The Fatal Glove Part 9

He came, and went into the presence of the wife from whom he had been so long divided, alone. No one knew what pa.s.sed between them. The interview was a lengthy one, and Mr. Trevlyn came forth from it, animated by a new-born hope. The wife of his youth was to be restored to him!

He made arrangements to take her home, but alas! they were never destined to be carried into effect. The secret fears of the physician were realized even sooner than he had expected. The approach of dissolution had dissolved the clouds so long hanging over the mind of Caroline Trevlyn. She lived only two days after the coming of her husband, and died in his arms, happy in the belief that she was going to her son.

Mr. Trevlyn returned home, a changed being. All his asperity of temper was gone; he was as gentle as a child. Whole days he would sit in the chair where his wife used to sit in the happy days of her young wifehood, speaking to no one, smiling sometimes to himself, as though he heard some inner whisperings which pleased him.

One day he roused himself seemingly, and sent for Mr. Speedwell, his attorney, and Dr. Drake, his family physician. With these gentlemen he was closeted the entire forenoon; and from that time forward, his hold on the world and its things seemed to relax.

One morning, when Margie went to take his gruel up to him--a duty she always performed herself--she found him sitting in his arm-chair, wide awake, but incapable of speech or motion.

The physician, hastily summoned, confirmed her worst fears. Mr. Trevlyn had been smitten with paralysis. He was in no immediate danger, perhaps; he might live for years, but was liable to drop away at any moment. It was simply a question of time.

Toward the close of the second day after his attack, the power of speech returned to Mr. Trevlyn.

"Margie!" he said, feebly, "Margie, come here." She flew to his side.

"I want you to send for Archer Trevlyn," he said with great difficulty.

She made a gesture of surprise.

"You think I am not quite right in my mind, Margie, that I should make that request. But I was never more sane than at this moment. My mind was never clearer, my mental sight never more correct. I want to see my grandson."

Margie despatched a servant with a brief note to Archer, informing him of his grandfather's desire, and then sat down to wait his coming.

It was a wild, stormy night in March; the boisterous wind beat against the old mansion, and like a suffering human thing, shrieked down the wide, old-fas.h.i.+oned chimneys.

In a lull of the storm there was a tap at the chamber door. Margie opened it, and stood face to face with Archer Trevlyn.

"Come in," she whispered, "he is asleep."

"No, I am not asleep," said the sick man; "has my grandson come?"

"He is here," said Margie. "I will leave him with you, dear guardian. Let him ring for me when you want me."

"Remain here, Margaret. I want you to be a witness to what pa.s.ses between us. I have no secrets from you, dear child, none whatever. Archer, come hither."

Trevlyn advanced, his face pale, his eyes moist with tears. For, having forgiven his grandparent, he had been growing to feel for the desolate old man a sort of filial tenderness, and strong in his fresh young manhood, it seemed terrible to him to see John Trevlyn lying there in his helplessness and feebleness, waiting for death.

"Come hither, Archer," said the tremulous voice, "and put your hand on mine. I cannot lift a finger to you, but I want to feel once more the touch of kindred flesh and blood. I have annoyed you and yours sadly my poor boy, but death sweeps away all enmities, and all shadows. I see so clearly now. O, if I had only seen before!"

Arch knelt by the side of his bed, holding the old man's withered hands in his. Margie stood a little apart, regarding the pair with moist eyes.

"Call me grandfather once, my son; I have never heard the name from the lips of my kindred."

"Grandfather! O grandfather!" cried the young man, "now that you will let me call you so, you must not die! You must live for me!"

"The decree has gone forth. There is from it no appeal. I am to die.

I have felt the certainty a long time. O, for one year of existence, to right the wrongs I have done! But they could not be righted. Alas!

if I had centuries of time at my command, I could not bring back to life the dear son my cruelty hurried out of the world, or his poor wife, whose fair name I could, in my revenge for her love of my son, have taken from her! O Hubert! Hubert! O my darling! dearer to me than my heart's blood--but so foully wronged!"

His frame shook with emotion, but no tears came to his eyes. His remorse was too deep and bitter for the surface sorrow of tears to relieve.

"Put it out of your mind, grandfather," said Arch, pressing his hand.

"Do not think of it, to let it trouble you more. They are all, I trust, in heaven. Let them rest."

"And you will tell me this, Archer? You, who hated me so! You, who swore a solemn oath to be revenged on me! Well, I do not blame you. I only wonder that your forbearance was so long-suffering. Once you would have rejoiced to see me suffer as I do now."

"I should, I say it to my shame. G.o.d forgive me for my wickedness! But for _her_"--looking at Margie--"I might have kept the sinful vow I made.

She saved me."

"Come here, Margie, and kiss me," said the old man, tenderly. "My dear children! my precious children, both of you! I bless you both--both of you together, do you hear? Once I cursed you, Archer--now I bless you!

If there is a G.o.d, and I do at last believe there is, he will forgive me that curse; for I have begged it of Him on my bended knees."

"He is merciful, dear guardian," said Margie, gently. "He never refuses the earnest pet.i.tion of the suffering soul."

"Archer, your grandmother died a little while ago. My cruelty to your father made her, for twenty long years, a maniac. But before her death, all delusion was swept away, and she bade me love and forgive our grandson--that she might tell your father and mother, when she met them in heaven, that at last all was well here below. I promised her, and since then my soul has been in peace. But I have longed to go to her--longed inexpressibly. She had been all around me, but so impalpable that when I put out my hands to touch her, they grasped only the air.

The hands of mortality may not reach after the hands which have put on immortality."

He lay quiet a moment, and then went on, brokenly.

"Archer, I wronged your parents bitterly, but I have repented it in dust and ashes. Repented it long ago, only I was too proud and stubborn to acknowledge it. Forgive me again, Archer, and kiss me before I die."

"I do forgive you, grandfather; I do forgive you with my whole heart."

He stooped, and left a kiss on the withered forehead.

"Margie," said the feeble voice, "pray for me, that peace may come."

She looked at Archer, hesitated a moment, then knelt by the bedside. He stood silent, and then, urged by some uncontrollable impulse, he knelt by her side.

The girlish voice, broken, but sweet as music, went up to Heaven in a pet.i.tion so fervent, so simple, that G.o.d heard and answered. The peace she asked for the dying man came.

Her pleading ceased. Mr. Trevlyn lay quiet, his countenance serene and hopeful. His lips moved, they bent over him, and caught the name of "Caroline."

Trevlyn's hand sought Margie's and she did not repulse him. They stood together silently, looking at the white face on the pillows.

"He is dead!" Archie said, softly: "G.o.d rest him!"

After the funeral of John Trevlyn, his last will and testament was read.

It created a great deal of surprise when it was known that all the vast possessions of the old man were bequeathed to his grandson--his sole relative--whom he had despised and denied almost to the day of his death.

In fact, not a half-dozen persons in the city were aware of the fact that there existed any tie of relations.h.i.+p between John Trevlyn, the miser, and Archer Trevlyn, the head clerk of Belgrade and Company.

Arch's good fortune did not change him a particle. He gave less time to business, it is true, but he spent it in hard study. His early education had been defective, and he was doing his best to remedy the lack.

Early in the autumn following the death of his grandfather, he went to Europe, and after the lapse of a year, returned again to New York. The second day after his arrival, he went out to Harrison Park. Margie had pa.s.sed the summer there, with an old friend of her mother for company, he was told, and would not come back to the city before December.

It was a cold, stormy night in September, when he knocked at the door of Miss Harrison's residence; but a cheery light shone from the window, and streamed out of the door which the servant held open.