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By Passion Driven: A Story of a Wasted Life

Chapter XIII

page 87

Chapter XIII.

Fortune brings in some boats that are not steered.

The following morning Herman Lane did not appear at the office. Detective Fane had arranged that any unusual circumstance should at once be communicated to him. Small lost no time in informing him of this fact, and Harry was despatched to Lane's lodgings to ascertain if he were there. No tidings could be got of him; he had not been home the previous night. Harry obtained permission to go to his room, and found that it presented the appearance of everything having been packed up. A large trunk with Lane's name on was there, locked. Trying this, he concluded that it was empty. On Harry's returning to the detective with this information, that astute officer at once drew his own conclusion, and proceeded to act with vigour. He despatched a somewhat lengthy telegram to a colleague on the line of the Southern express, with the result that before the train reached Clinton the guard had passed through with a telegram addressed to Herman Lane purporting to come from John Samson, to inform him that suspicion had been directed to him.

Taken unawares, Lane immediately acknowledged himself as the person to whom the message was addressed, and at Clinton the guard was able to point him out to the officer, who arrested him as soon as he stepped upon the platform.

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This clever manœuvre of the detective was not unnecessary, for Lane had by two or three simple changes in his appearance made so radical an alteration that the brief description given in the telegram would not have served to identify him.

By the ordinary irresponsible mind the anxiety under which the detective laboured between the despatch of his message and his receipt of a reply would scarcely be believed, nor indeed would the satisfaction with which he viewed the success of his scheme when he read his colleague's reply—

“All right; nabbed Lane at Clinton.”

He must be pardoned, therefore, if his first act on receipt of this was to proceed with the good news to Mr. Bruce and Small, his manager. That they did not regard his news with equal satisfaction would have surprised him less if he had known the full strain of anxiety through which these gentlemen had passed in connection with the occurrences so full of professional interest to him.

The detective met the train on arrival at Dunedin, and accompanied Lane to the quarters he was to occupy. The following morning he was brought before the Justices, and at the request of the police remanded until the next day. His application for bail was refused. The next day Detective Fane led such evidence against him as satisfied the Bench that a prima facie had been made out.

The cashier was the chief witness, and was able to identify one of the notes that had been traced to Lane, owing to a peculiar blot over the figures on its face.

Lane saw the effect of this evidence, and turned a very malignant look at the witness as he left the box.

The prisoner reserved his defence, and was committed for trial at the next session of the Supreme Court. He was admitted to bail, and with the assistance of his friends, page 89 Mote and Samson, who, to their credit, did not desert him, he was able to secure the necessary securities. The period to elapse between the committal and trial of Lane being nearly three months, Detective Fane thought it desirable to have some attention paid to his movements, so he was the subject of considerable watching on the part of the police.

The house of Bruce and Co. experienced an immunity from any similar irregularity after the arrest of Lane.

The affair of the bank notes served to draw Harry and the cashier into closer bonds of friendship, and they became constant companions. Both delighted in walking excursions, and from that time forward did many a good stretch in company.

On some of these expeditions they discussed the approaching trial of Lane. The cashier confided to Harry that one of Lane's friends had approached him with a proposal that he should modify his evidence in favour of the accused so as to give him a chance of escape. The feeling of scorn and contempt with which his companion spoke of the proposition satisfied Harry that there was little chance of its being accepted. He therefore felt that there was no necessity for anything further being said on the subject.

The twelve months' probation in the matter of Harry's engagement with his cousin was drawing to a close. Both he and Lizzie had instinctively felt for some time past that all feeling of objection or doubt in the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Bruce had been entirely removed, and that now their desires with regard to each other found a more than welcome response in the parental breasts. Both his uncle and aunt had shown in many ways that they already regarded Harry as a son, and would have regretted in the extreme any circumstance which would have prevented a consummation of the young folks' wishes.

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The more apparent this became, the greater was the resentment shown on the subject by Flora. While there was a distant probability of anything interfering between her sister and cousin, she did not exhibit any very active feeling, but now that there appeared no sign of any disturbing influence, she became more and more determined on intervention.

She had repeatedly reproached and reviled her sister with her designing character, and accused her of throwing toils around her cousin, so that he was not a free agent.

Lizzie, conscious of her own feelings, and assured of her lover's affection, esteem, and regard, had borne patiently her sister's reproaches, a circumstance which all the more galled Flora, and increased her determination to molest her sister.

Flora had repeatedly declared that no matter what it cost her, or what art or action she had to employ, she would prevent Lizzie from ever becoming the wife of Harry Williams.

Lizzie had grown accustomed to these wild threats, and disregarded them almost entirely.

On the last occasion she had fairly exasperated her sister by good-humouredly laughing at her as she vowed vengeance in this manner, and smilingly asking her what she could do to prevent her marriage.

“Do!” cried Flora, mad with passion. “I would shoot him at the altar before you, rather than see him lead you out of the church as his wife.”

The intensity of her sister's avowal and the terribly passionate tone of her voice alarmed Lizzie, and she burst into tears.

Flora had just been reading in the columns of a popular journal a story of the most sensational type, where the heroine is described as shooting a false lover as he stood page 91 before the altar with his newly-wedded bride. The suggestion of such a terrible expedient would never otherwise have arisen in her mind.

Seeing her sister's tears, Flora continued—“Yes, you may well hide your shame in tears; you may well cry when the truth is brought home to you in this way: but your crying won't alter the position. If you persist in this course of deceitful obstinacy, I swear to prevent it.”

“You have no right to speak like that. You know that Harry never did and never could care for you. He loves me only.”

“Loves you!” retorted Flora, with a sneer of the greatest contempt. “You! a baby-faced, brainless doll! What have you to offer any man in return for his affection?”

Lizzie was not a match for her sister in a discussion of this nature. Her only refuge was her willing tears, and to these she had recourse.

In the midst of her weeping she broke out, “Flora, you are a bad, wicked girl!” and hurriedly left the room.

The strength of Flora's passion was nearly spent; she was almost exhausted by the strain, and after her sister's exit, she too gave way to a paroxysm of weeping,—weeping in which subdued anger, the expiring embers of the fierce flame of passion which had been consuming her, co-mingled with grief and disappointment at the hopeless outlook for her love—that deep, absorbing desire for her cousin's affection which had taken entire possession of her being, and threatened to deprive her of reason.

Flora's love was no ordinary girlish passion. It was the full outpouring of a highly sensitive and deeply sympathetic nature: an insatiable longing for another being; a strong desire for her cousin's companionship; an outgoing of her soul which could not be controlled.

The subject of such a love as Flora's required fullest pity. She was rended and tortured by the violence of her page 92 passion, and her present life became to her a period of extreme misery.

The hopelessness of her love, and the consequent misdirection of her thoughts, prompted her to give full play to the bitterness of her feelings against her sister. Reason found no resting place in her being, asserted no influence over the fierce flame burning within her, which alone held sway.

To attain her own desire was, she knew, impossible; but she must direct all her thoughts towards preventing the hated union of her sister and cousin.

The utter selfishness of a love which had no thought for the happiness of its object, or the narrowness of the passion which, when thwarted, rushes to the opposite extreme, did not suggest itself to the warped feelings and disordered imagination of this poor girl.

For many days after the passionate outburst against her sister, Flora did not exchange a word with her; she had, as it were, cut herself off from companionship with the rest of the world, and she spent every moment she could command in converse with her never-failing books.

Flora read, not as other girls of her age do, for mere amusement; the action of the story she was devouring had more than a passing influence upon her mind. She became tinged for the time being with the loves and passions of the characters she met in her reading, threw all the sympathy of her nature into their history, and gave way to the excitement produced by their surroundings. She made the acquaintance of real men and women, and lived with them in mutual feeling, was joyful as their fortunes brightened, sad with them in their gloom, and entered so fully into their hopes and fears, loves, disappointments, and misfortunes, that she was often unfit for any other exercise of her mental faculties, and so overcome by the influence of this spurious life that her health and vigour suffered greatly. This constant poring over her page 93 books was fostered rather than checked by the action of her parents. Mr. Bruce was a great reader. Nearly every new novel that came out was to be found on his shelves. A local bookseller sent him every work of fiction as it arrrived, and very few were returned. He had encouraged habits of reading in his children, thinking that they could not go far wrong with such a pastime. He overlooked the necessity for careful selection of what they read, and was satisfied to see that they were fond of books, without enquiring of what nature the books were. Thus it was that Flora had gradually developed a taste for novels of the most sensational kind. Stories of strong passion and excitement she eagerly devoured. When her constitution required that she should be taking active exercise in the open air, she would be found in her own room engrossed in some over-drawn love story. To such an extent had this gone, that the stimulation of an exciting novel was necessary to her existence, and like the indulger in opiates, she knew no rest without it. Her life, when she had not the absorbing interest of some story in progress, was a wretched blank, and as soon as one book was finished, a powerful craving possessed her to begin another. She dwelt ever thus in the unhealthy atmosphere of an artificial and unreal world, with imaginary characters as her constant companions, and improbable events shedding an influence over her life.

What wonder then, that with such feelings existing in her breast, because of her thwarted affections, she flew to the only consolation open to her, and more eagerly gave herself up to her favourite indulgence? Books, however pernicious in their influence, were honest companions. There was no falsehood or dissimulation in the world over which they ruled, no fear of a rebuff if she gave her best hours to their society, or of a refusal or slighting when she sought their companionship.