"No, my lord—I shall repair to Liverpool, and thence depart for America," answered Gibbet, conquering his emotions and speaking more firmly than he had yet done. "Oh! do not seek to turn me from my purpose, my lord—for my happiness depends upon that step."
Richard surveyed the hump-back with unfeigned astonishment;—and this sentiment was strangely increased, when the poor creature, suddenly yielding to the impulse of his emotions, fell at our hero's feet, and catching hold of both his hands, exclaimed, "Oh! my lord, pardon me for what I have done! From our childhood I have loved Katherine—loved her devotedly,—first as a brother should love a sister—and then, my lord—oh! pardon me—but I knew not that she was by birth so high above me—I could not foresee that she would be some day acknowledged as the sister of a great Prince! And thus, my lord—if I have offended you by daring at one time to love Katherine more tenderly than I ought—you will forgive me—you will forgive me! And believe me, my lord, when I solemnly declare that never did I understand my own feelings in respect to her—never did I comprehend why her image was so unceasingly present to my imagination—until that letter came in which you announced to my father her approaching marriage. Then, my lord, then——but—oh! forgive me—pardon me for this boundless insolence—this impious presumption!"
Gibbet had spoken with such strange rapidity and such wild—startling—almost frenzied energy,—and the revelation his words conveyed had so astonished our hero, that the sudden seriousness which his countenance assumed was mistaken by the poor hump-back for severity.
But this error was speedily dissipated, when Markham, recovering from his bewilderment, raised him from the floor, conducted him to a seat, and, leaning over him, said in the kindest possible manner, "My dear friend, you have no forgiveness to ask—I no pardon to accord. In my estimation distinctions of birth are as nothing; and if you have loved my sister, it was a generous—an honest—a worthy attachment which you nourished. But, alas! my poor friend—that attachment is most unfortunate!"
"I know it, my lord—I know it!" cried Gibbet, tears streaming from his eyes: "and had I not been compelled to avow my secret, as an explanation of the motive which will induce me to seek another clime where I may commune with my own heart in the solitude of some forest on the verge of civilization—that secret would never have been revealed! And now, my lord," he added, hastily wiping his eyes and assuming a calm demeanour, "seek not to deter me from my purpose—and let us close our lips upon this too painful subject!"
"Be it as you will, my good friend," said the Prince. "But for this night, at all events, you will make my house your home."
Gibbet gave a reluctant consent; and, when his feelings were entirely calmed, Richard introduced him into the drawing-room where Isabella, Katherine and her husband, Ellen and Mr. Monroe were seated.
And here the reader may exclaim, "What! present the hump-back orphan of the late hangman to that elegant, refined, and accomplished Princess whose father sits upon a throne!"
Yes, reader: and it was precisely because this poor creature was deformed—an orphan—with what many might term a stigma on his parentage—and so lonely and desolate in the world, that Richard Markham took him by the hand, and introduced him into the bosom of his domesticity. But the Prince also knew that the unfortunate hump-back possessed a heart that might have done honour to a monarch; and our hero looked not to personal appearance—nor to birth—nor to fortune—nor to name,—but to the qualities of the mind!
And Isabella, who had heard all the previous history of those with whom Katherine had passed so many years of her life, welcomed that poor deformed creature even as her husband had welcomed him,—welcomed him, too, the more kindly because he was so deformed!