The Dead Letter: An American Romance

by Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

“And your friends’ hearts bleed for you.”

Mr. Burton had a peculiar voice, searching, though not loud; I was talking with Mr. Argyll, and yet I heard this reply without listening for it; I did not comprehend it, and indeed, I let it in at one ear and out at the other, for I was asking about Eleanor.

“She is better than we hoped for,” said the father, wiping the mist from his eyes which gathered at the mention of her name, “but, alas, Richard, that is not saying much. My girl never will be herself again. My pretty Eleanor will never be my sunshine anymore. Not that her mind is shaken—that remains only too acutely sensitive. But her heart is broken. I can see that—broken, past mending. She has not left her bed since Henry was carried away; the doctor assures me there is nothing dangerous about her illness—only the natural weakness of the system after intense suffering, the same as if she had endured great physical pain. He says she will rally presently.”

“If I could take her burden upon myself, I would ask no greater boon,” I said.

My voice must have been very full of the feeling within me, for it made Mr. Argyll give me a wondering look; I think it was the first time he had a suspicion of the hopeless passion I had cherished for his daughter.

“We must all bear our own troubles,” he said. “Poor Richard, I fear you have your own, like the rest of us.”

When I again noticed what was passing between the other two, James was telling Mr. Burton, with great animation, of some information which had been lodged with the authorities of the village. I became absorbed in it, of course.

A respectable citizen of a town some thirty or forty miles beyond, on the railroad, hearing of the murder, had taken the trouble to come down to Blankville and testify to some things which had fallen under his observation on the night of the murder. He stated that he was a passenger on the Saturday afternoon train from New York; that the seat in front of his own, in the car, was occupied by a young gentleman, who, by the description since given, he knew must be Henry Moreland; that, as there were but few people in that car, he had given the more attention to those near him; that he was particularly attracted by the prepossessing appearance of the young gentleman, with whom he exchanged a few remarks with regard to the storm, and who informed him that he was going no further than Blankville.

“After we had been riding a while,” said the witness—I do not give James’ words in telling it, but his own, as I afterward read them in the sworn testimony—“I noticed a person who sat on the opposite side of the car, facing us. His forehead was bent on his hand, and he was looking out from under his fingers, at the young man in front of me. It was his sinister expression which compelled me to notice him. His small, glittering, black eyes were fixed upon my neighbor with a look which made me shudder. I smiled at myself for my own sensation—said to myself it was none of my business—that I was nervous—yet, in spite of my attempts to be unconcerned, I was continually compelled to look across at the individual of whose serpent-gaze the young gentleman himself appeared totally unconscious. If he had once met those eyes, I am certain he would have been on his guard—for I assert, without other proof than what afterward transpired, that there was murder in them, and that that person was Henry Moreland’s murderer. I can not prove it—but my conviction is unalterable. I only wish, now, that I had yielded to my impulse to shake my unknown neighbor, and say to him—‘See! there is an enemy! beware of him!’ There was nothing but the man’s look to justify such a proceeding, and of course I curbed my feelings.

“The man was a common-looking person, dressed in dark clothes; he wore a low-crowned felt hat, slouched down on his forehead; I do not remember about his hair, but his eyes were black, his complexion sallow. I noticed a scar across the back of the hand which he held over his eyes, as if it had sometime been cut across with a knife; also that he had a large ring, with a red stone in it, on his little finger.