'Matters, I don't know what, took him to France; and he was to return to her, who was weary of her life in his absence, within a month. He had not been gone a fortnight, before she received a letter from him, written in a French prison, where he was confined for debt. That hour she started post for Dover, and in three days they were on their road home together. Little Harri had released the man she adored, and brought him away from his troubles in triumph and in joy.'
David's handkerchief, notwithstanding the depth into which it had been plunged, and the compactness with which it had been doubled up, was out of his pocket, unfolded, and across his knees in an instant; while the dame took occasion to fortify herself for the coming trial with a considerable pinch of Scotch snuff.
'They didn't reach home, Sir,' resumed she, 'for more than a fortnight; for they staid a day here, and a day there, to see the sights, and such like; and because she, poor girl, was in no condition for much hurry, though she had forgotten that, as she did every thing, when she started, but her devoted love for him whom she went to rescue. But when they did arrive, dearly did she pay for the fault a husband's cruelty had driven her to commit; and bitter was the punishment of Providence. But it was all fate, I'm sure it was, it must have been; for surely her crime didn't call for such a dreadful judgment as befell her. Oh, good heart, Sir; after all she had undergone, in a long journey to a foreign land, where she had never been before, and all alone, too, Sir, without a friend to help or to advise her; she had left a house fitted and furnished like a little palace, as a body may say, the homestead of her high-priced fatal happiness; think of her reaching what she thought a home, and finding none! What can have been her feelings? She was soon to be a mother, and she had not a bed to lie down upon! In the short time that she had been away, the servant, in whose charge she left her house, by the aid and advice of a villain she kept company with, had carried off every thing, under the pretence that he was moving for her mistress. Ah, you may look surprised, Sir, and with reason; but 'tis just as true as you and I sit here.'
'God's will be done!' sobbed David; 'she's out of harm's way now, Bessum; God's will be done!'
'She didn't rave and take on, Sir,' continued Bessum; 'the hand of destiny was on her, and she felt it. As calmly as though nothing had occurred, she bade the coachman drive to a certain hotel. She seemed to reckon but for a moment between what she had lost and what she had regained; and she was satisfied with the account as it stood. All in the world for which she cared, was still spared to her. She had herself preserved him; the author of her dishonor, the cause of her loss, and only compensation for it, the father of her child! These were all she prized on earth, and he who was one and all, now sat beside her. With a look of resignation, confidence, and content, she said: 'What's to be done?'
The eyes upon the canvass seemed to ask me for an answer. I felt that I could beg subsistence for such a woman—become a drudge, a slave, or yield my life up for her sake. 'And what was his answer?' cried I, in an ecstasy of impatience.
'Good advice! good advice, Sir!' replied Bessum. 'He asked her, if she didn't think she had better go to her old nurse! This was all the comfort she got from her lover; and she asked him for no more. She didn't upbraid him. Her wrongs were too great to be humbled by complaint. He had dealt her death-blow, and she followed his advice. She came to her old nurse, Sir—God be praised!—and I and David closed her precious eyes for ever, after they had lingered, in their last dim sight, on the lifeless image of him whose name, with her forgiveness and prayer to heaven for his happiness, were the last words upon her sweet, sweet lips!'
'And if a special hand is not upraised to strew his path of life with tenfold the sharp pangs that drove his victim to an early grave,' cried I, 'it can only be, that it has already sent the monster to his last fearful account.'
My heart was faint and sick at the recital I had heard. I returned to my inn, and all that night—for it was in vain that I attempted to sleep—I mused upon this awful dispensation of the wrath of heaven; and, dare I own it, I felt that had I been the sentencer, I must have incurred the blame of partiality, by a verdict in which pity would have blunted the keen edge of that just severity with which the wisdom of vindictive Providence had stricken the transgression of 'Poor little Harri!'
M.