Almost a week had elapsed since the last visit of Mme. Lorraine to
Eliot Van Zandt.
During that time he had been very ill from the fever brought on by his
agitation at her indiscreet announcement of the death of the girl in
whom he had been so warmly interested.
All Mima's skill and care had been required to ward off a fatal
consequence to this relapse, and the woman had sternly forbidden any
more calls from her mistress during this critical state. Mme. Lorraine
was so frightened that she was very obedient to the mandate; but now
the embargo had been removed, and she was free to visit the fascinating
patient.
He was better. Indeed, he was rapidly convalescing, owing to Mima's
good nursing, aided by his youth and a strong constitution.
So, on this lovely April morning, madame had made herself beautiful by
every device of art at her command, and hurried through the secret door
to visit the wounded captive whom she held in durance vile.
Pale and wan, but exceedingly handsome still, Eliot Van Zandt lay upon
a velvet lounge, his fair Saxon beauty thrown into strong relief by the
dressing-gown of dark-blue silk that madame's care had supplied.
At the entrance of the superbly dressed and handsome woman, his dark
brows met with a heavy frown.
"I gave orders, Madame Lorraine, that you should not be admitted
again!" he exclaimed, with the frank petulance of convalescence.
Madame gave her graceful head an airy toss.
"No one can debar me from the privilege of entering any room in my own
house," she replied, coolly.
"Your own house?" starting.
"Precisely," with a maddening smile; and for at least two minutes a
dead silence reigned in the room that, with its swinging-lamp burning
brightly, presented the appearance of night, although it was midday
outside.
Then he exclaimed, angrily:
"I had already become convinced that there was something mysterious in
my sojourn here. I have found out that I am in an underground apartment
from which there is no apparent egress. I know that no living soul but
yourself and your servant has been near me since I was ill. Am I, then,
your prisoner?"
Smilingly, she replied:
"Do not call it by so harsh a word. It is true that you are in my
house, hidden in an underground apartment; but it was for your own
good that I brought you here. You had fatally wounded Remond, and the
authorities were after you. I--I love you," falteringly. "I could not
give you up to justice. So you are here--a prisoner, if you will, but a
beloved and well cared-for one."
"Yes, I have received skillful care and attention from your servant. I
thank you," very stiffly; "but now I am well, I desire to go."
"I am suspected of harboring you. My house is watched by officers of
the law. Should you go out, you would be instantly arrested. _Mon
Dieu_! that must not be!"
She looked at him with tender, pleading eyes.
He answered, curtly:
"If I have hurt Remond, I am willing to answer to the law for my crime
committed in the defense of the weak and the helpless. I have no wish
to shirk my punishment. You understand me now, and you will let me go.
I demand my release!"
Clasping her jeweled hands together in pretended despair, she exclaimed:
"But, good Heaven! _mon ami_, I can not let you be so reckless. Think a
moment what will happen if they take you into custody. If the man dies,
you may be--hung!"
"I take all the risk; only show me the way out of my hated prison!"
he exclaimed, impatiently; and, with sudden passion, Mme. Lorraine
answered, boldly:
"Then, by Heaven, I will not! There is but one way by which you can
ever leave this room, whose existence is known to no human being but
Mima, myself, and you."
She saw him grow deathly pale to the roots of his hair, as he asked,
with pretended coolness:
"And that way, my darling jailer?"
With something like a blush struggling through the cosmetics that
covered her face, she replied firmly, although in a low voice:
"As my husband."
There was an awkward silence; the man was blushing for her; the
dark-red flush went up to the roots of his hair; she saw it, and bit
her lips. At last he said, with cool disdain:
"You have already a husband in an insane asylum."
She interrupted, eagerly:
"No, no--not my husband. I am free--that is, I was divorced by law from
him years ago."
She came nearer; she flung herself, with a rustle of silk and heavy
waft of patchouli, down by his side on the sofa. Looking up into his
face with burning eyes, she exclaimed, wildly:
"Do not look so coldly and scornfully upon me! Since you came to
New Orleans, you have changed all my life. I never loved before. I
married Monsieur Lorraine for wealth and position, without a single
heart-throb for the man. But you I love, you I have sworn to win. What
is there unreasonable about it, that your eyes flash so proudly? You
are handsome, it is true, but I also am beautiful. You are gifted, but
you are poor, while I am rolling in wealth. I can take you from your
drudging life and make your existence a dream of luxury and ease. That
is generous, is it not? But you have bewitched me; you have changed all
my nature; you have taught me to love."
"I never tried to do so," he replied, with unmoved coldness.
"Cold-hearted Yankee! have you no feeling, no pity?" she demanded,
reproachfully. "Look at me fairly," plucking impatiently at his sleeve.
"Am I not fair enough to teach you to love me?"
"No," he answered, curtly, shrinking from her touch, but looking
straight into her impassioned eyes with cold, unmoved gray orbs.
"Perhaps you already love some one else?" she burst forth, jealously.
"No," in a cold, incisive voice.
A low laugh of triumph broke from her, and she exclaimed:
"Then I will not give you up. You shall be my husband."
He gave her an angry stare, but she continued, unheeding:
"To-night I leave New Orleans with my servant Mima. I have my reasons
for this step. _N'importe_; they concern not you. I have made up my
mind to be your wife, to bear your name, to go home with you to Boston.
If you say the word, a priest shall be brought within the hour to make
us one. Then we can escape together to-night and fly this fatal city
which now holds imminent danger for you. Do you consent?"
He looked with his cold, disconcerting gaze full into her eyes.
"What if I refuse?" he queried.
"You are a Yankee all over--you answer one question with another," she
said, with a faint, mirthless laugh. "But my alternative is so bitter
I shrink from naming it. Tell me, are you going to make me your loving
wife?"
"I would die first!" he responded, with passionate emphasis.
She looked up at him, pale with wrath and mortification, and hissed,
angrily:
"You have chosen well, for it will come to that--to--to death!"
"You would murder me?" he exclaimed, with a start; and she answered,
defiantly:
"If you can not be mine, no one else shall ever have your love or your
name. If you persist in refusing my generous offer, I shall go away
from here with Mima to-night; but I shall leave you in this cellar to
starve and to die, and to molder into dust until the story of your
mysterious disappearance that night has been forgotten of men."
"You could not be so inhuman!" he uttered, with paling lips.
"I can, and I will," laughing mockingly. "Take your choice now,
monsieur--my time is limited. Shall it be love--or--death?"
With ineffable scorn, although his handsome features had waned to a
marble pallor, he replied, in a voice of proud disdain:
"Such love--the love of a guilty, wicked woman like you, Madame
Lorraine--leaves one no choice but death!"