What Came Afterwards CHAPTER 24.

There had come many hindrances in the work of collecting evidence, bearing upon the identity of Mr. Adam Guyton. Having to move secretly, and with great circumspection, it required a long time to accomplish a little. But at length the completing links were found, and all was in readiness for action. The only thing to determine was the initial step. There had been fear that Larobe, forewarned, might escape, and put himself beyond the reach of justice, before it would be safe to order his arrest. Doctor Hofland almost hoped for this, as such a flight would be regarded as conclusive of his guilt; but Adam Guyton was of another mind. The double wrong he had sustained at his hands, fired his soul with athirst for retribution; and this became more intense, as mind and body grew stronger.

"He must not, shall not escape!" was his oft repeated declaration.

Mr. Ewbank was at the office of Doctor Hofland, and the two men were in final conference concerning the case of Adam Guyton. The yet undetermined question regarded HenryGuyton. Up to this point, no communication had been held with him, and every precaution had been taken to keep him in ignorance of his father's presence in the city. Still, he had been carefully observed, in order to know if anything passed between him and Larobe. The conclusion reached, at the present interview, was in favor of seeing him, and making a full statement of facts. While yet considering the subject, a student came in and said that a gentleman had called and wished to see the Doctor. On going into the front office, he found, much to his surprise, the very person of whom they were talking. The countenance of Henry Guyton was very serious.

"Doctor," he said, with a natural contraction of the brows as he spoke, and a half mysterious, half troubled tone of voice, "I have called to ask the privilege of a private interview."

"I am at your service, Mr. Guyton," answered the Doctor.

The student retired, and they sat down. There followed considerable embarrassment and hesitation on the part of Henry Guyton. He then remarked —

"There have been a number of strange things said recently about my late father. I don't make any account of them, and yet such gossip is not pleasant; you have heard something of them no doubt. In fact, your name is mixed up with the tattle."

Henry paused. As the Doctor did not answer, he resumed:

"It is even said, absurdly enough, that my father is not dead" — and he laughed faintly.

Something in the expression of Doctor Hofland's face, caused an instant change in the visitor's manner.

"What does it all mean, Doctor?" Henry was sober enough now. "Your look confounds me!"

"It means," replied Doctor Hofland, speaking slowly and emphatically, "that your father is not dead."

A sudden paleness swept over Henry's face, and he almost gasped for breath, as he stammered out —

"Not dead! Not dead! Impossible, sir!"

"What I have said, Henry, is the truth — nothing less, nothing more. Your father, imprisoned for over ten years as a lunatic, has finally made his escape, and is now in this city."

"No sir! — No sir! — No sir!" Henry shook his head slowly, as he repeated his emphatic rejection.

"No sir! That story is too absurd. But, have you seen this man who claims to be my father."

"Yes."

"And you believe his imposture?"

"I believe the man," replied the Doctor. "As sure as you live and I live, Henry — your father is now in the city! I say this knowing all that it involves."

"A bold attempt at imposture, Doctor. It can be nothing less. That my father was actually deranged, I know; for I visited him at the institution on Staten Island, where he was removed from the Maryland Hospital. I went into the room where he was confined, and shall never forget the unhappy interview. He was a raving madman."

"Did it ever occur to you, Mr. Guyton, that the man you then visited in his gloomy cell was not your father?"

"I know he was my father," answered Mr. Guyton, most positively. "Do you imagine, for a moment, that I could have been deceived?"

"You were deceived," said Doctor Hofland, speaking as one who had full knowledge of what he declared. "Du Pontz, the largely paid accomplice of Mr. Larobe and your mother-in-law, was notified of your coming, and prepared to receive you. Instead of taking you to your father, who was simply a prisoner — yet of sound mind, he introduced you into the cell of a confirmed lunatic, shocking you with the terrible sight of a madman, whom you thought to be your wretched father. The same deception was practiced in regard to his death. The insane man who fell from a window, in trying to make his escape, was not your father, even though he now lies in your family vault at Green Mount!"

"Ingenious, but it won't pass current with me," answered Henry, with cold incredulity. He was regaining the self-possession he had lost, when the Doctor so positively asserted the presence of his father in the city. "Such things happen in books, but scarcely in real life. That wrong was done to my father, I have always believed, but not a wrong like this. In my opinion, he should never have been removed from our own hospital to another."

"That removal was only one step in a contemplated series. Your father's mind was only partially affected when taken there; and I had it from the resident physician, at the time he was removed, that he was fast recovering his mental equipoise, and in a fair way to an early and entire restoration. The physician was told by your mother-in-law, that she was going to take him home. Why this deception? Instead of taking him home, she had him sent away to a private madhouse, two hundred miles distant, and that is the last that was known of him, until the announcement of his death — not long after which, she was married to her accomplice. She has gone to her reward in the next life, but her partner in crime is yet within the reach of justice, and must not escape. With all solemnity, Henry Guyton, I summon you to the vindication of your father's rights, and to the punishment of those who have done him such cruel wrong. All the evidence bearing upon his identity is secured, and you were about being placed in full possession of every particular."

"And please sir," demanded Mr. Guyton, his color rising, "under whose direction has all this been progressing, and why have I been kept in ignorance of what was going on until this time? I don't like the look of it, Doctor. It smacks of imposture. If my father had, really, come back from the dead, as it were, to whom but to his own son would he have made himself known?"

"His own son," replied the Doctor, with some severity of tone, "might have rejected him as an impostor, and refused to look at any evidence!"

"And so, he came first to you?" said Guyton, with manifest ill-feeling, and some scorn.

"He managed to communicate with me, and I rescued him from his jailer," replied the Doctor.

"When?"

"Months ago."

"Where?"

"In this city. He had escaped from Staten Island, a weak, half-crazed old man — body and mind broken down by his long and cruel imprisonment. Here he was taken, and again placed in confinement. But, before he was murdered, or removed to a distance, he managed to get word to me, and I saved him."

"You have been deceived, Doctor. The man is not my father!" said Guyton, with almost angry positiveness.

"And yet, sir, within twenty-four hours after the chain was struck from his ankle — I speak literally, for I found him chained to an iron bedstead — your stepmother committed suicide."

"Suicide! I never heard that cause for her death affirmed," said Guyton, with a confounded look.

"Yet, I know it to be true; for my son-in-law was her physician."

"Where has this person been ever since?" asked Mr. Guyton.

"With your sister Lydia."

"And I kept in ignorance of the whole proceeding up to this time! Doctor Hofland, this does not look well! There is about it a savor of fraud and imposture. As the oldest son of my father, there lay with me the right to be consulted. With my sister Lydia, indeed!" he said this with bitter contempt.

"Throughout this whole affair, Henry," returned Doctor Hofland, without manifesting any resentment, "I have acted from reason and conscience. After your father's rescue, the long agony of hope deferred being over, he sunk into a state of total oblivion as to the past. He was as a child, with memory like an unwritten page. In this state he had to be placed in the care of people who would not only treat him kindly, but do all in their power to strengthen his feeble mind. Careful observation of your sister and her husband, satisfied me that they were, of all whom I knew, best fitted for the work, and at my solicitation, they received him into their family, both entirely ignorant as to who he was, and as unsuspicious of the truth then as you were. Nor did Lydia know him, until in the sudden rush of returning memories, he rejected the name by which she had been used to address him, and said that he was Adam Guyton."

"Where is he now?" demanded the son, without showing a sign of natural feeling. The lines on his forehead were stern — his lips hard and cold. "With your sister still."

"Ah — yes! And, of course, she is ready to swear to his identity. A nice little arrangement, truly! But, it won't work, Doctor, mark my word for it!" The voice of Mr, Guyton was pitching itself to a higher key. "I begin to see a little deeper into the affair," he added, still in a loud voice "You are a dupe of that wench and her husband! They have fabricated the whole thing. Her husband is, I'll warrant you, a scheming villain, who — "

The door leading into the Doctor's private office, or consultation room, which had been ajar, opened suddenly, and a man entered. He was tall, and of erect bearing. His countenance was refined and intelligent — his look dignified — yet a little stern. He had large, strong eyes, and a broad forehead, away from which the fine black hair curled short and clean.

"Mr. Ewbank — meet Mr. Henry Guyton." Doctor Hofland introduced the two men. There was keen penetration on the one hand, and disconcerted surprise on the other; but, it was plain that Henry did not know Mr. Ewbank as the husband of his sister, a fact at once perceived by Doctor Hofland. The large, dark, powerful eyes of Mr. Ewbank, rested in those of Henry, until the latter wavered and fell away with a sign of weakness. Man to man, the stronger was felt, and, by force acknowledged.

"You spoke, sir, louder than you thought, just now," said Mr. Ewbank, in a deep, manly voice, that had in it a throb of indignation, "and I could not help but hear. I am your sister's husband!"

"You!" Guyton stepped back, in manifest astonishment. Mr. Ewbank looked at him steadily, until he fairly shrunk in the presence of superior manhood; then said —

"Knowing your sister as I her husband, knew her — pure, true, womanly and good — I cannot hear, with silent indifference, the coarse language wantonly applied to her just now. It does not hurt her; but it wounds me, and disgraces you!"

"Sir!" Guyton endeavored to rally under cover of indignation. But, he was in the face of one so far above him in moral power, that he felt himself almost as weak as a child.

"I regret," said Mr. Ewbank, "that our first meeting should be in this spirit. But I would be less than a man, if I did not rebuke your assault upon a sister, who, in the chief things that give beauty and worth to human character, is rivaled by few of her gender. For having ministered, in all tenderness and self-devotion, to your father, through months of watching and care, she merits something different from you. 'Wench' was not the word that should have fallen from your lips, Henry Guyton!"

So stern and strong was the voice — so intense the eyes of Mr. Ewbank — as he stood drawn to his full height in front of the mean-souled man he was rebuking, that Guyton shrunk, and cowered in silent confusion. There followed a brief pause. Guyton rallied himself enough to affect a dignified air, with which, bowing low, he retired from the office, paying no heed to Doctor Hofland, who called after him to remain.

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