Victor's Triumph Part 54

"I am afraid it is quite vain, ma'am. It is not a drowning, but a drowned man that we have been seeking for the last hour. Tell us where you wish to go, and we will take you home. To-morrow the body may be recovered."

But Mary Grey, with a wild shriek, fell back in her boat and lay like one in a swoon.

"We must take the lady into this boat of ours, and tow the little one after us," said the man.

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

AFTER THE DARK DEED.

Mary Grey was lifted, in an apparently fainting condition, from her own little boat into the larger one beside it. She was laid down carefully and waited on tenderly by the sympathizing ladies in the larger boat.

Meanwhile the little boat was tied to the stern of the larger one, to be towed up the river.

"Where are we to take the poor unfortunate woman, I wonder?" said one of the ladies.

"If she does not come to her senses in time to tell us where she lives you can bring her to my house," answered another lady.

"Or to mine," said a third.

"Or mine," added a fourth.

"Or mine," "or mine," chimed in others.

Everybody was emulous to succor this unhappy one.

As they neared the city Mary Grey condescended to heave a deep sigh, shudder and open her eyes.

Then a chorus of sympathizing voices saluted her. But she wept and moaned, and pretended to refuse to be comforted.

It was some time before the persevering efforts of a gentleman succeeded in persuading her to understand and answer his question as to where she lived.

"At the Star Hotel," she said, with a gasp and a sigh, as if her heart were broken.

The boat landed; and the "poor lady," as she was compa.s.sionately called, was tenderly lifted out by the gentlemen and carefully supported between two of them while she was led to the hotel, followed by the ladies.

The sad news of the young gentleman's fate was immediately communicated to the people at the hotel, and soon spread through the town.

Ah, the drowning of a man at that point was not such an unusual event after all, and it made much less impression than it ought to have done.

Some people said they felt sorry for the poor young woman so suddenly bereaved and left among strangers; and perhaps they really believed that they did so; but the next instant they thought of something else.

But the ladies who had been present near the scene of the catastrophe, and had witnessed Mary Grey's well-acted terror, grief and despair, really did sympathize with her supposed sorrows to a very painful extent.

After following her to the hotel, they went with her to her room, and helped to undress her and put her to bed.

And two among them offered to remain and watch with her during the night.

The sinful woman, already a prey to the horrors of remorse and superst.i.tion, dreading the darkness and solitude of the night, fearing almost to see the dripping specter of the drowned man standing over her bed, gratefully accepted their offer, and begged, at the same time, for morphia.

Her kind attendants were afraid to administer a dangerous opiate without the advice of a physician; so they sent for one immediately, who, on his arrival and his examination of the terribly excited patient, gave her a dose that soon sent her to sleep.

The two ladies took their places by her bed and watched her.

She slept well through the night, and awoke quite calmly in the morning.

The composing influence of the morphia had not yet left her.

And with the returning daylight much of her remorse and all of her superst.i.tion vanished for the time being.

She thanked the ladies who had watched her during the night, and, in reply to their inquiries, a.s.sured them that she felt better, but begged them to keep her room dark.

They expressed their gratification to hear her say so. One of them bathed her face and hands and combed her hair, while the other one rang the bell, and ordered tea and toast to be brought to the room.

And they tenderly pressed her to eat and drink, and they waited on her while she partook slightly of this light breakfast.

Then they rang and sent the breakfast service away, and they put her room in order, and smoothed her pillows and the coverlet of her bed, and finally they kissed her and bade her good-morning for a while, promising to return again in the course of the afternoon, and begging that she would send for them, at the address they gave her, in case she should require their services sooner.

When she was left alone, Mary Grey slipped out of bed, locked the door after the ladies, and then, having secured herself from intrusion, she opened her traveling-bag and took from it a small white envelope, from which she drew a neatly-folded white paper.

This was the marriage certificate, setting forth that on the fifteenth day of September, eighteen hundred and ----, at the parish church of St. ----, in the city of Philadelphia, Alden Lytton, attorney at law, of the city of Richmond, and Mary Grey, widow, of the same city, were united in the holy bonds of matrimony by the Rev. Mr. Borden, rector of the church, in the presence of John Martin, s.e.xton, and Sarah Martin, his daughter.

The certificate was duly signed by the Rev. Mr. Borden and by John Martin and Sarah Martin.

Mary Grey sat down with this doc.u.ment before her, read it over slowly, and laughed a demoniac laugh as she folded it up and put it carefully into its envelope and returned it to her traveling-bag, while she reviewed her plot and "summed up the evidence" she had acc.u.mulated against the peace and honor of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish.

"Yes, I will let him marry her," she said, "and then, in the midst of their fancied security and happiness, I will come down upon them like an avalanche of destruction. I will claim him for my own husband by a previous marriage. I have evidence enough to convict and ruin him.

"First, I have all his impa.s.sioned letters, written to me from Charlottesville, while I was a guest at the Government House in Richmond.

"Secondly, I have those perfectly manufactured letters addressed to me in a fac-simile of his handwriting, signed by his name and mailed from Wendover to me at Richmond.

"Why, these alone would be sufficient to prove his perfidy even to Emma Cavendish's confiding heart! And they would be good for heavy damages in a breach of promise case.

"But I do not want damages--I want revenge. I do not want to touch his pocket--I want to ruin his life. Yes--and hers! I want to dishonor, degrade and utterly ruin them both! And I have evidence enough to do this," she said, resuming her summing up, "for there is--

"Thirdly, his meeting me at Forestville and his journey with me to Richmond.

"Fourthly, his journey with me to Philadelphia.

"Fifthly, the rector's certificate, setting forth the marriage of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey.

"Sixthly, the testimony of the rector, who will swear that he performed the ceremony, and of the s.e.xton and the s.e.xton's daughter, who will swear that they witnessed the marriage of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey; and swear, furthermore--from his exact resemblance to Craven Kyte--to the ident.i.ty of Alden Lytton as the bridegroom.

"Alden Lytton can not disprove this by an alibi, for at the very time Craven Kyte personated him, and under his name and character married me, Alden Lytton, in a dead stupor, was locked up in his darkened chamber, and no one knew of his whereabouts but myself, who had the key of his room.