The Bunsby papers Part 16

Galled to the very quick, Luke answered with asperity--"Thank you, Miss Dwyer, you have found one for yourself, and"--looking at Black Mark, as a jealous lover only can look--"you'll pardon me, but I don't like the sample."

Mark regarded him with a scowl of the deepest malignity, while Kathleen, the real feelings of her heart kept down by coquetry, exclaimed with a laugh:--

"Don't mind him, Mark, he's only jealous, poor fellow. Come, will you not dance again?"

"Aye, and again, and for ever," impetuously replied Mark; "Come."

And as they went to rejoin the dancers, Kathleen caught the expression of Luke's features, and there saw so much misery depicted, that she would have given worlds to have recalled her words. She yearned to implore his forgiveness, but her insatiable appet.i.te for admiration restrained her. "Never mind," thought she, "when the dance is over, I can easily make it up with him," and away she went, thinking no more about it.

At the conclusion of the dance, her better feelings all predominating, she quitted Mark and rushed over to the place where Luke had been standing, but he was gone; with that unfeeling speech rankling in his heart, he had left. It was now her turn to be miserable; not all the soft speeches that were poured into her ear had power to console her, but her annoyance was at its height when Black Mark, presuming upon the encouragement which she had given him, seated himself beside her, and in ardent language declared himself her pa.s.sionate lover. Poor, unthinking Kathleen, she had evoked a spirit which she had not power to quell.

It was more than a week after, before Luke could bring himself to venture near Kathleen; but finding that each succeeding day only made him still more wretched, he determined to know his fate at once, and with a sorely palpitating heart he neared her abode, lifted the latch, and entered; the first sight that met his eyes was Mark and Kathleen, sitting near to each other, the deep blush that crimsoned her to the very throat, evinced to Luke the interesting nature of their conversation. She could not speak, neither could he, but giving her one look which sank into her very brain, he left the place; in vain she called after him, he turned but once--a deep curse was on his lips but his n.o.ble heart refused to sanction it. "Farewell, beloved Kathleen,"

he cried, while bitter tears flowed fast as he spoke, "May the good G.o.d protect you now, for you will need it." And Luke rapidly strode towards the village, inly determining to go to sea on the morrow, and never look upon her or his loved home again.

Meanwhile, Kathleen, apprehensive that he would do something desperate, implored Mark to follow and bring him back. With a contemptuous sneer, he answered, "Do you think I'm a fool? No, no! Kathleen, you've gone too far with me to retract now. The world sees and knows our intimacy; the only barrier to our happiness was your foolish lover, Luke--he has taken the sulks, and gone away--our road is now clear. I love you better than a hundred such milk-sops as he could, so come--say the word!"

"That word," replied Kathleen, firmly, "shall never be said by me."

"Have a care, girl!" fiercely retorted Mark, "I'm not a man to be trifled with; you have led me to believe that you liked me, and you _shall_ redeem the pledge your eyes at least have given."

"Never! Mark Dermot, never!" exclaimed Kathleen, rising from her seat; but with a fierce gesture, and a determined fire in his eye, Mark forced her down again, saying, in a clear, but terribly earnest manner: "Kathleen, from my youth up, I never allowed the slightest wish of my soul to be thwarted; think you that I shall submit to be led or driven, coaxed near, or sent adrift, at the caprice of any living thing?--no!

if you can't be mine from love, you shall from fear; for," ratifying his threat by a fearful oath, "no obstacle shall exist between me and my desire."

"What mean you, Mark Dermot?" cried the terrified girl.

"No matter," he replied, "the choice rests with you. You cannot deny that your manner warranted me in soliciting your hand. Remember, love and hate dwell very near each other--the same heart contains them both.

Be mine, and every wish of your soul shall be antic.i.p.ated--refuse me, and tremble at the consequences."

"Heaven forgive, and help me," inly prayed Kathleen, as the result of her weak conduct now made itself so awfully apparent. Thinking to enlist some good feeling from Mark's generosity, she frankly acknowledged to him that her affections were entirely bestowed upon the absent Luke.

She knew not the demon-heart in which she had trusted; instead of inclining him to mercy, her words only inflamed him into tenfold rage.

"Vile woman!" he exclaimed, starting to his feet. "Have you then been making a scoff and jest--a play-thing and a tool of me? Better for you had you raised a fiend than tampered with me thus. How know I that you do not lie, even now, woman-devil? One word for all!--by your eternal hope, who is it that you do love?"

"On my knees--Luke Bryant," fervently said Kathleen.

"Then wo to ye both!" cried Mark, casting her rudely from him, and, with a look of intense hate, rushing from the cottage.

There was a perfect tempest of rage in Mark's breast, as he quitted Kathleen; plans of revenge, deadly and horrible, suggested themselves to him, and he nursed the devilish feeling within his heart until every humanizing thought was swallowed up in the antic.i.p.ation of a sweeping revenge. On reaching the village, his first care was to find Luke; upon seeing him, he started as though a serpent stood in his path.

"Keep away from me, Mark Dermot," he sternly exclaimed. "If you are come to triumph in your success, be careful, for there may be danger in it."

"Luke," replied the other, in a sad tone, "we are rivals no longer.

Nay, listen, I bring you good news, there are not many who would have done this; but what care I now--the fact is, like a sensible man, I am come to proclaim my own failure. Kathleen has refused me."

"She has?"

"As true as I'm alive--rejected me for you, Luke. Nay, as good as told me that she merely flirted with me to fix your chains the tighter.

Cunning little devil--eh, Luke? Come, you'll shake hands with me now, I know."

"If I could believe you, Mark," said Luke, the joy dancing in his very eyes.

"I tell you she acknowledged to me that she never could love any one but you. Now am I not a generous rival, to carry his mistress's love to another? She requested me to ask you to call in this morning, if you would have conclusive proof of her sincerity, and you would then find that _she could never use you so again_. But now 'tis getting late, and as I have delivered my message, I shall leave you to dream of Kathleen and happiness. Good night--be sure and see her in the morning;" and they parted.

Soon afterwards, Luke missed his clasp-knife with which he had been eating his supper, but, after a slight search, thought no more of the matter, his very soul glowing with renewed delight at the thought of seeing his loved one on the morrow--that their differences should be made up, and all again be sunshine.

About an hour after, as he was preparing to retire for the night, it suddenly occurred to him that he would like to take a walk towards Kathleen's cottage--perchance he should see her shadow on the curtain--he might hear her sweet voice--no matter, to gaze upon the home that contained her would at least be something; so off he started in that direction, a happy feeling pervading his every sense. Arrived within sight of her abode, he fancied he heard a stifled groan, but his thoughts, steeped in joy, dwelt not on it. In a moment after, a distinct and fearful scream, as of one in agony, burst on the stillness of the night. It came from the direction of Kathleen's cottage.

Inspired with a horrible fear, he ran wildly forward--another, and another terrible scream followed; there was no longer doubt--it was the voice of his Kathleen. With mad desperation, he reached the place just in time to see the figure of a man, who, in the doubtful light, he could not recognize, rush from the door and disappear in darkness. In breathless horror Luke entered. Great Heaven! what a sight met his eyes. His beloved Kathleen lay on the blood-dabbled floor, in the last agony of departing nature, her beating heart pierced with many wounds; she saw and evidently recognized Luke, for 'mid the desperate throes of ebbing life, she clutched his hand in hers, essaying, but in vain, to articulate--she could but smile; her eye glazed over--her hand relaxed its grasp--and with her gentle head resting on his breast, her spirit pa.s.sed away.

All this was so sudden and fearfully unexpected to Luke, that he scarcely knew 'twas reality, until several of the surrounding neighbors, who had been alarmed by the out-cry, came hastily in.

"See!" cried one, "'Tis as I thought; murder has been done."

"And here is the fatal instrument with which it has been effected,"

said another, as he picked up a gory knife from the floor. It caught the eye of Luke. "That knife is mine," said he, in the measured tone of one stricken down by terrible calamity.

"Yours?" they all exclaimed at once. "Then you have murdered her?"

Luke only smiled--a ghastly, soul-crushed smile, most awful to look upon at such a time; his heart was too full for words. Reason, which had been dethroned by this unexpected blow, had scarcely yet returned to its seat, for all unconsciously he still held the lifeless form tightly clasped in his arms, gazing, with a sort of stony expression, upon the face of her who had been to him the world.

It was not until they approached to seize him for killing _her_, that he seemed to be thoroughly aware of his position.

"What would you do, friends?" said he, mournfully, as they endeavored to force him away. "Would you deny me the sad comfort of dying in her presence?"

"Have you not murdered her, wretch?" cried one of the by-standers.

"What!--murder _her_--G.o.d in heaven forbid," he exclaimed.

"Is not this your knife?"

"It is!"

"And how came it here--if not used by you--in this unknown manner?"

"It was stolen from me by that arch-demon, Mark Dermot," said Luke, shuddering to the very heart, as he mentioned that name.

"That has got to be proved," cried one of the crowd, who happened to be a friend of Mark's, "we can't take your bare word for it. Let him be secured."

But Luke needed no securing. Listlessly he suffered them to pinion his arms; and in the same room with the precious casket which once contained his heart's treasure, he abided the remainder of the night, in a state of mental torture utterly incapable of being rendered into words.

The morning after this awful occurrence, a coroner's jury was summoned, and the ident.i.ty of the knife having been proved, added to his own admission, and the fact of his having had a quarrel with her the day before being testified to, every circ.u.mstance tended to fix the guilt upon him; a verdict was delivered accordingly, and Luke Bryant stood charged with the murder of one for whom he would willingly have shed his last drop of blood.

With a degree of effrontery consonant with his general character, Black Mark made his appearance amongst the spectators who attended the inquiry, and was loudest in denunciation against the supposed criminal.

It only remained now for the accused, who had been removed during the inquest, to be brought into the chamber of death, previously to the warrant being drawn out for his final committal, to be tried at the ensuing quarter sessions. He was conducted into the room; with a listless, apathetic gaze he looked around him mechanically, for he cared not now what fate might do to him, when suddenly his eyes rested on Mark Dermot. The consciousness of everything that had taken place seemed all to flash through his brain at once.

"Murderer!" he cried. "Can it be that Heaven's lightning slumbers!

Friends!--behold that fiend; who, not content with the life's blood of one victim, now comes to triumph in a double murder!"

"What means the fool?" contemptuously exclaimed Mark. "Does he suppose that reasoning men will credit his ravings, or help him to shift his load of crime upon another's shoulders?"