CHAPTER XVI.

THE STORY OF FANNY RAYMOND.

“Have you seen but the bright lily grow Before rude hands have touched it? Have you marked but the fall o’ the snow Before the soil hath smutched it?” BEN JONSON.

The disease of Mr. Withers daily advanced—his health so rapidly declined that he became exceedingly anxious for the arrival of Raymond, who was now hourly expected.

“Well, Sophie, my gentle nurse,” said he one day, as she sat by his bedside, “your probation is drawing to a close. You have devoted yourself to me for eight long years, my guardian angel—to what purpose?”

“To what purpose?—you have done more good in this parish than any minister who has preceded you for many years; for even Mr. May, with all his excellences, lacked that eloquence—that power of persuasion—that profound knowledge of and potent sway over the human heart, that nothing but sorrow can lend to intellect. Hearts have been moved and elevated, minds aroused and inspired by your wisdom. A spirit has been invoked in this dull neighborhood that may never be still again. I have often thought how infinitely productive is _one_ good word, or thought, or act, its influence extending down generations, still augmenting for ever.”

“Ah! Sophie, but while all the light was shed abroad, the shadow was cast black and thick at home; and how it has darkened our home and your young life, Sophie!”

“Some _must_ suffer for others,” said Sophie, abstractedly.

“And _have_ you suffered so much, Sophie?” he inquired, sadly.

“No!—oh, no!—I was thinking of _your_ suffering, not of my own, and I thought aloud.”

While she spoke, Hagar entered from a ride, and brought a letter from Rosalia. When it had been read, and Hagar had left the room to change her riding habit, he said,—

“How much that girl—I mean Rosalia, writes like one I know—her very spirit speaks through Rosalia’s pen, as her form is again before me in Rosalia’s person.”

“You mean Fanny?”

“Yes, I mean Fanny. You have never, until this moment, mentioned her name to me since the night of Rosalia’s arrival, when I angrily forbade your doing so. Often since that I have wished that you might, thus affording me the opportunity of telling you our sad story. I will tell you now, but first, will Hagar be occupied for the next hour?”

“Yes, she has gone to her chamber to answer Rosalia’s letter.”

“Give me a cordial, Sophie?” She did so, and revived by the stimulant, Withers commenced his story.

“I was the only son of my mother, and she a widow, Sophie. She supported and schooled me by her own exertions until I was eighteen years old, when I fell under the notice of the Rev. Lenox May, who received me into his house to read theology with him. Subsequently I entered college, and soon after taking orders, I had the misfortune to lose my mother. She had lived to see the desire of her heart, however—her beloved son in holy orders. She had seen the ceremony of his ordination, heard him preach his first sermon, heard it universally praised as a miracle of eloquence, thoroughly believed it herself, and was ready to exclaim—‘Now let thy servant depart in peace.’ Sophie, I never was intended for a minister of the Gospel. If I have made a tolerable one it is because the hard blows of circumstances have hammered me into shape. Accident and my mother’s wishes made me one. However, soon after my ordination, I was called to the charge of a parish in a village on the Hudson, and the adulation I there received reconciled me to the profession. I was called handsome and eloquent. The church certainly flourished under my ministry. I was flattered by the circumstance _then_; _now_ I know such is ever the case when a young clergyman of tolerable ability is installed in a parish. But, Sophie, I was foster-nursed by the old ladies of the parish, and out of that grew all my sorrows. South of the village, on an eminence overlooking the river, stood the white granite villa of my wealthiest and most important parishioner, General Raymond. He was a widower, with one child—the child of his old age—Fanny, the sole heiress of his property. Religion, or rather, evangelical theology, was his passion. How sonorous rang his full-toned responses through the church, as standing, his stout form erect, his broad shoulders thrown back _à-la-militaire_, his chest expanding with self-importance, he called himself a ‘miserable sinner.’ On the first Sunday of my installation he invited me home to dinner with him, and with stately, old-fashioned courtesy conducted me to his carriage that stood waiting at the church-door, and there, as I stepped in, I first saw Fanny Raymond, then a child of twelve years of age, a lovely, little, shrinking creature, who squeezed herself quite into the corner as I took the seat by her side, as you have often seen a playful white kitten draw herself up between fear and defiance, and I instantly felt the same impulse to catch the lovely, shy thing to my bosom that you would have felt to play with the said kitten. So strong was this impulse that it must have spoken through look and gesture, and might have been obeyed but that the pompous old general followed me immediately into the carriage, and announced, “My daughter, Miss Raymond,” with as much ceremony as though the sweet child had been a woman of five-and-twenty. She sat there, watching me furtively, her sweet eyes flashing their soft shy light under the shadowy lashes, and quickly averted when met by mine, while rose clouds would roll up over her snowy cheeks. That sweet, shy spirit, whether in the violet, in the fawn, or in the timid girl, always attracted me, Sophie. It was your eyes, that meeting my glance, would startle and dilate in beautiful haze that provoked _your_ fate, Sophie. I would have given anything—my parish—the world, then and there to have caught the shrinking child to my bosom, and hugged, and kissed, and romped with her to my heart’s content. From that day I was a frequent, and always a welcome and an honored guest at the villa. Time passed, and I rose in popularity, winning golden opinions from all sorts of people, and especially from women. As long as a young minister remains unmarried, unappropriated, unmonopolized, he is sure to be popular; so _my_ popularity continued to increase for three years. While watching the development of the child, Fanny Raymond, I had sought the society of no woman. When Fanny was about fifteen years of age, I was sent for one day to the villa. It was to be put in possession of an attested copy of General Raymond’s will, by a clause of which I was appointed sole trustee of the estate, until Fanny should come of age. It was during this visit, and in the presence of one of the old ladies of the parish, that General Raymond remarked, ‘I am now upwards of eighty years old—I am failing fast; I should like to see Fanny married before my departure, but, alas! that is a comfort for which I dare scarcely pray.’ Up to that time I had not thought of aspiring to the hand of General Raymond’s heiress. It was my lot that evening to drive the old lady, my fellow-visitor, back to the village in the General’s carriage. It was during our ride home that the old lady, one of my foster-mothers, suggested to me the plan, the propriety of my paying my addresses to Miss Raymond, ‘For,’ said she, ‘it is the duty of a young pastor to consider in his marriage the welfare of his parish.’

“I took her advice. I wooed Fanny Raymond—did I love her? No; but her extreme youth, her beauty and graceful shyness strongly attracted me—through that idiosyncrasy that lured me to the pursuit of such. I wooed her, but she avoided, fled from me. That added zest to the chase. I had her father’s interest, and I married her. I married her, despite of her reluctance, or rather _because_ of her reluctance, and despite of tears, prayers, and resistance. (Here notwithstanding the chastening of illness and sorrow, his eye and lip glowed as with the recollection of piquant joy.) I married her. The wild shy creature, full of emotion as a harp is of music, was in my power—in my grasp. Oh! the wild beating of my heart, when I had caught and held the fluttering bird! Did I love her now? Yes! as the fire loves the fuel it consumes. And _then_ she loved _me_, Sophie! or rather _no_, I will not profane the word that expresses _your_ pure affection for me, Sophie. But she grew passionately, insanely fond of me—she loved me as the drunkard loves the bowl he feels is his destruction—as the moth loves the flame that must consume it. And then, Sophie! _then_, she lost all attractions for me! From indifference I grew almost to loathe her. I struggled against this growing disgust, but it overmastered me. Poor Fanny! if she had not been the simplest child on earth, if she had possessed the slightest speck of coquetry, this aversion might have been delayed. Poor Fanny!” (Here, overcome by his feelings, he covered his brow with his hand. How quickly varying emotions chased each other through his heart; but this belonged to the high action of his disease.) “We lived with her father. Fanny became a mother at sixteen. General Raymond lived to bless his grandson, and then was gathered to his fathers. We continued to reside at the villa. I utterly neglected her. At the slightest display of fondness on her part, I grew freezingly cold. This was _real_, this was a feeling it was useless to struggle against, as I had found, and as at last she understood. Fanny grieved, suffered, and sought solace in her child. As years passed, she became calm, grew accustomed and reconciled to her lot; and how beautiful she grew as her day advanced from its morning freshness towards the noonday glory it was destined never to reach. How beautiful! At least all the parish said so. _I_ could not feel her beauty. Years slid serenely, imperceptibly, over us. We were prosperous. I had the largest property, the most elegant house, and the most beautiful wife in the parish. Besides which I had a growing celebrity. I was vain-glorious, Sophie, _not proud_. There is this difference between pride and vainglory: pride does _not_ depend upon the external circumstances of rank, wealth, fame; vainglory _does_. We sometimes speak of _mortifying_ pride; _pride_ is _never_ mortified; it is impossible—it holds itself grandly above all such influences; vanity, self-love, is _often_ humbled. I was vain-glorious, not only of my wealth, of my celebrity, of my admired wife—but most of all, of the _intact propriety_ of all things appertaining to me. Years slid smoothly over us. I never saw so beautiful a woman as Fanny was at thirty. Few of our women bloom into the full flower—most of them are withered in the bud. Fanny at thirty was the perfect rose of beauty. Why, Sophie, when I took her to New York city, or into any strange company, there was always a half-suppressed murmur of irrepressible admiration. Though I was no longer _proud_ of her, yet now that for long years she had ceased to worry me with her unwelcome caresses, there had grown up a calm friendship and confidence between us—she understood me, and _I thought_ that I understood her. I never guessed the latent force of passion, augmenting while it slumbered in her heart (sleep is the time for growth), or suspected the burning lava, burning more fiercely for suppression under the snowy exterior of that volcanic bosom! As little dreamed I of impending ruin as the city under the shadow of Vesuvius! About this time the whole country rang with the name of one man. A man distinguished alike for the splendor of his genius, the audacious flight of his ambition, the godlike beauty of his person, and the satanic power of fascination that neither the honor of man nor the purity of woman ever withstood. You cannot fail to identify the man—but _one_ such is born in a cycle of centuries. One day I received an invitation to preach an ordination sermon upon the next Sabbath, in the city. I had, during the years of my ministry, received several calls to take charge of large city parishes; but always declined them, because our large property and our home lay near our village. Frequently I was invited to preach in the cities, and then wherever I went crowds gathered. I always took Fanny with me, for the beauty of the woman attracted quite as much attention as the genius of the man. Upon receiving this invitation to preach the ordination sermon, therefore, I procured a substitute to fill my pulpit, and taking Fanny, stepped aboard a steamboat on Saturday morning, and the afternoon of the same day reached the city.

“It had been advertised that I was to preach at that church, and at an early hour it was crowded, packed. As I entered the church and led Fanny up the aisle, I do not know whether I was most vain of her or of myself. I know that my heart was swelling with vainglory as I opened the door of one of the front central pews under the pulpit, handed her in, and passed within the altar to my place. I saw from my high post that Fanny divided attention with me from the few who, packed into the end pews, could obtain a view of her. In the end pew nearest the pulpit, on my right hand, I was surprised and flattered to recognise the celebrated B. I had never had him for an auditor before. I observed that he did not seem to see Fanny, who sat immediately in the angle of his vision, notwithstanding _her_ eyes were ever furtively raking him. I was not surprised at this, for to say nothing of his celebrity, he was by far the most distinguished looking man present, both for the striking beauty of his person and the grace and dignity of his attitude and demeanor; but I _was_ slightly surprised that he had not seemed to have seen the vision of loveliness and light that was dazzling all other eyes. These were not proper thoughts for a minister of the gospel in the pulpit, but they were mine; and they produced their bitter fruits, brought about their own punishment.

“At the close of the sermon, a few minutes after I had left the pulpit, B. came from his pew, and a mutual friend introduced him to me. My wife was hanging on my arm at the time of this introduction. B. spoke of our village, of General Raymond as having been a valued friend, &c., and of his own intention soon to visit the village. I, like every one else he ever set his eyes upon, was fascinated by his looks and manners. I pressed him to come—and _soon_—and entreated him to come at once to the villa, instead of stopping at a hotel, and to make our house his home, while he should find it convenient or agreeable to honor us with his presence.

“Well, Sophie, I returned home on Monday. In the course of the week, B. visited us. He remained with us an honored guest for two weeks, and in those two weeks, Sophie!——His manner rather than his words seemed to reveal a warm admiration for me and everything about me. Our elegant house, well-chosen library, our busts and pictures, our tastefully planned grounds, everything seemed to give him a quiet and graceful delight. His manner to me seemed (for all was _seeming_) to reveal a charming mixture of reverence and affection. I was fascinated—drawn in. His manner seemed distant to my wife, _so_ distant that I never inclined to _jealousy_, but often to _vanity_; felt piqued that he did not appear to appreciate the merits of _her_, my most brilliant appendage. He visited little while he remained at our house; the charms of our house seemed to rivet him to the place. Parochial duty called me frequently from home; he was left to the hospitable care of my wife. They were much together.

“The last day of his stay approached. And up to that day I was utterly unsuspicious of the cloud lowering black and heavy over my house! utterly unprepared for the descent of the thunderbolt that blasted my hearth! The day of his departure dawned. It had been arranged between us that I should drive him down to the village, in the carriage, to meet the steamboat that would pass in the evening. But early in the afternoon I was summoned to attend the bedside of a dying parishioner, at an opposite point of the village. I was constrained, therefore, to leave him, promising, however, to meet him at the steamboat hotel, before his departure.

“I left him with Fanny—Oh! let me recall her image, as the last time I saw her in purity and peace: She sat in a chair by the open window, arrayed in a beautiful robe of light blue silk; her air and attitude I noticed _then_ was pensive; her elbow rested on the window-sill, and her arm, her beautiful arm, encircled by a diamond bracelet, emerged from its sleeve of silk and lace; her hand supported her drooping head, from which her ringlets hung like spiral curls of glittering gold. The other gemmed and snow-like hand hung listless by her side. Strange! I was then inspired with a warmth of affection towards her I had not felt for years. I stepped back as I was about leaving the room, and lifted the snow-flake hand to my lips, and then left the room and the house, for the first time for years, with the wish that I might be able to dispatch my business quickly and return soon. This caprice pursued me, strengthening every inch of the way, as I journeyed from her, until at the solemn bed of death, it was interrupted by the sight of my dying parishioner and his weeping family. I administered the last consolations of religion to the dying man, or at least I read the service for the sick by his bedside, and gave him the sacrament. I soon after took leave, and rode towards the village, where I expected to find B., awaiting the steamboat. I found him in the parlor of the hotel. As the hour of the boat’s passing had not quite arrived, I ordered supper, and we supped together. Yes! we sat down once more and broke bread together! Oh! the power of duplicity in that bad man! Had I been the most jealous, as I was then the most unsuspicious of human beings, by no sign in his countenance or manner could I have detected a consciousness in him of the blasting ruin he had wrought in my home! His conversation was as brilliant, his manner as entertaining as ever; and his eyes sought mine with the same earnest sweetness that had ever lived in their expression. At the end of half an hour, the boat stopped at the landing, and I took leave of him with more regret than I had ever felt at parting with mortal man before or since. I pressed him to repeat his visit soon, and make it longer—and he promised! and bade me bear his best wishes and his adieux to Mrs. Withers! I mounted my horse and rode towards home, my thoughts strangely haunted with Fanny—how lovely she seemed in my thoughts! I hastened onwards. I drew near the house.

“That ride home! How distinctly, how indelibly is every circumstance attending it imprinted on my memory! That ride home through the dark, cool woods, with the moonlight shimmering down through the leaves, with the merry chirp of insects in the trees, with the fresh dew on the grass; with my heart warmer, lighter, gladder, than it had been for years; nothing, nothing to warn me of the ruin before me! I was, except the stirring of a new and glad emotion, as calm as Pompeii under the shadow of Vesuvius. I passed through the iron gate in front of our house—it swung to with a loud clang behind me. To this day the clang of a gate sends a pang to my heart. I passed up the gravel walk between rows of violets whose fragrance filled the air. I recollect it so distinctly. To this hour the smell of violets makes me ill. I jumped from my horse, and throwing the bridle to a servant who came to take it, I hastened up the marble stairs, and into the house. The lamps were not lighted. ‘She is enjoying the moonlight of this cool hour,’ I said, and I passed into the parlor. The moon was shining through the two large front windows shaded with foliage, and shining in two bright square patches, variegated with the black shadows of the leaves on the carpet; and the leaves in the window and their shadows on the floor trembled in the rising breeze. At first I thought the room was vacant, but looking around, I presently discerned the form of Fanny on a sofa in the back of the room. She lay partly on the floor, partly on the sofa. Her dress disordered, her hair dishevelled, her face down, her arms thrown over her head in an attitude of the uttermost despair—of the last abandonment. Surprised, I approached her, thinking her sick, or perhaps sleeping. I spoke to her—she did not reply. I stooped, raised, and kissed her. _Then_ she bounded like a shot from under my embrace, and sank cowering in a distant part of the room. Wondering, I followed her, but she raised, turned away her head, grinding her face into the corner, while she threw up both arms towards me in a frantic, abjuring gesture! I now really fancied that in the dubious light, I had mistaken some one _else_ for Fanny; that this could not be she, but was probably some poor mad stroller. I hastened into the hall and called for lights. They were brought, set upon the mantel-piece, and the servant retired. I turned towards her. God! what a thing met my view! Ashy pale, with a wild blaze in her blue eyes, haggard and shuddering, she cowered in the corner, her hands clasping her head, her gaze riveted in phrensied despair upon me! I spoke to her, but she changed not her attitude. I caressed her, and she broke forth in raving madness. God! oh God! Sophie, how can I describe to you the grief, horror, _distraction_, with which I gathered from her raving, the shameful story of _her_ fall and of my dishonor! Though earth and hell swam together in my reeling reason, every fact of the loathsome story betrayed in her phrensied remorse struck distinctly on my ear. How the snake had glided nearer to her every day, fascinating her imagination by his brilliancy, stealing into her bosom by his sweet tenderness, lulling her fears and disarming her resistance by his gentle mesmerism, winding coil after coil of his serpent fold around her, and delaying until the last hour—the tender parting hour, the safe hour of sorrowful, tearful adieux, and non-resistance—the _unguarded_ hour, to strike his venomed fangs deep in her heart! How sudden was her fall—how quick her recovery! How terrible her remorse! And I, Sophie! _I!_—I said that earth and hell swam together in my reason! I felt a rushing and roaring in my head and ears like the coming of many waters; the earth rocked under my feet, and I thought the end of all things was at hand. I suppose I fell. **** The next link in memory was a slow, feeble returning to consciousness—more like a weak babe’s first coming into existence than like a man’s revival. The first glimmering of sensibility found me extended prostrated on my bed, unable to lift or turn; aye, even to _move_ a limb. The only fluttering life seeming to linger in my languid eyes, and in the weak breath hovering in my bosom and on my lips like a soul ready for flight. A dreary, dreary weight that I could then neither understand, nor throw off, lay heavy on my soul. A sorrowful, shadowy face, like a dream of Fanny, floated past my vision. It was the face of Raymond, my son, my constant attendant. Too slowly dawned reason and memory on the night of my intellect to endanger a shock and a relapse. Day by day, and hour by hour, I picked up and restrung the broken and scattered links in the chain of circumstances; and in a few days, before my physical powers were recovered sufficiently to allow me to speak a consecutive sentence, or utter a word above my breath, I understood the height and depth—the full extent of my ruin. But _she_! where was _she_? I saw nothing of her—heard nothing of her. For many days I dared not inquire. At last one day when Raymond was sitting by me with his shame-bowed head leaned upon his hands, my anxiety, by intense thought of her, had become insupportable.

“‘Raymond!’ said I.

He looked up sorrowfully.

“‘Where is your mother, my boy?’

“‘Gone!’

“‘How!’

“‘Fled!’

“‘When?’

“‘Upon the night of your attack.’

“‘Where? with whom?’

“‘We do not know.’

“‘Has any one pursued her?’

“‘No, sir.’

“‘Why did not you follow her—seek, save her?’

“‘My duty was by your bedside, my father?’

“‘Raymond! tell me! how far is this dreadful tragedy known—how far has her frantic remorse, _my_ phrensied despair exposed us?’

“He was silent, and when I repeated and pressed the question he bowed his young face upon his hands and wept. The tears trickled between his fingers. I understood by his silent grief that our shame was not hidden. After a while, ‘Raymond!’ said I. He raised his tearful face. ‘You loved your mother?’ He sobbed aloud.

“‘Go and seek her.’

“‘My place is by your side, my father.’

“‘Go and seek your mother.’

“‘I cannot leave you yet, sir.’

“‘Go and seek and save your mother, lodge her in a place of safety, and then return to me.’

“‘Alas! sir, you need me every moment—do not command me to leave you.’

“‘Raymond! _now_ I cannot rest until I know she is found and safe, or _dead_, and so it is with you, boy. Raymond, do you sleep at night?’

“He shook his head mournfully—_so_ mournfully. Ah! if our betrayer could have seen our sorrow, his heart—even _his_ heart, would have been melted in repentance for all the wreck he had made.

“‘Raymond,’ said I, ‘she has severed the tie that bound her to _me_, but she is your mother still—_that_ tie nor life nor death can sever. _I_ may not—_must_ not see her again; _you_ must go and seek her, find her, and find a distant, secluded asylum for her. _You_ must tend and care for her, and make her life as tolerable as, with her keen sensibilities, the memory of her awful sin will permit it to be. I give her up to you. To-morrow morning you must set out on your search.’

“He no longer opposed my wish, perhaps it was _his_ wish too, in fact. Utterly exhausted by the conversation, I sank into silence.

“The next morning I renewed my charge to him, and, with some difficulty, got him off. Now you will be surprised that I charged one so young, for he was but fourteen, with such a mission, but before any other would I have chosen that lad. Raymond was ever an earnest, thoughtful, and now a sorrow-stricken boy. He left me the second day.

“Upon my first return to consciousness, when I was so weak, I would sometimes recognise a neighbor, or a parishioner, by my bedside, but, unwilling to meet his or her eye, I would close mine, and lie still; and after that I gave orders that no one should be admitted to my chamber. Many days passed. At last Raymond returned, with news of my poor fugitive. Wandering towards the south, she had been arrested. Her rare beauty, her insanity (for she had lost her reason), the mystery that enveloped her, excited interest. She had been lodged in the —— Asylum for the insane, and there she had been left.

“Was it strange that I felt no resentment towards her? Perhaps had I _loved_ her more this would have been otherwise; perhaps all feeling of anger was drowned in _humiliation_. At length I got down stairs. It was impossible then to refuse myself to my visitors. They were my oldest and gravest parishioners. They were a long time in breaking the ice of the subject congealing around my heart, but when at length it _was_ broken, the waters of sympathy flowed freely. ‘Cut off this abomination from your house!’ ‘Amputate this polluted—this putrid limb, though it were your right hand!’ This was their advice, and I followed it. The necessary steps occupied me some time. The necessity of settling my chaotic household and arranging my future plan of living kept me busy for some weeks. Still even then, between the pauses of practical duty, my mind would suddenly fall into stagnation, when neither memory nor reason could be aroused, when only _instinct_ kept me silent or sententious, lest I should expose myself; into that terrible state when the mind hovers on the shadowy boundary of madness—the twilight hour between the day of reason and the night of insanity—upon the awful line dividing _conscious_ from _un_conscious madness! But madness affects the whole system. The blood was sent in rushing force and choking volume to my heart, and forth again with lightning speed, in lava streams, down my veins, impelling me to leaping phrensy! Oh! how I dreaded when this chained demon would burst the weak fetters of my will! This dread!—this dread! I dared not confide it to any one—dared not consult a physician. I furtively read all the books I could upon the subject, and took all the means I could to avert the impending—the hourly—the momentarily impending horror! Oh, Sophie! on God’s earth there is not a grief or terror like this; bearing a fiend in your bosom, bound by the feeblest threads of consciousness and will—threads that you fear and feel may be burst asunder at any moment. I walked with reeling brain upon the slippery edge of a dizzy precipice!—I walked, as it were, upon a mine that threatened every instant to explode! Everywhere—at home, abroad, walking, riding, in the full glory of noonday, in the dark watches of the night, I bore this grenade of the bosom! In the pulpit, Sophie—in the midst of the most closely reasoned argument, suddenly the blood would rush through my veins, and into my head, impelling me to leap, shouting, over the pulpit-top, and throttle some of the people before me. This impending horror—the constant _dread_ of it, accelerated the hour of its fall upon me. One day, late in the evening, I was riding home with Raymond. We were, as usual, _silent_, for oh, Sophie! we sat together long hours at home in silence—we rode together long miles without exchanging a word. The forest-path through which we rode was the same one I had passed in going home upon the evening of my household wreck. The shadows were as dark in the woods, the dew was as fresh on the grass, the chirps of the insects as blithe in the trees, and the silvery beams of the moonlight shimmered as brightly through the overhanging leaves. It was the same scene—the same! Every instant the excitement was rising higher in my bosom, growing irrepressible—uncontrollable; until, as we emerged from the forest-path, and passed into our yard—as the iron gate swung to with a clang—as the perfume of violets met me—as the dark front of the house loomed up in the moonlight,—everything reproducing the scene of that fatal evening, insanity broke forth in phrensy, and I became a raving maniac!

“I recovered my reason to learn the value of poor Fanny’s son. I awoke one day from a deep sleep—I awoke refreshed, with cooler blood, calmer nerves, and clearer brain, than I had known for weeks, and with a full consciousness of all that had passed up to the hour of my loss of self-control. Raymond was sitting by me.

“‘Raymond, what has happened?’ inquired I.

“‘You have been very ill, my father.’

“‘I have been MAD!—I know that right well, my boy—but tell me, how long did it last? what did I do? and who was with me?’ This last was the most important question—my heart stopped its pulsations until he answered:

“‘Your attack spent its _fury in half an hour_, father—you hurt no one but yourself—and—no one witnessed your—your _illness_ but myself and the waiter who assisted me in getting you up to bed.’

“‘And what did you then do? what did you give me?’

“‘Nothing, father; nature did everything, and did it well—art nothing. Your fury spent itself as a storm spends itself—-by raging—and then it subsided, as a storm subsides, into perfect calmness; you fell into a deep sleep of exhaustion, which lasted all last night and all to-day, from which you have but just awaked; and you feel better _for_ the attack, do you not, father? It has expended the gathering vapors and gloom of many weeks, and you feel better?’

“‘Yes, yes, quite well, calm and clear-headed; but, Raymond, with this interregnum in my memory, and this great change in my feelings, it seems to me that a long, long time, has intervened since my attack; _how_ long has the time really been?’

“‘Not quite twenty-four hours.’

“‘Has any one called to-day?’

“‘No one.’

“‘Then none know of this except yourself?’

“‘No, sir, none know of this except myself and the waiter, who does not more than half comprehend it, and who, besides, is no gossip.’

“‘You understand that I _wish_ no one to know of it?’

“‘I understand that perfectly, my father; and it shall be my care to guard your secret.’

“It was some time after this that I found how much I had hurt Raymond by a furious blow on the chest dealt in my phrensy.

“From that time, Sophie, my disease became periodical; Raymond was my constant attendant. These repeated attacks of lunacy impaired my temper; I became gloomy, irascible, misanthropic. My attacks of phrensy became less frequent and violent, but my gloom deepened as a natural consequence; for unless I could have been _cured_ it was even _better_ that these regular storms should disperse the unwholesome vapors of my mind. There is a wonderful analogy between the soul and the atmosphere—storms clear both—though in storms, both mental and atmospheric, there is sometimes much damage done. Well! the storms had well nigh ceased, but the gloom gathered thicker and thicker in my mind, and working up through it was one irrational wish—a desire to re-marry; and with this returned in all its former force my idiosyncrasy—of seeking the reluctant—pursuing the flying—catching the resisting—and in the darkening of my gloom this deepened into the desire of _torturing the victim_! You shudder, Sophie! but this was insanity. Every passion in its excess is moral insanity—-every exaggerated idiosyncrasy is mental insanity; and in madness, brought about by any other external cause, the master passion, or the distinguishing idiosyncrasy, if not entirely _reversed_, is exaggerated to phrensy. _My_ idiosyncrasy was exaggerated—because morbid. I had left my pulpit fearing that if I did not my pulpit would eject _me_. I had shut myself up in the villa, and brooded over my wish, and the readiest way of accomplishing it. At this time I received a letter from Mr. May, inquiring the reason of my resignation of my pulpit—a notice of which he had seen in the ‘Church Organ.’ I replied ‘domestic affliction,’—‘the _loss_ of my wife,’—she _was_ lost—but need I blazon my dishonor by revealing the _manner_ of her loss? _He_ understood, simple old man! that she was _dead_, and there he left it. The correspondence ceased. A few months from that time I received at the same moment the news of his death and a call to fill his pulpit. I accepted it, glad to escape from my neighborhood. I sent Raymond off to college—shut up the villa, leaving it in charge of old Jupiter, who lived at a porter’s lodge at the gate, and I came down here, full of my purpose of finding another wife. You, Sophie, at first sight, struck my fancy; as usual with my peculiar mood of love, your shrinking from me but lured me to the chase—but added zest to the idea of catching you; your avowed dislike and shuddering antipathy but served to intensify the desire to seize and torture you—forgive me, Sophie! this was insanity. Though constantly threatened with an attack of phrensy, I had not one single one after leaving the scene of my sorrows. I married you, Sophie, as I had married Fanny—in spite of your tears and prayers—in defiance of your antipathy and against your will. When I had thought it was safe to let him know it, when he could no longer interfere, or at least when I thought that there was no _time_ left for him to reach here in season,—I wrote and told Raymond—paying him the compliment of the _form_ of an invitation—and telling him in the same letter of the escape, flight, and suicide of his mother. He did not come in season, as you know—though he grazed the edge of ‘the nick of time.’

“Now, Sophie, for another revulsion of feeling. From the time I first saw you, as I said, the idea of marrying you interested and amused me—your aversion stimulated my stagnant blood agreeably. I _lived_ in the thought of getting you into my power—life _came_ and waned with this thought. As the day of our marriage approached your antipathy thoroughly aroused me—I gloated over the idea of tormenting and torturing you. But when our marriage day drew _very_ near, you fell into apathy! That disappointed me. I thought you were going to die on my hands. My interest in you waned with your non-resistance. The wedding-day, the evening came, and I married you. You were then so still in your despair—so cold—so dead!—I felt swindled out of my enjoyment, and half regretted my bargain. I felt as the tyrant must feel when his victim on the rack expires before half the exquisite torments or the crowning torture is tried and suffered. Don’t shudder now, Sophie! I _was insane_!

“Well, Sophie, I left your side to have a conversation with Dr. Otterback. I left you almost expiring. When I saw you again, life and light had returned to you. When you came up to me and laid your fair hand on my arm, so softly, and spoke to me so kindly, I gazed in wonder on your face; and, Sophie, the angel looking through your eyes subdued me. Your after kindness melted me into penitence. Still there were adverse influences at work. A mind shaken to its foundation, as mine had been, was not to be calmed soon, or stay calm long. The sudden sight of Raymond, the image of his mother, in her perfect beauty, connecting the present with the past so painfully, affected me more than the sight of Fanny herself had done. Alas! poor Fanny had been scarcely recognisable. I could scarcely realize the identity of that haggard wanderer of the heath with the resplendent beauty of the Villa. But her image lived again in Raymond. Never had the extraordinary resemblance struck me so forcibly, as when, after a long absence from _both_, I again saw Raymond. The associations conjured up, brought on that violent attack of phrensy that seized me at the Hall. Well, Sophie! my guardian angel, you have known all my moods since then. You know how your love has subdued my hate—your heaven redeemed my hell—your angel converted my demon. Enough, Sophie! your probation is almost over. My earthly life is drawing near its close. When I am gone, Raymond will be as a brother to you. Raymond is wealthy. Never since her separation from me have I appropriated a dollar of the fortune that came with his mother. I could not bear to do it. Now, dear Sophie! I am very tired; close the shutters, draw the curtains and leave the room, that I may sleep while you take some relaxation and refreshment.”