“I am sorry for this,” thought Albert; “but I can allow no vexatious interference with me now. Farewell, dear Ada, for a time—your lover will be with you soon—I will now away to Learmont’s and claim his proffered assistance.”
Casting then, ever and anon, lingering looks behind at the house, which he believed contained the object of his fond affections, Albert left the street; and when he had turned the corner, and could no longer see even the habitation of Jacob Gray, he started off at a pace which astonished every one he passed, towards the house of Learmont.
Jacob Gray, when he reached his room, sat down on the side of the miserable little bed, and began to think of his future plans and hopes, with a feeling of certainty, as regarded their stability, such as he had rarely before experienced. It seemed as if Providence having now hurried him on to the very brink of destruction, was determined that his fall should be the more dreadful and full of suffering by his having no sort of anticipation of it. He was as one smiling and making long calculations on the brink of the grave.
“Learmont,” he said, “has seized the bait—I shall be wealthy and free, besides satisfying my revenge. They taunt me with being subtle—I trust that they will find me so. They might long ago have temporised with me, and ensured their own safety by never awakening in my breast the dark feelings towards them that now possess it; but they sought my life, and I swore revenge. Britton and Learmont shall fall in one common destruction, while Ada shall have more trouble to prove her legitimacy than will last her life, should she linger to the age of an ancient patriarch. Yes, I shall be revenged on her, as well as upon Britton and Learmont.”
He sat then for some moments in deep thought, and a feeling of anxiety began to creep over him.
“I am getting nervous now,” he muttered; “of late I am fearfully subject to such gloomy thoughts. I shall be glad when this gloomy, lonely life is over. It suits not with my disposition. I—I did not feel it so much when she was with me, but now that I am quite alone, a shuddering awe creeps around my heart, and I start at the merest trifle. Gracious Heaven—how my heart beats now! ’Tis time I should have ease and comfort in some other land, where all things are new and strange, and there is nothing to remind me of the past—aye, then, I shall know peace.”
He rose, and paced his room uneasily; but even in his mental agitation he trod cautiously, as if the very boards would proclaim, to the world—there trod Jacob Gray, the murderer! Then he produced his confession, and a strange desire seized him to read it carefully through, and make some verbal corrections in it, in order that it should be still more clear and explanatory than it had been. Again, and again, he read over the document, and was satisfied that its notations were distinct and clear.
“Yes—yes—if anything should happen to me,” he muttered, “this will destroy Learmont and Britton, and likewise doom Ada to poverty, while the estates of Learmont will revert to the crown, or some very distant branch of the family that will be eager to acquire them. So even I should not fall quite unavenged. In my death I should be terrible. Death?—Death? I am not going to die—why did such a thought enter my brain? ’Tis strange—very strange.—I never thought of death before this night. I—I am quite well—quite. ’Tis a mere feverish fancy; a vision crossing the over-excited brain. I have had hundreds of such—such forebodings. I suppose that is what I must call the strange feeling that now oppresses me.”
He was now silent for some time, and then, hastily rising, he held the confession in his hand and glanced around his room, as he said,—
“I will never again carry so important a document as this about with me. ’Tis far better—far safer in some hiding-place here; and then suppose it should not be found till some time after my death. That word again—death—death—pshaw, what have I to do with death, for many years to come?”