"And have you no suspicion?"
"None in the world that seems at all rational. The only one I have seems foolish."
"But what is it?"
"Well, I sometimes think--but indeed it is a silly thought--that her distress is in some way connected with the marriage of Mr. Lytton and Miss Cavendish, for I notice that every time the name of either of them is mentioned she grows so much worse that I and my sister have ceased ever to speak of them."
"It can not be that she was ever in love with Mr. Lytton," suggested the minister's lady.
"I should think not. I should think she was not that weak-minded sort of woman to give way to such sentiment, much less to be made so extremely wretched by it. For I do tell you, my dear, her state is simply that of the utmost mental wretchedness."
"I will ask my husband to go to her. He is her pastor, and may be able to do her some good," said the minister's wife.
"Do, my dear, and come to see her yourself," said Miss Romania, as she and her sister arose to take leave.
Now you know all this distress was just "put on" by Mrs. Grey, to give coloring and plausibility to her future proceedings.
To be sure she kept her room, but it was not to grieve in secret: it was to excite the compassion and wonder of her sympathizing friends, while she laid her plans, drank French cordials, and feasted privately on the delicacies of the season, which she would secretly bring in, or dozed on her sofa and dreamed of her coming sweet revenge.
Certainly, instead of going to bed at a decent hour, she would walk the floor of her chamber half the night. But this was not done because she was suffering, or sleepless from grief, but for the purpose of keeping poor Miss Crane awake all night in the room below and making the poor lady believe that she, Mary Grey, was breaking her own heart in these vigils.
And for her want of nightly rest Mary Grey compensated herself by dozing half the day on her sofa; and for her want of regular meals she made up by slipping out occasionally and feasting at some "ladies' restaurant."
But her object was effected. She impressed everybody who came near her with the belief that she had suffered some awful wrong or bereavement of which she could not speak, but which threatened to unseat her reason or end her life.
CHAPTER XLII.
MARY GREY'S STORY.
At length her minister came to see her. He expressed the deepest sympathy with her sufferings, and implored her to relieve her overburdened heart by confiding in him or in his wife, from either or both of whom, he assured her, she should receive respectful compassion and substantial assistance, if the last was necessary.
Then, pretending to yield to his better judgment, she consented to give him her confidence.
And taking him up to her own sitting-room, where they could be safe from interruption, she bound him over to secrecy, and then, with many affected tears and moans, she told him the astounding story that she had long been privately married to Mr. Alden Lytton, who had deserted her within a few days after their wedding, and who had recently, as every one knew, united himself in matrimony with Miss Emma Cavendish, of Blue Cliffs, Virginia, and had gone with her on a wedding trip to Europe.
While she told him this stupendous tale, the minister sat with open mouth and eyes, gazing on her with more of the air of an idiot than of a learned and accomplished gentleman.
He was, in fact, utterly amazed and confounded by the story he had heard.
That Alden Lytton, a young man of the highest social position, of unblemished reputation from his youth up, an accomplished scholar, a learned jurist, an eloquent barrister, and, more than all, a Christian gentleman, should have been guilty of the base treachery and the degrading crime here charged upon him was just simply incredible--no more nor less than incredible.
Or that Mary Grey, the loveliest lady of his congregation, should be capable of a malicious fabrication was utterly impossible.
There was then but one way out of the dilemma: Mary Grey was insane and suffering under a distressing hallucination that took this form.
So said the look of consternation and pity that the minister fixed upon the speaker's face.
"I see that you discredit my story, and doubt even my sanity. But here is something that you can neither doubt nor discredit," she said, as she drew from her pocket the marriage certificate and placed it in his hands.
The minister opened and read it. And as he read this evidence of a "Christian gentleman's" base perfidy the look of consternation and amazement that had held possession of his countenance gave place to one of disgust and abhorrence.
"Do you doubt _now_?" meaningly inquired Mary Grey.
"Ah, no, I can not doubt now! I wish to Heaven I could! I would rather, my child, believe you to be under the influence of a distressing hallucination than know this man to be the consummate villain this certificate proves him to be. I can not doubt the certificate. I wish I could; but I know this Reverend Mr. Borden. On my holiday trips North I have sometimes stopped at his house and filled his pulpit. I am familiar with his handwriting. I can not doubt," groaned the minister.
Mary Grey dropped her hands and pretended to sob aloud.
"Do not weep so much, poor child! Deeply wronged as you have been by this ruthless sinner you have not been so awfully injured as has been this most unhappy young lady, Miss Cavendish, whom he has deceived to her destruction," said the minister.
"And do you not suppose that I grieve for _her_ too?" sobbed Mary Grey.
"Ah, yes, I am sure your tender, generous heart, wronged and broken as it is, has still the power left to grieve for her as well as for yourself."
"But what is my duty? Ah, what is my duty in this supreme trial? I can not save my life or hers from utter wreck, but I can do my duty, and I will do it, if only it is pointed out to me. Oh, sir, point it out to me!" cried the hypocrite, clasping her hands with a look of sincerity that might have deceived a London detective.
"My dear, can you possibly be in doubt as to what your duty is?"
sorrowfully inquired the minister.
"Oh, my mind is all confused by this terrible event! I can not judge rationally. Ought I to keep silence and go away to some remote place and live in obscurity, dead to the world, so as never even by chance to interfere with their happiness, or to bring trouble on Miss Cavendish? I think, perhaps, he expects even that much from my devotion to him. Or ought I not to make way with myself altogether, for her sake? Would not a courageous suicide be justifiable, and even meritorious, under such, trying circumstances?"
"My child--my child, how wildly and sinfully you talk! Your brain is certainly touched by your troubles. You must not dream of doing any of the dreadful things you have mentioned. Your duty lies plainly before you. Will you have the courage to do it, if I point it out to you?"
"Oh, yes, I will--I will! It is all that is left me to do."
"Then your duty is to lodge information against that wretched man, so that he shall be arrested the moment he sets foot in the State."
"Oh, heaven of heavens! And ruin Emma Cavendish!" exclaimed the traitress, in well-simulated horror.
"And save Emma Cavendish from a life of involuntary degradation and misery. You must do this. To-morrow I will introduce you to a young lawyer of distinguished ability, who will give you legal advice even as I have given you religious counsel. And we will both confer together, so as to save you as much as possible from all painful share in the prosecution of this man."
"It is _all_ painful; all agonizing! But I think you and I will not shrink from our duty. Oh, could you ever have believed, without such proof as I have given you, that Mr. Alden Lytton could ever have been guilty of this crime?"
"Never! Never! And yet I know that men of exalted character have sometimes fallen very deeply into sin. Even David, 'the man after God's own heart,' took the wife of his devoted friend, and betrayed this faithful friend to a cruel death! Why should we wonder, then, at any man's fall? But, my child, I must ask you a question that I have been waiting to ask you all this time. Why did you not interfere to stop this felonious marriage before it took place? What timidity, what weakness, or what pride was it that restrained your hand from acting in time to prevent this fearful crime of Mr. Lytton, this awful wrong to Miss Cavendish, from being consummated?" gravely and sadly inquired the minister.
"Oh, sir, how can you ask me such a question? Do you suppose that if I had had the remotest suspicion of what was going on I should not have interfered and prevented it at all hazards--yes, even at the sacrifice of my own life, if that had been necessary?"
"You did not know of this beforehand then?"
"Why, certainly not!"
"Nor suspect it?"
"Assuredly not! I had not the least knowledge nor the faintest suspicion that anything of the sort was contemplated by Mr. Lytton until after it was all over. The first I heard of it was from the Misses Crane, who wrote me at Forestville that Mr. and Mrs. Alden Lytton, the bride and bridegroom from Blue Cliffs, had called on me during my absence. The news, when it was confirmed, nearly killed me. But think of the insanity of their calling on me! But I know that was Emma's wish. And I feel sure that Mr. Lytton must have known of my absence from town or he never would have ventured to bring his deceived bride into my home."