Chapter XL.—Swift Retribution.

Waikato Times, Volume V, Issue 294, 31 March 1874, Page 3

Chapter XL. — Swift Retribution.

So, it had come ! A horrible, swift retribution, which revealed, while it punished her sin ! Mirmm sat like a stone statue, after Lawrence had left her, thinking, with intensity unmeasured by time, to which a minute* duration was like a year's agony, of that which had befallen her. The event ■he had relegated to the past, the thing that waa gone and done with, the trial she had come through — they were here, in horrible, actual presence of her, under a terrific form winch her ima ination could not hare conceived. How often must she hare been near touching this truth, which, had she touched it, must have saved her. What a film of accident had hidden it from her ! All was plain to her comprehension, and yet, all was confused to her senses : she had not understood the details clearly, and yet she could not have endured Lawrence Daly's preience one minute more without losing her senses. She needed them more than ever now. Wh«t a small thing might hare saved her, even the mention of her brother's companion to her husband ! At the thought of the old man, the painful frown upon her face de-pened. She hated him ; yes, she hated him, in his grave —and of late she had forgotten him. She had been glad sometimes to feel that the remembrance of him did not troublo her — did not recur for many days together, and then hut vaguely, and without bitterness. It returned now, when tins dreadful blow fell upon her — this blow, whose weight and terror she did not yet understand to the lull — and with it the hate which she had believed was long since conquered If he had not been so brutal, so sneering about her brother ; if he bad not shewn such uttor indifference to her feelings, such cold contempt for "Walter ; if he had not made him iind his story a prohibited subject, all must have been revccled, and the man to whom he sought to make reparation discovered in Walter's friend, in him who had saved Walter's life. But it was not reparation to Daly, but revenge on her, tlie old man had sought Wht»n, in the torrent of her thoughts, this one rushed hot and bubbling to the surface, Miriam clasped her hands upon her head and groaned — 4 .Reveng' on me ! O my_ok>d, has he not had it!' How nearly she had touched the truth, that night in Paris, when she had discovered that Bianc* had stolen the letter which Daly wrote to her for Walter! What was that he had said about the old man's second wife ? 'Ho had married again, this time a young wife, who knew nothing about me, whom he could not torment and rule through me, us he had tormented and ruled his first wife.' And yet, it was through Lawrence Daly he had tormented her, had driven her to the deed she had done. If he had given her back that letter, on that night, and she had given him the explanation she had refused — what then ? Ah, who could say ' But, at least, not this horrible, hopeless, irremediable c ilaraity, ne was Walter's friend, the man who had rescued him from rum in London, the man who had saved his life in the Golden State— and Walter had, for her sake, and under her instructions, robbed him of his inheritance. Robbed him ! Yes. Miriam used no palliative forms of expression now. What had become of her theory of the forgery ? What had become of her argument, that the felony was only a name, and she might offend against the formula of the law, while keeping its spirit uninjured, its intention undefiled ? What extraordinary sudden enlightenment was this ? Because Lawrence Daly wa§ the injured man, and he her brother's friend, why should her mind undergo such a revolution is that implied in her recognition that her act of ' simple justice, in self-defence,' was an enormous erie?i c? An ' L D ' existed somewhere, she had always known, intended by her husbond to be his heir, to her detriment and discomfiture. Had she not injured him ? She had taken no thought of this ; she was no more than other women — if the philosophers who io complacently vivisect them be right — capable of abstract ideas. But the truth came to her in concrete shape — whence its form was derived she did not yet ask herself — and she saw it fully, knew it through and through, and pressed its sharp arrows, with all the force of her will, into her conscience and her heart. Unbounded horror, unspeakable remone ! These were the occupants of her soul, as Miriam sat by the fireside in her new home that day, on every side of her the signs and tokens of the wealth she loved, and had done this thing that she might have it and enjoy it. Ren.orse, not yet repentance. She had not yet come to fee tho wrong done to her own soul ; her mind wai busy, to the point of exquisite with her crime against this man — this man with the god-like smile, and the voico sounding as no other voice had ever sounded in her e»r§. What a terrible vindictive fate wai hers, and with how sudden a rush it had come upon her ! Only a little while ago — the sun that had risen upon her •leeplesi anguish of expectation and fear had not yet gone down into twilight — and she had thought nothing could add to her grief for Walter and Florence. And now ? Now, she was catching, drowning wretch an ihe «h, in this st-a of remorse and terror, at the shred of comfort supplied by Walter's loss of memory ! He would not remember when Lawrence Daly should have told him that tho old man who had disappointed his hopes, and turned him adrift upon the world, was the same old man to whom his sister Miriam had sold herself for money (m her dismay, Miriam was quite merciless to herself, and would not take the mixed motives which had led to her marriage into account), that he hid personated this old man, and forged a will in his name. The calamity which had 'ome upon him would save him from any part of what ihe t«8 suffering, and always must suffer. What was that soi,,d her l.ps had formed ? ' Thank God ?' Whs she then dntea to such desperate straits that the affliction which had been to her as ' a terror of great darkness,' only a few houn ago, wan turning u> her sole source of consolation, her sole chance of endurance and concealment ? Yei, it was even po ; and while Miriam's heart ached with the thought, her judgment compaised the measure of her diimay and defeat by it. Florence ! Had flic forgotten Florence, while iho hod thought it was better her brother* intellect thould be clouded, and his primo of manhood turned to helplessness and decay, than that he should know what ho had done for her, in all its extent and its consequences ? Had she forgotten Florence, for whom sho had been suffering such agonising compassion ? Yes, she had forgotten her for awhile; but when she remembered her, sho did not think ditlerently. Something told her that if Walter htd proved unable to keep tho secret of their crime, at she had no tloubt he would have proved when Dalj'a identity with tho L D of the memorandum ihould have been revealed --the knowledgo of it would havo been far worse to Florence Minn the luture with which ehe was threatened could ever be. She had interpreted Florence aright to Daly. While her husband lived and was hers, sho would not be entirely unhappy. But, to know him for what he was, howovcr plausibly extenuated, a felon, a forger, would break tho heart that loved him, as surely ac that heart was holy and pure. Then there tumbled into the torrent of hor thoughts this important question : Why ? Sho wanted to go on, to think about herself, to form lome plan of action, but sho could not. Why? What was this which existed in Florence, and set hor above the earthlinen of love, while it kept fresh within her all its tenderness and swectHeai, and Bell-devotion ? There was uo answer yet, bjL it win to come to Miriam at no dutant period.

Who shall (ell the warfare of thought which raged withm iicr tortured mind as she eat there, to etill to nil outward appearance P As well attempt to paint the forms, the fantastic fury of tho storm-clouds when a hurricane ii abrqad, or tho leaping wrath of tho wave-* it !a^ie-». After a time she rose, and, pursued '>y a tprnb)<* perplexity, .began to puce hurriedly up and down tho mom, like ono lost, holding her head in her h.uuU. Tlio wholui thing hnd suddenly become unreal, inetphcnbfo, impossible to her. Had she done this deed F How had it come to pao" that she had done it? She, a lady, educated and dvri |!insin decencies, to whom the tr^erc idea ot deliberate] v bresifintr the law, rendering herself amenable to thp uennltips undor which 'common people' constantly fell, of committing & vulgar crime, was so impossible, that cren when she had done it, it had not been, in her eyes, a vulgar crime, and she had never thought nbout tho penalties. Oould it be 9 Was it real ? She leaned up against the wall breathless and horrified, as I the power of something external to herself came over her with full conviction, and she felt as one might feel who had committed a murder while walking in sleep, and awoke dabbled with the blood of the victim. Thus Miriam gaiued her first insight into tho deadlinoss of temptation, learnod tho awful lurking possibilities of human nature, the torrible irrevocableiiess of an evil deed. ' Dead ii dead.' And worse ; sho could not bury this dead thing, a maddening haunting presence. She did not know that it 9 sepulture could bo only whon remorse should have changed to repentance. In her hurried, distracted walk, sho caught sight of a timepiece. Walter and Florence would arrive iv half an hour. How she had dreaded that moment, which now she dreadod only lest she should not be able to control herself sufficiently to ward off suspicion ! She went, to her roem, and her maid dressed her ; and she agreed with Mrs Hames that she was looking very pale and tired ; and she went down-stairs again and received her brother nnd hia wife with great self command. But Florence thought her looking ' shockingl/ ill ;' and Mr Martin, who came in the evening, reprimanded her sharply, and told he had expected better things of her. There was not much change in Walter. He was very dull, and indifferent, and sleepy. But Miriam observed speedily that Florence was not altogether unconscious. She tried to rouse him, seemed anxious, watched him with sad eyes; and when he heard from Miriam — who had to strive fiercely for composure in telling him — that Lawrence Daly was in London, and would see him the following day, and only said ' All right,' appearing to forget it the next moment, she was quite evidently distressed. This was better ; their task would be easier. That night, Florence, pleading the fatigue of her journey, avoided seeing Miriam alone ; and Miriam wrote to Liwrmec Dalj & few form»l linrs, inviting him to visit her brother and his wife on the following day. Then, for the first time in her life, sho lay broad awake until the following morning. There were to be many sleepless nights for Miriam, and long days of perplexity and suffering, before she learned to irourn, not that her sm had ' found her out,' but that she had ' done this great wickedness against God.'