The lamp of life had been long flickering in the poor patient, and was now giving forth its last brightness. She held out her hands imploringly to her husband, and said, “forgive me!” but before his lips could utter the pardon, she fell back in the arms of Mrs. Torrance—a corpse.
The mysterious awe with which the presence of death fills the human heart, caused a silence as profound as that which had just fallen on the departed. Anson bent over the stiffening body and murmured: “Hadst thou died spotless, my wife, how joyfully would my spirit have journeyed with thine to the bar of God—and in the realms of peace, where the tempter comes not—where sin and shame, and sorrow enter not—we should forever have enjoyed that bliss—our foretaste of which on earth, was so rudely broken by the destroyer. But enough. The last tears these eyes shall ever shed, have fallen upon thy bier—and now again to my work of vengeance!” He arose, and bent on Derode a look of ineffable ferocity. “Look,” he said, “on the man you have ruined. _You_ beheld _me_ for the first time, yet my eyes have scarce lost sight of you for months—and henceforward will I be like your ever-present shadow. The solace of _my_ life shall be to blight the joy of _yours_—in crowds or in solitude—amid the gay revel, and through the silent watches of the night, will I hover around you. I will become the living, embodied spirit of your remorse; walking with you in darkness and in light, and when a smile would mantle on your lips, I will dispel it with the sound of MURDERER!”
“I’ll rid myself of such companionship,” said Derode,—“I have pistols here—follow me, sir, and seek a manly satisfaction at once.”
The loud voices of Anson and her father, had been heard by Isabel, and the unhappy girl on entering the apartment—to the astonishment and horror of Derode—threw herself on the bosom of Anson, who, putting her aside, exclaimed—“that you may want no motive to _hate_ as well as _fear_ me, know that I am the seducer of your daughter. Thus have I _begun_ my work of destruction.” Driven to desperation by this taunt, Derode drew a pistol, aimed it at Anson, and fired. By a movement equally sudden, Isabel, with a scream, threw herself before her betrayer, and received the ball in her shoulder. The wretched father groaned in agony, and fled from the house, while Anson, consigning the wounded girl to the care of Mrs. Torrance, pursued the culprit.