The Lamplighter Part 54

"I will conceal nothing. I will plunge at once into those disclosures which I most dread to utter, and trust to after explanation to palliate the darkness of my tale.

"Mr. Graham is my step-father, and my blessed mother, long since dead, was, in all but the tie of nature, a true mother to Emily. Thus allied to those whom you love best, I am parted from them by a heavy curse; for, not only was mine the ill-fated hand (oh, hate me not yet, Gertrude!) which locked poor Emily up in darkness, but I stand accused in the eyes of my fellow-men of another crime, deep, dark, and disgraceful. And yet, though living under a ban, wandering up and down the world a doomed and broken-hearted man, I am innocent as a child of all intentional wrong, as you will learn, if you can trust to the truth of the tale I am about to tell.

"Nature gave and education fostered in me a rebellious spirit. I was the idol of my invalid mother, who, though she loved me with a love for which I bless her memory, had not the energy to subdue the pa.s.sionate and wilful nature of her boy. But I was neither cruelly nor viciously disposed; and though my sway at home and among my school-fellows was alike indisputable, I made many friends, and not a single enemy. But a sudden check was at length put to my freedom. My mother married, and I soon came to feel bitterly the check which her husband, Mr. Graham, was likely to impose upon my boyish independence. Had he treated me with kindness, had he won my affections (which he might easily have done, for my sensitive and impa.s.sioned nature disposed me to every tender and grateful emotion), great would have been his influence in moulding my yet unformed character.

"But his behaviour towards me was that of chilling coldness and reserve.

He repelled with scorn the first advance on my part which led me, at my mother's instigation, to address him by the paternal t.i.tle--an offence of which I never again was guilty. And yet, while he seemed to ignore the relations.h.i.+p, he a.s.sumed its authority, thus wounding my pride and exciting opposition to his commands.

"Two things strengthened my dislike for my overbearing step-father. One was the consciousness of my dependence upon his bounty; the other a hint, which I received through a domestic, that Mr. Graham's dislike to me had its origin in an old enmity between himself and my own father--an honourable and high-minded man, whom it was ever my greatest pride to be told that I resembled.

"Great as was the warfare in my heart, power rested with Mr. Graham; for I was yet but a child, and necessarily subject to government--nor could I be deaf to my mother's entreaties that, for her sake, I would learn submission. It was only, therefore, when I had been most unjustly thwarted that I broke into direct rebellion; and even then there were influences ever at work to preserve outward harmony in our household.

Thus years pa.s.sed on, and though I did not love Mr. Graham more, the force of habit, the interest afforded by my studies, and increasing self-control, rendered my life less obnoxious to me than it had once been.

"I had one great compensation for my trials--the love I cherished for Emily, who responded to it with equal warmth on her part. It was not because she stood between me and her father, a mediator and a friend; nor because she submitted to my dictation and aided me in all my plans; it was because our natures were made for each other, and, as they grew and expanded, were bound together by ties which a rude hand only could rend asunder. This tenderness and depth of affection became the life of my life.

"At length my mother died. I was at that time, sorely against my will, employed in Mr. Graham's counting-house, and an inmate of his family.

And now, without excuse, my step-father began a course of policy as unwise as it was cruel; and so irritating to my pride, and so torturing to my feelings, that it angered me almost to frenzy. He tried to rob me of the only thing that sweetened and blest my existence--the love of Emily. I will not here recount the motives I imputed to him, nor the means he employed. But they were such as to change my former dislike into bitter hatred and opposition.

"Instead of submitting to his tyrannical interference, I sought Emily's society on all occasions, and persuaded the gentle girl to lend herself to my schemes for thwarting her father's purposes. I did not speak to her of love; I did not seek to bind her to me by promises; I hinted not at marriage; a sense of honour forbade it. But, with a boyish independence, which I fear was the height of imprudence, I sought every occasion, even in her father's presence, to maintain that constant familiarity of intercourse which had been the growth of circ.u.mstances, and could not, without force, be restrained.

"At length Emily was taken ill, and for six weeks I was debarred her presence. When sufficiently recovered to leave her room, I sought and at last obtained an opportunity to see her. We had been together in the library more than an hour when Mr. Graham suddenly entered, and came towards us with a face whose severity I shall not soon forget. I did not heed an interruption, for the probable consequences of which I believed myself prepared. But I was little prepared for the attack actually made upon me.

"That he would accuse me of disobedience to wishes which he had hinted in every possible way, and even intimate more plainly his resolve to place barriers between Emily and myself, I fully expected, and was ready with my replies; but when he burst forth with a torrent of ungentlemanly abuse--when he imputed to me mean and selfish motives, which had never occurred to my mind--I was struck dumb with surprise and anger.

"Then, in the presence of the pure-minded girl whom I wors.h.i.+pped, he charged me with a horrid crime--the crime of forgery--a.s.serting my guilt as recently discovered, but positive and undoubted. My spirit had raged before--now it was on fire. I lifted my hand and clenched my fist. What I would have done I know not. Whether I should have found words to a.s.sert my innocence, and refute a charge utterly false--or whether, my voice failing me from pa.s.sion, I should have swept Mr. Graham from my path, perhaps felled him to the floor, while I strode away to rally my calmness in the open air--I cannot now conjecture; for a wild shriek from Emily recalled me to myself, and, turning, I saw her fall fainting upon the sofa.

"Forgetting everything but the apparently dying condition into which the horror of the scene had thrown her I sprang forward to her relief. There was a table beside her and some bottles upon it. I hastily s.n.a.t.c.hed what I believed to be a simple restorative, and in my agitation emptied the contents of the phial in her face. I know not what the exact character of the mixture could have been; but its matters not--its effect was too awfully evident. The fatal deed was done--and mine was the hand that did it!

"Brought suddenly to consciousness by the intolerable torture that succeeded, the poor girl sprang screaming from the sofa, flung her arms wildly above her head, rushed in a frantic manner through the room, and crouched in a corner. I followed in an agony scarce less than her own; but she repelled me with her hands, uttering piercing shrieks. Mr.

Graham, who for an instant had looked like one paralysed by the scene, now rushed forward like a madman. Instead of aiding me in my efforts to lift poor Emily from the floor, and so far from compa.s.sionating my situation, which was only less pitiable than hers, he, with a fierceness redoubled at my being the sole cause of the disaster, attacked me with a storm of cruel reproaches, declaring that I had killed his child. With words like these, which are still ringing in my ears, he drove me from the room and the house; a repulsion which I, overpowered by contrition and remorse, had neither the wish nor the strength to resist.

"Oh! the terrible night and day that succeeded! I wandered out into the country, spent the whole night walking beneath the open sky, endeavouring to collect my thoughts and compose my mind, and still morning found me with a fevered pulse and excited brain. With the returning light, however, I began to realise the necessity of forming some future plan of action.

"Emily's sad situation, and my intense anxiety to learn the worst effects of the fatal accident, urged me to hasten with the earliest morning, either openly or by stealth, to Mr. Graham's house. Everything also which I possessed--all my money, the residue of my last quarter's allowance, my clothing, and a few valuable gifts from my mother--were in the chamber which I had occupied. There seemed to be no other course left for me than to return thither, and I retracted my steps to the city, determined, if it were necessary in order to gain the desired particulars concerning Emily, to meet her father face to face. But as I drew near the house I hesitated and dared not proceed. Mr. Graham had exhausted upon me every angry word, had threatened even deeds of violence should I again cross his threshold; and I feared to trust my own fiery spirit to a collision in which I might be led on to an open resistance of the man whom I had already sufficiently injured. In the terrible work I had but yesterday done--a work of whose fatal effect I had even then a gloomy foreshadowing--I had blighted the existence of his wors.h.i.+pped child, and drawn a dark pall over his dearest hopes. It was enough. I would not for worlds be guilty of the sin of lifting my hand against the man who, unjust as he had been towards an innocent youth, had met a retaliation far too severe.

"Still, I knew his wrath to be unmitigated, was well aware of his power to excite my hot nature to frenzy, and resolved to beware how I crossed his path. Meet him I must, to refute the false charges he had brought against me; but not within the walls of his dwelling, the home of his suffering daughter. In the counting-house, where the crime of forgery was said to have been committed, and in the presence of my fellow-clerks, I would publicly deny the deed, and dare him to its proof. But first I must either see or hear from Emily before I met the father at all. I must learn the exact nature and extent of the wrong I had done him in the person of his child. For this, however, I must wait until, under cover of the next night's darkness, I could enter the house unperceived.

"So I wandered about all day in torment, without having food or rest, the thought of my poor, darling, tortured Emily ever present to my wretched thoughts. The hours seemed interminable. I remember that day of suspense as if it had been a whole year of misery. But night came at last, cloudy, and the air thickened with a heavy fog which, as I approached the street where Mr. Graham lived, concealed the house until I was opposite to it. I shuddered at the sight of the physician's chaise standing before the door; for I knew that Dr. Jeremy had closed his visits to Emily more than a week previously, and must have been summoned to attend her since the accident. Thinking it probable that Mr.

Graham was in the house, I forbore to enter, but stood concealed by the mist, and watching my opportunity.

"Once or twice Mrs. Ellis, the housekeeper, pa.s.sed up and down the staircase, as I could distinctly see through the sidelights of the door, and Dr. Jeremy descended, followed by Mr. Graham. The doctor would have pa.s.sed hastily out, but Mr. Graham detained him, to question him regarding his patient, as I judged from the anxiety depicted on my step-father's countenance. The doctor's back was towards me, and I could only judge of his replies by the effect they produced on the questioner, whose haggard appearance became more distressed at every syllable that fell from the honest and truthful lips of the medical man, whose words were oracles to all who knew his skill.

"I needed, therefore, no further testimony to force the conviction that Emily's fate was sealed; and as I looked with pity upon the afflicted parent, and shudderingly thought of my agency in the work of destruction, I felt that the unhappy father could not curse me more bitterly than I cursed myself. Deeply, however, as I mourned, and have never ceased to repent, my share in the exciting of that storm wherein the poor girl had been so cruelly s.h.i.+pwrecked, I could not forget the part that Mr. Graham had borne in the transaction, or forgive the wicked injustice and insults which had so unmanned me as to render my hand a fit instrument only of ruin; and as, after the doctor's departure, I watched my step-father walk away, and saw by a street-lamp that the look of pain had pa.s.sed from his face, giving place to his usual composed and arrogant expression, and, understood by the loud and measured manner in which he struck his cane upon the pavement, that he was far from sharing my humble, penitent mood, I ceased to waste upon him a compa.s.sion which he seemed so little to require or deserve; and, pitying myself only, I looked upon his stern face with a soul which cherished for him no other sentiment than that of unmitigated hatred. Do not shrink from me, Gertrude, as you read this frank confession of my pa.s.sionate and deeply stirred nature. You know not, perhaps, what it is to hate; but have you ever been tried as I was?

"As Mr. Graham turned the corner of the street, I approached his house, drew forth a pa.s.s-key of my own, by means of which I opened the door, and went in. It was perfectly quiet, and no person was to be seen in any of the lower rooms. I pa.s.sed noiselessly upstairs, and entered a little chamber at the head of the pa.s.sage which communicated with Emily's room.

I waited here a long time, hearing no sound and seeing no one. But fearing that Mr. Graham would shortly return, I determined to ascend to my own room, collect my money and a few articles of value, and then make my way to the kitchen, and gain what news I could of Emily from Mrs.

Prime, the cook, a kind-hearted woman, who would, I felt sure, befriend me.

"The first part of my object was accomplished; and I had descended the back staircase to gain Mrs. Prime's premises, when I suddenly met Mrs.

Ellis coming from the kitchen, with a bowl of gruel in her hand. She was acquainted with all the particulars of the accident, and had been a witness to my expulsion from the house. She stopped short on seeing me, gave a slight scream, dropped the bowl of gruel, and prepared to make her escape, as if from a wild beast, which I doubt not that I resembled; since wretchedness, fasting, suffering, and desperation must all have been depicted in my features. I placed myself in her path, and compelled her to stop and listen to me. But before my eager questions could find utterance, an outburst from her confirmed my worst fears.

"'Let me go!' she exclaimed. 'You villain! you will be putting my eyes out next!'

'Where is Emily?' I cried. 'Let me see her!'

"'See her!' replied she. 'You horrid wretch! No! she has suffered enough from you. She is satisfied herself now.'

'What do you mean?' shouted I, shaking the housekeeper violently by the shoulder, for her words seared my very soul, and I was frantic.

"'I mean that Emily will never see anybody again; and if she had a thousand eyes, you are the last person upon whom she would wish to look!'

"'Does Emily hate me, too?' burst from me then, in the form of a soliloquy rather than a question. The reply was ready, however. 'Hate you? Yes--more than that; she cannot find words bad enough for you! She mutters, even in her pain, 'Cruel!--wicked!' She shudders at the sound of your name; and we are all forbidden to speak it in her presence.' I waited to hear no more, but rushed out of the house. That moment was the crisis of my life. The thunderbolt had fallen upon and crushed me. My hopes, my happiness, my fortune, my good name, had gone before; but one solitary light had, until now, glimmered in the darkness. It was Emily's love. I had trusted in that--that only. It had pa.s.sed away, and with it my youth, my faith, my hope of heaven.

"From that moment I ceased to be myself. Then fell upon me the cloud in which I have ever since been shrouded, and under which you have seen and known me. In that instant the blight had come, under the gnawing influence of which my happy laugh changed to the bitter smile; my frank and pleasant speech to tones of ill-concealed irony and sarcasm; my hair became prematurely grey, my features sharp and severe; my fellow-men, to whom I hoped to prove some day a benefactor, were henceforth the armed hosts of antagonists, with whom I would wage endless war--and the G.o.d whom I had wors.h.i.+pped--whom I had believed in, as a just and faithful friend and avenger--who was He?--where was He?--and why did He not right my cause? What direful and premeditated deed of darkness had I been guilty of that He should thus desert me? Alas!--I lost my faith in Heaven!

"I know not what direction I took on leaving Mr. Graham's house. I have no recollection of any of the streets through which I pa.s.sed, though doubtless they were all familiar; but I paused not until, having reached the end of a wharf, I found myself gazing down into the deep water, longing to take one mad leap and lose myself in everlasting oblivion!

But for this final blow, beneath which my manhood had fallen, I would have cherished my life, at least until I could vindicate its fair fame; I would never have left a blackened memory for men to dwell upon and for Emily to weep over. But now what cared I for my fellow-men! And Emily!--she had ceased to love, and would not mourn; and I longed for the grave. There are moments in human life when a word, a look, or a thought, may weigh down the balance in the scales of fate and decide a destiny.

"So it was with me. I was incapable of forming any plan for myself; but accident, as it were, decided for me. I was startled from the apathy into which I had fallen by the sudden splas.h.i.+ng of oars in the water beneath, and in a moment a little boat was moored to a pier within a rod of the spot where I stood. I also heard footsteps on the wharf, and, turning, saw by the light of the moon, which was just appearing from behind a heavy cloud, a stout seafaring man, with a heavy pea-jacket under one arm and an old-fas.h.i.+oned carpet-bag in his left hand. He had a ruddy, good-humoured face, and as he was about to pa.s.s me and leap into the boat, where two sailors, with their oars dipped and ready for motion, were awaiting him, he slapped me on the shoulder, and exclaimed, 'Well, my fine fellow, will you s.h.i.+p with us?' I answered as readily in the affirmative; and, with one look in my face, and a glance at my dress, which seemed to a.s.sure him of my station in life and probable ability to make compensation for the pa.s.sage, he said, in a laughing tone, 'In with you, then!'

"To his astonishment--for he had scarcely believed me in earnest--I sprang into the boat, and in a few moments was on board of a fine bark, bound I knew not whither. The vessel's destination was Rio Janeiro--a fact which I did not learn till we had been two or three days at sea, and to which I felt wholly indifferent. There was one other pa.s.senger beside myself--the captain's daughter, Lucy Grey, whom during the first week I scarcely noticed, but who appeared to be as much at home, whether in the cabin or on deck, as if she had pa.s.sed her whole life at sea. I might have made the entire pa.s.sage without giving another thought to this young girl--half child, half woman--had not my strange behaviour led her so to conduct herself which surprised and finally interested me.

My wild and excited countenance, my constant restlessness, avoidance of food, and indifference to everything about me, excited her wonder and sympathy. She believed me partially deranged, and treated me accordingly. She would take a seat on deck directly opposite mine, look in my face, either ignorant or regardless of my observing her, and then walk away with a heavy sigh. Occasionally she would offer me some little delicacy, begging that I would eat; and as, touched by her kindness, I took food more readily from her hand than any other, these little attentions became at last habitual. As my manners grew calmer and I settled into a melancholy which, though equally deep, was less fearful than the feverish torment under which I had laboured, she became reserved, and when I began to appear somewhat like my fellow-men, went regularly to the table, and, instead of pacing the deck all night, spent a part of it quietly in my state-room, Lucy absented herself wholly from that part of the vessel where I pa.s.sed the greater portion of the day, and I seldom exchanged a word with her, unless I purposely sought her society.

"The stormy weather drove me to the cabin, where she usually sat on the transom reading or watching the troubled waves; and, as the voyage was long, we were thrown much in each other's way, especially as Captain Grey, who had invited me to s.h.i.+p with him, and who seemed to take an interest in my welfare, good-naturedly encouraged an intercourse by which he probably hoped I might be won from a state of melancholy that seemed to grieve the jolly s.h.i.+p-master almost as much as it did his kind-hearted, sensitive child.

"Lucy's shyness, therefore, wore gradually away, and before our tedious pa.s.sage was completed I ceased to be a restraint upon her. She talked freely with me; for while I maintained a rigid silence concerning my own past experiences, of which I could scarcely endure to think, she exerted herself freely for my entertainment, and related with simple frankness almost every circ.u.mstance of her past life. Sometimes I listened attentively; sometimes, absorbed in my own painful reflections, I would be deaf to her voice and forgetful of her presence. Then I often observed that she had suddenly ceased speaking, and, starting from my reverie and looking quickly up, would find her eyes fixed upon me so reproachfully that, rallying my self-command, I would try to appear, and sometimes became, seriously interested in the artless narratives of my little entertainer. She told me that until she was fourteen years old she lived with her mother in a little cottage on Cape Cod, their home being only occasionally enlivened by the return of her father from his long absences at sea. They would visit the city where his vessel lay, pa.s.s a few weeks in great enjoyment, and then return to mourn the departure of the cheerful sea-captain, and patiently count the weeks and months until his return. She told me how her mother died; how bitterly she mourned her loss, and how her father wept when he came home and heard the news; how she had lived on s.h.i.+pboard ever since; and how sad and lonely she felt in time of storms when she sat alone in the cabin listening to the roar of the winds and waves.

"Tears would come into her eyes when she spoke of these things, and I would look upon her with pity as one whom sorrow made my sister. Trial, however, had not robbed her of an elastic, buoyant spirit; and when, after the completion of some eloquent tale of early grief, the captain would approach unseen and surprise her by a sudden joke or sly piece of mischief, thus provoking her to retaliate, she was always ready for a war of wits, a laughing frolic, or even a game of romps. Her tears dried up, her merry voice and playful words would delight her father, and the cabin would ring with peals of laughter; while I, shrinking from a mirth sadly at variance with my own happiness, and the sound so discordant to my sensitive nerves, would retire to brood over miseries for which it was hopeless to expect sympathy which could not be shared, and with which I must dwell alone.

"Such a misanthrope had my misfortunes made me that the sportive raillery between the captain and his merry daughter, and the musical laugh with which she would respond to the witticisms of two old sailors, grated upon my ears like something scarce less than personal injuries; nor could I have believed it possible that one so little able as Lucy to comprehend the depth of my sufferings could feel any sincere compa.s.sion for them had I not once or twice been touched to see how her innocent mirth would give place to sudden sadness of countenance if she chanced to encounter my woe-begone face, rendered doubly gloomy when contrasted with the gaiety of herself and of her companions.

"But I must not linger too long upon the details of our life on s.h.i.+pboard. I must forbear giving account of a terrific gale that we encountered, during which, for two days and a night, poor Lucy was half frantic with fear; while I, careless of outward discomforts and indifferent to personal danger, was afforded an opportunity to requite her kindness by such protection and encouragement as I was able to render.

"Captain Grey died. We were within a week's sail of our destination when he was taken ill, and three days before we were safely anch.o.r.ed in the harbour of Rio he breathed his last. I shared with Lucy the office of ministering to the suffering man, closed his eyes at last, and carried the fainting girl in my arms to another part of the vessel. With kind words and persuasions I restored her to her senses; and then, as the full consciousness of her desolation rushed upon her, she sunk at once into a state of hopeless despondency painful to witness. Captain Grey had made no provision for his daughter. Well might the poor girl lament her sad fate! for she was without a relative in the world, penniless, and approaching a strange sh.o.r.e, which afforded no refuge to the orphan.

We buried her father in the sea; and that sad office fulfilled, I sought Lucy and endeavoured to arouse her to a sense of her situation and advise with her concerning the future; for we were now so near our port that in a few hours we might be compelled to leave the vessel and seek quarters in the city. She listened to me without replying. I hinted at the necessity of my leaving her, and begged to know if she had any plans for the future. She answered me only by a burst of tears. I begged her not to weep.

"And then, with many sobs, and interrupting herself by frequent exclamations of vehement sorrow, she threw herself upon my compa.s.sion, and, with child-like artlessness, entreated me not to leave her or, as she termed it, to desert her. She reminded me that she was alone in the world; that the moment she stepped foot on sh.o.r.e she should be in a land of strangers; and, appealing to my mercy, besought me not to leave her to die alone.

"What could I do? I had nothing on earth to live for. We were both alike orphaned and desolate. There was but one point of difference. I could work and protect her; she could do neither for herself. It would be something for me to live for; and for her, though but a refuge of poverty and want, it was better than the exposure and suffering that must otherwise await her. I told her how little I had to offer; that my heart even was crushed and broken; but that I was ready to labour in her behalf, to guard her from danger, to pity, and perhaps in time learn to love her. The unsophisticated girl had never thought of marriage; she had sought the protection of a friend, not a husband; but I explained to her that the latter tie only would obviate the necessity of our parting; and, in the humility of sorrow, she finally accepted my unflattering offer.

"The only confidant to our sudden engagement, the only witness of the marriage, which within a few hours ensued, was an old, weather-beaten sailor, who had known and loved Lucy from her childhood--Ben Grant. He accompanied us on sh.o.r.e and to the church. He followed us to the humble lodgings with which we contrived for the present to be contented, and devoted himself to Lucy with self-sacrificing, but in one instance, alas! (as you will soon learn), with mistaken and fatal zeal.

"After much difficulty, I obtained employment from a man in whom I accidentally recognized an old and valued friend of my father. He had been in Rio several years, and was actively engaged in trade, and willingly employed me as a clerk, occasionally despatching me from home to transact business at a distance. My duties being regular and profitable, we were soon raised above want, and I was enabled to place my young wife in a situation of comfort.

"The sweetness of her disposition, the cheerfulness with which she endured privation, the earnestness with which she strove to make me happy, were not without effect. I perseveringly rallied from my gloom; I succeeded in banis.h.i.+ng the frown from my brow; and the premature wrinkles, which her hand would softly sweep away, finally ceased to return. The few months that I pa.s.sed with your mother, Gertrude, form a sweet episode in the memory of my stormy life. I came to love her much--not as I loved Emily;--that could not be expected--but, as the solitary flower that bloomed on the grave of all my early hopes, she cast a fragrance round my path; and her child is not more dear to me, because a part of myself, than as the memento of the cherished blossom s.n.a.t.c.hed hastily from my hand and rudely crushed.

"About two months after your birth, my child, and before your eyes had ever learned to brighten at the sight of your father, who was necessarily much from home, the business in which I was engaged called me in the capacity of an agent to a station some distance from Rio. I had been absent nearly a month, and had written regularly to Lucy, informing her of all my movements (though I suspect the letters never reached her), when the neighbourhood in which I was stationed became infected with a fatal malaria. For the sake of my family I took every measure to ward off contagion, but failed. I was seized with fever, and lay for weeks near death. I was cruelly neglected during my illness; for I had no friends near me, and my slender purse held out little inducement for mercenary service; but my sufferings and forebodings on account of Lucy and yourself were far greater than any which I endured from my bodily torments, although the latter were great. I had all sorts of imaginary fears; but nothing, alas! which could compare with the reality that awaited me when, after my dreadful illness, I made my way, dest.i.tute, ragged, and emaciated, back to Rio. I sought my former home.

It was deserted, and I was warned to flee from its vicinity, as the fearful disease of fever had nearly depopulated that and the neighbouring streets. I made every inquiry, but could obtain no intelligence of my wife and child. I hastened to the charnel-house where, during the raging of the pestilence, the unrecognized dead were exposed; but among the disfigured remains it was impossible to distinguish friends from strangers. I lingered about the city for weeks in hopes to gain some information concerning Lucy; but could find no one who had ever heard of her. All day I wandered about the streets and on the wharves--the latter being places which Ben Grant (in whose faithful charge I had left your mother and yourself) was in the habit of frequenting--but not a syllable could I learn of any persons that answered my description.