Part 2 — THE DESTROYER’S DOOM.

For if we do but watch the hour,

There never yet was human power

Which could evade, if unforgiven,

The patient search, and vigil long,

Of him who treasures up a wrong.

Mazeppa.

The night was waxing late, when the beautiful and witty Mrs. Anson was promenading at a party where all the élite of the city were assembled, with an imposing looking man, who seemed to unite—rare combination—high fashion and dignity of bearing. His face was almost constantly turned toward the lady, and he seemed careful that his words should reach no ears but those for which he uttered them. His last remark, whatever it was, seemed to have offended the lady, for she stopped suddenly, and gazing full in his face, exhibited as dark a frown as those bright, beautiful eyes could be made to produce. It was but a passing cloud, however, for the next moment she said, laughingly, “Upon my word, Major Derode, you give your tongue strange license.” His peace was soon made, and drawing the arm of Mrs. Anson within his own, he asked her if she would dance any more.

“No,” she replied, “if you’ll tell them to draw up, I’ll go home; the rooms are close; I am fatigued; besides, in the absence of my husband, I must keep good hours.”

“Excuse me,” said the major, “if I am not anxious for his return. I should not dare to hope for so much of your precious society, were he to command it.”

“He has the best right to it,” rejoined the lady, “but he never uses command with me;—I vow I am an ungrateful wretch, and love him much less than he deserves to be loved.”

“That sentiment, my dear Mrs. Anson, is not founded on nature or truth. Gratitude and love are sensations as different in their natures, as your disposition and that of your husband; but for what should you be grateful to him? For having had the vanity to address, and the good fortune to win the loveliest creature that ever wildered human brain, or fired human heart? And how does he repay an affection which monarchs would value more than conquest?—by indifference,—nay, studied neglect.”

“You wrong him,” said the wife, but with much less warmth than she would have defended her husband a fortnight before, “his passion for literature, it is true, estranges him from me more than many wives would like, but I have reason to know he loves me well. Alas! why should love be such a sickly flower, that needs constant culture to keep it from perishing! Time was, when the hour he passed from my side was fraught with anxiety,—now, days glide by, and I scarcely think of him!”

“Think only of him,” returned the major, “whose love for you is as imperishable as it is ardent. Renounce the man who is unworthy of you, and—”

“Render myself unworthy of any man,” continued the lady, “no, I implore you, urge me to this no more; spare me, dear Henry, I entreat you.” And I will spare the reader the remainder of a dialogue which evinced yielding virtue on one side, and seductive sophistry on the other. “The woman who hesitates is lost,” says the proverb.

Charles Anson, a young man of high intellectual endowments, and fine personal appearance, had studied law in his native city—Philadelphia—and at an early age married the daughter of a merchant in moderate circumstances. The union was thought to have resulted from love on both sides, and indeed for four years the youthful pair enjoyed as much happiness as is allotted to mortals; when, depending on his professional exertions, no ambition disturbed their dreams, no envy of rank or grandeur poisoned their present blessings.

In a luckless hour, a relation, living in England, from whom Anson had no expectations, died, leaving him a large fortune. This sudden acquisition of wealth enabled him, much to his satisfaction, to quit a profession in which he wanted several requisites for great success. He turned his attention to a science which has since become popular in this country, and became so devoted to its pursuit, that he spent large sums of money in prosecuting it. His wife launched at once into a mode of life which she said her husband’s altered circumstances justified. She plunged deeply into fashionable dissipation, and although Anson seldom accompanied her into the gay circles she frequented, he never objected to her giddy course. His only wish was to see her happy. He was on a visit to an eastern city, collecting materials for a work on his favorite science, at the time I introduced his wife to the reader, and spring advanced before he was ready to bend his steps homeward. He had travelled, as was usual then, by land from New York, and having taken a whole day to perform the journey, it was night when the lumbering mail coach, set Anson down at the door of his house. He had received no answer to the last two letters he had written to his wife, and he feared she was ill. If any one of my readers has been long absent from a happy home, he can understand the trembling eagerness with which the traveller placed his foot upon his door-stone. He pulled at the bell, and its clear sound came back upon his ear, as he stood in breathless anxiety waiting for an answer to the summons. No hasty footstep, however, no opening of inner doors, no audible bustle within, gave token of admittance. Almost convulsively, he grasped again at the handle of the bell, and its startling response pealed through the adjacent dwellings. Slowly a sash creaked up in an adjoining house, and a petulant female voice said,—

“There’s no use of your disturbing the neighborhood by ringing there,—nobody lives in that house.”

Anson staggered back from the step, and falteringly enquired,—

“Has Mrs. Anson removed?”

“Removed!” croaked the old woman, “aye, she has removed, far enough from this, I warrant.”

“Where has she gone?” gasped the husband.

“I know nothing about her,” was the reply, and the sash fell with a rattling sound that struck like clods upon a coffin upon the desolate heart of Anson. He stood upon the pavement with one foot resting on a trunk, and his eyes turned to the windows of his late dwelling, as if expecting the form of his wife to appear there. The voice of the watchman, calling the first hour of the night, aroused him from his abstraction, and suggested the necessity of present action. He remembered that he had a duplicate key of the street door, and if not fastened within, he could at least gain admittance. On applying the instrument, it was evident that the person who had last left the house, had egressed through the door, for no bar or bolt betrayed the caution of an inmate. Anson engaged the watchman to place his effects in the hall, and procure a light. Having once more secured the main entrance of the house, he wandered through its tenantless chambers, like a suffering ghost among scenes of its happier hours. The splendid paraphernalia which wealth and taste had spread throughout that happy mansion, were there yet. Not an ornament had been removed, nor had the most fragile article decayed,—nay, the very exotics in the bow-pots had begun to put forth their tender blossoms under the genial influence of the season. But human life was absent. She that had diffused joy, and hope, and a heaven-like halo round her, was gone.

Mad with apprehension, Anson rushed to his wife’s bed-chamber, hoping there to find some clue to her mysterious departure. Her toilet was in confusion; ornaments lay scattered about; and a diamond ring, his gift to her on her last birth-day, shone, on the approach of the light, so like a living thing, that Anson, in the wildness of his brain, thought that its thousand eyes flashed with intelligence of its departed mistress. On a small writing desk lay some sheets of pure paper, and in the open drawer a sealed note caught the eye of Anson. He seized it with a trembling hand, but paused ere he opened it; a sickness, like that of death, settled down upon his heart. Unhappy man! What had he to hope or fear?—he read:

“Husband:—We meet no more on earth. At the bar of eternal justice your curse will blast me! I am in the coils of a fiend, disguised like a god! As the fluttering bird, though conscious of destruction, obeys the fatal fascination of the serpent’s eye, so I, beholding in the future nought but despair, yield, a victim to a passion that has mocked my struggles to subdue it. You must be happy because you are virtuous, and in mercy forget the fallen,

“Josephine.”

Anson sat long with this letter in his hand, gazing firmly on a portrait of his wife, that hung over her escritoire. She had sat for that painting at a time when her health was delicate, and a sacred pledge of their happy love was expected. Heaven had—mercifully it seemed now—denied the boon. Memory struck the fountain of tears in the heart of that bereaved man, and he wept. Oh! it is fearful to see a strong man weep. Tears are natural in children, and beautiful in women;—in men, they often seem mysterious gushings from the stern soul—dread forebodings of evil to come. The deserted husband gazed upon the painting, until he thought some evil spirit had changed the sweet smile and mild eye into a scornful sneer. A change came over his spirit—his features gradually assumed a look of unutterable ferocity; his frame dilated as with the conception of awful deeds—strange whisperings of dark purposes whizzed, as from legions of fiends, through his brain, and he went forth REVENGE!

Major Derode, of the British army, was one of the most strikingly handsome men of the last age, and his address the most insinuating that a constant intercourse with the best society could confer. Although he had led a life of much dissipation, his fine constitution had withstood its ravages, and calling art to the aid of nature, he looked like a man of thirty, when he was really twelve years older. He had married in early life, and was the father of a son and daughter. The son had entered the navy, and had already obtained a lieutenancy,—to the daughter fell a large share of the singular beauty of her father, refined into feminine loveliness by the delicate graces of her mother. Mrs. Derode had been dead some years, and the major’s present visit to America was connected with some governmental mission to the commander-in-chief of the British forces in Canada. Viewing the cities of the United States on his return home, he became acquainted with the beautiful Mrs. Anson. He became at once her lover. He was a cold-hearted systematic seducer, and besieged her heart with a perseverance and address long accustomed to conquer. He imagined that his own callous heart was touched by her bright eyes, and he delayed his departure for two months, in order to accomplish her ruin.

When I introduced him to the reader, in conversation with Mrs. Anson, the poison of his flattery had already tainted that weak woman’s heart. I will not follow his serpent-like course—it is sickening to mark the progress of such arts. We left him in a gay assembly in Walnut Street—we now find him in London, and, it pains me to write it, Mrs. Anson was with him. To dispel the gloom that had already overcast her features, and to feed his own inordinate vanity, Derode introduced his victim to much society, but her keen eye soon penetrated the equivocal character of those who visited her in her splendid apartments. With this discovery came the first deep sense of her utter degradation.

“I will mix no more with these people,” said she to the major one day, after an unusually large party left the house.

“As you please,” said he, “I was in hopes society would amuse you.”

“Not such society,” she replied with some dignity. The major observed the slight curl on her lip, and said, with something of a sneer,—

“Your notions are elevated, my pretty republican; your visiters are people of fashion, and you know we should not scrutinise character too severely.”

This cruel remark pierced deeper than the base speaker intended. The deluded woman raised her eyes—those eyes, in repose so meek—to the face of Derode, and he quailed beneath their unnatural light.

“True,” said she with a choking voice, “true, true!—the meanest wretch that ever bartered her soul for bread, should spurn my fellowship, and flee my infecting touch.” Her head fell on her lap, and a series of hysterical sobs threatened to end her brief career of guilt upon the spot.

But it was not so to be. She recovered only to new miseries. Half tired of his new victim already, Major Derode hired a cottage a few miles from London, and, taking Mrs. Anson at her word, carried her down there to reside in lonely misery. His visits, at first frequent, soon became rare, and many days had now elapsed since she had seen him. She stood by the open casement watching the moonlight for his expected appearance, but he came not. A horseman emerged from the deep shadow of the trees, but seemed to pass on toward the turnpike. Hope sank within her, and she wished to die. She was now gathering the bitter fruits of her guilt. Her love for her destroyer was eating up her life—the scorching intensity of her passion was consuming the heart that gave it birth.

“Great God!” she exclaimed with frantic impiety, “art thou just? Thou didst not endow me with strength to resist this destiny. Thou knowest it was not volition, but FATE! If for thine own unseen ends, thou hast selected me to work out thy great designs.—oh! for the love of thy meek son who was reviled on earth, make my innocence clear. I am but thy stricken agent, oh! God! I am innocent—innocent!”

The suffering creature was on her knees, and when she had uttered this wild sophistry, she threw her head downward, until it almost touched the ground. Her temples throbbed till the bandage that confined her hair snapped, and the dark covering of her head enveloped her figure like a pall.

“Innocent! ha! ha! ha!” shouted a hoarse voice, in a tone of wild mockery, that rung through the lonely house, and reverberated in the stillness of the night.

Starting to her feet, Mrs. Anson gazed around the room with an indescribable awe, for she thought the sound bore a harsh resemblance to that of her forsaken husband. No one, however, was visible, and she began to think it was some creation of her excited fancy, when, turning her eye to the latticed casement that overlooked the garden, she plainly saw a man gliding away through the copse. Another moment, and the same horseman she had before observed, dashed into the shadow at furious speed, and disappeared.

Major Derode was holding high revel in London. There was a report that two marriages had been projected—those of himself and of his daughter. His fortune, never large, had been entirely dissipated at the gaming table, and he was deeply involved in debt. The contemplated alliances would, however, bring wealth into the family, and causing his expectations to be known, his creditors were patient. The object of his personal attentions was the Honorable Mrs. Torrance,—a widow of brilliant charms and large property. The handsome major had won her heart and received her troth before his visit to America, and but one obstacle existed to their immediate union. Rumor, with her hundred tongues had apprised the dashing widow that the gallant major had brought over with him an American beauty, who was now residing in the neighborhood of the metropolis. The major first denied, then confessed it, but declared she had returned to her native forests.

“I scarce believe you,” said the widow, “but I will send down to-morrow to the cottage, which has been pointed out to me as her residence, and learn the truth.”

“She must remove, then, before to-morrow,” said Derode to himself as he drove home. “Fool that I was to bring her here; however, I suppose I can ship her home again, consigned to her plodding Yankee husband, who will be rejoiced that his wife has seen the world free of expense.”

Night had closed in when Derode arrived at the cottage. Mrs. Anson was ill. She had been in a high fever, as the abigail informed the major, and delirious. She was calmer now, however, and he approached her couch.

“How unlucky you are ill at this time,” said he, “for circumstances render it necessary for you to quit this place immediately.”

“Let me remain a few days longer,” replied the heart-broken woman, “and my next remove will be to the peaceful grave.”

“It is impossible—to-morrow morning, the earlier the better, you must depart.”

“And whither must I go?”

“Why, reflection must have convinced you that it was an imprudent step to leave your husband; nay, tears are useless now,—the frolic was pleasant enough while it lasted, but it is time to think of more serious matters. My advice to you is, that you immediately return home, solicit your husband’s forgiveness, and no doubt that will be the end of the affair. For myself, you must know it—and it is best you should learn it at once—my pecuniary involvements make it imperative on me to marry immediately—the sale of this furniture will enable you—”

But his voice fell on a dull ear. Mrs. Anson heard nothing after the word “marry,” and she lay in a death-like swoon. Finding she did not revive immediately, Derode consigned her to the care of her maid, and hastily wrote the following lines:—

“Madam,—Our unfortunate connexion must be broken off at once. I can see you no more. I enclose you twenty pounds, a sum sufficient to bear your expenses to America. My last command is, that you quit this cottage to-morrow morning.

“Yours,

“Derode.”

He gave the note to the girl, for her mistress, and left the house.

“How do you feel now, madam?” enquired the maid, as Mrs. Anson opened her heavy eyes, and pressed her hands against her temples, as if endeavoring to collect her thoughts, “can I do anything for you, madam?”

“Yes; assist me to rise; bring my bonnet and shawl;—thank you. You have been very kind to me my good girl; take this ring—it is of some value—keep it for the sake of her whom no living thing regards.”

“But, dear madam,” affectionately enquired the girl, “for heaven’s sake, where are you going? You will not leave the house to-night? you are ill—weak—a storm threatens,—there—the thunder mutters already, and the rain is plashing in big drops on the broad leaves of that strange-looking tree at the window. It is midnight, and will be broad day before you can reach the nearest part of London. The major said you might stay till morning,—and, oh! I had forgot, here is a letter he left for you.”

The hapless woman took the note mechanically; no ray of hope gave brightness to her eye—no emotion lighted up her features as she broke the seal. Misery had chilled her heart’s blood—despair had unstrung the chords of life. She glanced over the lines, and dropping the letter and bank note on the floor, supported herself for a moment by a chair. She rallied her strength, and saying, “farewell, my good Martha,” staggered forth into the dreary night.

The sun had long risen, when Martha was startled from the deep sleep into which the last night’s watching had thrown her, by a loud knocking at the cottage door. A splendid carriage had driven up the narrow avenue, and a liveried footman enquired if a young lady, under the protection of Major Derode, lived there. Martha stated the manner in which Mrs. Anson had, on the previous night, left the cottage.

“My mistress, the Hon. Mrs. Torrance,” said the footman, “seems so anxious to learn the particulars respecting this young woman, that I wish you would ride up to town with us, and give her whatever information you can.”

Martha willingly complied, and the carriage had scarce accomplished seven miles of the journey, when the girl observed a female toiling slowly and painfully along the road. She called to the coachman to stop, for she recognised her mistress in the wanderer. They partly forced the passive creature into the carriage, and as she expressed no wish to be driven to any particular place, in less than an hour she was reposing her wearied limbs on an ottoman in the house of the Hon. Mrs. Torrance. All the servants who knew of the arrival of the strange lady, were forbidden by the Hon. Mrs. Torrance to reveal the circumstances, and Martha was instructed to tell the major she had seen nothing of Mrs. Anson after her departure from the cottage;—Derode, therefore, had no doubt that his victim had left the kingdom. Still he observed that the widow had altered her demeanor toward him. She received him coldly, and with something like mystery. He urged the hastening of the nuptials. She baffled him by trifling excuses, for she resolved the moment Mrs. Anson had recovered from the fever which seized her on the day she entered that hospitable abode, to confront her with the treacherous man.

“So, in three weeks more, my dear Isabel, I must give more form to my speech, for I shall address in you the bride of Lord Edward Fortescue; your elevation to the peerage will not change your heart toward us, Isabel?” said a sprightly girl to the daughter of Major Derode.

“For shame, to think of such a thing,” answered the affianced, “but, as poor Juliet says in the play,

‘I have no joy in this contract to-night.’

I have, my dear Emily, for a day or two past, felt a strange reluctance to marry his lordship. His title dazzled me at first, but I fear its novelty will wear off, and then where shall I seek for happiness?”

“In the spending of his fortune, to be sure,” replied her companion, “and as his lordship’s way of life is fallen into the sere and yellow leaf, he surely cannot object to such a proceeding. Besides, if dame nature does you but common justice, you’ll be in weeds before you are thirty. But when was it your first objection started against his lordship?—last Thursday, was it not?—yes, Thursday it was: I remember it, because it was the morning after you danced with that young wild man of the woods. Where did they say he came from? New South Wales was it?—or Slave Lake—or the Ural Mountains? the Carrabee Islands—New Holland—or New Jersey? Why don’t you answer? You must know; for after he led you to a seat so gracefully, I observed you took a deep interest in his conversation during the rest of the night, and I have no doubt he was giving you lessons in Geography. Well, he is a handsome fellow, although his eyes have so wild an expression. Now, if he had a plume of eagle feathers on his head, and a tiger skin thrown over his shoulder, he would be irresistible. I think it entirely out of taste for these foreign monsters, when they come among us, to cast off their savage costume, and don our unpoetic garb.”

“Peace, Emily, you talk absurdly,” exclaimed the now thoughtful Isabel. “I scarce attended to what he was saying—I only observed he seemed to be a man of general information and great conversational powers. He possesses refinement in an eminent degree, and the earnestness and evident candor of his politeness contrast favorably with the sickly, superficial, drawling sentiment that daily and nightly clogs our wearied ears.”

“Ah! it is clear you scarce attended to what he said. I met him this morning at Mrs. Balford’s, and thinking you wished to resume your researches into ‘The History of the Earth and Animated Nature,’ I asked him to come here this evening.”

“Heavens, Emily! you could not be so imprudent!”

“Where can be the imprudence, Isabel, since you scarce attend to what he says? Hark! a cab; it is the American,—stay where you are—I’ll bring him up;” and away flew the giddy girl, leaving her companion in a state of flurried anxiety, scarce proper for the bride elect of Lord Edward Fortescue.

The American prolonged his stay till a late hour, and that night Isabel Derode imbibed a deep, absorbing passion for the graceful foreigner. Lord Edward, feeling himself secure of his prize, troubled his betrothed but little with his company. He confined his attentions to sending her presents, and escorting her twice a week to the opera.

The latitude which English society allows females of rank, caused the persevering assiduities of the American to be but little noticed, and one week before the intended nuptials of Lord Edward Fortescue and Isabel Derode, the fashionable circles were thrown into unutterable excitement by the following announcement in a morning paper:—

“Elopement in High Life.—On Wednesday last, the beautiful and accomplished daughter of a certain gallant major in —— Square, eloped with a young gentleman of fortune from the United States. This imprudent step, on the part of the young lady, is the more to be regretted, as she was under promise of marriage to a certain noble lord. As her flight was almost immediately discovered, hopes are entertained of overtaking the fugitives before they reach Gretna Green.”

No such parties, however, as those described, had reached that matrimonial mart. Pursuit was made on almost every avenue leading from the metropolis, but in vain. The fugitives had an hour’s start, and the advantage of having arranged their means of flight. The smoking horses were scarcely checked at the door of each inn, when fresh relays were springing in the harness, and Anson—for it was he—with his victim, was enjoying a hasty repast in Calais, at the moment the emissaries of Derode reached Dover.

Lord Edward professed himself greatly shocked at the unhappy occurrence, but derived comfort from the reflection that his betrothed had eloped before, instead of after marriage; and having politely expressed to Derode his opinion that all the daughters of Eve were dangerous, if not useless members of the community, he, with the utmost sangfroid wished him adieu.

A month elapsed, and Derode pushed his suit with Mrs. Torrance with more vigor, from the unlucky circumstance of his daughter having frustrated his hopes of her high match with Lord Edward. All enquiries concerning the whereabout of the erring girl were fruitless, and what was singular, none knew the name or person of her seducer—until one night a hackney coach drew up at the door of Mrs. Torrance, and a gentleman handed, or rather lifted a drooping woman out of the carriage, and placed her on the steps of the house. The parties were Anson and his victim. He merely said to the servant who answered the knock, “take care of this lady: she is a friend of your mistress,” and hastily re-entering the vehicle, drove rapidly off. The benevolent mistress of the mansion received the forsaken wanderer with the utmost kindness, and overlooking her error, sought, with true Christian charity, to bind up her crushed spirit. Thus, by a strange coincidence, this amiable lady had under her roof at the same moment, two wretched outcasts—victims to man’s unhallowed passions.

Mrs. Anson had been growing weaker every day since she entered this hospitable dwelling, and it was now evident she held her life by a frail tenure. Derode was a constant visitor, yet he knew not Mrs. Anson was an inmate of the house; he deemed she had complied with his wishes and crossed the Atlantic.

“What motive can you have,” said he to Mrs. Torrance one day, “for deferring our happiness? You are too generous to allow so untoward an event as my daughter’s flight to influence your decision. Add not to the affliction of that blow, by cold procrastination. Speak, madam, have my misfortunes lost me your affection?”

“No, major,” replied the lady, “but I fear your faults have lessened it. Where is the American lady?”

“At home,” said he earnestly, “at home, with her husband. I, myself, placed her on board a packet bound to New York.”

The lady regarded the utterer of this bold falsehood with ineffable contempt, and stepping into the middle of the room, she threw open a folding door, and pointed to Mrs. Anson, who was reclining on an ottoman.

“Are there devils in league against me?” muttered Derode, “how came that wretched woman here, madam?—she is a maniac—but I will convey her to an asylum, whence she shall not escape,” and he was advancing toward her.

“Stay,” exclaimed Mrs. Torrance, restraining him, “that lady is under the protection of my roof, and she leaves it only with her own free will.”

“By heavens! madam,” said he, “she quits not my sight till I consign her to a mad house;” and, forgetting every thing in his wrath, he roughly removed the lady from before him, as the door abruptly opened, and a tall, stern looking man stood before him. The intruder was dressed in strict conformity with the fashion of the day, and, on removing his hat, he exhibited a forehead of high intelligence, but two or three strong lines were drawn across it; two deep furrows also descended between his heavy brows, giving, to his otherwise agreeable features, a fierce, if not a ferocious expression. His dark eyes, deeply set in his head, flashed with the fierceness, and yet fascination, of a serpent’s orbs, ere he makes his deadly spring. The stranger expanded his lofty figure, and throwing forward his ample chest, he crossed his arms upon it, and gazed intently on Derode.

The major turned from his burning gaze, and advancing to the couch where lay the invalid, said, in a harsh voice, “rise, madam, and follow me,” at the same time laying his hand on her shoulder. Three strides brought the stranger to the spot, and seizing Derode, he whirled him against the opposite wall with the strength of a giant, exclaiming, “let your victim die in peace!” The expiring woman raised herself with her last collected strength, and articulating, “my husband!” sank back in a swoon.

The moment Derode became aware of the relation in which the stranger stood to the fainting woman, he made an attempt to reach the door, but was intercepted by Anson.

“Stay,” said the latter, “you stir not hence. Stay, and behold the consummation of your villainy. See! she breathes again. Let her curse you and expire!”

The lamp of life had been long flickering in the poor patient, and was now giving forth its last brightness. She held out her hands imploringly to her husband, and said, “forgive me!” but before his lips could utter the pardon, she fell back in the arms of Mrs. Torrance—a corpse.

The mysterious awe with which the presence of death fills the human heart, caused a silence as profound as that which had just fallen on the departed. Anson bent over the stiffening body and murmured: “Hadst thou died spotless, my wife, how joyfully would my spirit have journeyed with thine to the bar of God—and in the realms of peace, where the tempter comes not—where sin and shame, and sorrow enter not—we should forever have enjoyed that bliss—our foretaste of which on earth, was so rudely broken by the destroyer. But enough. The last tears these eyes shall ever shed, have fallen upon thy bier—and now again to my work of vengeance!” He arose, and bent on Derode a look of ineffable ferocity. “Look,” he said, “on the man you have ruined. You beheld me for the first time, yet my eyes have scarce lost sight of you for months—and henceforward will I be like your ever-present shadow. The solace of my life shall be to blight the joy of yours—in crowds or in solitude—amid the gay revel, and through the silent watches of the night, will I hover around you. I will become the living, embodied spirit of your remorse; walking with you in darkness and in light, and when a smile would mantle on your lips, I will dispel it with the sound of MURDERER!”

“I’ll rid myself of such companionship,” said Derode,—“I have pistols here—follow me, sir, and seek a manly satisfaction at once.”

The loud voices of Anson and her father, had been heard by Isabel, and the unhappy girl on entering the apartment—to the astonishment and horror of Derode—threw herself on the bosom of Anson, who, putting her aside, exclaimed—“that you may want no motive to hate as well as fear me, know that I am the seducer of your daughter. Thus have I begun my work of destruction.” Driven to desperation by this taunt, Derode drew a pistol, aimed it at Anson, and fired. By a movement equally sudden, Isabel, with a scream, threw herself before her betrayer, and received the ball in her shoulder. The wretched father groaned in agony, and fled from the house, while Anson, consigning the wounded girl to the care of Mrs. Torrance, pursued the culprit.

The same day on which Anson committed his wife to the earth, Isabel Derode yielded up her spirit—and a jury declared that she died from a wound inflicted by the hand of her father.

Time passed slowly away, and Derode was preparing for his trial. The legal gentlemen whom he had employed, could perceive some palliating, but no justifiable points in his case. He vehemently declared he had no purpose of injuring his daughter—his object being to inflict a just punishment on her seducer. His counsel, however, sorrowfully assured him, that if the intent and attempt to kill could be proved, and a death resulted from such attempt, it mattered little who fell by his hand.

The amiable Mrs. Torrance, resolving not to appear as a witness against him, had retired to the continent, and was now living in much seclusion at Dresden. But Anson remained; and the relentless heart of that altered man expanded with savage joy when he reflected that it was his evidence that would condemn his wronger. Some of the friends of the unhappy criminal waited on Anson, and besought him, in the most moving manner, not to appear against the wretched man, alleging that if no direct evidence were adduced, justice would wink, and the offender escape. The witness was inflexible. Derode himself sent a respectful request to see him. Anson entered his cell, and the despairing murderer begged for life like a very coward. Anson spurned the miserable suppliant from him:—“Villain! villain!” he said, “ten thousand dastard lives like yours would but poorly expiate your fiend-like crime, or glut my insatiate vengeance!”—and casting a look of inextinguishable hate on the prisoner, he left the cell.

A few days after his commitment, Derode had written to his son who was stationed at Bermuda, an account of his misfortunes and imprisonment. The dutiful boy having obtained leave, had instantly sailed for England, and was now sitting in his father’s dismal apartment.

“Cheer up, father,” said the young sailor,—“things will go well yet. No proof, you say, but that man’s evidence,—and that man the seducer of my sister?”

“Even so,” replied the parent—“no prayers can touch him.”

“I’ll touch him,” said the fiery young man, “but not with prayers. Farewell father! to-morrow I’ll be here to tell you I have stopped the mouth of the king’s witness.”

Anson, promptly answering the challenge of young Derode, was at Chalk Farm at daylight. When he surveyed the slightly formed, but noble looking youth who stood before him, prepared for deadly contest, he remembered his unremitting pistol-practice, his unerring aim, and one human feeling, one pulsation of pity played around his heart. They were evanescent. He recalled his deserted home, his violated hearth, his vow for REVENGE, and at the fatal signal, his youthful antagonist lay on the frozen earth, with his life-blood bubbling out.

Could Anson have seen Derode when his son’s death was communicated to him, he would have deemed the destroyer’s cup of bitterness full.

Anson was arraigned for this murder, and underwent a trial, which was mere mockery, for having plied his gold freely—flaws, defective evidence, and questions of identity, as usual, in cases of dueling, hoodwinked justice.

“Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks,

Clothe it with rags, a pigmy’s straw will pierce it.”

Well, the day of trial came. Public excitement was at its highest pitch. The jailor, accompanied by sheriffs and tipstaves, proceeded to the cell of the prisoner, to escort him to the tribunal of justice. But lo! the apartment was tenantless. The criminal had escaped. A brief survey of his cell revealed the means of his egress. The heavy stones forming the sides of his grated window, were displaced. Large tools lay scattered about—files, chisels, and other articles, plainly indicating a bold confederacy. And such was indeed the case:—for the officers belonging to the same regiment with Derode had contrived his escape.

Words cannot depict Anson’s feelings of mingled rage and disappointment when he learned that his victim had fled. At his own expense, he instituted a search that pervaded the three kingdoms. He himself flew to the continent, and offered a thousand guineas for the capture of the murderer. His efforts were fruitless. The men who liberated Derode did not withdraw their protection until they had placed him in safety.

For more than a year Anson wandered about Europe, in hopes to light upon the fugitive. Weary at length with the vain pursuit, and thinking that the fire in his heart was consuming his life, he returned home, as he thought, to die. He remained in Philadelphia a few months, during which time he conveyed a great part of the remainder of his property to some of our public charities, and then retired from the haunts of men to live and die alone. With a strong tinge of romance, he selected a wild, mountainous country, in the interior of our state, never leaving the precincts of the hovel where he dwelt, except to purchase a stock of the homeliest food.

He had been living thus more than eight years without any thing occurring to disturb the monotony of his life, when one blustering night, a cry from a creature in distress reached his ear, as he sat in his mountain hut, poring over a black-letter folio. Surprised that any one should invade his dangerous premises, and on such a night, he ignited a fragment of resinous wood, and sallied forth. As he descended the path that left his door, and struck into that which wound round a precipitous ledge, the voice came nearer on the blast. Anson shouted loudly to the stranger not to approach, until he reached him, as another step in the dark might be certain destruction. Proceeding hastily onward, he found the traveller standing on the outermost edge of the fearful precipice. The torrent was heard boiling and dashing far below, and the wind swept in eddying blasts round the dizzy cliff. Anson extended his hand to the wanderer, and the blaze of the torch flashed brightly in the faces of both men. Anson riveted his eyes on the features of the stranger, and with a yell of demoniac joy fastened on his throat. It was the miserable Derode, who, in the last stage of poverty, was wandering from the far west, to the sea-board, on foot. In the darkness, he had mistaken the mountain path for a bye-road, which had been described to him as greatly shortening the distance to the village. He quailed beneath the iron grasp of Anson, and struggled to say:—“dreaded man! are you not surfeited with revenge? My ruined daughter!—my murdered son!”

“No!” shouted the infuriated recluse, “my ruined—murdered wife! I see her pale face there—down in the black abyss! she demands the sacrifice! down!”

He hurled the trembling seducer over the precipice, and laughed aloud as the wretch dashed from rock to rock in his descent. A heavy plunge! and the surging torrent closed over the hapless Derode forever!

Anson dwelt on in his gloomy solitude, until his hair became blanched, and the memory of passion and crime had furrowed deep channels in his face. In the summer of 1828, we one day followed a trout stream far up into the mountain, and encountered the old man. Giving him the fruits of our morning sport, and seating ourselves in his hut, we learned from himself the leading incidents of this melancholy story. His eye lighted up with unnatural fire, as he pointed with unsteady finger to the fearful cliff, and said, “there, sir, ’twas from yon projection, I dashed my destroyer into the chasm. The law would call it murder, and I live in daily expectation that the bloodhounds will drag me hence. Well, let them come when they will; from my youth, life has been to me one deep, enduring curse.” We saw him at least once in the summer for many years, and in our last interview with him, we said cheerfully,—“you look quite hale yet, Mr. Anson.” He regarded us steadily for a moment, and said, in a voice that reminded us of Shelley’s Ahasuerus, “I cannot die.” * *