Dr. Lacey's brow grew dark and his manner excited, as he replied, "Forgive you! In time I may learn to do so, but to forget will take me my lifetime, and yet I blame myself not less than I do you for having been so duped."
A low sob was Julia's only answer as Dr. Lacey arose to leave, announcing to Fanny his intention of visiting Joseph Dunn, who was said to be dying. As he entered the house where Joseph lay, tossing in feverish agony, the sick man's eyes glared wildly upon him as he shrieked, "Why have you come to taunt me with my crime? Is it not enough that the room is full of little devils who creep over my pillow, and shout in my ear as they hold to view the letters I withheld? I did not do it alone. She bribed me with gold, and now when I am dead, who will take care of my mother? She will be [pg 218] cold when the winter winds blow, and hungry when the summer corn ripens."
Dr. Lacey drew nearer to him and stooping down, whispered, "Is your mother very poor and you all her dependence?"
"Yes, yes," answered Joseph, whose almost only virtue was the love he bore his mother.
"Fear not, then," said Dr. Lacey, "I will care for her; for though you did me a great wrong, you saved me from being today the most wretched of men."
That night as the October sun went down there was heard beneath that lonely roof the piteous cry of a widowed mother, for Joseph, her first-born, her only child, was dead. Next day they buried him, as is frequently the custom in Kentucky, beneath a large shade tree in the garden. Many words of sympathy were spoken to the bereaved mother, but none fell so soothingly on her ear as did those of Dr. Lacey, who was present at the funeral, and led the weeping mother to the grave.
After the burial was over he whispered to her, "I will surely remember you, for, erring though your son may have been, I owe him a debt of gratitude." So saying, he walked hastily away toward Mr. Middleton's, where he was met by alarmed faces, soft footsteps, and subdued whispers. In reply to his inquiries, he was told by Aunt Judy, that "somehow or 'nother, Miss Julia had got wind of Mr. Dunn's death, and it had gone to her head, makin' her ravin' mad, and the doctor said she wouldn't get well."
Aunt Judy was right; Julia had accidently heard of Mr. Dunn's death, and it added greatly to the nervous excitement which she was already suffering, and when Dr. Gordon came he was surprised to find the dangerous symptoms of his patient increased to an alarming extent. The fever had settled upon her brain, and for many days she lay at the very gates of death.
Incessantly she talked of Dr. Lacey, Fanny and Mr. Wilmot, the latter of whom, in her disordered imagination, was constantly pursuing her. "Go back—go back to your grave," she would say; "there are tears enough shed for you, but none will fall for me when I am dead. He will laugh and be glad, and the first moon that shines on my grave will light the marriage train to the altar." Then, as if the phantom still were near her, she would cry out, "Take him away, I tell you! What have I to do with coffins, and white faces, and broken hearts? I killed him, I know, and he loved me, too, as no one [pg 219] else ever has, but I madly loved another, and now he hates me, spurns me!" Then turning to Fanny she would say, "I broke your heart too, and still pressed on when I saw it was killing you, but you forgave me, and now you must plead with him, who loves the air you breathe, to think compassionately of me. I do not ask him to love me, for I know that is impossible; but he can, at least, forgive and forget the past."
Sometimes she would speak of her father, saying, "He will be glad when the tempest is still and ceases to trouble him, for he never loved me, never spoke to me as he did to Fanny. I know I did not deserve his love, but I should have been better if he had given me a little, yes, just a little."