ON THE STONE TERRACE.
When Sybilla Silver parted from Lady Kingsland outside the chamber
door, she went straight to her own room, and began her preparations for
that night's work.
The flaming red spots, all foreign to her usual complexion, blazed on
either cheek-bone; her black eyes shone like the eyes of a tigress
crouched in a jungle.
But she never faltered--she never wavered in her deadly purpose. The
aim of her whole life was to be fulfilled this night--the _manes_ of
her dead kinsfolk to be appeased.
Her first act was to sit down and write a note. It was very brief,
illy spelled, vilely written, on a sheet of coarsest paper, and sealed
with a big blotch of red wax and the impress of a grimy thumb. This is
what Miss Silver wrote:
SUR HEVERARD KINGSLAND:
HONURED SIR:--This is to Say that my Lady is Promised the hamerican
Gent, for to meet him this Night at Midnight on the Stone Terrace,
Which honoured Sir you ought to Know, which is why I write.
Yours too Command, A FRIEND.
"This will do it, I think. Sir Everard will visit the stone terrace
to-night before he sleeps. It will be fully eleven, probably half
past, before be comes home. He will find this anonymous communication
awaiting him. He will fume and stamp and spurn it, but he will go, all
the same. And then!"
She sealed the note, directed it in the same atrocious fist to the
baronet, and then, rising, proceeded to undress.
But not to go to bed. A large bundle lay on a chair; she opened it,
drew forth a full suit of man's attire--an evening suit that the young
baronet had worn but a few times, and the very counterpart of that
which he wore to-night.
Miss Silver stood before the glass and arrayed herself in these. She
was so tall that they fitted her very well, and when her long hair was
scientifically twisted up, and a hat of Sir Everard's crushed down upon
it, she was as handsome a young fellow as you could see in a long day's
search.
That vague and shadowy resemblance to the baronet, which Mr. Parmalee
had once noticed, was very palpable and really striking when she threw
over all a long riding-cloak which Sir Everard often wore.
"You will do, I think," she said, to her transformed image in the
glass. "Even my lady might mistake you for her husband in the
uncertain moonlight."
She left the mirror, crossed the room, unlocked a trunk with a key she
took out of her bosom, and drew forth a morocco scabbard case. The
crest of the Kingslands and the monogram "E. K.," decorated the leather.
Opening this, she drew forth a long, glittering Spanish stiletto, not
much thicker than a coarse needle, but strong and glittering and deadly
keen.
"Sir Everard has not missed his pretty toy yet," she muttered. "If he
had only dreamed, when he saw it first, not a fortnight ago, of the
deed it would do this night!"
She closed the trunk, thrust the dagger into its scabbard, the scabbard
into her bosom, blew out the lamp, and softly opened the door. All was
still as the grave.
She locked her door securely, put the key in her pocket, and stole
toward Sir Everard's rooms. Her kid slippers fell light as snow-flakes
on the carpet. She opened the baronet's dressing-room door. It had
been his sleeping-room, too, of late. His bed stood ready prepared; a
lamp burned dimly on the dressing-table. Beside the lamp Miss Silver
placed her anonymous letter, then retreated as noiselessly as she had
entered, shut the door, and glided stealthily down the corridor, down
the stairs, along the passages, and out of the same door which my lady
had passed not ten minutes previously.
Swift as a snake, and more deadly of purpose, Sybilla glided along the
gloomy avenues of the wood toward the sea-side terrace. Every nerve
seemed strung like steel, every fiber of her body quivered to its
utmost tension. Her eyes blazed in the dark like the eyes of a wild
cat; she looked like a creature possessed of a devil.
She reached the extremity of the woodland path almost as soon as her
victim. A moment she paused, glaring upon her with eyes of fiercest
hate as she stood there alone and defenseless. The next, she drew out
the flashing stiletto. Flung away the scabbard, and advanced with it
in her hand and horrible words upon her lips.
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came
again to meet that man! False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your
doom!"
There was a wild shriek. In that fitful light she never doubted for a
moment but that it was her husband.
"Have mercy!" she cried. "I am innocent, Everard! Oh, for God's sake,
do not murder me!"
"Wretch--traitoress--die. You are not fit to pollute the earth longer!
Go to your grave with my hate and my curse!"
With a sudden paroxysm of mad fury the dagger was lifted--one fierce
hand gripped Harriet's throat. A choking shriek--the dagger fell--a
gurgling cry drowned in her throat--a fierce spurt of hot blood--a reel
backward and a heavy fall over the low iron railing--down, down on the
black shore beneath--and the pallid moonlight gleaming above shone on
one figure standing on the stone terrace, alone, with a dagger dripping
blood in its hand.
She leaned over the rail. Down below--far down--she could see a
slender figure, with long hair blowing in the blast, lying awfully
still on the sands. Not five feet off the great waves washed, rising,
steadily rising. In five minutes more they would wash the feet of the
terrace--that slender figure would lie there no more.
"The fall alone would have killed her. Before I am half-way back to
the house those waves will be her shroud."
She wrapped her cloak around her and fled away--back, swift as the
wind, into the house, up the stairs. Safe in her own room, she tore
off her disguise. The cloak and the trousers were horribly spotted
with blood. She made all into one compact package, rolled up the
dagger in the bundle, stole back to the baronet's dressing-room and
listened, and peeped through the key-hole. He was not there; the room
was empty. She went in, thrust the bundle out of sight in the remotest
corner of the wardrobe, and hastened back to her chamber. Her letter
still lay where she had left it. The baronet bad not yet returned.
In her own room Miss Silver secured the door upon the inside, according
to custom, donned her night-dress, and went to bed--to watch and wait.
* * * * *
The mess dinner was a very tedious affair to one guest at least. Major
Morrell and the officers told good stories and sung doubtful songs, and
passed the wine and grew hilarious; but Sir Everard Kingsland chafed
horribly under it all, and longed for the hour of his release.
A dull, aching torture lay at his heart; a chill presentiment of evil
had been with him all day; the tortures of love and rage and jealousy
had lashed him nearly into madness.
Sometimes love carried all before him, and he would start up to rush to
the side of the wife he loved, to clasp her to his heart, and defy
earth and Hades to part them. Sometimes anger held the day, and he
would pace up and down like a madman, raging at her, at himself, at
Parmalee, at all the world.
He was haggard and worn and wild, and his friends stared at him and
shrugged their shoulders, and smiled significantly at this outward
evidence of post-nuptial bliss.
It was almost midnight when the young baronet mounted Sir Galahad and
rode home. Kingsland Court lay dark and still under the frowning night
sky. He glanced up at the window of his wife's chamber. A light
burned there. A longing, wistful look filled his blue eyes, his arms
stretched out involuntarily, his heart gave a great plunge, as though
it would break away and fly to its idol.
"My darling!" he murmured, passionately--"my darling, my life, my love,
my wife! Oh, my God to think, I should love her, wildly, madly still,
believing her--knowing her to be false!"
He went up to his dressing-room, his heart full to bursting. A mad,
insane longing to go to her, to fold her to his breast, to forgive her
all, to take her, guilty or innocent, and let pride and honor go to the
winds, was upon him. He loved her so intensely, so passionately, that
life without her, apart from her, was hourly increasing torture.
The sight of a folded note lying on the table alone arrested his
excited steps. He took it up, looked at the strange superscription,
tore it open, ran over its diabolical contents, and reeled as if struck
a blow.
"Great Heaven! it is not true! it can not be true! it is a vile,
accursed slander! My wife meet this man alone, and at midnight, in
that forsaken spot! Oh, it is impossible! May curses light upon the
slanderous coward who dared to write this infernal lie!"
He flung it, in a paroxysm of mad fury, into the fire. A flash of
flame, and Sybilla Silver's artfully written note was forever gone. He
started up in white fury.
"I will go to her room; I will see for myself! I will find her safely
asleep, I know!"
But a horrible misgiving filled him, even while he uttered the brave
words. He dashed out of his room and into his wife's. It was
deserted. He entered the bedroom. She was not there; the bed had not
been slept in. He passed to her boudoir; that, too, was vacant.
Sir Everard seized the bell-rope and rang a peal that resounded with
unearthly echoes through the sleeping house. Five minutes of mad
impatience--ten; then Claudine, scared and shivering, appeared.
"Where is your mistress?"
"_Mon Dieu_! how should I know? Is not my lady in bed?"
"No; her bed has not been slept in to-night. She is in none of her
rooms. When did you see her last?"
"About ten o'clock. She dismissed me for the night; she said she would
undress herself."
"Where is Miss Silver?"
"In bed, I think, monsieur."
"Go to her--tell her I want to see her at once. Lose no time."
Claudine disappeared. Miss Silver was so very soundly asleep that it
required five minutes rapping to rouse her. Once aroused, however, she
threw on a dressing-gown, thrust her feet into slippers, and appeared
before the baronet, with a pale, anxious, inquiring face.
"Where is my wife? Where is Lady Kingsland?"
"Good Heaven! is she not here?"
"No. You know where she is! Tell me, I command you!"
Sybilla Silver covered her face with both hands, and cowered before him
with every sign of guilt.
"Spare me!" she cried, faintly. "I dare not tell you!"
He made one stride forward, caught her by the arm, his eyes glaring
like the eyes of a tiger.
"Speak!" he thundered; "or by the Heaven above us, I'll tear it from
your throat! Is she with him?"
"She is," cowering, shrinking, trembling.
"Where?"
"On the stone terrace."
"How do you know?"
"He returned this afternoon; he sent for me; he told me to tell her to
meet him there to-night, about midnight. She did not think you would
return before two or three---- Oh, for pity's sake----"
"I'll have their hearts' blood!" he thundered, with an awful oath.
The horrible voice, the horrible oath, was like nothing earthly. The
two women cowered down, too intensely frightened even to scream. One
other listener recoiled in wordless horror. It was Edwards, the valet.
The madman, goaded to insane fury, had rushed out of the hall--out of
the house. The trio looked at each other with bloodless faces and
dilated eyes of terror.
Edwards was the first to find his paralyzed tongue:
"May the Lord have mercy upon us! There'll be murder done this night!"
The two women never spoke. Huddled together, they clung to Edwards, as
women do cling to men in their hour of fear.
Half an hour passed; they never moved nor stirred.
Ten minutes more, and Sir Everard dashed in among them as he had dashed
out.
"It is false!" he shouted--"a false, devilish slander! She is not
there!"
A shriek from Claudine--a wild, wild shriek. With starting eyes she
was pointing to the baronet's hands.
All looked and echoed that horror-struck cry. They were literally
dripping blood!