The letter was of very recent date, and ran as follows—I have the original still, and this is an exact copy:
"On September 1st, or as soon thereafter as feasible, I shall call to see you, Miriam, in your retirement, which I am glad to hear has so far been beneficial. Should I find you in a condition to make conditions, I shall lay before you a very advantageous offer of marriage I had received for you before your shipwreck. Should you accept this offer, and attach your signature to a few papers that I shall bring with me (papers important to the respectability of your whole family as well as my own), I shall at once resign to you your father's house and the guardianship of Mabel. The chimera that alarmed you to frenzy can have no further existence, either in fact or fancy. I am about to contract an advantageous marriage with a foreign lady of rank, wealth, and beauty, to whom I hope soon to introduce you.. I need not mention her name, if you are wise. Be patient and cheerful; cultivate your talents, and take care of your good looks—no woman can afford to dispense with these, however gifted; and you will soon find yourself as free as that 'chartered libertine' the air, for which last two words I am afraid you will be malicious enough to substitute the name you will not find appended, of your true friend and guardian, B.B."
Had Wentworth spoken, then? Did he know of my immurement? Was it his beloved presence, his dear hand, that were to be made the prize of my silence and submission? Was the bitter pill of humiliation I was now swallowing to be gilded thus? No, no—a thousand times, no! He was not the man with whom to make such conditions—the man I loved—nay worshiped almost. He was of the old heroic mould, that would have preferred any certainty to suspense, and death itself to an instant's degradation.
He deemed me dead, and the obstacle that had risen between us needed no explanation now. The waves had swallowed all necessities like this. But, had he known me the inmate of a mad-house, no bolts or bars would have withheld him from my presence. His own eyes could alone have convinced him of such ruin as was alleged against me by these friends.
From this survey of my utter helplessness I turned suddenly to confront the deep, dark, salient eyes of the disciple of Hahnemann, real or pretended, fixed upon me with a glance that even his blue spectacles could not deprive of its subtle intensity.
Where had I seen before orbs of the same snake-like peculiarity of expression, or caught the outline of the profile which suddenly riveted my gaze as the light partially revealed it, then subsided into shadow again? I pondered this question for a moment while Dr. Englehart, silent, expectant perhaps, stood with his hand tightly grasping the back of a chair, on the seat of which he reposed one knee, in a position such as defiant school-boys often assume before a pedagogue.
As I have said, his head and body were again in shadow, as was, indeed, most of the chamber, for the rays which struggled through the thick ground glass of my astral lamp were as mild as moonbeams, and as unsatisfactory. But the light fell strong and red beneath the shade, and the full glare of the astral lamp seemed centred on that pudgy hand, in its inevitable glove, that had fixed so firm a gripe on the back of the mahogany chair as to strain open one of the fingers of the tight, tawny kid-glove worn by Dr. Englehart. This had parted slightly just above the knuckle of the front-finger, and revealed the cotton stuffing within. Nay, more, the ruby ring with its peculiar device was thus exposed, which graced the slender finger of the charlatan! I do not apply this term as concerned the profession he affected at all, but merely (as shall be seen later) as one appropriate to himself individually.
There must be beings of all kinds to constitute a world, philosophers tell us, and he, no doubt, so long in ignorance of it, had stumbled suddenly on his proper vocation at last. The rôle he was playing (so far successfully) had doubtless been the occasion of an exquisite delight to him, unknown to simpler mortals, who masquerade not without dread misgivings of detection. I for one, when affecting any costume not essentially belonging to me, or covering my face even with a paper-mask for holiday diversion, have had a feeling of unusual transparency and obviousness, so to speak, which precluded on my part every thing like a successful maintenance of the part I was attempting to play. It was as if some mocking voice was saying: "This is Miriam Monfort, the true Miriam; the person you have known before as such was only making believe—but the Simon-pure is before you, a volume of folly that all who run may read! Behold her—she was never half so evident before!"
But to digress thus in the very moment of detection, of recognition, seems irrelevant. The flash of conviction was as instantaneous in its action in my mind as that of the lightning when it strikes its object. I stood confounded, yet enlightened, all ablaze!—but the subject of this discovery did not seem in the least to apprehend it, or to believe it possible, in his mad, mole-like effrontery of self-sufficiency, that by his own track he could be betrayed.
"Vat ansair shall I bear to Mr. Bainrothe from his vard?" asked the Mercury of my Jove, clasping his costumed hands together, then dropping them meekly before him. "I vait de reply of Miss Monfort vid patience. Dere is pen, and ink, and papair, I perceive, on dat table. Be good enough to write at once your reply to de vise conditions of your excellent guardian."