“I dared not own my marriage, dependent, as I was, for every dollar I used upon my mother; and feeling that she would cast me out penniless, I could see no way but to leave my young wife where she was till my return. Soon after that I should be of age, and so far as property was concerned, independent to claim and protect my wife.
“Our voyage was a protracted one, as you know. Accidents happened to my letters. It was months before I heard from my young wife. Her first letter was full of affection, the second struck me as saddened in its tone. They had been written months when I received them. Then followed complete silence. Up to this time my mother had lived very plainly indeed. I left her, as you will remember that I told you, in the poorest house on our father’s estate, but her method of existence had not sunk to its present level. When I came back she had taken up life in her present miserable abode. Catharine Lacy, so long a sunbeam in our house, had disappeared. Louisa! my wife! you know what my compassion drove her to—a pauper bed at Bellevue.
The week I returned home, a package of letters that had followed me half over the continent, reached New York. They were from my wife, and told me her mournful story. Up to the very hour of her anguish she wrote every thought and feeling of her heart; poor, poor child, how she suffered; how she may yet be suffering!
“During the absence of her guardian, who had gone with a party to the springs, she fled from the house, and in her helplessness sought a home wherever it could be found. This rash step the poor child had taken to escape a disgraceful expulsion from the house of her guardian. With no marriage certificate, for, thoughtless wretch that I was, it still remained in my possession, and unable to find proofs for herself that she was a wife, the poor girl wandered off, hoping to get shelter somewhere till I returned. She was willing to face poverty, but not the woman from whom no pity was ever to be expected for weakness or disobedience.
“The letters I have with me still. The latest, you will see, are written at and dated from Bellevue. After following me from place to place, they reached me here covered with post-marks. Read them, George,—I cannot; every word is written in fire upon my soul.”
Louis turned away his pale face and shrouded his eyes as his brother read.
CHAPTER LVIII.
LOUISA’S LETTERS.
My husband:—Once again I write to you from the depths of a weary heart, without hope, without a belief that you will ever see my letter, but I must speak to you before I die! for it seems to me impossible to live and face that woman. I wrote to you again and again, Louis. I told you of the terrible strait to which I was driven. I appealed to you from the depths of my humiliation. I besought you to give back my secret and send the proofs of our marriage before it was too late—before disgrace fell upon me, and the shelter of a respectable roof was taken from over my head.
“You did not answer. Day after day I waited, day after day I stole like a thief to the post-office, and read over, name by name, the list of advertised letters, hoping against convictions that yours had been overlooked in the delivery. None came. Oh! if you could think how desolate I grew; all alone, so young, so full of dark foreboding—I feared the proud woman to whose guardianship my brother had left me. Her black eyes seemed to follow me everywhere. I trembled at the sound of her footsteps. In my dreams, her presence overshadowed me till my brain ached with the oppression.
“One night she came to me in my chamber. I was in bed weeping, but she did not seem to hear it. The light was dim, and my face turned to the wall. Possibly she did not know how wretched I was.