A savage oath, and something like the noise of a struggle, followed.

Neither spoke; but now O'Shea could distinctly mark, by the crashing of the brushwood, that they had either both fallen to the ground, or that one had got the other under. Before he could resolve what course to take, the sharp report of a pistol rung out, the hasty rustle of a man forcing through the trees followed, and then all was still. It was not till after some minutes that he determined to go forward. A few steps brought him to the place, where in a little alley of the wood lay a man upon his face. He felt his wrist, and then, turning him on his back, laid his hand on the heart. All was still; he was warm, as if in life, but life had fled forever! A faint streak of moonlight had now just fallen upon the spot, and he saw it was Ludlow Paten who lay there.

The ball had entered his left side, and probably pierced the heart, so instantaneous had been his death. While O'Shea was thus engaged in tracing the fatal wound, a heavy pocket-book fell from the breast-pocket. He opened it; its contents were a packet of letters, tied with a string; he could but see that they bore the address of Paul Hunt, but he divined the rest They were _hers_. The great prize, for which he himself was ready to risk life, was now his own; and he hastened away from the place, and turned with all speed towards Baden.

It was not yet daybreak when he got back, and, gaining his room, locked the door. He knew not why he did so, but in the fear and turmoil of his mind he dreaded the possibility of seeing or being seen. He feared, besides, lest some chance word might escape him, some vague phrase might betray him as the witness of a scene he resolved never to disclose.

Sometimes, indeed, as he sat there, he would doubt the whole incident, and question whether it had not been the phantasm of an excited brain; but there before him on the table lay the letters; there they were, the terrible evidences of the late crime, and perhaps the proofs of guilt in another too!

This latter thought nearly drove him distracted. There before him lay what secured to him the prize he sought for, and yet what, for aught he knew, might contain what would render that object a shame and a disgrace. It lay with himself to know this. Once in her possession, he, of course, could never know the contents, or if by chance discovery came, it might come too late. He reasoned long and anxiously with himself; he tried to satisfy his mind that there were cases in which self-preservation absolved a man from what in less critical emergencies had been ignominious to do. He asked himself, "Would not a man willingly burn the documents whose production would bring him to disgrace and ruin? and, by the same rule, would not one eagerly explore those which might save him from an irreparable false step? At all events," thought he, "Fortune has thrown the chance in my way, and so--" He read them.

CHAPTER VII. THE COTTAGE NEAR BREGENZ

There was something actually artistic in the choice old Holmes had made for his daughter's residence near Bregenz. It was an old-fashioned farmhouse, with a deep eave, and a massive cornice beneath it. A wooden gallery ran the entire length, with a straggling stair to it, overgrown with a very ancient fig-tree, whose privilege it was to interweave through the balustrades, and even cross the steps at will the whole nearly hidden by the fine old chestnut-trees which clothe the Gebhardts-Berg to its very summit. It was the sort of spot a lone and sorrowing spirit might have sought out to weep away unseen, to commune with grief in solitude, and know nothing of a world she was no more to share in. The simple-hearted peasants who accepted them as lodgers asked no reason for their selection of the place, nor were they likely, in their strange dialect, to be able to discuss the point with others, save their neighbors. The chief room, which had three windows opening on a little terrace, looked out upon a glorious panorama of the Swiss Alps, with the massive mountains that lead to the Splugen; and it was at one of these Mrs. Morris--or rather, to give her that name by which for the last few pages of our story she may be called, Mrs. Hawke--now sat, as the sun was sinking, watching with an unfeigned enjoyment the last gorgeous tints of declining day upon the snow peaks.

Perhaps at that moment the sense of repose was the most grateful of all sensations to her, for she had passed through a long day of excitement and fatigue. Like a great actress who had, in her impersonation of a difficult part, called forth all her powers of voice, look, and gesture, straining every fibre to develop to the utmost the passion she would convey, and tearing her very heart to show its agony, she was now to feel the terrible depression of reaction, the dreary void of the solitude around her, and the death-like stillness of her own subdued emotions. But yet, through all this, there was a rapturous enjoyment in the thought of a task accomplished, an ordeal passed.

On that same morning it was Trover had arrived with Mr. Winthrop, and her first meeting took place with the friend of her late husband,--perhaps the one living being whom alone of all the world she felt a sort of terror at seeing. The fear he inspired was vague, and not altogether reasonable; but it was there, and she could not master it.

Till she met him, indeed, it almost overcame her; but when she found him a mild old man, of gentle manners and a quiet presence, unsuspecting and frank, and extending towards her a compassionate protection, she rallied quickly from her fears, and played out her part courageously.

How affecting was her grief! It was one of those touching pictures which, while they thrill the heart, never harrow the feelings. It was sorrow made beautiful, rather than distressing. Time, of course, long years, had dulled the bitterness of her woe, and only cast the sombre coloring of sadness over a nature that might have been--who knows?--made for joy and brightness. Unused to such scenes, the honest American could only sit in a sort of admiring pity of such a victim to an early sorrow; so fair a creature robbed of her just meed of this world's happiness, and by a terrible destiny linked with an awful event! And how lovely she was through it all, how forgiving of that man's cruelty! He knew Hawke well, and he was no stranger to the trials a woman must have gone through who had been chained to his coarse and brutal nature; and yet not a harsh word fell from her, not a syllable of reproach or blame. No; she had all manner of excuses to make for him, in the evil influences by which he was surrounded, the false and bad men who assumed to be his friends.

It was quite touching to hear her allude to the happiness of their early married life,--their contentment with humble fortune, their willing estrangement from a world of luxury and display, to lead an existence of cultivated pursuits and mutual affection. Winthrop was moved as he listened, and Trover had to wipe his eyes.

Of the dreadful event of her life she skilfully avoided details, dwelling only on such parts of it as might illustrate her own good qualities, her devotion to the memory of one of whom she had much to pardon, and her unceasing affection for his child. If the episode of that girl's illness and death was only invented at the moment of telling, it lost nothing by the want of premeditation; and Winthrop's tears betrayed how he took to heart the desolate condition of that poor bereaved woman.

"I had resolved," said she, "never to avail myself of this fortune.

To what end could I desire wealth? I was dead to the world. If enough remained to support me through my lonely pilgrimage, I needed no more.

The simple life of these peasants here offered me all that I could now care for, and it was in this obscure spot I meant to have ended my days, unnoticed and unwept. My dear father, however, a distinguished officer, whose services the Government is proud to acknowledge, had rashly involved himself in some speculations; everything went badly with him, and he finished by losing all that he had laid by to support his old age. In this emergency I bethought me of that will; but even yet I don't believe I should have availed myself of its provisions if it were not that my father urged me by another and irresistible argument, which was that in not asserting my own claim, I was virtually denying yours.

'Think of Winthrop,' said he. 'Why should he be defrauded of his inheritance because you have taken a vow of poverty?' He called it a vow of poverty," said she, smiling through her tears, "since I wore no better dress than this, nor tasted any food more delicate than the rough fare of my peasant neighbors."

If the costume to which she thus directed their attention was simple, it was eminently becoming, being, in reality, a sort of theatrical travesty of a peasant's dress, made to fit perfectly, and admitting of a very generous view of her matchless foot and ankle; insomuch, indeed, that Mr. Winthrop could not help feeling that if poverty had its privations, it could yet be eminently picturesque.

If Winthrop wished from time to time to ask some question about this, or inquire into that, her answers invariably led him far afield, and made him even forget the matter he had been eager about. A burst of emotion, some suddenly recalled event, some long-forgotten passage brought back to mind in a moment, would extricate her from any difficulty; and as to dates,--those awful sunk rocks of all unprepared fiction,--how could she be asked for these,--she, who really could not tell the very year they were then living in, had long ceased to count time or care for its onward course? There were things he did not understand; there were things, too, that he could not reconcile with each other; but he could not, at such a moment, suggest his doubts or his difficulties, nor be so heartless as to weary that poor crushed and wounded spirit by prolonging a scene so painful.

When he arose to take his leave, they were like old friends. With a delicate tact all her own, she distinguished him especially from Mr.

Trover; and while she gave Winthrop both her hands in his, she bestowed upon his companion a very cold smile and a courtesy.

"Are they gone,--positively gone?" asked she of her father, who now entered the room, after having carefully watched the whole interview from a summer-house with a spy-glass.

"Yes, dear; they are out on the road. I just overheard the American, as he closed the wicket, remark, 'She's the most fascinating creature I ever talked to!'"

"I hope I am, papa. When one has to be a serpent, one ought surely to have a snake's advantages! What a dear old creature that American is!

I really have taken a great liking to him. There is a marvellous attraction in the man that one can deceive without an effort, and, like the sheep who come begging to be eaten, only implores to be 'taken in again.'"

"I never took my eyes off him, and I saw that you made him cry twice."

"Three times, papa,--three times; not to speak of many false attacks of sensibility that went off in deep sighs and chokings. Oh dear! am I not wearied? Fetch me a little lemonade, and put one spoonful--only one--of maraschino in it. That wretch Trover almost made me laugh with his absurd display of grief. I 'll not have him here to-morrow."

"And is Winthrop to come to-morrow?"

"Yes; and this evening too. He comes to-night to tea; he is so anxious to know you, papa; he has such a pleasant theory about that dear old man covered with wounds and honors, and devoting his declining year's to console his poor afflicted child. You have put too much maraschino in this."

"One spoonful, on honor; but I mean to treat myself more generously.

Well, I 'm heartily glad that the interview is over. It was an anxious thing to have before one, and particularly not knowing what manner of man he might be."

"That was the real difficulty. It 's very hard to 'play up' to an unknown audience!"

"I 'd not have asked them back this evening, Loo. It will be too much for you."

"I did not do so. It was Winthrop himself begged permission to come; but he promised that not a syllable of business was to transpire, so that I have only to be very charming, which, of course, costs nothing."

"I gather that all went smoothly on this morning. No difficulty anywhere?"

"None whatever. The account Trover gave us is fully borne out. The property is immense. There are, however, innumerable legal details to be gone through. I can't say what documents and papers we shall not have to produce; meanwhile our American friend most generously lays his purse at our disposal, and this blank check is to be filled at my discretion."

"'Barnet and King,'" read he; "an excellent house. 'Please to pay to Mrs. Hawke, or order.' Very handsome of him, this, Loo; very thoughtful."

"Very thoughtful; but I'd as soon Trover had not been present; he's a greedy, grabbing sort of creature, and will insist upon a large discount out of it."

"Make the draft the bigger, darling; the remedy is in your own hands."

"Strange there should be no letter from O'Shea. I was full certain we should have heard something before this."

"Perhaps we may by this post, dear. It ought to have arrived by this time."

"Then go and see, by all means. How I hate a post that comes of an evening! One ought to begin the day with one's letters; they are the evil fates, whose machinations all our efforts are directed against.

They are, besides, the whispering of the storm that is brewing afar off, but is sure to overtake us. One ought to meet them with a well-rested brain and refreshed spirit, not wearied and jaded and unstrung by the day's toil."

And the Captain prepared to obey, but not without a variety of precautions against catching cold, which seemed somewhat to try his daughter's patience.

"You really," said she, with a half-bitter smile, "take very little account of the anxiety I must feel about my future husband."

"Nonsense, dear; the O'Shea is not to be thought of. It would really be a gross misuse of wealth to share it with such a man."

"So it might, if one were free to choose. But it's the old story, papa,"

said she, with a sigh. "To be cured of the ague, one is willing to take arsenic. There, you are surely muffled enough now; lose no more time, and, above all things, don't get into a gossiping mood, and stay to talk with Trover, or be seduced by Mr. Winthrop's juleps, but come back at once, for I have a sort of feverish foreboding over me that I cannot control."

"How silly that is, dear!--to have a stout heart on the high seas and grow cowardly in the harbor."

"But _are_ we in the harbor? Are we so _very_ certain that the voyage is over?" said she, with increased eagerness, "But pray go for the letters, or I will myself."

He set out at last, and she watched him as he shut the wicket and crossed out upon the high-road; and then, all alone as she sat, she burst into a passionate flood of tears. Was this the relief of a nature strained like an over-bent bow? Was it the sorrowful outburst of a spirit which, however bold and defiant to the world, was craven to itself; or was it simply that fear had mastered her, and that she felt the approach of the storm that was to shipwreck her?

She must have been partly stunned by her sorrow, for she sat, no longer impatient, nor watching eagerly for his return, but in a sort of half-lethargic state, gazing out unconsciously into the falling night that now closed in fast around her.

It is neither a weak nor an ignorant theory that ascribes, even to the most corrupt natures, moments of deepest remorse, sincere and true, aspirations after better things, and a willingness to submit to the severest penalties of the past, if only there be a "future" in store for them. Who can tell us what of these were now passing through the mind of her who sat at that window, brooding sorrowfully?