Book: THE TWO DESTINIES

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I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the
circling ripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered
if a practiced swimmer like myself had ever tried to commit
suicide by drowning, and had been so resolute to die that he had
resisted the temptation to let his own skill keep him from
sinking. Something in the lake itself, or something in connection
with the thought that it had put into my mind, revolted me. I
turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took the path
through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage.

Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the
well-remembered parlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let
in the light of the moon.

With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed,
perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my
recognition in every part of the room. The tender moonlight
streamed slanting into the corner in which Mary and I used to
nestle together while Dame Dermody was at the window reading her
mystic books. Overshadowed by the obscurity in the opposite
corner, I discovered the high-backed arm-chair of carved wood in
which the Sibyl of the cottage sat on the memorable day when she
warned us of our coming separation, and gave us her blessing for
the last time. Looking next round the walls of the room, I
recognized old friends wherever my eyes happened to rest--the
gaudily colored prints; the framed pictures in fine needle-work,
which we thought wonderful efforts of art; the old circular
mirror to which I used to lift Mary when she wanted "to see her
face in the glass." Whenever the moonlight penetrated there, it
showed me some familiar object that recalled my happiest days.
Again the by-gone time looked back in mockery. Again the voices
of the past came to me with their burden of reproach: See what
your life was once! Is your life worth living now?

I sat down at the window, where I could just discover, here and
there between the trees, the glimmer of the waters of the lake. I
thought to myself: "Thus far my mortal journey has brought me.
Why not end it here?"

Who would grieve for me if my death were reported to-morrow? Of
all living men, I had perhaps the smallest number of friends, the
fewest duties to perform toward others, the least reason to
hesitate at leaving a world which had no place in it for my
ambition, no creature in it for my love.

Besides, what necessity was there for letting it be known that my
death was a death of my own seeking? It could easily be left to
represent itself as a death by accident.

On that fine summer night, and after a long day of traveling,
might I not naturally take a bath in the cool water before I went
to bed? And, practiced as I was in the exercise of swimming,
might it not nevertheless be my misfortune to be attacked by
cramp? On the lonely shores of Greenwater Broad the cry of a
drowning man would bring no help at night. The fatal accident
would explain itself. There was literally but one difficulty in
the way--the difficulty which had already occurred to my mind.
Could I sufficiently master the animal instinct of
self-preservation to deliberately let myself sink at the first
plunge?

The atmosphere in the room felt close and heavy. I went out, and
walked to and fro--now in the shadow, and now in the
moonlight--under the trees before the cottage door.

Of the moral objections to suicide, not one had any influence
over me now. I, who had once found it impossible to excuse,
impossible even to understand, the despair which had driven Mrs.
Van Brandt to attempt self-destruction--I now contemplated with
composure the very act which had horrified me when I saw it
committed by another person. Well may we hesitate to condemn the
frailties of our fellow-creatures, for the one unanswerable
reason that we can never feel sure how soon similar temptations
may not lead us to be guilty of the same frailties ourselves.
Looking back at the events of the night, I can recall but one
consideration that stayed my feet on the fatal path which led
back to the lake. I still doubted whether it would be possible
for such a swimmer as I was to drown himself. This was all that
troubled my mind. For the rest, my will was made, and I had few
other affairs which remained unsettled. No lingering hope was
left in me of a reunion in the future with Mrs. Van Brandt. She
had never written to
me again; I had never, since our last parting, seen her again in
my dreams. She was doubtless reconciled to her life abroad. I
forgave her for having forgotten me. My thoughts of her and of
others were the forbearing thoughts of a man whose mind was
withdrawn already from the world, whose views were narrowing fast
to the one idea of his own death.

I grew weary of walking up and down. The loneliness of the place
began to oppress me. The sense of my own indecision irritated my
nerves. After a long look at the lake through the trees, I came
to a positive conclusion at last. I determined to try if a good
swimmer could drown himself.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

A VISION OF THE NIGHT.

RETURNING to the cottage parlor, I took a chair by the window and
opened my pocket-book at a blank page. I had certain directions
to give to my representatives, which might spare them some
trouble and uncertainty in the event of my death. Disguising my
last instructions under the commonplace heading of "Memoranda on
my return to London," I began to write.

I had filled one page of the pocket-book, and had just turned to
the next, when I became conscious of a difficulty in fixing my
attention on the subject that was before it. I was at once
reminded of the similar difficulty which I felt in Shetland, when
I had tried vainly to arrange the composition of the letter to my
mother which Miss Dunross was to write. By way of completing the
parallel, my thoughts wandered now, as they had wandered then, to
my latest remembrance of Mrs. Van Brandt. In a minute or two I
began to feel once more the strange physical sensations which I
had first experienced in the garden at Mr. Dunross's house. The
same mysterious trembling shuddered through me from head to foot.
I looked about me again, with no distinct consciousness of what
the objects were on which my eyes rested. My nerves trembled, on
that lovely summer night, as if there had been an electric
disturbance in the atmosphere and a storm coming. I laid my
pocket-book and pencil on the table, and rose to go out again
under the trees. Even the trifling effort to cross the room was
an effort made in vain. I stood rooted to the spot, with my face
turned toward the moonlight streaming in at the open door.

An interval passed, and as I still looked out through the door, I
became aware of something moving far down among the trees that
fringed the shore of the lake. The first impression produced on
me was of two gray shadows winding their way slowly toward me
between the trunks of the trees. By fine degrees the shadows
assumed a more and more marked outline, until they presented
themselves in the likeness of two robed figures, one taller than
the other. While they glided nearer and nearer, their gray
obscurity of hue melted away. They brightened softly with an
inner light of their own as they slowly approached the open space
before the door. For the third time I stood in the ghostly
presence of Mrs. Van Brandt; and with her, holding her hand, I
beheld a second apparition never before revealed to me, the
apparition of her child.

Hand-in-hand, shining in their unearthly brightness through the
bright moonlight itself, the two stood before me. The mother's
face looked at me once more with the sorrowful and pleading eyes
which I remembered so well. But the face of the child was
innocently radiant with an angelic smile. I waited in unutterable
expectation for the word that was to be spoken, for the movement
that was to come. The movement came first. The child released its
hold on the mother's hand, and floating slowly upward, remained
poised in midair--a softly glowing presence shining out of the
dark background of the trees. The mother glided into the room,
and stopped at the table on which I had laid my pocket-book and
pencil when I could no longer write. As before, she took the
pencil and wrote on the blank page. As before, she beckoned to me
to step nearer to her. I approached her outstretched hand, and
felt once more the mysterious rapture of her touch on my bosom,
and heard once more her low, melodious tones repeating the words:
"Remember me. Come to me." Her hand dropped from my bosom. The
pale light which revealed her to me quivered, sunk, vanished. She
had spoken. She had gone.

I drew to me the open pocket-book. And this time I saw, in the
writing of the ghostly hand, these words only:

_"Follow the Child."_

I looked out again at the lonely night landscape.

There, in mid-air, shining softly out of the dark background of
the trees, still hovered the starry apparition of the child.

Advancing without conscious will of my own, I crossed the
threshold of the door. The softly glowing vision of the child
moved away before me among the trees. I followed, like a man
spellbound. The apparition, floating slowly onward, led me out of
the wood, and past my old home, back to the lonely by-road along
which I had walked from the market-town to the house. From time
to time, as we two went on our way, the bright figure of the
child paused, hovering low in the cloudless sky. Its radiant face
looked down smiling on me; it beckoned with its little hand, and
floated on again, leading me as the Star led the Eastern sages in
the olden time.

I reached the town. The airy figure of the child paused, hovering
over the house at which I had left my traveling-carriage in the
evening. I ordered the horses to be harnessed again for another
journey. The postilion waited for his further directions. I
looked up. The child's hand was pointing southward, along the
road that led to London. I gave the man his instructions to
return to the place at which I had hired the carriage. At
intervals, as we proceeded, I looked out through the window. The
bright figure of the child still floated on before me gliding low
in the cloudless sky. Changing the horses stage by stage, I went
on till the night ended--went on till the sun rose in the eastern
heaven. And still, whether it was dark or whether it was light,
the figure of the child floated on before me in its changeless
and mystic light. Mile after mile, it still led the way
southward, till we left the country behind us, and passing
through the din and turmoil of the great city, stopped under the
shadow of the ancient Tower, within view of the river that runs
by it.

The postilion came to the carriage door to ask if I had further
need of his services. I had called to him to stop, when I saw the
figure of the child pause on its airy course. I looked upward
again. The child's hand pointed toward the river. I paid the
postilion and left the carriage. Floating on before me, the child
led the way to a wharf crowded with travelers and their luggage.
A vessel lay along-side of the wharf ready to sail. The child led
me on board the vessel and paused again, hovering over me in the
smoky air.

I looked up. The child looked back at me with its radiant smile,
and pointed eastward down the river toward the distant sea. While
my eyes were still fixed on the softly glowing figure, I saw it
fade away upward and upward into the higher light, as the lark
vanishes upward and upward in the morning sky. I was alone again
with my earthly fellow-beings--left with no clew to guide me but
the remembrance of the child's hand pointing eastward to the
distant sea.

A sailor was near me coiling the loosened mooring-rope on the
deck. I asked him to what port the vessel was bound. The man
looked at me in surly amazement, and answered:

"To Rotterdam."

CHAPTER XXXIV.

BY LAND AND SEA.

IT mattered little to me to what port the vessel was bound. Go
where I might, I knew that I was on my way to Mrs. Van Brandt.
She had need of me again; she had claimed me again. Where the
visionary hand of the child had pointed, thither I was destined
to go. Abroad or at home, it mattered nothing: when I next set my
foot on the land, I should be further directed on the journey
which lay before me. I believed this as firmly as I believed that
I had been guided, thus far, by the vision of the child.

For two nights I had not slept--my weariness overpowered me. I
descended to the cabin, and found an unoccupied corner in which I
could lie down to rest. When I awoke, it was night already, and
the vessel was at sea.

I went on deck to breathe the fresh air. Before long the
sensation of drowsiness returned; I slept again for hours
together. My friend, the physician, would no doubt have
attributed this prolonged need of repose to the exhausted
condition of my brain, previously excited by delusions which had
lasted uninterruptedly for many hours together. Let the cause be
what it might, during the greater part of the voyage I was awake
at intervals only. The rest of the time I lay like a weary
animal, lost in sleep.

When I stepped on shore at Rotterdam, my first proceeding was to
ask my way to the English Consulate. I had but a small sum of
money with me; and, for all I knew to the contrary, it might be
well, before I did anything else, to take the necessary measures
for replenishing my purse.

I had my traveling-bag with me. On the journey to Greenwater
Broad I had left it at the inn in the market-town, and the waiter
had placed it in the carriage when I started on my return to
London. The bag contained my checkbook, and certain letters which
assisted me in proving my identity to the consul. He kindly gave
me the necessary introduction to the correspondents at Rotterdam
of my bankers in London.

Having obtained my money, and having purchased certain
necessaries of which I stood in need, I walked slowly along the
street, knowing nothing of what my next proceeding was to be, and
waiting confidently for the event which was to guide me. I had
not walked a hundred yards before I noticed the name of "Van
Brandt" inscribed on the window-blinds of a house which appeared
to be devoted to mercantile purposes.

The street door stood open. A second door, on one side of the
passage, led into the office. I entered the room and inquired for
Mr. Van Brandt. A clerk who spoke English was sent for to
communicate with me. He told me there were three partners of that
name in the business, and inquired which of them I wished to see.
I remembered Van Brandt's Christian name, and mentioned it. No
such person as "Mr. Ernest Van Brandt" was known at the office.

"We are only the branch house of the firm of Van Brandt here,"
the clerk explained. "The head office is at Amsterdam. They may
know where Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is to be found, if you inquire
there."

It mattered nothing to me where I went, so long as I was on my
way to Mrs. Van Brandt. It was too late to travel that day; I
slept at a hotel. The night passed quietly and uneventfully. The
next morning I set forth by the public conveyance for Amsterdam.

Repeating my inquiries at the head office on my arrival, I was
referred to one of the partners in the firm. He spoke English
perfectly; and he received me with an appearance of interest
which I was at a loss to account for at first.

"Mr. Ernest Van Brandt is well known to me," he said. "May I ask
if you are a relative or friend of the English lady who has been
introduced here as his wife?"

I answered in the affirmative; adding, "I am here to give any
assistance to the lady of which she may stand in need."

The merchant's next words explained the appearance of interest
with which he had received me.

"You are most welcome," he said. "You relieve my partners and
myself of a great anxiety. I can only explain what I mean by
referring for a moment to the business affairs of my firm. We
have a fishing establishment in the ancient city of Enkhuizen, on
the shores of the Zuyder Zee. Mr. Ernest Van Brandt had a share
in it at one time, which he afterward sold. Of late years our
profits from this source have been diminishing; and we think of
giving up the fishery, unless our prospects in that quarter
improve after a further trial. In the meantime, having a vacant
situation in the counting-house at Enkhuizen, we thought of Mr.
Ernest Van Brandt, and offered him the opportunity of renewing
his connection with us, in the capacity of a clerk. He is related
to one of my partners; but I am bound in truth to tell you that
he is a very bad man. He has awarded us for our kindness to him
by embezzling our money; and he has taken to flight--in what
direction we have not yet discovered. The English lady and her
child are left deserted at Enkhuizen; and until you came here
to-day we were quite at a loss to know what to do with them. I
don't know whether you are already aware of it, sir; but the
lady's position is made doubly distressing by doubts which we
entertain of her being really Mr. Ernest Van Brandt's wife. To
our certain knowledge, he was privately married to another woman
some years since; and we have no evidence whatever that the first
wife is dead. If we can help you in any way to assist your
unfortunate country-woman, pray believe that our services are at
your disposal."

With what breathless interest I listened to these words it is
needless to say. Van Brandt had deserted her! Surely (as my poor
mother had once said) "she must turn to me now." The hopes that
had abandoned me filled my heart once more; the future which I
had so long feared to contemplate showed itself again bright with
the promise of coming happiness to my view. I thanked the good
merchant with a fervor that surprised him. "Only help me to find
my way to Enkhuizen," I said, "and I will answer for the rest."

"The journey will put you to some expense," the merchant replied.
"Pardon me if I ask the question bluntly. Have you money?"

"Plenty of money."

"Very good. The rest will be easy enough. I will place you under
the care of a countryman of yours, who has been employed in our
office for many years. The easiest way for you, as a stranger,
will be to go by sea; and the Englishman will show you where to
hire a boat."

In a few minutes more the clerk and I were on our way to the
harbor.

Difficulties which I had not anticipated occurred in finding the
boat and in engaging a crew. This done, it was next necessary to
purchase provisions for the voyage. Thanks to the experience of
my companion, and to the hearty good-will with which he exerted
it, my preparations were completed before night-fall. I was able
to set sail for my destination on the next day.

The boat had the double advantage, in navigating the Zuyder Zee,
of being large, and of drawing very little water; the captain's
cabin was at the stern; and the two or three men who formed his
crew were berthed forward, in the bows. The whole middle of the
boat, partitioned off on the one side and on the other from the
captain and the crew, was assigned to me for my cabin. Under
these circumstances, I had no reason to complain of want of
space; the vessel measuring between fifty and sixty tons. I had a
comfortable bed, a table, and chairs. The kitchen was well away
from me, in the forward part of the boat. At my own request, I
set forth on the voyage without servant or interpreter. I
preferred being alone. The Dutch captain had been employed, at a
former period of his life, in the mercantile navy of France; and
we could communicate, whenever it was necessary or desirable, in
the French language.

We left the spires of Amsterdam behind us, and sailed over the
smooth waters of the lake on our way to the Zuyder Zee.

The history of this remarkable sea is a romance in itself. In the
days when Rome was mistress of the world, it had no existence.
Where the waves now roll, vast tracts of forest surrounded a
great inland lake, with but one river to serve it as an outlet to
the sea. Swelled by a succession of tempests, the lake overflowed
its boundaries: its furious waters, destroying every obstacle in
their course, rested only when they reached the furthest limits
of the land.

The Northern Ocean beyond burst its way in through the gaps of
ruin; and from that time the Zuyder Zee existed as we know it
now. The years advanced, the generations of man succeeded each
other; and on the shores of the new ocean there rose great and
populous cities, rich in commerce, renowned in history. For
centuries their prosperity lasted, before the next in this mighty
series of changes ripened and revealed itself. Isolated from the
rest of the world, vain of themselves and their good fortune,
careless of the march of progress in the natio ns round them, the
inhabitants of the Zuyder Zee cities sunk into the fatal torpor
of a secluded people. The few members of the population who still
preserved the relics of their old energy emigrated, while the
mass left behind resignedly witnessed the diminution of their
commerce and the decay of their institutions. As the years
advanced to the nineteenth century, the population was reckoned
by hundreds where it had once been numbered by thousands. Trade
disappeared; whole streets were left desolate. Harbors, once
filled with shipping, were destroyed by the unresisted
accumulation of sand. In our own times the decay of these once
flourishing cities is so completely beyond remedy, that the next
great change in contemplation is the draining of the now
dangerous and useless tract of water, and the profitable
cultivation of the reclaimed land by generations that are still
to come. Such, briefly told, is the strange story of the Zuyder
Zee.

As we advanced on our voyage, and left the river, I noticed the
tawny hue of the sea, caused by sand-banks which color the
shallow water, and which make the navigation dangerous to
inexperienced seamen. We found our moorings for the night at the
fishing island of Marken--a low, lost, desolate-looking place, as
I saw it under the last gleams of the twilight. Here and there,
the gabled cottages, perched on hillocks, rose black against the
dim gray sky. Here and there, a human figure appeared at the
waterside, standing, fixed in contemplation of the strange boat.
And that was all I saw of the island of Marken.

Lying awake in the still night, alone on a strange sea, there
were moments when I found myself beginning to doubt the reality
of my own position.

Was it all a dream? My thoughts of suicide; my vision of the
mother and daughter; my journey back to the metropolis, led by
the apparition of the child; my voyage to Holland; my night
anchorage in the unknown sea--were these, so to speak, all pieces
of the same morbid mental puzzle, all delusions from which I
might wake at any moment, and find myself restored to my senses
again in the hotel at London? Bewildered by doubts which led me
further and further from any definite conclusion, I left my bed
and went on deck to change the scene. It was a still and cloudy
night. In the black void around me, the island was a blacker
shadow yet, and nothing more. The one sound that reached my ears
was the heavy breathing of the captain and his crew sleeping on
either side of me. I waited, looking round and round the circle
of darkness in which I stood. No new vision showed itself. When I
returned again to the cabin, and slumbered at last, no dreams
came to me. All that was mysterious, all that was marvelous, in
the later events of my life seemed to have been left behind me in
England. Once in Holland, my course had been influenced by
circumstances which were perfectly natural, by commonplace
discoveries which might have revealed themselves to any man in my
position. What did this mean? Had my gifts as a seer of visions
departed from me in the new land and among the strange people? Or
had my destiny led me to the place at which the troubles of my
mortal pilgrimage were to find their end? Who could say?

Early the next morning we set sail once more.

Our course was nearly northward. On one side of me was the tawny
sea, changing under certain conditions of the weather to a dull
pearl-gray. On the other side was the flat, winding coast,
composed alternately of yellow sand and bright-green
meadow-lands; diversified at intervals by towns and villages,
whose red-tiled roofs and quaint church-steeples rose gayly
against the clear blue sky. The captain suggested to me to visit
the famous towns of Edam and. Hoorn; but I declined to go on
shore. My one desire was to reach the ancient city in which Mrs.
Van Brandt had been left deserted. As we altered our course, to
make for the promontory on which Enkhuizen is situated, the wind
fell, then shifted to another quarter, and blew with a force
which greatly increased the difficulties of navigation. I still
insisted, as long as it was possible to do so, on holding on our
course. After sunset, the strength of the wind abated. The night
came without a cloud, and the starry firmament gave us its pale
and glittering light. In an hour more the capricious wind shifted
back again in our favor. Toward ten o'clock we sailed into the
desolate harbor of Enkhuizen.

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