Agnes, or, Beauty and Pleasure — page 362: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

354 Gustavus accordingly opened the letter: but scarcely had his eyes glanced over the first line or two of its contents, when the colour forsook his cheeks—he trembled violently—and Mr. Hargrave saw thet something was the matter. Gustavus, now giving vent to ejaculations of rage mingled with moans of anguish and despair, handed the letter to the misanthrope, who found that it was to the following purport :— “Acain, and perhaps for the last time, dol write to you, Gustavus. Why did my former letter remain unanswered? Surely it must have reached you! For heaven’s sake transmit me that document which I entrusted to you! Oh, delay not, Gustavus! for you must be distressed to learn that you—and you only—have for months past kept our poor grandfather in prison! Oh, Gustavus! surely this appeal will suffice! Send the deed!—you cannot possibly have destroyed 1 “ WINIFRED.” “Ob, Mr. Hargrave!” exclaimed Gustavus, clasping his hands together; “ am I not accursed in this wife of mine? It is she who has done it!” “Tt certainly looks as if it were so,” said the misanthrope: “but still you must not judge too hastily. There are such things as accidents—mis- carriaces of parcels 3 “Ob, my poor grandfather! Ob, Winifred! Winifred!” cried Gustavus, wringing his hands: “JT have proved a curse unto ve both! Mr. Har- grave, await me here for a few minutes !” Having thus spoken, the half-distracted youth darted away and rushed into the house. He sought Emily in the parlour and drawing-room: she was notthere, He rushed up-stairs—he burst into the chamber—but still he perceived her not. As he was turning to leave the room and pro- secute his search elsewhere, his eye fell upon a large trunk which he now recollected that his wife invariably kept locked, and of which she retained the key. Without a moment’s hesitation he seized upon some implement that was close at hand—he broke open the box—he began to toss out its con- tents. Scarcely however had he any hope that the deed would there be found; and he was just on the point of desisting from his occupation, when behold! at the very bottom of that trunk he caught a glimpse of something which evoked an ejaculation from his lips. He snatched up the object,—yes, it was the deed! He remembered well that parcel, carefully sealed and tied round with a piece of ribbon!—for it was precisely in the same state as when Agnes Evelyn had laid it upon the table in Winifred’s little sitting-room. And now it was acry followed by a yell which burst from the lips of Gustavus—a cry uf joy to find that the document had not been destroyed nor lost—but a yell of rage to think that it was his own wife who had proved the means of keep- ing his grandsire in prison for months past, and of filling the heart of Winifred with so much bitter affiction. Then, with the packet in his hand, just es he had snatched it out of the box, did he run down the steirs—forth from the house—and back again to the spot where Mr, Hargrave was await- ing him. AGNES; OR, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE. “IT have found it! I have found it!” eried the excited youth holding up the packet. “Oh, Mr. Hargrave! to think that my own wife 4 “Now be not excited, Gustavus,” interrupted the misanthrope. “ You are the child of impulses ; and for this very reason is it that you are wavering and vacillating, and that you never have a will of your own! Let us look at the packet. Ah! it is tied and sealed " “Yes,” exclaimed Gustavus,—“just as Wini- fred gave it me about five months ago! Oh, those five months ——my poor grandfather 7” “Well, well—after all,” said the misanthrope, “they cannot matter so very much to one who has been a quarter of a century in prison. But yet not for a single day longer than was necessary ought he to have been detained !” “No—not fora single day !—and Emily is the cause of it all! But at least let us open the packet—though perhaps there is no need, and I had better hasten off at once and either send it to England—or take it with me!” added Gustavus vehemently, while a fierce expression of anger against his quadroon wife flitted over his counte- nance, “ Be tranquil, young man—be tranquil, I say,” exclaimed Mr. Hargrave, in a tone of authority. “There are important considerations before you: and you must pursue them with gravity and delie beration. Now you know that I am your friend, | Allow me to open this packet—I will glance over the deed which it contains—and I will speedily tell you whether it be of ‘the immense importance which you conceive. For it would be useless to excite yourself for nothing, or to run on a wild goose chase to Europe.” “ True, true!” ejaculated Gustavus. “Ob, if I had you always for a mentor!”—and now he was as glad at having fallen in with the misanthrope as he had recently been anxious to avoid him. “ Command me in all things, and I will obey you, my dear sir, as if you were my father and I were your son.” “Then I tell you what to do, Gustavus,” said Mr. Hargrave. “Just walk as far as yonder group of trees,” he continued, indicating a clump about two hundred yards distant: “during this interval you will calm and tranquillize yourself, so that you may do nothing rashly either in respect to your wife when you next meet, or in reference to another sudden voyage to Europe. For believe me, Gustavus,” added Mr. Hargrave emphatically, and with a strange expression of countenance, “it is no light thing to flee away from one’s wife and to abandon one’s home for ever !” The misanthrope’s voice had become ominously hollow as he spoke these last words;.and for a moment Gustavus gazed upon him as if he thought that in thus speaking he was involuntarily telling a part of his own history, But the idea was only transient in the youth’s mind ; and he turned away, walking slowly in the direction of the clump of trees two hundred yards distant. Mr. Hargrave remained upon the spot, and proceeded to open the packet. But we will follow the footsteps of Gustavus. He could not compose his feelings so easily as the misanthbrope had seemed to think that he might be enabled to do. The images of his grandsire and Winitred had been within the last huur vividly re- comicbooks