The lamp of life had been long flickering in the poor patient, and was now giving forth its last brightness. She held out her hands imploringly to her husband, and said, “forgive me!” but before his lips could utter the pardon, she fell back in the arms of Mrs. Torrance—a corpse.
The mysterious awe with which the presence of death fills the human heart, caused a silence as profound as that which had just fallen on the departed. Anson bent over the stiffening body and murmured: “Hadst thou died spotless, my wife, how joyfully would my spirit have journeyed with thine to the bar of God—and in the realms of peace, where the tempter comes not—where sin and shame, and sorrow enter not—we should forever have enjoyed that bliss—our foretaste of which on earth, was so rudely broken by the destroyer. But enough. The last tears these eyes shall ever shed, have fallen upon thy bier—and now again to my work of vengeance!” He arose, and bent on Derode a look of ineffable ferocity. “Look,” he said, “on the man you have ruined. You beheld me for the first time, yet my eyes have scarce lost sight of you for months—and henceforward will I be like your ever-present shadow. The solace of my life shall be to blight the joy of yours—in crowds or in solitude—amid the gay revel, and through the silent watches of the night, will I hover around you. I will become the living, embodied spirit of your remorse; walking with you in darkness and in light, and when a smile would mantle on your lips, I will dispel it with the sound of MURDERER!”
“I’ll rid myself of such companionship,” said Derode,—“I have pistols here—follow me, sir, and seek a manly satisfaction at once.”
The loud voices of Anson and her father, had been heard by Isabel, and the unhappy girl on entering the apartment—to the astonishment and horror of Derode—threw herself on the bosom of Anson, who, putting her aside, exclaimed—“that you may want no motive to hate as well as fear me, know that I am the seducer of your daughter. Thus have I begun my work of destruction.” Driven to desperation by this taunt, Derode drew a pistol, aimed it at Anson, and fired. By a movement equally sudden, Isabel, with a scream, threw herself before her betrayer, and received the ball in her shoulder. The wretched father groaned in agony, and fled from the house, while Anson, consigning the wounded girl to the care of Mrs. Torrance, pursued the culprit.
The same day on which Anson committed his wife to the earth, Isabel Derode yielded up her spirit—and a jury declared that she died from a wound inflicted by the hand of her father.
Time passed slowly away, and Derode was preparing for his trial. The legal gentlemen whom he had employed, could perceive some palliating, but no justifiable points in his case. He vehemently declared he had no purpose of injuring his daughter—his object being to inflict a just punishment on her seducer. His counsel, however, sorrowfully assured him, that if the intent and attempt to kill could be proved, and a death resulted from such attempt, it mattered little who fell by his hand.
The amiable Mrs. Torrance, resolving not to appear as a witness against him, had retired to the continent, and was now living in much seclusion at Dresden. But Anson remained; and the relentless heart of that altered man expanded with savage joy when he reflected that it was his evidence that would condemn his wronger. Some of the friends of the unhappy criminal waited on Anson, and besought him, in the most moving manner, not to appear against the wretched man, alleging that if no direct evidence were adduced, justice would wink, and the offender escape. The witness was inflexible. Derode himself sent a respectful request to see him. Anson entered his cell, and the despairing murderer begged for life like a very coward. Anson spurned the miserable suppliant from him:—“Villain! villain!” he said, “ten thousand dastard lives like yours would but poorly expiate your fiend-like crime, or glut my insatiate vengeance!”—and casting a look of inextinguishable hate on the prisoner, he left the cell.
A few days after his commitment, Derode had written to his son who was stationed at Bermuda, an account of his misfortunes and imprisonment. The dutiful boy having obtained leave, had instantly sailed for England, and was now sitting in his father’s dismal apartment.
“Cheer up, father,” said the young sailor,—“things will go well yet. No proof, you say, but that man’s evidence,—and that man the seducer of my sister?”
“Even so,” replied the parent—“no prayers can touch him.”