONVERSATION WITH MY MOTHER. 
 
 I reached my own house in time to snatch two or three 
 hours of repose, before I paid my customary morning visit 
 to my mother in her own room. I observed, in her reception 
 of me on this occasion, certain peculiarities of look and man- 
 ner which were far from being familiar in my experience of 
 her. 
 
 When our eyes first met, she regarded me with a wistful, 
 questioning look, as if she were troubled by some doubt which 
 she shrunk from expressing in words. And when I inquired 
 after her health, as usual, she surprised me by answering as im- 
 patiently as if she resented my having mentioned the subject. 
 For a moment, I was inclined to think these changes signified 
 that she had discovered my absence from home during the 
 night, and that she had some suspicion of the true cause of 
 it. But she never alluded, even in the most distant manner, 
 to Mrs. Van Brandt ; and not a word dropped from her lips 
 which implied, directly or indirectly, that I had pained or dis- 
 appointed her. I could "only conclude that she had some- 
 thing important to say in relation to herself or to me — and 
 that for reasons of her own she unwillingly abstained from 
 giving expression to it at that time. 
 
 Reverting to our ordinary topics of conversation, we touch- 
 ed on the subject (always interesting to my mother) of my 
 visit to Shetland. Speaking of this, we naturally spoke also 
 i)f Miss Dunross. Here again, when I least expected it, there 
 was another surprise in store for me. 
 
 " You were talking the other day," said my mother, " of 
 
224 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 the green flag which poor Dermody's daughter worked for 
 you, when you were both children. Have you really kept it 
 all this time ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Where have you left it ? in Scotland ?" 
 
 " I have brought it with me to London." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I promised Miss Dunross to take the green flag with me, 
 wherever I might go." 
 
 My mother smiled. 
 
 " Is it possible, George, that you think about this as the 
 young lady in Shetland thinks? After all the years that 
 have passed, you believe in the green flag being the means 
 of bringing Mary Dermody and yourself together again ?" 
 
 " Certainly not ! I am only humoring one of the fancies 
 of poor Miss Dunross. Could I refuse to grant her trifling 
 request, after all I owed to her kindness ?" 
 
 The smile left my mother's face. She looked at me at- 
 tentively. 
 
 "Miss Dunross seems to have produced a very favorable 
 impression on you," she said. 
 
 " I own it. I feel deeply interested in her." 
 
 " If she had not been an incurable invalid, George, I too 
 might have become interested in Miss Dunross — perhaps in 
 the character of my daughter-in-law ?" 
 
 " It is useless, mother, to speculate on what might have 
 happened. The sad reality is enough." 
 
 My mother paused a little before she put her next question 
 to me. 
 
 "Did Miss Dunross always keep her veil drawn in your 
 presence, when there happened to be light in the room ?" 
 
 "Always." 
 
 " She never even let you catch a momentary glance at her 
 face?" 
 
 « Never." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 225 
 
 "And the only reason she gave you was that the light 
 caused her a painful sensation if it fell on her uncovered 
 skin?" 
 
 " You say that, mother, as if you doubt whether Miss Dun- 
 ross told me the truth." 
 
 " No, George. I only doubt whether she told you all the 
 truth." 
 
 "What do you mean ?" 
 
 & Don't be offended, my dear. I believe Miss Dunross has 
 some more serious reason for keeping her face hidden than 
 the reason that she gave you." 
 
 I was silent. The suspicion which those words implied 
 had never occurred to my mind. I had read in medical 
 books of cases of morbid nervous sensitiveness exactly simi- 
 lar to the case of Miss Dunross, as described by herself — 
 and that had been enough for me. Now that my mother's 
 idea had found its way from her mind to mine, the im- 
 pression produced on me was painful in the last degree. 
 Horrible imaginings of deformity possessed my brain, and 
 profaned all that was purest and dearest in my recollections 
 of Miss Dunross. It was useless to change the subject — the 
 evil influence that was on me was too potent to be charmed 
 away by talk. Making the best excuse that I could think of 
 for leaving my mother's room, I hurried away to seek a ref- 
 uge from myself, where alone I could hope to find it, in the 
 presence of Mrs. Van Brandt. 
 
 10* 
 
226 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 CONVERSATION WITH MRS. VAN BEANDT. 
 
 The landlady was taking the air at her own door when I 
 reached the house. Her reply to my inquiries justified my 
 most hopeful anticipations. The poor lodger looked already 
 "like another woman ;" and the child was at that moment 
 posted on the stairs, watching for the return of her "new 
 papa." 
 
 " There's one thing I should wish to say to yon, sir, before 
 you go upstairs," the woman went on. " Don't trust the lady 
 with more money at a time than the money that is wanted 
 for the day's housekeeping. If she has any to spare, it's as 
 likely as not to be wasted on her good-for-nothing husband." 
 
 Absorbed in the higher and dearer interests that filled my 
 mind, I had thus far forgotten the very existence of Mr. Van 
 Brandt. 
 
 "Where is he?" I asked. 
 
 " Where he ought to be," was the answer. " In prison for 
 debt." 
 
 In those days, a man imprisoned for debt was not infre- 
 quently a man imprisoned for life. There was little fear of 
 my visit being shortened by the appearance on the scene of 
 Mr. Van Brandt. 
 
 Ascending the stairs, I found the child waiting for me on 
 the upper landing, with a ragged doll in her arms. I had 
 bought a cake for her on my way to the house. She forth- 
 with turned over the doll to my care, and, trotting before me 
 into the room with her cake in her arms, announced my ar- 
 rival in these words : 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES, 227 
 
 " Mamma, I like this papa better than the other. You like 
 him better too." 
 
 The mother's wasted face reddened for a moment, then 
 turned pale again, as she held out her hand to me. I looked 
 at her anxiously, and discerned the welcome signs of recov- 
 ery, clearly revealed. Her grand gray eyes rested on me 
 again with a glimmer of their old light. The hand that had 
 lain so cold in mine on the past night had life and warmth in 
 it now. 
 
 ■" Should I have died before the morning if you had not 
 come here ?" she asked, softly. " Have you saved my life for 
 the second time? I can well believe it." 
 
 Before I was aware of her, she bent her head over my 
 hand, and touched it tenderly with her lips. " I am not an 
 ungrateful woman," she murmured — " and yet I don't know 
 how to thank you." 
 
 The child looked up quickly from her cake. " Why don't 
 you kiss him ?" the quaint little creature asked, with a broad 
 stare of astonishment. 
 
 Her head sunk on her breast. She sighed bitterly. 
 
 "No more of Me !" she said, suddenly recovering her com- 
 posure, and suddenly forcing herself to look at me again. 
 "Tell me what happy chance brought you here last night i ' 
 
 "The same chance," I answered, "which took me to Saint 
 Anthony's Well." 
 
 She raised herself eagerly in the chair. 
 
 "You have seen me again — as you saw me in the summer- 
 house by the water-fall !" she exclaimed. " Was it in Scot- 
 land once more ?" 
 
 "No. Farther away than Scotland — as far away as Shet- 
 land." 
 
 " Tell me about it ! Pray, pray tell me about it !" 
 
 I related what had happened as exactly as I could, con- 
 sistently with maintaining the strictest reserve on one point. 
 Concealing from her the very existence of Miss Dunross, I 
 
228 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 left her to suppose that the master of the house was the one 
 person whom I had found to receive me during my sojourn 
 under Mr. Dunross's roof. 
 
 " That is strange !" she exclaimed, after she had heard me 
 attentively to the end. 
 
 " What is strange ?" I aske.d. 
 
 She hesitated, searching my face earnestly with her large 
 grave eyes. 
 
 " I hardly like speaking of it," she said. "And yet I ought 
 to have no concealments in such a matter from you. I un- 
 derstand every thing that you have told me — with one ex- 
 ception. It seems strange to me that you should only have 
 had one old man for your companion while you were at the 
 house in Shetland." 
 
 "What other companion did you expect to hear of?" I in- 
 quired. 
 
 " I expected," she answered, " to hear of a lady in the 
 house." 
 
 I can not positively say that the reply took me by surprise : 
 it forced me to reflect before I spoke again. I knew, by my 
 past experience, that she must have seen me, in my absence 
 from her, while I was spiritually present to her mind in a 
 trance or dream. Had she also seen the daily companion of 
 my life in Shetland — Miss Dunross ? 
 
 I put the question in a form which left me free to decide 
 whether I should take her unreservedly into my confidence 
 or not. 
 
 "Am I right," I began; " in supposing that you dreamed 
 of me in Shetland, as you once before dreamed of me while I 
 was at my house in Perthshire ?" 
 
 "Yes," she answered. "It was at the close of evening, 
 this time. I fell asleep, or became insensible — I can not say 
 which. And I saw you again, in a vision or a dream." 
 
 " Where did you see me ?" 
 
 " I first saw you on the bridge over the Scotch river — just 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 229 
 
 as I met you on the evening when you saved my life. After 
 a while, the stream and the landscape about it faded, and you 
 faded with them, into darkness. I waited a little, and the 
 darkness melted away slowly. I stood, as it seemed to me, 
 in a circle of starry light ; fronting a window, with a lake be- 
 hind me, and before me a darkened room. And I looked 
 into the room, and the starry light showed you to me again." 
 
 " When did this happen ? Do you remember the date ?" 
 
 "I remember that it was at the beginning of the month. 
 The misfortunes which have since brought me so low had not 
 then fallen on me ; and yet, as I stood looking at you, I had 
 the strangest prevision of calamity that was to come. I felt 
 the same absolute reliance on your power to help me that I 
 felt when I first dreamed of you in Scotland. And I did the 
 same familiar things. I laid my hand on your bosom. I said 
 to you, ' Remember me. Come to me.' I even wrote — " 
 
 She stopped, shuddering as if a sudden fear had laid its 
 hold on her. Seeing this, and dreading the effect of any 
 violent agitation, I hastened to suggest that we should say 
 no more, for that day, on the subject of her dream. 
 
 "No," she answered, firmly. "There is nothing to be 
 gained by giving me time. My dream has left one horri- 
 ble remembrance on my mind. As long as I live, I believe 
 I shall tremble when I think of what I saw near you in .that 
 darkened room." 
 
 She stopped again. Was she approaching the subject of 
 the shrouded figure, with the black veil over its head ? Was 
 she about to describe her first discovery, in the dream, of Miss 
 Dunross? 
 
 " Tell me one thing first," she resumed. " Have I been 
 right in what I have said to you, so far ? Is it true that you 
 were in a darkened room when you saw me ?" 
 
 " Quite true." 
 
 "Was the date the beginning of the month? and was the 
 hour the close of evening ?" 
 
230 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Were you alone in the room ? Answer me truly !" 
 
 " I was not alone." 
 
 " "Was the master of the house with you ? or had you some 
 other companion ?" 
 
 It would have been worse than useless (after what I had 
 now heard) to attempt to deceive her. 
 
 " I had another companion," I answered. " The person in 
 the room with me was a woman." 
 
 Her face showed, as I spoke, that she was again shaken 
 by the terrifying recollection to which she had just alluded. 
 I had, by this time, some difficulty myself in preserving my 
 composure. Still, I was determined not to let a word escape 
 me which could operate as a suggestion on the mind of my 
 companion. 
 
 " Have you any other question to ask me ?" was all I said. 
 
 " One more," she answered. " Was there any thing unu- 
 sual in the dress of your companion ?" 
 
 " Yes. She wore a long black veil, which hung over her 
 head and face, and dropped to below her waist." 
 
 Mrs. Van Brandt leaned back in her chair, and covered 
 her eyes with her hands. 
 
 "I understand your motive for concealing from me the 
 presence of that miserable woman in the house," she said. 
 " It is good and kind, like all your motives ; but it is useless. 
 While I lay in the trance I saw every thing exactly as it was 
 in the reality ; and I, too, saw that frightful face !" 
 
 Those words literally electrified me. 
 
 My conversation of that morning with my mother instantly 
 recurred to my memory. I started to my feet. 
 
 " Good God !" I exclaimed, " what do you mean ?" 
 
 " Don't you understand yet ?" she asked, in amazement on 
 her side. "Must I speak more plainly still? When you 
 saw the apparition of me, did you see me write ?" 
 
 " Yes. On a letter that the lady was writing for me. I 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 231 
 
 saw the words afterward ; the words that brought me to you 
 last night: 'At the month's end, In the shadow of Saint 
 Paul's.' " 
 
 " How did I appear to write on the unfinished letter ?" 
 
 " You lifted the writing-case, on which the letter and the 
 pen lay, off the lady's lap ; and, while you wrote, you rested 
 the case on her shoulder." 
 
 "Did you notice if the lifting of the case produced any 
 effect on her?" 
 
 " I saw no effect produced," I answered. " She remained 
 immovable in her chair." 
 
 " I saw it differently in my dream. She raised her hand — 
 not the hand that was nearest to you, but nearest to me. As 
 I lifted the writing-case, she lifted her hand, and parted the 
 folds of the veil from off her face — I suppose to see more 
 clearly. It was only for a moment; and in that moment I 
 saw what the veil hid. Don't let us speak of it ! You must 
 have shuddered at that frightful sight in the reality, as I 
 shuddered at it in the dream. You must have asked your- 
 self, as I did : ' Is there nobody to poison the terrible creat- 
 ure, and hide her mercifully in the grave ?' " 
 
 At those words, she abruptly checked herself. I could say 
 nothing — my face spoke for me. She saw it, and guessed 
 the truth. 
 
 " Good heavens !" she cried, " you have not seen her ! She 
 must have kept her face hidden from you behind the veil ! 
 Oh, why, why did you cheat me into talking of it? I will 
 never speak of it again. See, we are frightening the child ! 
 Come here, darling ; there is nothing to be afraid of. Come, 
 and bring your cake with you. You shall be a great lady, 
 giving a grand dinner; and we will be two friends whom you 
 have invited to dine with you ; and the doll shall be the lit- 
 tle girl who comes in after dinner, and has fruit at dessert !" 
 So she ran on, trying vainly to forget the shock that she had 
 inflicted on me in talking nursery nonsense to the child. 
 
232 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Recovering my composure in some degree, I did my best 
 to second the effort that she had made. My quieter thoughts 
 suggested that she might ■well be self- deceived in believing 
 the horrible spectacle presented to her in the vision to be 
 an actual reflection of the truth. In common justice toward 
 Miss Dunross, I ought surely not to accept the conviction 
 of her deformity on no better evidence than the evidence of 
 a dream ? Reasonable as it undoubtedly was, this view left 
 certain doubts still lingering in my mind. The child's in- 
 stinct soon discovered that her mother and I were playfellows 
 who felt no genuine enjoyment of the game. She dismiss- 
 ed her make-believe guests without ceremony, and went back 
 with her doll to the favorite play-ground on which I had met 
 her — the landing outside the door. No persuasion on her 
 mother's part or on mine succeeded in luring her back to us. 
 We were left together, to face each other as best we might — 
 with the forbidden subject of Miss Dunross between us. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES, 233 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 LOVE AND MONET. 
 
 Feeling the embarrassment of the moment most painfully 
 on her side, Mrs. Van Brandt spoke first. 
 
 " You have said nothing to me about yourself," she began. 
 " Is your life a happier one than it was when we last met ?" 
 
 " I can not honestly say that it is," I answered. 
 
 " Is there any prospect of your being married ?" 
 
 "My prospect of being married still rests with you." 
 
 "Don't say that!" she exclaimed, with an entreating look 
 at me. "Don't spoil my pleasure in seeing you again by 
 speaking of what can never be ! Have you still to be told 
 how it is that you find me here alone with my child ?" 
 
 I forced myself to mention Van" Brandt's name, rather than 
 hear it pass her lips. 
 
 "I have been told that Mr. Van Brandt is in prison for 
 debt," I said. "And I saw for myself last night that he had 
 left you helpless." 
 
 " He left me the little money he had with him when he was 
 arrested," she rejoined, sadly. " His cruel creditors are more 
 to blame than he is for the povei'ty that has fallen on us." 
 
 Even this negative defense of Van Brandt stung me to the 
 quick. 
 
 " I ought to have spoken more guardedly of him," I said, 
 bitterly. "I ought to have remembered that a woman can 
 forgive almost any wrong that a man can inflict on her — 
 when he is the man whom she loves." 
 
 She put her hand on my mouth, and stopped me before I 
 could say any more. 
 
Z34 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " How can you speak so cruelly to me ?" she asked. " You 
 know — to my shame I confessed it to you the last time we 
 met — you know that my heart, in secret, is all yours. What 
 * wrong ' are you talking of ? Is it the wrong I suffered when 
 Van Brandt married me, with a wife living at the time (and 
 living still) ? Do you think I can ever forget the gi'eat mis- 
 fortune of my life — the misfortune that has made me unwor- 
 thy of you ? It is no fault of mine, God knows ; but it is 
 not the less true that I am not married, and that the little 
 darling who is playing out there with her doll is my child. 
 And you talk of my being your wife — knowing that !" 
 
 " The child accepts me as her second father," I said. " It 
 would be better and happier for us both if you had as little 
 pride as the child." 
 
 " Pride ?" she repeated. " In such a position as mine ? A 
 helpless woman, with a mock-husband in prison for debt ! 
 Say that I have not fallen quite so low yet as to forget what 
 is due to you, and you will pay me a compliment that will 
 be nearer to the truth. Am I to marry you for my food and 
 shelter? Am I to marry you, because there is no lawful tie 
 that binds me to the father of my child ? Cruelly as he has 
 behaved, he has still that claim upon me. Bad as he is, he 
 has not forsaken me; he has been forced away. My only 
 friend, is it possible that you think me ungrateful enough to 
 consent to be your wife ? The woman (in my situation) must 
 be heartless indeed who could destroy your place in the esti- 
 mation of the world and the regard of your friends ! The 
 wretchedest creature that walks the streets would shrink 
 from treating you in that way. Oh, what are men made of ? 
 How can you — how can you speak of it !" 
 
 I yielded — and spoke of it no more. Every word she ut- 
 tered only increased my admiration of the noble creature 
 whom I had loved, and lost. What refuge was now left to 
 me ? But one refuge ; I could still offer to her the sacrifice 
 of myself. Bitterly as I hated the man who had parted us, 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 235 
 
 I loved her dearly enough to be even capable of helping him 
 for her sake. Hopeless infatuation ! I don't deny it ; I don't 
 excuse it — hopeless infatuation ! 
 
 " You have forgiven me," I said. " Let me deserve to be 
 forgiven. It is something to be your only friend. Tou must 
 have plans for the future ; tell me unreservedly how I can 
 help you." 
 
 " Complete the good work that you have begun," she an- 
 swered, gratefully. " Help me back to health. Make me 
 strong enough to submit to a doctor's estimate of my chances 
 of living for some years yet." 
 
 "A doctor's estimate of your chances of living?" I repeat- 
 ed. " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " I hardly know how to tell you," she said, " without speak- 
 ing again of Mr. Van Brandt." 
 
 " Does speaking of him again mean speaking of his debts ?" 
 I asked. "Why need you hesitate? You know that there 
 is nothing I will not do to relieve your anxieties." 
 
 She looked at me for a moment, in silent distress. 
 
 " Oh ! do you think I would let you give your money to 
 Van Brandt ?" she asked, as soon as she could speak. " I, 
 who owe every tiling to your devotion to me? Never ! Let 
 me tell you the plain truth. There is a serious necessity for 
 his getting out of prison. He must pay his creditors ; and 
 he has found out a way of doing it — with my help." 
 
 "Your help !" I exclaimed. 
 
 " Yes. This is his position, in two words : A little while 
 since, he obtained an excellent offer of employment abroad, 
 from a rich relative of his, and he had made all his arrange- 
 ments to accept it. Unhappily, he returned to tell me of his 
 good fortune, and the same day he was arrested for debt. His 
 relative has offered to keep the situation open for a certain 
 time, and the time has not yet expired. If he can pay a divi- 
 dend to his creditors, they will give him his freedom ; and he 
 believes he can raise the money if I consent to insure my life." 
 
236 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 To insure her life ! The snare that had been set for her 
 was plainly revealed in those four words. 
 
 In the eye of the law she was, of course, a single woman : 
 she was of age ; she was, to all intents and purposes, her own 
 mistress. What was there to prevent her from insuring her 
 life, if she pleased, and from so disposing of the insurance as 
 to give Van Brandt a direct interest in her death ? Knowing 
 what I knew of him — believing him, as I did, to be capable of 
 any atrocity — I trembled at the bare idea of what might have 
 happened if I had failed to find my way back to her until a 
 later date. Thanks to the happy accident of my position, the 
 one certain way of protecting her lay easily within my reach. 
 I could offer to lend the Scoundrel the money that he wanted 
 at an hour's notice, and he was the man to accept my pro- 
 posal quite as easily as I could make it. 
 
 "You don't seem to approve of our idea," she said, noti- 
 cing, in evident perplexity, the effect which she had produced 
 on me. " I am very unfortunate ; I seem to have innocently 
 disturbed and annoyed you for the second time." 
 
 "You are quite mistaken," I replied. "I am only doubt- 
 ing whether your plan for relieving Mr. Van Brandt of his 
 embarrassments is quite so simple as you suppose. Are you 
 aware of the delays that are likely to take place before it will 
 be possible to borrow money on your policy of insurance ?" 
 
 " I know nothing about it," she said, sadly. 
 
 "Will you let me ask the advice of my lawyers? They 
 are trustworthy and experienced men, and I am sure they 
 can be of use to you." 
 
 Cautiously as I had expressed myself, her delicacy took 
 the alarm. 
 
 " Promise that you won't ask me to borrow money of you 
 for Mr. Van Brandt," she rejoined, " and I will accept your 
 help gratefully." 
 
 I could honestly promise that. My one chance of saving 
 her lay in keeping from her knowledge the course that I had 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 237 
 
 now determined to pursue. I rose to go, while my resolu- 
 tion still sustained me. The sooner I made my inquiries (I 
 reminded her) the more speedily our present doubts and dif- 
 ficulties would be resolved. 
 
 She rose, as I rose — with the tears in her eyes, and the 
 blush on her cheeks. 
 
 " Kiss me," she whispered, " before you go ! And don't 
 mind my crying. I am quite happy now. It is only your 
 goodness that overpowers me." 
 
 I pressed her to my heart, with the unacknowledged ten- 
 derness of a parting embrace. It was impossible to disguise 
 the position in which I had now placed myself. I had, so to 
 speak, pronounced my own sentence of banishment. When 
 my interference had restored my unworthy rival to his free- 
 dom, could I submit to the degrading necessity of seeing her 
 in his presence, of speaking to her under his eyes ? That 
 sacrifice of myself was beyond me — and I knew it. "For 
 the last time !" I thought, as I held her to me for a moment 
 longer — "for the last time !" 
 
 The child ran to meet me with open arms when I stepped 
 out on the landing. My manhood had sustained me through 
 the parting with the mother. It was only when the child's 
 round, innocent little face laid itself lovingly against mine 
 that my fortitude gave way. I was past speaking; I put 
 her down gently in silence, and waited on the lower flight of 
 stairs until I was fit to face the world outside. 
 
238 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 OUE DESTINIES PART US. 
 
 Descending to the ground-floor of the house, I sent to re- 
 quest a moment's interview with the landlady. I had yet to 
 learn in which of the London prisons Van Brandt was con- 
 fined ; and she was the only person to whom I could venture 
 to address the question. 
 
 Having answered my inquiries, the woman put her own 
 sordid construction on my motive for visiting the prisoner. 
 
 "Has the money you left upstairs gone into his greedy 
 pockets already ?" she asked. " If I was as rich as you are, 
 I should let it go. In your place, I wouldn't touch him with 
 a pair of tongs !" 
 
 The woman's coarse warning actually proved useful to me ; 
 it started a new idea in my mind ! Before she spoke, I had 
 been too dull or too preoccupied to see that it was quite 
 needless to degrade myself by personally communicating 
 with Van Brandt in his prison. It only now occurred to me 
 that my legal advisers were, as a matter of course, the proper 
 persons to represent me in the matter — with this additional 
 advantage, that they could keep my share in the transaction 
 a secret even from Van Brandt himself. 
 
 I drove at once to the office of my lawyers. The senior 
 partner — the tried friend and adviser of our family — re- 
 ceived me. 
 
 My instructions, naturally enough, astonished him. He 
 was immediately to satisfy the prisoner's creditors, on my 
 behalf, without mentioning my name to any one. And he 
 was gravely to accept as security for repayment — Mr. Van 
 Brandt's note of hand ! 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 239 
 
 " I thought I was well acquainted with the various meth- 
 ods by which a gentleman can throw away his money," the 
 senior partner remarked. " I congratulate you, Mr. Germaine, 
 on having discovered an entirely new way of effectually 
 emptying your purse. Founding a newspaper, taking a the- 
 atre, keeping race-horses, gambling at Monaco, are highly 
 efficient as modes of losing money. But they all yield, sir, 
 to paying the debts of Mr. Van Brandt !" 
 
 I left him, and went home. 
 
 The servant who opened the door had a message for me 
 from my mother. She wished to see me as soon as I was at 
 leisure to speak to her. 
 
 I presented myself at once in my mother's sitting-room. 
 
 "Well, George?" she said, without a word to prepare 
 me for what was coming. "How have you left Mrs. Van 
 Brandt?" 
 
 I was completely thrown off my guard. 
 
 " Who has told you that I have seen Mrs. Van Brandt ?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " My dear, your face has told me. Don't I know by this 
 time how you look and how you speak when Mrs. Van Brandt 
 is in your mind? Sit down by me. I have something to 
 say to you which I wanted to say this morning ; but, I hard- 
 ly know why, my heart failed me. I am bolder now, and I 
 can say it. My son, you still love Mrs. Van Brandt. You 
 have my permission to marry her." 
 
 Those were the words ! Hardly an hour had elapsed since 
 Mrs. Van Brandt's own lips had told me that our union was 
 impossible. Not even half an hour had passed since I had 
 given the directions which would restore to liberty the man 
 who was the one obstacle to my marriage. And this was 
 the time that my mother had innocently chosen for consent- 
 ing to receive as her daughter-in-law Mrs. Van Brandt ! 
 
 " I see that I surprise you," she resumed. " Let me ex- 
 plain my motive as plainly as I can. I should not be speak- 
 
240 THE TWO DESTIME& 
 
 ing the truth, George, if I told you that I have ceased to feel 
 the serious objections that there are to your marrying this 
 lady. The only difference in my way of thinking is, that I 
 am now willing to set my objections aside, out of regard 
 for your happiness. I am an old woman, my dear. In the 
 course of nature, I can not hope to be with you much longer. 
 When I am gone, who will be left to care for you and love 
 you, in the place of your mother ? No one will be left, unless 
 you marry Mrs. Van Brandt. Tour happiness is my first 
 consideration, and the woman you love (sadly as she has been 
 led astray) is a woman worthy of a better fate. Marry her." 
 
 I could not trust myself <o speak. I could only kneel at 
 my mother's feet, and hide my face on her knees, as if I had 
 been a boy again. 
 
 " Think of it, George," she said. " And come back to me 
 when you are composed enough to speak as quietly of the 
 future as I do." 
 
 She lifted my head, and kissed me. As I rose to leave 
 her, I saw something in the dear old eyes that met mine so 
 tenderly, which struck a sudden fear through me, keen and 
 cutting, like a stroke from a knife. 
 
 The moment I had closed the door, I went down-stairs to 
 the porter in the hall. 
 
 " Has my mother left the house," I asked, " while I have 
 been away ?" 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Have any visitors called ?" 
 
 " One visitor has called, sir." 
 
 " Do you know who it was ?" 
 
 The porter mentioned the name of a celebrated physician 
 — a man at the head of his profession in those days. I in- 
 stantly took my hat and went to his house. 
 
 He had just returned from his round of visits. My card 
 was taken to him, and was followed at once by my admission 
 to his consulting-room. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 241 
 
 " You have seen my mother," I said. " Is she seriously 
 ill? and have you not concealed it from her? For God's 
 sake, tell me the truth ; I can bear it." 
 
 The great man took me kindly by the hand. 
 
 "Your mother stands in no need of any warning; she is 
 herself aware of the critical state of her health," he said. 
 " She sent for me to confirm her own conviction. I could 
 not conceal from her — I must not conceal from you — that 
 the vital energies are sinking. She may live for some months 
 longer in a milder air than the air of London. That is all I 
 can say. At her age, her days are numbered." 
 
 He gave me time to steady myself under the blow; and 
 then he placed his vast experience, his matured and consum- 
 mate knowledge, at my disposal. From his dictation, I com- 
 mitted to writing the necessary instructions for watching 
 over the frail tenure of my mother's life. 
 
 " Let me give you one word of warning," he said, as we 
 parted. " Your mother is especially desirous that you should 
 know nothing of the precarious condition of her health. Her 
 one anxiety is to see you happy. If she discovers your visit 
 to me, I will not answer for the consequences. Make the best 
 excuse you can think of for at once taking her away from 
 London, and, whatever you may feel in secret, keep up an ap- 
 pearance of good spirits in her presence." 
 
 That evening I made my excuse. It was easily found. I 
 had only to tell my poor mother of Mrs. Van Brandt's refusal 
 to marry me, and there was an intelligible motive assigned 
 for my proposing to leave London. The same night I wrote 
 to inform Mrs. Van Brandt of the sad event which was the 
 cause of my sudden departure, and to warn her that there 
 no longer existed the slightest necessity for insuring her life. 
 " My lawyers " (I wrote) " have undertaken to arrange Mr. 
 Van Brandt's affairs immediately. In a few hours he will be 
 at liberty to accept the situation that has been offered to 
 him." The last lines of the letter assured her of my unalter- 
 
 11 
 
242 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 able love, and entreated her to write to me before she left 
 England. 
 
 This done, all was done. I was conscious, strange to say, 
 of no acutely painful suffering at this saddest time of my life. 
 There is a limit, morally as well as physically, to our capacity 
 for endurance. I can only describe my sensations under the 
 calamities that had now fallen on me in one way : I felt like 
 a man whose mind had been stunned. 
 
 The next day my mother and I set forth on the first stage 
 of our journey to the south coast of Devonshire. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 243 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE PEOSPECT DARKENS. 
 
 Three days after my mother and I had established our- 
 selves at Torquay, I received Mrs. Van Brandt's answer to my 
 letter. After the opening sentences (informing me that Van 
 Brandt had been set at liberty, under circumstances painfully 
 suggestive to the writer of some unacknowledged sacrifice on 
 my part), the letter proceeded in these terms : 
 
 " The new employment which Mr. Van Brandt is to under- 
 take secures to us the comforts, if not the luxuries, of life. 
 For the first time since my troubles began, I have the pros- 
 pect before me of a peaceful existence, among a foreign peo- 
 ple from whom all that is false in my position may be con- 
 cealed — not for my sake, but for the sake of my child. To 
 more than this, to the happiness which some women enjoy, I 
 must not, I dare not, aspire. 
 
 "We leave England for the Continent early to-morrow 
 morning. Shall I tell you in what part of Europe my new 
 residence is to be ? 
 
 " No ! You might write to me again ; and I might write 
 back. The one poor return I can make to the good angel of 
 my life is to help him to forget me. What right have I to 
 cling to my usurped place in your regard? The time will 
 come when you will give your heart to a woman who is wor- 
 thier of it than I am. Let me drop out of your life — except 
 as an occasional remembrance, when you sometimes think of 
 the days that have gone forever. 
 
 " I shall not be without some consolation on my side, when 
 I too look back at the past. I have been a better woman 
 
244 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 since I met with you. Live as long as I may, I shall always 
 remember that. 
 
 " Yes ! The influence that you have had over me has been 
 from first to last an influence for good. Allowing that I 
 have done wrong (in my position) to love you, and, worse 
 even than that, to own it, still the love has been innocent, and 
 the effort to control it has been an honest effort at least. 
 But, apart from this, my heart tells me that I am the better 
 for the sympathy which has united us. I may confess to you 
 what I have never yet acknowledged — now that we are so 
 widely parted, and so little likely to meet again — whenever I 
 have given myself up unrestrainedly to my own better im- 
 pulses, they have always seemed to lead me to you. When- 
 ever my mind has been most truly at peace, and I have been 
 able to pray with a pure and a penitent heart, I have felt as 
 if there was some unseen tie that was drawing us nearer and 
 nearer together. And, strange to say, this has always hap- 
 pened (just as my dreams of you have always come to me) 
 when I have been separated from Van Brandt. At such 
 times, thinking or dreaming, it has always appeared to me 
 that I knew you far more familiarly than I know you when 
 we meet face to face. Is there really such a thing, I wonder, 
 as a former state of existence ? And were we once constant 
 companions in some other sphei-e, thousands of years since ? 
 These are idle guesses. Let it be enough for me to remem- 
 ber that I have been the better for knowing you— without in- 
 quiring how or why. 
 
 " Farewell, my beloved benefactor, my only friend ! The 
 child sends you a kiss; and the mother signs herself your 
 grateful and affectionate M. Van Bbandt." 
 
 When I first read those lines, they once more recalled to 
 my memory — very strangely, as I then thought — the predic- 
 tions of Dame Dermody in the days of my boyhood. Here 
 were the foretold sympathies which were spiritually to unite 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 245 
 
 me to Mary, realized by a stranger whom I had met by chance 
 in the later years of my life ! 
 
 Thinking in this direction, did I advance no farther ? Not 
 a step farther ! Not a suspicion of the truth presented itself 
 to my mind even yet. 
 
 Was my own dullness of apprehension to blame for this ? 
 Would another man in my position have discovered what I 
 failed to see ? 
 
 I look back along the chain of events which runs through 
 my narrative, and I ask myself, Where are the possibilities to 
 be found (in my case, or in the case of any other man) of 
 identifying the child who was Mary Dermody with the wom- 
 an who was Mrs. Van Brandt ? Was there any thing left in 
 our faces, when we met again by the Scotch river, to remind 
 us of our younger selves ? We had developed, in the inter- 
 val, from boy and girl to man and woman : no outward traces 
 were discernible in us of the George and Mary of other days. 
 Disguised from each other by our faces, we were also dis- 
 guised by our names. Her mock-marriage had changed her 
 surname. My step -father's will had changed mine. Her 
 Christian name was the commonest of all names of women ; 
 and mine was almost as far from being remarkable among 
 the names of men. Turning next to the various occasions 
 on which we had met, had we seen enough of each other to 
 drift into recognition on either side, in the ordinary course 
 of talk? We had met but four times in all: once on the 
 bridge, once again in Edinburgh, twice more in London. On 
 each of these occasions, the absorbing anxieties and interests 
 of the passing moment had filled her mind and mine, had in- 
 spired her words and mine. When had the events which 
 had brought us together left us with leisure enough and 
 tranquillity enough to look back idly through our lives, and 
 calmly to compare the recollections of our youth? Never! 
 From first to last, the course of events had borne us farther 
 and farther away from any results that could have led even. 
 
246 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 to a suspicion of the truth. She could only believe when she 
 wrote to me on leaving England — and I could only believe 
 when I read her letter — that we had first met at the river, 
 and that our divergent destinies had ended in parting us for- 
 ever. 
 
 Reading her farewell letter in later days by the light of 
 my matured experience, I note how remarkably Dame Der- 
 mody's faith in the purity of the tie that united us as kin- 
 dred spirits was justified by the result. 
 
 It was only when my unknown Mary was parted from Van 
 Brandt — in other words, it was only when she was a pure 
 spirit — that she felt my influence over her as a refining influ- 
 ence on her life, and that the apparition of her communicated 
 with me in the visible and perfect likeness of herself. On 
 my side, when was it that I dreamed of her (as in Scotland), 
 or felt the mysterious warning of her presence in my waking 
 moments (as in Shetland) ? Always at the time when my 
 heart opened most tenderly toward her and toward others — 
 when my mind was most free from the bitter doubts, the self- 
 seeking aspirations, which degrade the divinity within us. 
 Then, and then only, my sympathy with her was the perfect 
 sympathy which holds its fidelity unassailable by the chances 
 and changes, the delusions and temptations, of mortal life. 
 
 I am writing prematurely of the time when the light came 
 to me. My narrative must return to the time when I was 
 still walking in darkness. 
 
 Absorbed in watching over the closing days of my moth- 
 er's life, I found in the performance of this sacred duty my 
 only consolation under the overthrow of my last hope of mar- 
 riage with Mrs. Van Brandt. By slow degrees my mother 
 felt the reviving influences of a quiet life and a soft, pure air. 
 The improvement in her health could, as I but too well knew, 
 be only an improvement for a time. Still, it was a relief to 
 see her free from pain, and innocently happy in the presence 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 247 
 
 of her son. Excepting those hours of the day and night which 
 were dedicated to repose, I was never away from her. To 
 this day I remember, with a tenderness which attaches to no 
 other memories of mine, the books that I read to her, the sun- 
 ny corner on the sea-shore where I sat with her, the games 
 of cards that we played together, the little trivial gossip that 
 amused her when she was strong enough for nothing else. 
 These are my imperishable relics ; these are the deeds of my 
 life that I shall love best to look back on, when the all-infold- 
 ing shadows of death are closing round me. 
 
 In the hours when I was alone, my thoughts — occupying 
 themselves mostly among the persons and events of the past 
 — wandered back, many and many a time, to Shetland and 
 Miss Dunross. 
 
 My haunting doubt as to what the black veil had really 
 hidden from me was no longer accompanied by a feeling of 
 horror when it now recurred to my mind. The more vividly 
 my later remembrances of Miss Duni'oss were associated with 
 the idea of an unutterable bodily affliction, the higher the 
 noble nature of the woman seemed to rise in my esteem. 
 For the first time since I had left Shetland, the temptation 
 now came to me to disregard the injunction which her fa- 
 ther had laid on me at parting. When I thought again of 
 the stolen kiss in the dead of night ; when I recalled the ap- 
 pearance of the frail white hand, waving to me through the 
 dark curtains its last farewell ; and when there mingled with 
 these memories the later remembrance of what my mother 
 had suspected, and of what Mrs. Van Brandt had seen in 
 her dream — the longing in me to find a means of assuring 
 Miss Dunross that she still held her place apart in my mem- 
 ory and my heart was more than mortal fortitude could re- 
 sist. I was pledged in honor not to return to Shetland, and 
 not to write. How to communicate with her secretly, in 
 some other way, was the constant question in my mind as 
 the days went on. A hint to enlighten me was all that I 
 
248 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 wanted ; and, as the irony of circumstances ordered it, my 
 mother was the person who gave me the hint. 
 
 We still spoke, at intervals, of Mrs. Van Brandt. Watch- 
 ing me on those occasions when we were in the company of 
 friends and acquaintances at Torquay, my mother plainly 
 discerned that no other woman, whatever her attractions 
 might be, could take the place in my heart of the woman 
 whom I had lost. Seeing but one prospect of happiness for 
 me, she steadily refused to abandon the idea of my marriage. 
 When a woman has owned that she loves a man (so my 
 mother used to express her opinion), it is that man's fault, 
 no matter what the obstacles may be, if he fails to make her 
 his wife. Reverting to this view in various ways, she press- 
 ed it on my consideration one day in these words : 
 
 " There is one drawback, George, to my happiness in being 
 here with you. I am an obstacle in the way of your commu- 
 nicating with Mrs. Van Brandt." 
 
 " You forget," I said, " that she has left England without 
 telling me where to find her." 
 
 " If you were free from the incumbrance of your mother, 
 my dear, you would easily find her. Even as things are, 
 you might surely write to her. Don't mistake my motives, 
 George. If I had any hope of your forgetting her — if I saw 
 you only moderately attracted by one or other of the charm- 
 ing women whom we know here — I should say, let us never 
 speak again or think again of Mrs. Van Brandt. But, my 
 dear, your heart is closed to every woman but one. Be hap- 
 py in your own way, and let me see it before I die. The 
 wretch to whom that poor creature is sacrificing her life will, 
 sooner or later, ill-treat her or desert her ; and then she must 
 turn to you. Don't let her think that you are resigned to 
 the loss of her. The more resolutely you set her scruples at 
 defiance, the more she will love you and admire you in secret. 
 Women are like that. Send her a letter, and follow it with 
 a little present. You talked of taking me to the studio of 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 249 
 
 the young artist here who left his card the other day. I am. 
 told that he paints admirable portraits in miniature. Why 
 not send your portrait to Mrs. Van Brandt ?" 
 
 Here was the idea of which I had been vainly in search ! 
 Quite superfluous as a method of pleading my cause with 
 Mrs. Van Brandt, the portrait offered the best of all means 
 of communicating with Miss Dunross, without absolutely 
 violating the engagement to which her father had pledged 
 me. In this way, without writing a word, without even send- 
 ing a message, I might tell her how gratefully she was re- 
 membered ; I might remind her of me tenderly in the bitter- 
 est moments of her sad and solitary life. 
 
 The same day I went to the artist privately. The sittings 
 were afterward continued during the hours while my mother 
 was resting in her room, until the portrait was completed. 
 I caused it to be inclosed in a plain gold locket, with a chain 
 attached ; and I forwarded my gift, in the first instance, to 
 the one person whom I could trust to assist me in arranging 
 for the conveyance of it to its destination. This was the old 
 friend (alluded to in these pages as " Sir James ") who had 
 taken me with him to Shetland in the Government yacht. 
 
 I had no reason, in writing the necessary explanations, to 
 express myself to Sir James with any reserve. On the voy- 
 age back we had more than once spoken together confiden- 
 tially of Miss Dunross. Sir James had beard her sad story 
 from the resident medical man at Lerwick, who had been an 
 old companion of his in their college days. Requesting him 
 to confide my gift to this gentleman,. I did not hesitate to 
 acknowledge the doubt that oppressed me in relation to the 
 mystery of the black veil. It was, of course, impossible to 
 decide whether the doctor would be able to relieve that 
 doubt. I could only venture to suggest that the question 
 might be guardedly put, in making the customary inquiries 
 after the health of Miss Dunross. 
 
 In those days of slow communication, I had to wait, not 
 
 11* 
 
250 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 for days, but for weeks, before I could expect to receive Sir 
 James's answer. His letter only reached me after an unu- 
 sually long delay. For this, or for some other reason that I 
 can not divine, I felt so strongly the foreboding of bad news 
 that I abstained from breaking the seal in my mother's pres- 
 ence. I waited until I could retire to my own room, and 
 then I opened the letter. My presentiment had not deceived 
 me. Sir James's reply contained these words only: "The 
 letter inclosed tells its own sad story, without help from me. 
 I can not grieve for her ; but I can feel sorry for you." 
 
 The letter thus described was addressed to Sir James by 
 the doctor at Lerwick. I copy it (without comment) in these 
 words : 
 
 " The late stormy weather has delayed the vessel by means 
 of which we communicate with the main-land. I have only 
 received your letter to-day. With it, there has arrived a lit- 
 tle box, containing a gold locket and chain ; being the pres- 
 ent which you ask me to convey privately to Miss Dunross, 
 from a friend of yours whose name you are not at liberty to 
 mention. 
 
 "In transmitting these instructions, you have innocently 
 placed me in a position of extreme difficulty. 
 
 "The poor lady for whom the gift is intended is near the 
 end of her life — a life of such complicated and terrible suffer- 
 ing that death comes, in her case, literally as a mercy and a 
 deliverance. Under these melancholy circumstances, I am, I 
 think, not to blame if I hesitate to give her the locket in se- 
 cret ; not knowing with what associations this keepsake may 
 be connected, or of what serious agitation it may not possibly 
 be the cause. 
 
 "In this state of doubt I have ventured on opening the 
 locket, and my hesitation is naturally increased. I am quite 
 ignorant of the remembrances which my unhappy patient 
 may connect with the portrait. . I don't know whether it will 
 give her pleasure or pain to receive it, in her last moments 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 251 
 
 on earth. I can only decide to take it with me, when I see 
 her s to-morrow, and to let circumstances determine whether 
 I shall risk letting her see it or not. Our post to the South 
 only leaves this place in three days' time. I can keep my 
 letter open, and let you know the result. 
 
 "I have seen her; and I have just returned to my own 
 house. My distress of mind is great. But I will do my best 
 to write intelligibly and fully of what has happened. 
 
 " Her sinking energies, when I first saw her this morning, 
 had rallied for the moment. The nurse informed me that 
 she had slept during the early hours of the new day. Previ- 
 ously to this, there were symptoms of fever, accompanied by 
 some slight delirium. The words that escaped her in this 
 condition appear to have related mainly to an absent person 
 whom she spoke of by the name of ' George.' Her one anx- 
 iety, I am told, was to see ' George ' again before she died. 
 
 " Hearing this, it struck me as barely possible that the por- 
 trait in the locket might be the portrait of the absent person. 
 I sent her nurse out of the room, and took her hand in mine. 
 Trusting partly to her own admirable courage and strength 
 of mind, and partly to the confidence which I knew she placed 
 in me as an old friend and adviser, I adverted to the words 
 which had fallen from her in the feverish state. And then I 
 said, ' You know that any secret of yours is safe in my keep- 
 ing. Tell me, do you expect to receive any little keepsake or 
 memorial from " George ?" ' 
 
 " It was a risk to run. The black veil which she always 
 wears was over her face. I had nothing to tell me of the ef- 
 fect which I was producing on her, except the changing tem- 
 perature, or the partial movement, of her hand, as it lay in 
 mine, just under the silk coverlet of the bed. 
 
 "She said nothing at first. Her hand turned suddenly 
 from cold to hot, and closed with a quick pressure on mine. 
 Her breathing became oppressed. When she spoke, it was 
 
252 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 with difficulty. She told me nothing; she only put a ques- 
 tion : 
 
 " ' Is he here ?' she asked. 
 
 " I said, ' Nobody is here but myself.' 
 
 "'Is there a letter?' 
 
 "I said, 'No.' 
 
 " She was silent for a while. Her hand turned cold ; 
 the grasp of her fingers loosened. She spoke again : * Be 
 quick, doctor ! Whatever it is, give it to me before I 
 die.' 
 
 " I risked the experiment ; I opened the locket, and put it 
 into her hand. 
 
 " So far as I could discover, she refrained from looking at 
 it at first. She said, ' Turn me in the bed, with my face to 
 the wall.' I obeyed her. With her back turned toward me 
 she lifted her veil ; and then (as I suppose) she looked at the 
 portrait. A long, low cry — not of sorrow or pain ; a cry of 
 rapture and delight — burst from her. I heard her kiss the 
 portrait. Accustomed as I am in my profession to piteous 
 sights and sounds, I never remember so completely losing 
 my self-control as I lost it at that moment. I was obliged to 
 turn away to the window. 
 
 " Hardly a minute can have passed before I was back again 
 at the bedside. In that brief interval she had changed. Her 
 voice had sunk again ; it was so weak that I could only hear 
 what she said by leaning over her and placing my ear close 
 to her lips. 
 
 " ' Put it round my neck,' she whispered. 
 
 "I clasped the chain of the locket round her neck. She 
 tried to lift her hand to it, but her strength failed her. 
 
 " ' Help me to hide it,' she said. 
 
 " I guided her hand. She hid the locket in her bosom, un- 
 der the white dressing-gown which she wore that day. The 
 oppression in her breathing increased. I raised her on the 
 pillow. The pillow was not high enough. I rested her head 
 
BE QUICK, DOCTOR! WHATEVER IT IS, GIVE IT TO ME BEFORE I DIE. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 255 
 
 on my shoulder, and partially opened her veil. She was able 
 to speak once more, feeling a momentary relief. 
 
 " ' Promise,' she said, ' that no stranger's hand shall touch 
 me. Promise to bury me as I am now.' 
 
 " I gave her my promise. 
 
 "Her failing breath quickened. She was just able to ar- 
 ticulate the next words : 
 
 " ' Cover my face again.' 
 
 "I drew the veil over her face. She rested a while in si- 
 lence. Suddenly the sound of her laboring respiration ceased. 
 She started, and raised her head from my shoulder. 
 
 " 'Are you in pain ?' I asked. 
 
 " ' I am in heaven !' she answered. 
 
 "Her head dropped back on my breast as she spoke. In 
 that last outburst of joy her last breath had passed. The 
 moment of her supreme happiness and the moment of her 
 death were one. The mercy of God had found her at last. 
 
 " I return to my letter before the post goes out. 
 
 " I have taken the necessary measures for the performance 
 of my promise. She will be buried with the portrait hidden 
 in her bosom, and with the black veil over her face. No no- 
 bler creature ever breathed the breath of life. Tell the stran- 
 ger who sent her his portrait that her last moments were joy- 
 ful moments, through his remembrance of her as expressed 
 by his gift. 
 
 " I observe a passage in yonr letter to which I have not 
 yet replied. You ask me if there was any more serious rea- 
 son for the persistent hiding of her face under the veil than 
 the reason which she was accustomed to give to the persons 
 about her. It is true that she suffered under a morbid sen- 
 sitiveness to the action of light. It is also true that this was 
 not the only result, or the worst result, of the malady that af- 
 flicted her. She had another reason for keeping her face hid- 
 den — a reason known to two persons only: to the doctor 
 who lives in the village near her father's house, and to my- 
 
256 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 self. We are both pledged never to divulge to any living 
 creature what our eyes alone have seen. We have kept our 
 terrible secret even from her father; and we shall carry it 
 with us to our graves. I have no more to say on this mel- 
 ancholy subject to the person in whose interest you write. 
 When he thinks of her now, let him think of the beauty which 
 no bodily affliction can profane — the beauty of the freed spir- 
 it, eternally happy in its union with the angels of God. 
 
 "I may add, before I close my letter, that the poor old fa- 
 ther will not be left in cheerless solitude at the lake house. 
 He will pass the remainder of his days under my roof, with 
 my good wife to take care of him, and my children to remind 
 him of the brighter side of life." 
 
 So the letter ended. I put it away, and went out. The 
 solitude of my room forewarned me unendurably of the com- 
 ing solitude in my own life. My interests in this busy world 
 were now narrowed to one object — to the care of my moth- 
 er's failing health. Of the two women whose hearts had once 
 beaten in loving sympathy with mine, one lay in her grave, 
 and the other was lost to me in a foreign land. On the 
 drive by the sea I met my mother, in her little pony-chaise, 
 moving slowly under the mild wintry sunshine. I dismissed 
 the man who was in attendance on her, and walked by the 
 side of the chaise, with the reins in my hand. We chatted 
 quietly on trivial subjects. I closed my eyes to the dreary 
 future that was before me, and tried, in the intervals of the 
 heart-ache, to live resignedly in the passing hour. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 257 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 THE PHYSICIAN'S OPINION. 
 
 Six months have elapsed. Summer-time has come again. 
 
 The last parting is over. Prolonged by my care, the days 
 of my mother's life have come to their end. She has died 
 in my arms : her last words have been spoken to me, her last 
 look on earth has been mine. I am now, in the saddest and 
 plainest meaning of the words, alone in the world. 
 
 The affliction which has befallen me has left certain duties 
 to be performed that require my presence in London. My 
 house is let ; I am staying at a hotel. My friend, Sir James 
 (also in London on business), has rooms near mine. We 
 breakfast and dine together in my sitting-room. For the mo- 
 ment solitude is dreadful to me, and yet I can not go into 
 society ; I shrink from persons who are mere acquaintances. 
 At Sir James's suggestion, however, one visitor at the hotel 
 has been asked to dine with us, who claims distinction as no 
 ordinary guest. The physician who first warned me of the 
 critical state of my mother's health is anxious to hear what 
 I can tell him of her last moments. His time is too precious 
 to be wasted in the earlier hours of the day, and he joins us 
 at the dinner-table when his patients leave him free to visit 
 his friends. 
 
 The dinner is nearly at an end. I have made the effort to 
 preserve my self-control; and in few words I have told the 
 simple story of my mother's last peaceful days on earth. The 
 conversation turns next on topics of little interest to me : my 
 mind rests after the effort that it has made; my observa- 
 tion is left free to exert itself as usual. 
 
258 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Little by little, while the talk goes on, I observe something 
 in the conduct of the celebrated physician which first puzzles 
 me, and then arouses my suspicion of some motive for his 
 presence which has not been acknowledged, and in which I 
 am concerned. 
 
 Over and over again I discover that his eyes are resting on 
 me with a furtive interest and attention which he seems anx- 
 ious to conceal. Over and over again I notice that he -con- 
 trives to divert the conversation from general topics, and to 
 lure me into talking of myself ; and, stranger still (unless I 
 am quite mistaken), Sir James understands and encourages 
 him. Under various pretenses I am questioned about what 
 I have suffered in the past, and what plans of life I have form- 
 ed for the future. Among other subjects of personal interest 
 to me, the subject of supernatural appearances is introduced. 
 I am asked if I believe in occult spiritual sympathies, and in 
 ghostly apparitions of dead or distant persons. I am dex- 
 terously led into hinting that my views on this difficult and de- 
 batable question are in some degree influenced by experiences 
 of my own. Hints, however, are not enough to satisfy the 
 doctor's innocent curiosity: he tries to induce me to relate in 
 detail what I have myself seen and felt. But by this time I 
 am on my guard ; I make excuses ; I steadily abstain from 
 taking my friend into my confidence. It is more and more 
 plain to me that I am being made the subject of an experi- 
 ment, in which Sir James and the physician are equally inter- 
 ested. Outwardly assuming to be guiltless of any suspicion 
 of what is going on, I inwardly determine to discover the 
 true motive for the doctor's presence that evening, and for 
 the part that Sir James has taken in inviting him to be my 
 guest. 
 
 Events favor my purpose soon after the dessert has been 
 placed on the table. 
 
 The waiter enters the room with a letter for me, and an- 
 nounces that the bearer waits to know if there is any answer. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 259 
 
 I open the envelope, and find inside a few lines from my law- 
 yers, announcing the completion of some formal matter of 
 business. I at once seize the opportunity that is offered to 
 me. Instead of sending a verbal message down-stairs, I make 
 my apologies, and use the letter as a pretext for leaving the 
 room. 
 
 Dismissing the messenger who waits below, I return to the 
 corridor in which my rooms are situated, and softly open the 
 door of my bed-chamber. A second door communicates with 
 the sitting-room, and has a ventilator in the upper part of it. 
 I have only to stand under the ventilator, and every word of 
 the conversation between Sir James and the physician reach- 
 es my ears. 
 
 " Then you think I am right ?" are the first words I hear, 
 in Sir James's voice. 
 
 " Quite right," the doctor answers. 
 
 " I have done my best to make him change his dull way 
 of life," Sir James proceeds. " I have asked him to pay a 
 visit to my house in Scotland; I have proposed traveling 
 with him on the Continent ; I have offered to take him with 
 me on my next voyage in the yacht. He has but one answer 
 — he simply says No to evei"y thing that I can suggest. You 
 have heard from his own lips that he has no definite plans 
 for the future. What is to become of him ? "What had we 
 better do?" 
 
 "It is not easy to say," I hear the physician reply. "To 
 speak plainly, the man's nervous system is seriously deranged. 
 I noticed something strange in him when he first came to 
 consult me about his mother's health. The mischief has not 
 been caused entirely by the affliction of her death. In my 
 belief, his mind has been — what shall I say ? — unhinged, for 
 some time past. He is a very reserved person. I suspect he 
 has been oppressed by anxieties which he has kept secret 
 from every one. At his age, the unacknowledged troubles of 
 life are generally troubles caused by women. It is in his tem- 
 
260 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 perament to take the romantic view of love ; and some mat- 
 ter-of-fact woman of the present day may have bitterly dis- 
 appointed him. "Whatever may be the cause, the effect is 
 plain — his nerves have broken down, and his brain is neces- 
 sarily affected by whatever affects his nerves. I have known 
 men in his condition who have ended badly. He may drift 
 into insane delusions, if his present course of life is not altered. 
 Did you hear what he said when we talked about ghosts ?" 
 
 " Sheer nonsense !" Sir James remarks. 
 
 " Sheer delusion would be the more correct form of expres- 
 sion," the doctor rejoins. "And other delusions may grow 
 out of it at any moment.'* 
 
 " What is to be done ?" persists Sir James. " I may real- 
 ly say for myself, doctor, that I feel a fatherly interest in the 
 poor fellow. His mother was one of my oldest and dearest 
 friends, and he has inherited many of her' engaging and en- 
 dearing qualities. I hope you don't think the case is bad 
 enough to be a case for restraint ?" 
 
 " Certainly not — as yet," answers the doctor. " So far 
 there is no positive brain disease; and there is accordingly 
 no sort of reason for placing him under restraint. It is es- 
 sentially a difficult and a doubtful case. Have him privately 
 looked after by a competent person, and thwart him in noth- 
 ing, if you can possibly help it. The merest trifle may excite 
 his suspicions ; and if that happens, we lose all control over 
 him." 
 
 " You don't think he suspects us already, do you, doctor ?" 
 
 " I hope not. I saw him once or twice look at me very 
 strangely ; and he has certainly been a long time out of the 
 room." 
 
 Hearing this, I wait* to hear no more. I return to the 
 sitting-room (by way of the corridor) and resume my place 
 at the table. 
 
 The indignation that I feel — naturally enough, I think, un- 
 der the circumstances — makes a good actor of me for once in 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 261 
 
 my life. I invent the necessary excuse for my long absence, 
 and take my part in the conversation, keeping the strictest 
 guard on every word that escapes me, without betraying any 
 appearance of restraint in my manner. Early in the evening 
 the doctor leaves us to go to a scientific meeting. For half 
 an hour more Sir James remains with me. By way (as I 
 suppose) of further testing the state of my mind, he renews 
 the invitation to his house in Scotland. I pretend to feel flat- 
 tered by his anxiety to secure me as his guest. I undertake 
 to reconsider my first refusal, and to give him a definite an- 
 swer when we meet the next morning at breakfast. Sir James 
 is delighted. We shake hands cordially, and wish each other 
 good-night. At last I am left alone. 
 
 My resolution a's to my next course of proceeding is formed 
 without a moment's hesitation. I determine to leave the ho- 
 tel privately the next morning before Sir James is out of his 
 bedroom. 
 
 To what destination I am to betake myself is naturally the 
 next question that arises, and this also I easily decide. During 
 the last days of my mother's life we spoke together frequent- 
 ly of the happy past days when we were living together on 
 the banks of the Greenwater lake. The longing thus inspired 
 to look once more at the old scenes, to live for a while again 
 among the old associations, has grown on me since my moth- 
 er's death. I have, happily for myself, not spoken of this 
 feeling to Sir James or to any other person. When I am 
 missed at the hotel, there will be no suspicion of the direction 
 in which I have turned my steps. To the old home in Suf- 
 folk I resolve to go the next morning. Wandering among 
 the scenes of my boyhood, I can consider with myself how I 
 may best bear. the burden of the life that lies before me. 
 
 After what I have heard that evening, I confide in nobody. 
 For all I know to the contrary, my own servant may be em- 
 ployed to-morrow as the spy who watches my actions. When 
 the manjtnakes his appearance to take his orders for the night, 
 
262 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I tell him to wake me at six the next morning, and release 
 him from further attendance. 
 
 I next employ myself in writing two letters. They will be 
 left on the table, to speak for themselves after my departure. 
 
 In the first letter I briefly inform Sir James that I have 
 discovered his true reason for inviting the doctor to dinner. 
 While I thank him for the interest he takes in my welfare, I 
 decline to be made the object of any further medical inquiries 
 as to the state of my mind. In due course of time, when my 
 plans are settled, he will hear from me again. Meanwhile he 
 need feel no anxiety about my safety. It is one among my 
 other delusions to believe that I am still perfectly capable of 
 taking care of myself. My second letter is addressed to the 
 landlord of the hotel, and simply provides for the disposal of 
 my luggage and the payment of my bill. 
 
 I enter my bedroom next, and pack a traveling-bag with 
 the few things that I can carry with me. My money is in 
 my dressing-case. Opening it, I discover my pretty keep- 
 sake — the green flag ! Can I return to " Green water Broad," 
 can I look again at the bailiff's cottage, without the one me- 
 morial of little Mary that I possess? Besides, have I not 
 promised Miss Dunross that Mary's gift shall always go with 
 me wherever I go ? and is the promise not doubly sacred now 
 that she is dead? For a while I sit idly looking at the de- 
 vice on the flag — the w"hite dove embroidered on the green 
 ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The inno- 
 cent love story of my early life returns to my memory, and 
 shows me in horrible contrast the life that I am leading now. 
 I fold up the flag, and place it carefully in my traveling-bag. 
 This done, all is done. I may rest till the morning comes. 
 
 No ! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is 
 no rest for me that night. 
 
 Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies em- 
 ployed, now that my first sense of triumph in the discomfiture 
 of the friends who have plotted against me has had time to 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 263 
 
 subside, my mind reverts to the conversation that I have 
 overheard, and considers it from a new point of view. For 
 the first time, the terrible question confronts me : The doc- 
 tor's opinion on my case has been given very positively. 
 How do I know that the doctor is not right ? 
 
 This famous physician has risen to the head of his profes- 
 sion entirely by his own abilities. He is not one of the med- 
 ical men who succeed by means of an ingratiating manner 
 and the dexterous handling of good opportunities. Even his 
 enemies admit that he stands unrivaled in the art of sepa- 
 rating the true conditions from the false in the discovery of 
 disease, and in tracing effects accurately to their distant and 
 hidden cause. Is such a man as this likely to be mistaken 
 about me ? Is it not far more probable that I am mistaken 
 in my judgment of myself ? 
 
 When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure 
 that the strange events which I recall may not, in certain 
 cases, be the visionary product of my own disordered brain — 
 realities to me, and to no one else ? What are the dreams 
 of Mrs. Van Brandt ? What are the ghostly apparitions of 
 her which I believe myself to have seen ? Delusions which 
 have.been the stealthy growth of years ? delusions which are 
 leading me, by slow degrees, nearer and nearer to madness 
 in the end? Is it insane suspicion which has made me so 
 angry with the good friends who have been trying to save 
 my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping 
 from the hotel like a criminal escaping from prison ? 
 
 These are the questions which torment me when I am 
 alone in the dead of night. My bed becomes a place of un- 
 endurable torture. I rise and dress myself, and wait for the 
 daylight, looking through my open window into the street. 
 
 The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes 
 to me like a deliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise 
 cheers my soul once more. Why should I wait in the room 
 that is still haunted by my horrible doubts of the night? I 
 
264 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 take up my traveling-bag; I leave my letters on the sitting- 
 room table ; and I descend the stairs to the house door. The 
 night-porter at the hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes 
 as I pass him ; and (God help me !) he too looks as if he 
 thought I was mad. 
 
 " Going to leave us already, sir ?" he says, looking at the 
 bag in my hand. 
 
 Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am 
 going out for a day in the country, and to make it a long day, 
 I must start early. 
 
 The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some 
 one to carry my bag. I decline to let any body be disturbed. 
 He inquires if I have any messages to leave for my friend. 
 I inform him that I have left written messages upstairs for 
 Sir James and the landlord. Upon this, he draws the bolts 
 and opens the door. To the last he looks at me as if he 
 thought I was mad. 
 
 Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? 
 How can I tell ? 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A LAST LOOK AT GBEENWATEB BBOAD. 
 
 My spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty- 
 streets, and breathed the fresh morning air. 
 
 Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped 
 at the first office that I passed, and secured my place by the 
 early coach to Ipswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses 
 to the market-town which was nearest to Greenwater Broad. 
 A walk of a few miles in the cool evening brought me, 
 through well- remembered by-roads, to our old house. By 
 the last rays of the setting sun I looked at the familiar row 
 of windows in front, and saw that the shutters were all closed. 
 Not a living creature was visible anywhere. Not even a dog 
 barked as I rang the great bell at the door. The place was 
 deserted ; the house was shut up. 
 
 After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An 
 old man opened the door. 
 
 Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our ten- 
 ants in the by - gone time. To his astonishment, I greeted 
 him by his name. On his side, he tried hard to recognize 
 me, and tried in vain. No doubt I was the more sadly 
 changed of the two: I was obliged to introduce myself. 
 The poor fellow's withered face brightened slowly and timid- 
 ly, as if he were half incapable, half afraid, of indulging in 
 the unaccustomed luxury of a smile. In his confusion he 
 bid me welcome home again, as if the house had been mine." 
 
 Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited,, 
 the old man gave me all he had to offer — a, supper of bacon 
 and eggs and a glass of home-brewed beer. He was evident- 
 
 12 
 
266 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ly puzzled to understand me when I informed him that the 
 only object of my visit was to look once more at the famil- 
 iar scenes round my old home. But he willingly placed his 
 services at my disposal ; and he engaged to do his best, if I 
 wished it, to make me up a bed for the night. \ 
 
 The house had been closed and the establishment of serv- 
 ants had been dismissed for more than a year past. A pas- 
 sion for horse -racing, developed late in life, had ruined the 
 rich retired tradesman who had purchased the estate at the 
 time of our family troubles. He had gone abroad with his 
 wife to live on the little income that had been saved from the 
 wreck of his fortune ; and he had left the house and lands in 
 such a state of neglect that no new purchaser had thus far 
 been found to take them. My old friend, "now past his 
 work," had been put in charge of the place. As for Der- 
 mody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I was at per- 
 fect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of 
 the door on the bunch with the others ; and here was the old 
 man, with his old hat on his head, ready to accompany me 
 wherever I pleased to go. I declined to trouble him to ac- 
 company me or to make up a bed in the lonely house. The 
 night was fine, the moon was rising. I had supped ; I had 
 rested. When I had seen what I wanted to see, I could easi- 
 ly walk back to the market-town and sleep at the inn. 
 
 Taking the key in my hand, I set forth alone on the way 
 through the grounds which led to Dermody's cottage. 
 
 Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had 
 once idled so happily with my little Mary. At every step I 
 saw something that reminded me of her. Here was the rustic 
 bench on which we had sat together under the shadow of 
 the old cedar-tree, and vowed to be constant to each other to 
 the end of our lives. There was the bright little water spring, 
 from which we drank when we were weary and thirsty in 
 sultry summer days, still bubbling its way downward to the 
 lake as cheerily as ever. As I listened to the companionable 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 267 
 
 murmur of the stream, I almost expected to see her again, in 
 her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to the music 
 of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild flowers by 
 dipping it in the cool water. A few steps farther on and I 
 reached a clearing in the wood, and stood on a little promon- 
 tory of rising ground which commanded the prettiest view 
 of the Greenwater lake. A platform of wood was built out 
 from the bank, to be used for bathing by good swimmers 
 who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water. I stood 
 on the platform and looked round me. The trees that fringed 
 the shore on either hand murmured their sweet sylvan music 
 in the night air ; the moonlight trembled softly on the rip- 
 pling water. Away on my right hand I could just see the 
 old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the days 
 when Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. 
 On my left was the wooden paling that followed the curves 
 of the winding creek, and beyond it rose the brown arches 
 of the decoy for wild fowl, now falling to ruin for want of 
 use. Guided by the radiant moonlight, I could see the very 
 spot on which Mary and I had stood to watch the snaring of 
 the ducks. Through the hole in the paling before which the 
 decoy-dog had shown himself, at Dermody's signal, a water-rat 
 now passed, like a little black shadow on the bright ground, 
 and was lost in the waters of the lake. Look where I might, 
 the happy by -gone time looked back in mockery, and the 
 voices of the past came to me with their burden of reproach : 
 See what your life was once ! Is your life worth living now ? 
 I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched 
 the circling ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I 
 wondered if a practiced swimmer like myself had ever tried 
 to commit suicide by drowning, and had been so resolute to 
 die that he had resisted the temptation to let his own skill 
 keep him from sinking. Something in the lake itself, or some- 
 thing in connection with the thought that it had put into my 
 mind, revolted me. I turned my back suddenly on the lonely 
 
268 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 view, and took the path through the wood which led to the 
 bailiff's cottage. 
 
 Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the 
 well-remembered parlor ; and, unbarring the window-shutters, 
 I let in the light of the moon. 
 
 With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture 
 — renewed, perhaps, in one or two places — asserted its mute 
 claim to my recognition in every part of the room. The ten- 
 der moonlight streamed slanting into the corner in which 
 Mary and I used to nestle together while Dame Dermody 
 was at the window reading her mystic books. Overshadow- 
 ed by the obscurity in the opposite corner, I discovered the 
 high-backed arm-chair of carved wood in which the Sibyl of 
 the cottage sat on the memorable day when she warned us of 
 our coming separation, and gave us her blessing for the last 
 time. Looking next round the walls of the room, I recognized 
 old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest — the gaudily 
 colored prints ; the framed pictures in fine needle-work, which 
 we thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular mirror 
 to which I used to lift Mary when she wanted " to see her 
 face in the glass." Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, 
 it showed me some familiar object that recalled my happiest 
 days. Again the by -gone time looked back in mockery. 
 Again the voices of the past came to me with their burden of 
 reproach : See what your life was once ! Is your life worth 
 living now? 
 
 I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, 
 here and there between the trees, the glimmer of the waters 
 of the lake. I thought to myself, "Thus far my mortal jour- 
 ney has brought me. Why not end it here ? >? 
 
 Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to- 
 morrow ? Of all living men, I had perhaps the smallest num- 
 ber of friends, the fewest duties to perform toward others, 
 the least reason to hesitate at leaving a world which had no 
 place in it for my ambition, no creature in it for my love. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 269 
 
 Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known 
 that my death was a death of my own seeking? It could 
 easily be left to represent itself as a death by accident. 
 
 On that fine summer night, and after a long day of travel- 
 ing, might I not naturally take a bath in the cool water be- 
 fore I went to bed ? And, practiced as I was in the exercise 
 of swimming, might it not nevertheless be my misfortune to 
 be attacked by cramp? On the lonely shores of Greenwa- 
 ter Broad the cry of a drowning man would bring no help at 
 night. The fatal accident would explain itself. There was 
 literally but one difficulty in the way — the difficulty which 
 had already occurred to my mind. Could I sufficiently mas- 
 ter the animal instinct of self-preservation to deliberately let 
 myself sink at the first plunge ? 
 
 The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went 
 out, and walked to and fro — now in the shadow, and now in 
 the moonlight — under the trees before the cottage door. 
 
 Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influ- 
 ence over me now. I, who had once found it impossible to 
 excuse, impossible even to understand, the despair which had 
 driven Mrs. Van Brandt to attempt self-destruction — I now 
 contemplated with composure the very act which had horri- 
 fied me when I saw it committed by , another person. Well 
 may we hesitate to condemn the frailties of our fellow-creat- 
 ures, for the one unanswerable reason that we can never feel 
 sure how soon similar temptations may not lead us to be 
 guilty of the same frailties ourselves. Looking back at the 
 events of the night, I can recall but one consideration that 
 stayed my feet on the fatal path which led back to the lake. 
 I still doubted whether it would be possible for such a swim- 
 mer as I was to drown himself. This was all that troubled 
 my mind. For the rest, my will was made, and I had few 
 other affairs which remained unsettled. No lingering hope 
 was left in me of a reunion in the future with Mrs. Van 
 Brandt. She had never written to me again ; I had never, 
 
270 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 since our last parting, seen her again in my dreams. She was 
 doubtless reconciled to her life abroad. I forgave her for 
 having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of others were 
 the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was withdrawn 
 already from the world, whose views were narrowing fast to 
 the one idea of his own death. 
 
 I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of 
 the place began to oppress me. The sense of my own inde- 
 cision irritated my nerves. After a long look at the lake 
 through the trees, I came to a positive conclusion at last. I 
 determined to try if a good swimmer could drown himself. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 271 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 A VISION OF THE NIGHT. 
 
 Returning to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the win- 
 dow aud opened my pocket-book at a blank page. I had cer- 
 tain directions to give to my representatives, which might 
 spare them some trouble and uncertainty in the event of my 
 death. Disguising my last instructions under the common- 
 place heading of " Memoranda on my return to London," I 
 began to write. 
 
 I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turn- 
 ed to the next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fix- 
 ing my attention on the subject that was before it. I was at 
 once reminded of the similar difficulty which I felt in Shet- 
 land, when I had tried vainly to arrange the composition of 
 the letter to my mother which Miss Dunross was to write. 
 By way of completing the parallel, my thoughts wandered 
 now, as they had wandered then, to my latest remembrance 
 of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a minute or two I began to feel 
 once more the strange physical sensations which I had first 
 experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's house. The same 
 mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to 
 foot. I looked about me again, with no distinct conscious- 
 ness of what the objects were on which my eyes rested. My 
 nerves trembled, on that lovely summer night, as if there had 
 been an electric disturbance in the atmosphere and a storm 
 coming. I laid my pocket-book and pencil on the table, and 
 rose to go out again under the trees. Even the trifling effort 
 to cross the room was an effort made in vain. I stood root- 
 
272 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 ed to the spot, with my face turned toward the moonlight 
 streaming in at the open door. 
 
 An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the 
 door, I became aware of something moving far down among 
 the trees that fringed the shore of the lake. The first im- 
 pression produced on me was of two gray shadows winding 
 their way slowly toward me between the trunks of the trees. 
 By fine degrees the shadows assumed a more and more mark- 
 ed outline, until they presented themselves in the likeness of 
 two robed figures, one taller than the other. While they 
 glided nearer and nearer, their gray obscurity of hue melted 
 away. They brightened softly with an inner light of their 
 own as they slowly approached the open space before the 
 door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly presence of 
 Mrs. Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I beheld 
 a second apparition never before revealed to me, the appari- 
 tion of her child. 
 
 Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through 
 the bright moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The 
 mother's face looked at me once more with the sorrowful and 
 pleading eyes which I remembered so well. But the face of 
 the child was innocently radiant with an angelic smile. I 
 waited in unutterable expectation for the word that was to 
 be spoken, for the movement that was to come. The move- 
 ment came first. The child released its hold on the mother's 
 hand, and floating slowly upward, remained poised in mid-air 
 — a softly glowing presence shining out of the dark back- 
 ground of the trees. The mother glided into the room, and 
 stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and 
 pencil when I could no longer write. As before, she took the 
 pencil and wrote on the blank page. As before, she beckon- 
 ed to me to step nearer to her. I approached her outstretch- 
 ed hand, and felt once more the mysterious rapture of her 
 touch on my bosom, and heard once more her low, melodious 
 tones repeating the words, " Remember me. Come to me." 
 
SHE TOOK THE PENCIL AND WROTE ON THE BLANK PAGE. 
 12* 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 275 
 
 Her hand dropped from my bosom. The pale light which 
 revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. She had spo- 
 ken. She had gone. 
 
 I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, 
 in the writing of the ghostly hand, these words only : 
 
 "Follow the Child." 
 
 I looked out again at the lonely night landscape. 
 
 There, in mid -air, shining softly out of the dark back- 
 ground of the trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the 
 child. 
 
 Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed 
 the threshold of the door. The softly glowing vision of the 
 child moved away before me among the trees. I followed, 
 like a man spell-bound. The apparition, floating slowly on- 
 ward, led me out of the wood, and past my old home, back to 
 the lonely by-road along which I had walked from the mar- 
 ket-town to the house. From time to time, as we two went 
 on our way, the bright figure of the child paused, hovering 
 low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant face looked down smil- 
 ing on me ; it beckoned with its little hand, and floated on 
 again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages in the 
 olden time. 
 
 I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, 
 hovering over the house at which I had left my traveling- 
 carriage in the evening. I ordered the horses to be harness- 
 ed again for another journey. The postilion waited for his 
 further directions. I looked up. The child's hand was point- 
 ing southward, aloDg the road that led to London. I gave 
 the man his instructions to return to the place at which I 
 had hired the carriage. At intervals, as we proceeded, I look- 
 ed out through the window. The bright figure of the child 
 still floated on before me, gliding low in the cloudless sky. 
 Changing the horses stage by stage, I went on till the night 
 ended — went on till the sun rose in the eastern heaven. And 
 
216 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 still, whether it was dark or whether it was light, the figure 
 of the child floated on before me in its changeless and mystic 
 light. Mile after mile, it still led the way southward, till we 
 left the country behind us, and, passing through the din and 
 turmoil of the great city, stopped under the shadow of the 
 ancient Tower, within view of the river that runs by it. 
 
 The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had fur- 
 ther need of his services. I had called to him to stop, when 
 I saw the figure of the child pause on its airy course. I 
 looked upward again. The child's hand pointed toward the 
 river. A paid the postilion and left the carriage. Floating 
 on before me, the child led the way to a wharf crowded with 
 travelers and their luggage. A vessel lay along-side of the 
 wharf ready to sail. The child led me on board the vessel 
 and paused again, hovering over me in the smoky air. 
 
 I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radi- 
 ant smile, and pointed eastward down the river toward the 
 distant sea. While my eyes were still fixed on the softly 
 glowing figure, 1 saw it fade away upward and upward into 
 the higher light, as the lark vanishes upward and upward in 
 the morning sky. I was alone again with my earthly fellow- 
 beings — left with no clue to guide me but the remembrance 
 of the child's hand pointing eastward to the distant sea. 
 
 A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on 
 the deck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. 
 The man looked at me in surly amazement, and answered, 
 
 "To Rotterdam." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 277 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 BT LAND AND SEA. 
 
 It mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. 
 Go where I might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van 
 Brandt. She had need of me again; she had claimed me 
 again. Where the visionary hand of the child had pointed, 
 thither I was destined to go. Abroad or at home, it matter- 
 ed nothing : when I next set my foot on the land, I should be 
 further directed on the journey which lay before me. I be- 
 lieved this as firmly as I believed that I had been guided, 
 thus far, by the vision of the child. 
 
 For two nights I had not slept — my weariness overpower- 
 ed me. I descended to the cabin, and found an unoccupied 
 corner in which I could lie down to rest. When I awoke, it 
 was night already, and the vessel was at sea. 
 
 I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the 
 sensation of drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours 
 together. My friend, the physician, would no doubt have at- 
 tributed this prolonged need of repose to the exhausted con- 
 dition of my brain, previously excited by delusions which 
 had lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let 
 the cause be what it might, during the greater part of the 
 voyage I was awake at intervals only. The rest of the time 
 I lay, like a weary animal, lost in sleep. 
 
 When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceed- 
 ing was to ask my way to the English Consulate. I had but 
 a small sum of money with me ; and, for all I knew to the 
 contrary, it might be well, before I did any thing else, to take 
 the necessary measures for replenishing my purse. 
 
278 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I had my traveling - bag with me. On the journey to 
 Greenwater Broad I had left it at the inn in the market-town, 
 and the waiter had placed it in the carriage when I started 
 on my return to London. The bag contained my check-book, 
 and certain letters which assisted me in proving my identity 
 to the consul. He kindly gave me the necessary introduc- 
 tion to the correspondents at Rotterdam of my bankers in 
 London. 
 
 Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain 
 necessaries of which I stood in need, I walked slowly along 
 the street, knowing nothing of what my next proceeding was 
 to be, and waiting confidently for the event which was to 
 guide me. I had not walked a hundred yards before I no- 
 ticed the name of " Van Brandt " inscribed on the window- 
 blinds of a house which appeared to be devoted to mercantile 
 purposes. 
 
 The street door stood open. A second door, on one side 
 of the passage, led into the office. I entered the room and 
 inquired for Mr. Van Brandt. A clerk who spoke English 
 was sent for to communicate with me. He told me there 
 were three partners of that name in the business, and inquired 
 which of them I wished to see. I remembered Van Brandt's 
 Christian name, and mentioned it. No such person as " Mr. 
 Ernest Van Brandt " was known at the office. 
 
 " We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt 
 here," the clerk explained. " The head office is at Amster- 
 dam. They may know where Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is to 
 be found, if you inquire thei'e." 
 
 It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was 
 on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel 
 that day; I slept at a hotel. The night passed quietly and 
 uneventfully. The next morning I set forth by the public 
 conveyance for Amsterdam. 
 
 Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I 
 was referred to one of the partners in the firm* He spoke 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 279 
 
 English perfectly; and he received me with an appearance 
 of interest which I was at a loss to account for at first. 
 
 "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. 
 " May I ask if you are a relative or friend of the English lady 
 who has been introduced here as his wife ?" 
 
 I answered in the affirmative ; adding, " I am here to give 
 any assistance to the lady of which she may stand in need." 
 
 The merchant's next words explained the appearance of 
 interest with which he had received me. 
 
 " You are most welcome," he said. " You relieve my part- 
 ners and myself of a great anxiety. I can only explain what 
 I mean by referring for a moment to the business affairs of 
 my firm. We have a fishing establishment in the ancient 
 city of Enkhuizen, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee. Mr. 
 Ernest Van Brandt had a share in it at one time, which he 
 afterward sold. Of late years our profits from this source 
 have been diminishing; and we think of giving up the fish- 
 ery, unless our prospects in that quarter improve after a fur- 
 ther trial. In the mean time, having a vacant situation in 
 the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of Mr. Ernest 
 Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing 
 his connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is re- 
 lated to one of my partners ; but I am bound in truth to tell 
 you that he is a very bad man. He has rewarded us for our 
 kindness to him by embezzling our money ; and he has taken 
 to flight — in what direction we have not yet discovered. 
 The English lady and her child are left deserted at Enkhui- 
 zen ; and until you came here to-day we were quite at a loss 
 to know what to do with them. I don't know whether you 
 are already aware of it, sir; but the lady's position is made 
 doubly distressing by doubts which we entertain of her being 
 really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To our certain knowl- 
 edge, he was privately married to another woman some years 
 since ; and we have no evidence whatever that the first wife 
 is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your un- 
 
280 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 fortunate countrywoman, pray believe that our services are at 
 your disposal." 
 
 With what breathless interest I listened to these words it 
 is needless to say. Van Brandt had deserted her ! Surely 
 (as my poor mother had once said) " she must turn to me 
 now." The hopes that had abandoned me filled my heart 
 once more ; the future which I had so long feared to contem- 
 plate showed itself again bright with the promise of coming 
 happiness to my view. I thanked the good merchant with a 
 fervor that surprised him. " Only help me to find my way 
 to Enkhuizen," I said, " and I will answer for the rest." 
 
 "The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant 
 replied. "Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have 
 you money?" 
 
 " Plenty of money." 
 
 " Very good ! The rest will be easy enough. I will place 
 you under the care of a countryman of yours, who has been 
 employed in our office for many years. The easiest way for 
 you, as a stranger, will be to go by sea ; and the Englishman 
 will show you where to hire a boat." 
 
 In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to 
 the harbor. 
 
 Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding 
 the boat and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next 
 necessary to purchase provisions for the voyage. Thanks to 
 the experience of my companion, and to the hearty good-will 
 with which he exerted it, my preparations were completed 
 before night-fall. I was able tP set sail for my destination on 
 the next day. 
 
 The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuy- 
 der Zee, of being large, and of drawing very little water ; the 
 captain's cabin was at the stern; and the two or three men 
 who formed his crew were berthed forward, in the bows. 
 The whole middle of the boat, partitioned off on the one side 
 and on the other from the captain and the crew, was assigned 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 281 
 
 to me for my cabin. Under these circumstances, I had no 
 reason to complain of want of space; the vessel measuring 
 between fifty and sixty tons. I had a comfortable bed, a 
 table, and chairs. The kitchen was well away from me, in 
 the forward part of the boat. At my own request, I set 
 forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I pre- 
 ferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, 
 at a former period of his life, in the mercantile navy of 
 France ; and we could communicate, whenever it was neces- 
 sary or desirable, in the French language. 
 
 We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed 
 over the smooth waters of the lake T on our way to the Zuy- 
 der Zee. 
 
 The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. 
 In the days when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no 
 existence. Where the waves now roll, vast tracts of forest 
 surrounded a great inland lake, with but one river to serve it 
 as an outlet to the sea. Swelled by a succession of tempests, 
 the lake overflowed its boundaries: its furious waters, de- 
 stroying every obstacle in their course, rested only when they 
 reached the farthest limits of the land. 
 
 The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the 
 gaps of ruin ; and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as 
 we know it now. The years advanced, the generations of 
 man succeeded each other; and on the shores of the new 
 ocean there rose great and populous cities, rich in commerce, 
 renowned in history. For centuries their prosperity lasted, 
 before the next in this mighty series of changes ripened and 
 revealed itself. Isolated from the rest of the world, vain of 
 themselves and their good fortune, careless of the march of 
 progress in the nations round them, the inhabitants of the 
 Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor of a secluded 
 people. The few members of the population who still pre- 
 served the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the 
 mass left behind resignedly witnessed the diminution of their 
 
282 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 commerce and the decay of their institutions. As the years 
 advanced to the nineteenth century, the population was reck- 
 oned by hundreds where it had once been numbered by thou- 
 sands. Trade disappeared ; whole streets were left desolate. 
 Harbors, once filled with shipping, were destroyed by the un- 
 resisted accumulation of sand. In our own times the decay 
 of these once flourishing cities is so completely beyond reme- 
 dy, that the next great change in contemplation is the drain- 
 ing of the now dangerous and useless tract of water, and the 
 profitable cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations 
 that are still to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story 
 of the Zuyder Zee. 
 
 As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed 
 the tawny hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color 
 the shallow water, and which make the navigation dangerous 
 to inexperienced seamen. We found our moorings for the 
 night at the fishing island of Marken — a low, lost, desolate- 
 looking place, as I saw it under the last gleams of the twi- 
 light. Here and there, the gabled cottages, perched on hill- 
 ocks, rose black against the dim gray sky. Here and there, 
 a human figure appeared at the water-side, standing, fixed in 
 contemplation of the strange boat. And that was all I saw 
 of the island of Marken. 
 
 Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there 
 were moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the 
 reality of my own position. 
 
 Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision 
 of the mother and daughter ; my journey back to the metrop- 
 olis, led by the apparition of the child ; my voyage to Hol- 
 land ; my night anchorage in the unknown sea — were these, 
 so to speak, all pieces of the same morbid mental puzzle, all 
 delusions from which I might wake at any moment, and find 
 myself restored to my senses again in the hotel at London? 
 Bewildered by doubts which led me farther and farther from 
 any definite conclusion, I left my bed, and went on deck to 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 283 
 
 change the scene. It was a still and cloudy night. In the 
 black void around me, the island was a blacker shadow yet, 
 and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears was 
 the heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on 
 either side of me. I waited, looking round and round the 
 circle of darkness in which I stood. No new vision showed 
 itself. When I returned again to the cabin, and slumbered 
 at last, no dreams came to me. All that was mysterious, all 
 that 'was marvelous, in the later events of my life seemed to 
 have been left behind me in England. Once in Holland, my 
 course had been influenced by circumstances which were per- 
 fectly natural, by commonplace discoveries which might have 
 revealed themselves to any man in my position. What did 
 this mean ? Had my gifts as a seer of visions departed from 
 me in the new land and among the strange people ? Or had 
 my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my 
 mortal pilgrimage were to find their end ? Who could say ? 
 
 Early the next morning we set sail once more. 
 
 Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me 
 was the tawny sea, changing under certain conditions of the 
 weather to a dull pearl-gray. On the other side was the flat, 
 winding coast, composed alternately of yellow sand and 
 bright-green meadow-lands ; diversified at intervals by towns 
 and villages, whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples 
 rose gayly against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested 
 to me to visit the famous towns of Edam and Hoorn ; but I 
 declined to go on shore. My one desire was to reach the 
 ancient city in which Mrs. Van Brandt had been left desert- 
 ed. As we altered our course, to make for the promonto- 
 ry on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind fell, then shifted 
 to another quarter, and blew with a force which greatly in- 
 creased the difficulties of navigation. I still insisted, as long 
 as it was possible to do so, on holding on our course. After 
 sunset, the strength of the wind abated. The night came 
 without a cloud, and the starry firmament gave us its pale 
 
284 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious wind 
 shifted back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sail- 
 ed into the desolate harbor of Enkhuizen. 
 
 The captain and crew, fatigued by their exertions, eat their 
 frugal suppers, and went to their beds. In a few minutes 
 more, I was the only person left awake in the boat. 
 
 I ascended to the deck, and looked about me. 
 
 Our boat was moored to a deserted quay. Excepting a 
 few fishing vessels visible near us, the harbor of this once 
 prosperous place was a vast solitude of water, varied here 
 and there by dreary banks of sand. Looking inland, I saw 
 the lonely buildings of the Dead City — black, grim, and 
 dreadful under the mysterious starlight. Not a human creat- 
 ure, not even a stray animal, was to be seen anywhere. The 
 place might have been desolated by a pestilence, so empty 
 and so lifeless did it now appear. Little more than a hun- 
 dred years ago, the record of its population reached sixty 
 thousand. The inhabitants had dwindled to a tenth of that 
 number when I looked at Enkhuizen now ! 
 
 I'considered with myself what my next course of proceed- 
 ing was to be. 
 
 The chances were certainly against my discovering Mrs. 
 Van Brandt if I ventured, alone and unguided, into the city 
 at night. On the other hand, now that I had reached the 
 place in which she and her child were living, friendless and 
 deserted, could I patiently wait through the weary interval 
 that must elapse before the morning came and the town was 
 astir? I knew my own self-tormenting disposition too well 
 to accept this latter alternative. Whatever came of it, I 
 determined to walk through Enkhuizen on the bare chance 
 of meeting some one who might inform me of Mrs. Van 
 Brandt's address. 
 
 First taking the precaution of locking my cabin door, I 
 stepped from, the bulwark of the vessel to the lonely quay, and 
 set forth upon my night wanderings through the Dead City. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 285 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 UNDEB THE WINDOW. 
 
 I set the position of the harbor by my pocket-compass, 
 and then followed the course of the first street that lay before 
 me. 
 
 On either side, as I advanced, the desolate old houses 
 frowned on me. There were no lights in the windows, no 
 lamps in the streets. For a quarter of an hour at least I pen- 
 etrated deeper and deeper into the city, without encounter- 
 ing a living creature on my way — with only the starlight to 
 guide me. Turning by chance into a street broader than the 
 rest, I at last saw a moving figure, just visible ahead, under 
 the shadows of the houses. I quickened my pace, and found 
 myself following a man in the dress of a peasant. Hearing 
 my footsteps behind him, he turned and looked at me. Dis- 
 covering that I was a stranger, he lifted a thick cudgel that 
 he carried with him, shook it threateningly, and called to me 
 in his own language (as I gathered by his actions) to stand 
 back. A stranger in Enkhuizen at that time of night was 
 evidently reckoned as a robber in the estimation of this citi- 
 zen ! I had learned on the voyage, from the captain of the 
 boat, how to ask my way in Dutch, if I happened to be by 
 myself in a strange town; and I now repeated my lesson, 
 asking my way to the fishing office of Messrs. Van Brandt. 
 Either my foreign accent made me unintelligible, or the man's 
 suspicions disinclined him to trust me. Again he shook his 
 cudgel, and again he signed to me to stand back. It was 
 useless to persist. I crossed to the opposite side of the way, 
 and soon afterward lost sight of him under the portico of a 
 house. 
 
286 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 Still following the windings of the deserted streets, I reach- 
 ed what I at first supposed to be the end of the town. 
 
 Before me, for half a mile or more (as well as I could guess), 
 rose a tract of meadow-land, with sheep dotted over it at in- 
 tervals reposing for the night. I advanced over the grassy 
 and observed here and there, where the ground rose a little, 
 some moldering fragments of brick-work. Looking onward 
 as I reached the middle of the meadow, I perceived on its 
 farther side, towering gaunt and black in the night, a lofty 
 arch or gate-way, without walls at its sides, without a neigh- 
 boring building of any sort, far or near. This (as I after- 
 ward learned) was one of the ancient gates of the city. The 
 walls, crumbling to ruin, had been destroyed as useless obsta- 
 cles that cumbered the ground. On the waste meadow-land 
 round me had once stood the shops of the richest merchants, 
 the palaces of the proudest nobles, of North Holland. I was 
 actually standing on what had been formerly the wealthy 
 quarter of Enkhuizen ! And what was left of it now ? A 
 few mounds of bi-oken bricks, a pasture-land of sweet-smell- 
 ing grass, and a little flock of sheep sleeping. 
 
 The mere desolation of the view (apart altogether from its 
 history) struck me with a feeling of horror. My mind seem- 
 ed to lose its balance in the dreadful stillness that was round 
 me. I felt unutterable forebodings of calamities to come. 
 For the first time, I repented having left England. My 
 thoughts turned regretfully to the woody shores of Green- 
 water Broad. If I had only held to my resolution, I might 
 have been at rest now in the deep waters of the lake. For 
 what had I lived and planned and traveled since I left Der- 
 mody's cottage ? Perhaps only to find that I had lost the 
 woman whom I loved — now that I was in the same town 
 with her ! 
 
 Regaining the outer rows of houses still left standing, I 
 looked about me, intending to return by the street which was 
 known to me already. Just as I thought I had discovered 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 287 
 
 it, I DOticed another living creature in the solitary city. A 
 man was standing at the door of one of the outermost houses 
 on my right hand, looking at me. 
 
 At the risk of meeting with another rough reception, I 
 determined to make a last effort to discover Mrs. Van Brandt 
 before I returned to the boat. 
 
 Seeing that I was approaching him, the stranger met me 
 midway. His dress and manner showed plainly that I had 
 not encountered this time a person in the lower ranks of life. 
 He answered my question civilly in his own language. See- 
 ing that I was at a loss to understand what he said, he in- 
 vited me by signs to follow him. After walking for a few 
 minutes in a direction which was quite new to me, we stop- 
 ped in a gloomy little square, with a plot of neglected gar- 
 den-ground in the middle of it. Pointing to a lower window 
 in one of the houses, in which a light dimly appeared, my 
 guide said in Dutch, " Office of Van Brandt, sir," bowed, and 
 left me. 
 
 I advanced to the window. It was open, and it was just 
 high enough to be above my head. The light in the room 
 found its way outward through the interstices of closed 
 wooden shutters. Still haunted by misgivings of trouble to 
 come, I hesitated to announce my arrival precipitately by 
 ringing the house-bell. How did I know what new calamity 
 might not confront me when the door was opened ? I wait- 
 ed under the window and listened. 
 
 Hardly a minute passed before I heard a woman's voice in 
 the room. There was no mistaking the charm of those tones. 
 It was the voice of Mrs. Van Brandt. 
 
 " Come, darling !" she said. " It is very late — you ought 
 to have been in bed two hours ago." 
 
 The child's voice answered, " I am not sleepy, mamma." 
 
 " But, my dear, remember you have been ill. You may be 
 ill again if you keep out of bed so late as this. Only lie down, 
 and you will soon fall asleep when I put the candle out." 
 
288 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " You must not put the candle out !" the child returned, 
 with strong emphasis. "My new papa is coming. How is 
 he to find his way to us, if you put out the light ?" 
 
 The mother answered sharply, as if the child's strange 
 words had irritated her. 
 
 " You are talking nonsense," she said ; " and you must go 
 to bed. Mr. Germaine knows nothing about us. Mr. Ger- 
 maine is in England." 
 
 I could restrain myself no longer. I called out under the 
 window, 
 
 " Mr. Germaine is here !" 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 289 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 LOVE AND PEIDE. 
 
 A cet of terror from the room told me that I had been 
 heard. For a moment more nothing happened. Then the 
 child's voice reached me, wild and shrill : " Open the shut- 
 ters, mamma ! I said he was coming — I want to see him !" 
 
 There was still an interval of hesitation before the mother 
 opened the shutters. She did it at last. I saw her darkly at 
 the window, with the light behind her, and the child's head 
 just visible above the lower part of the window-frame. The 
 quaint little face moved rapidly up and down, as if my self- 
 appointed daughter were dancing for joy ! 
 
 " Can I trust my own senses ?" said Mrs. Van Brandt. " Is 
 it really Mr. Germaine ?" 
 
 "How do you do, new papa?" cried the child. "Push 
 open the big door, and come in. I want to kiss you." 
 
 There was a world of difference between the coldly doubt- 
 ful tone of the mother and the joyous greeting of the child. 
 Had I forced myself too suddenly on Mrs. Van Brandt? 
 Like all sensitively organized persons, she possessed that in- 
 bred sense of self-respect which is pride under another name., 
 Was her pride wounded at the bare idea of my seeing her, 
 deserted as well as deceived — abandoned contemptuously, a 
 helpless burden on strangers — by the man for whom she had 
 sacrificed and suffered so much ? And that man a thief, fly- 
 ing from the employers whom he had cheated! I pushed 
 open the heavy oaken street-door, fearing that this might be 
 the true explanation of the change which I had already re- 
 marked in her. My apprehensions were confirmed when she 
 
 13 
 
290 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 unlocked the inner door, leading from the court-yard to the 
 sitting-room, and let me in. 
 
 As I took her by both hands and kissed her, she turned her 
 head, so that my lips touched her cheek only. She flushed 
 deeply ; her eyes looked away from me as she spoke her few 
 formal words of welcome. When the child flew into my 
 arms, she cried out, irritably, " Don't trouble Mr. Germaine !" 
 I took a chair, with the little one on my knee. Mrs. Van 
 Brandt seated herself at a distance from me. " It is needless, 
 I suppose, to ask you if you know what has happened," she 
 said, turning pale again as suddenly as she had turned red, 
 and keeping her eyes fixed obstinately on the floor. 
 
 Before I could answer, the child burst out with the news of 
 her father's disappearance in these words: 
 
 " My other papa has run away ! My other papa has stolen 
 money ! It's time I had a new one, isn't it ?" She put her 
 arms round my neck. " And now I've got him !" she cried, at 
 the shrillest pitch of her voice. 
 
 The mother looked at us. For a while, the proud, sensitive 
 woman struggled successfully with herself ; but the pang that 
 wrung her was not to be endured in silence. With a low 
 cry of pain, she hid her face in her hands. Overwhelmed 
 by the sense of her own degradation, she was even ashamed 
 to let the man who loved her see that she was in tears. 
 
 I took the child off my knee. There was a second door in 
 the sitting-room, which happened to be left open. It showed 
 me a bed-chamber within, and a candle burning on the toilet- 
 table. 
 
 " Go in there and play," I said. " I want to talk to your 
 mamma." 
 
 The child pouted: my proposal did not appear to tempt 
 her. " Give me something to play with," she said. " I'm 
 tired of my toys. Let me see what you have got in your 
 pockets." 
 
 Her busy little hands began to search in my coat-pookets. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 291 
 
 I let her take what she pleased, and so bribed her to run 
 away into the inner room. As soon as she was out of sight, 
 I approached the poor mother and seated myself by her side. 
 
 " Think of it as I do," I said. " Now that he has forsaken 
 you, he has left you free to be mine." 
 
 She lifted her head instantly ; her eyes flashed through her 
 tears. 
 
 "Now that he has forsaken me," she answered, "I am more 
 unworthy of you than ever !" 
 
 "Why?" I asked. 
 
 " "Why !" she repeated, passionately. " Has a woman not 
 reached the lowest depths of degradation when she has lived 
 to be deserted by a thief ?" 
 
 It was hopeless to attempt to reason with her in her pres- 
 ent frame of mind. I tried to attract her attention to a less 
 painful subject by referring to the strange succession of 
 events which had brought me to her for the third time. She 
 stopped me impatiently at the outset. 
 
 " It seems useless to say once more what we have said on 
 other occasions," she answered. "I understand what has 
 brought you here. I have appeared to you again in a vision, 
 just as I appeared to you twice before." 
 
 "No," I said. "Not as yon appeared to me twice before. 
 This time I saw you with the child by your side." 
 
 That reply roused her. She started, and looked nervously 
 toward the bed-chamber door. 
 
 " Don't speak loud !" she said. " Don't let the child, hear 
 us ! My dream of yoa this time has left a painful impression 
 on my mind. The child is mixed up in it — and I don't like 
 that. Then the place in which I saw you is associated — " 
 She paused, leaving the sentence unfinished. " I am nervous 
 and wretched to-night," she resumed ; " and I don't want to 
 speak of it. And yet, I should like to know whether my 
 dream has misled me, or whether you really were in that cot- 
 tage, of all places in the world ?" 
 
292 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I was at a loss to understand the embarrassment which, she 
 appeared to feel in putting her question. There was nothing 
 very wonderful, to my mind, in the discovery that she had 
 been in Suffolk, and that she was acquainted with Greenwa- 
 ter Broad. The lake was known all over the county as a fa- 
 vorite resort of picnic parties ; and Dermody's pretty cottage 
 used to be one of the popular attractions of the scene. What 
 really surprised me was to see, as I now plainly saw, that she 
 had some painful association with my old home. I decided 
 on answering her question in such terms as might encourage 
 her to take me "into her confidence. In a moment more, I 
 should have told her that my boyhood had been passed at 
 Greenwater Broad — in a moment more, we should have rec- 
 ognized each other — when a trivial interruption suspended 
 the words on my lips. The child ran out of the bed-chamber, 
 with a quaintly shaped key in her hand. It was one of the 
 things she had taken out of my pockets, and it belonged to the 
 cabin, door on board the boat. A sudden fit of curiosity (the 
 insatiable curiosity of a child) had seized her on the subject 
 of this key. She insisted on knowing what door it locked ; 
 and, when I had satisfied her on that point, she implored me 
 to take her immediately to see the boat. This entreaty led 
 naturally to a renewal of the disputed question of going, or 
 not going, to bed. By the time the little creature had left us 
 again, with permission to play for a few minutes longer, the 
 conversation between Mrs. Van Brandt and myself had taken 
 a new direction. Speaking now of the child's health, we were 
 led naturally to the kindred subject of the child's connection 
 with her mother's dream. 
 
 " She had been ill with fever," Mrs. Van Brandt began ; 
 " and she was just getting better again on the day when I was 
 left deserted in this miserable place. Toward evening, she 
 had another attack that frightened me dreadfully. She be- 
 came perfectly insensible — her little limbs were stiff and cold. 
 There is one doctor here who has not yet abandoned the 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 293 
 
 town. Of course, I sent for him. He thought her insensi- 
 bility was caused by a sort of cataleptic seizure. At the same 
 time, he comforted me by saying that she was in no imme- 
 diate danger of death ; and he left me certain remedies to be 
 given, if certain symptoms appeared. I took her to bed, and 
 held her to me, with the idea of keeping her warm. With- 
 out believing in mesmerism, it has since struck me that we 
 might unconsciously have had some influence over each 
 other, which may explain what followed. Do you think it 
 likely?" 
 
 "Quite likely. At the same time, the mesmeric theory 
 (if you could believe in it) would carry the explanation far- 
 ther still. Mesmerism would assert, not only that you and 
 the child influenced each other, but that — in spite of the dis- 
 tance — you both influenced me. And in that way, mesmer- 
 ism would account for my vision as the necessary result of a 
 highly developed sympathy between us. Tell me, did you 
 fall asleep with the child in your arms ?" 
 
 " Yes. I was completely worn out ; and I fell asleep, in 
 spite of my resolution to watch through the night. In my 
 forlorn situation, forsaken in a strange place, I dreamed of 
 you again, and I appealed to you again as my one protector 
 and friend. The only new thing in the dream was, that I 
 thought I had the child with me when I approached you, 
 and that the child put the words into my mind when I wrote 
 in your book. You saw the words, I suppose ? and they 
 vanished as before, no doubt, when I awoke ? I found the 
 child still lying, like a dead creature, in my arms. All through 
 the night there was no change in her. She only recovered 
 her senses at noon the next day. Why do you start ? What 
 have I said that surprises you ?" 
 
 There was good reason for my feeling startled, and show- 
 ing it. On the day and at the hour when the child had come 
 to herself, I had stood on the deck of the vessel, and had 
 seen the apparition of her disappear from my view. 
 
294 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " Did she say any thing," I asked, " when she recovered her 
 senses ?" 
 
 "Yes. She too had been dreaming — dreaming that she 
 was in company with you. She said, ' He is coming to see 
 us, mamma ; and I have been showing him the way.' I ask- 
 ed her where she had seen you. She spoke confusedly of 
 more places than one. She talked of trees, and a cottage, 
 and a lake ; then of fields and hedges, and lonely lanes ; then 
 of a carriage and horses, and a long white road; then of 
 crowded streets and houses, and a river and a ship. As to 
 these last objects, there is nothing very wonderful in what 
 she said. The houses, the river, and the ship which she saw 
 in her dream, she saw in the reality when we took her from 
 London to Rotterdam, on our way here. But as to the other 
 places, especially the cottage and the lake (as she described 
 them), I can only suppose that her dream was the reflection 
 of mine. I had been dreaming of the cottage and the lake, 
 as I once knew them in years long gone by; and — Heaven 
 only knows why — I had associated you with the scene. Nev- 
 er mind going into that now ! I don't know what infatua- 
 tion it is that makes me trifle in this way with old recollec- 
 tions, which affect me painfully in my present position. We 
 were talking of the child's health ; let us go back to that." 
 
 It was not easy to return to the topic of her child's health. 
 She had revived my curiosity on the subject of her associa- 
 tions with Greenwater Broad. The child was still quietly at 
 play in the bed-chamber. My second opportunity was before 
 me. I took it. 
 
 " I won't distress you," I began. " I will only ask leave, 
 before we change the subject, to put one question to you 
 about the cottage and the lake." 
 
 As the fatality that pursued us willed it, it was "her turn 
 now to be innocently an obstacle in the way of our discover- 
 ing each other. 
 
 "I can tell you nothing more to-night," she interposed, 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 295 
 
 vising impatiently. " It is time I put the child to bed — and, 
 besides, I can't talk of things that distress me. You must 
 wait for the time — if it ever comes ! — when I am calmer and 
 happier than I am now." 
 
 She turned to enter the bed-chamber. Acting headlong on the 
 impulse of the moment, I took her by the hand and stopped her. 
 
 "You have only to choose," I said, "and the calmer and 
 happier time is yours from this moment." 
 
 " Mine ?" she repeated. " What do you mean ?" 
 
 " Say the word," I replied, " and you and your child have 
 a home and a future before you." 
 
 She looked at me half bewildered, half angry. 
 
 " Do you offer me your protection ?" she asked. 
 
 " I offer you a husband's protection," I answered. " I ask 
 you to be my wife." 
 
 She advanced a step nearer to me, with her eyes riveted on 
 my face. 
 
 " You are evidently ignorant of what has really happened," 
 she said. "And yet, God knows, the child spoke plainly 
 enough !" 
 
 " The child only told me," I rejoined, " what I had heard 
 already, on my way here." 
 
 "All of it?" 
 
 "All of it." 
 
 "And yon still ask me to be your wife?" 
 
 " I can imagine no greater happiness than to make you my 
 wife." 
 
 " Knowing what you know now ?" 
 
 " Knowing what I know now, I ask you confidently to give 
 me your hand. Whatever claim that man may once have 
 had, as the father of your child, he has now forfeited it by 
 his infamous desertion of you. In every sense of the word, 
 my darling, you are a free woman. We have had sorrow 
 enough in our lives. Happiness is at last within our reach. 
 Come to me, and say Yes." 
 
296 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I tried to take her in my arms. She drew back as if I had 
 frightened her. 
 
 "Never!" she said, firmly. 
 
 I whispered my next words, so that the child in the inner 
 room might not hear us. 
 
 " You once said you loved me !" 
 
 " I do love you !" 
 
 " As dearly as ever ?" 
 
 " More dearly than ever !" 
 
 "Kiss me!" 
 
 She yielded mechanically; she kissed me — with cold lips, 
 with big tears in her eyes. 
 
 "You don't love me!" I burst out, angrily. "You kiss 
 me as if it were a duty. Your lips are cold — your heart is 
 cold. You don't love me !" 
 
 She looked at me sadly, with a patient smile. 
 
 "One of us must remember the difference between your 
 position and mine," she said. " You are a man of stainless 
 honor, who holds an undisputed rank in the world. And 
 what am I ? I am the deserted mistress of a thief. One of 
 us must remember that. You have generously forgotten it. 
 I must bear it in mind. I dare say I am cold. Suffering has 
 that effect on me ; and, I own it, I am suffering now." 
 
 I was too passionately in love with her to feel the sympathy 
 on which she evidently counted in saying those words. A 
 man can respect a woman's scruples when they appeal to him 
 mutely in her looks or in her tears ; but the formal expres- 
 sion of them in words only irritates or annoys him. 
 
 " Whose fault is it that you suffer ?" I retorted, coldly. " I 
 ask you to make my life a happy one, and your life a happy 
 one. You are a cruelly wronged woman, but you are not a 
 degraded woman. You are worthy to be my wife, and I am 
 ready to declare it publicly. Come back with me to En- 
 gland. My boat is waiting for you ; we can set sail in two 
 hours." 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 297 
 
 She dropped into a chair ; her hands fell helplessly into her 
 lap. 
 
 " How cruel !" she murmured, " how cruel to tempt me !" 
 She waited a little, and recovered her fatal firmness. " No !" 
 she said. "If I die in doing it, I can still refuse to disgrace 
 you. Leave me, Mr. Germaine. You Gan show me that one 
 kindness more. For God's sake, leave me !" 
 
 I made a last appeal to her tenderness. 
 
 "Do you know what my life is if I live without you?" I 
 asked. " My mother is dead. There is not a living creature 
 left in the world whom I love but you. And you ask me to 
 leave you ! Where am I to go to ? what am I to do ? You 
 talk of cruelty ! Is there no cruelty in sacrificing the happi- 
 ness of my life to a miserable scruple of delicacy, to an un- 
 reasoning fear of the opinion of the world ? I love you, and 
 you love me. There is no other consideration worth a straw. 
 Cbme back with me to England ! come back and be my 
 wife!" 
 
 She dropped on her knees, and, taking my hand, put it si- 
 lently to her lips. I tried to raise her. It was useless : she 
 steadily resisted me. 
 
 " Does this mean No ?" I asked. 
 
 " It means," she said, in faint, broken tones, that I prize 
 your honor beyond my happiness. If I marry you, your ca- 
 reer is destroyed by your wife; and the day will come when 
 you will tell me so. I can suffer — I can die ; but I can not 
 face such a prospect as that. Forgive me and forget me. I 
 can say no more !" 
 
 She let go of my hand, and sank on the floor. The utter 
 despair of that action told me, far more eloquently than the 
 words which she had just spoken, that her resolution was im- 
 movable. She had deliberately separated herself from me; 
 her own act had parted us forever. 
 
 13* 
 
298 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVn. 
 
 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 I made no movement to leave the room ; I let no sign of 
 sorrow escape me. At last, my heart was hardened against 
 the woman who had so obstinately rejected me. I stood 
 looking down at her with a merciless anger, the bare remem- 
 brance of which fills me at this day with a horror of myself. 
 There is but one excuse for me. The shock of that last over- 
 throw of the one hope that held me to life was more than my 
 reason could endure. On that dreadful night (whatever I 
 may have been at other times), I myself believe it, I was a 
 maddened man. 
 
 I was the first to break the silence. 
 
 " Get up," I said, coldly. 
 
 She lifted her face from the floor, and looked at me as if 
 she doubted whether she had heard aright. 
 
 " Put on your hat and .cloak," I resumed. " I must ask you 
 to go back with me as far as the boat." 
 
 She rose slowly. Her eyes rested on my face with a dull, 
 bewildered look. 
 
 " Why am I to go with you to the boat ?" she asked. 
 
 The child heard her. The child ran up to us with her lit- 
 tle hat in one hand, and the key of the cabin in the other. 
 
 " I'm ready," she said. " I will open the cabin door." 
 
 Her mother signed to her to go back to the bed-chamber. 
 She went back as far as the door which led into the court- 
 yard, and waited there, listening. I turned to Mrs. Van 
 Brandt with immovable composure, and answered the ques- 
 tion which she had addressed to me. 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 299 
 
 " You are left," I said, " without the means of getting away 
 from this place. In two hours more the tide will be in my 
 favor, and I shall sail at once on the return voyage. We 
 part, this time, never to meet again. Before I go I am re- 
 solved to leave you properly provided for. My money is in 
 my traveling-bag in the cabin. For that reason, I am obliged, 
 to ask you to go with me as far as the boat." 
 
 " I thank you gratefully for your kindness," she said. " I 
 don't stand in such serious need of help as you suppose." 
 
 " It is useless to attempt to deceive me," I proceeded. " I 
 have spoken with the head partner of the house of Van 
 Brandt at Amsterdam, and I know exactly what your posi- 
 tion is. Your pride must bend low enough to take from my 
 hands the means of subsistence for yourself and your child. 
 If I had died in England—" 
 
 I stopped. The unexpressed idea in my mind was to tell 
 her that she would inherit a legacy under my will, and that 
 she might quite as becomingly take money from me in my 
 life- time as take it from my executors after my death. In 
 forming this thought into words, the associations which it 
 called naturally into being revived in me the memory of my 
 contemplated suicide in the Greenwater lake. Mingling with 
 the remembrance thus aroused, there rose in me, unbidden, a 
 temptation so overpoweringly vile, and yet so irresistible in 
 the state of my mind at the moment, that it shook me to the 
 soul. " You have nothing to live for, now that she has re- 
 fused to be yours," the fiend in me whispered. " Take your 
 leap into the next world, and make the woman whom you 
 love take it with you !" While I was still looking at her, 
 while my last words to her faltered on my lips, the horrible 
 facilities for the perpetration of the double crime revealed 
 themselves enticingly to my view. My boat was moored in 
 the one part of the decaying harbor in which deep water still 
 lay at the foot of the quay. I had only to induce her to follow 
 me when I stepped on the deck, to seize her in my arms, and 
 
300 THE TWO DESTINIES.- 
 
 to jump overboard with her before she could utter a cry for 
 help. My drowsy sailors^ as I knew by experience, were hard 
 to wake, and slow to move even when they were roused at 
 last. We should both be drowned before the youngest and 
 the quickest of them could get up from his bed and make his 
 way to the deck. Yes ! We should both be struck together 
 out of the ranks of the living at one and the same moment. 
 And why not ? She who had again and again refused to" be 
 my wife — did she deserve that I should leave her free to go 
 back, perhaps, for the second time to Van Brandt ? On the 
 evening when I bad saved her from the waters of the Scotch 
 river, I had made myself master of her fate. She had tried 
 to destroy herself by drowning ; she should drown now, in 
 the arms of the man who had once thrown himself between 
 her and death ! 
 
 Self-abandoned to such atrocious reasoning as this, I stood 
 face to face with her, and returned deliberately to my unfin- 
 ished sentence. 
 
 " If I had died in England, you would have been provided 
 for by my will. What you would have taken from me then, 
 you may take from me now. Come to the boat." 
 
 A change passed over her face as I spoke ; a vague doubt . 
 of me began to show itself in her eyes. She drew back a lit- 
 tle, without making any reply. 
 
 " Come to the boat," I reiterated. 
 
 " It is too late." With that answer, she looked across the 
 room at the child, still waitipg by the door. " Come, Elfie," 
 she said, calling the little creature by one of her favorite 
 nicknames. " Come to bed." 
 
 I too looked at Elfie. Might she not, I asked myself, be i 
 made the innocent means of forcing her mother to leave the 
 house? Trusting to the child's fearless character, and her 
 eagerness to see the boat, I suddenly opened the door. As 
 I had anticipated, she instantly ran out. The second doov, , 
 leading into the square, I had not closed when I entered thu i 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 301 
 
 court-yard. In another moment Elfie was out in the square, 
 triumphing in her freedom. The shrill little voice broke the 
 death-like stillness of the place and hour, calling to me again 
 and again to take her to the boat. 
 
 I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. The stratagem had suc- 
 ceeded. Elfie's mother could hardly refuse to follow when 
 Elfie led the way. 
 
 " Will you go with us ?" I asked. " Or must I send the 
 money back by the child ?" 
 
 Her eyes rested on me for a moment with a deepening ex- 
 pression of distrust, then looked away again. She began to 
 turn pale. "You are not like yourself to-night," she said. 
 Without a word more, she took her hat and cloak, and went 
 out before me into the square. I followed her, closing the 
 doors behind me. She made an attempt to induce the child 
 to approach her. "Come, darling," she said, enticingly — 
 " come and take my hand." 
 
 But Elfie was not to be caught : she took to her heels, and 
 answered from a safe distance. " No," said the child ; " you 
 will take me back and put me to bed." She retreated a little 
 farther, and held up the key. " I shall go first," she cried, 
 " and open the door." 
 
 She trotted off a few steps in the direction of the harbor, 
 and waited for what was to happen next. Her mother sud- 
 denly turned, and looked close at me under the light of the 
 stars. 
 
 "Are the sailors on board the boat?" she asked. 
 
 The question startled me. Had she any suspicion of my 
 purpose ? Had my face warned her of lurking danger if she 
 went to the boat ? It was impossible. The more likely mo- 
 tive for her inquiry was to find a new excuse for not accom- 
 panying me to the harbor. If I told her that the men were 
 on board, she might answer, " Why not employ one of your 
 sailors to bring the money to me at the house ?" I took cave 
 to anticipate the suggestion in making my reply. 
 
302 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " They may be honest men," I said, watching her carefully ; 
 "but I don't know them well enough to trust them with 
 money." 
 
 To my surprise, she watched me just as carefully on her 
 side, and deliberately repeated her question : 
 
 " Are the sailors on board the boat ?" 
 
 I informed her that "the captain and crew slept, in the boat, 
 and paused to see what would follow. My reply seemed to 
 rouse her resolution. After a moment's consideration, she 
 turned toward the place at which the. child was waiting for 
 us. " Let us go, as you insist on it," she said, quietly. I 
 made no further remark. Side by side, in silence we follow- 
 ed Elfie on our way to the boat. 
 
 Not a human creature passed us in the streets ; not a light 
 glimmered on us from the grim black houses. Twice the 
 child stopped, and (still keeping slyly out of her mother's 
 reach) ran back to me, wondering at my silence. "Why 
 don't you speak ?" she asked. " Have you and mamma quar- 
 reled?" 
 
 I was incapable of answering her — I could think of nothing 
 but my contemplated crime. Neither fear nor remorse trou- 
 bled me. Every better instinct, every nobler feeling that I 
 had once possessed, seemed to be dead and gone. Not even 
 a thought of the child's future troubled my mind. I had no 
 power of looking on farther than the fatal leap from the boat : 
 beyond that there was an utter blank. For the time being — I 
 can only repeat it, my moral sense was obscured, my mental 
 faculties were thrown completely off their balance. The ani- 
 mal part of me lived and moved as usual; the viler animal in- 
 stincts in me plotted and planned, and that was all. Nobody, 
 looking at me, would have seen any thing but a dull quietude 
 in my face, an immovable composure in my manner. And 
 yet no madman was ever fitter for restraint, or less responsi- 
 ble morally for his own actions, than I was at that moment. 
 
 The night air blew more freshly on our faces. Still led by 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 303 
 
 the child, we had passed through the last street — we were out 
 on the empty open space which was the landward boundary of 
 the harbor. In a minute more we stood on the quay, within 
 a step of the gunwale of the boat. 
 
 I noticed a change in the appearance of the harbor since I 
 had seen it last. Some fishing-boats had come in during my 
 absence. They moored, some immediately astern and some 
 immediately ahead of my own vessel. I looked anxiously to 
 see if any of the fishermen were on board and stirring. Not 
 a living being appeared anywhere. The men were on shore 
 with their wives and their families. 
 
 Elfie held out her arms to be lifted on board my boat. 
 Mrs. Van Brandt stepped between us as I stooped to take 
 her up. 
 
 " We will wait here," she said, " while you , go into the 
 cabin and get the money." 
 
 Those words placed it beyond all doubt that she had her 
 suspicions of me — suspicions, probably, which led her to fear 
 not for her life, but for her freedom. She might dread being 
 kept a prisoner in the boat, and being carried away by me 
 against her will. More than this she could not thus far pos- 
 sibly apprehend. The child saved me the trouble of making 
 any remonstrance. She was determined to go with me. " I 
 must see the cabin," she cried, holding up the key. " I must 
 open the door myself." 
 
 She twisted herself out of her mother's hands, and ran 
 round to the other side of me. I lifted her over the gunwale 
 of the boat in an instant. Before I could turn round, her 
 mother had followed her, and was standing on the deck. 
 
 The cabin door, in the position which she now occupied, 
 was on her left hand. The child was close behind her. I 
 was on her right. Before us was the open deck, and the low 
 ;gunwale of the boat overlooking the deep water. In a mo- 
 ment we might step across ; in a moment we might take the 
 fatal plunge. The bare thought of it brought the mad wick- 
 
304 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 edness in me to its climax. I became suddenly incapable of 
 restraining myself. I threw my arm round her waist with a 
 loud laugh. " Come," I said, trying to drag her across the 
 deck — " come and look at the water." 
 
 She released herself by a sudden effort of strength that as- 
 tonished me. With a faint cry of horror, she turned to take 
 the child by the hand and get back to the quay. I placed 
 myself between her and the sides of the boat, and cut off her 
 retreat in that way. Still laughing, I asked her what she was 
 frightened about. She drew back, and snatched the key of 
 the cabin door out of the child's hand. The cabin was the 
 one place of refuge now left, to which she could escape from 
 the deck of the boat. In the terror of the moment, she never 
 hesitated. She unlocked the door, and hurried down the two 
 or three steps which led into the cabin, taking the child with 
 her. I followed them, conscious that I had betrayed myself, 
 yet still obstinately, stupidly, madly bent on carrying out my 
 purpose. " I have only to behave quietly," I thought to my- 
 self, " and I shall persuade her to go on deck again." 
 
 My lamp was burning as I had left it ; my traveling-bag 
 was on the table. Still holding the child, she stood, pale as 
 death, waiting for me. Elfie's wondering eyes rested inquir- 
 ingly on my face as I approached them. She looked half 
 inclined to cry; the suddenness of the mother's action had 
 frightened the child. I did my best to compose Elfie before 
 I spoke to her mother. I pointed out the different objects 
 which were likely to interest her in the cabin. " Go and look 
 at them," I said ; " go and amuse yourself." 
 
 The child still hesitated. "Are you angry with me?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "No, no!" 
 
 "Are you angry with mamma?" 
 
 " Certainly not." I turned to Mrs. Van Brandt. " Tell 
 Elfie if I am angry with you," I said. 
 
 She was perfectly aware, in her critical position, of the ne- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 305 
 
 cessity of humoring me. Between us, we succeeded in com- 
 posing the child. She turned away to examine, in high de- 
 light, the new and strange objects which surrounded her. 
 Meanwhile her mother and I stood together, looking at each 
 other by the light of the lamp, with an assumed composure 
 which hid our true faces like a mask. In that horrible situ- 
 ation, the grotesque and the terrible, always together in this 
 strange life of ours, came together now. On either side of 
 us, the one sound that broke the sinister and threatening si- 
 lence was the lumpish snoring of the sleeping captain and 
 crew. 
 
 She was the first to speak. 
 
 "If you wish to give me the money," she said, trying to 
 propitiate me in that way, " I am ready to take it now." 
 
 I unlocked my traveling-bag. As I looked into it for the 
 leather case which held my money, my overpowering desire 
 to get her on deck again, my mad impatience to commit the 
 fatal act, became too strong to be controlled. 
 
 " We shall be cooler on deck," I said. " Let us take the 
 bag up there." 
 
 She showed wonderful courage. I could almost see the 
 cry for help rising to her lips. She repressed it ; she had 
 still presence of mind enough to foresee what might happen 
 before she could rouse the sleeping men. 
 
 " We have a light here to count the money by," she an- 
 swered. " I don't feel at all too warm in the cabin. Let us 
 stay here a little longer. See how Elfie is amusing herself !" 
 
 Her eyes rested on me as she spoke. Something in the 
 expression of them quieted me for the time. I was able to 
 pause and think. I might take her on deck by force before 
 the men could interfere. But her cries would rouse them ; 
 they would hear the splash in the water, and they might be 
 quick enough to rescue us. It would be wiser, perhaps, to 
 wait a little and trust to my cunning to delude her into leav- 
 ing the cabin of her own accord. I put the bag back on the 
 
306 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 table, and began to search for the leather money- case. My 
 hands were strangely clumsy and helpless. I could only find 
 the case after scattering half the contents of the bag on the 
 table. The child was near me at the time, and noticed what 
 I was doing. 
 
 " Oh, how awkward you are !" she burst out, in her frank- 
 ly fearless way. " Let me put your bag tidy. Do, please !" 
 
 I granted the request impatiently. Elfie's restless desire to 
 be always doing something, instead of amusing me, as usual, 
 irritated me now. The interest that I had once felt in the 
 charming little creature was all gone. An innocent love was 
 a feeling that was stifled in the poisoned atmosphere of my 
 mind that night. 
 
 The money I had with me was mostly composed of notes 
 of the Bank of England. Carefully keeping up appearances, 
 I set aside the sum that would probably be required to take 
 a traveler back to London ; and I put all that remained into 
 the hands of Mrs. Van Brandt. Could she suspect me of a 
 design on her life now ? v 
 
 " That will do for the present," I said. " I can communi- 
 cate with you in the future through Messrs. Van Brandt, of 
 Amsterdam." 
 
 She took the money mechanically. Her hand trembled; 
 her eyes met mine with a look of piteous entreaty. She tried 
 to revive my old tenderness for her ; she made a last appeal 
 to my forbearance and consideration. 
 
 " We may part friends," she said, in low, trembliDg tones. 
 " And as friends we may meet again, when time has taught 
 you to think forgivingly of what has passed between us to- 
 night." 
 
 She offered me her hand. I looked at her without taking 
 it. I penetrated her motive in appealing to my old regard 
 for her. Still suspecting me, she had tried her last chance of 
 getting safely on shore. 
 
 " The less we say of the past, the better," I answered, with 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 307 
 
 ironical politeness. "It is getting late. And you will agree 
 with me that Elfie ought to be in her bed." I looked round 
 at the child. " Be quick, Elfie," I said ; " your mamma is go- 
 ing away." I opened the cabin door, and offered my arm to 
 Mrs. Van Brandt. "This boat is my house for the time be- 
 ing," I resumed. "When ladies take leave of me after a vis- 
 it, I escort them to the deck. Pray take my arm." 
 
 She started back. For the second time she was on the 
 point of crying for help, and for the second time she kept 
 that last desperate alternative in reserve. 
 
 " I haven't seen your cabin yet," she said, her eyes wild 
 with fear, a forced smile on her lips, as she spoke. " There 
 are several little things here that interest me. Give me an- 
 other minute or two to look at them." 
 
 She turned away to get nearer to the child, under pretense 
 of looking round the cabin. I stood on guard before the open 
 door, watching her. She made a second pretense : she nois- 
 ily overthrew a chair as if by accident, and then waited to 
 discover whether her trick had succeeded in waking the men. 
 The heavy snoring went on ; not a sound of a person moving 
 was audible on either side of us. 
 
 " My men are heavy sleepers," I said, smiling significantly. 
 "Don't be alarmed; you have not disturbed them. Noth- 
 ing wakes these Dutch sailors when they are once safe in 
 port." 
 
 She made no reply. My patience was exhausted. I left 
 the door and advanced toward her. She retreated in speech- 
 less terror, passing behind the table to the other end of the 
 cabin. I followed her until she had reached the extremity of 
 the room and could get no farther. She met the look I fixed 
 on her; she shrunk into a corner, and called for help. In the 
 deadly terror that possessed her, she lost the use of her voice. 
 A low moaning, hardly louder than a whisper, was all that 
 passed her lips. Already, in imagination, I stood with her on 
 the gunwale, already I felt the cold contact of the water — 
 
308 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 when I was startled by a cry behind me. I turned round. 
 The cry had come from Elfie. She had apparently just dis- 
 covered some new object in the bag, and she was holding it up 
 in admiration, high above her head. " Mamma ! mamma !" 
 the child cried, excitedly, " look at this pretty thing ! Oh, 
 do, do ask him if I may have it !" 
 
 Her mother ran to her, eager to seize the poorest excuse 
 for getting away from me. I followed ; I stretched out my 
 hands to seize her. She suddenly turned round on me, a 
 woman transformed. A bright flush was on her face, an ea- 
 ger wonder sparkled in her eyes. Snatching Erne's coveted 
 object out of the child's hand, she held it up before me. I 
 saw it under the lamp-light. It was my little forgotten keep- 
 sake — the Green Flag. 
 
 " How came you by this ?" she asked, in breathless antici- 
 pation of my reply. Not the slightest trace was left in her 
 face of the terror that had convulsed it barely a minute since ! 
 " How came you by this ?" she repeated, seizing me by the 
 arm and shaking me, in the ungovernable impatience that 
 possessed her. 
 
 My head turned giddy, my heart beat furiously under the 
 conflict of emotions that she had roused in me. My eyes 
 were riveted on the green flag. The words that I wanted to 
 speak were words that refused to come to me. I answered, 
 mechanically, " I have had it since I was a boy." 
 
 She dropped her hold on me, and lifted her hands with a 
 gesture of ecstatic gratitude. A lovely, angelic brightness 
 flowed like light from heaven over her face. For one mo- 
 ment she stood enraptured. The next she clasped me pas- 
 sionately to her bosom, and whispered in my ear, " I am Mary 
 Dermody ! I made it for You !" 
 
 The shock of discovery, following so closely on all that I 
 had suffered before it, was too much for me. I sunk, fainting, 
 in her arms. 
 
 When I came to myself I was lying on my bed in the cab- 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 309 
 
 in. Elfie was playing with the green flag, and Mary was sit- 
 ting by me with my hand in hers. One long look of love 
 passed silently from her eyes to mine — from mine to hers. 
 In that look the kindred spirits were united ; The Two Des- 
 tinies were fulfilled. 
 
 THE END OP THE STOET. 
 
 ©I)£ .finale. 
 
 THE WIFE WRITES, AND CLOSES THE STORY. 
 
 Theee was a little introductory narrative prefixed to " The 
 Two Destinies," which you may possibly have forgotten by 
 this time. 
 
 The narrative was written by myself — a citizen of the 
 United States, visiting England with his wife. It described 
 a dinner party at which we were present, given by Mr. and 
 Mrs. Germaine in celebration of their marriage ; and it men- 
 tioned the circumstances under which we were intrusted 
 with the story which has just come to an end in these pages. 
 Having read the manuscript, Mr. and Mrs. Germaine left it 
 to us to decide whether we should continue our friendly in- 
 tercourse with them or not. 
 
 At 3 o'clock p.m. we closed the last leaf of the story. 
 Five minutes later I sealed it up in its cover ; my wife put 
 her bonnet on, and there we were, bound straight for Mr. 
 Germaine's house, when the servant brought a letter into the 
 room, addressed to my wife. 
 
 She opened it, looked at the signature, and discovered that 
 it was " Mary Germaine." Seeing this, we sat down side by 
 side to read the letter before we did any thing else. 
 
 On reflection, it strikes me that you may do well to read it 
 too. Mrs. Germaine is surely by this time a person in whom 
 you feel some interest. And she is on that account, as I 
 
310 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 think, the fittest person to close the story. Here is her let- 
 ter: 
 
 "Dear Madam (or may I say 'dear friend?'), — Be pre- 
 pared, if you please, for a little surprise. When you read 
 these lines we shall have left London for the, Continent. 
 
 "After you went away last night, my husband decided on 
 taking this journey. Seeing how keenly he felt the insult 
 offered to me by the ladies whom we had asked to our table, 
 I willingly prepared for our sudden departure. When Mr. 
 Germaine is far away from his false friends, my experience 
 of him tells me that he will recover his tranquillity. That is 
 enough for me. 
 
 " My little daughter goes with us, of course. Early this 
 morning I drove to the school in the suburbs at which she 
 is being educated, and took her away with me. It is need- 
 less to say that she was delighted at the prospect of travel- 
 ing. She shocked the school -mistress by waving her hat 
 over her head, and crying 'Hooray' like a boy. The good 
 lady was very careful to inform me that my daughter could 
 not possibly have learned to cry ' Hooray ' in her house. 
 
 " Tou have probably by this time read the narrative which 
 I have committed to your care. I hardly dare ask how I 
 stand in your estimation now. Is it possible that I might 
 have seen you and your good husband if we had not left 
 London so suddenly ? As things are, I must now tell you in 
 writing what I should infinitely have preferred saying to you 
 with your friendly hand in mine. 
 
 "Tour knowledge of the world has no doubt already at- 
 tributed the absence of the ladies at our dinner-table to some 
 report affecting my character. Tou are quite right. While 
 I was taking Elfie away from her school, my husband called 
 on one of his friends who dined with us (Mr. Waring), and 
 insisted on an explanation. Mr. Waring referred him to the 
 woman who is known to you by this time as Mr. Van Brandt's 
 
THE TWO DESTINIES. 311 
 
 lawful wife. In her intervals of sobriety she possesses some 
 musical talent ; Mrs. Waring had met with her at a concert 
 for a charity, and had been interested in the story of her 
 wrongs, as she called them. My name was, of course, men- 
 tioned. I was described as a 'cast-off mistress' of Van 
 Brandt, who had persuaded Mr. Germaine into disgracing 
 himself by marrying her, and -becoming the step -father of 
 her child. Mrs. Waring thereupon communicated what she 
 had heard to other ladies who were her friends. The result 
 you saw for yourselves when you dined at our house. 
 
 "I inform you of what has happened without making any 
 comment. Mr. Germaine's narrative has already told you that 
 I foresaw the deplorable consequences which might follow our 
 marriage, and that I over and over again (God knows at what 
 cost of misery to myself !) refused to be his wife. It was 
 only when my poor little green flag had revealed us to each 
 other that I lost all control over myself. The old time on the 
 banks of the lake came back to me ; my heart hungered for 
 its darling of happier days ; and I said Yes, when (as you 
 may think) I ought to have still said No. Will you take 
 poor old Dame Dermody's view of it, and believe that the 
 kindred spirits, once reunited, could be parted no more ? Or 
 will you take my view, which is simpler still? I do love 
 him so dearly, and he is so fond of me ! 
 
 " In the mean time, our departure from England seems to 
 be the wisest course that, we can adopt. As long as this 
 woman lives, she will say again of me what she has said al- 
 ready, whenever she can find the opportunity. My child 
 might hear the reports about her mother, and might be in- 
 jured by them when she gets older. We propose to take up 
 our abode, for a time at least, in the neighborhood of Naples. 
 Here, or farther away yet, we may hope to live without an- 
 noyance among a people whose social law is the law of mercy. 
 Whatever may happen, we have always one last consolation 
 to sustain us — we have love. 
 
312 THE TWO DESTINIES. 
 
 " You talked of traveling on the Continent when you dined 
 with us. If you should wander our way, the English consul 
 at Naples is a friend of my husband's, and he will have our 
 address. I wonder whether we shall ever meet again ? It 
 does seem hard to charge the misfortunes of my life on me, 
 as if they were my faults. 
 
 " Speaking of my misfortunes, I may say, before I close this 
 letter, that the man to whom I owe them is never likely to 
 cross my path again. The Van Brandts of Amsterdam have 
 received certain information that he is now on his way to 
 New Zealand. They are determined to prosecute him if he 
 returns. He is little likely to give them the opportunity. 
 
 "The traveling-carriage is at the door: I must say good- 
 bye. My husband sends to you both his kindest regai'ds and 
 best wishes. His manuscript will be quite safe (when you 
 leave London) if you send it to his bankers, at the address in- 
 closed. Think of me sometimes — and think of me kindly. I 
 appeal confidently to your kindness, for I don't forget that 
 you kissed me at parting. Tour grateful friend (if you will 
 let her be your friend), Mart Geemaine." 
 
 We are rather impulsive people in the United States, and 
 we decide on long journeys by sea or land without making 
 the slightest fuss about it. My wife and I looked at each 
 other when we had read Mrs. Germaine's letter. 
 
 " London is dull," I remarked, and waited to see what came 
 of it. 
 
 My wife read my remark the right way directly. 
 
 " Suppose we try Naples," she said. 
 
 That is all. Permit us to wish you good-bye. We are off 
 to Naples. 
 
 THE END.