to a woman pardons every error and hallows every crime. Then will
she contrast your love with your brother's : then will the scale fall from
her eyes ; then will she see what hitherto she has been blinded to, that
your brother, to yourself, is a satyr to Hyperion; then will she blush
and falter, and hide her cheek in your bosom." " Hold, hold ! " I cried :
" do with me what you will ; counsel, and I will act ! "

Here again tlie manuscript was defaced by a sudden burst
of execration upon Montreuil, followed hj ravings that grad-
ually blackened into the most gloomy and incoherent out-
pourings of madness; at length the history proceeded.

You wrote to ask me to sound our uncle on the subject of your in-
tended marriage. Montreuil drew up my answer; and I constrained
myself, despite my revived hatred to you, to transcribe its expressions
of affection. ]\Iy uncle wrote to you also; and we strengthened his dis-
like to the step you had proposed, by hints from myself disrespectful to
Tsora, and an anonymous communication dated from London and to
the same purport. All this while I knew not that Isora had been in
your house ; your answer to my letter seemed to imply that you would
not disobey my uncle. INIontreuil, who was still lurking in the neigh-
bourhood and who at night privately met or sought me, affected exulta-
tion at the incipient success of his advice. He pretended to receive
perpetual intelligence of your motions and conduct, and he informed me
now that Tsora had come to your house on hearing of your wound ; that
you had not (agreeably, ^lontreuil added to his view of your character)
taken advantage of her indiscretion ; that immediately on receiving your



420 DEVEREUX,

uncle's and my own letters, you bad separated yourself from her ; and,
that though you still visited her, it was apparently with a view of break-
ing off all connection by gradual and gentle steps ; at all events, you
had taken no measures towards marriage. " Now, then," said Mon-
treuil, " for one finishing stroke, and the prize is yours. Your uncle
cannot, you find, live long : could he but be persuaded to leave his
property to Gerald or to you, with only a trifling legacy (comparatively
speaking) to Morton, that worldly-minded and enterprising person
would be utterly prevented from marrying a penniless and unknown
foreigner. Nothing but his own high prospects, so utterly above the
necessity of fortune in a wife, can excuse such a measure now, even to
his own mind ; if therefore, we can effect this transfer of property, and
in the meanwhile prevent Morton from marrying, your rival is gone for-
ever, and with his brilliant advantages of wealth will also vanish his
merits in the eyes of Isora. Do not be startled at this thought : there
is no crime in it ; I, your confessor, your tutor, the servant of the
Church, am the last person to counsel, to hint even, at what is criminal ;
but the end sanctifies all means. By transferring this vast property,
you do not only insure your object, but you advance the great cause of
Kings, the Church, and of the Religion which presides over both.
Wealth, in Morton's possession, will be useless to this cause, perhaps
pernicious : in your hands or in Gerald's, it will be of inestimable ser-
vice. Wealth produced from the public should be applied to the uses
of the public, yea, even though a petty injury to one individual be the
price."

Thus, and in this manner, did Montreuil prepare my mind for the
step he meditated ; but I was not yet ripe for it. So inconsistent is
guilt, that I could commit murder, wrong, almost all villany that passion
dictated, but I was struck aghast by the thought of fraud. Montreuil
perceived that I was not yet wholly his, and his next plan was to remove
me from a spot where I might check his measures. He persuaded me
to travel for a few weeks. " On your return,'' said he, " consider Isora
yours ; meanwhile, let change of scene beguile suspense." I was passive
in his hands, and I went whither he directed.

Let me be brief here on the black fraud that ensued. Among the
other arts of Jean Desmarais, was that of copying exactly any hand-
writing. He was then in London, in your service : Montreuil sent for
him to come to the neighbourhood of Devereux Court. ^Meanwhile, the
priest had procured from the notary who had drawn up, and who now
possessed, the will of my unsuspecting uncle, that document. The
notary had been long known to, and sometimes politically employed by,
Montreuil, for he was half-brother to that Oswald, whom I have before
mentioned as the early comrade of the priest and Desmarais. This



DEVEREUX. 421

circumstance, it is probable, first induced Montreuil to contemplate the
plan of a substituted will. Before Desmarais arrived, in order to copy
those parts of the will which my uncle's humour had led him to write in
his own hand, you, alarmed by a letter from my uncle, came to the
Court, and on the same day Sir William (taken ill the preceding even-
ing) died. Between that day and the one on which the funeral occurred
the will was copied by Desmarais ; only Gerald's name was substituted
for yours, and the forty thousand pounds left to him — a sum equal to that
bestowed on myself — was cut down into a legacy of twenty thousand
pounds to you. Less than this Montreuil dared not insert as the be-
quest to you : and it is possible that the same regard to probabilities
prevented all mention of himself in the substituted will. This was all
the alteration made. My uncle's writing was copied exactly ; and, save
the departure from his apparent intentions in your favour, I believe not
a particle in the effected fraud was calculated to excite suspicion.
Immediately on the reading of the will, Montreuil repaired to me and
confessed what had taken place.

" Aubrey," he said, " I have done this for your sake partly ; but I
have had a much higher end in view than even your happiness or my
affectionate wishes to promote it. I live solely for one object, — the
aggrandizement of that holy order to which I belong ; the schemes of
that order are devoted only to the interests of Heaven, and by serving
them I serve Heaven itself. Aubrey, child of my adoption and of my
earthly hopes, those schemes require carnal instruments, and work, even
through Mammon, unto the goal of righteousness. What I have done ia
just before God and man. I have wrested a weapon from the hand of
an enemy, and placed it in the hand of an ally. I have not touched one
atom of this wealth, though, with the same ease with which I have trans-
ferred it from Morton to Gerald, I might have made my own private
fortune. I have not touched one atom of it; nor for you, whom I love
more than any living being, have I done what my heart dictated. I
might have caused the inheritance to pass to you. I have not done so.
Why? Because then I should have consulted a selfish desire at the
expense of the interests of mankind. Gerald is fitter to be the tool those
interests rec^uire than you are. Gerald I have made that tool. You,
too, I have spared the pangs which your conscience, so peculiarly, so
morbidly acute, might suffer at being selected as the instrument of a
seeming wrong to Morton. All required of you is silence. If your
wants ever ask more than your legacy, you have, as I have, a claim to
that wealth which your pleasure allows Gerald to possess. Meanwhile,
let us secure to you that treasure dearer to you than gold."

If Montreuil did not quite blind me by speeches of this nature, my
engrossing, absorbing passion required little to make it cling to any hope



422 DEVEREUX.

of its fruition. I assented, therefore, though not without many previous
struggles, to Montreuil's project, or rather to its concealment ; nay, I
wrote some time after, at his desire and his dictation, a letter to you,
stating feigned reasons for my uncle's alteration of former intentions,
and exonerating Gerald from all connivance in that alteration, or abet-
ment in the fraud you professed that it was your opeu belief had been
committed. This was due to Gerald ; for at that time, and for aught
I know, at the present, he was perfectly unconscious by what means he
had attained his fortune : he believed that your love for Isora had given
my uncle offence, and hence your disinheritance; and Montreuil took
effectual care to exasperate him against you, by dwelling on the malice
which your suspicions and your proceedings against him so glaringly
testified. Whether Montreuil really thought you would give over all
intention of marrying Isora upon your reverse of fortune, which is likely
enough from his estimate of your character ; or whether he only wished
by any means to obtain my acquiescence in a measure important to his
views, I know not, but he never left me, nor ever ceased to sustain my
fevered and unhallowed hopes, from the hour in which he first communi-
cated to me the fraudulent substitution of the will till we repaired to-
gether to London. This we did not do so long as he could detain me in
the country by assurances that I should ruin all by appearing before
Isora until you had entirely deserted her.

Morton, hitherto I have written as if my veins were filled with water,
instead of the raging fire that flows through them until it reaches my
brain, and there it stops, and eats away all things, — even memory, that
once seemed eternal ! Now I feel as I approach the consummation of
— ha — of what — ay, of what ? Brother, did you ever, when you thought
yourself quite alone, at night, not a breath stirring, — did you ever raise
your eyes, and see exactly opposite to you a devil? — a dread thing, that
moves not, speaks not, but glares upon you with a fixed, dead, unrelent-
ing eye ? — that thing is before me now and witnesses every word I write.
But it deters me not ! no, nor terrifies me. I have said that I would
fulfil this task, and I have nearly done it; though at times the gray
cavern yawned, and I saw its rugged walls stretch — stretch away, on
either side, until they reached hell ; and there I beheld — but I will not
tell you till we meet there I Now I am calm again : read on.

We could not discover Isora nor her home : perhaps the priest took
care that it should be so; for, at that time, what with his devilish whis-
pers and my own heart, I often scarcely knew what I was or what I
desired ; and I sat for hours and gazed upon the air, and it seemed so
soft and still that I longed to make an opening in my forehead that it
might enter there, and so cool and quiet the dull, throbbing, scorching
anguish that lay like molten lead in my brain ; at length we found the



DEVEREUX. 423

house. " To-morrow," said the Abbe, and he shed tears over me, — for
there were times when that hard man did feel, — " to-morrow, my child,
thou shalt see her ; but be soft and calm." To-morrow came ; but Mon-
treuil was pale, paler than I had ever seen him, and he gazed upon me
and said, '* Not to-day, Son, not to-day ; she has gone out, and w^ill not
return till nightfall." My brother, the evening came, and with it came
Desmarais ; he came in terror and alarm. " The villain Oswald," he
said, " has betrayed all ; he drew me aside and told me so. * Hark ye,
Jean,' he whispered, ' hark ye : your master has my brother's written
confession and the real will ; but I have provided for your safety, and
if he pleases it, for Montreuil's. The packet is not to be opened till the
seventh day ; fly before then. But I know," added Desmarais, " where
the packet is placed ; " and he took Montreuil aside, and for a while I
heard not what they said ; but I did overhear Desmarais at last, and I
learned that it was your bridal nicjht.

What felt I then ? The same tempestuous fury, — the same whirl-
wind and storm of heart that I had felt before, at the mere anticipation
of such an event ? No ; I felt a bright ray of joy flash through me.
Yes, joy; but it was that joy which a conqueror feels when he knows
his mortal foe is in his power and when he dooms that enemy to death.
" They shall perish, and on this night," I said inly. " I have sworn it;
I swore to Isora that the bridal couch should be stained with blood, and
I will keep the oath ! " I approached the pair ; they were discussing
the means for obtaining the packet. Montreuil urged Desmarais to
purloin it from the place where you had deposited it, and then to
abscond; but to this plan Desmarais was vehemently opposed. He
insisted that there would be no possible chance of his escape from a
search so scrutinizing as that which would necessarily ensue, and he evi-
dently resolved not alone to incur the danger of the theft. " The Count,"
said he, " saw that I was present when he put away the packet. Suspi-
cion will fall solely on me. Whither should I fly? No : I will serve you
with my talents, but not with my life." " Wretch," said ^lontreuil, " if
that packet is opened, thy life is already gone." " Yes," said Desmarais;
" but we may yet purloin the papers, and throw the guilt upon some
other quarter. What if I admit you when the Count is abroad ? What
if you steal the packet, and carry away other articles of more seeming
value ? What, too, if you wound me in the arm or the breast, and I cola
some terrible tale of robbers, and of my resistance, could we not manage
then to throw suspicion upon common housebreakers, — nay, could we not
throw it upon Oswald himself ? Let us silence that traitor by death, and
who shall contradict our tale ? No danger shall attend this plan. I will
<rive -^ou the key of the escritoire : the theft will not be the work of a
moment." Montreuil at first demurred to this proposal, but Desmarais



424 DEVEREUX.

was, I repeat, resolved not to incur the danger of the theft alone ; the
stake was great, and it was not in Montreuil's nature to shrink from peril,
when once it became necessary to confront it. " Be it so," he said, at last,
" thouo-h the scheme is full of difficulty and of danger : be it so. We have
not a day to lose. To-morrow the Count will place the document in some
place of greater safety, and unknown to us : the deed shall be done to-night.
Procure the key of the escritoire ; admit me this night ; I will steal dis-
guised into the chamber ; I will commit the act from which you, who alone
could commit it with safety, shrink. Instruct me exactly as to the place
where the articles you speak of are placed : I will abstract them also.
See that if the Count wake, he has no weapon at hand. Wound yourself,
as you say, in some place not dangerous to life, and to-morrow, or within
an hour after my escape, tell what tale you will, I will go, meanwhile, at
once to Oswald ; I will either bribe his silence — ay, and his immediate
absence from England — or he shall die. A death that secures our own
self-preservation is excusable in the reading of all law, divine or human."

I heard, but they deemed me insensible : they had already begun to
grow unheeding of my presence. Montreuil saw me, and his counte-
nance grew soft. " I know all," I said, as I caught his eye which looked
on me in pity, " I know all : they are married. Enough I — with my
hope ceases my love : care not for me."

Montreuil embraced and spoke to me in kindness and in praise. He
assured me that you had kept your wedding so close a secret that he
knew it not, nor did even Desmarais, till the evening before, — till after
he had proposed that I should visit Isora that very day. 1 know not, I
care not, whether he was sincere in this. In whatever way one line in
the dread scroll of his conduct be read, the scroll was written in guile,
and in blood was it sealed. I appeared not to notice Montreuil or his
accomplice any more. The latter left the house first. Montreuil stole
forth, as he thought, unobserved ; he was masked, and in complete dis-
guise. I, too, went forth. I hastened to a shop where such things were
jorocured ; I purchased a mask and cloak similar to the priest's. I had
heard Montreuil agree with Desmarais that the door of the house should
be left ajar, in order to give greater facility to the escape of the former ;
I repaired to the house in time to see Montreuil enter it. A strange,
sharp sort of cunning, which I had never known before, ran through
the dark confusion of my mind. I waited for a minute, till it was likely
that Montreuil had gained your chamber ; I then pushed open the door,
and ascended the stairs. I met no one ; the moonlight full around me,
and its rays seemed to me like ghosts, pale and shrouded, and gazing
upon me with wan and lustreless eyes. I know not how I found your
chamber, but it was the only one I entered. I stood in the same room
with Isora and yourself: ye lay in sleep; Isora's face — O God! I



DEVEREUX. 425

know no more — no more of that night of horror — save that I fled from
the house reeking with blood, — a murderer, — and the murderer of
Isora I

Then came a long, long dream. I was in a sea of blood, — blood-red
was the sky, and one still, solitary star that gleamed far away with a
sickly and wan light was the only spot, above and around, which was
not of the same intolerable dye. And I thought my eyelids were cut
off, as those of the Roman consul are said to have been, and 1 had noth-
ing to shield my eyes from that crimson light, and the rolling waters of
that unnatural sea. And the red air burned through my eyes into my
brain, and then that also, methought, became blood; and all memory, —
all images of memory, — all idea, — wore a material shape and a material
colour, and were blood too. Everything was unutterably silent, except
when my own shrieks rang over the shoreless ocean, as I drifted on.
At last I fixed my eyes — the eyes which I might never close — upon
that pale and single star ; and after I had gazed a little while, the star
seemed to change slowly — slowly — until it grew like the pale face of
that murdered girl, and then it vanished utterly, and all was blood !

This vision was sometimes broken, sometimes varied by others, but it
always returned ; and when at last I completely woke from it, I was in
Italy, in a convent. Montreuil had lost no time in removing me from
England. But once, shortly after my recovery, for I was mad for many
months, he visited me, and he saw what a wreck I had become. He
pitied mc ; and when I told him I longed above all things for liberty —
for the green earth and the fresh air, and a removal from that gloomy
abode — he opened the convent gates and blessed me, and bade me go
forth. " All I require of you," said he, " is a promise. If it be under-
stood that you live, you will be persecuted by inquiries and questions
•which will terminate in a conviction of your crime : let it therefore be
reported in England that you are dead. Consent to the report, and
promise never to quit Italy nor to see Morton Devereux."

I promised ; and that promise I have kept : but I promised not that
I would never reveal to you, in writing, the black tale which I have now
recorded. ]\Iay it reach you ! There is one in this vicinity who has
undertaken to bear it to you : he says he has known misery ; and when
he said so, his voice sounded in my ear like yours ; and I looked upon
him, and thought his features were cast somewhat in the same mould as
your own ; so I have trusted him. I have now told all. I have wrenched
the secret from my heart in agony and with fear. I have told all :
though things which I believe are fiends have started forth from the
grim walls around to forbid it ; though dark wings have swept by me,
and talons, as of a bird, have attempted to tear away the paper on
which I write ; though eyes, whose light was never drunk from earth,



426 DEVEREUX,

have glared on ine ; and mocking voices and horrible laughter have made
my flesh creep, and thrilled through the marrow of my bones, — I have
told all ; I have finished my last labour in this world, and I will now lie
down and die.

Aubrey Devereux.

Tlie paper dropped from my hands. Whatever I had felt
in reading it, I had not flinched once from the task. From
the first word even to the last, I had gone through the dreadful
tale, nor uttered a syllable, nor moved a limb. And now as I
rose, though I had found the being who to me had withered
this world into one impassable desert; though I had found
the unrelenting foe and the escaped murderer of Isora, the
object of the execration and vindictiveness of years, — not one
single throb of wrath, not one single sentiment of vengeance,
was in my breast. I passed at once to the bedside of my
brother: he was awake, but still and calm, — the calm and
stillness of exhausted nature. I knelt down quietly beside
him. I took his hand, and I shrank not from the touch,
though by that hand the only woman I ever loved had
perished.

" Look up, Aubrey ! " said I, struggling with tears which,
despite of my most earnest effort, came over me ; "' look up :
all is forgiven. Who on earth shall withhold pardon from a
crime which on earth has been so awfully punished? Look
up, Aubrey ; I am your brother, and I forgive you. You are
right : my childhood was harsh and fierce ; and had you feared
me less you might have confided in me, and you would not
have sinned and suffered as you have done now. Fear me no
longer. Look up, Aubrey, it is Morton who calls you. Why
do you not speak? My brother, my brother, — a word, a sin-
gle word, I implore you."

For one moment did Aubrey raise his eyes, one moment did
he meet mine. His lips quivered wildly: I heard the death-
rattle; he sank back, and his hand dropped from my clasp.
My words had snapped asunder the last chord of life. Merci-
ful Heaven! I thank Thee that those words were the words
of pardon !



DEVEREUX. 427



CHAPTER V.

IN WHICH THE HISTORY MAKES A GREAT STRIDE TOWARDS

THE FINAL CATASTROPHE. THE RETURN TO ENGLAND, AND

THE VISIT TO A DEVOTEE.

At night, and in the thrilling forms of the Catholic ritual,
was Aubrey Devereux consigned to earth. After that cere-
mony I could linger no longer in the vicinity of the hermit-
age. I took leave of the Abbot and richly endowed his convent
in return for the protection it had afforded to the anchorite,
and the Masses which had been said for his soul. Before I
left Anselmo, I questioned him if any friend to the Hermit
had ever, during his seclusion, held any communication with
the Abbot respecting him. Anselmo, after a little hesitation,
confessed that a man, a Frenchman, seemingly of no high
rank, had several times visited the convent, as if to scrutinize
the habits and life of the anchorite ; he had declared himself
commissioned by the Hermit's relations to make inquiry of
him from time to time; but he had given the Abbot no clew
to discover himself, though Anselmo had especially hinted at
the expediency of being acquainted with some quarter to
which he could direct any information of change in the Her-
mit's habits or health. This man had been last at the convent
about two months before the present date; but one of the
brothers declared that he had seen him in the vicinity of the
well on the very day on which the Hermit died. The descrip-
tion of this stranger was essentially different from that which
would have been given of Montreuil, but I imagined that if
not the Abbe himself, the stranger was one in his confidence
or his employ.

I now repaired to Eome, where I made the most extensive
though guarded inquiries after Montreuil, and at length I
learned that he was lying concealed, or rather unnoticed, in
England, under a disguised name; having, by friends or by



428 DEVEREUX.

money, obtained therein a tacit connivance, though not an
open pardon. No sooner did I learn this intelligence, than I
resolved forthwith to depart to that country. I crossed the
Alps, traversed France, and took ship at Calais for Dover.

Behold me, then, upon the swift seas bent upon a double
purpose, — reconciliation with a brother whom I had wronged,
and vengeance, — no, not vengeance, but justice against the
criminal I had discovered. No ! it was not revenge : it was
no infuriate, no unholy desire of inflicting punishment upon
a personal foe which possessed me; it was a steady, calm,
unwavering resolution, to obtain justice against the profound
and systematized guilt of a villain who had been the bane of
all who had come within his contact, that nerved my arm and
engrossed my heart. Bear witness, Heaven, I am not a vin-
dictive man! I have, it is true, been extreme in hatred as in
love; but I have ever had the power to control myself from
yielding to its impulse. When the full persuasion of Gerald's