The Two Destinies

by Wilkie Collins

telegraphs I might have succeeded in tracingher. In the days of which I am now writing, she set investigation atdefiance.

  I read and reread her letter, on the chance that some slip of the penmight furnish the clew which I had failed to find in any other way. Hereis the narrative that she addressed to me, copied from the original,word for word:

  "DEAR SIR--Forgive me for leaving you again as I left you in Perthshire.After what took place last night, I have no other choice (knowing my ownweakness, and the influence that you seem to have over me) than tothank you gratefully for your kindness, and to bid you farewell. My sadposition must be my excuse for separating myself from you in this rudemanner, and for venturing to send you back your letter of introduction.If I use the letter, I only offer you a means of communicating with me.For your sake, as well as for mine, this mu st not be. I must never giveyou a second opportunity of saying that you love me; I must go away,leaving no trace behind by which you can possibly discover me.

  "But I cannot forget that I owe my poor life to your compassion and yourcourage. You, who saved me, have a right to know what the provocationwas that drove me to drowning myself, and what my situation is, now thatI am (thanks to you) still a living woman. You shall hear my sad story,sir; and I will try to tell it as briefly as possible.

  "I was married, not very long since, to a Dutch gentleman, whose nameis Van Brandt. Please excuse my entering into family particulars. I haveendeavored to write and tell you about my dear lost father and my oldhome. But the tears come into my eyes when I think of my happy pastlife. I really cannot see the lines as I try to write them.

  "Let me, then, only say that Mr. Van Brandt was well recommended tomy good father before I married. I have only now discovered that heobtained these recommendations from his friends under a false pretense,which it is needless to trouble you by mentioning in detail. Ignorant ofwhat he had done, I lived with him happily. I cannot truly declare thathe was the object of my first love, but he was the one person in theworld whom I had to look up to after my father's death. I esteemed himand respected him, and, if I may say so without vanity, I did indeedmake him a good wife.

  "So the time went on, sir, prosperously enough, until the evening camewhen you and I met on the bridge.

  "I was out alone in our garden, trimming the shrubs, when themaid-servant came and told me there was a foreign lady in a carriage atthe door who desired to say a word to Mrs. Van Brandt. I sent the maidon before to show her into the sitting-room, and I followed to receivemy visitor as soon as I had made myself tidy. She was a dreadful woman,with a flushed, fiery face and impudent, bright eyes. 'Are you Mrs. VanBrandt?' she said. I answered, 'Yes.' 'Are you really married to him?'she asked me. That question (naturally enough, I think) upset my temper.I said, 'How dare you doubt it?' She laughed in my face. 'Send for VanBrandt,' she said. I went out into the passage and called him down fromthe room upstairs in which he was writing. 'Ernest,' I said, 'here isa person who has insulted me. Come down directly.' He left his room themoment he heard me. The woman followed me out into the passage to meethim. She made him a low courtesy. He turned deadly pale the moment heset eyes on her. That frightened me. I said to him, 'For God's sake,what does this mean?' He took me by the arm, and he answered: 'You shallknow soon. Go back to your gardening, and don't return to the house tillI send for you.' His looks were so shocking, he was so unlike himself,that I declare he daunted me. I let him take me as far as the gardendoor. He squeezed my hand. 'For my sake, darling,' he whispered, 'dowhat I ask of you.' I went into the garden and sat me down on thenearest bench, and waited impatiently for what was to come.

  "How long a time passed I don't know. My anxiety got to such a pitch atlast that I could bear it no longer. I ventured back to the house.

  "I listened in the passage, and heard nothing. I went close to theparlor door, and still there was silence. I took courage, and opened thedoor.

  "The room was empty. There was a letter on the table. It was in myhusband's handwriting, and it was addressed to me. I opened it and readit. The letter told me that I was deserted, disgraced, ruined. The womanwith the fiery face and the impudent eyes was Van Brandt's lawful wife.She had given him his choice of going away with her at once or of beingprosecuted for bigamy. He had gone away with her--gone, and left me.

  "Remember, sir, that I had lost both father and mother. I had nofriends. I was alone in the world, without a creature near to comfort oradvise me. And please to bear in mind that I have a temper which feelseven the smallest slights and injuries very keenly. Do you wonder atwhat I had it in my thoughts to do that evening on the bridge?

  "Mind this: I believe I should never have attempted to destroy myself ifI could only have burst out crying. No tears came to me. A dull, stunnedfeeling took hold like a vise on my head and on my heart. I walkedstraight to the river. I said to myself, quite calmly, as I went along,'_There_ is the end of it, and the sooner the better.'

  "What happened after that, you know as well as I do. I may get on to thenext morning--the morning when I so ungratefully left you at the inn bythe river-side.

  "I had but one reason, sir, for going away by the first conveyance thatI could find to take me, and this was the fear that Van Brandt mightdiscover me if I remained in Perthshire. The letter that he had left onthe table was full of expressions of love and remorse, to say nothingof excuses for his infamous behavior to me. He declared that he had beenentrapped into a private marriage with a profligate woman when he waslittle more than a lad. They had long since separated by common consent.When he first courted me, he had every reason to believe that she wasdead. How he had been deceived in this particular, and how she haddiscovered that he had married me, he had yet to find out. Knowingher furious temper, he had gone away with her, as the one meansof preventing an application to the justices and a scandal in theneighborhood. In a day or two he would purchase his release from her byan addition to the allowance which she had already received from him:he would return to me and take me abroad, out of the way of furtherannoyance. I was his wife in the sight of Heaven; I was the only womanhe had ever loved; and so on, and so on.

  "Do you now see, sir, the risk that I ran of his discovering me if Iremained in your neighborhood? The bare thought of it made my fleshcreep. I was determined never again to see the man who had so cruellydeceived me. I am in the same mind still--with this difference, that Imight consent to see him, if I could be positively assured first of thedeath of his wife. That is not likely to happen. Let me get on with myletter, and tell you what I did on my arrival in Edinburgh.

  "The coachman recommended me to the house in the Canongate where youfound me lodging. I wrote the same day to relatives of my father, livingin Glasgow, to tell them where I was, and in what a forlorn position Ifound myself.

  "I was answered by return of post. The head of the family and his wiferequested me to refrain from visiting them in Glasgow. They had businessthen in hand which would take them to Edinburgh, and I might expect tosee them both with the least possible delay.

  "They arrived, as they had promised, and they expressed themselvescivilly enough. Moreover, they did certainly lend me a small sum ofmoney when they found how poorly my purse was furnished. But I don'tthink either husband or wife felt much for me. They recommended me, atparting, to apply to my father's other relatives, living in England. Imay be doing them an injustice, but I fancy they were eager to get me(as the common phrase is) off their hands.

  "The day when the departure of my relatives left me friendless wasalso the day, sir, when I had that dream or vision of you which I havealready related. I lingered on at the house in the Canongate, partlybecause the landlady was kind to me, partly because I was so depressedby my position that I really did not know what to do next.

  "In this wretched condition you discovered me on that favorite walkof mine from Holyrood to Saint Anthony's Well. Believe me, your kindinterest in my fortunes has not been thrown away on an ungrateful woman.I could ask Providence for no greater blessing than to find a brotherand a friend
in you. You have yourself destroyed that hope by what yousaid and did when we were together in the parlor. I don't blame you: Iam afraid my manner (without my knowing it) might have seemed to giveyou some encouragement. I am only sorry--very, very sorry--to have nohonorable choice left but never to see you again.

  "After much thin king, I have made up my mind to speak to those otherrelatives of my father to whom I have not yet applied. The chance thatthey may help me to earn an honest living is the one chance that I haveleft. God bless you, Mr. Germaine! I wish you prosperity and happinessfrom the bottom of my heart; and remain, your grateful servant,

  "M. VAN BRANDT.

  "P.S.--I sign my own name (or the name which I once thought was mine) asa proof that I