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Up to this point Frank had read with an absorption which precluded the receiving of all outward impressions. But the secret reached, he drew a long breath and became suddenly conscious of a lugubrious sound breaking in upon the silence with a gloomy iteration which was anything but cheering.
The fog-horn was blowing out on Dog Island.
"I could have done without that accompaniment," thought he, glancing at the sheets still before him. "It gives me a sense of doom."
But the fog was thick on the coast and the horn kept on blowing.
Frank took up the remaining sheets.
"Life for me was now at an end indeed, and not for me only, but for Emma. I had not meant to involve her in my fate. I had forgotten her promise, forgotten . But when I saw her lying there I remembered, and a sharp pang pierced me for all my devouring rage. But I did not recall my words, I could not. I had uttered them with a full sense of what they meant to me, and the scorn with which they were received only deepened my purpose to keep the threat I had made. Can you understand such a disposition, and can you continue to love the possessor of it?
"My father, who was shocked at Emma's fall, knowing better than I did perhaps the real misery which lay behind it, cast me a look which did not tend to soften my obduracy, and advanced to pick her up. When he had carried her to her own room, I went proudly to mine, and such was the depth of my anger and the obstinate nature of my will that I really felt better able to face the future now that I had put myself into a position requiring pride and purpose to sustain it. But I did feel some relenting when I next saw Emma—such a change was visible in her manner. Meekness had taken the place of the merriment which once made the house to ring, and the eye which once sparkled now showed sadness and concern. I did not, however suspect she had given up anything but freedom, and though this was much, as I very soon began to find, I was not yet by any means so affected by her devotion, that I could do more than beg her to reconsider her own determination and break a promise from which I would be only too happy to release her.
"But the answer with which she always met my remonstrances was, 'Your fate shall be my fate. When it becomes unbearable to us both you will release me by releasing yourself.' Which answer always hardened me again, for I did not wish to be forced to think that the breaking up of our seclusion rested with me, or that anything but a relenting on my father's part could make any change in my conduct.
"Meanwhile that father maintained towards me an air of the utmost indifference. He worked at his experiments as usual, came and went through the sombre house, which was unrelieved now by Emma's once bright sallies and irrepressible laughter, and made no sign that he saw any difference in it or us. Aunt Lovell alone showed sympathy, and when she saw that sympathy accomplished nothing, tried first persuasion and then argument.
"But she had iron and steel to deal with and she soon ceased her gentle efforts, and as the time of her visit was drawing to a close, returned again to those gentle expressions of silent sympathy more natural to her nature; and so the first week passed.
"We had determined, Emma and I, that no one beside our four selves should ever know the secret of our strange behavior. Neighbors might guess, gossips might discuss it, but no one should ever know why we no longer showed ourselves in the street, went to any of the social gatherings of the place, or attended the church from which we had never before been absent. When, therefore, the ball came off and we were not seen there, many were the questions asked, and many were the surmises uttered, but we did not betray our secret, nor was it for some time after this that the people about us awoke to the fact that we no longer left our home.
"What happened when this fact was fully realized, I will not pause to relate, for matters of a much more serious nature press upon me and I must now speak of the bitter and terrible struggle which gradually awoke between my father and myself. He had as I have already related, shown nothing at first but indifference, but after the first week had passed he suddenly seemed to realize that I meant what I said. The result was a conflict between us from the effects of which I am still suffering.
"The first intimation I received of his determination to make me break my word came on a Sunday morning. He had been in his room dressing for church, and when he came out he rapped at my door and asked if I were ready to go with him.
"Naturally I flung wide the door and let him see my wrathful figure in its morning dress.
"'Can you ask,' I cried, 'when you yourself have made it impossible for me to enjoy anything outside of this house, even the breath of fresh air to which all are entitled?'
"He looked as if he would like to strike me, but he did not—only smiled. If I could have known all that lay under that smile, or been able to fathom from what I knew of my own stubborn nature, the terrible depths which its sarcasm barely suggested!
"'You would be a fool if you were not so wicked,' was all he said, and shuffled away to my sister's door.
"In a few minutes he came back.
"'Hermione,' he cried, 'put on your hat and come directly with me to church.'
"I simply looked at him.
"'Do you hear?' he exclaimed, stepping into the room and shutting the door after him. 'I have had enough of this nonsense, and to-day you go out with me to church or you never shall call me father again.'
"'Have you been a father to me?' I asked.
"He shook and quivered and was a picture of rage. I remembered as I looked at him, thinking, 'Behold the source of my own temper,' but I said nothing, and was in no other way affected by what I saw.
"'I have been such a father to you as your folly and blindness deserved,' he exclaimed. 'Should I continue to treat you according to your deserts, I would tell you what would lay you in shame at my feet. But I have promised to be silent, and silent will I be, not out of consideration for you, but because your punishment will some day be the greater. Will you give up this whim and go with me, and so let your sister go also, or will you not?'
"'I will not.'
"He showed a sudden change of manner. 'I will ask you the same question next Sunday,' said he, and left my presence with his old air of indifference and absorption. No subject disconnected with his work could rouse more than a temporary passion in him.
"He kept his word. Every Sunday morning he came on the same errand to my door, and every Sunday he went forth alone. During the week days he did not trouble me. Indeed, I do not know as he thought of me then, or even of Emma, who had always been dearer to him than I. He was engaged on some new experiment, some vital discovery that filled him with enthusiasm and made every moment passed out of his laboratory a trial and a loss to him. He ate that he might work, he slept that he might gather new strength and inspiration for the next day. If visitors came he refused to see them; the one visitor who could have assisted him at the retort and crucible had been denied the door, and any other was a hindrance. Our troubles, our cares, our schemes, or our attempts to supply the table and dress ourselves upon the few and fewer dollars he now allowed us, sank into insignificance before the one idea with which he was engrossed. I do not think he even knew when we ceased having meat for dinner. That Emma was growing pale and I desperate did not attract his attention as much as a speck of dust upon a favorite jar or a crack in one of his miserable tubes.
"That this deep absorption of his was real and not assumed was made evident to me the first Sunday morning he forgot to come to my door. It was a relief not to have to go through the usual formula, but it alarmed me too. I was afraid I was to be allowed to go my own way unhindered, and I was beginning to feel a softness towards Emma and a longing for the life of the world, which made me anxious for some excuse to break a resolution which was entailing upon me so much more suffering than I had anticipated. Indeed, I think if my father had persisted in his practice and come but two or three Sunday mornings more to my door, that my pride would have yielded at last, and my feet in spite of me have followed him out of a house that, since it had become my prison, had become more than ever hateful to me. But he stopped just as a crisis was taking place in my feelings, and my heart hardened again. Before it could experience again the softening effects of Emma's uncomplaining presence the news came that Dr. Sellick had left the town, and my motive for quitting the house was taken from me. Henceforth I felt no more life or hope or ambition than if I had been an automaton.
"This mood received one day a startling interruption. As I was sitting in my room with a book in my hand I felt too listless to read, the door opened, and my father stood before me. As it was weeks since he had appeared on a Sunday morning and months since he had showed himself there on a week day, I was startled, especially as his expression was more eager and impatient than I had ever seen it except when he was leaning over his laboratory table. Was his heart touched at last? Had he good news for me, or was he going to show his fatherhood once more by proffering me an invitation to go out with him in a way which my pride would allow me to accept? I rose in a state of trembling agitation, and made up my mind that if he spoke kindly I would break the hideous bonds which held me and follow him quickly into the street.
"But the words which fell from his lips drove every tender impulse back into my heart.
"'Have you any jewels, Hermione? I think I gave your mother some pearls when we were married. Have you them? I want them if you have.'
"The revulsion of feeling was too keen. Quivering with disappointment, I cried out, bitterly:
"'What to do? To give us bread? We have not had any too much of it lately.'
"He stared, but did not seem to take in my words.
"'Fetch the pearls,' he cried; 'I cannot afford to waste time like this; my experiments will suffer.'
"'And have you no eye, no heart,' I asked, 'for the sufferings of your daughters? With no motive but an arbitrary love of power, you robbed me of my happiness. Now you want my jewels; the one treasure I have left either in the way of value, or as a remembrance of the mother who loved me.'
"Of all this he heard but one word.
"'Are they valuable?' he asked. 'I had hoped so, but I did not know. Get them, child, get them. The discovery upon which my fame may rest will yet be made.'
"'Father, father, you want to sell them,' I screamed. 'My mother's jewels; my dead mother's jewels!'
"He looked at me; this protest had succeeded in entering his ears, and his eye, which had been simply eager, became all at once dangerous.
"'I do not care whose they were,' he hissed, 'so long as they are now mine. It is money I want, and money I will have, and if they will get it for me you had better be thankful. Otherwise I shall have to find some other way to raise it.'
"I was cowed; he did not say what other way, but I knew by his look I had better not drive him into it, so I went to the place where I kept these sacred relics, and taking them out, laid them in his trembling, outstretched hand.
"'Are these all?' he asked. And I wondered, for he had never shown the least shrewdness in any matter connected with money before.
"'All but a trivial little locket which Emma wears,' said I.
"'Is it worth much?'
"'Scarcely five dollars,' I returned.
"'Five dollars would buy the bit of platinum I want,' he muttered. But he did not ask for the locket, for I saw it on Emma's neck the next day.
"This was the beginning of a fresh struggle. My father begrudged us everything: the food we ate; the plain, almost homely, clothes we wore. He himself wellnigh starved his own body, and when in the midst of an experiment, his most valuable retort broke in his hand, you could have heard his shriek of dismay all over the house. The following Sunday he did not go to church; he no longer had a coat to wear; he had sold his only broadcloth suit to a wandering pedlar.
"Our next shock was the dismissal of the man who had always kept our garden in order. Doris would have been sent away also, but that father knew this would mean a disorder in the household which might entail interruption in his labors. He did not dare to leave himself to the tender mercies of his daughters. But her pay was stopped.
"Meanwhile his discovery delayed. It was money that he needed, he said, more money, much more money. He began to sell his books. In the midst of this a stranger came to visit him, and now the real story of my misery begins."