“Never on guard, Ronayne; or am I mistaken,” she added with a faint smile, “in supposing that the officer on duty passes the night with his men?”
“By heaven it is so,” returned the Virginian vehemently, and striking his brow with his open palm, “this intimacy is of long standing. Though pretending absence, Wau-nan-gee has been ever present. My guard nights have been selected for those interviews. The poison of his young love has been infused into the willing woman's ear and heart, and now that I recollect it, often on my return home have I seen her, pale, dejected, and full of thought—he has entreated her to fly with him—to suffer him to be the sole, the undivided sharer of her love—she has hesitated, struggled, and finally consented. By the same means by which his entrance has been effected, the trunks of Hardscrabble have been removed, and all was prepared for her evasion yesterday, had she not been baffled in her object by your sudden appearance. Oh, I see it all!”
[CHAPTER IX.]
“Ronayne, Ronayne!” resumed Mrs. Headley, after the strong excitement of her feeling had been in some measure calmed, “how rapidly you arrive at conclusions. Much of what you say is probable—for your sake, I would it were all so, but let us be guided in our judgment by circumstances and facts alone. If it had at first been arranged that the plan adopted with such success to-day, why the visit to, and detention in, the vault of the summer-house where every preparation had been made for a long concealment?”
“That,” replied Ronayne, “is a mystery which time alone can unravel. I confess that it involves a contradiction susceptible of explanation only by themselves. This, in all human probability we shall never know; but then, again, forgive me, Mrs. Headley, for thus detaining you with any selfish interests, but your voice, your counsel, your very knowledge of the facts—all breathe peace to my wounded spirit; but, I ask again, why the scream she gave—why the emotion, the grief, she evinced when, on opening the trap-door, you saw her reclining exhausted on that rude couch? I would reason the matter so as to convince myself thoroughly that her flight has been her own wilful act, for then I shall the less regret, even though I should not be able to banish her image wholly from my mind. You have said that you saw Wau-nan-gee leave the summer-house with an excitement in his eye and manner you had never witnessed before, and that this corresponded with the state in which you found Maria a few moments later. Now, is it probable that if she had purposed anything wrong she would have asked you to accompany her, or that she should have asked you to wait for her, while visiting a spot whence she knew she never would return? Oh, no! this could never be. Her mode of evasion, if such had been intended, would have been very different; she would have chosen a moment when you were in some distant part of the garden, and saw her not, to steal into the summer-house. All clue, then, would have been lost, and the appearance of the Indians lurking about the cottage would naturally have impressed you with the belief that she had been carried off by them. How were they dressed?”
“Even as you have described the party that pursued, or affected to pursue you yesterday,” exclaimed Mrs. Headley, “in the war paint of the Winnebagoes. I know it well, for their chiefs have often been in council here.”
“Just so,” pursued Ronayne. “Is it not then reasonable to suppose—mark, I do not weakly seek to justify the wrong which but too certainly exists, but I would dissect each circumstance until the truth be known—is it not, I repeat, reasonable to suppose that, even if Maria wanted an evidence of her abduction, she would have gone towards the cottage rather than the summer-house. It would have been easy enough then for the Indians who, I have no doubt, were the same party I encountered at Hardscrabble, to have carried her off before any assistance could arrive from the fort. On the contrary, she was certain of discovery in the summer-house into which she had been seen to enter, and every part of which she would have known would have been most strictly searched. Wherefore, too, the object in keeping her confined, as it were, in a dungeon, when the free air was open to her, and the boundless wilderness offered health and freedom?”
“I have thought of all that, Ronayne,” replied Mrs. Headley, “and I cannot but suppose that this retreat was a temporary one. In all probability, when Wau-nan-gee issued from the summer-house, he was in the act of proceeding to make his preparations for finishing the work just begun, but seeing that I had not yet left the grounds, waited to know what my movements would be before he took any farther step. My stationing the boat's crew before the gate, where they could command the whole of the view between the cottage and the summer-house, acted as a check upon them, and little dreaming, I presume, that I had discovered the trap-door, they had intended, on my departure across the river, to avail themselves of my absence, and bear her off into the forest. As for the deep grief which I witnessed on entering the summer-house, that may easily be accounted for. A woman of refinement, education, and generous susceptibility, however unhappily carried away she may be by a resistless, and, in her view, fated passion, does not without a pang tear herself from old associations to enter upon new, especially where they are of an inferior character. She may mourn her weakness even at the moment she most yields to it. One dominant thought may fill her soul—one master sentiment influence all her actions, and govern the pulsations of her heart, but that does not exclude the workings of other and nobler emotions of the mind. Even when she feels herself most tyrannized over by the passion, the infatuation, the destiny against which she finds it vain to struggle, sorrow for her altered position will intrude itself, and then is her heart strengthened and her mind consoled only by the reflection that the sacrifice was indispensable to the attainment of that, without which, in the strong excitement of her imagination, she deems life valueless. Charity should induce us to believe that it is, what I have already termed it, a disease, for on no other principle can we account for that aberration of the passions, the intellect and the judgment which can lead such a woman to forget that mind chiefly gives value to love, and to sacrifice all that is esteemed most honorable in the sex by man, to the fascination of mere animal beauty. Ah! Ronayne, this must have been the case in the present instance. You see, I probe you deeply—but enough!”
“Dear Mrs. Headley,” returned the Virginian, pressing her hands warmly in his own, “I am satisfied that, humiliating as it is to admit the correctness of your impression, there is but too much reason to think that it is even as you say. When I recur to the past of yesterday and to-day, I cannot doubt it; and yet I confess there is much buried in obscurity which I would fain have explained. Were it made clear, manifest as the handwriting on the wall, that Maria had abandoned me for Wau-nan-gee, I should be at ease. It is the uncertainty only that now racks my mind. Could I know, not merely believe her false, a weight would be taken from my heart. Oh! Mrs. Headley, why did you not suffer Wau-nan-gee to enter—why drive from me the only means of explanation at which I can ever arrive—and, yet, what could have been his object in thus venturing here after having despoiled my home of its treasure? If guilty, would he have dared to approach me? and that he might not do so with evil intent, is evident from the fact of his having knocked for admission. Oh! Mrs. Headley, I know not what to think—my mind is chaos—I am a very changeling in my mood: not from want of energy to act when once assured, but from the very doubts that agitate my mind, made wavering by the absence of all certain proof.”
While the soul of the unfortunate young officer was thus a prey to every shade of doubt, and manifesting the very weakness that his lips denied, Mrs. Headley regarded him with, deep concern. She could well divine all that was passing in his heart, and the chord of her sympathy was keenly touched. For some moments she did not speak, but appeared to be lost in her own painful reflections. At length, when Ronayne, who during these remarks had been rapidly pacing the room, threw himself into a chair, burying his face in his hands, evidently ill at ease, she drew forth her packet, the seal of which was broken, and handed it to him, saying with sadness—