The Disappearance XV - Discovering A Great Secret

Thus far Savareen had been permitted to tell his own story. I do not, of course, pretend that it came from his lips in the precise words set down in the foregoing chapter, but for the sake of brevity and clearness, I have deemed it best to present the most salient portion of the narrative in the first person. It was related to me years afterwards by Mrs. Savareen herself, and I think I am warranted in saying that I have given the purport of her relation with tolerable accuracy. There is no need to present the sequel in the same fashion, nor with anything like the same fulness of detail. The man unburdened himself with all the appearance of absolute sincerity, and made no attempt to palliate or tone down anything that told against himself. He admitted that upon reaching New York he had entered upon a career of wild dissipation. He drank, gambled and indulged in debauchery to such an extent that in less than six weeks he had got pretty nearly to the end of his four hundred pounds. He assumed a false name and carefully abstained from ever looking at the newspapers, so that he remained in ignorance of all that had taken place in the neighborhood of his home after his departure. Becoming tired of the life he was leading in the great city, he proceeded southward, and spent some months wandering about through the Southern States. His knowledge of horse-flesh enabled him to pick up a livelihood, and even at times to make money; but his drinking propensities steadily gained the mastery over him and stood in the way of his permanent success in any pursuit. During a sojourn at a tavern in Lexington, Kentucky, he had formed an attachment for the daughter of his landlord. She was a good girl in her way, and knew how to take care of herself; but Mr. Jack Randall passed for a bachelor, and seemed to be several grades above the ordinary frequenters of her father's place. Their marriage and subsequent adventures have been sufficiently detailed by the unhappy woman herself, during her conference with Mrs. Savareen at No. 77 Amity street.

The soi-disant Randall had gone on from bad to worse, until he had become the degraded creature of whom his wife had caught a momentary glimpse under the glare of gas lamp on her departure from the Amity street lodgings. The woman who supposed herself to be his wife had informed him that a strange lady had called and been very kind to her, but she had told him nothing about the lady having come from Canada. Why she was thus reticent I am unable to say with certainty. Perhaps it was because she attached no importance to the circumstance, after the lady's declaration that the daguerreotype did not represent the man whom she wished to find. Perhaps she had some inkling of the truth, and dreaded to have her suspicions confirmed. She knew that she had but a short time to live, and may very well have desired to sleep her last sleep without making any discovery detrimental to her peace of mind. Whatever the cause may have been, she kept silent to everything but the main fact that a kind lady had called and supplied her with a small store of money to provide for herself and the child. Savareen never learned or even suspected, that the lady who ministered to the wants of his victims was his own wife, until the truth was told to him by the wife herself. Small difference to him however, where the money came from. He had no scruples about taking a part of it to buy drink for himself and one or two loafers he numbered among his personal acquaintances. But there was sufficient left to provide for all the earthly needs of the dying woman and her child. The little one breathed its last within two days of Mrs. Savareen's visit, and the mother followed it to the grave a week later.

Since then "Jack Randall" had dragged on a solitary existence in New York, and had been on the very brink of starvation. Every half dime he could lay hold of, by hook or by brook—and I fear it was sometimes by both—was spent in the old way. Then his health suddenly broke down, and for the first time he knew what it was to be weak and ill. Finally he had been compelled to admit to himself that he was utterly beaten in the race of life; and with a profound depth of meanness which transcended any of his former acts, he had made up his mind to return in his want and despair, to the wife whom he had so basely deserted. Since leaving Westchester he had heard nothing of her, direct or indirect; but he doubted not that she was supplied with the necessaries of life, and that she would yield him her forgiveness.

It is possible to sympathize with the prodigal son, but whose heart is wide enough to find sympathy for such a prodigal husband as this?

His wife heard him patiently out to the very end. Then she told him of the arrival of Mr. Thomas Jefferson Haskins at the Royal Oak, and the consequent visit to New York. The recital did not greatly move him. The telling of his own story had again reduced him to a state of extreme exhaustion, and he was for the time being incapable of further emotion. He soon after dropped asleep, and as he was tolerably certain not to awake until next morning, there was no occasion for further attendance upon him. Mrs. Savareen drew to another apartment to ponder a while, before retiring to rest, on the strange tale which she had heard.

Next morning it was apparent that Savareen was alarmingly ill, and that his illness did not arise solely from exhaustion. A doctor was called in, and soon pronounced his verdict. The patient was suffering from congestion of the lungs. The malady ran a rapid course, and in another week he lay white and cold in his coffin, the scar on his cheek, showing like a great pale ridge on a patch of hoar-frost.