THE FLIGHT OF NINA.
Several days after that tragic night at Selwyn Heights a sensational
item appeared in the Baltimore papers and was thence copied widely into
other journals.
“A thrilling tragedy. A jealous wife murders her beautiful rival and
makes a successful flight from justice. A fine old family disgraced by
the crime of its last remaining descendant.”
Under that heading came the following:
“Many members of the _bon ton_ in this city will remember the beautiful
Mrs. St. Alban, who about two years ago was the star of a season
here, and who at the death of her husband went abroad with a party
of friends in the splendid yacht of our citizen, Marmaduke Cameron.
This lady recently returned from Europe and during a visit at Selwyn
Heights, the seaside home of her friend, Mr. Talbot Strangemore, she
was cruelly murdered by the young wife of the latter gentleman. Rumor
accredited Mr. Strangemore with a penchant for the charming widow which
so enraged the beautiful young wife that she publicly declared her
hatred and jealousy of Mrs. St. Alban, and that night she stealthily
entered the young widow’s room and assaulted her with a sharp dagger
which she left lying upon the floor when she fled from the scene. Mrs.
St. Alban is now lying at the point of death at Selwyn Heights, and
there is not the faintest hope of her recovery. Her dying deposition
accuses Mrs. Strangemore with the crime, and her testimony is strangely
supported by the fact that a letter, addressed to Mrs. Strangemore and
written by her husband, was found in Mrs. St. Alban’s room, where the
jealous wife had most probably dropped it in making her hasty escape.
The whole affair is extremely distressing. All the parties belong to
the best society, and the crime of the jealous wife has covered with
ignominy the name of a fine old family of which she is the last living
descendant. It is said that some members of her household will not
believe in her guilt, but all the evidence is against her, and her
mysterious, unexplained absence of itself is a tacit admission of her
sin. Vigorous search is now being made for her, but as yet without
success.”
All Baltimore rang with that sensation. Many recalled the beautiful
fairy, coquettish Mrs. St. Alban, the bride of the rich manufacturer
Ralph St. Alban. He was twice as old as she was, having been her
father’s friend at college, and no one supposed that the poor
professor’s daughter was in love with her elderly spouse, or that she
grieved much when he suddenly died after three years of wedded bliss
and left her a wealthy and attractive young widow. She had been a flirt
of the most pronounced order, dreaded alike by plain wives and pretty
young girls, and now when this story of the tragedy appeared, many said
that they were not surprised at the fate that had befallen her. She had
always had too strong a _penchant_ for the sweethearts and husbands of
other women, and now Nemesis had overtaken her at last. There was a
great deal of silent but intense sympathy with the young wife who had
been goaded to desperation and crime by her cruel wrongs. More than
one woman who had been insolently rivaled by triumphant Sibyl thought
furtively within herself that the little coquette had only got what she
deserved.
While Rumor repeats with its thousand barbed tongues the story of the
tragedy at Selwyn Heights, let us follow the flight of hapless Nina,
reader mine, when she stole forth that night, wretched and despairing,
from the shelter of her beautiful home.
Nina had fled from Selwyn Heights with the idea of self-destruction
uppermost in her mind. She had brooded morbidly over her promise to
Mrs. Selwyn, until it assumed the proportions of a solemn oath in her
eyes. She believed that she was solemnly bound to ignore and sacrifice
herself, if in no other way the happiness of Talbot Strangemore could
be secured.
“I would sooner die by my own act than be divorced from him that he may
marry another woman. I could not live under such shame and ignominy as
that!” she cried, passionately, for she had come of a proud race, and
she inherited all of their pride and nobility. And then she clasped her
beautiful hands together and added, with bitter pathos:
“The sorrow would be as great as the shame, for, oh, I love him still,
in spite of all that has passed; I love him still, and I believe that
I shall always love him! I have worshipped him so truly for five long
years, have studied, read, practiced, all to improve myself for his
sake, that it would be impossible now to live and look on him as the
husband of another woman. It would be easier to die!”
And so she had gone away, leaving behind her a pathetic little note,
whose incoherent sentences only made another terrible link against her
in the evidence that convicted her of a fearful sin.
“My husband,” she wrote, and a great burning tear splashed on the word,
and almost blotted it out; “I am going away out of your life forever! I
know all now, and I take the only way I can think of to free you from
the fetters that chafe you so cruelly. May God forgive me for what I am
going to do to-night, for I am so maddened by my wrongs that I am not
accountable. But you will be free, you will be happy, and I ask no more
of fate. Do not blame me when they tell you of the awful deed I have
done. Only remember that I was driven mad by my wrongs, and that my
oath to your dying mother compelled me to the deed.”
To that strangely ambiguous note she signed her name in full, “Nina
Selwyn Strangemore,” and then she laid it conspicuously upon the toilet
table, and left the room, locking the door outside, and taking the key
away that her flight might not be discovered until morning.
“I shall be dead then--dead in the deep sea, or perhaps the cold waves
will cast me back upon the sands, and he will behold my dead face and
rejoice that he is free to marry his beloved Sibyl,” she said and she
went on steadily to the place where day after day she and Lion had
waited for the ship that would bring Talbot home. She had a fancy that
on that spot where she had stood so often she would seek her death.
How dark was the night, how dark the sea! No one saw the slender
black-clad figure stealing along the shore going to her death.
“Mad from life’s history,
Glad to death’s mystery.”
Behind her on the tall heights stood her stately home, the goodly
inheritance her father had left his child. She looked back just once at
its gloomy towers with a farewell on her lips.
“It will belong to Talbot now--Talbot and his blue-eyed love,” she
murmured, and with a prayer to heaven for peace and pardon she sprang
desperately into the cold, black water.