Rats. What I hear at night is the creaking of stairs, when I know that n.o.body ought to be stirring. If you observe, you will hear it too. At least, I should think you would, only that somehow everything always seems to stop, when it is necessary to prove that I am foolish."

The girls had no especial engagement that evening, and so got into a great excitement on the stairway over Aunt Jane's solicitudes. They convinced themselves that they heard all sorts of things,--footfalls on successive steps, the creak of a plank, the brushing of an arm against a wall, the jar of some suspended object that was stirred in pa.s.sing. Once they heard something fall on the floor, and roll from step to step; and yet they themselves stood on the stairway, and nothing pa.s.sed. Then for some time there was silence, but they would have persisted in their observations, had not Philip come in from Mrs. Meredith's in the midst of it, so that the whole thing turned into a frolic, and they sat on the stairs and told ghost stories half the night.

XVII. DISCOVERY.

THE next evening Kate and Philip went to a ball. As Hope was pa.s.sing through the hall late in the evening, she heard a sudden, sharp cry somewhere in the upper regions, that sounded, she thought, like a woman's voice. She stopped to hear, but there was silence. It seemed to come from the direction of Malbone's room, which was in the third story.

Again came the cry, more gently, ending in a sort of sobbing monologue.

Gliding rapidly up stairs in the dark, she paused at Philip's deserted room, but the door was locked, and there was profound stillness. She then descended, and pausing at the great landing, heard other steps descending also. Retreating to the end of the hall, she hastily lighted a candle, when the steps ceased. With her accustomed nerve, wishing to explore the thing thoroughly, she put out the light and kept still.

As she expected, the footsteps presently recommenced, descending stealthily, but drawing no nearer, and seeming rather like sounds from an adjoining house, heard through a party-wall. This was impossible, as the house stood alone. Flushed with excitement, she relighted the hall candles, and, taking one of them, searched the whole entry and stairway, going down even to the large, old-fashioned cellar.

Looking about her in this unfamiliar region, her eye fell on a door that seemed to open into the wall; she had noticed a similar door on the story above,--one of the closet doors that had been nailed up by Aunt Jane's order. As she looked, however, a chill breath blew in from another direction, extinguishing her lamp. This air came from the outer door of the cellar, and she had just time to withdraw into a corner before a man's steps approached, pa.s.sing close by her.

Even Hope's strong nerves had begun to yield, and a cold shudder went through her. Not daring to move, she pressed herself against the wall, and her heart seemed to stop as the unseen stranger pa.s.sed. Instead of his ascending where she had come down, as she had expected, she heard him grope his way toward the door she had seen in the wall.

There he seemed to find a stairway, and when his steps were thus turned from her, she was seized by a sudden impulse and followed him, groping her way as she could. She remembered that the girls had talked of secret stairways in that house, though she had no conception whither they could lead, unless to some of the shut-up closets.

She steadily followed, treading cautiously upon each creaking step. The stairway was very narrow, and formed a regular spiral as in a turret.

The darkness and the curving motion confused her brain, and it was impossible to tell how high in the house she was, except when once she put her hand upon what was evidently a door, and moreover saw through its cracks the lamp she had left burning in the upper hall. This glimpse of reality rea.s.sured her. She had begun to discover where she was. The doors which Aunt Jane had closed gave access, not to mere closets, but to a spiral stairway, which evidently went from top to bottom of the house, and was known to some one else beside herself.

Relieved of that slight shudder at the supernatural which sometimes affects the healthiest nerves, Hope paused to consider. To alarm the neighborhood was her first thought. A slight murmuring from above dispelled it; she must first reconnoitre a few steps farther. As she ascended a little way, a gleam shone upon her, and down the damp stairway came a fragrant odor, as from some perfumed chamber. Then a door was shut and reopened. Eager beyond expression, she followed on.

Another step, and she stood at the door of Malbone's apartment.

The room was brilliant with light; the doors and windows were heavily draped. Fruit and flowers and wine were on the table. On the sofa lay Emilia in a gay ball-dress, sunk in one of her motionless trances, while Malbone, pale with terror, was deluging her brows with the water he had just brought from the well below.

Hope stopped a moment and leaned against the door, as her eyes met Malbone's. Then she made her way to a chair, and leaning on the back of it, which she fingered convulsively, looked with bewildered eyes and compressed lips from the one to the other. Malbone tried to speak, but failed; tried again, and brought forth only a whisper that broke into clearer speech as the words went on. "No use to explain," he said.

"Lambert is in New York. Mrs. Meredith is expecting her--to-night after the ball. What can we do?"

Hope covered her face as he spoke; she could bear anything better than to have him say "we," as if no gulf had opened between them. She sank slowly on her knees behind her chair, keeping it as a sort of screen between herself and these two people,--the counterfeits, they seemed, of her lover and her sister. If the roof in falling to crush them had crushed her also, she could scarcely have seemed more rigid or more powerless. It pa.s.sed, and the next moment she was on her feet again, capable of action.

"She must be taken," she said very clearly, but in a lower tone than usual, "to my chamber." Then pointing to the candles, she said, more huskily, "We must not be seen. Put them out." Every syllable seemed to exhaust her. But as Philip obeyed her words, he saw her move suddenly and stand by Emilia's side.

She put out both arms as if to lift the young girl, and carry her away.

"You cannot," said Philip, putting her gently aside, while she shrank from his touch. Then he took Emilia in his arms and bore her to the door, Hope preceding.

Motioning him to pause a moment, she turned the lock softly, and looked out into the dark entry. All was still. She went out, and he followed with his motionless burden. They walked stealthily, like guilty things, yet every slight motion seemed to ring in their ears. It was chilly, and Hope shivered. Through the great open window on the stairway a white fog peered in at them, and the distant fog-whistle came faintly through; it seemed as if the very atmosphere were condensing about them, to isolate the house in which such deeds were done. The clock struck twelve, and it seemed as if it struck a thousand.

When they reached Hope's door, she turned and put out her arms for Emilia, as for a child. Every expression had now gone from Hope's face but a sort of stony calmness, which put her infinitely farther from Malbone than had the momentary struggle. As he gave the girlish form into arms that shook and trembled beneath its weight, he caught a glimpse in the pier-gla.s.s of their two white faces, and then, looking down, saw the rose-tints yet lingering on Emilia's cheek. She, the source of all this woe, looked the only representative of innocence between two guilty things.

How white and pure and maidenly looked Hope's little room,--such a home of peace, he thought, till its door suddenly opened to admit all this pa.s.sion and despair! There was a great sheaf of cardinal flowers on the table, and their petals were drooping, as if reluctant to look on him.

Scheffer's Christus Consolator was upon the walls, and the benign figure seemed to spread wider its arms of mercy, to take in a few sad hearts more.

Hope bore Emilia into the light and purity and warmth, while Malbone was shut out into the darkness and the chill. The only two things to which he clung on earth, the two women between whom his unsteady heart had vibrated, and both whose lives had been tortured by its vacillation, went away from his sight together, the one victim bearing the other victim in her arms. Never any more while he lived would either of them be his again; and had Dante known it for his last glimpse of things immortal when the two lovers floated away from him in their sad embrace, he would have had no such sense of utter banishment as had Malbone then.

XVIII. HOPE'S VIGIL.

HAD Emilia chosen out of life's whole armory of weapons the means of disarming Hope, she could have found nothing so effectual as nature had supplied in her unconsciousness. Helplessness conquers. There was a quality in Emilia which would have always produced something very like antagonism in Hope, had she not been her sister. Had the ungoverned girl now been able to utter one word of reproach, had her eyes flashed one look of defiance, had her hand made one triumphant or angry gesture, perhaps all Hope's outraged womanhood would have coldly nerved itself against her. But it was another thing to see those soft eyes closed, those delicate hands powerless, those pleading lips sealed; to see her extended in graceful helplessness, while all the concentrated drama of emotion revolved around her unheeded, as around Cordelia dead. In what realms was that child's mind seeking comfort; through what thin air of dreams did that restless heart beat its pinions; in what other sphere did that untamed nature wander, while shame and sorrow waited for its awakening in this?

Hope knelt upon the floor, still too much strained and bewildered for tears or even prayer, a little way from Emilia. Once having laid down the unconscious form, it seemed for a moment as if she could no more touch it than she could lay her hand amid flames. A gap of miles, of centuries, of solar systems, seemed to separate these two young girls, alone within the same chamber, with the same stern secret to keep, and so near that the hem of their garments almost touched each other on the soft carpet. Hope felt a terrible hardness closing over her heart.

What right had this cruel creature, with her fatal witcheries, to come between two persons who might have been so wholly happy? What sorrow would be saved, what shame, perhaps, be averted, should those sweet beguiling eyes never open, and that perfidious voice never deceive any more? Why tend the life of one who would leave the whole world happier, purer, freer, if she were dead?

In a tumult of thought, Hope went and sat half-unconsciously by the window. There was nothing to be seen except the steady beacon of the light-house and a pale-green glimmer, like an earthly star, from an anch.o.r.ed vessel. The night wind came softly in, soothing her with a touch like a mother's, in its grateful coolness. The air seemed full of half-vibrations, sub-noises, that crowded it as completely as do the insect sounds of midsummer; yet she could only distinguish the ripple beneath her feet, and the rote on the distant beach, and the busy wash of waters against every sh.o.r.e and islet of the bay. The mist was thick around her, but she knew that above it hung the sleepless stars, and the fancy came over her that perhaps the whole vast interval, from ocean up to sky, might be densely filled with the disembodied souls of her departed human kindred, waiting to see how she would endure that path of grief in which their steps had gone before. "It may be from this influence," she vaguely mused within herself, "that the ocean derives its endless song of sorrow. Perhaps we shall know the meaning when we understand that of the stars, and of our own sad lives."

She rose again and went to the bedside. It all seemed like a dream, and she was able to look at Emilia's existence and at her own and at all else, as if it were a great way off; as we watch the stars and know that no speculations of ours can reach those who there live or die untouched.

Here beside her lay one who was dead, yet living, in her temporary trance, and to what would she wake, when it should end? This young creature had been sent into the world so fresh, so beautiful, so richly gifted; everything about her physical organization was so delicate and lovely; she had seemed like heliotrope, like a tube-rose in her purity and her pa.s.sion (who was it said, "No heart is pure that is not pa.s.sionate"?); and here was the end! Nothing external could have placed her where she was, no violence, no outrage, no evil of another's doing, could have reached her real life without her own consent; and now what kind of existence, what career, what possibility of happiness remained?

Why could not G.o.d in his mercy take her, and give her to his holiest angels for schooling, ere it was yet too late?

Hope went and sat by the window once more. Her thoughts still clung heavily around one thought, as the white fog clung round the house.

Where should she see any light? What opening for extrication, unless, indeed, Emilia should die? There could be no harm in that thought, for she knew it was not to be, and that the swoon would not last much longer. Who could devise anything? No one. There was nothing. Almost always in perplexities there is some thread by resolutely holding to which one escapes at last. Here there was none. There could probably be no concealment, certainly no explanation. In a few days John Lambert would return, and then the storm must break. He was probably a stern, jealous man, whose very dulness, once aroused, would be more formidable than if he had possessed keener perceptions.

Still her thoughts did not dwell on Philip. He was simply a part of that dull ma.s.s of pain that beset her and made her feel, as she had felt when drowning, that her heart had left her breast and nothing but will remained. She felt now, as then, the capacity to act with more than her accustomed resolution, though all that was within her seemed boiling up into her brain. As for Philip, all seemed a mere negation; there was a vacuum where his place had been. At most the thought of him came to her as some strange, vague thrill of added torture, penetrating her soul and then pa.s.sing; just as ever and anon there came the sound of the fog-whistle on Brenton's Reef, miles away, piercing the dull air with its shrill and desolate wail, then dying into silence.

What a hopeless cloud lay upon them all forever,--upon Kate, upon Harry, upon their whole house! Then there was John Lambert; how could they keep it from him? how could they tell him? Who could predict what he would say? Would he take the worst and coa.r.s.est view of his young wife's mad action or the mildest? Would he be strong or weak; and what would be weakness, and what strength, in a position so strange? Would he put Emilia from him, send her out in the world desolate, her soul stained but by one wrong pa.s.sion, yet with her reputation blighted as if there were no good in her? Could he be asked to shield and protect her, or what would become of her? She was legally a wife, and could only be separated from him through convicted shame.

Then, if separated, she could only marry Philip. Hope nerved herself to think of that, and it cost less effort than she expected.

There seemed a numbness on that side, instead of pain. But granting that he loved Emilia ever so deeply, was he a man to surrender his life and his ease and his fair name, in a hopeless effort to remove the ban that the world would place on her. Hope knew he would not; knew that even the simple-hearted and straightforward Harry would be far more capable of such heroism than the sentimental Malbone. Here the pang suddenly struck her; she was not so numb, after all!

As the leaves beside the window drooped motionless in the dank air, so her mind drooped into a settled depression. She pitied herself,--that lowest ebb of melancholy self-consciousness. She went back to Emilia, and, seating herself, studied every line of the girl's face, the soft texture of her hair, the veining of her eyelids. They were so lovely, she felt a sort of physical impulse to kiss them, as if they belonged to some utter stranger, whom she might be nursing in a hospital. Emilia looked as innocent as when Hope had tended her in the cradle. What is there, Hope thought, in sleep, in trance, and in death, that removes all harsh or disturbing impressions, and leaves only the most delicate and purest traits? Does the mind wander, and does an angel keep its place?

Or is there really no sin but in thought, and are our sleeping thoughts incapable of sin? Perhaps even when we dream of doing wrong, the dream comes in a shape so lovely and misleading that we never recognize it for evil, and it makes no stain. Are our lives ever so pure as our dreams?

This thought somehow smote across her conscience, always so strong, and stirred it into a kind of spasm of introspection. "How selfish have I, too, been!" she thought. "I saw only what I wished to see, did only what I preferred. Loving Philip" (for the sudden self-reproach left her free to think of him), "I could not see that I was separating him from one whom he might perhaps have truly loved. If he made me blind, may he not easily have bewildered her, and have been himself bewildered? How I tried to force myself upon him, too! Ungenerous, unwomanly! What am I, that I should judge another?"

She threw herself on her knees at the bedside.

Still Emilia slept, but now she stirred her head in the slightest possible way, so that a single tress of silken hair slipped from its companions, and lay across her face. It was a faint sign that the trance was waning; the slight pressure disturbed her nerves, and her lips trembled once or twice, as if to relieve themselves of the soft annoyance. Hope watched her in a vague, distant way, took note of the minutest motion, yet as if some vast weight hung upon her own limbs and made all interference impossible. Still there was a fascination of sympathy in dwelling on that atom of discomfort, that tiny suffering, which she alone could remove. The very vastness of this tragedy that hung about the house made it an inexpressible relief to her to turn and concentrate her thoughts for a moment on this slight distress, so easily ended.

Strange, by what slender threads our lives are knitted to each other!

Here was one who had taken Hope's whole existence in her hands, crushed it, and thrown it away. Hope had soberly said to herself, just before, that death would be better than life for her young sister. Yet now it moved her beyond endurance to see that fair form troubled, even while unconscious, by a feather's weight of pain; and all the lifelong habit of tenderness resumed in a moment its sway.

She approached her fingers to the offending tress, very slowly, half withholding them at the very last, as if the touch would burn her. She was almost surprised that it did not. She looked to see if it did not hurt Emilia. But it now seemed as if the slumbering girl enjoyed the caressing contact of the smooth fingers, and turned her head, almost imperceptibly, to meet them. This was more than Hope could bear. It was as if that slight motion were a puncture to relieve her overburdened heart; a thousand thoughts swept over her,--of their father, of her sister's childhood, of her years of absent expectation; she thought how young the girl was, how fascinating, how pa.s.sionate, how tempted; all this swept across her in a great wave of nervous reaction, and when Emilia returned to consciousness, she was lying in her sister's arms, her face bathed in Hope's tears.

XIX. DE PROFUNDIS.

THIS was the history of Emilia's concealed visits to Malbone.

One week after her marriage, in a crisis of agony, Emilia took up her pen, dipped it in fire, and wrote thus to him:--

"Philip Malbone, why did n.o.body ever tell me what marriage is where there is no love? This man who calls himself my husband is no worse, I suppose, than other men. It is only for being what is called by that name that I abhor him. Good G.o.d! what am I to do? It was not for money that I married him,--that you know very well; I cared no more for his money than for himself. I thought it was the only way to save Hope. She has been very good to me, and perhaps I should love her, if I could love anybody. Now I have done what will only make more misery, for I cannot bear it. Philip, I am alone in this wide world, except for you. Tell me what to do. I will haunt you till you die, unless you tell me. Answer this, or I will write again."