The Dead Letter · Part II · Chapter 2 3 (2/2)

“Well, it was just after that the scandal arose about his causing the death of a person by malpractice. He found it was prudent to run away; so he sold his stock for what he could get, and hid himself in New York. I did not know, at first, where he was; but felt so relieved to be rid of him. I had made up my own mind to go to New York, and get employment in a fancy-store. You know, Mr. Burton, for I once laid my heart before you, what wild, mad, but sinless infatuation it was which drew me there. I am not ashamed of it. God is love. When I stand in his presence, I shall glory in that power of love, which in this bleak world has only fretted and wasted my life. In heaven our whole lives will be one adoration.” She clasped her thin hands together, and turned her dark eyes upward with an expression rapt to sublimity. I gazed upon her with renewed surprise and almost reverence. Never do I expect to meet another woman, the whole conformation of whose mind and heart so fitted her for blind, absolute devotion as Leesy Sullivan’s.

“When I went to the city to see about getting a place, I met my cousin, who told me that she was married to George Thorley, and had been for some weeks; that they were boarding in a nice, quiet place, and that George stayed at home a great deal⁠—indeed, he hardly went out at all.

“It was evident that she had not heard of his reasons for leaving Blankville, and that she did not guess why he kept himself so quiet. Of course I hadn’t the heart to tell her; but I made up my mind that I’d be better to stay where I was, for the present⁠—so I went back to my aunt, without trying to get a situation in New York.

“It was about six months after this I got word from Nora, begging me to come and see her. I loved my cousin, and I’d felt grieved that she was married to Dr. Thorley. I mistrusted something was wrong; so I went to the city, and found her out in the miserable tenement where she was now stopping, starving herself in a room with hardly a bit of furniture. She burst out a-crying when she saw me; and when I stopped her sobbing, she told me she had not seen George for more than three months; that either he had met with an accident, or he’d run away from her, leaving her without a cent of money, and she in such health that she could hardly earn enough to buy a bit of bread and pay the rent of this room.

“ ‘Do you really think he has left you?’ I asked her.

“ ‘Sure, how can I tell?’ she answered, looking at me so pitifully with her innocent blue eyes. ‘He was a fine gentleman, and it’s afraid I am that he’s grown tired of his poor Irish Nora.’

“ ‘I warned you, cousin,’ I said; ‘I knew George Thorley for a villain; but you were taken with his fine words, and wouldn’t heed. I’m sorry, sorry, sorry for you⁠—but that won’t undo what’s done. Are you sure you are his wife, Nora dear?’

“ ‘As sure as I am of heaven,’ she cried, angry with me. ‘But it’s married we were by a Protestant clergyman, to please George⁠—and I’ve got my certificate safe⁠—ah, yes, indeed.’

“I could never ascertain whether the ceremony had been performed by a legalized minister; I always suspected my poor cousin had been deceived, and it was because my aunt thought so, too, and was sore on the subject, that she got so angry with you two gentlemen when you went to inquire. But, whether my suspicions were or were not correct, Nora was George’s wife as certainly, in the sight of the angels, as woman was ever the wife of man. Poor child! I no longer hesitated about coming to New York. She needed my protection, and my help, too. I paid her board till the day of her death, which was but a few days after her poor little baby was born; I saw her decently buried, and then I put out the infant to nurse, and I worked to keep that. It was a comfort to me, sir. My own heart was sad, and I took to the little creature almost as if it was my own. I had promised Nora that I would bring it up, and I have kept my word, thus far. I hated its father for the way he’d treated Nora, but I loved the child; I took pleasure in making its pretty garments and in seeing that it was well taken care of. I knew I should never marry; and I adopted Nora’s child as my own.

“Hardly was poor Nora cold in her grave when I was, one evening, surprised by a visit from George Thorley. Where he had been during his absence I did not know. He tried to excuse his conduct toward my cousin, by saying that he had married her in a fit of jealousy, to which I’d driven him by my coldness; that he’d been so tormented in mind he couldn’t stay with her, for he didn’t love her, and he’d gone out West, and been hard at work, to try and forget the past. But he couldn’t forget it; and when he saw his wife’s death in the papers, he had felt awfully; but now he hoped I’d forgive it all, and marry him. He said he had a good business started in Cincinnati, and I should want for nothing, and I mustn’t say no to him again. I stood up, I was so indignant, and faced him till he grew as white as a sheet. I called him a murderer⁠—yes, Nora’s murderer⁠—and ordered him never to speak to me nor come near me again. I knew he was terribly angry; his eyes burned like fire; but he did not say much that time; as he took up his hat to go, he asked about his baby⁠—if it was living? I would not answer him. He had no right to the child, and I did not wish him to see it, or have anything to do with it.

“What became of him, after that, for a long time, I don’t know. He may have been in the city all the time, or he may have been in Cincinnati. At any rate, one day, as I was going from my boardinghouse to the store, I found him walking along by my side. Nora was nigh a year old then. He commenced talking to me on the street, asking me again to marry him; and then, to frighten me, he said what a pretty baby Nora had got to be; and that he should have to find a wife to take care of his child. She was his, and he was going to have her, right away; and if I had any interest in her, I could show it by becoming her stepmother. He said he had plenty of money, and pulled out a handful of gold and showed me. But this only made me think the worse of him. He followed me home, and into my room, against my will, and there I turned upon him and told him that if he ever dared to force himself into my presence again, I would summon the police, and he should be turned over to the Blankville authorities for the crime that had driven him out of the village.

“After he was gone, I sunk into a chair, trembling with weakness, though I had been so bold in his presence. He looked like an evil spirit, when he smiled at me as he shut the door. His smile was more threatening than any scowl would have been. I was frightened for Nora. Every day I expected to hear that the little creature had been taken from her nurse; I trembled night and day; but nothing happened to the child, and from that day to this I have not seen George Thorley. If he is in California, I am glad of it; for that is a good ways off, and perhaps he’ll never get track of his daughter. I’d far rather she’d die and be buried with her mother and myself, than to live to ever know that she had such a father.

“It seems a strange lot has been mine,” concluded the sewing-girl, her dark eyes musing with a faraway look, “to have been followed by such a man as that, to have set my heart so high above me, and then to have fallen, by means of that love, into such a dreadful pit of circumstances⁠—not only to be heartbroken, but so driven and hunted about the world, with my poor little lambkin here.”

The pathetic look and tone with which she said this touched me deeply. For the first time, I felt fully the exceeding cruelty I had been guilty of toward her, if she were as innocent as her words averred of that nameless and awful crime which I had written down against her. At that moment, I did believe her innocent; I did pity her for her own melancholy sufferings, which had wasted the fountains of her life; and I did respect her for that humble and perfect devotion, giving all and asking nothing, with which she lavished her soul upon him whose memory called upon his friends for sleepless vigilance in behalf of justice. I did not wonder that she shrunk from me as from one ready to wound her. But this was only when in her presence; as soon as I was away I felt doubtful again.

“Have you any likeness of George Thorley?” asked Mr. Burton.

“No. Poor Nora had his ambrotype, but after her death I threw it into the fire.”

“Will you describe him to us?”

Miss Sullivan gave a description corresponding in all particulars with that given by Mr. Burton, after reading the dead-letter; he asked her about the third finger of the right hand, and she said⁠—“Yes, it had been injured by himself, in some of his surgical experiments.”

We now proposed to take leave, the detective again assuring Leesy that he should rather protect her against Thorley than allow him any chance to annoy her; he assured her she should be cared for in his absence, and, what was more, that if little Nora should be left friendless, he would keep an eye on the child and see that it was suitably brought up. This last assurance brightened the face of the consumptive with smiles and tears; but when he gave her his hand at parting, she burst into sobs.

“It is our last meeting, sir.”

“Try to keep as well as you are now until I come back,” he said, cheerfully. “I may want you very much then. And, by the way, Leesy⁠—one question more. You once told me that you did not recognize the person you saw upon the lawn, at Mr. Argyll’s, that night⁠—have you a suspicion who it might be?”

“None. I believe the man was a stranger to me. I only saw him by a flash of lightning at the instant he was descending from the tree; if he had been an acquaintance I do not know that I should have known him.”

“That is all. Goodbye, little Nora. Don’t forget Burton.”

We heard the girl’s sobs after the door was shut.

“I’m her only friend,” said my companion, as he walked away. “No wonder she is moved at letting me go. I think, with her, that it is doubtful if she lasts until we get back. Still, her disease is a lingering one⁠—I hope I shall see her live to witness the sad triumph of our industry.”

“You speak as if the triumph were already secured.”

“If he’s on the face of the earth, we’ll find Doctor George Thorley. It is no longer possible that we should be on the wrong track. You know, Richard, that I have not confided all my secrets to you. There will be no one more astonished than yourself when I summon my witnesses and sum up my conclusions. Oh, that the hour were come! But I forget my motto⁠—‘learn to labor and to wait.’ ”