Victor's Triumph Part 55

"Nor can Craven Kyte 'ever rise to explain,' for death and the Susquehanna mud has stopped his mouth.

"So this chain of evidence must be conclusive not only to the minds of the jury, who will send my gentleman to rusticate in a penitentiary for a term of years, but also to Miss Cavendish, who will find her proud escutcheon blotted a little, I think."

While Mary Grey gloated over the horrors of her plotted vengeance, there came a rap at the door. She hastily put on a dressing-gown, softly unlocked the door, threw herself into an easy-chair, with her back to the window, and bade the rapper to come in.

The door opened and the clerk of the house entered, bringing with him the house register, which he held open in his hand.

"I beg your pardon for this unseasonable intrusion, madam," he said, as he laid the open book down on the table before her; "but being called upon to report this sad case of the drowning of a guest of this house, I find some difficulty in making out the name, for the poor young gentleman does not seem to have written very clearly. The name is registered C. or G. something or other. But whether it is Hyte or Flyte or Kyle or Hyle, none of us can make out."

Mary Grey smiled within herself, as she secretly rejoiced at the opportunity of concealing the real name and ident.i.ty of Craven Kyte with the drowned man.

So she drew the book toward her and said, with an affectation of weariness and impatience, as she gazed upon poor Craven's illegible hieroglyphics:

"Why, the name is quite plain! It is G. Hyle--H-y-l-e. Don't you see?"

"Oh, yes, madam! I see now quite plainly. Excuse me: they ask for the full name. Would you please to tell me what the initial G stands for?"

"Certainly. It stands for Gaston. His name was Gaston Hyle. He was a foreigner, as his name shows. There, there, pray do not talk to me any more! I can not bear it," said Mary Grey, affecting symptoms of hysterical grief.

"I beg your pardon for having troubled you, madam, indeed! And I thank you for the information you have given me. Good-day, madam," said the clerk, bowing kindly and courteously as he withdrew.

The next day the newspapers, under the head of casualties, published the following paragraph:

"On Friday evening last a young man, a foreigner, of the name of Gaston Hyle, who had been stopping at the Star Hotel, Havre-de-Grace, was accidentally drowned while boating on the river. His body has not yet been recovered."

No, nor his body never was recovered.

Mary Grey, for form's sake, remained a week at Havre-de-Grace, affecting great anxiety for the recovery of that body. But she shut herself up in her room, pretending the deepest grief, and upon this pretext refusing all sympathizing visits, even from the ladies who had shown her so much kindness on the night of the catastrophe, and from the clergy, who would have offered her religious consolation.

The true reason of her seclusion was that she did not wish her features to become familiar to these people, lest at some future time they might possibly be inconveniently recognized.

As yet no one had seen her face except by night or in her darkened room.

And she did not intend that they should.

Her supposed grievous bereavement was her all-sufficient excuse for her seclusion.

At the end of the week Mary Grey paid her bill at the Star, and, closely-veiled, left the hotel and took the evening train for Washington, _en route_ for Richmond.

In due time she reached the last-named city and took up her residence at her old quarters with the Misses Crane, there to wait patiently until the marriage of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish should give her the opportunity of consummating their ruin and her own triumph. Meanwhile poor Craven Kyte's leave of absence having expired, he began to be missed and inquired for.

But to all questions his partner answered that he did not know where he was or when he would be back, but thought he was all right.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII.

GREAT PROSPERITY.

Fortune is merry, And in this mood will give us anything.

--SHAKESPEARE.

Alden Lytton prospered wonderfully. Not once in a thousand instances can a young professional man get on as fast as he did.

Usually the young lawyer or doctor has to wait long before work comes to him, and then to work long before money comes.

It was not so with Alden Lytton.

As soon as he opened his office business came in at the door.

His first brief was a success.

His second, and more difficult one, was a still greater victory.

His third, and most important, was the greatest triumph of the three.

And from this time the high road to fame and fortune was open to him.

The astonishing rapidity of his rise was explained in various ways by different persons.

Emma Cavendish, who loved and esteemed him, ascribed his great prosperity to his own splendid talents alone.

Alden Lytton himself, full of filial respect, attributed it to the prestige of his late father's distinguished name.

And the briefless young lawyers, his unsuccessful rivals at the bar, credited it to the "loud" advertis.e.m.e.nt afforded by his handsome office and the general appearance of wealth and prosperity that surrounded him.

No doubt they were all right and--all wrong.

Not one of these circ.u.mstances taken alone could have secured the young barrister's success. Neither his own talents nor his father's name, nor the costly appointments of his office, could have done it; yet each contributed something, and all together they combined to insure his rapid advancement in his profession.

While Alden Lytton was thus gaining fame and fortune, Mary Grey was engaged in mystifying the minds and winning the sympathy and compa.s.sion of all her acquaintances.

From the time of her return from Philadelphia she had exhibited a deep and incurable melancholy.

Everybody pitied her deeply and wondered what could be the secret sorrow under which she was suffering.

But when any friend more curious than the rest ventured to question her, she answered:

"I have borne and am still bearing the deepest wrong that any woman can suffer and survive. But I must not speak of it now. My hands are bound and my tongue is tied. But the time _may_ come when a higher duty than that which restrains me now may force me to speak. Until then I must be mute."

This was extremely tantalizing to all her friends; but it was all that could be got from her.

Meanwhile her face faded into a deadlier pallor and her form wasted to a ghastlier thinness. And this was real, for she was demon-haunted--a victim of remorse, not a subject of repentance.

The specter that she had feared to look upon on the fatal night of her crime--the pale, dripping form of her betrayed and murdered lover--was ever before her mind's eye.

If she entered a solitary or a half-darkened room the phantasm lurked in the shadowy corners or met her face to face.