39 For Time At Last Makes All Things Even

SHE sits for one dizzy moment, stunned, bewildered, motionless. Her husband!—and here,—drawing nearer, his head a little bent, listening to what his hostess is saying, with something of a bored look in his sallow, dissatisfied face.

She holds her breath, and sits gazing, held by something of that subtle, horrible fascination with which a serpent holds its quivering victim. They are already within five yards of her; a second or two and they will be face to face!

And then—what will he do then? He hates a scene will he make one before all these people? As she thinks, her brain whirling, some one meets them, and Mrs. Pettingill pauses for a moment to introduce the some one to the lion of the night.

And then, like a flash, Dolores awakes from her stunned torpor. He has not seen her; it is not yet too late; no one is looking at her; Blanche is watching, in a flutter of apprehension, the approach of ma and her nobleman.

She starts to her feet, slips between the tall plants, flies out of the room, down a long hall, up the stairs, and into the room she so lately left. Her hat and mantle lie where she threw them upon entering; she snatches them up, breathlessly, and puts them on. No time to stop, no time to think, no time to falter or hesitate. Flight! that is her one idea; to get away from this house—from him—without a second’s loss of time. A sickening fear of him fills her—a blind, unreasoning fear, that bids her fly and heed no consequences. A clock on the mantel strikes two. It is an unearthly hour to be out alone in the streets of New York; but she never heeds that—nothing that can befall her can be as terrible as meeting Vane Valentine.

With the thought in her mind, she is down the stairs, and out of the house, and hurrying rapidly down the silent street. It is moonlight, bright and cold. There is no wind, and the cold, keen air she does not feel. If it were blowing a hurricane she would not feel it now. She is filled with but one idea—to get home, to hide herself, to fly to the uttermost ends of the earth, if need be, from this man. Of course he is here in search of her. Will her sudden disappearance to-night create comment, and come to his ears?—quick and suspicious ears always. Will he ask questions, and get a description of her, and recognize her at once? Will he set the city detectives on her track, and hunt her down? It will not be difficult—an assumed name is but a thin disguise. And when he has found her, what then?

“I will die before I return to him,” she says aloud, as she flies breathlessly on. “No law, no power on earth shall compel me; I will never go back—never!” She is panting and breathless with her haste; once or twice a passing “guardian of the night” tries to stop and accost her, but she is past like a flash before he can frame the words. She may be pursued—she does not know—they will be fleet walkers who will overtake her to-night. At last, without harm or molestation, but spent, gasping, fainting with fatigue, she unlocks her door, and drops in a heap on the little parlor sofa.

Jemima Ann is in bed and asleep; she is not expected back until to-morrow. She does not wake her, she lies there in a sort of stupor of exhaustion, and at last drops asleep. And so, still sleeping, when with the morning sunshine Jemima Ann rises, she finds her—dressed as she came in, with the exception of her hat, which lies on the floor beside her. Her exclamation of surprise and alarm; faint though it is, arouses Dolores—she sits up in a bewildered way, and looks with wild eyes at her friend.

“Jemima,” she cries, “he has come.”

“Lor!” says Jemima Ann, and sits down flat. She needs no antecedent to the pronoun; there is but one he for these two in the universe—their arch enemy. “Lord’s sake! Miss Snowball, you never mean that!”

“I saw him last night. He was at Mrs. Pettingill’s party. I got up and fled. I ran out of the house at two in the morning, and never stopped to draw breath, it seems to me, until I fell down here. Jemima—oh Jemima! what shall we do?”

“Lord sake!” exclaims Jemima Ann again, stunned. Maid and mistress sit gazing blankly and fearfully at each other—altogether stupefied by the magnitude of the blow.

“We must leave here, Jemima—we must go to-day. He is here to search for me; he will never rest until he finds me. We must fly again. And we have been so happy here,” she says, despairingly.

But Jemima’s wits are beginning to return.

“Wait a minute, Miss Snowball,” she says; “let us think. It’s of no use flying—this big city is the safest place we can hide in, it seems to me. If he finds us out under false names here, in a crowded part of the town like this, why, he will find us go where we may. I don’t believe in flying; it ain’t a mite o’ good. Let us just stay here, and face it out.”

“Jemima Ann, it would kill me to see him, I think just that.”

“Bless you, my deary, no, it wouldn’t. It takes a sight more to kill us than we reckon for. Besides, you can refuse to see him—you can fly, you know, when it comes to that. What is he goin’ to do to you? Sir Vane Valentine may go to grass! This is a free country, I guess; there ain’t no lor as ever I heerd on to make a wife go back to a husband as ill—treated her, if she’s a mind to work for her own livin’. He can’t carry you off like they do in stories, and you wouldn’t stay carried off if he did. We can’t run away—we ain’t got no money, and we’re settled here like, and making a nice livin’. We ain’t goin’ to let Sir Vane Valentine spile all that. No, Miss Snowball, my pretty, don’t you be skeered—he won’t find us, and if he does then we’ll clear. I will stand my ground, and face him if you will let me, and that for Sir Vane Valentine! I ain’t married to him, thank the Lord, and he can’t carry things with such a high hand here in New York city, as over there at Valentine. But I don’t believe he’ll find us anyhow. No one knows our real names, and the Pettingills don’t know where you live. Don’t you be scared, Miss Snowball, my deary. I don’t believe he’ll ever find us out at all.”

Jemima Ann,has reason on her side, and as she says, they cannot afford to fly. Whatever comes, they must per force stay and face it out. So Dolores lets her first panic be soothed, and yields. But it is settled she is to go on the street no more at all for the present, and their doors are to be kept locked to all the world. “I shall lose Miss Pettingill, and all my other pupils,” she says, mournfully; “and I had so much trouble getting them .. I hardly know what we are to do, Jemima Ann. Mrs. Pettingill and Blanche will think I must suddenly have gone crazy.”

“They must think what they please for awhile, I reckon. In a week or two I might go up early some morning with a note from you, to say you was kind o’ ailin’ or somethin’; for gettin’ along, we will get along, never you fear. I have saved something, and I mean to work double tides until you get about again. The worst thing about it all is, that you will fret, and the confinement to these close rooms will hurt your health.”

But fretting and confinement must be borne. And now for the second time a dreary interval of waiting and watching, and daily dread sets in. Behind the closed blinds Dolores sits all day long, anxiously peering into the street, drawing back whenever a passer-by chances to glance up, seeing in every man who looks at the house a detective on her track. Jemima Ann does her errands at the earliest hour of opening the grocer’s, and sews by her mistress’s side all the rest of the day. Dolores essays to help her, but it is little better than an effort; the dread of discovery paralyzes all her energies. She cannot settle to sew, to read, to practice; she sits through the long hours, silent, anxious, pale. It is an unreasoning dread, morbid and out of proportion with its cause; she simply feels, as she has said, that if she meets him she will die. Five days go by, very, very slowly, but without a word or sign of discovery. Then a shock all at once comes.

It comes in the shape of a letter, delivered by the postman, and addressed to Mrs. Trillon. She turns quite white as she receives it. “Hast thou found me, oh, mine enemy?” is the cry of her heart. No one knows her address; this is the first letter addressed to her since she has been in New York. It is in a man’s hand—not her, husband’s, but what of that?—and is correctly directed both as to street and number. She sits with it in her band, in a tremor of nervous affright that shakes her from head to foot.

“Open it, my deary, don’t you be afraid. Lor——Sir Vane Valentine can’t eat you. Open it; he ain’t inside the envelope, wherever he is,” says, cheerily, Jemima Ann. She obeys, with shaking fingers. It is dated New York, and the day before. She glances at the signature, and utters a cry, for the name at the end is George Valentine. “Read it, Miss Snowball—read it out aloud!” cries Jemima, in a transport of curiosity, and Dolores obeys. It is short.

“NEW YORK, March 27, 18—.

“MY DEAR SNOWBALL:—I may still call you by the old name, may I not?—the dear little pet name by which ‘M. Paul ‘ has so often called you. It will not alarm you surely, to know that I am here, and have found you? My dear child, you know you may trust your old friend. I have crossed the ocean in search of you, and am most desirous of seeing you at once. I will call upon you this afternoon. I send this as an avant-courier, to break the shock of the surprise. You are living in strictest seclusion, I know but you will see me, I feel sure. Are you aware that Vane Valentine is also in this city, also in search of you? He has not found you, and departs, I am told, in a few days. You need not fear him, I think. At present he is about starting with one Mr. Lionel Colbert on the trial trip of the latter gentleman’s yacht down the bay. I shall call at your lodging at three this afternoon. Until then, my dear Snowball, I am, as ever,
“Your faithful friend, GEORGE VALENTINE.”

“Thank the Lord for all his mercies!” ejaculates, piously, Jemima Ann.

“But do you believe it?” asks Dolores, the glad flush fading from her face, and the anxious contraction growing habitual there, bending her brows; “it may be a ruse. It may be the work of Sir Vane himself, or of his emissaries. Oh, Jemima! I am afraid—afraid!”

“Now, Miss Snowball, there ain’t no reason. That sounds like an honest letter, and I believe it. At three this afternoon I’ll be on the watch down at the front door, and if it ain’t Mr. Valentine—well, then, the party that comes will have some trouble in getting into this room. Don’t you be afeared. Just put on your prettiest dress and perk up a bit, for you do look that pale and thin, Miss Snowball, that it’s quite heart-breakin’ to see you; and trust to me to keep him out if it’s the wrong man. If it’s the right one, as I feel sure it is, all our troubles is at an end. A man’s such a comfort at times when a body’s in a muddle, and don’t know what to do. I wonder,” says Jemima Ann, stitching away diligently, and keeping her eyes on her work, “if Mr. Rayney is with him?”

There is a sound as of a sudden catching of the breath at mention of that name, but no reply. Indeed, Dolores hardly speaks again for hours. She sits silently at her post by the window, in a fever of alternate hope and dread, watching the passers-by. She makes a toilet, as Jemima Ann has suggested, she tries to read, tries to play, walks up and down, and has worked herself into a feverish and flushed headache long before three o’clock.

It strikes at last. She resumes her place by the window, and clenches her hands together in her lap, as if to hold herself still by force. At the moment the bell rings.

“There!” cries Jemima Ann.

Both start to their feet. Jemima Ann hurries down stairs, locking the door behind her, and Dolores stands pale, breathless, her hand still unconsciously clenched, her heart beating to suffocation. It seems to her the supremest hour of her life. She hears a joyful cry from Jemima, and the maid rushes joyously in.

“Oh, Miss Snowball! dear Miss Snowball! it’s all right—it’s him! it’s him!”

And then before her, tall, strong, handsome, bearded, resolute, good to see, comes George Valentine. The quick revulsion of feeling, the sudden joy, takes away her last remnant of strength. She holds out both hands, and would fall, so dizzy does she grow, but that she is in his arms, held against his loyal, loving heart.

“My little Snowball! my dear little girl!” he says, and stoops and kisses the pale, changed face, more touched by that change than he cares to show.

“I——how foolish I am,” she says, and laughs, with eyes that brim over; “forgive me, M. Paul. I have been wretched and nervous lately, and the shock of seeing you——”

She breaks off, sinks back in her chair, covers her face with her hands, and, for a little, utterly breaks down.

“Oh, I beg your pardon.” she says, “do not mind me pray, I will be all right in a moment. Only it so brings back the old times, and—oh! how good, how good it is to see a friendly face again.”

“That is a pleasant hearing,” he says, cheerily; “so you were afraid my letter was all a ruse? My dear child, I have known for over a week you were here. If you had been discovered by that other, I was always ready to come to the rescue. My poor little Snowball! Life has gone hardly with you, I fear, since I saw you last.”

Tears, hard to hold back, spring to her eyes once more; they fill, they overflow.

“I am very weak; I never used to be a crying animal,” she says at last, trying to laugh through the falling drops. “Yes, life has gone hard, but I did not mind so greatly until I found him here after me. We were getting along so nicely, I was almost quite reconciled before that. But, M. Paul—I may call you by the old name, may I not?—I would rather die than go back, You will not let him force me, will you?” she says.

“My dear girl, you shall not go back—no,” he answers, “no one shall force you against your inclinations. You have nothing to fear, I think. He certainly has been in search of you; he certainly, also, has not as yet found you. He traced you, as I did, to London, to Havre, to this city; but I have been more fortunate than he here, and have discovered you. He is not in New York to-day. The yacht started on her trial trip this morning, to be absent a week; so your enforced imprisonment may end for the present. I mean to take you for a drive this afternoon—oh, you must! I will have no refusal. I am quite alone in New York; our good friend, Rene, is in Rome, back at his work. He wanted to come. For obvious causes, it was better he should not accompany me. I dispatched to him the moment I discovered you. I am to write to him at length to-night. Have you any messages, Snowball?”

No; Snowball has none—her remembrances, and she is well—nothing more.

“You have done nothing in the matter of your claim to the title and estate?” she asks, after a pause.

“Nothing! and mean to do nothing, for the present at least. Rene told you that, you know. The exposure of my life to the world would be no easy thing for a thin-skinned fellow like me to bear; I doubt if any fortune could compensate for it. There would be a prolonged contest, no end of names of the living and the dead dragged through the mud of a public court and a confoundedly public press. No; Sir Vane must remain Sir Vane, I suppose, until my moral courage grows a good deal stronger. Now run, and wrap up; it is a jewel of a day. Your imprisonment has lasted long enough; we are going for a drive to the Park, in this fine frosty air.”

She obeys. Oh! the relief of feeling her great enemy is no longer in the city—the relief of feeling she is free to go out once more.

“And I will have supper ready when you come back,” calls after them Jemima Ann.

It is an afternoon never to be forgotten, all the more enjoyable for the gloom, and terror, and hiding, that have gone before. Dolores enjoys it thoroughly; the fleet horses, the rapid motion, the sparkling air, the gay equipages, the bright, sun—gilded park, the crisp, cheery talk, the deep, mellow laugh of her friend.

For the next two days life takes in its brightest colors, fear departs, care is thrown off. Dolores lives in the present and enjoys it thoroughly. “M. Paul” comes daily, and the lost bloom of happiness seems to return at his bidding, as if by magic.

But on the third day he does not come. The forenoon, the afternoon, pass, and do not bring him. Dolores grows alarmed—so little startles her now—when, just at dusk, he presents himself, but with a slowness of step and a gravity of face all unusual.

“Something has happened!” she cries, in quick alarm. “Sir Vane has returned!”

“Sir Vane has returned—yes.”

He stands holding both her hands, looking down at her with his grave, dark eyes.

“Dolores, dear child, there is nothing to wear that frightened face for. He has returned, but not to trouble you. I doubt if he will ever trouble you or any one more. An accident has happened to the yacht.”

She stands silent, pale, looking at him, waiting for what is to come next.

“It was last night—it was very foggy, you may remember. One of the great passenger steamers of the Sound ran her down and sunk her. Three of the seven on board were drowned—the others were picked up by the steamer’s boats. Young Colbert, the owner of the yacht, is among the lost, and from what is said, I think his guest, Sir Vane.”

She sits down, feeling suddenly sick and faint, unable to speak a word. “The bodies have just been recovered; they lie as yet at a water-side hotel, awaiting identification. I am on my way to see, and, it may be, to identify your husband. Try not to be overcome by this shock. I will keep you in suspense as short a time as I can. Once I have seen the bodies; I will return here.”

He departs. It is a bright, starry twilight, the street lamps are twinkling in the April dusk, as he strides rapidly along. He hails a coupé presently, and is driven to his destination. He finds a crowd already congregated, and much excitement; the police on hand to preserve order. He makes his way through the throng to the ghastly room in which the three stark bodies as yet lie. The gas-light floods the dead, upturned faces; the drowned men lie side by side, awaiting removal. The first is a slender, fair-haired, fair-mustached young man—Lionel Colbert. The second is a seaman; the third he draws back and holds his breath. There before him lies his enemy—the man who has hated him, who has worn his title and used his wealth, who has done his best to break little Snowball’s heart—Vane Valentine, stark and dead!