CHAPTER XV.

Hours pa.s.sed away without either of the guilty parties finding courage or inclination to address the other. The hearts of both were too full for utterance--and yet did they acknowledge no sympathy in common. Remorse, shame, fear, regret, simultaneously a.s.sailed and weighed down the mind of Gerald. Triumphant vengeance, unmixed with any apprehension of self, reigned exclusively in the bosom of Matilda. The intense pa.s.sion of the former, like a mist that is dissipated before the strong rays of the sun, had yielded before the masculine and practical display of the energetic hate of its object, while on the contrary she, whose beauty of person was now to him a thing without price, acknowledged no other feeling than contempt for the vacillating character of her a.s.sociate.

In this only did they agree that each looked upon each in the light of a being sunk in crime--steeped in dishonor--and while the love of the one was turned to almost loathing at the thought, the other merely wondered how one so feeble of heart had ever been linked to so determined a purpose.

The only light admitted into the temple was through the window already described, and this was so feeble as scarcely to allow of the more distant objects in the room being seen. Gradually, as the moon sunk beneath the forest ridge, the gloom increased, until in the end the darkness became almost profound. At their first entrance Matilda, enshrouding herself in the folds of her cloak, had thrown herself upon the sofa; while Gerald continued to pace up and down the apartment with hurried steps, and in a state of feeling it would be a vain attempt to describe. It was now for the first time that, uninfluenced by pa.s.sion, the miserable young man had leisure to reflect on the past, and the chain of fatality which had led to his present disgraceful position. He recollected the conversation he had held with his brother on the day succeeding his escape from the storm; and as the pledge which had been given in his name to his dying father, that no action of his life should reflect dishonor on his family now occurred to him in all its force, he groaned in agony of spirit, less in apprehension of the fate that awaited him than in sorrow and in shame that that pledge should have been violated. By a natural transition of his feelings, his imagination recurred to the traditions connected with his family, and the dreadful curse which had been uttered by one on whom his ancestor was said to have heaped injury to the very extinction of reason--and a.s.sociating as he did Matilda's visit to the Cottage at Detroit, on the memorable night when he had unconsciously saved the life of Colonel Forrester, with the fact of her having previously knelt and prayed upon the grave that was known to cover the ashes of the unhappy maniac, Ellen Halloway, he felt a shuddering conviction that she was in some way connected with that wretched woman. In the intenseness of his new desire to satisfy his doubts--a desire which in itself partook of the character of the fatality by which he was beset--he overcame the repugnance he had hitherto felt to enter into conversation with her, and advancing to the couch, seated himself upon its edge at her side.

"Matilda" he said, after a few moments of silence, "by all the love you once bore me, I conjure you answer me one question while yet there is time."

"Fool," returned the American, "I never loved you. A soul like mine feels pa.s.sion but once. Hitherto I have played a part, hut the drama approaches to a close, and disguise of plot is no longer necessary. Gerald Grantham, you have been my dupe,--you came a convenient puppet to my hands, and as such I used you until the snapped wire proclaimed you no longer serviceable. No further."

Shame, anguish, mortification--all the most humiliating sensations natural to man, for a moment a.s.sailed the breast of the unfortunate and guilty Grantham, rendering him insensible even to the greater evil which awaited him. In the bitterness of his agony he struck his clenched hand against his forehead, uttering curses upon himself for his weakness, in one breath, and calling upon his G.o.d, in the next, to pardon him for his crime.

"This is good!" said Matilda. "To see you writhe thus, under the wound inflicted upon your vanity, is some small atonement for the base violation of your oath; yet what question would you ask, the solution of which can so much import one about to figure on the scaffold for a crime he has not even had the courage to commit?"

The taunting manner in which the concluding part of the sentence was conveyed, had the effect of restoring Gerald in some degree to himself, and he said with considerable firmness:

"What I would ask is of yourself,--namely, the relationship, if any, you bear to those who lie within the mound on which I beheld you kneeling, on the night of your first attempt on Colonel Forrester's life."

"The very recollection of that ill-timed intrusion would prevent me from satisfying your curiosity, did not something whisper to me that, in so doing, I shall add another pang to those you already experience," returned the American with bitter sarcasm.

"You are right," said Gerald hurriedly; "my miseries need but the a.s.surance of your connexion with those mouldering bones to be indeed complete."

"Then," said Matilda eagerly, and half raising her head, "your cup of misery may yet admit of increase. My mother and my father's mother both sleep within that grave."

"How knew you this?" demanded Gerald quickly. "Instinct could not have guided you to the spot, and by your own admission you were taken from the place of your home while yet a mere child."

"Not instinct, but my father Desborough, pointed out the spot, as he had long previously acquainted me with the history of my birth."

"One question more--your grandmother's name?"

"Mad Ellen she was called, an English soldier's wife, who died in giving birth to my father--and now that you are answered, leave me."

"Almighty Providence," aspirated Gerald, in tones of inconceivable agony; "it is then as I had feared, and this woman has Destiny chosen to accomplish my ruin."

He quitted the sofa and paced up and down the room in a state of mind bordering on distraction. The past crowded upon his mind in all the confused manner of a dream, and amid the chaos of contending feelings by which he was beset, one idea only was distinct--namely, that the wretched woman before him had been but the agent of Fate in effecting his destruction. Strange as it may appear, the idea, so far from increasing the acerbity of his feelings, had the tendency to soften his heart towards her. He beheld in her but a being whose actions had been fated like his own, and although every vestige of pa.s.sion had fled--even although her surpa.s.sing beauty had lost its subjugating influence, his heart yearned towards her as one who, wrecked on the same sh.o.r.e, had some claim to his sympathy and compa.s.sion. All that was now left them was to make their peace with G.o.d, since with man their final account would be so speedily closed, and with a view to impress her with a sense of the religious aid from which alone they could hope for consolation, he again seated himself at her side on the edge of the sofa.

"Matilda," he said, in a voice in which melancholy and sternness were blended, "We have been the children of guilt--the victims of our own evil pa.s.sions; but G.o.d is merciful, and if our penitence be sincere, we may yet be forgiven in Heaven, although on earth there is no hope--even if after this we could wish to live. Matilda, let us pray together."

There was no answer--neither did the slightest movement of her form indicate consciousness that she was addressed.

"Matilda," repeated Gerald--still there was no answer.

He placed his hand upon her cheek, and thought the touch was cold--he caught her hand, it too was cold and but for the absence of rigidity he would have deemed her dead.

Scarcely knowing what he did, yet with an indefinable terror at his heart, he grasped and shook her by the arm, and again, but with greater vehemence, p.r.o.nounced her name.

"Who calls?" she said, in a faint but deep tone, as she raised her head slowly from the cushion which supported it. "Ha! I recollect. Tell me," she added more quickly, "was not the blow well aimed. Marked you how the traitor fell. Villain, to accuse the woman whose only fault was loving him too well, with ignominious commerce with a slave!"

"Wretched woman," exclaimed Gerald with solemn emphasis, "instead of exulting over the evil we have done, let us rather make our peace with Heaven, during the few hours we have yet to live. Matilda Desborough--daughter of a murderer; thyself a murderess--the scaffold awaits us both."

"Coward--fool--thou liest," she returned with suddenly awakened energy. "For one so changeling as thyself the scaffold were befitting;, but know, if I have had the heart to do this deed, I have also had the head to provide against its consequences--see--feel--."

One of her cold hands was extended in search of Gerald's.

They met, and a vial placed in the palm of the latter, betrayed the secret of her previous la.s.situde and insensibility.

Even amid all the horrors which environed him, and called so largely on attention to his own personal danger, Gerald was inexpressibly shocked.

"What! poisoned?" he exclaimed.

"Yes--poisoned!" she murmured, and her hand again sank heavily at her side.

Gerald dashed the vial away from him to the farther end of the apartment, and taking the cold hand of the unhappy woman, he continued:

"Matilda--is this the manner in which you prepare yourself to meet the presence of your G.o.d. What! add suicide to murder?"

But she spoke not--presently the hand he clasped sank heavily from his touch. Then there was a spasmodic convulsion of the whole frame. Then there burst a piercing shriek from her lips, as she half raised herself in agony from the sofa, and then each limb was set and motionless in the stern rigidity of death.

While Gerald was yet bending over the body of his unfortunate companion, shocked, grieved and agitated beyond all expression, the door of the temple was unlocked, and a man enveloped in a cloak, and bearing a small dark lantern, suddenly appeared in the opening. He advanced towards the spot where Gerald, stupified with the events of the past night, stood gazing upon the corpse, almost unconscious of the presence of the intruder.

"A pretty fix you have got into, Liftenant Grantham,"

said the well known voice of Jackson, "and I little calculated, when I advised you to make love to the Kentucky gals to raise your spirits, that they would lead you into such a deuced sc.r.a.pe as this."

"Captain Jackson," said Gerald imploringly; "I am sufficiently aware of all the enormity of my crime, and am prepared to expiate it; but in mercy spare the bitterness of reproach."

"Now as I'm a true Tennessee man, bred and born, I meant no reproach, and why should I, since you could'nt help her doing it, (and he pointed to Matilda), yet you know its sometimes dangerous to be found in bad company. Every body might'nt believe you so innocent as we do.

"Innocent! Captain Jackson," exclaimed Gerald, losing sight of all other feelings in unfeigned surprise--"I cannot say that I quite understand you."

"Why, the meaning's plain enough, I take it. Others might be apt, I say, to think you had something to do with the thing as well as she, and therefore its just as well you should make yourself scarce. The Colonel says he would'nt, on any account, you shall even be suspected."

"The Colonel says--not suspected," again exclaimed Gerald with increasing astonishment--then, suddenly recollecting the situation of the latter--"tell me," he continued, "is Colonel Forrester in danger--is his life despaired of?"

"Worth a dozen dead men yet, or you would'nt see me taking the thing so coolly. The dagger certainly let the day light into him, but though the wound was pretty considerably deep, the doctors say its not mortal. He thinks it might have been worse if you had not come up, and partly stopped her arm when she struck at him."

Gerald was deeply affected by what he had just heard. It was evident that Colonel Forrester had, with a generosity to which no grat.i.tude of his own could render adequate justice, sought to exonerate him from all suspicion of partic.i.p.ation in the guilty design upon his life, and as he glanced his eye again for a moment upon the lifeless form of his companion, he was at once sensible that the only being who could defeat the benevolent object of his benefactor had now no longer the power to do so.

"She sleeps sound enough now," said Jackson, again pointing to the ill-fated and motionless girl, "but she'll sleep sounder still before long, I take it."

"She will never sleep sounder than at this moment, Captain Jackson," said Gerald, with solemn emphasis.

"Why, you don't mean to say she has cheated the hangman, Liftenant."

As he spoke, Jackson approached the sofa, and turning the light full upon the face, saw indeed that she was dead. Gerald shuddered as the rays from the lamp revealed for the first time the appalling change which had been wrought upon that once beautiful countenance. The open and finely formed brow was deeply knit, and the features distorted by the acute agony which had wrung the shriek from her heart at the very moment of dissolution, were set in a stern expression of despair. The parted lips were drawn up at the corners in a manner to convey the idea of the severest internal pain, and there was already a general discoloration about the mouth, betraying the subtle influence of the poison which had effected her death.

Gerald, after the first glance, turned away his head in horror from the view; but the Aid-de-Camp remained for some moments calmly regarding the remains of all that had once been most beautiful in nature.

"She certainly is not like what she was when Colonel Forrester first knew her," he said, in the abstracted tone of one talking without reference to any other auditor than himself; "but this comes of prefering a n.i.g.g.e.r to a white man. Such unnatural courses never can prosper, I take it."

"Captain Jackson," said Gerald, aroused by this remark, and with great emphasis of tone, while he laid his hand impressively on the shoulder of the other, "you do her wrong. Guilty she has been, fearfully guilty, but not in the sense you would imply."

"How do you know this?" asked the Aid-de-Camp.