"I will do you no such mercy," said Elsie: "Hearken—the last words of Jessie Gilbert were a curse,—the curse of a broken-hearted woman upon her betrayer: she died cursing you, and now the curse you feel, without knowing half its dreadfulness. Richard Falconer, you ask for the blood of Henry Falconer's murderer. Miserable man!" she added, relaxing her grasp, and clasping her hands with horror, "it is the blood of your own son,—the blood of the child of Jessie Gilbert!"
"Hah!" said Falconer,—but said no more. He gazed in the face of the speaker, and read a dreadful confirmation of her words, while she continued to utter, as in a kind of insane exultation,
"Is not this revenge for Jessie Gilbert? The brother kills the brother, and the father kills the son!—ay, as he before killed the mother! Now, Richard Falconer, repent and die—the victim is avenged! It is true!"
"It is false! false as hell!" said Falconer, recovering speech; "or what, oh God of heaven! what am I!"
"The avenger of your own black and heartless villany," said the woman. "Hearken, Richard Falconer, and you shall know all. When Oran Gilbert knew the shame of his sister, he swore its miserable fruit should never see the light; and I knew he would slay it, even out of hatred of the father. That night! that night! it was a night of horror. Jessie Gilbert lay dead, with a babe wailing on her bosom; and the mother, the broken-hearted step-mother gave to my hands her own untimely and still-born offspring—the brothers raved at the door, calling for the child of shame. I had mercy—mercy on your child,—not because it was yours, but because it was the babe of Jessie. I laid it in the arms of the step-mother, and it lived. She kept the secret, and the father of her you betrayed kept it also, though he sent it afar from his sight. Thus was it saved—thus was the child of sorrow preserved, that he might imbrue his hands in the blood of his brother, and then perish at the call of his father!"
"Wretch!" said Falconer, sinking on a seat, "and this dreadful secret you kept, that I might be made the most miserable of men? And you incited on the unhappy Hyland to the murder of his brother?"
"I did what I could to save him,—not for your sake, though, Richard Falconer, but for the love of Jessie. I warned the boy of his danger—nay, I would have told him of his birth, but that I knew it would kill him; and I loved him for his goodness. Why should I have filled him with shame, staining him who was innocent of his father's crimes, with the disgrace of his birth?"
"Elsie Bell," said Falconer rising and advancing towards her, "I am a villain.—My poor Harriet! my poor Harriet!" he added, and as the widow looked into his face, she was amazed to see it streaming with tears. "But for her, but for her," he added, "but for her and my wretched Henry—but for my children, Elsie, I might, I would have done justice to Jessie's memory. Oh God! had I but known of this thing before! But why, now, should it be known? You revenge the murdered Jessie not on me, Elsie, but on my poor Harriet. The stain you feared to cast on the name of Hyland, you fling on the forehead of my daughter. Elsie Bell, Elsie Bell," he exclaimed, in unspeakable agitation, while drops of sweat rolled from his temples and mingled with his tears, "if I tell you what you know not, though it show me to have done worse by Jessie Gilbert than you dream, it will destroy my remaining child. And why should I destroy her? Why fling her before the world as a creature to be scorned, for the sake of a wretched fratricide? I will not do it,—I will say no more—what have I said? When they are dead,—when all are dead, then let me lay bare my baseness, and think of the memory of Jessie. But this child,—this wretched, this blood-stained Hyland,—I will save his life,—the governor shall grant me his pardon; it cannot be that he will refuse me—But I will never see him, no, never—Hah! hear! what is this? They are bringing him forth! Hark! they are shouting aloud for his condemnation!—Oh heaven support me! To this I—I have brought him!"
But we have not the courage to pursue further the agonies of the wretched father, whom a sudden commotion in the street, with loud cries of "To the court! to the court! the jury have made a verdict!" one of twenty false rumours to which expectation gave birth,—threw into new transports of anguish. At last, moved by an irresistible impulse, he started up and ran into the streets, through which he made his way to the prison.
In the meanwhile, Hyland strode (for though securely fettered, he was no longer chained to the floor,) to and fro in his cell, a changed, we might almost say, a happy, man. The sight of his pistols in the court had introduced a new set of associations, from which he perceived clearly, that, although he had so long esteemed himself the author of Falconer's death, that young man had, in truth, fallen by some other hand. The story told by Sterling of the exchange of pistols between him and the prisoner, was, as Hyland had pronounced it, a sheer fabrication; although he was unable to devise any reason Sterling could have for swearing falsely; his original testimony having made it clear, that he was not actuated by motives of malice. He remembered that he had raised a weapon against his rival, which, as others were discharged at the same moment, he did not dream had failed to go off; although he now recalled to mind that the same one—he had taken it from the same side of the saddle—had flashed in his hands, when aimed at the head of Sterling. Remembering these circumstances in connexion with Dancy's declaration that he had restored the pistol, entirely empty, to the holsters, he saw at once, however others failed to see it, that Providence had interposed to save him from the crime of bloodshed, and that he was therefore, save in intent, wholly innocent. This persuasion was enough to banish his despair, which was founded chiefly on remorse; and perhaps, in great measure, also, his apprehensions; although in a cooler moment, he would have perceived upon how weak a foundation he built his hope of escape, so long as the falsehood of Sterling was not exposed.