It impeaches the character of a man whose life has thus far been above reproach. Whatever is said here, remember, is said in his ears, and he will soon be among you to make his own response.”
The manner in which this was uttered repressed, for a time, further remarks reflecting on the integrity of the agent. But, after the lapse of nearly an hour, his continued absence was again referred to, and in more decided language than before.
“Will you do us one favour?” said Mr. Markland, on whose mind suspense was sitting like a nightmare. He spoke to the clerk, who, by this time, was himself growing restless.
“Any thing you desire, if it is in my power,” was answered.
“Will you go down to the post-office, and inquire if Mr. Fenwick has received his letters this morning?”
“Certainly, I will.” And the clerk went on the errand without a moment’s delay.
“Mr. Fenwick received his letters over two hours ago,” said the young man, on his return. He looked disappointed and perplexed.
“And you know nothing of him?” was said.
“Nothing, gentlemen, I do assure you. His absence is to me altogether inexplicable.”
“Where’s Fenwick?” was now asked, in an imperative voice, by a new comer.
“Not been seen this morning,” replied Markland.
“Another act in this tragedy! Gone, I suppose, to join his accomplice on the Pacific coast, and share his plunder,” said the man, passionately.
“You are using very strong language, sir!” suggested one.
“Not stronger than the case justifies. For my own assurance, I sent out a secret agent, and I have my first letter from him this morning. He arrived just in time to see our splendid schemes dissolve in smoke. Lyon is a swindler, Fenwick an accomplice, and we a parcel of easy fools. The published intelligence we have to-day is no darker than the truth. The bubble burst by the unexpected seizure of our lands, implements, and improvements, by the—Government. It contained nothing but air! Fenwick and Lyon had just played one of their reserved cards—it had something to do with the flooding of a shaft, which would delay results, and require more capital—when the impatient grantors of the land foreclosed every thing. From the hour this catastrophe became certain, Lyon was no more seen. He was fully prepared for the emergency.”
In confirmation of this, letters giving the minutest particulars were shown, thus corroborating the worst, and extinguishing the feeblest rays of hope.
All was too true. The brilliant bubble had indeed burst, and not the shadow of a substance remained. When satisfied of this beyond all doubt, Markland, on whose mind suffering had produced a temporary stupor, sought his room at the hotel, and remained there for several days, so hopeless, weak, and undecided, that he seemed almost on the verge of mental imbecility. How could he return home and communicate the dreadful intelligence to his family? How could he say to them, that, for his transgressions, they must go forth from their beautiful Eden?
“No—no!” he exclaimed, wringing his hands in anguish. “I can never tell them this! I can never look into their faces! Never! never!”
The moment had come, and the tempter was at his ear. There was, first, the remote suggestion of self- banishment in some distant land, where the rebuking presence of his injured family could never haunt him. But he felt that a life in this world, apart from them, would be worse than death.
“I am mocked! I am cursed!” he exclaimed, bitterly.
The tempter was stealthily doing his work.
“Oh! what a vain struggle is this life! What a fitful fever! Would that it were over, and I at rest!”
The tempter was leading his thoughts at will.
“How can I meet my wronged family? How can I look my friends in the face? I shall be to the world only a thing of pity or reproach. Can I bear this? No—no—I cannot—I cannot!”
Magnified by the tempter, the consequence looked appalling. He felt that he had not strength to meet it—that all of manhood would be crushed out of him.
“What then?” He spoke the words almost aloud, and held his breath, as if for answer.
“A moment, and all will be over!”
It was the voice of the tempter.
Markland buried his face in his hands, and sat for a long time as motionless as if sleep had obscured his senses; and all that time a fearful debate was going on in his mind. At last he rose up, changed in feeling as well as in aspect. His resolution was taken, and a deep, almost leaden, calmness pervaded his spirit. He had resolved on self-destruction!
With a strange coolness, the self-doomed man now proceeded to select the agent of death. He procured a work on poisons, and studied the effects of different substances, choosing, finally, that which did the fatal work most quickly and with the slightest pain. This substance was then procured. But he could not turn forever from those nearest and dearest, without a parting word.
The day had run almost to a close in these fearful struggles and fatal preparations; and the twilight was falling, when, exhausted and in tears, the wretched man folded, with trembling hands, a letter he had penned to his wife. This done, he threw himself, weak as a child, upon the bed, and, ere conscious that sleep was stealing upon him, fell off into slumber.
Sleep! It is the great restorer. For a brief season the order of life is changed, and the involuntary powers of the mind bear rule in place of the voluntary. The actual, with all its pains and pleasures, is for the time annihilated. The pressure of thought and the fever of emotion are both removed, and the over-taxed spirit is at rest. Into his most loving guardianship the great Creator of man, who gave him reason and volition, and the freedom to guide himself, takes his creature, and, while the image of death is upon him, gathers about him the Everlasting Arms. He suspends, for a time, the diseased voluntary life, that he may, through the involuntary, restore a degree of health, and put the creature he has formed for happiness in a new condition of mental and moral freedom.
