Well, then, the letters with which Coventry swam the river on the night of the explosion were six, viz., to Mr. Bolt, to Doctor Amboyne, to Mr. Baynes, to Jael Dence, to Mrs. Little, and to Grace Carden. The letter to Grace Carden was short but touching, full of devotion, hope, resolution, and grief at parting. He told her he had come to take leave that afternoon, but she had been out, luckily; for he felt he ought to go, and must go, but how could he look at her and then leave her? This was the general purport, and expressed with such anguish and fortitude as might have melted a heart of marble.
The reader may have observed that, upon his rival's disappearance, Coventry was no happier. This letter was the secret cause. First it showed him his rival was alive, and he had wasted a crime; secondly, it struck him with remorse, yet not with penitence; and to be full of remorse, yet empty of that true penitence which confesses or undoes the wrong, this is to be miserable.
But, as time rolled on, bringing the various events I have related, but no news of Little, Coventry began to think that young man must really have come to some untimely end.
From this pleasant dream he was now awakened by the second intercepted letter. It ran thus:
"BOSTON, U. S., June 20th.
MY OWN DEAR LOVE,--It is now nine weeks since I left England, and this will be a fortnight more getting to you; that is a long time for you to be without news from me, and I sadly fear I have caused you great anxiety. Dearest, it all happened thus: Our train was delayed by an accident, and I reached Liverpool just in time to see the steam-packet move down the Mersey. My first impulse, of course, was to go back to Hillsborough; but a seaman, who saw my vexation, told me a fast schooner was on the point of sailing for Boston, U.S.
My heart told me if I went back to Hillsborough, I should never make the start again. I summoned all my manhood to do the right thing for us both; and I got into the schooner, heaven knows how; and, when I got there, I hid my face for ever so many hours, till, by the pitching and tossing, I knew that I was at sea. Then I began to cry and blubber. I couldn't hold it any longer.
"At such a time a kind word keeps the heart from breaking altogether; and I got some comfort from an old gentleman, a native of Boston: a grave old man he was, and pretty reserved with all the rest; but seeing me in the depths of misery, he talked to me like a father, and I told him all my own history, and a little about you too--at least, how I loved you, and why I had left England with a heavy heart.
"We had a very long passage, not downright tempestuous, but contrary winds, and a stiff gale or two. Instead of twenty days, as they promised, we were six weeks at sea, and what with all the fighting and the threats--I had another letter signed with a coffin just before I left that beautiful town--and the irritation at losing so much time on the ocean, it all brought on a fever, and I have no recollection of leaving the boat. When I came to myself, I was in a house near Boston, belonging to the old gentleman I spoke of. He and his nieces nursed me, and now I am as well as ever, only rather weak.
"Mr. Ironside, that is his name, but it should be Mr. Goldheart, if I had the christening of him--he has been my good Samaritan. Dear Grace, please pray for him and his family every night. He tells me he comes of the pilgrim fathers, so he is bound to feel for pilgrims and wanderers from home. Well, he has been in patents a little, and, before I lost my little wits with the fever, he and I had many a talk. So now he is sketching out a plan of operation for me, and I shall have to travel many a hundred miles in this vast country.
But they won't let me move till I am a little stronger, he and his nieces. If he is gold, they are pearls.
"Dearest, it has taken me two days to write this: but I am very happy and hopeful, and do not regret coming. I am sure it was the right thing for us both.
"Please say something kind for me to the good doctor, and tell him I have got over this one trouble already.
"Dearest, I agreed to take so much a year from Bolt, and he must fight the trades alone. Such a life is not worth having. Bayne won't wrong me of a shilling. Whatever he makes, over his salary and the men's wages, there it will be for me when I come home; so I write to no one at Hillsborough but you. Indeed, you are my all in this world. I travel, and fight, and work, and breathe, and live for you, my own beloved; and if any harm came to you, I wouldn't care to live another moment."
At this point in the letter the reader stopped, and something cold seemed to pass all through his frame. It struck him that all good men would pity the writer of this letter, and abhor him who kept it from that pale, heart-broken girl inside the cottage.
He sat freezing, with the letter in his hand, and began to doubt whether he could wade any deeper in crime.
After a minute or two he raised his head, and was about to finish reading the letter.
But, in the meantime, Grace Carden had resumed her accustomed place in the veranda. She lay upon the couch, and her pale face, and hollow, but still beautiful eyes, were turned seaward. Out of those great sad eyes the sad soul looked across the waste of waters--gazed, and searched, and pined in vain. Oh, it was a look to make angels weep, and hover close over her head with restless, loving pinions, longing to shadow, caress, and heal her!
Coventry, with Henry Little's letter in his hand, peered through the leaves, and saw the woman he loved fix this look of despair upon the sea--despair of which he was the sole cause, and could dispel it with a gesture.
"And this brings me back to what is my only great trouble now. I told you, in the letter I left behind me, you would hear from me in a month at furthest. It will be not a month, but eleven weeks.