But they are not married? No. Months have passed over them, since each knew each so thoroughly that often the one speaks the unbreathed thought of the other; and yet they are not married. When will that marriage vow be spoken? To-morrow? Next year? Never? Who knows, except God in heaven? Perhaps there is something in this strange, wild, wayward love, between two who may not dream of any reward beyond its existence, too sacred even for its words to be recorded if they should fall upon the ear or enter the mind of the romancer. Neither of them, perhaps, could attract a love beside: neither of them might value another love, if it should come at any call. Both of them will be Pariahs from the caste of hard propriety, while the world lives or they exist. Both will chatter, laugh, weep at times, fill unacknowledged places in the world, and weave unreal romances of loving mischief in real life. And yet, married or unmarried, they rest in each other—rest, in the truest and holiest sense of that sacred word which almost encompasses heaven. Absent, they will wish for each other: together, they will sometimes forget the blessing that has been conferred, to remember it again some time through sobs and kisses. And here let the record close.
No—let the record bear one more important suggestion. If they do marry, for the protection of society let conspicuous labels be pinned on the backs of their children: "Don't let these little people get into any chance for mischief."
John Crawford, the Zouave, returned to New York within the succeeding three days. Among the first of his researches in the city, was one as to the state of the bank-account of Marion Hobart. The account was closed—every dollar had been drawn, by check under her own hand, and the fact gave only another proof that her abduction had been accomplished without much violence, if not indeed with her own connivance.
John Crawford rejoined the Advance Guard in October, and has since shared in all the perils and glories of that gallant corps. He is still a private—it may be because no commission has offered on such terms as a true man could accept; and it may be because he believes the true romance and glory of war to lie with the soldier, and not the officer—the danger of the lonely picket-guard and the song and story of camp and bivouac, supplying a fresh and glorious excitement to which the superior must always remain a stranger.
From the moment when Colonel Egbert Crawford left West Falls so suddenly, and took his way Southward by the cars of the New York Central road on that Sunday evening of July, he seems to have passed away entirely from the course of this narration. Let it not be supposed that he has passed away from memory or that these closing words can be complete without a knowledge of his subsequent movements.
It has been seen how calmly, to all outward appearance, the baffled and detected man bore the knowledge of his ruin. Ruin, because nothing less was involved in the failure of his plans. He had long been embarrassed in money affairs, and for months before his business as a Tombs lawyer had been falling away under that worst of all cankers—neglect. The hand of Mary Crawford would have satisfied his heart, and her fortune would have repaired the weakness of his own. Failing both, he was hopelessly bankrupt. The Two Hundredth Regiment was a failure, and he had known the fact for weeks. Perhaps he had never believed that it would be otherwise. At all events, as may have been suspected from his forced submission to the unpardonable insolence of the Adjutant, he had been deceiving the authorities as to the number and condition of the regiment, and applying to his own use sums that might need to be some day strictly accounted for. The previous word will bear repetition—this event in his life was absolute ruin.
Some men commit suicide under such circumstances. Others make one more and a still greater departure from the path of honesty, and victimizing all whom they can influence by the holiest of pleas and the most sacred claims of friendship, flee away to bury their shame among strangers. A few find such positions the turning-points in their lives, and thenceforward develope some startling virtues which almost redeem the lamentable past.
Egbert Crawford had proved himself a villain, even as the world goes. He had trampled upon the dearest ties of blood, and been a constructive murderer, only withheld from the actual crime by circumstances over which he had no control. He had murdered character, and would have murdered the happiness of a poor, weak, unoffending woman, who had the double claim of youth and of kindred blood, demanding consideration at his hands. He had trifled with the public service and defrauded the government, as too many others were and have since been doing on every hand—draining his Mother Country of her life-blood in her very hour of need, and so aiding to commit that most deadly and horrible of crimes—matricide. Could this man still have one virtue remaining? Let this be seen.