The peculiarities which he developed in that masquerade, should by this time be reasonably well understood; the motives which kept him near the woman who had once loved him but afterwards cast him off forever, may easily be guessed by many a man, correspondingly situated, who has thus fluttered moth-like around his destroying candle; the half-maddening effect produced upon him by the magnificent scenery of the mountains, the displays of reckless courage made by Halstead Rowan and the marked admiration of Margaret Hayley for those displays, was no matter for surprise when such surroundings for such a temperament were considered; the attempt to become his own rival and win the woman he so wildly worshipped from himself, was not crazier than might have been expected from the man who could have exhibited all the preceding anomalies; and after Margaret had declared her unalterable love but her invincible determination never to marry the man who dared not fight for his native land,—the feeling compounded of hope and despair, which sent him down to the Virginia battle-fields, first as a mere spectator under the favor of his old friend Pleasanton and then as a mad Berserk running a course of warlike fury which made even gray-bearded veterans shudder,—this need astonish no one who has seen how human character changes and develops its true components in the crucible of love, shame and sorrow!
Be sure that Margaret Hayley, too, in that day of the clearing away of mists and mysteries, made one explanation—not to the ears of Robert Brand, but to those of Carlton alone. An explanation that was really a confession, as it told him of the means through which the property held by her family (oh, how the magnificent face alternately flushed and paled when opening this sore wound of her pride!) had been acquired many years before. But be sure that all this was made a recommendation rather than a shame in the eyes of Carlton Brand, when he knew that from the day of his own dismissal her knowledge of that family stain had been used to keep Mrs. Burton Hayley quiet and subservient, to hold Captain Hector Coles at a safe distance, and to enforce what she had truly intended if he should never honorably beckon her again to his bridal bed—a life of loneliness for his sake!
Something that occurred a month later—in October, when nature had put on those gorgeous but melancholy robes of gold and purple with which in America she wraps herself when Proserpine is going away from Ceres to the darkness and desolation of winter.
One day during that month a close carriage drove down the lane leading from the Darby road past the house of Dr. Pomeroy. It was drawn by a magnificent pair of horses, but they were driven much more slowly than we have once seen them pursuing the same course. A single figure was seated in it, with face at the window, when it drew up at the doctor's gate; and out of it stepped Nathan Bladesden, the Quaker merchant.
The face was calm, as beseemed his sect, but very stern. A little changed, perhaps, since the early summer, with a shadow more of white dashed into the trim side-whiskers and one or two deeper lines upon the brow and at the corners of the mouth. A step, as he said a word to the driver and entered the gate, which comported with the stern gravity of the face and the slow rate at which he had been driven. Something in the whole appearance indicating that he had come upon a painful duty, but one that he would do if half the powers of both worlds should combine to prevent him.
He saw no one as he approached the piazza and the closed front door; but as he was about to ring, a female servant came out, closed the door again behind her and stopped as if surprised at seeing him.
"Is Doctor Philip Pomeroy at home?" he asked.
"Yes," was the answer, after one instant of hesitation,—"yes, but—"
"That was all I asked thee, woman!" answered the Quaker, sternly. "I came to see him and I must do so. Show me to him at once."
The girl hesitated again, looked twice at him and once at the one open window of the parlor, then obeyed the behest, opened the front door, pointed to that leading into the parlor from the hall, and said: