“Nay, not so, Mrs. Headley,” replied the unhappy officer; “you are very cruel, but I know you mean it well; proceed—let me be told all. The stronger your recital, the more confirmatory of the utter destruction of my dreams of happiness, and the better for myself. I have already said that scorn and contempt alone can dwell in my heart, if that which I surmise you are about to relate be but found to be true. I am ready for the torture—begin!” and, as if with a dogged determination to hear, and suffer while he heard, he leaned his elbow on the back of his chair, and covered his eyes with his hand.
The recital need not be repeated here. All that had occurred on the preceding day, and that which is already known to the reader, Mrs. Headley now communicated, adding that she had been undecided in her opinion on the subject, until the answer to the question put to Von Voltenberg convinced her that the whole thing had been planned, and that she had willingly thrown herself into the power of Wau-nan-gee. The few guns, she concluded, were evidently a signal of which she availed herself by instantly galloping off, while Ronayne was yet at some distance from her, and unhorsed.
Prepared as the unhappy officer had been for intelligence involving this mysterious change of affection in his wife, he was utterly dismayed when Mrs. Headley recounted what she had witnessed in the summer-house, to which she had voluntarily gone, and from which she probably never would have returned had not accident disclosed the secret of the trap—door.
“This is, indeed, a terrible blow!” he said, solemnly, removing his hand and exhibiting a pale cheek and lip, and a stern and knitted brow; “but now I know the worst, I better can bear the infliction. Strange, I almost hate myself for it; but I feel my heart relieved. I know I am no longer cared for there, and wherefore seek to force an erring woman to my will? And yet, when I think of it, of the monstrous love that weds rich intellect and gorgeous beauty to the mere blushing bud of scarce conscious boyhood, I feel as one utterly bewildered. Still, again, since that love be hers, since she may not control the passion that urges her to her fate, so unselfish am I in my feeling, even amid all the weight of my disappointment, that rather would I have her free and happy in the love she has exchanged, than know her pining in endless captivity, separated from and consumed with vain desire for a reunion with myself—her love for me unquenched and unquenchable.”
“Ah! what a husband has she not lost! Generous, noble Ronayne, that is what I had expected. You bear this bravely; I knew you would, or never should I have dared to enter upon the matter. But your generosity must go further; it must never be known that Maria has gone off willingly—no doubt must be entertained of her continued love for you. She must still be respected, even as she is pitied and deplored; the belief that she has been made captive and carried off must not be shaken.”
“The struggle at her heart must indeed have been great before she fell,” remarked Ronayne, musingly, and with an air of profound sadness; “for although her appearance in the rude vault beneath the floor of the summer-house would appear to indicate compulsion, her after conduct justifies not the belief. The imploring earnestness with which she entreated you, Mrs. Headley, not to make known what you had seen to me; her abstaining from all censure of Wau-nan-gee at the moment, and her subsequent interest in him, too forcible to be concealed; her strange and unaccountable manner during our ride, as if to banish some gnawing reproach at her heart; her galloping off when freed for the moment from my presence, and at the evident signal given to announce that everything was prepared for her reception; the appearance of her trunks in the farm-house, evidently, I am now convinced, taken there within a day or two; the pretended desire of the Indians, friends of Wau-nan-gee, to make me a prisoner, and thus induce in me the belief that such was her fate. Oh! yes,” he continued, rising and pacing the room rapidly, “I can see through the whole plot. His party were Pottowatomies, painted as warriors of a distant tribe, that suspicion might be averted from themselves. Their object was not to make either Von Voltenberg or myself prisoners, but merely to give such evidence of hostility as to cause us to believe they were enemies. Oh, what sin, what artifice for a woman once so ingenious, a boy so young! But now I am assured of all this, I am better—I am better. Some sudden inspiration has flashed the truth upon me, that I might, find that relief which a knowledge of her unfaithfulness alone can render me.”
“It must have been even so,” rejoined Mrs. Headley; “for, certainly, the fact of yourself and Von Voltenberg being allowed to escape by hostile Indians, who could so easily have shot you down, or taken you prisoners, had they been really so inclined, appears to me to be incredible.”
“And yet, if it was planned,” pursued Ronayne thoughtfully, “what opportunity of communication had they to arrange their measures? Wau-nan-gee has, we know, long been absent for weeks, or certainly not once within the fort.”
“Ronayne,” said Mrs. Headley, significantly, “I speak to you of these things freely as to one so much younger than myself. Have I not just said that I saw Wau-nan-gee most distinctly at your door as I entered—nobody but ourselves know that he has got in, much less in what manner.”
“I understand you, my dear Mrs. Headley; you would infer that he has stolen in at some obscure part of the fort, and under cover of the darkness; but even if so, am I not always at home?”