“I penned a message which was delivered by my young Virginian friend in person. Wold said he had no quarrel with me, and strove to evade the subject. He sent me a note, demanding wherein he had ever wronged me, and stating that he was ready and willing to explain any thing that might have offended me. I returned his note, with a line on the same sheet, informing him that I was the friend of Laura; and that he must either meet me in the manner indicated in my message, or I would publicly brand him as a dastardly scoundrel. He bit his lip, and referred my friend to one of his companions in iniquity, a Mr. Knabb, who lived by the profession of cards and dice. It was arranged that we should meet on one of the islands near the city, and that it should be the next morning. This was what I desired, and I had urged my friend to effect as speedy a consummation of the affair as possible. All the tumult and perturbation that raged in my bosom on parting with Laura had returned, and the throbbing of my brain was almost insufferable. It was with difficulty that my young friend prevailed upon me to embrace the few intermediate hours before the meeting to practice with the pistol. I heeded not his declaration that Wold was an excellent shot, because I felt convinced that justice was on my side. I thought that the criminal must inevitably fall. However, I consented to practice a little to quiet his importunity. Truly, it seemed that his urgent solicitation was reasonable enough, for the first fire my ball was several feet wide of the mark. I had never fired a pistol before in my life. But there was no quivering of nerve, no misgiving as to my fate; for notwithstanding I was aware of being a novice, yet I entertained a conviction, a presentiment, that the destroyer of my Laura’s innocence would fall beneath my hand. The next fire I did better, and soon learned to strike the centre.
“We were all on the ground at the hour appointed. While the seconds were arranging the necessary preliminaries, Wold, finding that my eyes rested steadily upon him, endeavoured to intimidate me. There was a bush some thirty paces distant, from which a slim, solitary sprout ran up several feet above the rest of the branches. He gazed an instant at it while I was marking him, and then raised his pistol, and fired in the direction. The sprout fell. Turning, his eyes met mine, while a slight smile was visible on his lip. The effect did not realize his hopes. I looked upon the act with such cold indifference that he at first betrayed surprise at my calmness, and then exhibited palpable signs of trepidation himself. He beckoned Knabb to him, and, after a brief conference in a low tone, his second returned to my friend, and inquired if no amends, no reconciliation, could avert the exchange of shots. My friend reported his words to me, and my reply was that nothing but the restitution of the maiden’s honour—instant marriage—would be satisfaction. Wold protested—marriage was utterly impossible under existing circumstances—but he would do any thing else. But nothing else would answer; and I insisted on proceeding to business without further delay. Wold heard me, and became pale. When we were placed at our respective stations, and while the final arrangements were being adjusted, I thought his replies to his friend’s observations betrayed much alarm. But there was no retreat. I was never calmer in my life, I even smiled when my careful friend told me that he had detected and prevented a concerted plan that would have given Wold the advantage. The word was given. Wold’s ball struck the earth before me, and threw some sand in my face. Mine entered the seducer’s side! I saw him gasp, reel, and fall, while the blood gushed out on the beach. My friend hurried me away, and paused not until he had placed me in a stage just starting for Philadelphia. I clasped his hand in silence, and the next moment the horses plunged away at the crack of the driver’s whip, and we were soon far on the road. Reflection ere long convinced me that I had been guilty of an unjustifiable act. If it was no crime in the estimation of men, it was certainly a grievous transgression in the eyes of God! I then trembled. The bleeding form and reproachful stare of Wold haunted my vision when the darkness set in. Oh, the errors, in act and deed, of an impetuous youth thrown upon the world with no considerate friend to advise him! The pity I felt for Laura was soon forgotten in the horrible thought that I was a MURDERER! Oh, the anguish of that night! Why did I not leave Wold to the judgment of an offended God? Why did I not permit him to suffer the gnawing of the canker that must ever abide in his heart, instead of staining my hands with his blood? Freely would I have abandoned every hope of pleasure in the world to have washed his blood away!
“I saw him gasp, reel, and fall.”
“When I arrived in Philadelphia, with a heavy heart, I sought a quiet hotel, not daring to confront my uncle with such a tale of woe and crime. For several days I remained in my chamber without seeing any one but the servant that brought my food. At length I asked for a New York paper. For more than an hour after it was brought I could not summon courage to peruse the hated tragedy. Finally I snatched up the sheet convulsively and glanced along the columns. When my eyes rested upon the paragraph I was in quest of, I sprang to my feet in ecstasy. The wound had not been fatal! Wold still lived!
“In a twinkling I was dressed and on my way to my uncle’s residence. Notwithstanding there was a dreadful epidemic in the city, and hearses and mourners were passing every few minutes, I felt within a buoyancy that defied the terrors of disease and death.
“But it seemed that disaster and desolation were fated to attend me whithersoever I turned. A gloom brooded upon my heart when I approached my uncle’s mansion, and found the badge of mourning at the door. I paused and asked the servant who was dead. He informed me that my uncle alone remained. His wife and children, all had been consigned to the tomb the day before, and he himself now lay writhing with the fell disease. I rushed in and entered the sick chamber. It was the chamber of death. My uncle pressed my hand and died. I followed him to the grave, the chief and almost only mourner.
“I returned and shut myself up in the mansion, bewildered and stupefied. I was now the possessor of immense wealth. But I was unhappy. I knew not what to do to enjoy life. Gradually the pestilence abated and disappeared, and by degrees the gloom that oppressed me subsided. At the end of a few months, I was informed by my young Virginian friend that Wold had entirely recovered. I likewise received a letter from Mrs. Arras, stating that Judge ____ had sought out Laura, (who had been enticed to an obscure part of the city,) and, as her misfortune had been kept a profound secret among the few, he forgave the offence, and once more extended to her a father’s love and a father’s protection. I need not say that a blissful thrill bounded through my veins. Wold was living, and Laura not irrecoverably lost. Yet I did not then deem it possible that I could, under such circumstances, ever desire to possess the once adored, but since truly fallen, Laura. But I experienced a sweet gratification to be thus informed of the prospect of her being reinstated in society. My love was not yet wholly extinguished!
“When it was generally known that I possessed great riches, a crowd of flatterers and sycophants hovered around me. I was a distinguished guest at the mansions of the fashionable and great, and had in turn many brilliant parties at my residence. But among the tinsel and glitter of the gay world I sought in vain for peace and happiness. Many beautiful and bewitching belles lavished their sweetest smiles upon me, but they could not re-ignite the smothered flame in my bosom. Wine could only exhilarate for a moment, to be succeeded by a gnawing nausea. Cards could only excite while I lost, to be succeeded by irritability and disgust.
“Thus my time was spent for twelve months, when I suddenly conceived the resolution to seek a union with the ill-fated Laura, notwithstanding all the obloquy the world might attach to the act. I still loved her in spite of myself. I could not live in peace without her, and I determined without delay to offer her my hand, heart, and fortune. I set out for Boston, and on my arrival instantly proceeded to the residence of Judge ____. Again my evil star was in the ascendant. Desolation and death presided in Judge ____’s family. The ominous badge of mourning greeted me at the threshold; Laura’s mother had just been consigned, broken-hearted, to the cold grave. The venerable Judge bowed his hoary head to the blows that Providence inflicted. He could not speak to me. His reply to my offer in relation to his child was only a flood of tears. He then retreated into his library and locked the door. An aged domestic told me all. Laura had abandoned her parental roof, and voluntarily entered one of those sinks of pollution that so much degrade human nature! I stood upon an awful abyss. The whirlpools of deceit, ingratitude, indifference, and calumny, howled around me, and the dark floods of sensual corruption roared below. Turn whithersoever I might (alas, I thought not of heaven!) gloom, discord, and misery seemed to be my portion.