Infelice | Page 9

train was behind time, and he would call her when he heard the whistle. He then went home, several squares distant, to see one of his children who was quite ill, and when he returned to the station and peeped into the reception-room to see if it kept warm and comfortable not a soul was visible. He wondered where the lady could have gone at that hour, and upon such a freezing night, but sat down by the grate in the freight-room, and when the down train blew for V---- he took his lantern and went out, and the first person he saw was the missing lady. She asked for her satchel, which he gave her, and he handed her up to the platform, and saw her go into the ladies' car.
"Had she a package or box, when she returned and asked for her satchel?"
"I did not see any, but she wore a waterproof of grey cloth that came down to her feet. There was so much confusion when the train came in that I scarcely noticed her, but remember she shivered a good deal, as if almost frozen."
"Did she buy a return ticket?"
"No, I asked if I should go to the ticket office for her, but she thanked me very politely, and said she would not require anything."
"Can you tell me to what place she was going?"
"I do not know where she came from, nor where she went. She was most uncommonly beautiful."
"Are the telegraph wires working south?"
"Why bless you, sir! they are down in several places, from the weight of the ice, so I heard the station operator say, just before you came in."
As Dr. Hargrove walked away, an expression of stern indignation replaced the benign look that usually reigned over his noble features, and he now resolutely closed all the avenues of compassion, along which divers fallacious excuses and charitable conjectures had marched into his heart, and stifled for a time the rigorous verdict of reason.
He had known from the moment he learned the tin box was missing, that only the frail, fair fingers of Minnie Merle could have abstracted it, but justice demanded that he should have indisputable proof of her presence in V---- after twelve o'clock, for he had not left the library until that hour, and knew that the train passed through at eleven.
Conviction is the pitiless work of unbiased reason, but faith is the acceptance thereof, by will, and he would not wholly believe, until there was no alternative. Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, and quite naturally Dr. Hargrove began to discredit the entire narrative of wrongs, which had attained colossal proportions from her delineation, and to censure himself most harshly for having suffered this dazzling Delilah to extort from him a solemn promise of secrecy; for, unworthy of sympathy as he now deemed her, his rigid rectitude would not permit him to regard that unworthiness as sufficient justification for abrogating his plighted word. Suspicious facts which twelve hours before had been hushed by the soft spell of her rich plaintive voice, now started up clamorous and accusing, and the pastor could not avoid beholding the discrepancy between her pleas of poverty and friendlessness, and the costly appearance of her apparel,--coupled with her refusal to acquaint him with her means of maintenance.
If, as she had averred, the stolen license was--with the exception of his verbal testimony--the sole proof of her marriage, why was she not satisfied with the copy given to her unless for some unrighteous motive she desired to possess in order to destroy all evidence?
Surmise, with crooked and uncertain finger, had pointed to New York--whose broad deep bosom shelters so many helpless human waifs--as her probable place of destination, and had the telegraph-wires been in successful operation he would have hazarded the experiment of requesting her arrest at the terminus of the railway; but this was impracticable, and each succeeding hour aided in obliterating the only clue in his possession.
The universal observation of man, ages ago, simmered down and crystallized into the adage, "Misfortunes never come singly;" and it is here respectfully submitted--that startling episodes, unexpected incidents quite as rarely travel alone. Do surprises gravitate into groups, or are certain facts binary?
Sometimes for a quarter of a century the sluggish stream of life oozes by, bearing no hint of deeds, or faces,--that perchance shed glory, or perhaps lent gloom to the far past,--a past well-nigh forgotten and inurned in the gathering grey of time,--and suddenly without premonition, the slow monotonous current ripples and swells into waves that bear to our feet fateful countenances, unwelcome as grave-ghouls,--and the world grows garrulous of incidents that once more galvanize the shrouded Bygone. For four years the minister had received no tidings of those whom he had so reluctantly joined in the bonds of