A Whisper In The Dark Part 38

"A child! Good G.o.d! what have I done!" he said to himself, as the lid fell from his hand.

"Hush, come and look, it is off," whispered the old man and hastily restoring all things to their former order, the other relocked and replaced the casket, and obeyed the call.

For a moment a mysterious and striking picture might have been seen in that quiet room. Under the crimson canopy lay the fair figure of the sleeping woman, her face half hidden by the golden shadow of her hair, her white arm laid out on the warm-hued coverlet, and bending over it, the two masked men, one holding the lamp nearer, the other pointing to something just above the delicate wrist, now freed from the bracelet which lay open beside it. Two distinctly traced letters were seen, "V. V.," and underneath a tiny true-lover's knot, in the same dark lines. The man who held the lamp examined the brand with minutest care, then making a gesture of satisfaction, he said: "It is enough, I am sure now. Put on the bracelet, and come away, there is nothing more to be done tonight."

The old man skilfully replaced the hand, while the other put back locket and key, placed the lamp where they found it, and with a last look at the sleeper, whose unconscious helplessness appealed to them for mercy, both stole away as noiselessly as they had come. The woman reappeared the instant they left the room, lighted them to the hall door, received some reward that glittered, as it pa.s.sed from hand to hand, and made all fast behind them, pausing a moment in a listening att.i.tude, till the distant roll of a carriage a.s.sured her that the maskers were safely gone.

Chapter X.

In the Snare

The first rays of the sun fell on a group of five men, standing together on a waste bit of ground in the environs of London. Major Mansfield and Dupres were busily loading pistols, marking off the distance, and conferring together with a great display of interest. Douglas conversed tranquilly with the surgeon in attendance, a quiet, una.s.suming man, who stood with his hand in his pocket, as if ready to produce his case of instruments at a moment's notice. The Spaniard was alone, and a curious change seemed to have pa.s.sed over him. The stately calmness of his demeanor was gone, and he paced to and fro with restless steps, like a panther in his cage. A look of almost savage hatred lowered on his swarthy face; desperation and despair alternately glowed and gloomed in his fierce eyes, and the whole man wore a look of one who after long restraint yields himself utterly to the dominion of some pa.s.sion, dauntless and indomitable as death. Once he paused, drew from his pocket an ill-spelt, rudely-written letter, which had been put into his hand by a countryman, as he left his hotel, re-read the few lines it contained, and thrust it back into his bosom, muttering: "All things favor me; this was the last tie that bound her, now we must stand or fall together."

"Seor, we are prepared," called Dupres, advancing, pistol in hand, to place his princ.i.p.al, adding, as Arguelles dropped hat and cloak, "our custom may be different from yours, but give heed, and at the word "three,' fire."

"I comprehend, monsieur," and a dark smile pa.s.sed across the Spaniard's face as he took his place, and stretched his hand to receive the weapon.

But Dupres drew back a step-and with a sharp, metallic click, around that extended wrist snapped a handcuff. A glance showed Arguelles that he was lost, for on his right stood the counterfeit surgeon, with the well-known badge now visible on his blue coat, behind him Major Mansfield, armed, before him Douglas, guarding the nearest outlet of escape, and on his left Dupres, radiant with satisfaction, exclaiming, as he bowed with grace: "A thousand pardons, M. Victor Varens, but this little ruse was inevitable."

Quick as a flash, that freed left hand s.n.a.t.c.hed the pistol from Dupres, aimed it at Douglas, and it would have accomplished its work, had not the Frenchman struck up the weapon. But the ball was sped, and as the pistol turned in his hand, the bullet lodged in Victor's breast, sparing him the fate he dreaded more than death. In an instant, all trace of pa.s.sion vanished, and with a melancholy dignity that nothing could destroy, he offered his hand to receive the fetter, saying calmly, while his lips whitened, and a red stain dyed the linen on his breast: "I am tired of my life; take it."

They laid him down, for, as he spoke, consciousness ebbed away. A glance a.s.sured the major that the wound was mortal, and carefully conveying the senseless body to the nearest house, Douglas and the detective remained to tend and guard the prisoner, while the other gentlemen posted to town to bring a genuine surgeon and necessary help, hoping to keep life in the man till his confession had been made.

At nightfall, Mrs. Vane, or Virginie, as we may now call her, grew anxious for the return of Victor, who was to bring her tidings of the child, because she dared not visit him just now herself. Not only anxious was she, but inwardly intensely excited, for she, too, had taken a desperate resolution to break the tie that bound her to her cousin. She had promised him the heart he had waited for so long, but that promise never would be kept, for when he came to claim its fulfilment, she had determined to reward his constancy with the swift and painless death, which she would offer him in the draught he drank to the success of their last venture. Victor gone, the secret of her life was hers alone, she thought, and this hard-won liberty would leave her free to accept the name she coveted; for once his wife, Douglas would never dare proclaim the past, when she should be made known to him as her real self. She had pondered over the design, the hope, until the one had grown too familiar to daunt her, the other, too precious to relinquish; and now she waited with feverish impatience to do and dare anything for the accomplishment of her desire.

When dressed for the evening, she dismissed Gabrielle, opened the antique casket, and put on the opal ring, carefully attaching the little chain that fastened it securely to her bracelet, for the ring was too large for the delicate hand that wore it. For a moment, she remained kneeling before this repository of her secrets and her sins, with a troubled look, that deepened as she touched one object after another, seeming to recall the various parts they had played.

With a heavy sigh she laid her head down on her knee, and if tears fell, none saw them, if she prayed, none heard the prayer, and if the spirit of good that lingers in the most unrepentant beckoned her on to penitence, there was no sign of submission, for when she rose, her face was cold and quiet, and with steady feet she went down to the drawing-room to meet her lover and her victim.

But there, as elsewhere, some reproachful memory seemed to start up and haunt the present with a vision of the past. She pa.s.sed her hand across her eyes, as if she saw again the little room, where in the gray dawn she had left her husband lying dead, and she sank into a seat, groaning half aloud: "O, if I could forget!"

A bell rang from below, but she did not hear it; steps came through the drawing-room, yet she did not heed them; and Douglas stood before her, but she did not see him till he spoke. So great was her surprise, that with all her power of dissimulation she would have found difficulty in concealing it, had not the pale gravity of the new-comer's face afforded a pretext for alarm.

"You startled me at first, and now you look as if you brought ill news," she said, with a vain effort to a.s.sume her usual gaiety.

"I do," was the brief reply.

"The seor? Is he with you? I am waiting for him."

"Wait no longer, he will never come."

"Where is he?"

"Quiet in his shroud."

He thought to see her shrink and pale before the blow, but she did neither; she grasped his arm, searched his face, and whispered, with a look of relief, not terror, in her own: "You have killed him?"

"No, his blood is not upon my head; he killed himself."

She covered up her face, and from behind her hands he heard her murmur: "Thank G.o.d, he did not come! I am spared that."

While he pondered over the words, vainly trying to comprehend them, she recovered herself, and turning to him, said quite steadily, though very pale: "This is awfully sudden; tell me how it came to pa.s.s. I am not afraid to hear."

"I will tell you, for you have a right to know. Sit, Mrs. Vane; it is a long tale, and one that will try your courage to the utmost."

She shot a quick glance at him, saw that his face was grave and stern, yet his voice was calm, his eye pitiful, and with the thought, "He would not look so if he knew all. I am safe," she sat down, leaning her elbow on the table, with one hand arched above her eyes, as if to shield them from the light. Douglas placed himself opposite, folded his arms before him, and bending toward her, fixed and held her wavering glance with his own steadfast gaze. She could not escape nor conquer it, and before a word left his lips an instinctive foreboding warned her that in the next hour all would be lost or won.

"Six years ago I went abroad to meet my cousin Allan," Douglas began, speaking slowly, almost sternly. "He was my senior by a year, but we so closely resembled each other that we were often taken for twin brothers. Alike in person, character, temper and tastes, we were never so happy as when together, and we loved one another as tenderly as women love. For nearly a year, we roamed east and west, then our holiday was over, for we had promised to return. One month more remained; I desired to revisit Switzerland, Allan to remain in Paris, so we parted for a time, each to our own pleasures, appointing to meet on a certain day at a certain place. I never saw him again, for when I reached the spot where he should have met me, I found only a letter, saying that he had been called from Paris suddenly, but that I should receive further intelligence before many days. I waited, but not long. Visiting the Morgue that very week, I found my poor Allan waiting for me there. His body had been taken from the river, and the deep wound in his breast showed that foul play was at the bottom of the mystery. Night and day I labored to clear up the mystery, but labored secretly, lest publicity should warn the culprits, or bring dishonor upon our name, for I soon found that Allan had led a wild life in my absence, and I feared to make some worse discovery than a young man's follies. I did so; for it appeared that he had been captivated by a singularly beautiful girl, a danseuse, had privately married her, and both had disappeared with a young cousin of her own. Her apartments were searched, but all her possessions had been removed, and nothing remained but a plausible letter, which would have turned suspicion from the girl to the cousin, had not the marriage been discovered, and in her room two witnesses against them. The handle of a stiletto, half consumed in the ashes, which fitted the broken blade entangled in the dead man's clothes, and, hidden by the hangings of the bed, a woman's slipper, with a blood stain on the sole. Ah, you may well shudder, Mrs. Vane; it is an awful tale."

"Horrible! Why tell it?" she asked, pressing her hand upon her eyes, as if to shut out some image too terrible to look upon.

"Because it concerns our friend Arguelles, and explains his death," replied Earl, in the same slow, stern voice. She did not look up, but he saw that she listened breathlessly, and grew paler still behind her hand.

"Nothing more was discovered then. My cousin's body was sent home, and none but our two families ever knew the truth. It was believed by the world that he died suddenly of an affection of the heart-poor lad! it was the bitter truth-and whatever rumors were afloat regarding his death, and the change it wrought in me, were speedily silenced at the time, and have since died away. Over the dead body of my dearest friend, I vowed a solemn vow to find his murderer and avenge his death. I have done both."

"Where? How?"

Her hand dropped, and she looked at him with a face that was positively awful in its unnatural calmness.

"Arguelles was Victor Varens. I suspected, watched, ensnared him, and would have let the law avenge Allan's death, but the murderer escaped by his own hand."

"Well for him that it was so. May his sins be forgiven. Now let us go elsewhere, and forget this dark story and its darker end."

She rose as she spoke, and a load seemed lifted off her heart; but it fell again, as Douglas stretched his hand to detain her, saying: "Stay, the end is not yet told. You forget the girl."

"She was innocent-why should she suffer?" returned the other, still standing as if defying both fear and fate.

"She was not innocent-for she lured that generous boy to marry her, because she coveted his rank and fortune, not his heart, and when he lay dead, left him to the mercies of wind and wave, while she fled away to save herself. But that cruel cowardice availed her nothing, for though I have watched and waited long, at length I have found her, and at this moment her life lies in my hand-for you and Virginie are one!"

As he spoke, his outstretched hand closed with an ominously significant gesture. But like a hunted creature driven to bay, she turned on him with an air of desperate audacity, saying, haughtily: "Prove it!"

"I will."

For a moment they looked at one another. In his face she saw pitiless resolve; in hers he read pa.s.sionate defiance.

"Sit down, Virginie, and hear the story through. Escape is impossible-the house is guarded, Dupres waits in yonder room, and Victor can no longer help you with quick wit or daring hand. Submit quietly, and do not force me to forget that you are my cousin's-wife."

She obeyed him, and as the last words fell from his lips, a new hope sprang up within her, the danger seemed less imminent, and she took heart again, remembering the child, who might yet plead for her, if her own eloquence should fail.

"You ask me to prove that fact, and evidently doubt my power to do it; but well as you have laid your plots, carefully as you have erased all traces of your former self, and skilfully as you have played your new part, the truth has come to light, and through many winding ways I have followed you, till my labor ends here. Let me show you where you have failed, and how your own arts have helped to snare you and your accomplice. When you fled from Paris, Victor, whose mother was a Spaniard, took you to Spain, and there, among his kindred, your boy was born."

"Do you know that, too?" she cried, lost in wonder at the quiet statement of what she believed to be known only to herself, her dead cousin, and those far-distant kindred who had succored her in her need.

"I know everything," Earl answered, with an expression that made her quail; then a daring spirit rose up in her, as she remembered more than one secret, which she now felt to be hers alone.

"Not everything, my cousin; you are keen and subtle, but I excel you, though you win this victory, it seems."

So cool, so calm she seemed, so beautifully audacious she looked, that Earl could only resent the bold speech with a glance, and proceed to prove the truth of his second a.s.sertion with the first.

"You suffered the sharpest poverty, but Victor respected your helplessness, forgave your treachery, supplied your wants as far as possible, and when all other means failed, left you there, while he went to earn bread for you and your boy. Virginie, I never can forgive him my cousin's death, but for his faithful, long-suffering devotion to you, I honor him, sinner though he was."

She shrugged her shoulders, with an air of indifference or displeasure, took off the widow's cap, no longer needed for a disguise, and letting loose the cloud of curls that seemed to love to cl.u.s.ter round her charming face, she lay back in her chair with all her former graceful ease, saying, as she fixed her l.u.s.trous eyes upon the man she meant to conquer yet: "I let him love me, and he was content. What more could I do, for I never loved him?"

"Better for him that you did not, and better for poor Allan that he never lived to know that it was impossible for you to love."

Earl spoke bitterly, but Virginie bent her head till her face was hidden, as she murmured: "Ah, if it were impossible, this hour would be less terrible, the future far less dark."

He heard the soft lament, divined its meaning, but abruptly continued his story, as if he ignored the sorrowful fact which made her punishment heavier from his hand than from any other.

"While Victor was away, you wearied of waiting, you longed for the old life of gaiety and excitement, and, hoping to free yourself from him, you stole away, and for a year were lost to him. Your plan was to reach France, and, under another name, dance yourself into some honest man's heart and home, making him your shield against all danger. You did reach France, but weary, ill, poor, and burdened with the child, you failed to find friends or help, till some evil fortune threw Vane in your way. You had heard of him from Allan, knew his chivalrous nature, his pa.s.sion for relieving pain or sorrow, at any cost to himself, and you appealed to him for charity. A piteous story of a cruel husband, desertion, suffering and dest.i.tution you told him; he believed it, and being on the point of sailing for India, offered you the place of companion to a lady sailing with him. Your tale was plausible, your youth made it pathetic, your beauty lent it power, and the skill with which you played the part of a sad gentlewoman won all hearts, and served your end successfully. Vane loved you, wished to marry you, and would have done so had not death prevented. He died suddenly; you were with him, and though his last act was to make generous provision for you and the boy, some devil prompted you to proclaim yourself his wife, as soon as he was past denying it. He was a solitary man, with few friends and no relatives; therefore no one dared demand proofs from you, had they suspected you. None did; Vane's peculiar character explained any seeming mystery in the affair; his love for you was well known among those with whom you lived, and your statement was believed."

He paused a moment to watch her, for she was evidently racking her brain to discover how he had gained such accurate information of her past. Victor had sworn never to betray her, living or dying; hitherto he had kept his word with strictest fidelity, and she could not believe that he had turned traitor at last.

"You are a magician," she said, suddenly. "I have thought so before; now I am sure of it, for you must have transported yourself to India, to make these discoveries."

"No-India came to me in the person of a Hindoo, and from him I learned these facts," replied Douglas, slow to tell her of Victor's perfidy, lest he should put her on her guard, and perhaps lose some revelation, which, in her ignorance, she might make. Fresh bewilderment seemed to fall upon her, and with intensest interest she listened, as that ruthless voice went on.

"Your plan was this: From Vane you had learned much of Allan's family, and the old desire to be "my lady,' returned more strongly than before. Your brain was fertile in expedients, you acquired the polish of good society with ease, your eventful life gave you the advantages of courage, craft, and great skill in reading characters, and moulding your own to suit your purposes. Once in England, you hoped to make your way as Colonel Vane's widow, and if no safe, sure opportunity appeared of claiming your boy's right, you resolved to gain your end by wooing and winning another Douglas. You were on the point of starting, with poor Vane's fortune in your power (for he left no will, and you were prepared to produce forged papers, if your possession was questioned in England), when Victor found you. He had traced you with the instinct of a faithful dog, though his heart was nearly broken by your cruel desertion. You saw that he could serve you; you appeased his anger and silenced his reproaches by renewed promises to be his when the boy was acknowledged, if he would aid you in that project. At the risk of his life, this devoted slave consented, and, disguised as an Indian servant, came with you to England. On the way, you met and won the good graces of the Countess Camareena; she introduced you to the London world, and you began your career as a lady under the best auspices. Money, beauty, art, served you well, and as an unfortunate descendant of the n.o.ble house of Montmorenci, you were received by those who would have shrunk from you as you once did from the lock of hair of the plebeian French danseuse, found in Allan's dead bosom."

A scornful smile touched Earl's lips as he uttered the last words with a look that hurt her like a blow, and forced from her a truthful bit of history that otherwise would never have escaped her.

"I am n.o.ble," she cried, with an air that proved it; "for though my mother was a peasant, my father was a prince, and better blood than that of the Montmorencis flows in my veins. It ill becomes you to taunt me with low birth, for there is a blot on your own escutcheon, and the proud Lady of Lochleven was a king's mistress."

He could not deny it, and her woman's tongue avenged her wounded pride, as the hot blushes on Earl's cheek betrayed. But he only answered with a slight bow, which might be intended as a mocking obeisance in honor of her questionable n.o.bility, or a grave dismissal of the topic.

"From this point the tale is unavoidably egotistical," he said; "for through Lady Lennox you heard of me, learned that I was the next heir to the t.i.tle, and began at once to weave the web in which I was to be caught. You easily understood what was the mystery of my life, as it was called among the gossips, and that knowledge was a weapon in your hands, which you did not fail to use. You saw that Diana loved me, soon learned my pa.s.sion for her, and set yourself to separate us, without one thought of the anguish it would bring us, one fear of the consequences of such wrong to yourself. You bade her ask of me a confession that I could not make, having given my word to Allan's mother that her son's memory should not be tarnished by the betrayal of the rash act that cost his life. That parted us; then you told her a tale of skilfully mingled truth and falsehood, showed her the marriage record on which a name and date appeared to convict me, took her to see the boy whose likeness to his father, and therefore to myself, completed the cruel deception, and drove that high-hearted girl to madness and to death."

"I did not kill her! On my soul, I never meant it! I was terror-stricken when we missed her, and knew no peace nor rest till she was found. Of this deed I am innocent-I swear it to you on my knees."

The haunting horror of that night seemed again to overwhelm her; all her courage and composure to desert her, and she fell down upon her knees before him, enforcing her denial with clasped hands, imploring eyes and trembling voice. But Douglas drew back with a gesture of repugnance that wounded her more deeply than his sharpest word, and from that moment all traces of compa.s.sion vanished from his countenance, which wore the relentless aspect of a judge who resolves within himself no longer to temper justice with mercy.

"Stand up," he said; "I will listen to no appeal, believe no oath, let no touch of pity soften my heart for your treachery, your craft, your sin, deserve nothing but the heavy retribution you have brought upon yourself. Diana's death lies at your door, as much as if you had stabbed her with the same dagger that took Allan's life. It may yet be proved that you beguiled her to that fatal pool, for you were seen there, going to remove all trace of her, perhaps. But in your hasty flight you left traces of yourself behind you, as you sprang away with an agility that first suggested to me the suspicion of Virginie's presence. I tried your slipper in the footprint, and it fitted too exactly to leave me in much doubt of the truth of my wild conjecture. I had never seen you. Antoine Dupres knew both Victor and yourself. I sent for him, but before the letter went, Jitomar, your spy, read the address, feared that some peril menaced you both, and took counsel with you how to delude the new-comer, if any secret purpose lurked behind our seeming friendliness. You devised a scheme that would have baffled us, had not accident betrayed Victor. In the guise of Arguelles he met Dupres in Paris, returned with him, and played his part so well that the Frenchman was entirely deceived, never dreaming of being sought by the very man who would most desire to shun him. You, too, disguised yourself, with an art that staggered my own senses, and perplexed Dupres, for our mascu line eyes could not fathom the artifices of costume, cosmetics, and consummate acting. We feared to alarm you by any open step, and resolved to oppose craft to craft, treachery to treachery. Dupres revels in such intricate affairs, and I yielded, against my will, till the charm of success drew me on with increasing eagerness and spirit. The day we first met here, in gathering a flower you would have fallen, had not the Spaniard sprung forward to save you; that involuntary act betrayed him, for the momentary att.i.tude he a.s.sumed recalled to Dupres the memory of a certain pose which the dancer Victor often a.s.sumed. It was too peculiar to be accidental, too striking to be easily forgotten, and the entire unconsciousness of its actor was a proof that it was so familiar as to be quite natural. From that instant Dupres devoted himself to the Spaniard; this first genuine delusion put Victor off his guard with Antoine, and Antoine's feigned friendship was so adroitly a.s.sumed that no suspicion woke in Victor's mind till the moment when, instead of offering him a weapon with which to take my life, he took him prisoner."

"He is not dead, then? You lie to me; you drive me wild with your horrible recitals of the past, and force me to confess against my will. Who told you these things? The dead alone could tell you what pa.s.sed between Diana and myself."

Still on the ground, as if forgetful of everything but the bewilderment of seeing plot after plot unfolded before her, she had looked up and listened with dilated eyes, lips apart, and both hands holding back the locks that could no longer hide her from his piercing glance. As she spoke, she paled and trembled with a sudden fear that clutched her heart, that Diana was not dead, for even now she clung to her love with a desperate hope that it might save her. Calm and cold as a man of marble, Douglas looked down upon her, so beautiful in all her abas.e.m.e.nt, and answered, steadily: "You forget Victor. To him all your acts, words, and many of your secret thoughts were told. Did you think his love would endure forever, his patience never tire, his outraged heart never rebel, his wild spirit never turn and rend you? All day I have sat beside him, listening to his painful confessions, painfully but truthfully made, and with his last breath he cursed you as the cause of a wasted life, an ignominious death. Virginie, this night your long punishment begins, and that curse is a part of it."

"O, no, no! You will have mercy, remembering how young, how friendless I am? For Allan's sake you will pity me; for his boy's sake you will save me; for your own sake you will hide me from the world's contempt?"

"What mercy did you show poor Diana?-what love for Allan?-what penitence for your child's sake?-what pity for my grief? I tell you, if a word would save you, my lips should not utter it!"

He spoke pa.s.sionately now, and pa.s.sionately she replied, clinging to him, though he strove to tear his hands away.

"You have heard Victor's confession, now hear mine. I have longed to repent; I did hope to make my life better, for my baby's sake, and O, I did pity you, till my cold heart softened and grew warm. I should have given up my purpose, repaid Victor's fidelity, and gone away to grow an honest, happy, humble woman, if I had not loved you. That made me blind, when I should have been more keen-sighted than ever; that kept me here to be deceived, betrayed, and that should save me now."

"It will not; and the knowledge that I detest and despise you, is to add bitterness to your threefold punishment; the memory of Allan, Victor and Diana is another part of it, and here is the heaviest blow which Heaven inflicts as a retribution that will come home to you."

As he spoke, Douglas held to her a crumpled paper, stained with a red stain, and torn with the pa.s.sage of a bullet that ended Victor's life. She knew the writing, sprung up to seize it, read the few lines, and when the paper fluttered to the ground, the white anguish of her face betrayed that the last blow had crushed her as no other could have done. She dropped into a seat, with the wail of tearless woe that breaks from a bereaved mother's heart as she looks on the dead face of the child who has been her idol, and finds no loving answer there.

"My baby gone-and I not there to say good-by! O, my darling, I could have borne anything but this!"

So utterly broken did she seem, so wild and woful did she look, that Douglas had not the heart to add another pang to her sharp grief by any word of explanation or compa.s.sion. Silently he poured out a gla.s.s of wine and placed it nearer, then resumed his seat, and waited till she spoke. Soon she lifted up her head, and showed him the swift and subtle blight that an hour had brought upon her. Life, light and beauty seemed to have pa.s.sed away, and a pale shadow of her former self alone remained. Some hope or some resolve had brought her an unnatural calmness, for her eyes were tearless, her face expressionless, her voice tranquil, as if she had done with life, and neither pain nor pa.s.sion could afflict her now.

"What next?" she said, and laid her hand upon the gla.s.s, but did not lift it to her lips, as if the former were too tremulous, or the latter incapable of receiving the draught.

"Only this," he answered, with a touch of pity in his voice. "I will not have my name handed from mouth to mouth, in connection with an infamous history like this. For Allan's sake, and for Diana's, I shall keep it secret, and take your punishment into my hands. Victor I leave to a wiser Judge than any human one; the innocent child is safe from shame and sorrow, but you must atone for the past with the loss of liberty and your whole future. It is a more merciful penalty than the law would exact, were the truth known, for you are spared public contempt, allowed time for repentance, and deprived of nothing but the liberty which you have so cruelly abused."

"I thank you. Where is my prison to be?"

She took the gla.s.s into her hand, yet still held it suspended, as she waited for his answer, with an aspect of stony immobility that troubled him.

"Far away in Scotland I own a gray old tower, all that now remains of an ancient stronghold. It is built on the barren rock, where it stands like a solitary eagle's eyrie, with no life near it but the sound of the wind, the scream of the gulls, the roll of the sea that foams about it. There, with my faithful old servants you shall live, cut off from all the world, but not from G.o.d, and when death comes to you, may it find you ready and glad to go, an humble penitent, more fit to meet your little child than now."

A long, slow tremor shook her from head to foot, as word by word her merciful yet miserable doom was p.r.o.nounced, leaving no hope, no help but the submission and repentance which it was not in her nature to give. For a moment she bowed her head, while her pale lips moved, and her hands, folded above the gla.s.s, were seen to tremble as if some fear mingled even in her prayers. Then she sat erect, and fixing on him a glance in which love, despair and defiance mingled, she said, with all her former pride and spirit, as she slowly drank the wine: "Death cannot come too soon; I go to meet it."

Her look, her tone, awed Douglas, and for a moment he regarded her in silence, as she sat there, leaning her bright head against the dark velvet of the cushioned chair. Her eyes were on him, still brilliant and brave, in spite of all that had just past; a disdainful smile curved her lips, and one fair arm lay half extended on the table, as it fell when she put the gla.s.s away. On this arm the bracelet shone; he pointed to it, saying, with a meaning glance: "I know that secret, as I know all the rest."

"Not all; there is one more that you have not discovered-yet."

She spoke very slowly, and her lips seemed to move reluctantly, while a strange pallor fell upon her face, and the fire began to die out of her eyes, leaving them dim, but beautifully tender.

"You mean the mystery of the iron ring; but I learned that last night, when, with an expert companion, I entered your room, where you lay buried in the deep sleep produced by the drugged coffee which I gave you. I saw my portrait on your neck, as I wear Allan's, ever since we gave them to each other, long ago, and beside the miniature, the silver key that opened your quaint treasure-casket. I found the wax impression of my signet, taken, doubtless, on the night when, as a ghost, you haunted my room; I found the marriage record, stamped with that counterfeit seal, to impose upon Diana; I found relics of Vane, and of your child, and when Hyde called me, I saw and examined the two letters on your arm, which he had uncovered by removing the bracelet from it."

He paused there, expecting some demonstration. None appeared; she leaned and listened, with the same utter stillness of face and figure, the same fixed look and deathly pallor. He thought her faint and spent with the excitement of the hour, and hastened to close the interview, which had been so full of contending emotions to them both.

"Go now, and rest," he said. "I shall make all necessary arrangements here, all proper explanations to Lady Leigh. Gabrielle will prepare for your departure in the morning; but let me warn you not to attempt to bribe her, or to deceive me by any new ruse, for now escape is impossible."

"I have escaped!"

The words were scarcely audible, but a glance of exultation flashed from her eyes, then faded, and the white lids fell, as if sleep weighed them down. A slight motion of the nerveless hand that lay upon the table drew Earl's attention, and with a single look those last words were explained. The opal ring was turned inward on her finger, and some unsuspected spring had been touched, when she laid her hands together; for now in the deep setting appeared a tiny cavity, which had evidently contained some deadly poison. The quick and painless death that was to have been Victor's had fallen to herself, and, unable to endure the fate prepared for her, she had escaped, when the net seemed most securely drawn about her. Horror-stricken, Douglas called for help; but all human aid was useless, and nothing of the fair, false Virginie remained, but a beautiful, pale image of repose.