It was Bergan's turn to look more than astonished, confounded. "Miss Carice's wedding!" he repeated, as doubting the trustworthiness of his own ears.
"Yes, sah, to Doctor Remy, sah. Dey had—"
Bruno stopped short in alarm. Bergan's face had grown deadly pale, his blank stare was that of a man who neither saw nor heard. For a few merciful moments, he was simply stunned with the suddenness and severity of the shock. Too soon his benumbed senses began to revive, he put his hand to his head, where a dull, heavy pain was beginning to make itself felt; mechanically he sat down on the grass, and his breath came hard like that of a man stricken with apoplexy.
With a delicacy not uncommon in his race, Bruno turned his eyes away. A trusted servant of the household, he had seen Bergan and Carice together enough to be able to divine something of the state of the case.
Slowly, one by one, Bergan's thoughts came out of chaos, and ranged themselves into something like order. This, then, was the reason why Doctor Remy had so persistently discouraged his earlier return to Berganton, and allayed his anxiety with plausible statements respecting Carice and her father,—that he might supplant him in her affections. But why? It must be taken as evidence that he had estimated the doctor's character more correctly than he knew, that it never once occurred to him as possible that love for Carice had been the doctor's motive; yet, considered solely as holding the reversion of the Oakstead estate, her hand was scarcely worth the labor and treachery it had cost.
There was so little to reward investigation in this direction, that Bergan's thoughts came back to his own blighted hopes, and here he was pierced with the sharpest pain that he had yet felt. The treachery of the doctor was as nothing to the faithlessness of Carice. Two months,—yea, two days ago, he would have staked all his hopes for time and eternity on her truth. Fair and delicate as was the cast of her beauty, and sweet and gentle as was her manner, there had always been a certain quiet steadfastness about her, which was one of her most potent charms. All hearts felt intuitively that they might safely trust in her. What subtle or powerful influence could have been brought to bear upon her, to make her so belie herself!
He looked up. "Bruno, how long has this been going on?"
The negro did not quite understand, but made shift to guess what was meant.
"De engagement, sah? since October, I b'lieve."
"And how long has Doctor Remy visited here?"