Volume 2 — CHAPTER VII.

CONFESSION.

"I write without knowing to whom I am writing," began the paper, "except that among the readers must be some whom I have wronged. I can scarcely crave forgiveness of them, because they will surely not grant it to me. I don’t know even that I can crave it of Heaven, for I have played with sacred things, and used a power given me for good, in an evil way, to further my own devices, and, after all, I have not furthered them. I am a man loving and unloved, one who has perhaps thrown away his soul on the chance of winning earthly joy,—but such joy,—and has lost it. If any have ever done like me, let them pity and pardon. I appeal to them for compassion. I shall receive it nowhere else, unless it be possible, that the one for love of whom I have done the wrong will out of the kindness of her heart spare me by and by a thought of pity for what was the suggestion of a moment and acted on—"

"Skip all that maundering," interrupted Stephen. "To the point. Who is this man, and what has he done? Let him keep his feelings to himself, or if they concern you, they don’t us."

"No, no, Stephen. Fair play," called out Governor Wentworth. "Let us hear every word, then we can judge better of the case, and of the writer’s truthfulness."

"Yes, you are right," answered the young man pressing Katie’s arm more firmly in his own to give silent vent to his impatience and his defiance.

"And acted on without premeditation," resumed Master Shurtleff. "I left England early in the spring, and coming to this worthy city of Portsmouth with letters of introduction to Master Archdale, and others, I met the beautiful Mistress Archdale. From the first hour my fate was sealed; I loved her as only a man of strong and deep emotions can love, with a very different feeling from the devotion her young admirers gave her, ardent though they considered themselves. I had many rivals, some the young lady herself so disapproved that they ceased troubling me, even with their presence at her side. Among the others were only two worthy of attention, and only one whom I feared. I was reticent and watched; it was too soon to speak. But as I watched my fear of that one increased, for age, association, a sternness of manner that unbent only to her, many things in him showed me his possibilities of success. With that rival out of my path, my way to victory was clear. There came a day when, without lifting my finger against him, I could effectually remove him. I did it. It was unjustifiable, but the temptation rushed upon me suddenly with overwhelming force, and it was irresistible, for opposite me sat Katie, more beautiful and lovable than ever, and beside her was my rival, her cousin, with an air of security and satisfaction that aroused the evil in me. It was August; we were on the river in a dead calm, and at Mistress Archdale’s suggestion had been telling stories for amusement. Mine happened to be about a runaway match, and interested the young people so much, that when I had finished they asked several questions; one was in reference to a remark of mine, innocently made, that the marriage ceremony itself, pure and simple, was something unimaginably short. The story I had told illustrated this, and some of the party asked me more particularly as to what the form was. Then I saw my opportunity, and I took it. ’If one of the young ladies will permit Master Archdale to take her hand a moment,’ I said, ’I think I can recollect the words; I will show you how short the formula may be.’ Master Archdale was for holding Katie’s hand, but happily, as it seemed to me at the moment, she was on the wrong side. I requested him to take the lady on the other hand, who seemed a trifle unready for the jest, but was induced by the entreaties of the others, and especially of Mistress Katie herself. I went through the marriage service over them as rapidly as I dared, my voice sounding to myself thick with the beating of my heart. But no one noticed this; of course, it was all fun. And so that summer evening, all in fun, except on my part, Stephen Archdale and Elizabeth Royal were made man and wife, as fast as marriage vows could make them. Nothing was omitted that would make the ceremony binding and legal, not even its performance by a clergyman of the Church of England."

A cry of rage and despair interrupted the reader. But he went on directly.

"No one in America knew that I had been educated for the Church and had taken orders, though I have never preached except one month; the work was distasteful to me, and when my brother died and I inherited my grandfather’s property, I resigned my pastorate at once. This act shows how unfit for it I was. But whatever my grief may be, my conscience commands me to forbid this present marriage, and to declare with all solemnity, that Stephen Archdale already has a wife, and that she is that lady, who, until she opened my letter, believed herself still Mistres Royal."

A burst of amazement and indignation, that could no longer be repressed, interrupted the reading. Faces and voices expressed consternation. To this confession had been added names and dates, the year of the writer’s entrance into the ministry, the time and place of his brief pastorate, everything that was necessary to give his statement a reliable air, and to verify it if one chose to do so. It was evident that there could be no wedding that morning, and as the truth of the story impressed itself, more and more upon the minds of the audience, a fear spread lest there could be no wedding at all, such as they had been called together to witness. For, if this amusement should turn out to have been a real marriage, what help was there? It was in the days when amusements were viewed seriously and were readily imagined to lead to fatal consequences. Had Stephen Archdale really married? The people in the drawing-room that December morning were able men and women, they were among the best representatives of their time, an age that America will always be proud of, but they held marriage vows so sacred, that even made in jest there seemed to be a weight in them. Proofs must be found, law must speak, yet these people in waiting feared, for their part in life was to be so great in uprightness and self-restraint, that these qualities flowing through mighty channels should conquer physical strength and found a nation. To do a thing because it was pleasant was no part of their creed,—although, even then, there were occasional examples of it in practice.

That winter morning, therefore, the guests were ready to inveigh against the sin of unseemly jesting, to hope that all would be well, and to shake their heads mournfully.

"Harwin!" cried Master Archdale as he heard the name of the writer; "it seems impossible. I liked that man so much, and trusted him so much. I knew he loved my little girl, but I thought it was with an honorable love that would rejoice to see her happy. No, no, it cannot be true. We must wait. But matters will come right at last."

"Yes," assented the Colonel across whose face an incomprehensible expression had passed more than once during the reading; "it will all come right. We must make it so."

A hum of conversation went on in the room, comment, inquiry, sympathy, spoken to the chief actors in this scene, or if not near enough to them for that, spoken to the first who were patient enough to listen instead of themselves talking.

In the midst of it all Stephen raised his head, for he had been bending over Katie who still clung to him, and asked when the next ship left for England.

"In about three weeks," answered Col. Pepperrell, "and we will send out a person competent to make full inquiries; the matter shall be sifted."

"I shall go," returned Stephen. "I shall make the necessary inquiries myself, it will be doing something, and I may find the man. We need that he should be found, Katie and I."

Elizabeth drew back still more; some flash of feeling made the blood come hotly to her face for a moment, then fade away again.

Katie looked up, turned her eyes slowly from one to another, finding everywhere the sympathy she sought.

"Go, Stephen, since you will feel better," she said, "but it’s of no use, I am sure. I understand now something Master Harwin said to me when he left me. I did not know then what he meant. He has taken you away from me forever." And with a sob, again she hid her face upon his shoulder. Then, slowly drawing away from him, she turned to Elizabeth, and in her eyes was something of the fury of a jealous woman mixed with the bitter reproach of friendship betrayed.

"How could you," she said, "how could you consent to do it?"

She had drawn toward Elizabeth every gaze and every thought in the room; she had pointed out the substitute on whom might be emptied those vials of wrath that the proper object of them had taken care to escape. Elizabeth heard on all sides of her the whispered, "Yes, how could she do it, how could she consent to do it?" Suddenly she found herself, and herself alone, as it seemed, made responsible for this disaster; for the feeling beginning with Katie seemed to grow, and widen, and widen, like the circles of water into which a stone is thrown, and she was condemned by her friends, by the people who had known her and her father, condemned as false to her friendship, as unwomanly. Katie she could forgive on account of her misery, but the others! She stood motionless in a world that she had never dreamed of. These whispers that her imagination multiplied seemed to roar in her ears. But innocence and pride kept her erect, and at last made her raise her eyes which had fallen and grown dim under the blow of Katie’s words. She swept them slowly around the room, turning her head slightly to do it. Not a look of sympathy met her. Then, in the pain, a power awoke within her.

"It is no less a disaster to me," she said. Her words fell with the weight of truth. She had kept back her pain, no one thought of pitying her as Katie was pitied, but she was vindicated.

"Does she hate him, do you suppose?" asked Madam Pepperrell in a low tone of Governor Wentworth at her elbow.

"It is not probable she loves him much," replied that gentleman studying the girl’s haughty face. "I don’t envy her, on the whole, I don’t envy either of them." By George, madam, it is hard."

"Very hard," assented Colonel Pepperrell, whose glance, having more penetration, had at last brought a look of sympathy to his face. "Let us go up to the poor thing, she stands so alone, and I’m not clear that she has not the worst of it."

"Oh, no, indeed, not that," returned his wife as they moved forward. But before they could reach her, being stopped by several who spoke to them, there was a change in the group in that part of the room. Katie had fallen, and there was a cry that she had fainted. Stephen stooped over her, lifted her tenderly, and carried her from the room. He was followed by Mistress Archdale and his own mother. As he passed Elizabeth their eyes met, his glowed with a sullen rage, born of pain and despair, they seemed to sweep her with a glance of scorn, as she looked at him it seemed to her that every fibre of his being was rejecting her. "You!" he seemed to be saying with contemptuous emphasis. In answer her eyes filled him with their haughtiness, they and the scornful curl of her lip, as she stood motionless waiting for him to pass, haunted him; it seemed to him as if she felt it an intrusion that he should pass near her at all. He still saw her face as he bent over Katie.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]