The last words were spoken with a solemnity befitting a long farewell. At the moment, a vague apprehension flitted across Bergan's mind; but, looking back, he saw that she had seated herself quietly by the bed, like one whose only purpose was to watch and wait. Besides, she had spoken freely of the morrow's necessities and duties, and of her own part in them; it was plain that she had no apprehension for herself, and he might dismiss his fears.
In the hall, he was met by the solemn ticking of the tall old clock, which some one had set in motion; probably with a vague idea that a human soul's last minutes of time should be carefully measured, and the moment of its entrance upon eternity definitely marked. He could not help shivering at the sound. His mind involuntarily followed the departed soul in its journeyings beyond the bounds of time, picturing the heights or depths it had already reached, the scenes opened to its awed vision, the momentous truths dawning upon its startled comprehension. These thoughts not only accompanied him to his room, but would not be shut out by the closing door.
Weary as he was, he had no disposition to sleep. He sat down by the table, leaned his head on his hand, and gave himself up to sombre reflections. The gloomy deathbed that he had just witnessed, the emptiness and decay of the old ancestral home, the tangled questions of right and expediency that might present themselves for decision at any moment,—all these weighed heavily on his mind, and depressed his spirits. For one moment he half forgot his rooted trust in an overruling Providence, at once wise and tender, in the contemplation of the chill chain of events that appeared to be tightening around him, the seemingly mysterious fate that had twice compelled his return to this dreary old dwelling,—tomb rather,—to experience some new phase of sin or sorrow, after he had turned his back upon it, as he believed, for many years, if not forever. No wonder the negroes thought it haunted; its heavy, musty atmosphere was much better adapted for ghosts to float about in than to be breathed into living lungs; it might well be crowded with the spirits of his whole ancestry, to make it so stifling!
He went to the window, to see if it were any better there. Scarcely. The moon had vanished behind a cloud; the night was dim; the outside air seemed not less burdened with woe and mystery than that within; he even fancied that he heard light footsteps on the path below. He flung himself again into his chair, and an almost superstitious awe stole over him, a feeling that there was no such thing as emptiness, but only invisibility,—that the air was teeming with mystic shapes, busily tying circumstance to circumstance, cause to effect, motive to result, and life to life, with cords of terrible strength and indestructibility.
Cords:—The word struck lightly on the sensitive chain of association, and there was an instant response from the past;—"Holden with the cords of his sins." No doubt that was the essential truth. Strictly speaking, a separate act or an individual life was an impossibility; each was bound to each by influence or consequence; sin, especially, entailed its results upon a wide circle of inheritors,—the sinner himself, his kindred, friends, neighbors, even his descendants unto remote generations. Doubtless the sins of many old-time Bergans had helped to twist the cords which had held the mansion of their pride to so sad a period of desertion and decay, if not their scion to so woful a death. With how many such cords was he himself holden, and to what, and for how long?
He lifted his eyes with a start. A dim shadow had fallen on the floor; something was intercepting the gray dawn-rays, which feebly lit the room. He looked at the open window; it framed a slight graceful figure, a wan, but lovely face,—both so well remembered, so fondly loved, so mournfully lost! Of course, it was an apparition, a creation of his own excited fancy, called forth to furnish another illustration of the strange ramifications and knottings of those mystical cords, and soon to disappear, and make way for some other sharer of his bonds.
And disappear it did; but with a sudden crash, and a startled cry of "Bergan!"—neither of which had any touch of the supernatural. The unexpected sounds at once his awe; he ran to the window, saw that the rotten flooring of the upper piazza had broken down under some recent weight, leaped the gap, flew down the steps, and found lying underneath a motionless form and a lily-pale face, both half hidden in long, flowing tresses. No apparition this, but a living, breathing Carice,—or what had lately been such;—she looked deathlike enough now.
It may well be questioned whether love ever dies. It disappears from sight, no doubt; it ceases to be felt as motive or end; the very heart from whence it sprang believes that it is no more; perhaps a new—and true—affection occupies its place and does its work. But is this apparent death anything more than a partial decay, analogous to that by which thousands of perennial plants seem annually to perish from the face of the earth, under the frosts of autumn, but the roots of which, nevertheless, carefully preserve their life-principle within, ready to respond with swift springing verdure to the tender kisses and tears of the springtime sun and rain? Is not all death only a sleep?
Bergan had striven conscientiously to destroy his love for Carice, as a thing which, however innocent in its birth, had grown to be a sin. And he had measurably succeeded. His worst heartache was over. Life had ceased to look unattractive; if it did not promise happiness, it offered plenty of work, and a sober well-being. He was beginning to feel the beneficent operation of the law of change, to find that sorrow was not meant to be the life-tenant of any human heart. If he had met Carice under other circumstances, less calculated to throw him off his guard, he would doubtless have approved himself master of the situation; meeting her with calm cousinly courtesy and kindness, and stifling only a momentary pang in his deep heart. But seeing her thus,—pale, motionless, unconscious,—dying, perhaps, if not already dead,—flung back at his feet, for sympathy and succor, by some mysterious turn of the same tide of circumstance which had borne her away,—a lost jewel, restored after many days,—it is scarcely to be wondered at that, for one moment, as he knelt by the inanimate form, he forgot all the sorrowful past in the anxiety of the present, and touched the mute lips with the warm kiss of a love which, though long repressed and slumbering, seemed now to have neither wasted nor died.
He soon recollected himself, however; when, seeing that Carice still breathed, and was probably only stunned by her fall, he at once addressed himself to the consideration of the serious question what was to be done with her. She had fled suddenly, it would seem, led by some wild, uncontrollable impulse; nothing shielded her from chill or from observation but a nightdress and a light shawl; on one foot was a thin slipper, the other was bare and bleeding; and her dishevelled hair fell round her shoulders, some locks of which, he now noticed, were encrimsoned by blood flowing from a deep cut in her head.