"You saw me then, and remember my bitterness and melancholy. But you
had no opportunity to descry the depth and intensity of those
sentiments in me. Suddenly the load was lifted. _That woman_ made her
appearance, as if from the grave, and you must have witnessed my
wonder, as my eyes fell upon her. Then, she was not dead after all! I
was not a murderer! And to complete the wonder, _he_ was also alive. A
man passing along the bank of the river, as I discovered afterward from
Nighthawk, who ferreted out the whole affair--a man named Swartz, a
sort of poor farmer and huckster, passing along the Nottoway, on the
morning after the storm, had found the woman cast ashore, with the boat
overturned near her; and a mile farther, had found Mortimer, not yet
dead, in the grave. Succored by Swartz, they had both recovered--had
then disappeared. I was to meet them again, and know of their existence
only when the chance of war threw us face to face on the field.
"You know the scenes which followed. Mortimer, or Darke, as he now
calls himself, confronted me everywhere, and _she_ seemed to have no
object in life but my destruction. You heard her boast in the house
near Buckland that she had thrice attempted to assassinate me by means
of her tool, the man Swartz. Again, at Warrenton, in the hospital, she
came near poniarding me with her own hand.
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