SENSATIONAL!--TERRIFIC!--TREMENDOUS!--I LEAVE THE HOUSE IN A STRANGE
WHIRL.--A STORM.--THE DRIVING SLEET.--I WANDER ABOUT.--THE VOICES OF
THE STORM, AND OF THE RIVER.--THE CLANGOR OF THE BELLS.--THE SHADOW IN
THE DOORWAY.--THE MYSTERIOUS COMPANION.--A TERRIBLE WALK.--FAMILIAR
VOICES.--SINKING INTO SENSELESSNESS.--THE LADY OF THE ICE IS REVEALED
AT LAST AMID THE STORM!
As I left the house there came a blast of stinging sleet, which showed
me that it was a wild night. It was not many days now since that
memorable journey on the river; and the storm that was blowing seemed
to be the counterpart and continuation of that. It had been overcast
when I entered O'Halloran's; when I left it, the storm had gathered up
into fury, and the wind howled around, and the furious sleet dashed
itself fiercely against me. The street was deserted. None would go out
on so wild a night. It was after eleven; half-past, perhaps.
For a moment I turned my back to the sleet, and then drew forth my
cloud from my pocket, and bound it about my head.
Thus prepared, and thus armed, I was ready to encounter the fiercest
sleet that ever blew. I went down the steps, took the sidewalk, and
went off.
As I went on, my mind was filled with many thoughts. A duel was before
me; but I gave that no consideration. The storm howled about and
shrieked between the houses; but the storm was nothing. There was that
in my heart and in my brain which made all these things trivial. It was
the image of my Lady of the Ice, and the great longing after her,
which, for the past few days, had steadily increased.
I had found her! I had lost her! Lost and found! Found and lost!
The wrath of the storm had only this one effect on me, that it brought
before me with greater vividness the events of that memorable day on
the river. Through such a storm we had forced our way. From such
pitiless peltings of stinging sleet I had sheltered her fainting,
drooping head. This was the hurricane that had howled about her as she
lay prostrate, upheld in my arms, which hurled its wrathful showers on
her white, upturned face. From this I had saved her, and from worse--
from the grinding ice, the falling avalanche, the dark, deep, cold,
freezing flood. I had brought her back to life through all these
perils, and now--and now!--
Now, for that Lady of the Ice, whose image was brought up before me by
the tempest and the storm, there arose within me a mighty and
irrepressible yearning. She had become identified with Nora, but yet it
was not Nora's face and Nora's image that dwelt within my mind. That
smiling face, with its sparkling eyes and its witching smile, was
another thing, and seemed to belong to another person. It was not Nora
herself whom I had loved, but Nora as she stood the representative of
my Lady of the Ice. Moreover, I had seen Nora in unfeigned distress; I
had seen her wringing her hands and looking at me with piteous entreaty
and despair; but even the power of these strong emotions had not given
her the face that haunted me. Nora on the ice and Nora at home were so
different, that they could not harmonize; nor could the
never-to-be-forgotten lineaments of the one be traced in the other. And,
could Nora now have been with me in this storm, I doubted whether her
face could again assume that marble, statuesque beauty--that immortal
sadness and despair, which I had once seen upon it. That face--the true
face that I loved--could I ever see it again?
I breasted the storm and walked on I knew not where. At last I found
myself on the Esplanade. Beneath lay the river, which could not now be
seen through the blackness of the storm and of the night, but which,
through that blackness, sent forth a voice from all its waves. And the
wind wailed mournfully, mingling its voice with that of the river. So
once before bad rushing, dashing water joined its uproar to the howl of
pitiless winds, when I bore her over the river; only on that occasion
there was joined in the horrid chorus the more fearful boom of the
breaking icefields.
And now the voice of the river only increased and intensified that
longing of which I have spoken. I could not go home. I thought of going
back again to O'Halloran's house. There was my Lady of the Ice--Nora. I
might see her shadow on the window--I might see a light from her room.
Now Nora had not at all come up to my ideal of the Lady of the Ice, and
yet there was no other representative. I might be mad in love with an
image, a shadow, an idea; but if that image existed anywhere in real
life, it could exist only in Nora. And thus Nora gained from my image
an attractiveness, which she never could have had in her own right. It
was her identity with that haunting image of loveliness that gave her
such a charm. The charm was an imaginary one. Had I never found her on
the river and idealized her, the might have gained my admiration; but
she would never have thrown over me such a spell. But now, whatever she
was in herself, she was so merged in that ideal, that in my longing for
my love I turned my steps backward and wandered toward O'Halloran's,
with the frantic hope of seeing her shadow on the window, or a ray of
light from her room. For I could find no other way than this of
satisfying those insatiable longings that had sprung up within me.
So back I went through the storm, which seemed still to increase in
fury, and through the sleet, which swept in long horizontal lines down
the street, and whirled round the corner, and froze fast to the houses.
As I went on, the violence of the storm did not at all weaken my
purpose. I had my one idea, and that one idea I was bent on carrying
out.
Under such circumstances I approached the house of O'Halloran. I don't
know what I expected, or whether I expected, any thing or not. I know
what I wanted. I wanted the Lady of the Ice, and in search of her I ha
thus wandered back to that house in which lived the one with whom she
had been identified. A vague idea of seeing her shadow on the window
still possessed me, and so I kept along on the opposite sidewalk, and
looked up to see if there was any light or any shadow.
There was no light at all.
I stood still and gazed.
Was there a shadow? Or what was it? There was something moving there--a
dark, dusky shadow, in a niche of the gateway, by the corner of the
house--a dark shadow, dimly revealed in this gloom--the shadowy outline
of a woman's form.
I do not know what mad idea possessed me. I looked, while my heart beat
fast and painfully. A wild idea of the Lady of the Ice coming to me
again, amid the storm, to be again my companion through the storm,
flashed like lightning through my brain.
Suddenly, wild and clear and clanging, there came the toll of a bell
from a neighboring tower, as it began to strike the hour of midnight.
For a moment I paused in a sort of superstitious terror, and then,
before the third stroke had rung out, I rushed across the street.
The figure had been watching me.
As I came, she started. She hurried forward, and met me at the curb.
With a wild rush of joy and exultation, I caught her in my arms. I felt
her frame tremble. At length she disengaged herself and caught my arm
with a convulsive clasp, and drew me away. Mechanically, and with no
fixed idea of any kind, I walked off.
She walked slowly. In that fierce gale, rapid progress was not
possible. She, however, was well protected from the blast. A cloud was
wrapped around her head, and kept her face from the storm.
We walked on, and I felt my heart throb to suffocation, while my brain
reeled with a thousand new and wild fancies. Amid these, something of
my late superstition still lingered.
"Who is she?" I wondered; "Who is she? How did she happen to wait for
me here? Is it my Lady of the Ice? Am I a haunted man? Will she always
thus come to me in the storm, and leave me when the storm is over?
Where am I going? Whither is she leading me? Is she taking me back to
the dark river from which I saved her?"
Then I struggled against the superstitious fancy, and rallied and tried
to think calmly about it.
"Yes. It's Nora," I thought; "it's herself. She loves me. This was the
cause of her distress. And that distress has overmastered her. She has
been unable to endure my departure. She has been convinced that I would
return, and hag waited for me.
"Nora! Yes, Nora! Nora! But, Nora! what is this that I am doing? This
Nora can never be mine. She belongs to another. She was mine only
through my mistake. How can she hope to be mine, or how can I hope to
be hers? And why is it that I can dare thus to take her to ruin? Can I
have the heart to?"
I paused involuntarily, as the full horror of this idea burst upon me.
For, divested of all sentiment, the bald idea that burst upon my
whirling brain was simply this, that I was running away with the wife
of another man, and that man the very one who had lately given me his
hospitality, and called me his friend. And even so whirling a brain as
mine then was, could not avoid being penetrated by an idea that was so
shocking to every sentiment of honor, and loyalty, and chivalry, and
duty.
But as I paused, my companion forced me on. She had not said a single
word. Her head was bent down to meet the storm. She walked like one
bent on some desperate purpose, and that purpose was manifestly too
strong and too absorbing to be checked by any thing so feeble as my
fitful and uncertain irresolution. She walked on like some fate that
had gained possession of me. I surrendered to the power that thus held
me. I ceased even to think of pausing.
At length we came to where there was a large house with lights
streaming from all the windows. It was Colonel Berton's--I knew it
well. A ball had been going on, and the guests were departing. Down
came the sleighs as they carried off the guests, the jangle of the
bells Bounding shrilly in the stormy night. Thus far in my wanderings
all had been still, and this sudden noise produced a startling effect.
One sleigh was still at the door, and as we approached nearer we could
see that none others were there. It was probably waiting for the last
guest. At length we reached the house, and were walking immediately
under the bright light of the drawing-room windows, when suddenly the
door of the house opened, and a familiar voice sounded, speaking in
loud, eager, hilarious tones.
At the sound of that voice my companion stopped, and staggered back,
and then stood rigid with, her head thrust forward.
It was Jack's voice.
"Thanks," he said. "Ha! ha! ha! You're awfully kind, you know. Oh, yes.
I'll be here to-morrow night. Good-by. Good-by."
He rushed down the steps. The door closed. He sprang into the sleigh.
It started ahead in an opposite direction, and away it went, till the
jangle of the bells died out in the distance, amid the storm.
All was still. The street was deserted. The storm had full possession.
The lights of the house flashed out upon the snowdrifts, and upon the
glittering, frozen sleet.
For a moment my companion stood rooted to the spot. Then snatching her
arm from mine, she flung up her hand with a sudden gesture, and tore my
cloud down from off my face. The lights from the windows shone upon me,
revealing my features to her.
The next instant her arms fell. She staggered back, and with a low moan
of heart-broken anguish, she sank down prostrate into the snow.
Now hitherto there had been on my mind a current of superstitious
feeling which had animated most of my wild fancies. It had been
heightened by the events of my wanderings. The bowl of the storm, the
voice of the dark river, the clangor of the midnight bell, the shadowy
figure at the doorway--all these circumstances had combined to
stimulate my imagination and disorder my brain. But now, on my arrival
at this house, these feelings had passed away. These signs of
commonplace life--the jangling sleigh-bells, the lighted windows, the
departing company--had roused me, and brought me to myself. Finally,
there came the sound of Jack's voice, hearty, robust, healthy, strong--
at the sound of which the dark shadows of my mind were dispelled. And
it was at this moment, when all these phantasms had vanished, that my
companion fell senseless in the snow at my feet.
I stooped down full of wonder, and full too of pity. I raised her in my
arms. I supported her head on my shoulder. The storm beat pitilessly;
the stinging sleet pelted my now uncovered face; the lights of the
house shone out upon the form of my companion. All the street was
deserted. No one in the house saw us. I, for my part, did not think
whether I was seen or not. All my thoughts were turned to the one whom
I held in my arms.
I took the cloud which was wrapped around her head, and tenderly and
delicately drew it down from her face.
Oh, Heavens! what was this that I saw?
The lights flashed out, and revealed it unmistakably. There--then--
resting on my shoulder--under my gaze--now fully revealed--there lay
the face that had haunted me--the face for which I had longed, and
yearned, and craved! There it lay--that never-to-be-forgotten face--
with the marble features, the white lips, the closed eyes, the stony
calm--there it lay--the face of her whom alone I loved--the Lady of the
Ice!
What was this? I felt my old mood returning. Was this real? Was it not
a vision? How was it that she came to me again through the storm, again
to sink down, and again to rest her senseless form in my arms, and her
head upon my breast?
For a few moments I looked at her in utter bewilderment. All the wild
fancies which I had just been having now came back. I had wandered
through the storm in search of her, and she had come. Here she was--
here, in my arms!
Around us the storm raged as once before; and again, as before, the
fierce sleet dashed upon that white face; and again, as before, I
shielded it from its fury.
As I looked upon her I could now recognize her fully and plainly; and
at that recognition the last vestige of my wild, superstitious feeling
died out utterly, for she whom I held in my arms was no phantom, nor
was she Nora. I had been in some way intentionally deceived, but all
the time my own instinct had been true; for, now, when the Lady of the
lee again lay in my arms, I recognized her, and I saw that she was no
other than _Marion_.