CONSTANCE TELLS HER WRONGS.

Hudson came toward his daughter gently, but she clasped the paper to her bosom, and turning her face upon him, cried out,

"It is _all_ I have. Let me keep it. Let me keep it!"

Then with her poor hands trembling and her breast heaving with tears, she put the paper back into the mutilated card-case, and hid it away in her bosom.

Hudson remonstrated earnestly, and told her of the great danger which lay in the possession of a document which might, any moment, place her at the mercy of a man like Church; but she answered him with a passion of tears that it was all she had left, and that alone kept her heart from breaking.

Then the unhappy father appeased his fears by impressing on the imprudent creature the peril she was in. He told her that her marriage with Church was a crime against the law; and innocent as she was, in fact, a man of his adroit and malignant character might easily prove that her concealment of the first marriage, had been from a criminal intent.

These arguments made an impression upon the girl. She listened earnestly, and seemed to comprehend all the peril of her position with great clearness; but this only sufficed to inspire all the combativeness of her nature. The young creature was courageous as a lion, and by no means deficient in the quick intellect which sees a position, and the means by which it can be defended. While her father was talking she sat with her lips firmly compressed, and her eyes gathering slow fire. Sometimes she started, as if some sharp thought stung her; but she allowed her father to go on without material interruption, to the end. When he paused, she arose slowly and seemed preparing to go.

"Father, I have told you all, and you have enlightened me. Have no fear that I shall not be careful. He shall not get me under his heel; but, oh! what shall I do if William comes in search of me? Father, I could not live and know that he was here, without seeing him. He will find me out; he loved me so dearly—indeed, he did, and in spite of those miserable presents and that ball, I loved him better than my life, better than my own soul. God help me, I love him yet—so madly that I would give my life to see him but for one hour. But we are parted; through all the long, long life before me I shall never see him again."

"You never must see him again, Constance."

The poor woman uttered a moan, which went to her father's heart.

"I know it—I know it! This terrible man got me by a fraud, a foul, wicked lie! I was left to do it as a punishment for my lightness and horrible folly; but isn't it terrible that there can be no end—that I must live with this man, and yet hate him so?"

"The whole thing is terrible, Constance. Had you but told me—had you but told me at the time."

"Don't say that—don't reproach me! I am miserable enough without such words. I was crazy, worried out of myself with a wild wish to shine—see the world, and have it admire my beauty—for I am handsome, you know that. He told me beauty was a power; and that drove me on the rocks."

"Where I had been wrecked long before," said Hudson, gloomily.

"But you are saved; he cannot touch you; that deliverance, at least, is secured."

"Except as he strikes my child."

"But what can he do to me, father?"

"A great deal, if he finds out the secret you carry in your bosom."

"But what if he did? How would it harm me?"

"It might put you on trial for bigamy."

"Bigamy! What is that?"

"Marrying one person when you are legally bound to another."

"And is that the law? What will it do with me?"

"Send you to prison."

"Among common—that is, among wicked people?"

"The lowest and worst, Constance."

"And would they cut off my hair?—but you have not seen my hair. Come this way, where the light strikes it. Did you ever see any thing so strange? It was _his_ idea.

"He took me to the French woman and had it done. I almost liked him for it—everybody admired me so; that was the reason the clergyman did not remember me; the girl he married to—to poor William had brown hair. This is golden, look!"

Constance went close to the light, which sent gleams across her head, and kindled up a long, heavy curl, that fell across her bosom into a glow of golden beauty.

"Is it false? Has he had your hair cut off?" inquired Hudson, amazed by the change.

"Cut off? No; this is my own hair. Something the woman put on it and gave me to use, turned it to this. He was delighted with it, because it made my face lovely, he said; and then people never could trace his wife back to her poverty-stricken home—a place he wanted her to forget. I think that was his great motive."

"I see. I think he had a deeper motive."

"Oh, father! he has so many deep motives."

"I know it. But now we must think only of your safety. What brought you here so unexpectedly? I got your letter, just as I was making arrangements to come back here for good. It made me very uneasy; I feared that some trouble had driven you back to me."

"And so it did, a terrible trouble. Oh, father! it is only three days since I found out that William, my own, own husband, is alive; that the telegram and the paper were got up on purpose to deceive me. You remember little Rhoda came to the depot that day to bid me good-by? I was very miserable, and so near crazy that everything around me went in a whirl. She gave me a letter, I remember it now. I took it as people handle things in dreams, and put it in my pocket. The dress I had on that day was one he gave me—I mean William—I put it away thinking never to wear it again; but a yearning wish came upon me, to see my dear, old father, and I thought he would love me best, in some dress that I used to wear. I took it from-the old trunk, and found that letter in the pocket, his hand-writing, his dear, familiar words, a place on the name where he had pressed kisses that my lips were to take off. Oh, father, father! the words killed me; I felt my brain reel. I trembled all over like that poor man who was struck by the sun while at work last summer. I wanted to leap from the window, and run about the street blindly. I hated myself—and oh, heavens! how I hated that man.

"At first I was afraid of the letter, and held it away from me, shivering as if a rattlesnake had been curled up in my hand. Then it came upon me that William was alive, that he loved me yet, was longing for me out there in his wild home, and the paper became a thousand times more precious than diamonds; with every kiss a sting of hate came to my heart for the man who had cheated me. The agony was too keen, father. I fainted away, the letter fell from my hands, and was burned up, while I was upon the floor. I came to, all alone, and saw scraps of my precious letter, flickering on the ashes. I gathered them up, crying all the time, but they fell away from my hands in black ashes.

"At first I went wild, and resolved to charge the fraud upon him, tell him all the loathing I felt, and leave him forever. Then I thought—oh, heaven, have mercy!—where can I go? Not to him. He would never, never take me again. Not to you, father, to bring back the burdens and the miserable old life. Where could I go? What could I do?

"I heard him coming, and hate drove me mad; that blackened letter filled me with such loathing of the man that there was no quelling the fire in my heart by fear or prudence. I thought of it, but the wrong was too terrible for restraints. He came in smiling—oh! how I hate that smile! and asked if I was intending to sit up all night. I turned upon him like a tigress, told him that I knew of his fraud, and had proofs that William Sterling, the man I had loved, and should love to my dying breath, was still living. Father, he laughed, and attempted to pat me on the head, as if I had been an angry child.

"'I had been a pretty fool,' he said, 'to swallow his report so readily. In time I would learn to keep calm and investigate as he did. Of course, the whole thing was a lie; but he wanted me, and had got me, the sweetest creature that ever lived, and would tell ten thousand such falsehoods rather than lose me again.'

"This was the brazen answer he gave me. It silenced my rage, it turned my heart to iron in its slow, white heat. I said to him calmly, as if no agony seethed beneath the surface,

"'Did you love me so much, then?'

"'Love you?' and the tears sprang into his hard eyes. 'Yes, girl, better than my life—better than my soul—better, I almost think, than my gold!'

"I felt my eyes kindle with the terrible hate that rose up in my soul against him. He almost thought that he loved me better than his gold—knowing how he loved that, I could measure the power of his affection for me, and knew that it was great. Through that love I might torture him as he had crushed me.

"'And you love me?' I said.

"'Better than anything in the world.'

"He took me in his arms. Sick with loathing, I fainted. When I came to, he was bending over me, greatly troubled.

"'You are ill, keep quiet; our journey shall be put off,' he said.

"I sat up and looked around for my traveling dress, but he had taken it away, perhaps he guessed who gave it to me; for I never saw it again.

"'No, I wish to see my father,' I said.

"He knelt by me, and kissed my hands—that fainting-fit had frightened him, for the man loved me, I knew that well enough.

"'You are not very angry with me, Constance?'

"I smiled. Did he think my nature so shallow that a wrong like his could only make me angry?

"Deep feeling made the man dumb. He could not find words in which to measure the distress that crowded upon him. I saw that, and rejoiced over it; by the depths of love he bore me I could measure my own capacities for revenge.

"'You have won me by a fraud,' I said, 'and seem to glory in it; be it so, for henceforth I cease to recognise any tie between us.'

"He started up.

"'You will not leave me, Constance. It is not for that you wish to visit New York?'

"He was breathless and white; my words had terrified him.

"'No,' I said, 'that is impossible. You and I are tied together by a cruel bond. I will not leave you, but I will not even try to love you. My company shall prove your torment. I may be your slave but am no longer your wife.'

"He sat down, and I saw that his limbs trembled.

"'And in all these months you have not cared for me.'

"His look was pitiful. No wounded dog ever appealed to his master for help with such dumb pathos—but I have no compassion.

"'No, I have never cared for you, never shall.'

"'And all on account of this young man.'

"'All on account of this young man, whom I love deeply, hopelessly, as you love me.'

"He sprang to his feet, clenching and unclenching his hand, as if it held a knife.

"'Be careful! be careful!' he said, 'or the next report you get shall be true.'

"I felt the blood leave my lips. The man is capable of fulfilling a threat like that, father."

"I know it—I know it!"

Hudson was sitting in the easy-chair, terrified by the scenes his daughter was describing, terrified by the feelings she expressed. The chains had fallen from his own limbs to be fastened on his child. He saw how they galled her, how she wrenched at them in vain. He understood the imminent peril she was in, and trembled under the knowledge.

"If he had attempted to kill me, I should not have cared," Constance resumed; "but this threat turned my very heart cold."

"No wonder!" muttered Hudson. "The poor young fellow is in a lonely place, and the distance would be nothing to Church."

"But he shall not go; I will not leave him an hour," cried Constance, taking sudden alarm. "I thought myself so powerful, so sure; and in a moment he finds my weak place, and brings me to his feet again—for I know that William will come here in search of his wife. He will find me out, and terrible things may follow. Father! father! tell me what can be done to save him from all knowledge of the cruel step I have taken; that will be enough to kill him. I sometimes think if he could be kept away awhile, that this cough might grow worse, and carry me off. Then he need only know that his poor young wife was dead! I wish it were now; but people cannot die when they please; if they only could, I might go into my little bedroom there and lie down forever."

Hudson arose from his chair and took Constance by both her hands.

"My poor child," he said, very gently, "all this sorrow springs out of one great sin, perpetrated years ago by your unhappy father. Fool that I was! to think that the burden would fall on me alone."

"Don't talk this way, father. I do not complain; besides, it was not all that—only tell me what I can do."

"Give me time, Constance. I will think this matter over. Give me a little time, and I will find help for it in some way."

"I knew that my only course was to come here; the burden was too heavy, when I had no one to share it with. Good-night, father!"

"Good-night, my child! and God help you."

"Father, did my mother die of consumption?"

"Yes."

"Good-night, my dear old father!"

She threw her arms around him, kissed him with passionate energy, and ran down stairs.

Hudson stood till a carriage drove from the door, then he flung himself on his knees and cried out to God in the agony of his trouble.