A Secret Inheritance. Volume 3 of 3. Farjeon Benjamin Leopold

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СКАЧАТЬ drawn to each other, as I hoped would be the case, I am sure he would be willing to serve you if it were in his power."

      "Does he believe me to be innocent?" Doctor Louis was silent. "Then why should he be willing to serve me? You are mistaken. But it is not of this I wish to speak. What I have to disclose will be received with sympathy by you, who knew and loved my poor father, and who are acquainted with all the particulars of his strange story. Related to any other than yourself it would be regarded as the ravings of a maniac, or as a wild and impotent invention to help me to freedom. For this reason I held my tongue in the presence of the magistrate."

      "Before hearing it," said Doctor Louis, "I ought to say that, though I am groping in the dark, I can understand dimly why you would not confide in an officer of the law. But I cannot understand why you should be willing to confide in Gabriel Carew. I speak in the light of your belief that Carew bears you no friendship."

      "I cannot explain myself to you," said Emilius, "and should most likely fail in the attempt with Mr. Carew. But there are promptings which a man sometimes feels it a duty to obey, and this is one of them. I perceive that you do not receive these apparent inconsistencies with favour. It is natural. But reflect. Had you not, through your close intimacy and almost brotherly friendship with my father, been made familiar with his story-had it been related to you as a stranger, would you not have received it with incredulity, would you not have refused to believe it?" Doctor Louis nodded. "A wild effort of imagination could alone have invented it-had it not happened. But it was true, in the teeth of improbabilities and inconsistencies. For his sake you will bear with me, for his sake you will be indulgent and merciful to his unhappy son."

      Doctor Louis was inexpressibly moved. He again offered Emilius his hand, who again refused it.

      "Circumstantial evidence," he said, "is so strong against me that I fear I have played out my part in the active world. Should my fears be confirmed, I shall ask you to render me an inestimable service. Meanwhile, there is that which should not be concealed from you, my father's dearest friend, and mine. It relates chiefly to the murder of my brother. That part of my story which affects my wife, Patricia, may be briefly passed over. I have known her for nearly five years, and grew insensibly to love her. It is only lately that my poor Eric made her acquaintanceship, and surrendered his heart to her. I should have been frank with him; I should have spoken of my love for Patricia instead of concealing it. It may be that it would not have averted his doom and mine, for when men are pursued by an inexorable fate, there are a thousand roads open for its execution. Why did I not go frankly to Patricia's father, and ask him for his daughter's hand? It is a question that may well be asked, but there is some difficulty in answering it. Chiefly, I think, it was Patricia who guided me here, and who desired to keep our love locked in our breasts. She feared her father; he is a man of stern and fixed ideas, and, once resolved, is difficult to move. His daughter, he declared, should marry in her own station in life; never would he consent to her marrying a gentleman. Patricia chose to consider me one, and had a genuine and honest dread that her father would tear her from me if he discovered our love. I did not argue with her; I simply agreed to all she said. We were married in secret, at her wish; and when concealment was no longer possible, we fled. This flight was not undertaken in haste; it was discussed and deliberately planned. We hoped for her father's pardon when he discovered that his intervention would be useless. I was for an earlier revealment to Martin Hartog of his daughter's union with me, but I yielded to Patricia's pleadings. She had a deep, unconquerable fear of her father's curse. 'It would kill me,' she said; and I believed it would.

      "This is the end to which love has led us. I will speak now of my brother Eric."

      VIII

      "It was arranged," said Emilius, after a pause, during which he recalled with clearness the momentful history of the few short hours which had sealed his brother's fate, "that Patricia should leave her father's cottage at midnight, when her father was asleep. I was to wait for her about a quarter of a mile from Mr. Carew's house with a horse and cart, in which we were to travel to the lodgings I had taken for her. This portion of our plan was successfully carried out, and Patricia and I were journeying to our new home. It was midnight by my watch when we started, and we had ridden for less than an hour when Patricia was overtaken with a sudden faintness. I was alarmed, and upon questioning her she said that she felt too weak to bear the jolting of the cart. The fact is, she was exhausted and worn with fatigue and anxiety. With her contemplated flight in her mind she had had but little sleep for two or three nights; her strength was overtaxed, and I saw that she needed immediate rest. I proposed that we should stop for three or four hours, so that she could sleep without disturbance, and upon my assuring her that we were quite safe she gratefully acceded to my proposal. In a very short time I made preparations for her repose; some hay I had brought with me furnished her a tolerably comfortable bed, and I had also provided rugs, with which I covered her. I took the horse from the cart, and tethered it, and before this was accomplished Patricia was in a peaceful slumber.

      "There was no fear of our being disturbed. We were in a secluded part of the forest, which even in daylight is seldom traversed. The night was fine, though dark. All being secure, I sat me down on some dry moss by the side of the cart, and in a few moments was myself asleep. I awoke suddenly and in terrible agitation. In outward aspect nothing was changed. All was as I had left it but fifteen minutes ago; for, upon consulting my watch by means of a lighted match, I found that I had been asleep but a quarter of an hour. The horse was grazing quietly and contentedly; Patricia was sleeping peacefully, and I judged that she would continue to do so for many hours unless she were aroused. Nature's demands upon her exhausted frame were imperative.

      "Everything being so secure, what cause was there for agitation?

      "The cause lay in myself, and had been created during the last few minutes when I was in a state of unconsciousness. It seems incredible that so much should have passed through my brain in so short a time, but I have heard that a dream of years may take place in a moment's sleep.

      "I dreamt of my father and his brother, and I was living a dual existence as it were, my father's and my own; and as I was associated with him, so was my brother Eric with our uncle Kristel. There was a strange similarity in the positions; as my father had flown, unknown to his brother, with the woman he loved, so was I flying, unknown to my brother, with the woman to whom I was bound in strongest bonds of love, and who had inspired in his heart feelings akin to my own. The tragic end of my father and uncle seemed to be woven into my life and the life of my brother. It was a phantasmagoria of shadow, belonging both to the past and the present; and it was succeeded by another, which was the chief cause of my violent awaking.

      "Eric was walking in the forest at some distance from the spot upon which I was sleeping. I saw him distinctly, though he was walking through darkness, and although I do not remember in my conscious moments to have ever taken note of the particular conformation of the ground and the arrangement of the trees, the scene, with all its details of natural growth, was strangely familiar to me. And behind him, unknown to himself, stalked a threatening Shadow, with Death in its aspect. Then came a whisper, 'Your brother is in danger. Seek, and warn him!'

      "This spiritual whisper was in my ears when I awoke.

      "'Seek, and warn him!' It was clearly my duty. Such visitations had come to my father, and were fatally realised. Dare I neglect the warning?

      "But what was to be done must be done instantly and without delay. Could I leave Patricia? I leant over her, and gently called her name. She did not reply. I softly shook her, but did not succeed in arousing her. And while I was thus engaged I continued to hear the whisper, 'Your brother is in danger. Seek, and warn him!'

      "I decided. Patricia could be safely left for a little while. If I awoke her she would probably prevail upon me to remain with her, and I might have cause in all my after life to reproach myself for having neglected the spiritual warning. To be lightly regarded perhaps by other men, but not by me. I was Silvain's son.

      "I СКАЧАТЬ