The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

"GreenwaterBroad," can I look again at the bailiff's cottage, without the onememorial of little Mary that I possess? Besides, have I not promisedMiss Dunross that Mary's gift shall always go with me wherever I go? andis the promise not doubly sacred now that she is dead? For a while I sitidly looking at the device on the flag--the white dove embroidered onthe green ground, with the golden olive-branch in its beak. The innocentlove-story of my early life returns to my memory, and shows me inhorrible contrast the life that I am leading now. I fold up the flag andplace it carefully in my traveling-bag. This done, all is done. I mayrest till the morning comes.

  No! I lie down on my bed, and I discover that there is no rest for methat night.

  Now that I have no occupation to keep my energies employed, now thatmy first sense of triumph in the discomfiture of the friends who haveplotted against me has had time to subside, my mind reverts to theconversation that I have overheard, and considers it from a new pointof view. For the first time, the terrible question confronts me: Thedoctor's opinion on my case has been given very positively. How do Iknow that the doctor is not right?

  This famous physician has risen to the head of his profession entirelyby his own abilities. He is one of the medical men who succeed bymeans of an ingratiating manner and the dexterous handling of goodopportunities. Even his enemies admit that he stands unrivaled in theart of separating the true conditions from the false in the discovery ofdisease, and in tracing effects accurately to their distant and hiddencause. Is such a man as this likely to be mistaken about me? Is it notfar more probable that I am mistaken in my judgment of myself?

  When I look back over the past years, am I quite sure that the strangeevents which I recall may not, in certain cases, be the visionaryproduct of my own disordered brain--realities to me, and to no one else?What are the dreams of Mrs. Van Brandt? What are the ghostly apparitionsof her which I believe myself to have seen? Delusions which have beenthe stealthy growth of years? delusions which are leading me, by slowdegrees, nearer and nearer to madness in the end? Is it insane suspicionwhich has made me so angry with the good friends who have been trying tosave my reason? Is it insane terror which sets me on escaping from thehotel like a criminal escaping from prison?

  These are the questions which torment me when I am alone in the dead ofnight. My bed becomes a place of unendurable torture. I rise and dressmyself, and wait for the daylight, looking through my open window intothe street.

  The summer night is short. The gray light of dawn comes to me like adeliverance; the glow of the glorious sunrise cheers my soul once more.Why should I wait in the room that is still haunted by my horribledoubts of the night? I take up my traveling-bag; I leave my letters onthe sitting-room table; and I descend the stairs to the house door. Thenight-porter at the hotel is slumbering in his chair. He wakes as I passhim; and (God help me!) he too looks as if he thought I was mad.

  "Going to leave us already, sir?" he says, looking at the bag in myhand.

  Mad or sane, I am ready with my reply. I tell him I am going out for aday in the country, and to make it a long day, I must start early.

  The man still stares at me. He asks if he shall find some one to carrymy bag. I decline to let anybody be disturbed. He inquires if I have anymessages to leave for my friend. I inform him that I have left writtenmessages upstairs for Sir James and the landlord. Upon this he draws thebolts and opens the door. To the last he looks at me as if he thought Iwas mad.

  Was he right or wrong? Who can answer for himself? How can I tell?

  CHAPTER XXXII. A LAST LOOK AT GREENWATER BROAD.

  MY spirits rose as I walked through the bright empty streets, andbreathed the fresh morning air.

  Taking my way eastward through the great city, I stopped at the firstoffice that I passed, and secured my place by the early coach toIpswich. Thence I traveled with post-horses to the market-town which wasnearest to Greenwater Broad. A walk of a few miles in the cool eveningbrought me, through well-remembered by-roads, to our old house. By thelast rays of the setting sun I looked at the familiar row of windows infront, and saw that the shutters were all closed. Not a living creaturewas visible anywhere. Not even a dog barked as I rang the great bell atthe door. The place was deserted; the house was shut up.

  After a long delay, I heard heavy footsteps in the hall. An old manopened the door.

  Changed as he was, I remembered him as one of our tenants in the by-gonetime. To his astonishment, I greeted him by his name. On his side, hetried hard to recognize me, and tried in vain. No doubt I was the moresadly changed of the two: I was obliged to introduce myself. The poorfellow's withered face brightened slowly and timidly, as if he were halfincapable, half afraid, of indulging in the unaccustomed luxury of asmile. In his confusion he bid me welcome home ag ain, as if the househad been mine.

  Taking me into the little back-room which he inhabited, the old mangave me all he had to offer--a supper of bacon and eggs and a glassof home-brewed beer. He was evidently puzzled to understand me when Iinformed him that the only object of my visit was to look once moreat the familiar scenes round my old home. But he willingly placed hisservices at my disposal; and he engaged to do his best, if I wished it,to make me up a bed for the night.

  The house had been closed and the establishment of servants had beendismissed for more than a year past. A passion for horse-racing,developed late in life, had ruined the rich retired tradesman who hadpurchased the estate at the time of our family troubles. He had goneabroad with his wife to live on the little income that had been savedfrom the wreck of his fortune; and he had left the house and lands insuch a state of neglect that no new purchaser had thus far been found totake them. My old friend, "now past his work," had been put in charge ofthe place. As for Dermody's cottage, it was empty, like the house. I wasat perfect liberty to look over it if I liked. There was the key of thedoor on the bunch with the others; and here was the old man, with hisold hat on his head, ready to accompany me wherever I pleased to go.I declined to trouble him to accompany me or to make up a bed in thelonely house. The night was fine, the moon was rising. I had supped; Ihad rested. When I had seen what I wanted to see, I could easily walkback to the market-town and sleep at the inn. Taking the key in my hand,I set forth alone on the way through the grounds which led to Dermody'scottage.

  Again I followed the woodland paths along which I had once idled sohappily with my little Mary. At every step I saw something that remindedme of her. Here was the rustic bench on which we had sat together underthe shadow of the old cedar-tree, and vowed to be constant to each otherto the end of our lives. There was the bright little water spring, fromwhich we drank when we were weary and thirsty in sultry summer days,still bubbling its way downward to the lake as cheerily as ever. As Ilistened to the companionable murmur of the stream, I almost expected tosee her again, in her simple white frock and straw hat, singing to themusic of the rivulet, and freshening her nosegay of wild flowers bydipping it in the cool water. A few steps further on and I reached aclearing in the wood and stood on a little promontory of rising groundwhich commanded the prettiest view of Greenwater lake. A platformof wood was built out from the bank, to be used for bathing by goodswimmers who were not afraid of a plunge into deep water. I stood on theplatform and looked round me. The trees that fringed the shore on eitherhand murmured their sweet sylvan music in the night air; the moonlighttrembled softly on the rippling water. Away on my right hand I couldjust see the old wooden shed that once sheltered my boat in the dayswhen Mary went sailing with me and worked the green flag. On my leftwas the wooden paling that followed the curves of the winding creek, andbeyond it rose the brown arches of the decoy for wild fowl, now fallingto ruin for want of use. Guided by the radiant moonlight, I could seethe very spot on which Mary and I had stood to watch the snaring of theducks. Through the hole in the paling before which the decoy-dog hadshown himself, at Dermody's signal, a water-rat now passed, like alittle black shadow on the bright ground, and was lost in the watersof the lake. Look where I might, the happy by-
gone time looked backin mockery, and the voices of the past came to me with their burden ofreproach: See what your life was once! Is your life worth living now?

  I picked up a stone and threw it into the lake. I watched the circlingripples round the place at which it had sunk. I wondered if a practicedswimmer like myself had ever tried to commit suicide by drowning, andhad been so resolute to die that he had resisted the temptation to lethis own skill keep him from sinking. Something in the lake itself, orsomething in connection with the thought that it had put into my mind,revolted me. I turned my back suddenly on the lonely view, and took thepath through the wood which led to the bailiff's cottage.

  Opening the door with my key, I groped my way into the well-rememberedparlor; and, unbarring the window-shutters, I let in the light of themoon.

  With a heavy heart I looked round me. The old furniture--renewed,perhaps, in one or two places--asserted its mute claim to my recognitionin every