SALOME LEARNS A STARTLING FACT.
Yes, lying there upon the floor, all unconscious of her condition or
surroundings, or of the fact that her identity was discovered, lay the
wife of Truman Winthrop.
It was indeed Salome, fair and beautiful as when Dr. Winthrop had held
her in his arms on the morning of his sudden departure for Europe,
though she was somewhat worn and thin from long watching and anxiety;
for these last few weeks, during which the man whom she so fondly loved
had lain so low, had been a severe strain upon both heart and strength.
Mrs. Rochester and her daughter hung trembling over her, astonishment,
consternation, and even terror depicted upon their blanched faces, and
both seemingly too unnerved by their appalling discovery to know what to
do in such an emergency.
“She was not burned to death after all,” Miss Rochester at length
whispered, tremulously, as she bent closer for a better view of the
girl; “and how on earth did she happen to be in Paris at this time, or
to get into this family?”
“That is easily enough explained,” returned Mrs. Rochester, beginning to
recover herself, while her face grew hard and stern. “She must have
escaped from that building without being seen, and has probably been
hiding ever since for some reason—perhaps because she was piqued and
believed that her marriage was illegal, as they told her. But she has
doubtless kept herself posted regarding the movements of the Winthrops,
and so followed them here, to be near him. Then, of course, since she is
such a natural-born nurse, it was easy enough for her to get into almost
any hospital, where, disguised in this outlandish manner, her own mother
would never have recognized her; and, having nursed Tillinghast through
his illness with such success, it is not at all wonderful that Dr.
Winthrop should have wanted her to come here. But”—with a sudden
compression of her lips—“what are we going to do about the matter, now
that we have made the discovery?”
“Well, to begin with, let us get her out of this hall—take her at once
to my room,” said Miss Rochester, a cruel light leaping into her
beautiful eyes; “and you understand, mamma,” she added, “we must keep
her out of sight—no one must see her or know what we know, and just as
soon as possible she must be got out of the house. What do you suppose
is to become of us—of my future interests—if Truman Winthrop discovers
that his wife is living?”
“What is to become of your future interests whether he learns it or not,
since the fact remains that she does live?” bitterly demanded her
mother.
“Oh, I don’t know; I must have time to think. Mamma, she must not be
allowed to spoil everything now. But come—help me, and, let us get her
out of sight at once.”
She seized Salome by the shoulders, and Mrs. Rochester lifting her by
the feet, they bore her into their private parlor and laid her upon the
lounge.
Then Mrs. Rochester said that Dr. Winthrop must have his dinner or he
would suspect that something was wrong. So she took the daintily
arranged tray, which fortunately had not been disturbed, and carried it
herself to his room, remarking that as Sister Angela appeared not very
well, she had prevailed upon her to lie down, and allow her to take her
place, and serve his dinner.
Dr. Winthrop did not manifest any suspicion that all was not as
represented, and thought it very kind of Mrs. Rochester to be so
considerate of the nurse.
Then she made her escape back to her own rooms as soon as possible, but
found that Salome had not yet revived. Miss Rochester had made no effort
to restore her.
“Your future interests,” she resumed, as if that thought had been in her
mind ever since her daughter suggested it. “Surely you do not expect to
marry Dr. Winthrop after making this discovery.”
“Why not?”
Mrs. Rochester shrugged her shoulders, and made a significant grimace.
“Bigamy,” was all the reply that she vouchsafed.
Miss Rochester frowned at the disagreeable word.
“It is probable that no one, save you and me, know of her existence, or
rather her identity,” she remarked, after a thoughtful pause.
“Well, what of that?” demanded her companion; “she can reveal herself
whenever she chooses.”
“That is the very thing I am afraid of; but there are places where
people can have no communication with the outside world, and Paris is
very prolific in such institutions,” said Miss Rochester, in a tone to
make one’s flesh creep.
“Sadie! you wouldn’t dare,” whispered her mother.
“I would dare anything rather than lose all at this late day,” was the
passionate retort.
“But you couldn’t marry him even then—you know that would be absolutely
impossible, even though she could be so securely shut away that she
could never make her existence known,” returned Mrs. Rochester,
decidedly.
“Listen, mamma,” said the girl, imperiously, “I have set my heart on
this marriage and the union of these two fortunes, and you know when I
really make up my mind to anything I usually carry my point. Do you
think that, after enjoying all the luxuries which this money buys for
us, I am weakly going to surrender them? Can you live without your
silks, satins, laces, jewels, horses, carriages; your servants, and the
hundred other things you enjoy so much, and go back to the poverty you
struggled with before you married a rich man? No, you cannot,” she went
on, as her companion shivered over the picture, “but you know that we
are to have only the interest of that paltry fifty thousand to use
jointly if that contract is not fulfilled.”
“But—but—think of Dr. Winthrop becoming a bigamist!”
“I do not intend that Dr. Winthrop shall become a bigamist,” calmly
responded the young lady.
“How can you prevent it if you persist in going through the form of
marriage—provided, of course, you can win him—since Salome is already
his wife; unless—” and the woman’s face grew deadly pale; “you are
meditating a worse crime——”
“Hush!” and Miss Rochester’s eyes blazed dangerously, “what could have
put such a horrible idea into your mind? But what I mean to do is this:
I mean to put her,” with a glance at the still form, “where she can do
no harm by tattling, at least for the present. Then I shall write to a
New York lawyer that I am engaged to Dr. Winthrop; but since his first
wife’s body was never recovered from the ruins of that building, I am in
constant fear lest she should be living, and sometimes appear to cause
me trouble. Of course, I shall represent to him that I realize it is
only a morbidly nervous fear, still, to satisfy me, I want him to
procure regular divorce papers, as if she were living and had simply
disappeared—all to be done without publicity of course, as lawyers
nowadays know how to do such things. This will, no doubt, cost a great
deal of money and require some ingenuity to manage, but they understand
how to meet such difficulties, and we need not mind a few thousands if
we can but secure the bulk of those fortunes.”
“Well, I must admit, Sadie, you would do credit to the arch-plotter
himself!” her mother exclaimed; “as inventive as I am, I should never
have thought of such a device; but”—meditatively—“I believe it can be
done. Still there will be great risks to be run, even if you succeed in
securing the doctor, while, if he should ever mistrust anything
afterward, I should not envy you your future happiness. Suppose he
should some time learn that you had applied for this divorce?”
“Well, then I could admit to him, as to the lawyer, that I simply did it
to satisfy my own conscience, and to prevent any possibility of
illegality in our marriage.”
“Then, too,” persisted Mrs. Rochester, still doubtful of the feasibility
of the plot, “suppose Salome should manage to escape some time; she
might—she would be very likely to make trouble for you.”
“Let her! once I am Mrs. Truman Winthrop, I will snap my fingers at
whatever trouble she might try to make. I shall be so secure in my
position that I shall not fear her at all,” returned Miss Rochester,
confidently.
“Really, Sadie, you have greatly relieved my mind upon one point,” her
mother thoughtfully observed. “I have been very much afraid all along
that you were going to throw Dr. Winthrop over entirely, out of
admiration, if not of some stronger sentiment, for his brother.”
Miss Rochester flushed a vivid scarlet at this unexpected turn to the
conversation.
“Well,” she frankly admitted, after a moment of silence, “I must admit
that I wish Norman Winthrop had been Milton Hamilton’s favorite nephew
and heir; he is far more congenial in some respects than his very
dignified and extremely conscientious brother; but since he hasn’t a
sufficient fortune to tempt me, and I am bound to have money, I must put
up with the other——”
“Hush!” her mother interrupted at this point; “she is coming to
herself,” and she pointed to the figure upon the lounge, which just then
began to stir feebly.
Suspended animation was gradually reasserting itself in Salome; a
long-drawn sigh heaved her breast, and then she slowly opened her eyes
and looked around her.
Mrs. Rochester and her daughter were seated together, not far from the
head of the lounge, and thus the reviving girl could not see them as she
began to come to herself.
They made no sound nor movement, but sat watching to see what she would
do or say when she should entirely recover consciousness.
“Where am I? what has happened?” Salome murmured, as her wandering eyes
rested upon objects which she had never seen before.
She had never been in those rooms, and had only now and then met their
occupants as she passed to and fro through the halls on her duties, or
when they came for a moment to Dr. Winthrop’s door to inquire how he
was. She had never exchanged a word with either of them, except on that
night when Miss Rochester had stolen in upon her when her patient was so
ill.
An expression of surprise stole into her eyes, and she put her hand in a
confused way to her head, when she was startled to find that her cap and
bandages had all been removed; her glasses, too, were gone. A feeling of
fear and dismay seized her.
“Why, why!” she cried, in a tone of distress; then she struggled to a
sitting posture, and looked about her with a frightened stare.
Instantly she encountered the sullen glances of the two women who were
watching her.
“Ah!—Mrs. Rochester!” she gasped.
“Yes, that is my name, Miss Howland—or perhaps you would prefer to be
addressed by your latest alias, ‘Sister Angela,’” that lady
sarcastically remarked.
“Really, Salome, you have not shown your usual good taste by
masquerading in that ugly gray costume,” said Miss Rochester, with a
sneer. “I confess,” she added, “it has been an excellent disguise, since
neither mamma nor I have been able to penetrate it, until you were so
unfortunate as to faint just outside our door a few minutes ago.”
“Oh, you will not betray me——” Salome began, appealingly.
“Betray you!—to whom?” sternly demanded Mrs. Rochester.
“To my—to Dr. Winthrop,” murmured the distressed girl, as she tried to
replace her disguise with her trembling hands, and looked around for her
glasses.
“To your husband—I suppose you were about to remark,” cried Miss
Rochester, with a sneering laugh. “In my presence I hope you will not
thus speak of the man to whom I am betrothed. Your husband! Pshaw! Have
you not been told that your marriage with him was but a farce?”
Salome shivered. Every word that the cruel girl had uttered had pierced
her sensitive heart like a dagger.
“Don’t—don’t!” she breathed, and her teeth began to chatter with the
nervous chill that was creeping over her.
Ever since Madame Winthrop had told her that she was no wife she had
been crushed and humiliated by the thought that she had been living in a
false position. She could have borne it quietly and patiently if Dr.
Winthrop had shown a desire to shield her; if he had but written to her
that, to all intents and purposes, she was his wife—that he felt morally
bound to her, even though there might have been some technical flaw in
their union; if he had but told her to remain where she was and he would
make everything right when he returned. But instead of doing
this—instead of proving the true, noble man she had believed him, he had
shown himself to be weak; he had allowed himself to be influenced by his
proud mother’s view of the situation, and had sent her out of his home,
as if she had been some shameful character, whose presence there would
bring opprobrium upon him, and this had crushed her.
Time had only served to increase her suffering and sensitiveness upon
this point, and she had tried—when the opportunity offered—to drop
quietly out of the world.
She was too innocent and unsuspecting—too ignorant of all legal
questions to imagine for a moment that she had been deceived—to reason
that the simple fact of Dr. Winthrop having taken vows in the presence
of witnesses, or having installed her in his home as his wife in the
presence of his servants, would establish her position according to the
laws of New York, even though there might have been some informality
about their union which might have seriously affected it in other
States. Neither had it occurred to her to take advice upon the subject
and try to obtain redress. She had simply believed what she had been
told, and then, imagining that her husband was ashamed and regretted the
alliance, she had resolved to take herself forever out of his way.
“I do not wonder you are ashamed,” continued Miss Rochester, as she
remarked Salome’s emotion; “and yet, in spite of all, you have come here
and forced yourself upon him.”
“I did not—oh, I did not!” Salome murmured, a burning blush suffusing
her face; “but he was in such trouble, I could not resist the desire to
come. His friend was dying, and he could get no one to nurse him. I knew
I could give him good care, even if I could not save him, and so, when
he appealed to me, I yielded. Then he asked me to come here. Oh, it was
hard—no one will ever know how hard—but he needed me, and I would have
given my life for him——”
“Very likely,” interrupted Miss Rochester, with a sarcastic sneer; “but
that costly sacrifice has not been required of you. And now, since your
identity has been revealed, it is but natural that I should object to
your remaining longer in the capacity of nurse to the man whom I expect
to marry.”
Salome’s face grew deadly white again at this poisoned shaft; but she
drew herself up with dignity.
“Your objection would have no weight with me. I should remain if I
considered it my duty to do so,” she said coldly.
“Perhaps it has been your intention to reveal yourself to Doctor
Winthrop and try to ingratiate yourself with him again,” was the rude
retort.
“No, no!” Salome cried, trembling with fear at the thought, and trying
to adjust her disguise more securely, while she searched again for her
glasses. “He must never know that I have been here!”
“Ah, then you have some sense of shame! I am glad to know that you do
not wish to thrust yourself upon him again, after having once been
discarded from his home——”
“Stop! oh, stop!” Salome interrupted, as she tottered to her feet in her
agony, putting out her hand appealingly at this taunt. “I have never
wanted to thrust myself upon him; but I was wild when they came and told
me that he had at last fallen a prey to the disease from which he had
saved so many; he himself sent for me, and I had to come. I have saved
him—a second time I have saved his life—my work is done, and I will go.
I had told him I was going to-day,” she concluded; but her lips were
livid with agony at the thought of again leaving the man whom she still
loved with all the strength of her soul.
“Where will you go?” demanded Mrs. Rochester.
“Back to my work in the hospitals and among the poor, when I am a little
rested,” the wretched girl replied, but with such a sense of utter
desolation as she had never before experienced.
“Are you really a nun? Have you taken convent vows upon you?” suddenly
inquired Miss Rochester, as it occurred to her that if she had regularly
devoted herself to the life, that fact might of itself make her marriage
with Dr. Winthrop null and void.
But she was destined to be disappointed, for Salome briefly answered:
“No.”
“Then why have you assumed their dress—why do you masquerade in their
robes?”
“To protect myself—it gives me security and liberty in going about my
work, for no one dares molest or ill-treat a nun.”
“How do you happen to be in Paris at this time?” Miss Rochester
demanded, regarding her with suspicion.
“Excuse me; but I am not accountable to you for my movements,” Salome
responded coldly.
Miss Rochester gave a mocking laugh.
“It is very easy to interpret them, nevertheless,” she sneered. “A
certain physician was known to be in Paris, and you could not keep away
from him. Yours is an exceedingly romantic story, Salome—even you do not
dream how romantic. I am willing to wager a handsome sum against those
ugly glasses of yours, that you don’t know just who Dr. Winthrop is
after all,” and she regarded the girl with a malicious look.
“What do you mean?” Salome asked, with undisguised astonishment.
“You have never had a suspicion, I suppose,” her tormentor went on,
“that the handsome doctor may have had as romantic a history as your
own? Did no one ever tell you that he was betrothed to another at the
time you lured him into that hasty and unfortunate marriage in Boston?”
Salome’s white lips quivered painfully!—how cruel they were to taunt her
thus with all her misery.
“Yes—madam told me,” she faltered.
“Did she tell you to whom he was betrothed! No, of course she did not,
or you would not look so innocent and curious,” Miss Rochester went on
relentlessly. “It is the strangest story in the world—the most wonderful
complication I ever heard of—and you were always a marplot Salome——”
“Tell me—tell me,” interposed Salome, with quivering eagerness, “and do
not keep me in this torturing suspense. What do you mean? what is there
strange or mysterious about him?—to whom was he betrothed?”
“To my husband’s daughter—to Sadie Rochester,” cried Mrs. Rochester,
turning a vindictive look upon the unhappy and trembling girl, “and the
man whom you have fondly supposed to be your husband and lost, is no
other than Truman Hamilton, the adopted son and heir of Milton Hamilton,
who decreed that he should marry the daughter of his friend or—forfeit
his inheritance!”
Salome had risen to her feet as if electrified at the woman’s first
words, and she had seemed to freeze where she stood, as she went on—a
look first of incredulity, then horror, then despair overspreading her
colorless face.
Then, as the full force of all that she had learned burst upon her, a
low cry of anguish broke from her, she swayed dizzily for a moment where
she stood, and then sank back upon the couch, from which she had just
risen, and fainted away again.