"My husband was watching, and saw me go out. He followed, heard the sound of excited voices, saw Henreich take me in his arms, and, as he thought, strain me to his breast. Alas! it was a ruffian who held me, while he tried to force me to yield to him my betrothal ring, a superb diamond. He succeeded in wrenching it from my finger. How I regained the house I never knew. I found myself in my own room on a couch, with my maid bending over me. I was told afterward that one swoon had succeeded another, physicians had been summoned, and remedies administered. At the sound of my voice mother came forward with our attending physician. Another spasm came on. Two days later I lay hovering between life and death, and my little babe lay beside me, the very image of Henreich as he was when I first remembered him.
"I was too sick at first to notice the absence of my husband. I learned later that he saw me fall in trying to reach the house, caught me in his arms, and laid me on the couch. He summoned my own maid, who saw him seize a few papers from the drawer and go out into the darkness. From that day to this I have never seen him. All these years, if he has lived through them, he has believed me to be a guilty thing, not worthy even of his contempt. All these years his child has never heard her father's name, and he whose heart was always touched with the sorrows of a child has never heard the sacred name of father from his child's lips. Too late I learned to love him with an intense affection, which, if it had been cherished earlier, would have led me to overlook faults of manner and roughness of speech which, perhaps, after all, were put on to disguise deep feeling.
"Only once in all these long, weary years have I heard from him. Our beautiful babe was two months old when my father received a letter, stating that a sum of money had been placed in the hands of trustees, who were named, for the benefit of my child, if living. He said that he considered the marriage tie broken, and that he should never trouble me again.
"He was right: believing of me what he did, he could not do otherwise. I honor him for it,—but I must hurry to a close.
"Henreich did not succeed in escaping the vigilance of persons who were in search of him. He had hoped to secure enough from me to reach a foreign land and chide justice. When his arrest was made public, the servant who had been with me on my first meeting Henreich confessed, with bitter tears, that she had told my husband that which caused him to watch me on that dreadful night. She said his agony of grief at what he called the certainty of my unfaithfulness frightened her, and she ran away, repenting that she had told him.
"Henreich's arrest and death, though under an assumed name, threw my mother into a fever, from which she never recovered. Two years later, father married a Spanish widow, with several sons and daughters. The eldest son was ten years older than Juliette, and was being educated in France and Germany. He returned to his home when she was only a few months over fourteen, became enamoured of her beauty, and a secret engagement took place. When I learned of it I refused my consent; but the infatuated child followed the example of her mother, and would not yield her own wishes. His mother agreed with me; but my father said there was no blood relation between them, and if they would wait till she was of proper age there was no objection.
"This half-consent was enough for Arthur Cheriton. He took Juliette out for a drive one day. When they returned they were man and wife. After living together a year, he found her unformed in mind and wilful in temper. He went to England on the plea that after obtaining a situation he would send for her.
"Eugene was just one month old when his father left home. We have never seen him since. A small fortune from my father at his death, together with the income from the sum my husband settled on us, has sufficed for our maintenance. It will support Juliette and her boy in comfort; but it is for her I fear. She has many of poor Henreich's traits, and her beauty attracts many admirers. My prayer is that the heavy afflictions which have separated us from those we love may wean her from earth as they have the mother; that she may find in the exercise of the duties of a Christian life the solace nothing else can give.
"One word more and I have done. Once a year we have heard from Arthur, whom I have always kept advised of our place of residence. I have reason to suppose he is in America, perhaps in New York. This was what led me to say that we might be compelled to leave the city. Juliette has lost all her love for him, and insists that she will never recognize the tie which binds them together. As long as I live, I shall go with her where she goes; but I know death may claim me at any time,—and then what will become of my child?"
"Was your husband's name Douglass, too?"