ABOUT five months after Alfred Monkton came of age I left college, and resolved to amuse and instruct myself a little by traveling abroad.
At the time when I quitted England young Monkton was still leading his secluded life at the Abbey, and was, in the opinion of everybody, sinking rapidly, if he had not already succumbed, under the hereditary curse of his family.As to the Elmslies, report said that Ada had benefited by her sojourn abroad, and that mother and daughter were on their way back to England to resume their old relations with the heir of Wincot.Before they returned I was away on my travels, and wandered half over Europe, hardly ever planning whither I should shape my course beforehand.
Chance, which thus led me everywhere, led me at last to Naples.
There I met with an old school friend, who was one of the _attaches_ at the English embassy, and there began the extraordinary events in connection with Alfred Monkton which form the main interest of the story I am now relating.
I was idling away the time one morning with my friend the _attache_ in the garden of the Villa Reale, when we were passed by a young man, walking alone, who exchanged bows with my friend.
I thought I recognized the dark, eager eyes, the colorless cheeks, the strangely-vigilant, anxious expression which Iremembered in past times as characteristic of Alfred Monkton's face, and was about to question my friend on the subject, when he gave me unasked the information of which I was in search.
"That is Alfred Monkton," said he; "he comes from your part of England.You ought to know him.""I do know a little of him," I answered; "he was engaged to Miss Elmslie when I was last in the neighborhood of Wincot.Is he married to her yet?""No, and he never ought to be.He has gone the way of the rest of the family--or, in plainer words, he has gone mad.""Mad! But I ought not to be surprised at hearing that, after the reports about him in England.""I speak from no reports; I speak from what he has said and done before me, and before hundreds of other people.Surely you must have heard of it?""Never.I have been out of the way of news from Naples or England for months past.""Then I have a very extraordinary story to tell you.You know, of course, that Alfred had an uncle, Stephen Monkton.Well, some time ago this uncle fought a duel in the Roman States with a Frenchman, who shot him dead.The seconds and the Frenchman (who was unhurt) took to flight in different directions, as it is supposed.We heard nothing here of the details of the duel till a month after it happened, when one of the French journals published an account of it, taken from the papers left by Monkton's second, who died at Paris of consumption.These papers stated the manner in which the duel was fought, and how it terminated, but nothing more.The surviving second and the Frenchman have never been traced from that time to this.All that anybody knows, therefore, of the duel is that Stephen Monkton was shot; an event which nobody can regret, for a greater scoundrel never existed.The exact place where he died, and what was done with the body are still mysteries not to be penetrated.""But what has all this to do with Alfred?""Wait a moment, and you will hear.Soon after the news of his uncle's death reached England, what do you think Alfred did? He actually put off his marriage with Miss Elmslie, which was then about to be celebrated, to come out here in search of the burial-place of his wretched scamp of an uncle; and no power on earth will now induce him to return to England and to Miss Elmslie until he has found the body, and can take it back with him, to be buried with all the other dead Monktons in the vault under Wincot Abbey Chapel.He has squandered his money, pestered the police, and exposed himself to the ridicule of the men and the indignation of the women for the last three months in trying to achieve his insane purpose, and is now as far from it as ever.
He will not assign to anybody the smallest motive for his conduct.You can't laugh him out of it or reason him out of it.
When we met him just now, I happen to know that he was on his way to the office of the police minister, to send out fresh agents to search and inquire through the Roman States for the place where his uncle was shot.And, mind, all this time he professes to be passionately in love with Miss Elmslie, and to be miserable at his separation from her.Just think of that! And then think of his self-imposed absence from her here, to hunt after the remains of a wretch who was a disgrace to the family, and whom he never saw but once or twice in his life.Of all the 'Mad Monktons,' as they used to call them in England, Alfred is the maddest.He is actually our principal excitement in this dull opera season;though, for my own part, when I think of the poor girl in England, I am a great deal more ready to despise him than to laugh at him.""You know the Elmslies then?"