He referred
frequently to the letter he had intrusted to the care of Gregory as
explanatory of all that might otherwise seem inexplicable--that letter
at rest beneath the dark waters of the Bayou Noir--if--if, indeed! But
no! not even of Gregory could I harbor on slight grounds such
suspicions. "Let the devil himself have the full benefit of--doubt!"
says Rabelais. I wrote to Wentworth that I would come and make all
plain, as he desired, in June.
Suffering severely myself, I saw clouds gathering and rising around a
happy household that for a time drew me from the depths of my own
affliction in the vain effort to solace their woes.
Father and son and infant in one house, wife and imbecile daughter in
another, at last fell at one dread swoop. To dishonor was added the
crime of suicide, and poverty and breaking hearts were there, for the
heritage of Beauseincourt was, by reason of debt and mismanagement, to
pass, after the death of its master, into strange hands--the cruel hands
of creditors!
Walter La Vigne was dead, and the succession of Bellevue passed over the
daughters of the house, to vest in a distant kinsman. He came, toward
the last of my stay, to take his own; and, unexpectedly, George Gaston,
the playmate of my childhood, the lover of my first youth, stood before
me in the residuary legatee of Armand La Vigne!
His advent was a revelation of my secret, through the necessity of
surprise; and as, when the banquet is announced and the ball draws near
its close, the maskers, so far unknown to each other, lay by their
disguises, glad to be so relieved, draw breath and clasp hands once more
in the freedom of social reality, so I, who had played too long a weary
part, felt a new life infused into my veins when my mask was suddenly
laid aside, and the necessity of disguise was over.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280