A Perilous Secret Part 48

Walter Clifford cast a look of wonder and alarm on the old man, and went down at once to the drawing-room. His father was standing by the fire. He came forward to him with both hands, and said,

"My son!"

"Father," said Walter, in a whisper, "what is it?"

"Have you heard nothing?"

"Nothing but good news, father--that you approve my choice."

"Ah, John told you that!"

"Yes, sir."

"And did he tell you anything else?"

"No sir, only that some great misfortune is upon me, and that I have my father's sympathy."

"You have," said the Colonel, "and would to G.o.d I had known the truth before. She is not Bartley's daughter at all; she is Hope's daughter. Her virtue shines in her face; she is n.o.ble, she is self-denying, she is just, she is brave; and no doubt she can account for her being at the Lake Hotel in company with some man or other. Whatever that lady says will be the truth. That's not the trouble, Walter; all that has become small by comparison. But shall we ever see her sweet face again or hear her voice?"

"Father," said Walter, trembling, "you terrify me. This sudden change in your voice that I never heard falter before; some great calamity must have happened. Tell me the worst at once."

"Walter," said the old man, "stand firm; do not despair, for there is hope."

"Thank G.o.d for that, father! now tell me all."

"Walter, there has been an explosion in the mine--a fearful explosion; the shaft has fallen in; there is no getting access to the mine, and all the poor souls confined there are in mortal peril. Those who are best acquainted with the mine do not think that many of them have been destroyed by the ruin, but they tell me these explosions let loose poisonous gases, and so now those poor souls are all exposed to three deadly perils--choke-damp, fire-damp, and starvation."

"It's pitiable," said Walter, "but surely this is a calamity to Bartley, and to the poor miners, but not to any one that I love, and that you have learnt to respect."

"My son," said the Colonel, solemnly, "the mine was fired by foul play."

"Is it possible?"

"It is believed that some rival owner, or else some personal enemy of William Hope, bribed a villain to fire some part of the mine that Hope was inspecting."

"Great heavens!" said Walter, "can such villains exist? Poor, poor Mr.

Hope: who would think he had an enemy in the world?"

"Alas!" said the Colonel, "that is not all. His daughter, it seems, over-heard the villain bribing the ruffian to commit this foul and terrible act, and she flew to the mine directly. She dispatched some miners to seize that h.e.l.lish villain, and she went down the mine to save her father."

"Ah!" said Walter, trembling all over.

"She has never been seen since."

The Colonel's head sank for a moment on his breast.

Walter groaned and turned pale.

"She came too late to save him; she came in time to share his fate."

Walter sank into a chair, and a deadly pallor overspread his face, his forehead, and his very lips.

The Colonel rushed to the door and called for help, and in a moment John Baker and Mrs. Milton and Julia Clifford were round poor Walter's chair with brandy and ether and salts, and every stimulant. He did not faint away; strong men very seldom do at any mere mental shock.

The color came slowly back to his cheeks and his pale lips, and his eyes began to fill with horror. The weeping women, and even the stout Colonel, viewed with anxiety his return to the full consciousness of his calamity.

"Be brave," cried Colonel Clifford; "be a soldier's son; don't despair; fight: nothing has been neglected. Even Bartley is playing the man; he has got another engine coming up, and another body of workmen to open the new shaft as well as the old one."

"G.o.d bless him!" said Walter.

"And I have an experienced engineer on the road, and the things civilians always forget--tents and provisions of all sorts. We will set an army to work sooner than your sweetheart, poor girl, shall lose her life by any fault of ours."

"My sweetheart," cried Walter, starting suddenly from his chair. "There, don't cling to me, women. No man shall head that army but I. My sweetheart! G.o.d help me--SHE'S MY WIFE."

CHAPTER XXII.

REMORSE.

In a work of this kind not only the external incidents should be noticed, but also what may be called the mental events. We have seen a calamity produce a great revulsion in the feelings of Colonel Clifford; but as for Robert Bartley his very character was shaken to the foundation by his crime and its terrible consequences. He was now like a man who had glided down a soft sunny slope, and was suddenly arrested at the brink of a fathomless precipice. Bartley was cunning, selfish, avaricious, unscrupulous in reality, so long as he could appear respectable, but he was not violent, nor physically reckless, still less cruel. A deed of blood shocked him as much as it would shock an honest man. Yet now through following his natural bent too far, and yielding to the influence of a remorseless villain, he found his own hands stained with blood--the blood of a man who, after all, had been his best friend, and had led him to fortune; and the blood of an innocent girl who had not only been his pecuniary benefactress for a time, but had warmed and lighted his house with her beauty and affection.

Busy men, whose views are all external, are even more apt than others to miss the knowledge of their own minds. This man, to whom everything was business, had taken for granted he did not actually love Grace Hope. Why, she was another man's child. But now he had lost her forever, he found he had mistaken his own feelings. He looked round his gloomy horizon and realized too late that he did love her; it was not a great and penetrating love like William Hope's; he was incapable of such a sentiment; but what affection he had to bestow, he had given to this sweet creature. His house was dark without her; he was desolate and alone, and, horrible to think of, the instrument of her a.s.sa.s.sination.

This thought drove him to frenzy, and his frenzy took two forms, furious excitement and gloomy despair; this was now his life by night and day, for sleep deserted him. At the mine his measures were all wise, but his manner very wild; the very miners whispered amongst themselves that he was going mad. At home, on the contrary, he was gloomy, with sullen despair. He was in this latter condition the evening after the explosion, when a visitor was announced. Thinking it was some one from the mine, he said, faintly, "Admit him," and then his despondent head dropped on his breast; indeed, he was in a sort of lethargy, worn out with his labors, his remorse and his sleeplessness.

In that condition his ear was suddenly jarred by a hard, metallic voice, whose tone was somehow opposed to all the voices with which goodness and humanity have ever spoken.

"Well, governor, here's a slice of luck."

Bartley shivered. "Is that the devil speaking to me?" he muttered, without looking up.

"No," said Monckton, jauntily, "only one of his servants, and your best friend."

"My friend," said Bartley, turning his chair and looking at him with a sort of dull wonder.

"Ay," said Monckton, "your friend; the man that found you brains and resolution, and took you out of the hole, and put Hope and his daughter in it instead; no, not his daughter, she did that for us, she was so clever."

"Yes," said Bartley, wildly, "it was you who made me an a.s.sa.s.sin.

But for you, I should only have been a knave; now I am a murderer--thanks to you."

"Come, governor," said Monckton, "no use looking at one side of the picture. You tried other things first. You made him liberal offers, you know; but he would have war to the knife, and he has got it. He is buried at the bottom of that shaft."

"G.o.d forbid!"

"And you are all right."

"I am in h.e.l.l," shrieked Bartley.