AFTER THE DARK DEED.
Mary Grey was lifted, in an apparently fainting condition, from her own little boat into the larger one beside it. She was laid down carefully and waited on tenderly by the sympathizing ladies in the larger boat.
Meanwhile the little boat was tied to the stern of the larger one, to be towed up the river.
"Where are we to take the poor unfortunate woman, I wonder?" said one of the ladies.
"If she does not come to her senses in time to tell us where she lives you can bring her to my house," answered another lady.
"Or to mine," said a third.
"Or mine," added a fourth.
"Or mine," "or mine," chimed in others.
Everybody was emulous to succor this unhappy one.
As they neared the city Mary Grey condescended to heave a deep sigh, shudder and open her eyes.
Then a chorus of sympathizing voices saluted her. But she wept and moaned, and pretended to refuse to be comforted.
It was some time before the persevering efforts of a gentleman succeeded in persuading her to understand and answer his question as to where she lived.
"At the Star Hotel," she said, with a gasp and a sigh, as if her heart were broken.
The boat landed; and the "poor lady," as she was compassionately called, was tenderly lifted out by the gentlemen and carefully supported between two of them while she was led to the hotel, followed by the ladies.
The sad news of the young gentleman's fate was immediately communicated to the people at the hotel, and soon spread through the town.
Ah, the drowning of a man at that point was not such an unusual event after all, and it made much less impression than it ought to have done.
Some people said they felt sorry for the poor young woman so suddenly bereaved and left among strangers; and perhaps they really believed that they did so; but the next instant they thought of something else.
But the ladies who had been present near the scene of the catastrophe, and had witnessed Mary Grey's well-acted terror, grief and despair, really did sympathize with her supposed sorrows to a very painful extent.
After following her to the hotel, they went with her to her room, and helped to undress her and put her to bed.
And two among them offered to remain and watch with her during the night.
The sinful woman, already a prey to the horrors of remorse and superstition, dreading the darkness and solitude of the night, fearing almost to see the dripping specter of the drowned man standing over her bed, gratefully accepted their offer, and begged, at the same time, for morphia.
Her kind attendants were afraid to administer a dangerous opiate without the advice of a physician; so they sent for one immediately, who, on his arrival and his examination of the terribly excited patient, gave her a dose that soon sent her to sleep.
The two ladies took their places by her bed and watched her.
She slept well through the night, and awoke quite calmly in the morning. The composing influence of the morphia had not yet left her.
And with the returning daylight much of her remorse and all of her superstition vanished for the time being.
She thanked the ladies who had watched her during the night, and, in reply to their inquiries, assured them that she felt better, but begged them to keep her room dark.
They expressed their gratification to hear her say so. One of them bathed her face and hands and combed her hair, while the other one rang the bell, and ordered tea and toast to be brought to the room.
And they tenderly pressed her to eat and drink, and they waited on her while she partook slightly of this light breakfast.
Then they rang and sent the breakfast service away, and they put her room in order, and smoothed her pillows and the coverlet of her bed, and finally they kissed her and bade her good-morning for a while, promising to return again in the course of the afternoon, and begging that she would send for them, at the address they gave her, in case she should require their services sooner.
When she was left alone, Mary Grey slipped out of bed, locked the door after the ladies, and then, having secured herself from intrusion, she opened her traveling-bag and took from it a small white envelope, from which she drew a neatly-folded white paper.
This was the marriage certificate, setting forth that on the fifteenth day of September, eighteen hundred and ——, at the parish church of St. ——, in the city of Philadelphia, Alden Lytton, attorney at law, of the city of Richmond, and Mary Grey, widow, of the same city, were united in the holy bonds of matrimony by the Rev. Mr. Borden, rector of the church, in the presence of John Martin, sexton, and Sarah Martin, his daughter.
The certificate was duly signed by the Rev. Mr. Borden and by John Martin and Sarah Martin.
Mary Grey sat down with this document before her, read it over slowly, and laughed a demoniac laugh as she folded it up and put it carefully into its envelope and returned it to her traveling-bag, while she reviewed her plot and "summed up the evidence" she had accumulated against the peace and honor of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish.
"Yes, I will let him marry her," she said, "and then, in the midst of their fancied security and happiness, I will come down upon them like an avalanche of destruction. I will claim him for my own husband by a previous marriage. I have evidence enough to convict and ruin him.
"First, I have all his impassioned letters, written to me from Charlottesville, while I was a guest at the Government House in Richmond.
"Secondly, I have those perfectly manufactured letters addressed to me in a fac-simile of his handwriting, signed by his name and mailed from Wendover to me at Richmond.
"Why, these alone would be sufficient to prove his perfidy even to Emma Cavendish's confiding heart! And they would be good for heavy damages in a breach of promise case.
"But I do not want damages—I want revenge. I do not want to touch his pocket—I want to ruin his life. Yes—and hers! I want to dishonor, degrade and utterly ruin them both! And I have evidence enough to do this," she said, resuming her summing up, "for there is—
"Thirdly, his meeting me at Forestville and his journey with me to Richmond.
"Fourthly, his journey with me to Philadelphia.
"Fifthly, the rector's certificate, setting forth the marriage of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey.
"Sixthly, the testimony of the rector, who will swear that he performed the ceremony, and of the sexton and the sexton's daughter, who will swear that they witnessed the marriage of Alden Lytton and Mary Grey; and swear, furthermore—from his exact resemblance to Craven Kyte—to the identity of Alden Lytton as the bridegroom.
"Alden Lytton can not disprove this by an alibi, for at the very time Craven Kyte personated him, and under his name and character married me, Alden Lytton, in a dead stupor, was locked up in his darkened chamber, and no one knew of his whereabouts but myself, who had the key of his room.
"Nor can Craven Kyte 'ever rise to explain,' for death and the Susquehanna mud has stopped his mouth.
"So this chain of evidence must be conclusive not only to the minds of the jury, who will send my gentleman to rusticate in a penitentiary for a term of years, but also to Miss Cavendish, who will find her proud escutcheon blotted a little, I think."
While Mary Grey gloated over the horrors of her plotted vengeance, there came a rap at the door. She hastily put on a dressing-gown, softly unlocked the door, threw herself into an easy-chair, with her back to the window, and bade the rapper to come in.
The door opened and the clerk of the house entered, bringing with him the house register, which he held open in his hand.
"I beg your pardon for this unseasonable intrusion, madam," he said, as he laid the open book down on the table before her; "but being called upon to report this sad case of the drowning of a guest of this house, I find some difficulty in making out the name, for the poor young gentleman does not seem to have written very clearly. The name is registered C. or G. something or other. But whether it is Hyte or Flyte or Kyle or Hyle, none of us can make out."
Mary Grey smiled within herself, as she secretly rejoiced at the opportunity of concealing the real name and identity of Craven Kyte with the drowned man.
So she drew the book toward her and said, with an affectation of weariness and impatience, as she gazed upon poor Craven's illegible hieroglyphics:
"Why, the name is quite plain! It is G. Hyle—H-y-l-e. Don't you see?"
"Oh, yes, madam! I see now quite plainly. Excuse me: they ask for the full name. Would you please to tell me what the initial G stands for?"
"Certainly. It stands for Gaston. His name was Gaston Hyle. He was a foreigner, as his name shows. There, there, pray do not talk to me any more! I can not bear it," said Mary Grey, affecting symptoms of hysterical grief.
"I beg your pardon for having troubled you, madam, indeed! And I thank you for the information you have given me. Good-day, madam," said the clerk, bowing kindly and courteously as he withdrew.
The next day the newspapers, under the head of casualties, published the following paragraph:
"On Friday evening last a young man, a foreigner, of the name of Gaston Hyle, who had been stopping at the Star Hotel, Havre-de-Grace, was accidentally drowned while boating on the river. His body has not yet been recovered."
No, nor his body never was recovered.
Mary Grey, for form's sake, remained a week at Havre-de-Grace, affecting great anxiety for the recovery of that body. But she shut herself up in her room, pretending the deepest grief, and upon this pretext refusing all sympathizing visits, even from the ladies who had shown her so much kindness on the night of the catastrophe, and from the clergy, who would have offered her religious consolation.
The true reason of her seclusion was that she did not wish her features to become familiar to these people, lest at some future time they might possibly be inconveniently recognized.
As yet no one had seen her face except by night or in her darkened room. And she did not intend that they should.
Her supposed grievous bereavement was her all-sufficient excuse for her seclusion.
At the end of the week Mary Grey paid her bill at the Star, and, closely-veiled, left the hotel and took the evening train for Washington, en route for Richmond.
In due time she reached the last-named city and took up her residence at her old quarters with the Misses Crane, there to wait patiently until the marriage of Alden Lytton and Emma Cavendish should give her the opportunity of consummating their ruin and her own triumph. Meanwhile poor Craven Kyte's leave of absence having expired, he began to be missed and inquired for.
But to all questions his partner answered that he did not know where he was or when he would be back, but thought he was all right.