“Well, and now for my pet!”

He pushed open the door, and entered
the bleak room, over whose naked floor
the declining sunshine redly fell.

An oath burst from his lips. The
room, at all times bare enough, was now
without stove, table, chair or furniture
of any kind. Stanley hurried into the
next room, and pushed open the closed
shutters. The bed had disappeared; it
was completely stripped of the miserable
furniture which it had held yesterday.

“Escaped, by —!” cried Stanley
Burke; and then followed a torrent of
curses; and then Stanley stood silent in
the centre of the room, buried in
thought.

Where had Margaret gone?

Could Harry Morgan have taken her
from this miserable place?

It was after a long pause that Stanley
walked cautiously up and down the deserted
rooms, carefully peering into every
nook and corner.

“It is not here,” he said at length.
“I must have dropped it in some other
place.” And presently went slowly
from the house.

You may watch him as he goes; and,
as his shadow is thrown long and black
over the rocks, you may notice that his
head is turned over his shoulder toward
the river, until he is out of sight.

The next three were busy weeks with
Mr. Burke.

He searched for Margaret in every
nook and corner of New-York, and of
the adjacent cities, but in vain.

By a fortunate speculation, he came
into possession of a considerable sum of
money; paid off some debts; removed
from his single apartment to an elegantly
furnished mansion farther up town;
appeared often in Wall-street, seeming
like a man possessed in every fibre with
the insatiate devil of stock speculation;
and once or twice gave “splendid” evening
parties to a select number of friends
at his new residence.

Could he have discovered Margaret's
retreat, he could have been quite at ease.

And as to Harry Morgan. Where was
Harry Morgan? Stanley never met him
in his walks. But New-York is a large
city, and you can easily lose sight of a
man there.

Of course, while the three weeks passed
away, many things took place, such as
murders, suicides, robberies, coroner's
inquests, of which Stanley, engaged in
business or pleasure, could take no cognizance.

He had scarcely time to read the papers.

There was an item which caught his
eye as he sat one evening in a cushioned
chair of the very saloon in which he had
first met Harry Morgan; an item which
appeared in the closely printed columns
of a western paper. And while the barber
(one of those gentlemen who speak
imperfect English and wear white
aprons) was oiling his hair and whiskers
Stanley read:

“Among the victims of this explosion (the paragraph
treated of a steamboat explosion on the Ohio
River) was one whose case excites universal sympathy.
A young woman dressed in deep mourning,
and bearing her babe in her arms, was driven by the
flames into the river, and notwithstanding the efforts
of a gallant Kentuckian to save her, was
drowned. Her body floated ashore, with the dead
babe still clutched in the dead mother's arms.
From some letters which were found about her person,
it appears that her name was Margaret Burke,
or Margaret Dunbar; and that, at the time of the
accident, she was on her way from New-York to St.
Louis.”

Stanley was a man of iron nerves, but
the paper dropped from his hand. He
rose hastily from the chair, and went
into a part of the saloon where the gas-light
did not shine so brightly. As he
stood arranging his cravat before a mirror,
he was startled by the sudden pallor
of his face.

“D—n her, she's gone, anyhow! But
what was she doing west? What put
it into her head to go to St. Louis?”

Hastily assuming his hat and cloak, he
left the saloon, and hurried homeward,
muttering oftentime,—“Well! she is out
of the way, anyhow!”

A few days after this, Stanley gave a
supper to a few select friends, whom he
assembled in a cozy back room of his
new residence.

Supper being over, and the cloth removed,
the wine was brought in, and
from his place at the head of the board
Stanley gazed over the faces of his
guests, who numbered nine in all.

There was a merchant and a lawyer,
both staid in aspect, three gentlemen of
leisure, dressed in the last agony of fashion,
who had known Stanley for years,
and had been with him perchance in
many a nice enterprise; two real-estate
men, from whom he had lately purchased
property and paid them cash; and

[figure description] Page 107.[end figure description]

three other persons, well dressed, and
having a rich flavor of Wall-street in
every word and action.

You can see nine such men at any time
in Broadway, and it is not worth while
to describe them in detail. The room
in which they were seated was a pleasant
place, warmed by a bright coal fire; just
the place for nine men, who feel comfortable,
to chat quietly and enjoy their
champagne.

“Well, gentlemen,” said Stanley, filling
his glass—a solitary servant stood
near his shoulder—“As I am telling you,
I contemplate a southern trip. My estates
in Charleston, (into which, as I
have told you, I have lately come by the
death of my uncle,) need looking after.
Possibly, I may go as far south as New-Orleans—”

“Well! here's success to you whereever
you go!” interrupted one of the
gentlemen of leisure, and drained his
glass, the rest of the company chorusing
the sentiment.

“And when I come back”—continued
Stanley, holding a brimming glass of
champagne before his eyes—“And when
I come back —”

His sentence was broken by the abrupt
opening of the door. And to the great
astonishment of the company a lady entered—
a lady very pale in face and clad
in black, as if in mourning for a dead
husband. The sight, which simply astonished
the company, paralyzed Stanley
Burke.

“By —! my wife!” he ejaculated,
and made a movement as if about to rise
from his chair, but fell back again. And
a silence like death prevailed as the lady
advanced, and, resting her hand upon the
back of a chair, stood like a ghost, in her
dark apparel and pale face, in the centre
of that festival scene.

“I wish to speak with you—alone, Mr.
Burke!” said the lady in a low voice.
And as she spoke, over the dark dress
which she wore—upon her bosom, whose
heavings were perceptible—a gold chain,
curiously fashioned, of the pure ore, glittered
in the light. Stanley's gaze was
riveted to that chain. But he made a
desperate effort to recover his composure.

“My wife, Mrs. Burke, gentlemen,” he
said, rising from his chair, and scarcely
aware of the words which fell from his
lips. “My wife, Mrs. Burke, gentlemen—”
and his face was white and scarlet
by turns.

The lady, without changing her position,
said in a calm, even voice, “Mr.
Burke, I wish to speak with you alone,”
and the gold chain, as she spoke, glittered
into light with every throb of her
bosom.

In a confused way, Stanley begged the
gentlemen to excuse him for a few moments;
and then followed the lady from
the supper room down stairs into the parlor,
where a solitary lamp was burning.
It was not until he stood in that parlor,
whose glaring furniture, rich carpet, massive
mirrors, luxurious sofas—all had a
gloomy look in the dim light—that Stanley
could recover even a portion of his
usual presence of mind.

Margaret, whom he had thought of as
dead—dead with her dead babe still
clutched in her arms—now stood before
him, living, yet still looking very much
like a dead woman. Her black dress
made her face seem even more unnaturally
pale, and her eyes shone with a
steady, clear, yet feverish light. It was
Margaret, but she was indeed sadly
changed.

She did not take a seat, but confronted
Stanley, who, for once in his life terribly
agitated, could not take his gaze
from her face.

“I thought you were dead!”—hesitated
Stanley. “The fact is, I saw it in
the papers—”

“The papers told only a part of the
truth,” replied Margaret. “As you see.
I am not dead, but living. I have just
arrived from the West. I wish to say a
few words to you. The papers, as you
know, tell a great many falsehoods, but
sometimes tell hard truths, although in
a mysterious shape. Now, can you tell
me, what truth there is in this paragraph?”

And she placed in Stanley's hands a
newspaper which contained the paragraph
with which we commenced this
sketch, and which we now quote again:

“Yesterday evening, the body of an unknown
man, entirely divested of clothing, was found floating
in the North River, Pier No. —. His hair was
dark, and he appeared to be about thirty years of
age. There was no mark upon him to indicate that
he came to his death by violence, save, indeed, an
abrasion of the skin on the right temple, evidently
the result of contact with some object floating in
the river. The coroner investigated the matter

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

thoroughly; and the jury returned a verdict that
the body of the unknown had been thrown into the
river by resurrectionists. It was, after the inquest,
properly interred in Potter's Field.”

Stanley took the paper, glanced over
the paragraph—his hand shook a little—
but all at once his gaze recovered its
usual steadiness.

“Well, Madam! what of this?” he
said, quite calmly, handing back the paper
with a gleam of the old wickedness
in his look. “That paragraph may be
true, or may not be true. I know nothing
about it.”

Margaret with her eyes fixed on him,
replied, “But the dead man of whom the
paragraph speaks—do you know anything
about him? The `abrasion of the
skin on the right temple' not the result
of contact with some object floating in
the river, but the result of a blow from
a slung-shot or loaded cane wielded by
an assassin's hand—do you know anything
about that?”

As she spoke Margaret advanced, and
Stanley fell back a single step. Stanley
was pale, but the malignity of the master
fiend burned in his eyes. His hand
was clenched; he grated his teeth.

“And,” said Margaret, as, with that
pale face and lifted finger, she advanced
yet nearer to the enraged but shrinking
man—“And do you know anything about
the assassin himself—the assassin who
followed his victim, when that victim,
mistaking his way in the darkness, wandered
towards the river, followed him
even to the water's edge, and in the dark
crept close to him, and without warning
struck him one strong and fatal blow?—
the assassin who, when he found his victim
dead at his feet, rifled him of everything
that was valuable, made his clothes
into a bundle, to which he attached a
heavy stone, and then flung clothes and
corpse into the river?”

Stanley retreated another step, but
did not reply; his clenched hands and
eyes, lit with infernal light, looked as
though he was about to spring upon and
throttle the woman before him.

“The assassin who, with the atmosphere
of murder all about him, and the
livid mark which the murdered man, in
one brief struggle for his life, had printed
on his hand, came to the home of his
victim's wife, and dared to pollute her
with his kiss, and, as she struggled in
his grasp, dropped on the floor a gold
chain which he had rifled from the dead.
This”—her eyes flashed, and she lifted
the chain which hung upon her breast.
“This gold chain! Do you know anything
of this, assassin? Or do you know
anything of a poor laboring man who
chanced to be wandering on the river
shore at the fatal hour; who came upon
the murderer as he was engaged in rifling
the dead; who, even in the dim light of
that autumn night, saw the body hurled
into the river, himself all the while very
near, but unperceived—and who silently
traced the murderer to my home; and
then, through the city, to the murderer's
own residence, where he charged him
with the crime, and was, by a large sum
of gold, induced to swear that, on the
morrow, he would leave New-York for
ever? Do you know anything of this
witness, sir?”

The rage which had convulsed Stanley
Burke for the last five minutes now
broke forth in words. A man of greater
muscular power, he now advanced upon
her with clenched hands, and his small
eyes flashing, and expanding in their
sockets.

“You are not a woman, but a devil!”
he said in a low voice. “You have seen
this man—this Hoffman—but I'll yet
foil you—even if I have to —” His
look alone completed the sentence. There
was murder in his eyes. He sprang upon
the brave, pale woman, with all the
ferocity of his brutal nature—but a
strong arm intervened, and a form as
muscular as his own, was suddenly interposed
between him and Margaret.

“I took your money, but there was
blood upon it, and as soon as a few little
matters are settled, you can have it back.
Don't strike that gal! You struck a man
once, not long ago, behind his back—
strike me to the face, now, if you
dare!”

It was a rough but manly face, and
the speaker was the “poor laboring
man,” of whom Margaret had spoken
rudely clad in work-day apparel, but
with a muscular frame, hands hardened
and knotted by labor, and a sunburnt
face, overspread with wrinkles, the result
not of time, but of hard work. At
sight of him, Stanley staggered back;
and, in his surprise, suffered these words
to escape him: “I thought you were in
St. Louis—in the West—anywhere but

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

in New-York! How came you back?
You swore to me —”

But Margaret, leaning her hand on the
arm of Hoffman, now spoke. “When I
fled from my miserable home, I sought
refuge with a poor woman in the neighborhood.
Her husband had left that
morn'ng for the West. And it was from
this woman that I wrung the secret of
the husband's departure, which he had
told her the moment before he left, torn
as he was by conflicting emotions. I
need not tell you that she was the wife
of this witness; nor relate how, with
my child in my arms, and with means
derived from the sale of a portion of this
gold chain, I followed him—found him,
and induced him to return. And now, I
am here; my only purpose—she spoke
with a changing countenance and violent
effort—“to consign to justice the man
who is at the same time the murderer
of my husband and the father of my
child.”

The strong excitement which had upheld
Margaret for the last half hour now
broke down all at once, and overcome by
the violence of her emotions—say her
anguish—she dropped immediately to
the floor.

Hoffman, the rude working man, caught
her up and bore her to the sofa, and in
that moment Stanley Burke hurried to
the door, opened it, and closed it, crossed
the threshold, and locked the door
after him. Then seizing his hat and
cloak, which hung upon a rack in the
hall, he—with a face corrugated and
livid with despair—went with an uneven
step from the house, purchased with his
ill-got gold, into the cold, bleak wintry
night. What emotions filled the breast;
what purposes thronged the brain of this
bad, desperate man, as he thus hurried
forth, no mortal man can ever certainly
know.

Had he given up the battle as lost, irrevocably
lost, or was there yet some
new game to be played, some new crime
to be committed, in order to patch up
the bloody record of the past? Or had
the brain of the strong, bad, cunning
man, been bewildered by the apparitions
which had started up suddenly on his
path?

No pen can picture, no mortal can ever
know, the thoughts of this man as thus
he went forth alone into the night.

Meanwhile, his guests up stairs much
wondered at his long absence.

“Strange!” cried one. “Odd!” another.
“Queer!” a third. And then
they drank, and there was a long pause
followed by another chorus of ejaculations,
and another round of champagne.

“Strange! odd! queer!” but still the
host did not return. The guests waited
for him deep into the night, and sacrificed
themselves in the effort to exhaust
his champagne; and at last, very much
exhausted, and in some degree drunk—
no Stanley Burke appearing—they hurried
on their cloaks and overcoats, and went
on their various ways surlily home.

Meanwhile, what of Margaret? Awaking
from her swoon, and discovering that
Burke had indeed left the house, she
took the arm of Hoffman, and went with
him to the humble home of himself and
wife; and fevered and sleepless upon a
miserable bed—her child, which was also
Stanley's child, sleeping beside her—this
woman, the real owner of Henry Morgan's
wealth—of Stanley Burke's grand
house—muttered in her half-delirious
dreams the words “to-morrow! to-morrow!”

The night passed on, and passed away,
and yet Stanly Burke had not returned
to his mansion. But a morning paper
had this brief item:

“At a late hour last night, a person respectably
dressed, in attempting to spring upon one of the
Jersey City ferry-boats, just as it was leaving the
bridge, missed the boat and fell into the river. The
night was dark and stormy, and the efforts made to
save him were unavailing. He was not rescued
from the waves until the “spark of life had fled.”
His body was taken charge of by coroner —.
We were not able to obtain the name of the unfortunate
man. He was dressed in black, and wore a
Spanish cloak, lined with velvet; and a gold watch
and diamond pin, together with a pocket-book, containing
bank-notes and gold to the amount of $500,
were found upon his person. The body will no
doubt to-day be recognized and handed over to his
friends.”

And that was the last of Stanly Burke.

For it was Stanley Burke who, by accident
or with the idea of self-murder,
had met his death in the river which
only a month before had received the
body of his victim.

Here our sketch comes to a close.

Who buried the unfortunate man!
who came into possession of his estate!
(in reality the estate of Morgan) what
became of Margaret? are matters upon
which it is not well to speak plainly, as
the most important events which are

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

detailed in this narrative are of recent occurrence.

—On some sunny day when Broadway
is thronged with a current of fashion,
youth and beauty, (and, for that matter,
rags, old age and ugliness too,) when the
sky is full of spring, and the spire of old
Trinity rises clearly into the cloudless
blue, you may note among the crowd of
faces a woman who is dressed in mourning;
that face, framed in a dark bonnet,
wears yet upon its colorless cheek, and
in its large feverish eyes, some traces of
early loveliness, but it is stamped with
the inevitable prophecy of a death by
consumption, of a broken heart, of an
untimely grave.

Alas!—would we might conclude with
some words of good cheer! but the truth
affords us only this,—Alas! poor Margaret
Dunbar!