But, as I best could, I returned to London, to fling myself at the feet of my wife, to confess my sins and my follies, to beg her forgiveness, yea, to labour for her with my hands. I approached my own door as a criminal. I shrank from the very gaze of the servant that ushered me in, and I imagined that he looked on me with contempt. But now, Lewis, I come to the last act of my drama, and my hand trembles that it cannot write—my soul is convulsed within me. I thought my Catherine pure, sinless as a spirit of heaven—you thought so—all who beheld her must have thought as I did. But, oh! friend of my youth! mark what follows. I reached her chamber. I entered it—silently I entered it, as one who has guilt following his footsteps. And there, the first object that met my sight—that blasted it—was the man I hated, my former rival, he who held my fortunes in his hand—Sir Peter Blakely! My wife, my Catherine, my spotless Catherine, held him by the arm. O heaven! I heard him say—'Dear Catherine!' and she answered him, 'Stay!—stay, my best, my only friend—do not leave me!'
Lewis! I could see, I could hear no more.
'Wretch!—villain!' I exclaimed. They started at my voice. My sword, that had done service in other lands, I still carried with me.
'Draw! miscreant!' I cried, almost unconscious of what I said or what I did. He spoke to me, but I heard him not. I sprang upon him, and plunged my sword in his body. My wife rushed towards me. She screamed. I heard the words—'Dear Edward!' but I dashed her from me as an unclean thing, and fled from the house.
Every tie that had bound me to existence was severed asunder. Catherine had snapped in twain the last cord that linked me with happiness. I sought the solitude of the wilderness, and there shouted her name, and now blessed her, and again——but I will go no farther. I long wandered a fugitive throughout the land, and, at length perceiving an apartment in a rock, the base of which Tweed washes with its waters, in it I resolved to bury myself from the world. In it I still am, and mankind fear me.
Here abruptly ended the manuscript of the Solitary.
A few years after the manuscript had been found, a party, consisting of three gentlemen, a lady, and two children, came to visit the King's Cove, and to them the individual who had found the papers related the story of the hermit.
"But your manuscript is imperfect," said one of them, "and I shall supply its deficiency. The Solitary mentions having found Sir Peter Blakely in the presence of his wife, and he speaks of words that passed between them. But you shall hear all:—"
The wife of Edward Fleming was sitting weeping for his absence, when Sir Peter Blakely was announced. He shook as he entered. She started as she beheld him. She bent her head to conceal her tears, and sorrowfully extended her hand to welcome him.
'Catherine,' said he—and he paused, as though he would have called her by the name of her husband—'I have come to speak with you respecting your father's estate. I was brought up upon it; and there is not a tree, a bush, or a brae within miles, but to me has a tale of happiness and langsyne printed upon it, in the heart's own alphabet. But now the charm that gave music to their whispers is changed. Forgive me, Catherine, but it was you that, as the spirit of the scene, converted everything into a paradise where ye trod, that made it dear to me. It was the hope, the prayer, and the joy of many years, that I should call you mine—it was this that made the breath of Heaven sweet, and caused sleep to fall upon my eyelids as honey on the lips. But the thought has perished. I was wrong to think that the primrose would flourish on the harvest-field. But, Catherine, your father was my guardian—I was deeply in his debt, for he was to me as a father, and for his sake, and your sake, I have redeemed his property, and it shall be—it is yours.'