Chapter XIII: Under the Great Seal

Shortly after Prescott had returned to town, he was surprised to get a letter from Tressamer to this effect:

'I want you to give me Eleanor's address. I must see her
once more, as I have something of importance to say to her.'

Without an instant's hesitation he sat down and wrote an answer, in which he said:

'You have no further claim on my friendship, nor on Miss
Owen's. Fortunately, she is now under my protection, and in
a place where you are not likely to find her. Do not expect
for one moment that I shall do anything to bring her again
within the reach of your dangerous character. Only the
memory of our old kindness restrains me from writing in a
very much stronger way. I am sorry that I must ask you never
to hold communication with me again.'

Meanwhile Prescott had been doing his utmost to obtain some further light upon the mystery. But neither his inquiries nor those of the skilled detective whom he sent down at his own expense to investigate had resulted so far in finding the smallest clue to what had happened on the night of the first of June.

He had not seen Eleanor since they parted at Abertaff. He now received a letter from her, in which she fulfilled her promise of letting him know her address. But her letter was so despondent, and showed her to feel her situation so deeply, that Prescott was greatly shocked and grieved.

Two days after he was roused by seeing in the papers this announcement:

'THE PORTHSTONE MURDER: DISCOVERY OF THE LOST JEWELS.--Last
night, while dragging for fish along the shore of Newton
Bay, some fishermen brought to land in their net a chest
which had evidently been in the water some time. On being
opened, it was found to be full of valuable gems. The police
were at once communicated with, it being supposed that they
were those missing since the night of the murder. They sent
for Mr. Lewis, but as he was unable to speak to their
identity, Mr. Williams, of Abertaff, who had supplied
deceased with jewellery, was wired for, and he came down by
the next train and identified the contents of the chest as
the missing jewels. It will be remembered that a part of the
body was discovered at or about the same place.

'The importance of the discovery is in negativing the theory
that the crime was committed for the sake of robbery. But it
cannot be said that the mystery which has enshrouded this
murder from first to last is in any degree dispelled by this
new incident.'

While Prescott was still pondering over this discovery, and its bearing on the position of Eleanor and the facts in the case, he received a second letter from Tressamer.

His first impulse was to return it unopened, but he thought this might be doing an injustice, as the letter might contain some explanation, though hardly any excuse for his strange conduct. He therefore opened it.

The letter was a long one, taking up many sheets of paper. After the opening words, it went on:

'I know not what opinion you have formed of me and of my
conduct towards Eleanor Owen. Neither do I write in any hope
of excusing myself. I am past that now, and I shall soon be
past the reach of your anger and of hers.

'Let me begin at the beginning. You remember our childhood,
and you know, none better, the bonds between Eleanor and
myself. But you do not know that, as children, we were
united by those pledges which children sometimes make in
imitation of the serious engagements of later life. Of
course, as we grew older that passed more or less out of
sight, but the memory of it remained--at least, with me.

'I think it was you who first came between us, even at that
early age. I used to think she liked you better than me. But
why dwell on these things? Let me come on to a later time,
the time of her father's death, when I had passed into
manhood, and she was passing into young womanhood.

'That was my first opportunity of showing her my devotion,
and I did so. I paid off her father's debts, and by the time
I had settled everything, and handed over a little sum to
her, I had spent some hundreds of pounds of my own.

'Eleanor was grateful. Whether she had any warmer feeling
for me at that time, I cannot say. But I thought then that
she had, and that she returned my love--not in the degree
that I gave it; no, that could not be. Still, the pleasure
she took in my company, the trust with which she seemed to
lean on me, certainly filled me with the hope of some day
winning her.

'I went to work cautiously. I dreaded her being afraid of my
passion if I let her see its whole force. I never did. I
chained it up when I was with her, and played a mild and
cheerful part. I had my reward. At last, the Christmas after
her father's death, I ventured to speak. She heard me with
no delight, but yet, it seemed, with no great repugnance.
Time soon reconciled her to the idea, and before long, I had
the rapture of hearing her consent to be mine.

'Then it was that I betrayed myself. I let my mad passion
peep forth for an instant, and in that instant I was undone.
I saw I had terrified and shocked her. I would have given
worlds to recall that volcanic outburst, but it was too
late. Her feelings, mild hitherto, were soured by the
lightning of my intense love. From that hour she turned from
me with deeper and deeper aversion, and from that hour my
passion grew and grew upon me with the force of mania, till
it usurped the functions of reason, morality, prudence, and
every motive that guides and controls the life of man, and
left me with but one dominating, desperate idea, that I must
possess Eleanor Owen, or perish.

'I need not dwell on what happened during the next year.
How I saw her turning from me, with a sickening heart; how I
hungered for the tokens of even that mild friendship she had
shown me of old, and how even that was denied; how I brooded
upon my wrongs till I scarce knew whether I loved or hated
her, whether it was passion or revenge that inspired my mad
resolve to kill her rather than forfeit my right to her.

'You, yes, you, came between us again. God help me, I
sometimes think she must have loved you all along,
unconsciously. She asked me for your portrait; I refused.
She persisted. Then my wrath broke out in an ungovernable
transport of jealousy, and I showed--I must have
shown--something of the black stuff that was working in my
heart. I saw her lose colour. I saw her tremble, and I
rushed away to calm myself if I could.

'From that moment I could see that all friendly feeling was
at an end between us. She hated me and I hated her. But I
would not give her up. The very animosity between us seemed
only to feed my fierce desire to have her and make her my
slave. Am I writing wildly? Do you start back and shudder
at all this? Go on; you have not yet come to a glimmering of
the worst!

'I began to grow impatient for a final end to this state of
things, and I pressed her to name a day for the marriage.
She replied, putting me off. I went down by the next train
to have it out with her. And then at last we spoke freely.

'I accused her of having ceased to love me. She said she had
never really felt love for me, but only affection, and that
I had extinguished that by my own behaviour.

'I asked her what behaviour. She was silent. Then the
flood-gates of my wrath broke loose, and I put all her
weakness and wickedness before her. Ah, how I spoke! You may
think you have heard me eloquent. But you never have. I was
that afternoon as one inspired. I stood there on the bare
sands, alone with her, with the wind rushing past us, and
the sea roaring in front, and the wild seabirds wheeling and
screaming far away. Oh, it was a grand hour for me! The
frenzy mounted to my brain. I felt like a destroying angel.
I took her miserable girl's heart in my hands and rent it in
twain, and cast its miserable pretences to the earth. I
showed her myself, my manhood, my ardour, my passion, my
devotion. I terrified her, awed her, fascinated her. For a
time I think I had almost won upon her to yield.

'But my power forsook me. No sooner did I see the first
symptom of returning tenderness in her, or what I mistook
for it, than my hatred and rage departed; I was melted in a
moment; I flung myself in front of her on my face, and
implored her with sobs and tears to give me one little spark
of love. Fool that I was! Fool! Fool!

'She took advantage of my weakness. Doubtless she despised
me for it. She made me one of those mincing, lying answers
that women know how to make to us in our madness, and she
took courage at last to rise and leave me lying there--lying
there with my face upon the wet sand, and the wet rain
beating down upon my head, and the moaning tempest rising
over me in the heavens, like the awful eruption of maniacal
hatred that was working its way into my being within.

'I got up at night and came away. I suppose I still looked
and acted as if I were sane. At all events, the people I
passed said nothing to me. I packed up and left for Abertaff
that night.

'With me I took an object which I had picked up on the sands
where Eleanor had sat. It was the key of the house where she
lived. When I caught sight of it it seemed like an
inspiration. In an instant I resolved to make use of it to
execute my vengeance. Since I could not marry Eleanor, I
would kill her.

'But in the train a more subtle scheme presented itself. If
I killed her, she would be lost to me for ever, and I still
longed for her as madly as at any time. The new idea which I
had got was this. I would kill, not Eleanor, but her friend
and benefactress, and I would do it in such a way as to cast
the stain of guilt on Eleanor herself. You see the plot. Her
life was to be in no real danger. The body was to disappear,
and hence she was to escape a trial. But the horror and
condemnation of the whole world were to be turned upon her,
and then, in her hour of blackest misery, I was to come
forward and say: "I love you still. I believe in your
innocence. Come with me to a foreign land as my wife, and I
will make you happy."

'I need not tell you much more. I came back by road for
greater secrecy, and did not arrive in Porthstone till
eleven at night. I was not tired. Some superhuman power had
taken possession of me, and in all I did I felt as if I were
but a passive instrument in its hands.

'I approached the house at twelve, expecting all its inmates
to be asleep. Just as I was about to enter it the door
opened, and to my astonishment Eleanor herself emerged. I
gazed at her retreating figure with a sort of stupid
fascination for some time, and then recovered myself, and
went in. I had taken off my boots outside, and hence, I
suppose my footsteps sounded light as I went upstairs.

'Well, do you want more? Do you care to hear how I killed
her; how I stabbed her in her sleep, lowered her through the
window, and came down with the jewel-chest in my arms? I had
to mutilate the corpse; the weight would have been too great
for me at once. As it was, I made three journeys before I
had disposed of all, and thrown everything, including the
latchkey, into the sea.

'Then I walked back to Abertaff--twenty miles it was, and I
got there before ten the next morning. I had breakfast, and
was still walking the streets when the news came that the
murder was discovered.

'It overwhelmed me. I assure you, Charles Prescott, on the
oath of a dying man, that I knew not what I did, till that
moment. I was possessed as surely as any of the Galilean
sufferers of old. Madness, your modern science calls it. It
is all the same. I passed out of it into my ordinary state
with a terrible shock, and then I set about playing the part
I had looked forward to, of delivering Eleanor, and carrying
her off.

'But it was not to be. I had forgotten that she was not mad,
too; I had made no allowance for her, and now I found that
my protection, my confidence, was of no value to her, when
she had lost the good opinion of the world.

'Of the world, do I say? Verily, I believe it was you; I
believe you unconsciously thwarted me then, as before.

'I gave way to my frenzy again in secret. Again the demon
came back and resumed his sway. He has held me ever since.
He holds me now.

'Yet I can act my part. I deceive all. I just rang for my
clerk, and told him I should want him to carry this to your
chambers. Fool! He had no suspicion that he was never going
to hear me speak again.

'Good-bye. 'Twere folly to ask you to forgive. I do not wish
it. Yet, Eleanor--Eleanor----'

The letter ended abruptly at this point. The reader put on his hat and rushed round to Tressamer's chambers. It was too late. He found him sitting in a chair, stark and dead, with a dagger driven through his heart.

* * * * *

When a year had elapsed, a quiet wedding took place, in an out-of-the-way city church, between Charles Prescott and Eleanor Owen. The only dowry brought by the bride was her restored beauty, and a parchment under the Great Seal of England, pardoning her from all accusations that had been or might be raised against her on account of the tragedy which had so nearly involved her in a felon's doom.

THE END.

* * * * *

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:

Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise, every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and intent.