Dermoyne, with this finger to his lip, remained for a moment buried in profound thought. Once his eyes, glancing sidelong, rested upon Barnhurst with a sort of ferocious glare. When he spoke again, it was in these words:—
"Enter your bed-chamber, and sleep beside your faithful wife, and,—think of Alice. As for myself, I will watch for the morning, on the sofa, down stairs. Enter, I say!" he pointed sternly to the door,—"and remember! at morning we take up our march again. I know that you will not escape from me,—and as for your wife, if you do not wish her to see me, you will make your appearance at an early hour."
Barnhurst, without a word, glided silently into the bed-chamber, closing the door after him. Dermoyne, listening for a moment, heard the voices of the husband and the wife, mingling in conversation. Then he went quietly down stairs, took down the hanging-lamp, and with it in his hand, entered a room on the lower floor.
It was a neatly-furnished apartment with a sofa, a piano, and a portrait of Barnhurst on the wall. The remains of a wood-fire were smouldering on the hearth. Near the piano stood an empty cradle. It was very much like—home. It was, in a word, the room through whose curtained windows, we gazed in our brief episode, and saw the pure wife with her children, awaiting the return of the husband and father.
Dermoyne lit a candle, which stood on a table, near the sofa, and then replaced the hanging lamp. This done, he came into the quiet parlor again,—without once pausing to notice that the front door was ajar. Had he but remarked this little fact, he might have saved himself a world of trouble. He flung his cloak upon the table, and placed his cap and the iron bar beside it. Then seating himself on the sofa, he drew the Red Book from under his left arm, where for hours he had securely carried it,—and spread it forth upon his knees. Drawing the light nearer to him, he began to examine the contents of that massive volume. How his countenance underwent all changes of expression, as page after page was disclosed to his gaze! At first his lip curled, and his brow grew dark,—there was doubtless much to move contempt and hatred in those pages,—but as he read on, his large gray eyes, dilating in their sockets, shone with steady light; every lineament of his countenance, manifested profound, absorbing interest.
The Red Book!
Of all the singular volumes, ever seen, this certainly was one of the most singular. It comprised perchance, one thousand manuscript pages, written by at least a hundred hands. There were original letters, and copies of letters; some of them traced by the tremulous hand of the dying. There were histories and fragments of histories,—the darkest record of the criminal court is not so black, as many a history comprised within the compass of this volume. It contained the history, sometimes complete sometimes in fragmentary shape, of all who had ever sought the aid of Madam Resimer, or,—suffered beneath her hands. And there were letters there, and histories there, which the Madam had evidently gathered, with a view of extorting money from certain persons, who had never passed into the circle of her infernal influence. All the crimes that can spring from unholy marriages, from violation of the marriage vow, from the seduction of innocent maidenhood, from the conflict between poor chastity and rich temptation, stood out upon those pages, in forms of terrible life. That book was a revelation of the civilization of a large city,—a glittering mask with a death's head behind it,—a living body chained to a leperous corpse. Instead of being called the Red Book, it should have been called the Black Book, or the Death Book, or the Mysteries of the Social World.
How the aristocracy of the money power was set forth in those pages! That aristocracy which the French know as the "Bourgeoise," which the English style the "Middle Classes," and which the Devil knows for his "own,"—the name of whose god the Savior pronounced, when he uttered the word "Mammon,"—whose loftiest aspiration is embodied in the word "Respectable!" How this modern aristocracy of the money power, stood out in naked life, showy and mean, glittering and heartless, upon the pages of the Red Book! Stood out in colors, painted, not by an enemy, but by its own hand, the mark of its baseness stamped upon its forehead, by its own peculiar seal.
One history was there, which, written in different hands, in an especial manner, riveted the interest of Arthur Dermoyne. Bending forward, with the light of the candle upon his brow, he read it page by page, his face manifesting every contrast of emotion as he read. For a title it bore a single name, written in a delicate womanly hand,—"Marion Merlin." The greater portion of the history was written in the same hand.
Leaning upon the shoulder of Arthur Dermoyne, let us, with him, read this sad, dark history.