Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/197

190 died almost immediately; but his arm was stretched out towards my place in the bed. Yes, even in that moment of agony and death, his thought was of me! Oh, Mary! I have felt that more than all. He sought for me, and I—I was not at, his side! The dagger still remained in. his bosom, to which was affixed a paper, bearing a name written in pencil, and scarcely legible from the blood with which it was stained. That name—that fearful name—was 'Carl von Wolin.' Mary, the dagger and the paper I still keep. I must have seen all this almost at a glance, yet it seems to me as if I stood for minutes, mute and motionless, gazing on the dreadful sight, before, with one piercing shriek, I fell senseless to the floor.

"From that time all is blank on my mind, except that I have a dreamy, indistinct recollection of the pale, frightened servants, as they thronged about the bed, and of my struggling as they bore me away. After this I remember nothing that passed for weeks, during which I was delirious from a brain-fever, save that I am conscious of having had, throughout my illness, but two ideas—my dead husband, and my living child. They said I could not live; but I felt that, for your sake, I could not die. They told me afterwards, that all through my illness I would not suffer you to be taken from me; that I kept you in bed at my side, night and day; and that if I but missed you for an instant, I made the house re-echo with my screams. A friend of ours, an English lady, to whom we can never be sufficiently grateful, had me taken to her residence, where the kindness and attention that were shown mo were extreme. When I got better, she pressed me much to stay some time with her; but I would not hear of it. I was afraid—afraid for you. I feared that dreadful man would not he satisfied with the murder of the husband, but that he would seek also the life of the child; for I knew that it was to wreak his vengeance on me that he had killed Edward. It was my weakness, my want of moral courage in not keeping my promise to the baron, which was the cause of the death of him I loved so dearly. As soon as ever I was able to get out, we left Naples, took ship for England, under an assumed name, that we might leave no clue by which we could be followed, and landed at Fowey. I did not make my arrival known, even to my aunt; but happening to hear of a house in this secluded valley, I took it, hoping that here, at least, we might be safe. But my nerves had been terribly shattered by the shock they had sustained, and I feared an assassin almost in every bush and tree. For a long time, my terror for you was continual; but as years passed, and left us unmolested, I became more reassured and confident of security. If I have seemed to you too particular, too fidgety—if you have ever thought me unkind for keeping you shut up here without amusements, and with no friends or companions of your own age (and perhaps I have been wrong and foolish to do so), at least you now know the reason, and your kind heart, I am sure, pity and forgive me."

Mrs. Atherton ceased. Mary did not attempt any words of consolation, but she arose, pressed her soft cheek against her mother's, and threw her arms around her neck. Mrs. Atherton's bosom heaved; she looked up, and saw Mary's pale face, and her soft loving eyes watching hers, wet with the dew of pity. She gave one convulsive sob, and