Dinner over, the ladies scattered, some to their rooms, some to go walking—Margaret and Madame Hesslein simultaneously entered the drawing-room. They turned to each other, the glittering bird of Paradise, and the gentle ring-dove, with a resistless impulse of attraction, and each examined the other keenly.
"You are Miss Margaret Walsingham, a celebrity, even in America," quoth madame, blandly. "Your colonel was much talked of here for his bravery. I am quite delighted to meet the woman who has fought so spiritedly for the colonel's rights."
Margaret gazed earnestly at her; she was reading that artful simplicity of madame with regret, and pitying the fine woman whom the world had spoiled.
"Your praise is very disinterested, Madame Hesslein," returned she, simply. "I thank you for it. I am very strange here, and can't tell what the people say about my affairs. I had hoped that they knew nothing about me."
"Pshaw! my good lady, you can't expect to pass through life with your history and not excite remark," retorted Madame Hesslein, with a flirt of the jeweled fan. "No heroine does, be she a good or a bad one. Men must talk—give them something to talk about."
Margaret watched her spirited face with secret fascination.
"You are reading me," laughed madame, clanking her golden bracelet on her dainty wrist. "You are wondering what a woman of the world like me wants with a saint like yourself, are you not?"
"I am thinking that no doubt you have a purpose in view," said Margaret, struck by the unlovely shrewdness of the lady's speech.
Madame Hesslein waved her dainty hands in graceful protest.
"Quite wrong, Miss Walsingham," she cried. "I have no purpose as yet, save the pleasant one of studying a nature which I cannot imitate. I have been celebrated in my day, but not as you; women are your worshippers; women cry, 'Noble, generous creature!' Women only envied me, and presumed to criticise; 'twas men who gave me homage."
"Don't jest, madame, upon my history; it may yet end in a tragedy!" said Margaret.
"Ah, ah!" breathed madame, warningly, "you are one of those great hearted, soft souled women who suffer affairs of the heart to trouble them. Don't suffer affairs of the heart to trouble you. Griselda the patient. When one hope dies, pursue another, and have a new one every day. Ha! ha! Joliffe (my husband) used to say, 'Honoria sees no trouble, for her heart is never at home to grant an interview.'"
"Your husband is dead?" asked Margaret, coldly.
"Yes, and no. Dead to me these five years, though. Fact is, Miss Walsingham—don't feel horror-stricken—that Joliffe was intolerably prosy; we had a quarrel, and I ran off. Why not? Since then we have got comfortably divorced, and I can marry as soon as I like again. Joliffe was so jealous. I must not drive to the general's, I must not walk with a senator, I must eschew the military, and the best wits of the day are military men. Horrors! I must devote myself to Joliffe, and he only on the embassy at Washington."
Madame appealed impressively to the icy Margaret.
"General Legrange here declares that you are the widow of a Plenipotentiary of the French Court!" she said.
"Does he indeed?" cried madame, with the gusto of habitual vanity. "Then I sha'n't contradict him—don't you, Miss Walsingham. They must always talk about me wherever I go. I am accustomed to it; I let them say what they choose. I please myself, and the world gives me my way, I've been North and South, East and West, and although I have seen trouble, I have ever trodden over it; no woman has ever got into the wrong box so often and come out of it to a higher grade; no woman has ever borne so much scandal, and been popular in spite of it. I survive it all; I eat, drink, make merry—am feasted, courted, and adored, and all because I don't let affairs of the heart vex me. I don't mope, and muse, and turn melancholy as you (a good creature, too), are doing."
The fine, small face of Madame Hesslein shone with wicked animation; her thin, scarlet lips parted in two beauty curves with a string of pearls between, with small, glittering head poised on one side, the gorgeous parakeet studied the plain, tender creature before her, and laughed at such a contrast.
"Do you know why I am here?" queried Margaret, tremulously.
Madame Hesslein smiled and nodded.
"All New York knows why the sombre English dame is here," she jibed, "for your stupid lawyer has bored the city for news of your Colonel Brand."
"Mr. Davenport only does his duty."
Madame grimaced charmingly.
"Duty!" she mocked. "Oh, Juggernaut of good people's lives, what unwilling victims do ye crush beneath your wheels in your heavenward march?"
"Have you been crushed?" asked Margaret, smiling.
"Oh, no; Mr. Davenport is too pompous to expect anything of a woman. Stupid wretch!"
"Had you known St. Udo Brand," cried Margaret, blushing, "you could not laugh at his destruction. He was bitterly proud, but he was true as steel."
"Was he so?" breathed madam—and her green eyes grew black—"I should have liked to meet him, then. I have yet to meet the man who is as true as steel. Griselda, you are one who should win back a man—but, oh, you'll never do it! never!"
A wild change swept over her fine face, her wondrous, globular eyes grew deep and passionate, and her beautiful hands were clasped in covert anguish.
"I pity your sad life, madame, if you have proved all false," said Margaret, with feeling, "for there are good men on earth, I doubt not."
"The best die; the fairest, the most loved," said madame, faintly. "Miss Walsingham, I had one son—ah!"—she shivered and closed her eye—"and he died miserably. I loved him, I did love him, and he was my only consolation for many years." She dashed her tears away and looked up sternly. "You make me talk to you, with your soft, true face," she exclaimed, bitterly, "and I must not talk. But mind, I have told you nothing; you can't say that I have narrated any of my history to you."
"I had not thought of saying so," replied Margaret.
"Ah, you are a good soul, and I like you," murmured madame, patting Margaret's hand with a touch like falling rose-leaves. "So sweet, so heroic, so humble! You remind me of myself many years ago in old Austria, when I was in love with—my destroyer!"
Her face hardened, her green eyes glimmered with the deadly light of hate.
She turned off her momentary remorse with a heartless laugh, and rattled hercollierof golden lockets.
"Each of these lockets," sneered madame, "contains a victim to my power of fascination, [there were at least a dozen,] and the whole string of them was presented to me by an old vice admiral who fell in love with me at Barbadoes last winter, and escorted me to the Bermudas when I went there. My good lady, that first foolish passion of mine has so destroyed my powers of mercy that I love to torture mankind and madden them with false expectations, if only I might be revenged."
The beautiful lips of the lady suddenly compressed with a cruel expression, and looking up, Margaret beheld the Chevalier de Calembours hurrying across the room to join them.
"The Chevalier de Calembours wishes to be presented to you," said Margaret.
Those gleaming, chrysolite orbs flashed a full upward glare in the chevalier's face. He recoiled, he changed color, and became strangely silent.
"So glad to meet the chevalier," murmured madame, with an inimitable elegance of manner.
Monsieur's face relaxed; he drew near her, dazzled as with the eye of a rattlesnake.
"Incomparable madame, where have we met before?" inquired he, with soft insinuation.
She honored him with a glance of astonishment and an artless smile.
"Indeed I cannot say, chevalier," she minced, "unless we've met in dreams."
"Pardon the presumption, madame,mon amie," persisted the chevalier, growing very pale, "but I think we are not strangers."
Another change swept over Madame Hesslein's ever-changeful face; all resemblance of her late self disappeared, and a bold, brilliant, haughty creature sat in her place, smiling with supercilious amusement at the little Bohemian's blunder.
"I should indeed feel honored if monsieur would recall the circumstances of our acquaintance," she said, blandly; "for I am frequently accosted by strangers who vow that I am known to them, and who afterward discover that my resemblance to the person they took me for was owing solely to the Protean expression of my face. I can't help my face being like twenty other people's in a breath, can I, Miss Walsingham? But I would like to think that Chevalier Calembours had known me previously, for I always have a warm side to Frenchmen for a special reason."
The chevalier was himself again: his doubts had fled, and he was laughing at himself for his momentary illusion.
"Madame has explained the sweet hallucination," he said, hand on heart. "We have not met except in dreams. Ah! that we had been friends in those days of glory when I was the favorite of the Hungarian court, the Count of Calembours, owner of diamond mines!Mon Dieu!my homage was worthy of its object then!"
Monsieur launched into his loftiest braggadocio, and madame listened well, and drew him out with skill.
"So monsieur was born in Hungary?"
"In Hungary, madame."
"Have you seen the pretty river Theiss?"
"Hem! Yes, madame. I lived in Irzegedin."
"Ah!"—with a mocking smile—"the residences of the counts are particularly magnificent in that city, are they not?"
"Madame is right. Madame must have been there."
"Oh, no, my dear chevalier, else I should have heard of Count Calembours, without doubt. And Chevalier de Calembours left his princely fortune behind when he came here to fight?"
"Madame is a good listener."
"Brave chevalier! but you will return to your estates?"
"Without doubt, madame, when I am weary of glory."
"Admirable man!" cried madame, with a silvery laugh. "What an enviable lady your wife is."
"Dear friend, I have no wife," complacently.
"Is that credible? A young and handsome man without a wife? Oh, chevalier!"
"My wife,"—with a frown—"my wife is gone long since."
"Alas! how sad. You must have been adored by her," breathed Madame Hesslein.
"Ah,pauvrette, yes. She wearied me with that grand passion of hers."
Madame's smiling face hardened into a stone-mask, but her eyes seemed to pulsate with smothered fire.
"Wearied monsieur, did she?" (with a threatening smile into his eyes). "Silly, clumsy wretch!"
"No, no, madame," laughed the chevalier; "she was a pretty Venus, but unsophisticated, unformed, somewhat vulgar."
"And your indifference broke her heart—she died for love of you?" questioned madame, wickedly.
"No, no, madame," laughed the chevalier again. "She consoled herself. She ran away with a cotton lord from Manchester, and I heard of her no more."
"She was mad—she was a fool!" cried madame, blandly mischievous. "She should have polished her dull luster, and recaptured the errant heart of her noble chevalier. I should have done so."
"You, exquisite madame?" sighed the chevalier,con amore. "Ah, but my wife was not clever like you, nor beautiful."
"She was only affectionate?" whispered madame.
"Only affectionate," and monsieur bowed.
Again their eyes met, hers streaming forth a bewildering fire, his wistful and adoring, and though her words stung the Chevalier de Calembours, the victim could not choose but hover close, and closer to admire the serpentine grace of his tormentor.
Presently, becoming weary of the amusement, the siren sent him for a chess-board, promising him a game of backgammon for reward, and turning to Margaret, with a laugh of derision, her excitement burst forth.
"See how that man throws himself down to be trampled over by me," she whispered, exultingly. "See how he licks the dust from my feet. Ah, if I could only spurn him into ruin I would do it."
She thrust her lovely foot of Andalusian grace from out of its velvet folds, and contemplated it with a smile.
"I am more beautiful than that creature who loved him long ago on the banks of the Theiss, am I? Then by virtue of my beauty, I shall avenge her cause, and my own. I shall humiliate our noble count."
She whispered it gayly to her sumptuous bracelets, turning and clanking the golden shackle on her shapely wrist; but her fine, small face was wild with malice.
"You hate my friend, the chevalier, with a strange perversity," remarked the disapproving Margaret. "Doubtless that hapless woman was as much to blame as he."
"Ah, was she?" breathed madame, turning pale. "I think he said that her only fault was her passionate love, which his shallow soul wearied of. Oh, Heaven! how cruel you can be! Her case, Miss Walsingham, is like my own—how keenly I can understand such wrongs. Pshaw! I shall moralize no more. I have long, long ago left these stormy waves behind, and now float on a glassy sea, lit by rays of golden ambition. I have buried the god of luckless youth, poor Cupid, and set upon his grave the god of the Thirties—yellow-faced Pluto. My motto is, 'No heart and a good digestion,' and taking heed to its warning, I expect to live, handsome as a picture, to the age of old Madame Bellair, who
"'Lived to the age of one hundred and ten;And died from a fall from a cherry-tree then.'"
"'Lived to the age of one hundred and ten;And died from a fall from a cherry-tree then.'"
The chevalier returning with the chess-board, madame and he enjoyed several hours of their game, she played more games than that of backgammon, although all her faculties seemed to be concentrated in winning the chevalier's golden dollars from him, which she did with marvelous relish, and keeping her accounts, which she did with marvelous precision.
She ended her game of backgammon by transferring the last piece in the charmed chevalier's purse to her own, and she ended the game of hearts by dropping the net of bewilderment completely over poor Calembours, and then she thought of tightening the cord.
"Poor Miss Walsingham!" said madame, with a rippling laugh of wicked glee; "I shall chase away that look of stern dislike which has settled upon your face ever since you discovered that I added gambling to my other sins—I shall make you like me in spite of yourself. Come, chevalier, turn my music."
She strolled gracefully down the long drawing-room, attended by the elated chevalier, who had never been so happy in his life, and, followed by the wondering and admiring eyes of a score of both sexes, took her seat at the piano.
But Margaret turned her back, and shut her heart against the bold and erring creature, whose beauty was but the fatal bewitchment of clever wickedness, whose spasms of grief were the last expiring gleams of a better nature which she sedulously quenched.
Madame played some air, fairy nonsense, that her little hands might glamour the rapt chevalier in their bird-like glancings here and there; and then, with a defiant glance over her shoulder at cold Margaret Walsingham, she stole into a theme with sentiment, with soul in every chord.
Ah, those strains of tender sadness! how they rose and fell in persistent plaint! how they mourned, and whispered of hope, mourned again in homeless accents! Then these waves of stronger passion—how they surged from grief to fury! how they gushed from beneath the glancing hands in menacing strains and conquering thunder!
It was as if a Frederic Chopin sat before the keys, instead of that small Circe.
Then these songs, so wild, so caroling, so purely joyous—could Sappho sing more burningly of happiness and love?
Margaret forgot her chill disdain of the perverted nature, forgot her own heart-trouble, even forgot St. Udo Brand in her trance of ravishment; and unconscious that she did so, rose and stood beside the wondrous St. Cecilia.
Madame raised her mock-simple eyes—they were not disappointed—Margaret was bending over her with a fascinated face, and the chevalier was wrapped in his study of the fair musician.
"Thanks for that act of homage," said Madame Hesslein, gravely, to Margaret; then dropping her tones, and rising, "I thought I could make you like me. I came here, to this hotel, to make you like me, because I had something pleasant to tell you; and I never do a favor for any one who presumes to criticise me unfavorable. Griselda, patient soul, come to my room, and we shall talk."
She drew the astonished Margaret's hand within her arm, gave a majestic bow to the flushed chevalier, and led the unresisting girl out of the drawing-room to her own luxurious apartments.
"Now, my good lady," observed Madame Hesslein, airily. "I have conceived something like appreciation of your humdrum goodness, and since I see a good deal of intellect at the back of it, I am disposed to do you a good turn, hoping that, charity-like, it may cover a multitude of my sins."
"What is it that you have to communicate?" asked Margaret, earnestly. "How can it be that you, a stranger have become acquainted with my concerns?"
"Pshaw! English exclusiveness again!" mocked madame. "But I do know somewhat of your affairs, gentle Griselda. For instance, I hear that you are searching for Colonel Brand, that you may make over your fortune to him. Margaret Walsingham, how can you be so foolish?"
"Madame, I only do my duty."
"Ugh! You horrify me with your crucifixion of the flesh, you devotee of Duty."
"Colonel Brand is worth sacrificing life itself for," said Margaret, with glowing eyes.
Madame watched her with sudden interest.
"Ah! I thought so," murmured she, sadly; "You care for this man—you love him."
"Madame!" deprecated timid Margaret, coldly.
"Yes, I see it. Poor creature, you should not love anything, do you know that, said madame, pityingly.
"You are right," replied Margaret, with a meek, quiet despair. "My plain face and manner will never win me love."
Madame Hesslein looked at her with a curious smile—at the spiritual face, the soulful eyes, the tall, magnificent figure—and she patted Margaret's hand with dainty tenderness.
"Your humility is very prettily done," said she, "and would really look well on myself, for I have none of it. But you mistake me; I meant that since love is eternally being met with treachery, why do you waste it, and especially upon such a poorpartias a colonel? Heavens! she troubles her digestion about a colonel! Why are you not more ambitious? If I were you, I wouldn't look below a major-general. I don't intend to give myself to any man who can't give me a lift in life. I am going to marry Vice-Admiral Oldright, who followed me to the Bermudas. I have worked hard to entrap him, and I have succeeded, I crossed the Atlantic five times for his sake, and I mean to get him; because when he is an admiral, and I am his wife, I shall take precedence of all other women in my circle."
"Ambition is not worth a true woman's pursuit," said Margaret.
"Well said, St. Griselda—such an apothegm deserves applause. Ah, well, Miss Walsingham, perhaps you are right, but you are not wise. You will stick to your colonel in spite of my advice? You will give him your fortune, and live on your wits in future? Poor creature! However I will not reproach you; for, as St. Chrysostom wrote to Pentadia, 'I know your great and lofty soul, which can sail, as with a fair wind through many tempests, and in the midst of the waves enjoy a white calm.' You will depart on your Utopian enterprise, contented with the white calm of an approving conscience in the midst of the waves of starvation. Men are such beasts, they prefer the bold and grasping Kestral like myself to rewarding the fidelity of a ring-dove like Miss Walsingham."
Margaret was gazing breathlessly in the brilliant, heartless woman's face, and her voice faltered, as she asked:
"Can you send me on that enterprise? Do you bring me news of Colonel Brand?"
And madame, with a glance of pity in the passionate eyes, replied:
"Yes, I can. When at Key West, a month ago, I saw Colonel Brand driving out with a friend. Does that please you?"
Margaret's face was quivering with joy—with a noble triumph; she turned it from those scoffing eyes, and whispered a quiet "Thank God!"
Three days afterward a steamer was entering the harbor of Key West.
Margaret Walsingham, Madame Hesslein, Mr. Davenport, and the Chevalier de Calembours stood on deck, watching the fair white city grow larger, and breathing the lambent air, which brought upon its wings the perfume of wild roses, orange-trees, and tropic herbs, although the month was yet February.
Madame Hesslein had come, she told Margaret, to meet her husband at Key West; but if that were so, she chose a singular method to prepare her mind for the gentle thrill of matrimony.
She was drawing the meshes of her secret net slowly round the unwary chevalier, even as yon secret reef enclasped the beautiful isles of summer, and lay in wait to wreck the unsuspicious ship that might carry future cheer to the prisoner.
Her witchery, her diablerie was maddening the little man; his customary caution had forsaken him, his intuitive presence of danger was unheeded—he loved the splendid siren.
The steamer anchored mid-stream, and waited for the usual fleet of little boats to dart out from the city and to carry the passengers ashore—not a sign of life appeared.
At last a signal-gun was fired in answer to their salute; and what was that tiny, fluttering beacon which mounted to a tall flagstaff in the dock-yard?
The captain gazing through his glass, grew suddenly silent; his face fell. The passengers, curiously watching the limp, yellow rag, wondered much what it might presage.
Presently tiny boat shot out from the cedar-fringed shore, with one man at the oars—a painted toy which moved upon the glassy water like a tiny bird and the man climbed aboard.
He was tall, and lank, and yellow-faced; his limbs trembled as he followed the captain to the cabin, and he shunned the passengers with half-fearful looks when they would have questioned him.
In three minutes the captain and the stranger emerged from the cabin, and the passengers pressed forward to hear what catastrophe had befallen the city.
"We must just right-about face, and get back to New York," said the captain, ominously. "Not a soul can go ashore."
"What's up?" asked the gentlemen.
"Is it theplague?" whispered the ladies.
"Yellow fever," said the captain; "the whole city is raging, half the people are escaped to the main land, and the other half are dying."
Madame Hesslein's small, eager face grew pale; the chevalier burst into a heartfelt imprecation, and Mr. Davenport clutched the white Margaret's hand with a shocked, "Heaven preserve us!"
But she tore her hand away, and ran to the gaunt stranger, who had brought such dire news.
"I am going ashore with you," she said.
He looked at her wild face, and shrank from her touch; he hurried to the stern to gain the boat.
"Don't come nigh," whispered he. "I've had it."
But she seized his arm and clung to him; she would not let him go.
Murmurs rose from her fellow-passengers; Mr. Davenport's eyes threatened to start from their sockets; but the captain interfered.
"No soul can leave the steamer," said he, resolutely.
"I must go!" returned Margaret, in a frantic voice.
"Miss Walsingham, you can't go," said the captain, sternly. "You would only fall a victim; and mind, I couldn't take you aboard again to carry the infection here."
"I won't come back!" she cried; "but I must go."
"Miss Margaret, I beg of you not to throw your precious life away," entreated Mr. Davenport next. "You can't find the colonel just now; most likely he's gone, poor fellow."
"God forbid!" ejaculated she, raising her passionate eyes to heaven. "Surely I am not so wretched as that. Ah, sir, don't listen to them," she implored the man. "I will give you any money to put me ashore. There is a gentleman in Key West who may be dying for help, and he is a stranger there."
"Did you ever hear of a fellow called Brand being here?" demanded the lawyer, suspiciously.
"Oh, yes," smiled the man. "I know him well."
"Is he here?" whispered Margaret, looking piteously up at him.
"Yes, he is, at least he was three days ago, for he was nursing me, and left me last Tuesday. I am just getting about again, and haven't been in the town yet."
"There, do you hear that?" cried Margaret, turning to the lawyer with a wild smile. "Kind as ever, noble as ever. Surely you believe now that we have found him?"
"Yes," groaned Mr. Davenport; "but three days make a difference. He may be dead now."
"I will find him, and see," said Margaret.
"The woman's mad," blustered the captain, and left her to her fate.
"Nobody escapes, Miss," said the stranger, warningly.
She never listened. She wrapped her cloak about her, and brought her travelling-bag from her saloon.
"Good-by, Madame Hesslein."
She held out her steady hand, the calm light of heroism in her eyes; and madame, trembling and beseeching, saw that there was no remedy, and wept a last "Farewell, Miss Walsingham."
She held out her hand to the little chevalier, who cast an agitated glance from mademoiselle to madame, and swore that it tore his heart-strings to part from either, but that vile fortune had decreed that he was not to see "the hand clasp" and the "happy hour," and kissed her hands in adieu.
And then she offered her cold hand to Davenport, who kept it close, and walked with her to where the little boat lay.
"You must not blame me if I never return," said she, eagerly, as he bent to button her cloak for her. "You know that it is my place to care for St. Udo for his grandmother's sake. You will wait in New York for news of me, won't you?"
Mr. Davenport took her in his arms and handed her into the boat, and swung himself after her.
"Think I'd send you off alone, Miss Margaret?" asked he, with glistening eyes. "By gad, you must think meanly of me."
For the first time her resolution was shaken; she looked at him doubtfully.
"Go back! go back!" she cried, beseechingly. "You must not peril your life for ours."
The old man shook his head and sat down in the thwarts, and the boatman rowed away.
So they went to meet the peril which was worse than the battle-field; and the crew on the deck of the steamer gave them a cheer of admiration; and the passengers waved them a dubious "God-speed;" and the men sitting in the pretty bark raised a feeble "huzzah!" in return, which however, sank into hopeless silence ere it was half expressed; and they melted from the straining eyes which followed them, and went their way.
The boatman rowed into a wharf of the deserted town, secured his craft, and lifted Margaret out.
"D'ye see that great house among them trees?" he asked, pointing to a large mansion on the brow of the hill, perhaps a quarter of a mile distant.
"Them's the officers' quarters, miss, and we'll go there first. There were a score or more of sick soldiers there for their health. I came here myself after the battle, where they most killed the colonel."
"Were you with the colonel the night he was stabbed?" asked Davenport.
"Yes, sir. I never left him when I could manage to be with him. Maybe you've heard of Reed, who served the colonel for a while?"
"Yes," sighed Margaret, "he mentioned you in a letter to Dr. Gay. Hasten, kind friend, and bring us to him."
They sped through the deserted streets, where every window was barred and every door jealously locked, and a few famished dogs broke the silence by long, wild, and ominous howls.
A cart, covered with a white canvas cloth, rumbled heavily by, and then Reed took the lady's hand, and dragged her to the opposite pavement, whispering:
"Muffle your face in your handkerchief, miss, for Heaven's sake!"
And with bated breath they let the dead cart rumble by with its ghastly burden.
A funeral emerged from a court hard by—a funeral which was composed of the clergyman, an old man weeping over his dead, and tottering feebly after, and four negroes carrying the bier. They flitted by like phantoms, casting apathetic glances after the old man, the boatman, and the young lady who were mounting the hill to that lonely house on its brow.
They entered the grove, and with one accord paused and gazed toward the house, and listened, and looked in each others faces for encouragement. The door was ajar, the windows all open, and the fair white curtains, fluttering low adown among the climbing grapes and budding roses, were limp and yellow with nights of dew and days of rust, but not a living face looked out through the silent panes, not a sound broke the deep and breathless silence.
These men were brave men, but which of them would venture within these desolate walls where death triumphant reigned.
Suddenly Margaret slipped her hand from the lawyer's clasp, and fled like a spirit into the silent house—fear, hope, and love giving her the courage which these others could not summon.
She traversed the passages, where all was wild confusion, she looked into every room, but the drivers of the dead carts had been there before her—each bed was vacant, each chamber that used to echo to the careless jests of the soldiers was dull and lifeless as they.
She fled up the staircase, she opened another chamber-door—it was the last.
It was a wide, dim chamber, whose close-drawn curtains banished all the light, and between her and the window loomed a great white object—a bed with the hangings drawn close about it.
No breath, no sound—oh, Heaven! is he not here? Is he dead and gone forever?
A long sigh breaks the blank silence: a moan steals helplessly from the great white mausoleum which entombs the man.
She glides forward and draws back the shroud-like folds from window, then from bed, and the yellow light falls upon a flushed and foam-flecked face, and upon two toiling, twitching hands.
And, blessed be Heaven! this is surely St. Udo Brand, and there is life in him yet!
The lawyer enters and tries to drag her back, and fills the room with his beseeching clamor; but she breaks wildly from him, and returns to St. Udo Brand.
And, Heaven be praised! she thinks that she is in time, and that this dear soul may yet be held on earth.
So she lifts the hot head to her arm, and lays her loving hand upon the heart that is almost still, and she kisses tenderly the shrunken forehead where death fain would print his seal.
And she whispers from her noble heart:
"Oh, God! give me back his life! oh, God! give me back his life!"
And the old lawyer weeps, and repeats after her the half-articulate prayer.
One glance of anguish she casts at her poor old friend, and past him, up into Heaven, it says:
"Man cannot help us, but God will!" and then she turns again to the beloved one.
He has wronged her, hated her, maligned her; no single throb has his hushed heart ever beat for her; but she has forgiven him long ago, if she has anything to forgive. She is warming that chilling heart against her own; she is watching that disfigured face which can never be disfigured to her; she loves him faithfully.
When Reed comes back from his search for a doctor, they find the old lawyer sitting by the window, with his wet eyes covered by his hands, and the woman kneeling by the bed, with the sick man's head on her breast.
"You must leave this place," says the doctor, in affright.
"No, I will nurse him best," she smiles.
So she has her way, good, faithful Margaret.
Madame Hesslein, standing on the deck where Margaret had bidden her adieu—weeping in her lace handkerchief until it was wet, and waving it after her until it was dry, seemed so well worth losing a thousand pounds for, that the Chevalier Calembours quickly overcame his sincere regrets at the mad Margaret's departure into the jaws of death, and, flinging all uncomfortable emotions into the limbo of forgetfulness, he abandoned himself to the care of this fair creature who was left upon his hands.
"There they go, these doomed ones!" sobbed madame, with a great gush of tears. "Farewell, farewell, poor devoted Griselda."
"Be content, dear madame, I do not forsake thee—take comfort of thy slave!"
"Oh, chevalier, is there ever a man on this stale old globe who can show a heart like faithful Margaret's?"
"Mon Dieu!I know such a man."
"I do not. I have yet to meet the man who is content to love without one hope of recompense; who counts it joy to lay his all at the feet of the one who has scorned him—who rushes with a willing soul to brave death in the service of his enemy."
"Madame is skeptical, madame is cruel. Ah—could she read the heart of Calembours——"
"Ha, ha, ha!" mocked madame, wildly, "perhaps I can. Perhaps I have met with such before, and sifting it well, found it the heart of a fiend. But enough, 'tis a long time since I have believed in love, and faithfulness, and such mawkish sentimentality; now, do you know what I believe in, monsieur?"
"Pardieu, no—cruel that thou art."
"Ambition is my god," breathed madame, tauntingly. "I will climb to the highest step of the social ladder, and there I'll feel content."
The chevalier grew pale with envy.
"If madame would accept my poor help to raise her to her throne," sighed he.
"Yours!" she interrupted, scornfully.
"Madame, I am not what I seem."
"Faith, I don't think you are."
"Madame, on the honor of a chevalier, I possess some fine titles and estates."
"Foolish man, to cloak your royalty with this disguise!"
"I am Count de S. S. Turin."
"I salute you, count."
"I am Knight of the Three Sicilies."
"Receive my obeisance, knight."
"I possess fine vineyards in Hungary, and a jewel-mine."
"My congratulations, illustrious sir."
"And I am your devoted slave, Madame Hesslein." The luring, mocking, maddening face of the lady lit up with fierce joy. She averted it quickly. "I will resume these titles so dignified," cried the chevalier, "I will return to my fatherland; ver' good,mon ange, you shall accompany, you shall be my wife. You shall rule over nine hundred vinedressers, and seven vineyards,ma chère; they are worth seventy thousand florins in the year; and you shall wear the gems of agate, of jasper—of diamonds as you wear this leetel ribbon—madame, all I have shall be yours."
She heard with a cool smile, but a bitter pulse beat in her throat.
"You are flattering, chevalier," she remarked, "and I shall think of it."
He seized her fair hands, and pressed them to his lips, but she snatched them away with a flash from the smoldering fire in her eyes.
"But first," said madame, with a keen glance, "you must assure me that the station you offer me is not gilded by imagination unassisted by gold."
Monsieur sighed in heart-rending despondency.
"Incomparable woman, you doubt what is to the Hungarian noblesse dearer than life—my honor. But come, I will give you my proofs."
He escorted her to her state-room where waited the two maids of the charming lady, who always traveled with a complete retinue of servants, and going to his own cabin, presently he returned holding solemnly in his hands an elegantly silver-mounted coffer which he placed upon the table.
Unlocking it, he drew from thence various parchments of official aspect, with huge seals appended, and displayed them to the smiling inamorata.
"These are the rewards with which my country has honored my poor services," he said, with humility. "These papers attest to my right to wear these titles you have just heard, madame.Voila!'To the Count of Santo Spirito, Turin,' and 'To the Knight of the Order of Three Sicilys.'Mon ange, what more can I say?"
A wicked smile was playing around her mouth.
"I accept your statements, chevalier—and yourself!" she murmured, with an exquisite side glance.
The little chevalier beamed with triumph, and bowed low over the lovely hand which she extended, and then she snatched it quickly from him, made a queenly obeisance, and vanished like a spirit from his sight.
Madame Hesslein was seen no more until the steamer entered New York; she was either ill or coy; in reply to the chevalier's tender reproaches she declared for the first named, although her flashing eyes and healthy appearance emphatically contradicted the assertion.
What a dream of joy tinctured with horrible doubts the succeeding month was for poor little Calembours! To-day she was amiable, gay, bewitching; to-morrow she would be locked in her room, and would send down a frantic entreaty to the goodfianceto leave her in peace; presently she would reward his importunities by flitting into his presence, white, vengeful, and torturing him with covert taunts and maddening allusions to his forgotten past.
And yet she was so beautiful, and so changeful, and so reckless that the wild Bohemian fire blazed up in the poor little man's soul, and he could not help loving her with a devotion worthy of a better object.
He expended his hoarded gains in loading her with costly gifts; and with mad prodigality assumed a splendor of estate which drained his finances to the lowest ebb; anxious only to win her for his own and calmly leaving thedenouementuntil after the happy day, when madame could not help herself.
How he hoped to obtain her forgiveness when she discovered all, Heaven knows; but love not seldom infatuates men and goads them on to their complete ruin.
Not true love, though of a worthy object; 'tis ofttimes the only savior of a sinking man.
Presently the illustrious foreigner, loaded with his titles, penetrated to the upper circle of society where Madame Hesslein moved, a solitary queen among shrinking ladies ofhaut ton, who with one accord admired, and hated, and courted her because she was the attraction, and it was "the thing" to say, "we had little Madame Hesslein here last night."
What her beauty and refinement did for her, the chevalier'sapplomband versatility of genius did for him. Every one talked of the clever, polished Frenchman—in good society monsieur spoke only French, and wore his Legion of Honor flauntingly—every one raved about the dazzling witch he paid such faithful court to; every one vowed that such a pair were expressly created for each other, none else.
On the last evening of this intoxicating dream the chevalier attended a brilliant assembly which madame held at her hotel.
Magnates of the highest rank were there to give homage to their resistless hostess; and belles of tried skill were there, to waste their ammunition upon the enthralled chevalier; but Romeo and Juliet had no eyes for any but themselves, although their smiles were showered on all.
Madame Hesslein, gorgeous as an Eastern houri, convened her little court about her ottoman, singled the happy Calembours out from all his vexed competitors, and threw him into raptures by addressing her next remarks more particularly to him.
Fascinated, the gay throng watched that set, cruel face, its glimmering, chrysolite eyes, its wreathing, quivering lips, and its wild mischief as the fair dame told her little story to the Chevalier de Calembours:
"Dear Monsieur, your latest anecdote puts this good company in your debt, so I shall do myself the honor of paying that debt with a narrative which is new, true, and pertinent.
"There was living in the town of Raleigh, some twenty years ago, a remarkable girl called—shall we say for the present—Dolores? for that indeed was her fate.
"She was very pretty, they said, but execrably poor. Her father was a blacksmith, you see, and her mother was glad to obtain laundry work from her richer neighbors; so that poor Dolores started in life with the disadvantages of an undeniable beauty and a penniless purse.
"When sixteen, she considered it quite a lift in life to be promoted to the position of waiting-maid to the wealthy Mrs. Maltravers, instead of trudging round the town with her mother's baskets of clear-starched garments to the various houses which patronized her labor.
"Mrs. Maltravers was old, and fanciful, and she good-naturedly taught the girl how to speak well, and how to dress neatly, and gave her that perception of the true value of elegance which only the rich can give.
"Dolores liked to be well dressed, and to sway her humble court by the cleverness of her conversation, and Mrs. Maltravers was surprised and amused at her aptness in such branches, and taught her with pleasure.
"So Dolores thankfully made the most of her position, and became much too fine a lady for the rough home she had left, and was flouted at by her rude brothers and awkward sisters, until she cut herself adrift from them all.
"Mr. and Mrs. Maltravers went to Europe to travel for two years, and the waiting-maid went with them.
"Dolores liked the strange life, and learned more and more every day.
"At last the travelers came to Austria, and pleased with the rich, warm summer of the plain they stopped in Hungary for six months.
"The name of the town was—Szegedin; you have some acquaintance with it, count; you will take especial interest in a narrative that unfolds its climax in your birthplace.
"Our pretty Dolores had here the fortune to fall in love with a man of the barbarous name of Ladislaus Schmolnitz; and when you learn that, added to his shocking name, he followed the profession of a tailor, you will only wonder at little Dolores' infatuation.
"But this little man, so handsome, clever, and bland, met her often on the banks of the Theiss, and talked sentiment, and poetry and other pretty nonsense in the shocking language of Hungary to simple Dolores, and made her forget that he was a wretched little tailor.
"And he taught her to prattle in Hungarian, and then he asked her to love him, and she did love him—ah, friends! so passionately, so heroically, that I only wonder that her splendid love did not ennoble his.
"Ladislaus Schmolnitz, the Szegedin tailor, ran off with Dolores, the waiting-maid, and laughed at the pursuit of the shocked Maltravers, who grudged the girl to a little rascal of a Hun.
"But Madame and Monsieur Schmolnitz lived together for two years and were very happy.
"Very happy, dear friends, notwithstanding the poverty-stricken shifts which they were at to keep the wolf from the door.
"So happy, dear friend, that foolish Dolores wished for no other heaven than the heaven of the little tailor's love, and toiled, my heart how she toiled, to keep the treasure safe.
"At last, Monsieur Schmolnitz saw a chance to rise in the world, and took his wife and baby-boy to Paris, where he energetically began to teach languages, having a clever turn that way.
"He began also to neglect his Dolores, and to prove an indifferent spouse; even to accuse her of unfaithfulness, alas! she loved him far too wildly for such madness.
"But he disappeared from little Dolores one day, and never came back to her, and the silly girl's heart broke, she despaired.
"Homeless, nameless, incumbered with a boy twelve months old, what could the poor wretch do?
"She went away with the man who had roused the perfidious tailor's jealousy, a cotton manufacturer from Manchester, and became a wealthy woman, and quite forgot what cold and hunger were, although, good luck! she could not forget what true love had been to her.
"She loved the boy, she nurtured him with care, and he was her only consolation when her heart was crushed with pain and what she then called—guilt.
"When her protector died, she married an American who took her out to Washington; but by this time her heart was so old, and cold, and weary of beating that it could hold no love for any man, and she devoted herself to the pretty boy, and brought him up a little gentleman, although she never dared treat him as her son for fear she should hate him some day for his wicked father's sake.
"She sent the boy to the North to gain a finished education, and lived very wearily with her jealous husband, finding her only amusement in attracting the homage of the men she met, and repaying it with scorn.
"At last she grew too restive under the yoke, and having had experience before of the evils of jealousy in a husband, she declined rehearsing her part a second time, and forestalled the humiliation by eloping with a Virginian planter.
"Hapless wretch! Can you blame her, dear count? no, no, we shall blame it all on that perfidious little tailor who broke her heart at first.
"She liked the sumptuous life on the fine plantation passably well, her mansion was admirably arranged, hermenagewas fine, her slaves numerous and docile; Dolores reigned royally.
"But her malevolent destiny could not leave her long in comfort, poor soul; it swooped upon her when she was almost contented, and with inflexible hand pushed her into misery once more.
"The war broke out, the slaves fled, monsieur, her kind friend went to Richmond and got a company, and Dolores was left in the great house with only one quadroon girl and a couple of old negroes to protect her from danger.
"In the second year of the war, her fate was sealed.
"One day a detachment of Federal soldiers encamped in the plantation, and two colonels came to the mansion to demand shelter for their wounded.
"The terrified Dolores was hastening down stairs to see them, when a voice which she had not heard for eighteen years sang a gay Frenchchanson, which she last had heard from Ladislaus Schmolnitz, on the pretty banks of Theiss.
"Friends, this wretched woman recognized that voice as belonging to her once loved little tailor.
"Ah! her heart was not dead after all, it stirred in its long death-sleep, and thrilled with joy. Oh, Heaven! why is love so deathless in a woman's breast when it is ever her curse, her ruin?
"Well, she fled to her room again, and disguised herself as well as she could, for she yearned to meet her renegade husband, and to converse with him unsuspected. She did so. She concealed her pretty figure with clumsy padding, she browned her white face, she covered her yellow hair with a wig, and entering, she bowed low to her renegade husband and spoke only French, which he had never before heard her speak.
"But he could not feel at ease, he gazed suspiciously again and again at her, her eyes recalled the old love story by the banks of the Theiss—he feared the French madame of middle age.
"What her emotions were, it is scarce worth telling. She was happy to know that he was alive, she exulted that she had seen him, but she was bound to the kind planter and feared to betray herself to Schmolnitz, she let him go, not intending to reveal herself.
"But, at the moment of parting, a volley of shot was fired at the front of the mansion by some Confederate troops, who had surprised the encampment, and a cannon ball crashed in the doorway, almost in the midst of the little group in the hall.
"Dolores was startled out of her disguise and clung madly to the little tailor, crying out that she was his Dolores, and that she loved him still.
"Simple idiot! when she could live in palaces if she chose!
"Dear friends, that abject little tailor had the brutality to shake her off, to swear at her; to protest that he had suspected as much, and to fling her from him in a dead faint in the hall and escape with his comrade.
"Ah! count, could you believe that a fiend in man's form could be so dastardly?
"But Dolores did not fall a victim to the cruelty of the small Mephistopheles; her servants carried her out of the house, which was in flames, and she soon escaped to Richmond, where she fell ill, and on recovering learned that her friend, the planter, was killed in battle.
"Some months had passed, but this insane creature was so enslaved by her passion for that unworthy man that no sooner was she recovered from her illness than she determined to search out the little tailor, and display her true beauty, which was singularly heightened by the years which had passed since they parted.
"She seriously hoped to win back his worthless heart, and dreamed of nothing but of endowing him with the wreck of her fortune, which was still quite a handsome possession.
"So she took to visiting the hospitals and prisons, fancying that he might have been wounded or captured; but without success.
"No wonder, for the ineffable rascal had long since deserted from the North to the South, and was plying the profession of spy, under the ostensible one of commissary-general for the stores for the wounded.
"At last, Dolores chanced to ride out to a station where she had heard there were some Northern soldiers lying wounded; and there she came upon her own son, the dear consolation of her wretched life, lying starving on a handful of straw, and the place surrounded by Northern soldiers, who had just come to rescue their comrades.
"The unfortunate woman was just in time to see her brave boy die, and then, indeed, she thought that her cup of misery was full—but no, Heaven is prodigal of its punishments to such as she.
"While mourning over her boy, the renegade commissary rode up with his staff, intending to remove the invalids to Richmond, and was instantly attacked by the Federals; Dolores filled with mad grief, drew her old-time husband into the shed and bade him look upon his son, and the next moment beheld him struck down by a ball at her feet.
"She thought him dead, poor wretch, and lifted his head to her lap, and told him that she loved him with a love that could never die, and swore that she would water the graves of her husband and her son with her own heart-blood.
"When the skirmish was over the Northerners moved on with the wounded man as their prisoner, and this woman rode beside him, leaving her dear son dead in the shanty.
"At midnight, when the party stopped to rest, it was found that Schmolnitz was not dead, and he soon recovered enough to speak.
"Dolores bent over him, his head in her lap, and hoped that he would recognize her; but he did not, in the gloom, until she spoke, entreating him for the sake of her love years ago to take her back to him.
"Most brutally he repudiated her, assuring her that she could not be his wife, and that he would never own her as such.
"Then, indeed, she sounded the shallow waters of his soul, and desired revenge.
"She would have stabbed him to the heart even then, if she had not been prevented, but she swore beside the heartless wretch that she should have vengeance; then she and her attendants rode back to Richmond.
"Months passed, all trace of the man was lost to her; but patiently she searched for him until she found a clew.
"After many adventures, she found him in this city, and what think you were the titles which this little tailor had assumed?
"Dear count, will you not make a guess?
"Friends, I believe our honored count is indisposed—how pale he has become! Little wonder, for he sympathizes with every word I say.
"Do not, good Count de Calembours, forsake us until my story is completed.
"You must go? Then I shall hasten.
"Friends, the miserable little tailor, this renegade, dastard and spy, had entered the highest circles in New York under the title which this man wears—the Count de Calembours!"
She swooped forward, she seized the arm of the retreating chevalier, and wheeled him round until he faced the company.
He was frightfully pale, his eyes flickered ominously, he glared helplessly at his tormentor, the beautiful bride-elect.
"What! has myfiancenothing to say?" jibed madame, with flashing eyes, green as a tigress. "Is he choked by a skein of thread? Felled by a thimble? Stabbed by a tailor's needle? Fie, fie! Ladislaus Schmolnitz, to let the coat fit you so well! To stand dumb as your own goose! Oh, cowardly little tailor!"
Shrilly the scoffing denunciation rang out; stepping back a pace she pointed her finger in his face and laughed wildly; and the good company, suddenly catching the resistless drollery of the farce, burst into a long, convulsive, mocking peal of merciless laughter, till the room rang again, the glasses jingled, and the poor little tailor threw himself on his knees before the ferocious Nemesis and begged for mercy.
But the good company pointed their fingers in the wretch's appalled face and hissed him down; and the air seemed alive with ten thousand serpents, and the room swam around with eyes of mockery and ire; and deafened, horror-stricken, and utterly routed, the poor little tailor fell forward on the carpet in a dead swoon.
When he recovered his senses, the room was deserted, the lights were out, and one small, airy figure stood at a distant door with a taper in her hand and looking on the fallen hero.
"Better, good Monsieur Schmolnitz?" mocked Madame Hesslein.
He rose unsteadily, and held by the back of a chair.
"Beast! traitress! you are my wife, are you?" hissed he, in a furious whisper. "I had my doubts of you all the while. But this shall ruin you."
"Oh, no, my excellent tailor, I am above your puny attacks. So, now that we have squared accounts, I will bid you a long adieu."
She bowed to the floor, rose, and gave him one long, fierce, taunting glance.
He drew a pistol from his breast, took deliberate aim, and fired it full at her face, just as she closed the door. It missed her by a hair-breadth.
She looked in again with a diabolical laugh, and vanished; and he, too, fled by the opposite door, just as the hotel servants rushed in to quell the tumult.
"Circles and circles of brightening light breaking over me; a faint, but delicious sense of comfort; a swift vanishing of the distorted phantoms which have left me here for dead—a kind and dear awakening.
"What tender face is this that is bending over me? What soft bosom is this upon which my head is lying?
"Have I bridged at last the chasm of mortality, and is this my fate in the immortal world?
"I smile, if this be so, at the idle fears of those who prophesied for me a hell. This is Heaven! What seraph is this who is bearing me upon her bosom after my fight with the throes of death? How soft and cool her hand, which bands my brow! Her wings are folded close, and she will not fly away; her breath wafts my weary eyelids like the zephyr born at the gates of Paradise.
"It was worth that long battle with the writhing furies, who would have chained me to Charon's boat, midway in the awful river, to be stranded here within these clinging arms.
"O spirit pure and tender! is this Christ-like care for me at your King's command? Am I done with earth and sin, and entered into rest upon your hallowed heart?
"Yes, the dark obscurity of earth no longer blinds me; I am reading the face of one who has gazed upon the Incarnate, and caught from Him beatitude past utterance.
"How pure and above all earthly beauty are these holy lineaments! the essence of eternal love seems to shed from these eyes upon my languid soul; her rich tresses seem enwreathed with beams from the Fount of Joy; I am dazzled with the vision."
The worn, white face of the sick man sinks more heavily upon the gentle bosom which supports it; but there is a fixed smile upon the blue lips of wonder and of triumph; there are tears stealing from the eyes which have been darkly fixed upward. The trembling soul who has been looking into the realm of Heaven, turns back at the yearning pressure of those arms, and new circles of brightening light and consciousness break over him, and St. Udo Brand looks up.
A damp, cool perfume breathes around him of flowers; he seems to be surrounded by those sweet comforters; flowers upon his breast, against his fevered face, upon his pillow; and soft arms are truly around him, and his head is lying upon the yielding breast of a woman.
"How is it that I am here?"
"Did my darling try to speak?"
"How strange! she is then some one to whom I am dear. I am indeed in Heaven, and this heavenly seraph is to be my guide and teacher. What made me suppose for an instant that I was back to earth?
"It is so much better than I deserve, pure spirit—so much better."
"Did you say you felt better?"
"This vision is a woman? her heart seems bounding with joy; she bends closer with a sob of rapture; these holy eyes are dropping tears!
"'There are no tears in Heaven.' Is it possible that I come back to earth and find some one weeping tears of joy for me!
"Tell me who you are?"
"You have whispered something again. Oh! love, you are so faint and weak that I can scarcely see your lips move. But I think you know me."
"No, no. I left no such angel as you on earth when I died."
"Do you say so? Wait until I bring my ear close."
"No. Tell me."
"Don't you know your nurse, who has been with you for two weeks? the nurse that you have clung to, and moaned for when your glazed eyes could not see me? Don't you remember how you made me hold you—just so—when the fever-phantoms were chasing you? Surely we are old friends by this time?"
"My Perdita?"
"Why, darling, do you know me, then? Now I shall dare to hope. Oh, thank Heaven!"
"How strange that she should look so joyful at any good befalling me! Am I St. Udo Brand, who was at odds with all the world? or have I been changed into a man with a human heart, to be prized by a noble woman? Is this a revised and improved edition of St. Udo? Have I got out of that bitter, reckless being, and, after ages of toiling in a black, demon-crowded abyss for my sins have I re-entered the world to be simple, and beloved, and happy? O Thou who saved me from annihilation, will that this be true!
"Lady, will you not tell me your name?"
"You called me 'Perdita' when I thought the pest was drifting you from my arms farther—farther, and yet the closer into my heart—call me Perdita still. Oh, my darling, to think that after all I have won you from the gates of death!"
"How long have we loved each other, Perdita? Why do these deep gray eyes hide themselves from me? Why does that flush creep to brow and gentle cheek? What a dear face! what a holy face! I hope that it will beam upon me until I die! What is it that she says?"
"I found you smitten with the plague, and, taking care of you, because there was no one else who had such a right, as the Marplot of your life, you came to think me some one whom you loved, and to call me Perdita. It was one of your fancies."
"I hope it will develop into a reality. I shall pinion your wings, bright seraph, to keep you by me."
"Hush! hush! You are wandering away again."
"Keep by me, my love—Perdita! oh, keep by me!"
"As if I would ever leave you, while I could make one moment lighter for you."
"Ah, well! Remember you have promised that."
He sinks softly down among his pillows with a sigh of ineffable peace; his Perdita wipes the tears of joy from his face, and rearranges the light coverings.
A soft wind is blowing through the half-closed windows, from over the quiet water clasped within the arms of the coral reef, and the dreamy strains of a military band creep from a gallant war-ship out in the bay; and in the beautiful twilight the graceful boats are shooting in and out from cedar groves to the white huts standing on the edge of the reefs like Grecian temples, and the lovely scene is calm as the smile on the face of the sick man.
The mosquito-net is drawn close around the invalid's bed, and his nurse sits within the fold, and watches him until he sinks to sleep. And then she bends her head until it touches his lissom hand, and, weeping much in her deep thankfulness, she too sinks to slumber—well earned and long denied.
The same hour next evening St. Udo Brand comes to himself again from the mystic depths of fever, and sorrow, and importunate desire, to see the same tender vision watching over him, and to breathe the same sweet perfume of fresh-culled flowers, and to feel the same restful joy which broke the darkness of his weary trance before.
And then he is so glad to find this dream staying by him when so many others have slipped away, that he stretches out his hands, and beckons with a cry of welcome.
"My Perdita, I feared I had lost you! Where did you go?"
"I have never left your side."
"I could not find you, and I have been wandering, wandering everywhere. How was it you got away from my hand?"
She, bending her ear to catch these feeble accents, glows with a look of wonder and joy; all the lines of weariness pass away from her face; for the moment she is quite beautiful.
"Dear one, was it reallymeyou were trying to hold in your sleep?" she asks, softly. "I saw your brow gather, and your lips move, and an anxious expression come over you in every little slumber: but when I held your groping hand you clasped mine tightly, and became happy in your dreams. Was it Perdita whom you wished so much to keep by you?"
"Yes, yes; that was it. You express my thoughts so smoothly for me that I wish you would try again. Something has got away from me after all. Let me hold you while I try to remember."
She gives him her hand, and she gives him also her faithful bosom. Gladly she lifts him in her frail arms, and clasps him close, close, and she presses her lips upon his sunken eyelids with kisses as soft and healing as the flowers of Paradise.
"It is coming back, I kept it so long, in spite of the whirling goblins and demons who tried to snatch it from me, but when I came to you just now I found that it was gone. Did you take it from me, and give it back to me now when you laid my head upon your bosom?"
"What was it, my darling?"
"Your promise, Perdita."
"What promise, dear love?"
"That you would never leave me. Don't you remember saying that?"
"What would you care for me when you were strong and well?" falters the nurse, with quivering lips.
The sick man tries to set his poor paralyzed brain in thinking order at this contingency, but the effort is far beyond him, and he relapses with an anxious sigh.
"I do not want to drift away and be pushed back into the cruel world I have left," he murmurs, earnestly, "and it lies with you to keep me in this pure place. I lost you ages ago, you know—ages ago, when I was pure and loving as yourself; and see what I am now for want of you, Perdita?"
"You will soon enough be glad to part from me again," answers the nurse, turning aside her swimming eyes.
"Must you go, Perdita, after your promise?"
"I must go when I have ceased to make one moment lighter for you. I promised that I would stay until then."
"Promise it again—you will stay until you cease to be desired by me."
"Until I cease to be required by you," she amends, straining him to her yearning and foreboding heart.
"I shall always require you," said the sick man, with exultation; "I could not take one step in this pure atmosphere without you. Oh, you don't know how I shall hold to you, my lost Perdita."
So wandering on—dreaming on, he fancies she is his lost good, which was dropped out of life long ago; that she personates the faith, the hope, the innocence of his early years, ere sin set the searing mark of death upon his heart, and bitter wrongs stole from him his primal purity, and fused in the alembic of his burning hatred, all noble tendencies into bitter infidelity.
And wandering on—dreaming on, day by day, drifting on from riotous fancy to feeble reason, he comes to know that there is a puzzle in the kindness of this woman, who morning, noon, and night cares for him as woman never cared for him before; and, grasping the puzzle at last, he looks at it with comprehending eyes.
He will ask this tender, holy-faced watcher by his bedside why this heavenly care for him. Perchance she is repaying some former service of his, done in the days of health; for St. Udo Brand has done his deeds of generous kindness to the widows and orphans of his brave Vermont boys, and forgotten the acts by scores.
"Lady, why have you been so kind to me?"
"Not kind—only just."
"The service which you thus repay must have been a great one. You have risked your life nursing me through this infectious plague; what have I ever done to you that could merit such repayment?"