Kitabı oku: «Gabriel Conroy», sayfa 4
BOOK II.
AFTER FIVE YEARS
CHAPTER I.
ONE HORSE GULCH
It was a season of unexampled prosperity in One Horse Gulch. Even the despondent original locator, who, in a fit of depressed alcoholism, had given it that infelicitous title, would have admitted its injustice, but that he fell a victim to the "craftily qualified" cups of San Francisco long before the Gulch had become prosperous. "Hed Jim stuck to straight whisky he might hev got his pile outer the very ledge whar his cabin stood," said a local critic. But Jim did not; after taking a thousand dollars from his claim, he had flown to San Franciscos, where, gorgeously arrayed, he had flitted from champagne to cognac, and from gin to lager beer, until he brought his gilded and ephemeral existence to a close in the country hospital.
Howbeit, One Horse Gulch survived not only its godfather, but the baleful promise of its unhallowed christening. It had its Hotel and its Temperance House, its Express office, its saloons, its two squares of low wooden buildings in the main street, its clustering nests of cabins on the hill-sides, its freshly-hewn stumps, and its lately-cleared lots. Young in years, it still had its memories, experiences and antiquities. The first tent pitched by Jim White was still standing, the bullet holes were yet to be seen in the shutters of the Cachucha saloon, where the great fight took place between Boston Joe, Harry Worth, and Thompson of Angel's; from the upper loft of Watson's "Emporium" a beam still projected from which a year ago a noted citizen had been suspended, after an informal inquiry into the ownership of some mules that he was found possessed of. Near it was a small unpretentious square shed, where the famous caucus had met that had selected the delegates who chose the celebrated and Honourable Blank to represent California in the councils of the nation.
It was raining. Not in the usual direct, honest, perpendicular fashion of that mountain region, but only suggestively, and in a vague, uncertain sort of way, as if it might at any time prove to be fog or mist, and any money wagered upon it would be hazardous. It was raining as much from below as above, and the lower limbs of the loungers who gathered around the square box stove that stood in Briggs's warehouse, exhaled a cloud of steam. The loungers in Briggs's were those who from deficiency of taste or the requisite capital avoided the gambling and drinking saloons, and quietly appropriated biscuits from the convenient barrel of the generous Briggs, or filled their pipes from his open tobacco canisters, with the general suggestion in their manner that their company fully compensated for any waste of his material.
They had been smoking silently – a silence only broken by the occasional hiss of expectoration against the hot stove, when the door of a back room opened softly, and Gabriel Conroy entered.
"How is he gettin' on, Gabe?" asked one of the loungers.
"So, so," said Gabriel. "You'll want to shift those bandages again," he said, turning to Briggs, "afore the doctor comes. I'd come back in an hour, but I've got to drop in and see how Steve's gettin' on, and it's a matter of two miles from home."
"But he says he won't let anybody tech him but you," said Mr. Briggs.
"I know he says so," said Gabriel, soothingly; "but he'll get over that. That's what Stimson sed when he was took worse, but he got over that, and I never got to see him except in time to lay him out."
The justice of this was admitted even by Briggs, although evidently disappointed. Gabriel was walking to the door, when another voice from the stove stopped him.
"Oh, Gabe! you mind that emigrant family with the sick baby camped down the gulch! Well, the baby up and died last night."
"I want to know," said Gabriel, with thoughtful gravity.
"Yes, and that woman's in a heap of trouble. Couldn't you kinder drop in in passing and look after things?"
"I will," said Gabriel thoughtfully.
"I thought you'd like to know it, and I thought she'd like me to tell you," said the speaker, settling himself back again over the stove with the air of a man who had just fulfilled, at great personal sacrifice and labour, a work of supererogation.
"You're always thoughtful of other folks, Johnson," said Briggs, admiringly.
"Well, yes," said Johnson, with a modest serenity; "I allers allow that men in Californy ought to think of others besides themselves. A little keer and a little sabe on my part, and there's that family in the gulch made comfortable with Gabe around 'em."
Meanwhile this homely inciter of the unselfish virtues of One Horse Gulch had passed out into the rain and darkness. So conscientiously did he fulfil his various obligations, that it was nearly one o'clock before he reached his rude hut on the hill-side, a rough cabin of pine logs, so unpretentious and wild in exterior as to be but a slight improvement on nature. The vines clambered unrestrainedly over the bark-thatched roof; the birds occupied the crevices of the walls, the squirrel ate his acorns on the ridge pole without fear and without reproach.
Softly drawing the wooden peg that served as a bolt, Gabriel entered with that noiselessness and caution that were habitual to him. Lighting a candle by the embers of a dying fire, he carefully looked around him. The cabin was divided into two compartments by the aid of a canvas stretched between the walls, with a flap for the doorway. On a pine table lay several garments apparently belonging to a girl of seven or eight – a frock grievously rent and torn, a frayed petticoat of white flannel already patched with material taken from a red shirt, and a pair of stockings so excessively and sincerely darned, as to have lost nearly all of their original fabric in repeated bits of relief that covered almost the entire structure. Gabriel looked at these articles ruefully, and, slowly picking them up, examined each with the greatest gravity and concern. Then he took off his coat and boots, and having in this way settled himself into an easy dishabille, he took a box from the shelf, and proceeded to lay out thread and needles, when he was interrupted by a child's voice from behind the canvas screen.
"Is that you, Gabe?" – "Yes."
"Oh, Gabe, I got tired and went to bed."
"I see you did," said Gabriel drily, picking up a needle and thread that had apparently been abandoned after a slight excursion into the neighbourhood of a rent and left hopelessly sticking in the petticoat.
"Yes, Gabe; they're so awfully old!"
"Old!" repeated Gabe, reproachfully. "Old! Lettin' on a little wear and tear, they're as good as they ever were. That petticoat is stronger," said Gabriel, holding up the garment and eyeing the patches with a slight glow of artistic pride – "stronger, Olly, than the first day you put it on."
"But that's five years ago, Gabe."
"Well," said Gabriel, turning round and addressing himself impatiently to the screen, "wot if it is?"
"And I've growed."
"Growed!" said Gabriel, scornfully. "And haven't I let out the tucks, and didn't I put three fingers of the best sacking around the waist? You'll just ruin me in clothes."
Olly laughed from behind the screen. Finding, however, no response from the grim worker, presently there appeared a curly head at the flap, and then a slim little girl, in the scantiest of nightgowns, ran, and began to nestle at his side, and to endeavour to enwrap herself in his waistcoat.
"Oh, go 'way!" said Gabriel, with a severe voice and the most shameless signs of relenting in his face. "Go away! What do you care? Here I might slave myself to death to dress you in silks and satins, and you'd dip into the first ditch or waltz through the first underbrush that you kem across. You haven't got no sabe in dress, Olly. It ain't ten days ago as I iron-bound and copper-fastened that dress, so to speak, and look at it now! Olly, look at it now!" And he held it up indignantly before the maiden.
Olly placed the top of her head against the breast of her brother as a point d'appui, and began to revolve around him as if she wished to bore a way into his inmost feelings.
"Oh, you ain't mad, Gabe!" she said, leaping first over one knee and then over the other without lifting her head. "You ain't mad!"
Gabriel did not deign to reply, but continued mending the frayed petticoat in dignified silence.
"Who did you see down town?" said Olly, not at all rebuffed.
"No one," said Gabriel, shortly.
"You did! You smell of linnyments and peppermint," said Olly, with a positive shake of the head. "You've been to Briggs's and the new family up the gulch."
"Yes," said Gabriel, "that Mexican's legs is better, but the baby's dead. Jest remind me, to-morrow, to look through mother's things for suthin' for that poor woman."
"Gabe, do you know what Mrs. Markle says of you?" said Olly, suddenly raising her head.
"No," replied Gabriel, with an affectation of indifference that, like all his affectations, was a perfect failure.
"She says," said Olly, "that you want to be looked after yourself more'n all these people. She says you're just throwing yourself away on other folks. She says I ought to have a woman to look after me."
Gabriel stopped his work, laid down the petticoat, and taking the curly head of Olly between his knees, with one hand beneath her chin and the other on the top of her head, turned her mischievous face towards his. "Olly," he said, seriously, "when I got you outer the snow at Starvation Camp; when I toted you on my back for miles till we got into the valley; when we lay by thar for two weeks, and me a felling trees and picking up provisions here and thar, in the wood or the river, wharever thar was bird or fish, I reckon you got along as well – I won't say better – ez if you had a woman to look arter you. When at last we kem here to this camp, and I built this yer house, I don't think any woman could hev done better. If they could, I'm wrong, and Mrs. Markle's right."
Olly began to be uncomfortable. Then the quick instincts of her sex came to her relief, and she archly assumed the aggressive.
"I think Mrs. Markle likes you, Gabe."
Gabriel looked down at the little figure in alarm. There are some subjects whereof the youngest of womankind has an instinctive knowledge that makes the wisest of us tremble.
"Go to bed, Olly," said the cowardly Gabriel.
But Olly wanted to sit up, so she changed the subject.
"The Mexican you're tendin' isn't a Mexican, he's a Chileno; Mrs. Markle says so."
"Maybe; it's all the same. I call him a Mexican. He talks too straight, anyway," said Gabriel, indifferently.
"Did he ask you any more questions about – about old times?" continued the girl.
"Yes; he wanted to know everything that happened in Starvation Camp. He was rek'larly took with poor Gracie; asked a heap o' questions about her – how she acted, and seemed to feel as bad as we did about never hearing anything from her. I never met a man, Olly, afore, as seemed to take such an interest in other folks' sorrers as he did. You'd have tho't he'd been one of the party. And he made me tell him all about Dr. Devarges."
"And Philip?" queried Olly.
"No," said Gabriel, somewhat curtly.
"Gabriel," said Olly, sullenly, "I wish you didn't talk so to people about those days."
"Why?" asked Gabriel, wonderingly.
"Because it ain't good to talk about. Gabriel dear," she continued, with a slight quivering of the upper lip, "sometimes I think the people round yer look upon us sorter queer. That little boy that came here with the emigrant family wouldn't play with me, and Mrs. Markle's little girl said that we did dreadful things up there in the snow. He said I was a cannon-ball."
"A what?" asked Gabriel.
"A cannon-ball! He said that you and I" —
"Hush," interrupted Gabriel, sternly, as an angry flush came into his sunburnt cheek, "I'll jest bust that boy if I see him round yer agin."
"But, Gabriel," persisted Olly, "nobody" —
"Will you go to bed, Olly, and not catch your death yer on this cold floor asking ornery and perfectly ridickulus questions?" said Gabriel, briskly, lifting her to her feet. "Thet Markle girl ain't got no sense anyway – she's allers leading you round in ditches, ruinin' your best clothes, and keepin' me up half the night mendin' on 'em."
Thus admonished, Olly retreated behind the canvas screen, and Gabriel resumed his needle and thread. But the thread became entangled, and was often snappishly broken, and Gabriel sewed imaginary, vindictive stitches in the imaginary calves of an imaginary youthful emigrant, until Olly's voice again broke the silence.
"Oh, Gabe!"
"Yes," said Gabriel, putting down his work despairingly.
"Do you think – that Philip – ate Grace?"
Gabriel rose swiftly, and disappeared behind the screen. As he did so, the door softly opened, and a man stepped into the cabin. The new-comer cast a rapid glance around the dimly-lighted room, and then remained motionless in the doorway. From behind the screen came the sound of voices. The stranger hesitated, and then uttered a slight cough.
In an instant Gabriel reappeared. The look of angry concern at the intrusion turned to one of absolute stupefaction as he examined the stranger more attentively. The new-comer smiled faintly, yet politely, and then, with a slight halt in his step, moved towards a chair, into which he dropped with a deprecating gesture.
"I shall sit – and you shall pardon me. You have surprise! Yes? Five, six hour ago you leave me very sick on a bed – where you are so kind – so good. Yes? Ah? You see me here now, and you say crazy! Mad!"
He raised his right hand with the fingers upward, twirled them to signify Gabriel's supposed idea of a whirling brain, and smiled again.
"Listen. Comes to me an hour ago a message most important. Most necessary it is I go to-night – now, to Marysville. You see. Yes? I rise and dress myself. Ha! I have great strength for the effort. I am better. But I say to myself, 'Victor, you shall first pay your respects to the good Pike who have been so kind, so good. You shall press the hand of the noble grand miner who have recover you. Bueno, I am here!"
He extended a thin, nervous brown hand, and for the first time since his entrance concentrated his keen black eyes, which had roved over the apartment and taken in its minutest details, upon his host. Gabriel, lost in bewilderment, could only gasp – "But you ain't well enough, you know. You can't walk yet. You'll kill yourself!"
The stranger smiled.
"Yes? – you think – you think? Look now! Waits me, outside, the horse of the livery-stable man. How many miles you think to the stage town? Fifteen." (He emphasized them with his five uplifted fingers.) "It is nothing. Two hour comes the stage and I am there. Ha!"
Even as he spoke, with a gesture, as if brushing away all difficulties, his keen eyes were resting upon a little shelf above the chimney, whereon stood an old-fashioned daguerreotype case open. He rose, and, with a slight halting step and an expression of pain, limped across the room to the shelf, and took up the daguerreotype.
"What have we?" he asked.
"It is Gracie," said Gabriel, brightening up. "Taken the day we started from St. Jo."
"How long?"
"Six years ago. She was fourteen then," said Gabriel, taking the case in his hand and brushing the glass fondly with his palm. "Thar warn't no puttier gal in all Missouri," he added, with fraternal pride, looking down upon the picture with moistened eyes. "Eh – what did you say?"
The stranger had uttered a few words hastily in a foreign tongue. But they were apparently complimentary, for when Gabriel looked up at him with an inquiring glance, he was smiling and saying, "Beautiful! Angelic! Very pretty!" with eyes still fixed upon the picture. "And it is like – ah, I see the brother's face, too," he said, gravely, comparing Gabriel's face with the picture. Gabriel looked pleased. Any nature less simple than his would have detected the polite fiction. In the square, honest face of the brother there was not the faintest suggestion of the delicate, girlish, poetical oval before him.
"It is precious," said the stranger: "and it is all, ha?"
"All?" echoed Gabriel, inquiringly.
"You have nothing more?"
"No."
"A line of her writing, a letter, her private papers would be a treasure, eh?"
"She left nothing," said Gabriel, simply, "but her clothes. You know she put on a boy's suit – Johnny's clothes – when she left. Thet's how it allus puzzles me thet they knew who she was, when they came across the poor child dead."
The stranger did not speak, and Gabriel went on —
"It was nigh on a month afore I got back. When I did, the snow was gone, and there warn't no track or trace of anybody. Then I heerd the story I told ye – thet a relief party had found 'em all dead – and thet among the dead was Grace. How that poor child ever got back thar alone (for thar warn't no trace or mention of the man she went away with) is what gets me. And that there's my trouble, Mr. Ramirez! To think of thet pooty darlin' climbing back to the old nest, and finding no one thar! To think of her coming back, as she allowed, to Olly and me, and findin' all her own blood gone, is suthin' thet, at times, drives me almost mad. She didn't die of starvation; she didn't die of cold. Her heart was broke, Mr. Ramirez; her little heart was broke!"
The stranger looked at him curiously, but did not speak. After a moment's pause, he lifted his bowed head from his hands, wiped his eyes with Olly's flannel petticoat, and went on —
"For more than a year I tried to get sight o' that report. Then I tried to find the Mission or the Presidio that the relief party started from, and may be see some of that party. But then kem the gold excitement, and the Americans took possession of the Missions and Presidios, and when I got to San – San – San – "
"Geronimo," interrupted Ramirez, hastily.
"Did I tell?" asked Gabriel, simply; "I don't remember that."
Ramirez showed all his teeth in quick assent, and motioned him with his finger to go on.
"When I got to San Geronimo, there was nobody, and no records left. Then I put a notiss in the San Francisco paper for Philip Ashley – that was the man as helped her away – to communicate with me. But thar weren't no answer."
Ramirez rose.
"You are not rich, friend Gabriel?"
"No," said Gabriel.
"But you expect – ah – you expect?"
"Well, I reckon some day to make a strike like the rest."
"Anywhere, my friend?"
"Anywhere," repeated Gabriel, smiling.
"Adios," said the stranger, going to the door.
"Adios," repeated Gabriel. "Must you go to-night? What's your hurry? You're sure you feel better now?"
"Better?" answered Ramirez, with a singular smile. "Better! Look, I am so strong!"
He stretched out his arms, and expanded his chest, and walked erect to the door.
"You have cured my rheumatism, friend Gabriel. Good night."
The door closed behind him. In another moment he was in the saddle, and speeding so swiftly that, in spite of mud and darkness, in two hours he had reached the mining town where the Wingdam and Sacramento stage-coach changed horses. The next morning, while Olly and Gabriel were eating breakfast, Mr. Victor Ramirez stepped briskly from the stage that drew up at Marysville Hotel, and entered the hotel office. As the clerk looked up inquiringly, Mr. Ramirez handed him a card —
"Send that, if you please, to Miss Grace Conroy."
CHAPTER II.
MADAME DEVARGES
Mr. Ramirez followed the porter upstairs, and along a narrow passage, until he reached a larger hall. Here the porter indicated that he should wait until he returned, and then disappeared down the darkened vista of another passage. Mr. Ramirez had ample time to observe the freshness of the boarded partitions and scant details of the interior of the International Hotel; he even had time to attempt to grapple the foreign mystery of the notice conspicuously on the wall, "Gentlemen are requested not to sleep on the stairs," before his companion reappeared. Beckoning to Mr. Ramirez, with an air of surly suspicion, the porter led him along the darkened passage until he paused before a door at its farther extremity and knocked gently. Slight as was the knock, it had the mysterious effect of causing all the other doors along the passage to open, and a masculine head to appear at each opening. Mr. Ramirez's brow darkened quickly. He was sufficiently conversant with the conditions of that early civilization to know that, as a visitor to a lady, he was the object of every man's curious envy and aggressive suspicion. There was the sound of light footsteps within, and the door opened. The porter lingered long enough to be able to decide upon the character and propriety of the greeting, and then sullenly retired. The door closed, and Mr. Ramirez found himself face to face with the occupant of the room. She was a small, slight blonde, who, when the smile that had lit her mouth and eyes as she opened the door faded suddenly as she closed it, might have passed for a plain, indistinctive woman. But for a certain dangerous submissiveness of manner – which I here humbly submit is always to be feared in an all-powerful sex – and an address that was rather more deprecatory than occasion called for, she would hardly have awakened the admiration of our sex or the fears of her own.
As Ramirez advanced, with both hands impulsively extended, she drew back shyly, and, pointing to the ceiling and walls, said quietly, "Cloth and paper!"
Ramirez's dark face grew darker. There was a long pause. Suddenly the lady lightened the shadow that seemed to have fallen upon their interview with both her teeth and eyes, and, pointing to a chair, said —
"Sit down, Victor, and tell me why you have returned so soon."
Victor sat sullenly down. The lady looked all deprecation and submissiveness, but said nothing.
Ramirez would, in his sullenness, have imitated her, but his natural impulsiveness was too strong, and he broke out —
"Look! From the book of the hotel it is better you should erase the name of Grace Conroy, and put down your own!"
"And why, Victor?"
"She asks why," said Victor, appealing to the ceiling. "My God! Because one hundred miles from here live the brother and sister of Grace Conroy. I have seen him!"
"Well."
"Well," echoed Victor. "Is it well? Listen. You shall hear if it is well."
He drew his chair beside her, and went on in a low, earnest voice —
"I have at last located the mine. I followed the deseno– the description of the spot, and all its surroundings – which was in the paper that I – I – found. Good! It is true! – ah, you begin to be interested! – it is true, all true of the locality. See! Of the spot I do not know. Of the mine it has not yet been discovered!
"It is called 'One Horse Gulch;' why – who knows? It is a rich mining camp. All around are valuable claims; but the mine on the top of the little hill is unknown, unclaimed! For why? You understand, it promises not as much as the other claims on the surface. It is the same – all as described here."
He took from his pocket an envelope, and drew out a folded paper (the papers given to Grace Conroy by Dr. Devarges), and pointed to the map.
"The description here leads me to the head waters of the American River. I followed the range of foot-hills, for I know every foot, every step, and I came one day last week to 'One Horse Gulch.' See, it is the gulch described here – all the same."
He held the paper before her, and her thin, long fingers closed like a bird's claw over its corners.
"It is necessary I should stay there four or five days to inquire. And yet how? I am a stranger, a foreigner; the miners have suspicion of all such, and to me they do not talk easily. But I hear of one Gabriel Conroy, a good man, very kind with the sick. Good! I have sickness – very sudden, very strong! My rheumatism takes me here." He pointed to his knee. "I am helpless as a child. I have to be taken care of at the house of Mr. Briggs. Comes to me here Gabriel Conroy, sits by me, talks to me, tells me everything. He brings to me his little sister. I go to his cabin on the hill. I see the picture of his sister. Good. You understand? It is all over!"
"Why?"
"Eh? She asks why, this woman," said Victor, appealing to the ceiling. "Is it more you ask? Then listen. The house of Gabriel Conroy is upon the land, the very land, you understand? of the grant made by the Governor to Dr. Devarges. He is this Gabriel, look! he is in possession!"
"How? Does he know of the mine?"
"No! It is accident – what you call Fate!"
She walked to the window, and stood for a few moments looking out upon the falling rain. The face that looked out was so old, so haggard, so hard and set in its outlines, that one of the loungers on the side-walk, glancing at the window to catch a glimpse of the pretty French stranger, did not recognise her. Possibly the incident recalled her to herself, for she presently turned with a smile of ineffable sweetness, and returning to the side of Ramirez, said, in the gentlest of voices, "Then you abandon me?"
Victor did not dare to meet her eyes. He looked straight before him, shrugged his shoulders, and said – "It is Fate!"
She clasped her thin fingers lightly before her, and, standing in front of her companion, so as to be level with his eyes, said – "You have a good memory, Victor."
He did not reply.
"Let me assist it. It is a year ago that I received a letter in Berlin, signed by a Mr. Peter Dumphy, of San Francisco, saying that he was in possession of important papers regarding property of my late husband, Dr. Paul Devarges, and asking me to communicate with him. I did not answer his letter; I came. It is not my way to deliberate or hesitate – perhaps a wise man would. I am only a poor, weak woman, so I came. I know it was all wrong. You sharp, bold, cautious men would have written first. Well, I came!"
Victor winced slightly, but did not speak.
"I saw Mr. Dumphy in San Francisco. He showed me some papers that he said he had found in a place of deposit which Dr. Devarges had evidently wished preserved. One was a record of a Spanish grant, others indicated some valuable discoveries. He referred me to the Mission and Presidio of San Ysabel that had sent out the relief party for further information. He was a trader – a mere man of business – it was a question of money with him; he agreed to assist me for a percentage! Is it not so?"
Victor raised his dark eyes to hers, and nodded.
"I came to the Mission. I saw you– the Secretary of the former Comandante – the only one left who remembered the expedition, and the custodian of the Presidio records. You showed me the only copy of the report; you, too, would have been cold and business-like, until I told you my story. You seemed interested. You told me about the young girl, this mysterious Grace Conroy, whose name appeared among the dead, who you said you thought was an impostor! Did you not?"
Victor nodded.
"You told me of her agony on reading the report! Of her fainting, of the discovery of her condition by the women, of the Comandante's pity, of her mysterious disappearance, of the Comandante's reticence, of your own suspicions of the birth of a child! Did you not, Victor?"
He endeavoured to take her hand. Without altering her gentle manner, she withdrew her hand quietly, and went on —
"And then you told me of your finding that paper on the floor where they loosened her dress – the paper you now hold in your hand. You told me of your reasons for concealing and withholding it. And then, Victor, you proposed to me a plan to secure my own again – to personate this girl – to out-imposture this imposture. You did not ask me for a percentage! You did not seek to make money out of my needs; you asked only for my love! Well, well! perhaps I was a fool, a weak woman. It was a tempting bribe; possibly I listened more to the promptings of my heart than my interest. I promised you my hand and my fortune when we succeeded. You come to me now, and ask to be relieved of that obligation. No! no! you have said enough."
The now frightened man had seized her by the hand, and thrown himself on his knees before her in passionate contrition; but, with a powerful effort, she had wrested herself free.
"No, no!" she continued, in the same deprecatory voice. "Go to this brother, whom the chief end of your labours seems to have been to discover. Go to him now. Restore to him the paper you hold in your hand. Say that you stole it from his sister, whom you suspected to have been an impostor, and that you knew to be the mother of an illegitimate child! Say that in doing this, you took the last hope from the wronged and cast-off wife who came thousands of miles to claim something from the man who should have supported her. Say this, and that brother, if he is the good and kind man you represent him to be, he will rise up and bless you! You have only to tell him further, that this paper cannot be of any use to him, as this property legally belongs to his sister's child, if living. You have only to hand him the report which declares both of his sisters to be dead, and leaves his own identity in doubt, to show him what a blessing has fallen upon him."
"Forgive me," gasped Victor, with a painful blending of shame and awesome admiration of the woman before him; "forgive me, Julie! I am a coward! a slave! an ingrate! I will do anything, Julie; anything you say."
Madame Devarges was too sagacious to press her victory further; perhaps she was too cautious to exasperate the already incautiously demonstrative man before her. She said "Hush," and permitted him at the same time, as if unconsciously, to draw her beside him.
"Listen, Victor. What have you to fear from this man?" she asked, after a pause. "What would his evidence weigh against me, when he is in unlawful possession of my property, my legally declared properly, if I choose to deny his relationship? Who will identity him as Gabriel Conroy, when his only surviving relative dare not come forward to recognise him; when, if she did, you could swear that she came to you under another name? What would this brother's self-interested evidence amount to opposed to yours, that I was the Grace Conroy who came to the Mission, to the proof of my identity offered by one of the survivors, Peter Dumphy?"
