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THE
BEAUTIFUL COUNTESS:
Or,
A Horrible Mystery
A Startling
and Exciting Story
BY SHERIDAN LE FANUE.
coistci/utidieid.
CHAPTER XIV.—The Meeting.
“My beloved child,” he resumed, “ was now
growing rapidly worse. The physician who
attended her had failed to produce the slightest
impression upon her disease, for such I then
supposed it to be. He saw my alarm, and sug
gested r consultation. I called in an abler
physician, from Gratz. Several days elapsed
before he arrived. He was a good and pious,
as well as a learned man. Having seen my
poor ward together, they withdrew to my libra
ry to confer and discuss. I, from the adjoining
room, where I awaited their summons, heard
these two gentlemen’s voices raised in some- tell
thing sharper than a strictly philosophical dis- ,
cussion. I knocked at the door and entered.
I found the old physician from Gratz maintain
ing his theory. His rival was combatting it j
with undisguised ridicule, accompanied with
bursts of laughter. This unseemly manifests- j
tion subsided and the altercation ended on my j
entrance.
‘ “Sir,” said my first physician, “my learned i
brother seems to think that you want a conju- j
ror, and not a doctor.”
* “Pardon me,” said the old physician from
Gratz, looking displeased, “I shall state my |
own view of the case in my own way another
after all, not about to enter and disturb this
triste and ominous scene.
The old General’s eyes were fixed on the
ground, as he leaned with bis hand upon the
basement of a shattered monument.
Under a narrow, arched doorway, surmount
ed by one of those demoniacal grotesques in
which the cynical and ghastly fancy of old
Gothic carving delights, I saw very gladly the
beautiful face and figure of Carmilla enter the
shadowy chapel.
I was just about to rise and speak, and nod
ded smiling, in answer to her peculiarly en
gaging smile, when, with a cry, the old man by
my side, caught up the woodman’s hatchet and
started forward. On seeing him a brutalized
change came over her features. It was an in
stantaneous and horrible transformation, as she
made a crouching step backwards. Bafore I
could utter a soream, he struck at her with all
his force, but she dived under his blow, and
unscathed, caught him in her tiny grasp by the
wrist. He struggled for a moment to release
his arm, but his hand opened, the axe fell to
ground, and the girl was gone.
He staggered against the wall. His grey hair
stood upon his head, and a moisture shone over
his face, as if he were at the point of death.
The frightful scene had passed in a moment
The first thing I recollect after, is Madame
standing before me, and impatiently repeating
again and again, the question, ‘Where is Made
moiselle Carmilla ?’
I answered at length, ‘ I don't know—I can't
she went there,’and I pointed to the door
through which Madame had just entered; ‘only
a minute or two since.’
‘But I have been standing there, in the pas
sage, ever since Mademoiselle Carmilla entered;
and she did not return.’
She then began to call ‘Carmilla,’ through
every door and passage and from the windows,
but no answer came.
‘She called herself Carmilla?’ asked the Gen
eral, still agitated.
‘ Carmilla, yes,’ I answered.
‘Aye,’ he said; ‘that is Millarca. That is the
ame person who long ago was called Mircalla,
Countess Karnstein. Depart from this accursed
Drive to the clergyman's house, and stay there
till we come. Begone! May you never beho Id
Carmilla more; you will not find her here.’
time. I grieve, Monsieur le General, that by i ground, my poor child, as quickly as you can,
my skill and science I can be of no use. Before J
I go I shall do myself the honor to suggest |
something to you.”
-He seemed thoughtful, and sat down at a i
table and began to write. Profoundly disap- j
pointed, I made my bow, and as I turned to go
the other doctor pointed over his shoulder to
his companion who was writing, and then, with j
a shrug, significantly touched his forehead. |
‘This consultation, then, lett me precisely j
where I was. I walked out into the grounds,
all but distracted. The doctor from Gratz, in
ten or fifteen minutes, overtook me. He apol- j
ogized for having followed me, but said that he
CHAPTER XY.
As he spoke one of the strangest looking men
I ever beheld, entered the chapel at the door
through which Carmilla had made her entrance
and exit. Hb was tall, narrow-chested, stoop
ing, with high shoulders, and dressed in black.
His face was brown and dried in with deep fur
rows; he wore an oddly-shaped hat with abroad
leaf. His hair, long and grizzled, hung on his
He wore a pair of gold spectacles,
shoulders. _
could not conscientiously take his leave with- | and walked slowly, with au odd shambling gait,
out a few words more. He told me that he | with his face sometimes turned up to the sky,
could not be mistaken: no natural disease ex
hibited the same symptoms; and that death was
already very near. There remained, however,
a day, or possibly two, of life. If the fatal sei
zure were at once arrested, with great care and
skill, her strength might possibly return. But
all hung now upon the confines of the irrevoca
ble. One more assault might extinguish the
last spark of vitality which is, every moment,
ready to die.
4 “And what is the nature of the seizure you
speak of?” I entreated.
‘ “1 have stated all fully in this note, which I
place in your hands upon the distinct condition
and sometimes bowed down toward the ground,
i seemed to wear a perpetual smile; his long thin
i arms were swinging, and his lank hands, m old
black gloves ever so much too wide for them,
j waving and gesticulating in utter abstraction.
“The very man !” exclaimed the General, ad-
, vancing with manifest delight. “My dear
Baron, how happy I am to see you, I had no
j hope of meeting you so soon.” He signed to
my father, who had by this time returned, and
. leading the fantastic old gentleman, whom he
1 called the Baron to meet him. He introduced
J him formally, and they at once entered into
earnest conversation. The stranger took a roll
ancient and well-attested belief of the country.
The next day the formal proceedings took
place in the Chapel of Karnstein. The grave of
the Countess Mircalla was opened ; and the
General and my father recognized each his per
fidious and beautiful guest, in the face now dis
closed to view. The features, though a hundred
and fifty years had passed since her funeral,
were tinted with the warmth of life. Her eyes
were open ; no cadaverous smell exhaled from
the ooffin. The two medical men, one officially
present, the other on the part of the promoter
of the enquiry, attested the marvellous fact, that
there was a faint but appreciable respiration,and
a corresponding action of the heart. The limbs
were perfectly flexible, the flesh elastic, and the
leaden ooffin floated with blood, in which to a
depth of seven inches, the body lay immersed.
Here then, were all the admitted signs and
proofs of vampirism. The body, therefore, in
accordance with the ancient practice, was raised,
and a sharp stake driven through the heart of
the vampire, who uttered a piercing shriek at
the moment, in all respects such as might es
cape from a living person in the last agony.
Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of
blood flowed from the severed neck. The body
and head were next placed on a pile of wood,and
reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the
river and borne a\^^y, and that territory has
never since been plagued by the visits of a vam
pire.
My father has a report of the Imperial Com
mission, with the signatures of all who were
present at these proceedings, attached in verifi
cation of the statement. It is from this official
paper that I have summarized my account of
this last shocking scene.
CHAPTER XVI.—Conclusion.
I write all this you suppose with composure.
But far from it; I cannot think of it without agi
tation. Nothing but your earnest desire so re
peatedly expressed, could have induced me to
sit down to a task that has unstrung my nerves
for months to come, and reinduced a shadow of
the unspeakable horror which years after my
deliverance continued to make my days and
nights dreadful, and solitude insupportably ter
rific.
Let me add a word or two about that quaint
Baron Vordenburg, to whose aurious lore we
were indebted for the discovery of the Countess
Mi real la’s grave.
He had taken up his abode in Gratz, where,
living upon a mere pittance, which was all that
remained to him of the once princely estates of
his family, in Upper Styria, he devoted himself
to the minute and laborious investigation of the
marvellously authenticated tradition ot Vam
pirism. He had at his finger’s ends all the great
and little works itpon the subject. ‘ Magia Pos-
thuma,’ ‘Phlegonde Mirabilibus,’ ‘Augustus de
cura pro Mortuis,’ ‘ Philosophies et Christianas
Cogitationes de Vampiris,’ by John Christofer
Herenberg; and a thousand others, among which
I remember only a few of those which he lent to
my father. He had a voluminous digest of all
the judicial cases, from which he had extracted
a.system of principles that appear to govern—
gome always, and others occasionally only—the
condition of the vampire. I may mention, in
passing, that the deadly pallor attributed to that
sort of revenants, is a mere melodramatic fiction.
They present, in the grave, and when they show
themselves in human society, the appearance of
healthy life. When disclosed to light in their
coffins, they exhibit all the symptoms that are
enumerated as those which proved the vampire-
life of the long-dead Countess Karnstein. How
hat you send for the nearest clergyman, and : of paper from his pocket, and spread it on the ! they escape from their graves and return to
and notes, which have guided me to the very
spot, and drew up a confession of the deception
that he bad practiced. If he had intended any
further action in this matter, death prevented
him; and the band of a remote defendant has
too late for many, directed the pursuit to the
lair of the beast."
We talked a little more, and among other
things he said, was this:
“One sign oi the vampire is the power of the
hand. The slender hand of Mircalla closed
like a vice of steel on the General’s wrist when
he raised the hatchet to strike. But its power
is not confined to it’s grasp; it leaves a numb
ness in the limb it seizes, which is slowly, if
ever, recovered from.”
The following spring my father took me a
tour through Italy. We remained away for
more than a year. It was long before the terror
of recent events subsided; and to this hour the
image of Carmilla returns to memory with am
biguous alternations—sametimes the playful,
languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing
fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often
from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard
the light step of Carmilla at the drawing-room
door.
(THE end.)
THE
OLD TABBY HOUSE.
BY GARNETT MclVOR.
open uiy letter in his presence, and on no ac
count read it until he is with you; you would
despise it else, and it i°. a matter of life and
death. Should the priest fail you, then, in
deed, may you read it.”
* He asked me, before taking his leave finally,
whether I would wish to see a man curiously
learned upon the very subject, which, after I
had read his letter, would probably interest me
above all others, and he urged me earnestly to
invite him to visit him there; and so took his
leave.
‘The ecclesiastic was absent, and I read the
worn surface of a tomb that stood by. He had
a pencil-case in his fingers, with which he traced
imaginary lines from point to point on tlye
paper, which from their often glancing from it,
together, at certain points of the building, I
concluded to be a plan of the chapel. He ac
companied, what I may term, his lecture, with
occasional readings from a dirty little book,
whose yellow leaves were closely written over.
them for certain hours every day, without dis
placing the clay oj leaving any trace of disturb
ance in the stat^AA^heiCoffin or the cerements,
has always been trlmVlted to be utterly inexpli
cable. The amphibious existence of the vam
pire is sustained by daily renewed slumber iD
the grave. Its horrible lust for living blood
supplies the vigour of its waking existence. The
vampire is prone to be fascinated with an en-
They sauntered together down the side aisle, grossing vehemence, resembling the passion of
opposite to the spot where I was standing, con
versing as they went; then they begun measur
ing distances by paces, and finally they all stood
letter by myself. At another time, or in an- ] together, facing a piece of the side-wall, which
other case, it might have excited my ridicule. I they began to examine with great minuteness;
But, into what quackeries will not people rush l pulling off the ivy that clung over it, and rap
tor a last chance, where all accustomed means j ping the plaster with the ends of their sticks,
have failed, and the life of a beloved object is at | scraping here, and knocking there. At length
stake?” j they ascertained the existence of a broad marble
‘Nothing, you will say, could be more ab- j tablet, with letters carved in relief upon it.
surd than the learned man’s letter. It was I With the assistance of the woodman, who soon
monstrous enough to have consigned him to a j returned, a monumental inscription, and carved
madhouse. He said the patient was suffering
from the visits of a vampire! The punctures
which she described as having occurred near
the throat, were, he insisted, the insertion of
those two long, thin, and sharp teeth which, it
is well known, are peculiar to vampires; and
there could be no doubt, be added, as to the
well-defiaed presence of the small livid mark
which all concurred in describing as that in
duced by the demon’s lips, and every symptom
described by the sufferer was in exact confor
mity with those recorded in every case of a sim
ilar visitation.
• Being myself wholly sceptical as to the ex
istence of any such portent as the vampire, the
supernatural theory of the good doctor fur
nished, in my opinion, but another instance of
learning and intelligence oddly associated with
some one hallucination. I was so miserable,
however, that, rather than try nothing, I acted
upon the instructions of the latter.
escutcheon, were disclosed. They proved to
be those of the long lost monument of Mircalla,
Countess Karnstein.
The old General, though not I fear given to
the praviDg mood, raised his bauds and eyes to i
heaven, in mute thanksgiving for some mo- i
ments.
“To-morrow,” I heard him him say; “the!
commissioner will be here, and the Inquisition
will be held according to law.”
Then turning to the old man with the gold
spectacles, whom I have described, he shook
him warmly by both hands and said:
“Baron, now can I thank yon? How can we
all thank you ? You will have delivered this re
gion from a plague that has scourged its inhab
itants for more than a century. The horrible
enemy, thank God, is at last tracked.”
My father led the stranger aside, and the Gen
eral followed. I knew that he had led them out
of hearing, that he might relate my case, and I
‘ I concealed myself in the dark dressing- | saw them glance often quickly at me, as the dis-
room that opened upon the poor patient’s room, j cussion proceeded.
in which a candle was burning, and watched \ My father came to me, kissed me again and
there till she was fast asleep. I stood at the again, and leading me from the chapel, said:
door, peeping through the small crevice, my j “It is time to return, but before we go home,
sword laid on the table beside me, as my direc- i we must add to our party the good priest, who
tions prescribed, until, a little after one, I saw lives but a little way from this; and persuade
him to accompany us to the schloss.”
a large black object, very ill-defined, crawl, as
it seemed to me, over the foot of the bed, and
swiftly spread itself up to the poor girl’s throat,
where it swelled, in a moment, into a great,
palpitating mass. For a few moments I had
stood petrified. I now sprang forward, with
my 6word in hand. The black creature sud
denly contracted toward the foot of the bed,
glided over it, and, standing on the floor about
a yard below the foot of the bed, with a glare of
skulking ferocity and horror fixed on me, I saw
Millarca. Speculating I know not what, I
struck at her instantly with my sword; but I
saw her standing near the door, unscathed.
Horrified, I pursued, and struck again. She
W'rk gone: and my sword flew to shivers against
the door.
‘ I cant’ describe to you all that passed on
that horrible night. The whole house was up
and stirring. The spectre Millarca was gone.
But her victim was sinking very fast, and be
fore the morning dawned, she died.’
The old General was agitated- We did not
speak to him. My father walked to some little
distance, and began reading the inscriptions on
the tombstones; and thus occupied, he strolled
into the door of a side-chapel to prosecute his
researches. The General leaned against the
wall, dried hiB eyes, and sighed heavily. I was
relieved on hearing the voices of Carmilla and
Madame, who were at that moment approaching.
The voices died away.
In this solitude, having just listened to so
strange a story, connected, as it was, with the
great titjed dead, whose monuments were
mouldering among the dust and ivy round us,
and every incident of which bore awfully upon
my own mysterious case—in this haunted spot,
darkened by the towering foliage that rose on
every side, dense and high above its noiseless
walls—a horror began to steal over me, and my
•—-*• sank as I thought that my friends were,
In this quest we were successful: and I was
elad, being unspeakably fatigued when we
reached home. But my satisfaction was changed
to dismay, on discovering that there were no
tidings of Carmilla. Of the scene that had oc
curred in the ruined chapel, no explanation
was offered to me, and it was clear that it was a
secret which my father for the present deter
mined to keep from me.
The sinister absence of Carmilla made the re
membrance ot the scene more horrible to me.
The arrangements for that night were singular.
Two servants, and Madame were to sit up in my
room that night; and the ecclesiastic with my
father kept watch in the adjoining dressing-
room.
The priest had performed certain solemn rites
that night, the purport of which I did not un
derstand any more than I comprehended the
reason of this extraordinary precaution taken
for my safety during slet p.
I saw all clearly a few days later.
The disappearance of Carmilla was followed
by the discontinuance of mv nightly sufferings.
You have heard, uo doubt, of the appalling
superstition that prevails in upper and lower
Styria, in Moravia, Silisia, in Turkish Servia,
in Poland, even in Russia; tha superstition, so
we must call it, of the Vampire.
If human testimony, taken with every care and
solemnity, judiciously, before commissions in
numerable, each consisting of many members,
all chosen for integrity and intelligence, and
constituting reports more voluminous perhaps
than exist upon any one other class of cases, is
worth anything, it is difficult to deny, or even
to doubt the existence of such a phenomenon as
the Vampire.
For my part I.havs heard no theory by which
to explain what I myself have witnessed and
experienced, other than that supplied by the
love, by particular persons. In pursuit of these
it will exercise inexhaustible patience and strat
agem, for access to a particular object may be
obstructed in a hundred ways. It will never
desist until it has satiated its passion, and
drained the very life of its coveted victim. But
it will, in these cases, husband and protract its
murderous enjoyment with the refinement ot
an epicure, and heighten it by the gradual ap
proaches of an artful courtship. In these cases
it seems to yearn for something like sympathy
and consent. In ordinary ones it goes direct to
its object, overpowers with violence, and stran
gles and exhausts often at a single feast.
The vampire is, apparently, subject, in certain
situations, to special conditions. In the partic
ular instance of which I have given you a rela
tion, Mircalla seemed to be limited to a name
which, if not her real one, should at least repro
duce, without the omission or addition of a sin
gle letter, those, as we say, anagrammatically,
which compose it, Carmilla did this; so did Mil
larca.
My father related to the Baron Vordenburg,
who remained with us for two or three weeks
after the expulsion of Carmilla, the story about
the Moravian nobleman and the vampire at
Karnstein churchyard, and thea he asked the
Baron how he had discovered the exact position
of the long-concealed tomb of the Countess Mil
larca ? The Baron’s grotesque features pucker
ed up into a mysterious smile; he looked down,
still smiling on his worn spectacle-case, and
fumbled with it. Then looking up, he said :
“I have many journals and other papers,
written by that remarkable man; the most curi
ous one among them, is one treating of the vis
it of which you speak, to Karnstein. The tra
dition of course, discolors and distorts a little.
He might have been termed a Moravian noble
man, for he had changed his abode to that terri
tory, and was, beside, a noble. But he was,
in truth, a native of Upper Styria. It is enough
to say, that in very early youth he had been a
passionate and favored lover of. the beautiful
Mircalla, Countess Karnstein. Her early death
plunged him into inconsolable grief. It is the
nature of vampires to increase and multiply,
but according to an ascertained and ghostly
law.
“Assume at starting, a territory perfectly
free from that pest. How does it begin and
how does it multiply itself? I will tell you.
A person, more or less wicked, puts an end to
himselt. A suicide, under certain circumstan
ces, becomes a vampire. That specter visits
living people in their slumbers; they die, and
almost invariably, in the grave, develop into
vampires. This happened in the case of the
beautiful Mircalla, who was haunted by one
of those demons. My ancester, Vordenburg,
whose title I still bear, soon discovered this,
and in the course of the studies, to which he
devoted himself, learned a great deal more.
“Among other things, he concluded that sus
picion of vampirism would probably fall, soon
er or later, on the dead Countess, who in life
had been his idoL He conceived a horror, be
she what she might, of her remains being pro
faned by the outrage of a posthumous execu
tion. He has left a curious paper to prove that
the vampire, on its expulsion from its amphib
ious existence, is projected into afar more hor
rible life; and he resolved to .save his once be
loved Mircalla from this. He adopted the
stratagem of a journey here, a pretended remov
al of her remains, and a real obliteration of her
monument When age had stolen upon him,
and from the vale of years he looked back on
the scenes he was leaving, he considered, in a
different spirit what he had done, and horror
took possession oi him. He made the traoings
CHAPTER V. —A Retkospect.
At the appointed hour Major Barton and Miss
Howard met in the blue parlor at Howard hall.
‘You told me this morning,’ said Miss How
ard, ‘that you met Henry Gaston in Havana;
when was it ?’
‘Three years ago, last December,’ replied the
Major; ‘let me see—I believe lean give you the
precise date, as I kept a diary of that excur
sion.’
* Never mind the day, that is not material.
You are positive that there can be no mistake in
the year, or the identity of the person ?’
‘There can be none, I assure you, Miss How
ard. As to the date, it is out of the question;
as to the man, I knew him well enough to re
cognize him on obtaining a full view of his
face. Further, to make assurance doubly sure,
I was called upon to intercede for him with the
authorities for a garrulous little corregidor—a
sort of petty magistrate—allowed him to be
committed to prison on complaint of the segar-
vendor for trespass. I waited upon the Ameri
can consul, and by his agency the poor fellow
was released from a Spanish prison, one of the
most doleful places that human ingenuity ever
contrived to build. In the civil information—
in the petition to the consul, and a note, which
by the way, I preserved, and have brought with
me, the name is unmistakable—Henry Gaston.’
‘So far it seems evident enough. Now, what
do you know concerning the man himself?
When and where did you meet him; what is
the latest news you have had from him?’
‘ As to my knowledge of his antecedents, Miss
Howard, I confess that it is very slight, indeed.
I met him some twenty years ago, in New York
city, at the house of a friend. He was then a
man in the prime of life—I mean on the sunny
side of thirty, for a man may be said to be in
his prime anywhere between forty and sixty,
provided that —’
‘ He has taken good care of himself, and gives
a wide berth to care and anxiety—like yourself,
for example. But excuse me, I did not intend
to interrupt you, Major.’
‘ Precisely so, Madam—I mean Miss Howard
—longevity comes oi’ temperance, exercise, and
cheerful temper. But this Mr. Gaston I met at
the house of a friend—and I only remember
that he was then a young widower, with two
children, a boy and a girl.
‘ Villain of villains!’exclaimed the Major, his
honest wrath bubbling up into phrases not al
lowable in refined society, but the agitated wo
man before him did not notice his words. He
made the circuit of the room a time or two, and
dropped into his chair. ‘Dastardly brute! he
deserves to be roasted upon a slow fire a thou
sand years!’
‘ Major Barton,’ said Miss Howard, looking up
to the face of the excited old gentleman, with
an air of entreaty, * it is barely possible, after
all, that this consummate villain has had some
motive in coloring his own wickedness too
deeply. You told me that, at the time of your
first interview with this man yon heard it stated
that he was then a widower—that his wife was
dead ?’
*1 certainly did, madam.’
‘Can you tell me the year, the month, the
day if possible, of that meeting ?’
‘Let me see—yes; I remember. It was the
very week that the first case of Asiatic cholera
was reported in the papers of New York. I re
collect my departure from the city was hasten
ed by that event.’
‘Then it is possible that it was a real mar
riage—and deplorable as the case remains, that
lightens the burden of his crime. For a reason
that I shall confide to you presently, it is pro
foundly important that this fact should be de
termined. Do you think that this man is still
alive? Would it be possible to find him? Can
you undertake the solution of this terrible enig
ma? O, sir, if the happiness, the preservation
of a young life—the good name, the fortune of a
guileless, spotless young girl can influence you
to undertake this mission—for her sake let
me beg you—will you go ?’
‘ To the ends of the earth, madam, or find
him. And if his cowardly life can pay the for
feit —’
‘ My dear friend, do not talk of that. It is
essential to the preservation of that young girl’s
life that no harm should happon to him. If it
were not so,— leave him to the vengeance of his
God. As we hope for mercy from the Judge of
all the earth, we should strive to forgive, if we
cannot forget, the wrongs we have suffered.
Yon will undertake this cause—money will be
supplied you, for every necessity, for every
use. But I promised to be more specific in my
information to you. My young sister, a girl of
seventeen, was at the Philadelphia seminary.
She was always a little romantic in her ideas of
marriage. Giddy and foolish, without any
knowledge of the world beyond her own quiet
family circle; with no brother or male relation
except our father, she imbibed at an early age
the romantic and unreal ideas of life contained
in silly novels. The neatly expressed phrases
in which everlasting devotion is vowed to beau
tiful young ladies in current novels—the grace
less young scamps who are reformed by mar
riage into noblemen and heroes of unlimited
perfections—the tyranny of heartless fathers
and ambitions mothers who sacrifice their
daughters on the altar of mammon—and I
know not what else of the false, the unreal
trash which impressible minds absorb as truth,
prepared my poor Ethel for anything that sa
vored of romance. She was the youngest child,
and was petted and spoiled. We, her sisters,
were already grown to womanhood when she
was born; and to us, as to our parents, she was
the child of bright promise. No cost was spar
ed in her education—she had instructors in
music, in painting, in languages—in every ac
complishment, It was our dear father’s specia-
desire that she should become a French scholl
ar, and there was at that time a noted professor
of that language in the Philadelphia seminary.
If his services could have been obtained at our
home, Ethel would never have been committed
to the care of a boarding-school principal. But,
the professor was ambitious—my father was re
solved upon his services —and we reluctantly
gave her up to the guardianship of a woman
whom we had every reason to trust. She did
not enter the school as an ordinary pupil; she
His wife had been
dead only a few weeks, if I recollect aright, and j was simply a resident scholar; subject to none
something was then said about his expected of the rules of the institution, she became a
marriage to a great heiress, somewhere; but member of the family of the principal, and was
having met him by accident, I thought nothing treated with as much consideration, and had as
of the matter. He was a man of very jovial i much freedom as the daughters of the bouse.
habits—loved good wine, kept late hours, and
was welcome company anywhere. A few weeks
afterwards, not more than five, I think, I heard
of him in Philadelphia, connected with an es
cape of a young school girl, either as a princi
pal in the affair or an assistant, I am not cer
tain which.’
‘ Do you remember the particulars—the sem
inary-—the name of the lady?’
* I do not. I was much engrossed with my
own personal affairs at the time; in fact I was
endeavoring to negotiate a sale of some property
I owned there, to relieve myself of an embai-
rassing debt, and I did not ku^v Gaston well
enough to be interested in his affairs. Some
time in the following winter I saw him in Ogle
thorpe —’
‘ In this city!’ exclaimed the lady.
‘Yes, in this city; whither he had come, he
told me, to pay a visit to a relative. I had very
little conversation with him, for he was then on
his way to the steamer, returning, he told me,
to Philadelphia. Several years after this I was in
very poor health, and went to San Augustine to
spend the winter. In a small town like that
people get to know each other pretty well, in
the course of a few months, and there I met
Gaston again. I saw him almost every day, and
he was the same jovial, rollicking fellow, ex
cept at times he became very moody and fretful.
I noticed that he did not relish any allusion to
his past life, but, as he told me he had lost his
second wife—the school-girl heroine I mention
ed, for he had stolen her from a seminary and
married her—I did not question him about the
cause of his melancholy. He drank deeply—
spent large sums at the gaming table—so I
heard; for I never gambled—and suddenly he
disappeared from the town. Where he went I
did not hear, for it did not concern me in any
way. There was some gossip about him in St,
Augustine, but what it was I do not now remem
ber. I did not see or hear of him again until
the incident I mentioned as occurring in Ha
vana, three years ago, last December. You
have now all that I know concerning Henry
Gaston.’
4 1 am under a thousand obligations to you,
sir, for these particulars. You Lave made out a
clear case of identity. He is certainly the same
Henry Gaston whose follies and crimes have
occasioned more human misery than a thousand
such lives as his can atone for. He is a villain
of the deepest dye—a forger, a robber, and a
murderer—worse, far worse—oh! God! of heav
en! there is no name in the catalogue of crime
black enough-to.describe his villainy!’
4 And you know him, then, Miss Howard ?’
4 1 never saw him, sir, and heaven forbid that
I ever should; but his conduct has turned this
house into an abode of death—a prison and a
grave!’
‘Bless my life!’ said Major Barton, rising
from his chair, and trembling as if he were
about to be incarcerated in a prison himself.
‘Bless me, madam, you do not mean to say —’
* I mean to say that the wretched girl whom
he deluded into a mock marriage was my
youngest sister, Ethel Howard!’
4 Good heavens! madam, it cannot be possi
ble!’
. * It is too true, sir. Would to God it were
possible to state the case in more moderate terms.
Horrible enough it wonld have been for a pure,
sweet-spirited girl like her to marry a worthless
spendthrift—bat to wrong her by a still more
desperate and crushing infamy, he deoeived
her into a false oeremony whilst he had a living
wife!’
She remained a little more than six months be
fore she visited us. We saw no change in her,
except her increasing charms, for she bad grown
into a graceful, beautiful woman. Only three
months more of study—to read with her Pro
fessor a certain course in French poetry—and
her education would have been complete. In
those three months our father was taken sick—
not seriously, it was at first supposed, but in
ten days’ time he died. The very week of his
death, before a letter recalling her to Oglethorpe
reached Philadelphia—Ethel had fled from the
Seminary with a man whom.no one of the fam
ily had ever seen ! What kind of story he told
her, we never knew—for three years elapsed,
before any intelligence reached us concerning
her, and when at last we saw the poor child
again, she was landed at our door, a mother and
a maniac ?
Miss Howard paused—a shudder passed over
her, but only for a moment—she had been
schooled by long suffering, into self-command.
‘Now, Major Barton,’ she said solemnly, ‘I
must confide in your honor as a gentleman—a
Christian gentleman—you must promise me not
to breathe a word of this narrative without my
permission —for it is necessary still to exercise
caution. You promise?’
‘Upon the honor of a gentleman !’ said the
Major, and one glance at his honest face was
security enough.
‘Then,’ said she, ‘you must know, further,
that the poor, broken-hearted Ethel is in this
house—and her daughter Ellen is the stranger
who came to Howard Hall yesterday afternoon !’
‘Bless my life,’ exclaimed the Major, ‘wonder
upon wonders—everything is wonderful!’
The Major felt that this sublime axiom did
not do justice to the case, but he had no other
to express his astonishment.
‘Yes,’ continued Miss Howard, ‘they are
here, under the same roof, mother and daugh
ter, and neither knows the fact! Alas ! I have a
difficult, a dangerous duty to perform ! How I
shall succeed in preparing them for the meet
ing, only the Allwise God can know. For the
present* however, if you should meet Ellen, as
it is exceedingly probable you will, I implore
you not to breathe a word that relates to this
matter. She has no thought of her mother’s
presence here—indeed, she has been told by
her English relatives, that Ethel has been dead
many years. She has mourned her as dead,
and the poor child speaks of her with all the
tenderness of dutiful love, although she has only
a very faint recollection of her. She was sent
to England in her fourth year, and has remain
ed at the manor house of her uncle ever since,
until a few weeks ago.
‘ Only one word more, Major Barton, and I
leave you to form your own plans. As early as
possible, you will go to Havana—follow this
man—find out the truth, the whole truth ot this
dark history. I will give you written directions
for your guidance, and letters of credit that will
serve you anywhere, in Europe or America. A
large fortune—the salvation of one unfortunate
being, perhaps of two, is committed to your
trust May God be with you, and aid you !’
4 Amen!’ exclaimed the Major with a pious
fervor, unknown to his responses in the church
service.
Slowly, majestically, the good-hearted man
departed from Howard Hall that evening, and
if ne spent many minutes ocx ling his excited
brain under the China trees in the park—if he
became wrapt in a reverie, whilst walking to
and fro, that rendered him oblivious to ”
salutations of passing acquaintances—if