"Carlton Brand, I believe that I have but one friend in the world, and you are that friend. I have tried to keep my shame from you, because I could not bear to forfeit your good opinion. You know all, now, but do not believe me guilty and wicked! That man—"
"I do not believe you guilty, Eleanor, whatever may be the errors into which you have been dragged by that worst devil out of torment!" he interrupted her.
"Expose that man to the world, then, or kill him! Do not let my shame stand in the way! I can bear any thing, to see him punished as he deserves, for this last cruel deed!" The girl was for the moment beside herself, and she little thought, just then, what was the penalty she braved! It seemed that Carlton Brand better appreciated the peril, or that some other weighty consideration chained his limbs and his spirit, for his was now the flushed face, and he made none of those physical movements which the avenger inevitably assumes, even if beneath no other eye than God's, when he determines upon a course of action involving exposure and possible danger. He seemed to tremble, but not with anxiety: his was rather the quiver of inertiæ than any nobler incitement.
"Expose him?—kill him?" he gasped rather than said. "You do not know what you ask, Eleanor! I cannot!—dare not—"
"Dare not?" echoed Eleanor Hill, her face that had ordinarily so little pride or courage in it, now expressing wonder not unmingled with contempt. For the first time, she saw the countenance of that man who had seemed to her almost a demi-god, convulsed with pain and shame; and the sad wonder that was almost pity grew in her eyes, as within a moment after, moved by her confidence and assured by it that he need fear no danger of betrayal, Carlton Brand entrusted her with the secret of that skeleton in his mental closet which made him powerless against the bold, unscrupulous and determined Philip Pomeroy. Each had the most dangerous confidence of the other, then; and each realized, if nothing more, a certain painful satisfaction in knowing that the burthen was not thenceforth to be borne entirely without sympathy. But to neither did there appear any hope of unravelling a villany which seemed to both so monstrous.
All this took place in the summer of 1861, it will be remembered; and between that time and the period at which we have seen Eleanor Hill kneeling piteously before Nathan Bladesden and afterwards greeting Carlton Brand with such a sympathy of shame and sorrow,—nearly two years had elapsed. During that time Carlton Brand had seemed to gather more and more dislike of the physician, and, as must be confessed, more and more positive fear of him; while Dr. Pomeroy had more than once treated poor Eleanor with positive bodily indignity for daring to receive his visits at all, though he was the last of all her old acquaintances who kept up the least pretence at intimacy. Finally, for months before the June of 1863, the lawyer had ceased to make any visits to the house, except at times when he knew the doctor to be absent; and then he stayed but briefly at each infrequent call, while one of the female servants, who was devoted to Eleanor, had confidential orders from her to keep watch for the sudden coming of the doctor, so that this man, who seemed born to be a Paladin, could skulk away by one door or the other and avoid a meeting! A most pitiable exhibition, truly!—but the record must be made a faithful one, even in this melancholy instance.
Since Eleanor Hill's return from her temporary Hegira, for a long period, so far as the eye could see no change had taken place in the relations existing between the "guardian" and his "ward." Perhaps he treated her with more coolness than of old; and she may have been more habitually silent, while she had become a virtual recluse and seldom passed beyond the doors of that fated dwelling. Whatever the weakness which the fact may have shown on her part, whatever of persistent evil on his,—the old intimacy of crime had been maintained, though the love once existing in the breast of the young girl had long changed to loathing, and there was every reason to believe that the ignobler passion urging on her destroyer had quite as long before become satiety.
This up to a certain period. One day during the winter of 1862, Nathan Bladesden, a Quaker merchant of the city, gray-headed, eminently respectable and a widower, had found occasion to call at the residence of Dr. Pomeroy. In the host's absence he had been received by his ward; and the blind god, ever fantastic in his dealings, had smitten the calm, strong man with a feeling not to be overcome. He had called again and again, sometimes in the doctor's absence and sometimes when he was at home; but the object of his pursuit had evidently been Eleanor Hill. His visits had seemed to be rather pleasing than otherwise to the master of the house, who could not fail to see towards what they tended; and that he did see and approve had seemed to be evident from his entire withdrawal of himself from Eleanor's private society, from the time of the second visit. The poor girl's heart had leaped with joy, at the possibility of union with a noble man, that should finally remove her from her false position and make her past life only a sad remembrance; and those precisians may blame her who will, while all must sorrow for the circumstances which seemed to render the deception necessary,—that she had not shuddered, as she possibly should have done, at the idea of marriage without full confidence. Two months before, while April was laughing and weeping over the earth, the grave, unimpeachable man, who already held so much of her respect and could so easily induce a much warmer feeling of her nature,—had asked her to be his honored wife and the mistress of his handsome house in the city; and the harrassed girl, the goal of a life of peace once more in sight, had answered him that she would be his wife at any moment if he would consent to accept the remnant of a heart which had been cruelly tortured and to make no inquiries as to a past which must ever remain buried. To these terms the Quaker had consented; this had been Eleanor Hill's betrothal; and with such a redeeming prospect in view had her life remained, until that fatal day of June when the knowledge that her whole secret was betrayed burst upon her in the presence and the reproaches of Nathan Bladesden. What passed between them has already been recorded, at a stage of this narration antecedent to the long but necessary resumé just concluded; and we have seen how, only a few minutes after, Carlton Brand held in his hand the letter of her second denunciation, and what were his brief but burning words as he commenced reading.
"Curse him! He deserves eternal perdition, and he will find it!"
He read through the letter without speaking another word, though there were occasional convulsive twitches of his face which showed how his heart was stirred to indignation by the perusal.