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Updated: May 3, 2025
"Then I won't belie her so much as to doubt her love for me. I never got her letter; and why George Jernam should kick up his heels directly I was gone, and be off with his ship goodness knows where, is more than I can tell. I begin to think the best sailor that ever roamed the seas is a bad bargain for a husband. I'm sorry I ever let my girl marry a rover.
"Your daughter!" he muttered; "your daughter! Yes; the girl who sang here, the beautiful girl who sang." His voice was thick, and his accents indistinct. Both the men had pressed Jernam to drink, while they themselves took very little. They had encouraged him to talk as well as to drink, and the appointment with his brother had been spoken of by the captain.
Susan Jernam was pleased with the bright-eyed, pure-minded, modest girl, and in the few days they were together, learned to regard her with a motherly feeling, which was destined to be of priceless value to Rosy at an unforeseen crisis of the new life that began so fairly.
George Jernam covered his face with his hands, and sat with bent head before the man he had so cruelly wronged. "If I was a proud man," said Joseph Duncombe, "I shouldn't stoop to make any explanation to you.
Jernam and his companion carried the captain's portmanteau between them. They hailed a hackney-coach presently, and drove to the "Golden Cross," through the chill, gray streets, where the closed shutters had a funereal aspect. At the coach-office they parted, with many friendly words on both sides; but to the last, Joyce Harker was grave and anxious.
I dare say she's a bad lot, like most of 'em about here, and would as soon pick your pocket as look at you, if you gave her the chance." Valentine Jernam made no reply to these observations. It is possible that he scarcely heard them. The punch came presently; but he pushed the bowl towards Joyce, and bade that gentleman dispense the mixture.
It has doubtless been the passion of this man's heart. The wretches who lured Valentine Jernam to this house were tools of Joseph Duncombe's. How otherwise could this token have fallen into his hands?" He tried to find some other answer to this question; but he tried in vain. That little piece of gold seemed to fasten the dark stigma of guilt upon the absent owner of the house.
Good luck to you, dear old boy, now and always, and every good wish. From your affectionate brother," "GEORGE JERNAM." It was Joyce Harker's melancholy task to tell Valentine Jernam's younger brother the story of the seaman's death.
Even to-day, when her heart was full of her child's sweet image, that dark memory still haunted her. It seemed to her as if some mystic influence obliged her to recall the horrors of that night. "The curse of innocent blood has been upon me," she thought to herself. "I shall never know rest or peace till the murder of Valentine Jernam has been avenged."
Miller set little Gerty down, and the child, giddy and confused with her sudden waking, and being thus carried through the chill morning air, climbed up on the trim little sofa, and curling herself into a corner of it, sat quite motionless. Then, her agitation finding vent in tears, Mrs. Miller told Susan Jernam what had befallen. It was this:
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