ATROCITY.
George Montague placed his precious burden upon the bed, and for a
moment contemplated her pale but beautiful countenance with mingled
feelings of admiration, interest, and desire. The lips were apart, and
two rows of pearl glittered beneath. The luxuriant light chesnut hair
rolled over his arm, on which he still supported that head of perfect
loveliness: his hand thus played with those silken, shining tresses.
Still she remained motionless--lifeless.
Gently withdrawing his arm, Montague hastened to sprinkle her
countenance with water. The colour returned faintly, very faintly to her
cheeks; and her lips moved gently; but she opened not her eyes.
For a moment he thought of summoning Louisa to her assistance; then,
obedient to a second impulse, he hastily loosened the hooks of her
semi-military frock-coat.
Scarcely had his hand thus invaded the treasures of her bosom, when she
moved, and unclosed the lids of her large melting hazel-eyes.
"Where am I?" she exclaimed, instinctively closing her coat over her
breast.
"Fear not, dearest," whispered Montague; "it is I--I who love you."
The scene with the burglars instantly flashed to the mind of the lady;
and she cried in a tone rendered tremulous by fear--"And those horrible
men--are they all three gone?"
"They are gone--and you are safe."
"Oh! you will pardon me this weakness," continued Walter, hastily moving
from the bed to a chair; "but two of those villains--I recognised them
but too well--were the men who threw me down the trap-door in the old
house near Smithfield."
"Hence their alarm--their panic, when they saw you," exclaimed Montague:
"they fancied that they beheld a spirit instead of a reality. This
accounts for their sudden and precipitate flight, till this moment
unaccountable to me."
"And you, George," said the lady, glancing tenderly toward the young
man--"you are my saviour from a horrible death! Another moment, and it
would have been too late--they were going to murder me! Oh! how can I
sufficiently express my gratitude."
She tendered him her hand, which he pressed rapturously to his
lips;--and she did not withdraw it.
"I heard a noise of a shutter closing violently, and of a pane of glass
breaking," said Montague: "I started from my bed and listened. In a few
moments afterwards I heard footsteps on the stairs----"
"Those were mine, as I descended," interrupted Walter; "for I was
alarmed by the same disturbance."
"And, then, while I was hastily slipping on my clothes," added Montague,
"I heard a scream. Not another moment did I wait; but----"
"You came in time, I repeat, to save my life. Never--never shall I
sufficiently repay you."
Again did Montague press the fair hand of that enchanting woman to his
lips; and then, as he leant over her, their eyes met, and they exchanged
glances of love--hers pure and chaste, his ardent and brimful of desire.
He was maddened--he was emboldened by those innocent tokens of affection
upon her part; and, throwing his arms around her, he imprinted hot and
burning kisses upon her lips.
With difficulty did she disengage herself from his embrace; and she cast
upon him a look of reproach mingled with melancholy.
"Pardon me, dearest one," he exclaimed, seizing her hand once more and
pressing it to his lips; "is it a crime to love you so tenderly--so
well?"
"No, George--no: you are my saviour--you soon will be my husband--you
need not ask for my forgiveness. But now leave me--retire to your own
room as noiselessly as you can; and to-morrow--to-morrow," she added
with a blush, "it is not necessary that Louisa should know that you were
_here_."
"I understand you, dearest," returned Montague; "your wishes shall ever
be my commands. Good night, beloved one!"
"Good night, dear George," said the lady;--and in another moment she was
again alone in the boudoir.
Montague returned to his apartment, full of the bliss which he had
derived from the caresses enjoyed in a chamber that seemed sacred to
mystery and love. He paced his own room with hasty and agitated steps:
his brain was on fire.
His own loose ideas of morality induced him to put but little faith in
the reality of female virtue. He moreover persuaded himself that the
principles of rectitude--supposing that they had ever existed--in the
bosom of the enchanting creature he had just left, had been undermined
or destroyed by the cheat which she was practising with regard to her
sex. And, lastly, he fancied that her affections were too firmly
rivetted on him to refuse him anything.
Miserable wretch! he was blinded by his own mad desires. He knew not
that woman's virtue is as real, as pure, and as precious as the diamond;
he remembered not that the object of his licentious passion was innocent
of aught criminal in the disguise which she had assumed;--he reflected
not that the caresses which she had ere now permitted him to snatch,
were those which the most spotless virgin may honourably award to her
lover.
He paced his room in a frenzied manner--allowing his imagination to
picture scenes and enjoyments of the most voluptuous kind. By degrees
his passion became ungovernable: he was no longer the cool, calculating
man he hitherto had been;--a new chord appeared to have been touched in
his heart.
At that moment he would have signed a bond, yielding up all hopes of
eternal salvation to the Evil One, for a single hour of love in the arms
of that woman whom he had left in the boudoir!
His passion had become a delirium:--he would have plunged into the
crater of Vesuvius, or thrown himself from the ridge of the Alpine
mountain into the boiling torrent beneath, had she gone before him.
An hour thus passed away, and he attempted not to subdue his feelings:
he rather encouraged their wild and wayward course by recalling to his
imagination the charms of her whose beauty had thus strangely affected
him,--the endearing words which she had uttered,--the thrilling effect
of the delicious kisses he had received from her moist vermilion
lips,--and the voluptuous contours of that snowy bosom which had been
for a moment revealed to his eyes.
An hour passed: he opened the door of his chamber and listened.
A dead silence prevailed throughout the house.
He stole softly along the passage and through the anteroom which led to
the boudoir.
When he reached the door of that chamber he paused for a moment. What
was he about to do? He waited not to answer the question, nor to reason
within himself: he only chose to remember that a thin partition was all
that separated him from one of the most beauteous creatures upon whom
the sun ever shone in this world.
His fingers grasped the handle of the door: he turned it gently;--the
door was not locked!
He entered the boudoir as noiselessly as a spectre. The lamp was
extinguished; but the fire still burnt in the grate; and its flickering
light played tremulously on the various objects around, bathing in a
rich red glare the downy bed whereon reposed the heroine of the villa.
The atmosphere was warm and perfumed.
The head of the sleeper was supported upon one naked arm, which was
round, polished, and of exquisite whiteness. The other lay outside the
clothes, upon the coverlid. Her long hair flowed in undulations upon the
snowy pillows. The fire shone with Rembrandt effect upon her
countenance, one side of which was completely irradiated, while the
other caught not its mellow light. Thus the perfect regularity of the
profile was fully revealed to him who now dared to intrude upon those
sacred slumbers.
"She shall be mine! she shall be mine!" murmured Montague; and he
advanced toward the bed.
At that moment--whether aroused by a dream, or startled by the almost
noiseless tread of feet upon the carpet, we cannot say--the lady awoke.
She opened her large hazel eyes; and they fell upon a figure to whom her
imagination, thus suddenly surprised, and the flickering light of the
fire, gave a giant stature.
Her fears in one respect were, however, immediately relieved; for the
voice of Montague fell upon her ears almost as soon as her eyes caught
sight of him.
"Pardon--pardon, dearest one!" he said in a harried and subdued tone.
"Ah! is it so?" quickly ejaculated the lady, who in a moment
comprehended how her privacy had been outraged; and passing her arm
beneath the pillow, she drew forth a long, sharp, shining dagger.
Montague started back in dismay.
"Villain, that you are--approach this bed, and, without a moment's
hesitation, I will plunge this dagger into your heart!"
"Oh! forgive me--forgive me!" ejaculated the young man, cruelly
embarrassed. "Dazzled by your beauty--driven mad by your
caresses--intoxicated, blinded with passion--I could not command
myself--I had no power over my actions."
"Attempt no apology!" said the lady, with a calm and tranquil bitterness
of accent that showed how profoundly she felt the outrage--the atrocity,
that he, whom she loved so tenderly, had dared to meditate against her:
"attempt no apology--but leave this room without an instant's delay, and
without another word. Within my reach is a bell-rope--one touch of my
finger and I can call my servants to my assistance. Save me that
exposure--save yourself that disgrace. To-morrow I will tell you my
opinion of your conduct."
There was something so determined--so cool--so resolute in the manner
and the matter of this address, that Montague felt abashed--humbled--beaten
down to the very dust. Even his grovelling soul at that moment
comprehended the Roman mind of the woman whom he would have disgraced: a
coward when burglars menaced her life, she was suddenly endowed with
lion-daring in defence of her virtue.
The crest-fallen young man again attempted to palliate his intrusion:
with superb scorn she waved her hand imperiously, as a signal to leave
the room.
Tears of vexation, shame, and rage, started into his eyes, as he obeyed
that silent mandate which he now dared no longer to dispute.
The moment the wretch had left the boudoir, the lady sprang from the bed
and double-locked the door.
She then returned to her couch, buried her head in the pillow, and burst
into an agony of tears.