The Old House Again.—Ada’s Alarm.—Gray and His Gold.
Ada felt that after the experience of the recent interview with Gray, she had a power over him which, were she free from her promise not to escape, she might use for the purpose of restoring herself to liberty. That power was grounded on the superstition of his character—a weakness which had grown with his crimes, and been increased by the constant pangs of remorse, which even he could not stifle entirely. The solitude likewise, and the constant state of trembling anxiety in which he lived, had shattered his nervous system to that degree that he was indeed a melancholy and warning spectacle of the mental and bodily wreck to which crime is sure to reduce its unhallowed perpetrators.
His eyes were sunken and blood-shot, his lips never bore the hue of health, his step was stealthy and trembling, and his hands shook like an aspen leaf. He would lock himself in the room which contained his hoarded wealth, and recount the glittering mass for hours together; but still he could not think it enough. The demon of avarice had got a clutch of his heart, and the larger the amount of his gold became, the wider range his love of the bright temptation took, and constantly fixed a sum far beyond what he had as that which would content him and enable him to put in practice his scheme of departure from England, and vengeance upon Learmont and Britton.
“I must yet have more,” he would mutter. “’Tis but a short delay, and Learmont cannot refuse me the gold. Yes, two hundred more of those pieces shall satisfy me. That will make up a goodly sum; and then, in some other land, I shall get some sleep undisturbed by the awful visions that here crowd upon my trembling imagination;—but two hundred more. Perhaps I may get so much before this month is past, and then I shall be saved the trouble of extorting a renewal of the promise of this wilful girl. Yes, it shall be so. I will raise my demands upon Learmont. He cannot—dare not say me nay, unless I were to become outrageously unreasonable in my drafts upon his purse.—Two hundred.—Let me think;—five visits at twenty pounds each will be half the money. Pshaw! I will have forty each visit. Ay, forty; that will not alarm him: If I insist on more he might, in his cautious brain, think upon the scheme I mean to practise, and take some means of most effectually preventing such ruin to himself. I will lull his suspicions. Oh! What a day of triumph will it be to me when I sail from England with the conviction that, within four-and-twenty hours after I am gone, Learmont and Britton will each inhabit a prison. They will then confess that Jacob Gray is cunning. The sneer will turn with an awful fact to them. There is but one drawback.—I shall not see them hung. No;—I cannot—dare not—stay to see them hung. Ada will be rich and great; but she will know who I am. Will she use her wealth in hunting me through the world? Or will she forgive in the flush of her prosperity? If—if—I thought that the firm, untameable spirit which this girl evidently possesses, and which I may confess it here in secret, daunts me,—if I thought it would induce her to hunt me down, as she might, for her means would be ample for such an object, were I hidden even in the bowels of the earth, I’d—I’d—kill her ere I went. Yes, some night when she slept I could do it; but not till the hour before I meant to go; for I—I could not stay in this lone place without her. She scorns me,—treats me with a haughty contempt; will scarcely condescend to address me: but still she is here, and there is company in the thought that I know I am not quite alone in this gloomy place. She may load me with opprobrium,—she may heap scorn upon my head; but she is here, and I could not lie down for one night here, without the conviction that there was some one else within these walls. So, Ada, you are safe now—very safe; but ere I go I must seek some subtle means of knowing what will be your course of action when you know all, and the name of Jacob Gray is linked with a crime that will rouse your nature, and bring an angry flash to your eye. Ha!—What noise was that?”
Gray sprang to his feet, and he trembled violently, for some slight noise, such as old decayed houses are full of, came upon his ear in the stillness that reigned around.
“I—I thought I heard a noise,” he muttered; “but I have thought so often, when ’twas nothing. Ada is here; I am not quite alone; should I see anything, I—I could scream, and then she might come, perchance, to exult in my agony; but there would be protection in her presence—because—because she is—innocent.—Innocent!—Oh, God! Why am I not innocent? Is all this world and its enjoyments a gross delusion, for which I have bartered all the essence and foundation of all joy—peace!”
For many minutes he remained silent, and the nervous twitching of his countenance betrayed the disturbed condition of his mind. Then he spoke quickly and nervously.
“I must not give way to thoughts like these,” he said; “they will drive me mad. Yes, murder lies that way. I must go on now;—the path I have chosen is one which there is no retracing. ’Tis as if a wall of adamant followed close behind, to prevent one backward step. I am committed to the course I have taken;—to pause is madness. I must go on—I must go on! But I will spare you, Ada, if I can.”
The sound of a distant clock, sounding the hour of twelve, now came upon the night air, and Jacob Gray listened to the faint moaning tones of the bell until all was still again, and no sound broke the solemn stillness but the agitated beating of his own heart.
“Midnight!” he said. “’Tis midnight! I will now endeavour to snatch a few hours’ repose; I have fatigued myself now for many hours, with the hope that the body’s weariness might lull the mind’s agony. Agony! I—do I call it agony! Is that all I have purchased by—crimes?”