Morning dawned, and yet no sleep had visited the eyes of Gerald
Grantham. The image of Matilda floated in his mind, and to the
recollection of her beauty he clung with an aching eagerness of delight,
that attested the extent of its influence over his imagination. Had
there been nothing to tarnish that glorious picture of womanly
perfection, the feelings it called up would have been too exquisite for
endurance; but, alas! with the faultless image came recollections,
against which it required all the force of that beauty to maintain
itself. One ineffaceable spot was upon the soul of that fascinating
being; and though, like the spots on the sun's disk, it was hidden in
the effulgence which surrounded it, still he could not conceal from
himself that it _did_ exist, to deface the symmetry of the whole. It was
his knowledge of that fearful blemish that had driven him to seek in
drunkenness, and subsequently in death, a release from the agonizing
tortures of his mind. Virtue and a high sense of honor had triumphed so
far, as not merely to leave his own soul spotless, but to fly from her
who would have polluted it with crime; yet, although respect and
love--the pure sentiments by which he had originally been
influenced--had passed away, the hour of their departure had been that
of the increased domination of passion, and far from her whose beauty
was ever present to his mind, his imagination had drawn and lingered on
such pictures that, assured as he was they could never be realized, he
finally resolved to court death wherever it might present itself.
Restored thus unexpectedly to the presence of her who had been the
unceasing subject of his thoughts, and under circumstances so well
calculated to inflame his imagination, it cannot appear wonderful that
Gerald should have looked forward to his approaching interview with
emotions of the intensest kind. How fated, too, seemed the reunion. He
had quitted Matilda with the firm determination never to behold her
more, yet, by the very act of courting that death which would fully have
accomplished his purpose, he had placed himself in the position he most
wished to avoid. Presuming that Major Montgomerie, who had never alluded
to Frankfort as his home, was still with his niece, a resident in the
distant State in which he had left them, he had gladly heard Colonel
Forrester name the Kentucky capital as the place of his destination;
for, deep and maddening as was his passion for Matilda, no earthly
considerations could have induced him voluntarily to have sought her.
Even since his arrival in Frankfort, it had been a source of consolation
to him to feel that he was far removed from her who could have made him
forget that, although the heart may wither and die, while self-esteem
and an approving conscience remain to us, the soul shares not in the
same decay--confesses not the same sting. Could he even have divined
that in the temple to which his curiosity had led him, he should have
beheld the being on whose image he doted, even while he shunned it, he
would have avoided her as a pestilence.
The result of this terrible struggle of his feelings was a determination
to see her once more--to yield up his whole soul to the intoxication of
her presence, and then, provided she should refuse to unite her fate to
his, unhampered by the terrible condition of past days, to tear himself
from her for ever.
Strong in this resolution, Gerald, to whom the hours had appeared as
days since his rising, quitted Frankfort about his usual time, and, in
order to avoid observation, took the same retired and circuitous route
by which he had reached the valley the preceding evening. As he
descended into the plain, the light from the window of the temple was
again perceptible. In a few minutes he was in the room.
"Gerald--my own Gerald," exclaimed Matilda, as, carefully closing the
door after her lover, she threw herself into his embrace. Alas, weak
man! Like the baseless fabric of a dream, disappeared all the lately
formed resolutions of the youth.
"Yes, Matilda--your own Gerald. Come what will, henceforth I am yours."
A pause of some moments ensued, during which each felt the beating of
the other's heart.
"Will you swear it, Gerald?" at length whispered Matilda.
"I will--I do swear it."
There was a sudden kindling of the dark eye of the American, and an
outswelling of the full bust, that seemed to betoken exultation in the
power of her beauty; but this was quickly repressed, and, sinking on the
sofa at the side of her lover, her whole countenance was radiant with
the extraordinary expression Gerald had, for the first time, witnessed
while she lingered on the arm of his uncle, Colonel D'Egville.
"Gerald," she said tenderly, "confirm the oath which is to unite us
heart and soul in one eternal destiny. Swear upon this sacred volume,
that your hand shall avenge the wrongs of your Matilda--of your wife.
Ha! your wife--think of that," she added with sudden energy.
Gerald caught the book eagerly to his lips. "I swear it Matilda,--he
shall die."
But scarcely had he sworn, when a creeping chill passed through his
frame. His features lost all their animation, and, throwing away the
book on which the impious oath had been taken, he turned away his face
from Matilda, and sinking his head upon his breast, groaned and wept
bitterly.
"What! already, Gerald, do you repent? Nay, tell me not that one thus
infirm of purpose, can be strong of passion. You love me not, else would
the wrongs of her you love arm you with the fiercest spirit of vengeance
against him who has so deeply injured her. But if you repent, it is but
to absolve you from the oath, and then the deed must be my own."
The American spoke in tones in which reproach, expostulation, and
wounded affection, were artfully and touchingly blended, and as she
concluded, she too dropped her head upon her chest and sighed.
"Nay, Matilda, you do me wrong. It is one thing to swerve from the
guilty purpose to which your too seductive beauty has won my
soul,--another, to mourn as man should mourn, the hour when virtue,
honor, religion, all the nobler principles in which my youth has been
nurtured, have proved too weak to stem the tide of guilty passion. You
say I love you not!" and he laughed bitterly. "What greater proof would
you require than the oath I have just taken?"
"Its fulfilment," said Matilda impressively.
"It shall be fulfilled," he returned quickly; "but at least deny me not
the privilege of cursing the hour when crime of so atrocious a dye
could be made so familiar to my soul."
"Crime is a word too indiscriminately bestowed," said Matilda, after a
momentary pause. "What the weak in mind class with crime, the strong
term virtue."
"Virtue! what, to spill the blood of a man who has never injured me; to
become a hired assassin, the price of whose guilt is the hand of her who
instigates to the deed? If this be virtue, I am indeed virtuous."
"Never injured you!" returned the American, while she bent her dark eyes
reproachfully upon those of the unhappy Gerald. "Has he not injured
_me_?--injured beyond all power of reparation, her who is to be the
partner of your life?"
"Nay, Matilda," and Gerald again passionately caught and enfolded her to
his heart, "that image alone were sufficient to mould me to your will,
even although I had not before resolved. And yet," he pursued, after a
short pause, "how base, how terrible to slay an unsuspecting enemy!
Would we could meet in single combat--and why not? Yes it can, it shall
be so. Fool that I was not to think of it before. Matilda, my own love,
rejoice with me, for there is a means by which your honor may be
avenged, and my own soul unstained by guilt. I will seek this man, and
fasten a quarrel upon him. What say you, Matilda--speak to me, tell me
that you consent." Gerald gasped with agony.
"Never, Gerald!" she returned, with startling impressiveness, while the
color, which during the warm embrace of her lover had returned to it
once more, fled from her cheek. "To challenge him would be but to ensure
your own doom, for few in the army of the United States equal him in the
use of the pistol or the small sword; and, even were it otherwise," she
concluded, her eye kindling into a fierce expression, "were he the
veriest novice in the exercise of both, my vengeance would be
incomplete, did he not go down to his grave with all his sins on his
head. No, no, Gerald, in the fulness of the pride of existence must he
perish. He must not dream of death until he feels the blow that is aimed
at his heart."
The agitation of Matilda was profound beyond anything she had ever yet
exhibited. Her words were uttered in tones that betrayed a fixed and
unbroken purpose of the soul, and when she had finished, she threw her
face upon the bosom of her lover, and ground her teeth together with a
force that showed the effect produced upon her imagination by the very
picture of the death she had drawn.
A pause of some moments ensued. Gerald was visibly disconcerted, and the
arm which encircled the waist of the revengeful woman dropped, as if in
disappointment, at his side.
"How strange and inconsistent are the prejudices of man," resumed
Matilda, half mournfully, half in sarcasm; "here is a warrior--a spiller
of human life by profession; his sword has been often dyed in the
heart's blood of his fellow man, and yet he shudders at the thought of
adding one murder more to the many already committed. What child-like
weakness!"
"Murder! Matilda--call you it murder to overcome the enemies of one's
country in fair and honorable combat, and in the field of glory?"
"Call _you_ it what you will--disguise it under whatever cloak you
may--it is no less murder. Nay, the worst of murders, for you but do the
duty of the hireling slayer. In cold blood, and for a stipend, do you
put an end to the fair existence of him who never injured you in thought
or deed, and whom, under other circumstances, you would perhaps have
taken to your heart in friendship."
"This is true, but the difference of the motive, Matilda! The one
approved of heaven and of man, the other alike condemned of both."
"Approved of man, if you will; but that they have the sanction of
heaven, I deny. Worldly policy and social interests alone have drawn the
distinction, making the one a crime, the other a virtue; but tell me not
that an all-wise and just God sanctions and approves the slaying of his
creatures, because they perish, not singly at the will of one man, but
in thousands and tens of thousands at the will of another. What is there
more sacred in the brawls of kings and potentates, that the blood they
cause to be shed in torrents for some paltry breach of etiquette, should
sit more lightly on their souls than the few solitary drops, spilt by
the hand of revenge, on that of him whose existence is writhing under a
sense of acutest injury?"
The energy with which she expressed herself, communicated a
corresponding excitement to her whole manner and person. Her eye
sparkled and dilated, and the visible heaving of her bosom told how
strongly her own feelings entered into the principles which she had
advocated. Never did her personal beauty shine forth more triumphantly
or seducingly than at the moment when her lips were giving utterance to
sentiments from which the heart recoiled.
"Oh Matilda," sighed Gerald, "with what subtlety of argument do you seek
to familiarize my soul with crime. But the attempt is vain. Although my
hand is pledged to do your will, my heart must ever mourn its guilt."
"Foolish Gerald," said Matilda; "why should that seem guilt to you, a
man, which to me, a woman, is but justice; but that unlike me you have
never entered into the calm consideration of the subject. Yes," she
pursued with greater energy, "what you call subtlety of argument is but
force of conviction. For two long years have I dwelt upon the deed,
reasoning, and comparing, until at length each latent prejudice has been
expelled, and to avenge my harrowing wrongs appeared a duty as
distinctly marked as any one contained in the decalogue. You saw me
once, Gerald, when my hand shrank not from what you term the assassin's
blow, and had you not interfered then, the deed would not now remain to
be accomplished."
"Oh, why did I interfere? why did my evil genius conduct me to such a
scene. Then had I lived at least in ignorance of the fearful act."
"Nay, Gerald, let it rather be matter of exultation with you that you
did. Prejudiced as you are, this hand (and she extended an arm so
exquisitely formed that one would scarce even have submitted it to the
winds of Heaven) might not seem half so fair, had it once been dyed in
human blood. Besides who so proper to avenge a woman's wrongs upon her
destroyer, as the lover and the husband to whom she has plighted her
faith for ever? No, no, it is much better as it is and fate seems to
have decreed that it should be so, else why the interruption by yourself
on that memorable occasion, and why, after all your pains to avoid me,
this our final union, at a moment when the wretch is about to return to
his native home, inflated with pride and little dreaming of the fate
that awaits him.--Surely, Gerald, you will admit there is something more
than mere chance in this?"
"About to return," repeated Grantham shuddering. "When, Matilda?"
"Within a week at the latest--perhaps within three days. Some
unimportant advantage which he has gained on the frontier, has been
magnified by his generous fellow citizens into a deed of heroism, and,
from information conveyed to me, by a trusty and confidential servant, I
find he has obtained leave of absence, to attend a public entertainment
to be given in Frankfort, on which occasion a magnificent sword is to be
presented to him. Never, Gerald," continued Matilda, her voice dropping
into a whisper, while a ghastly smile passed over and convulsed her
lips, "never shall he live to draw that sword. The night of his triumph
is that which I have fixed for mine."
"An unimportant advantage upon the frontier," asked Gerald eagerly and
breathlessly. "To what frontier, Matilda, do you allude?"
"The Niagara," was the reply.
"Are you quite sure of this?"
"So sure that I have long known he was there," returned Matilda.
Gerald breathed more freely--but again he questioned:
"Matilda, when first I saw you last night, you were gazing intently upon
yon portrait, (he pointed to that part of the temple where the picture
hung suspended), and it struck me that I had an indistinct recollection
of the features."
"Nothing more probable," returned the American, answering his searching
look with one of equal firmness. "You cannot altogether have forgotten
Major Montgomerie."
"Nay, the face struck me not as his. May I look at it?"
"Assuredly. Satisfy yourself."
Gerald quitted the sofa, took up the light, and traversing the room
raised the gauze curtain that covered the painting. It was indeed the
portrait of the deceased Major, habited in full uniform.
"How strange," he mused, "that so vague an impression should have been
conveyed to my mind last night, when now I recal without difficulty
those well remembered features," Gerald sighed as he recollected under
what different circumstances he had first beheld that face, and dropping
the curtain once more, crossed the room and flung himself at the side of
Matilda.
"For whom did you take it, if not for Major Montgomerie?" asked the
American after a pause, and again her full dark eye was bent on his.
"Nay, I scarcely know myself, yet I had thought it had been the portrait
of him I have sworn to destroy."
There was a sudden change of expression in the countenance of Matilda,
but it speedily passed away, and she said with a faint smile,
"Whether is it more natural to find pleasure in gazing on the features
of those who have loved, or those who have injured us?"
"Then whose was the miniature on which you so intently gazed, on that
eventful night at Detroit?" asked Gerald.
"That," said Matilda quickly, and paling as she spoke--"that was
_his_--I gazed on it only the more strongly to detest the original--to
confirm the determination I had formed to destroy him."
"If _then_," returned the youth, "why not _now_--may I not see that
portrait, Matilda? May I not acquire some knowledge of the unhappy man
whose blood will so shortly stain my soul?"
"Impossible," she replied, "The miniature I have since destroyed. While
I thought the original within reach of my revenge, I could bear to gaze
upon it, but no sooner had I been disappointed in my aim, than it became
loathsome to me as the sight of some venomous reptile, and I destroyed
it." This was said with undisguised bitterness.
Gerald sighed deeply. Again he encircled the waist of his companion and
one of her fair, soft, velvet hands was pressed in his.
"Matilda," he observed, "deep indeed must be the wrong that would prompt
the heart of woman to so terrible a hatred. When we last parted, you
gave me but an indistinct and general outline of the injury you had
sustained. Tell me now all--tell me everything," he continued with
energy, "that can infuse a portion of the hatred which fills your soul
into mine, that my hand may be firmer--my heart more hardened to the
deed."
"The story of my wrongs must be told in a few words, for I cannot bear
to linger on it," commenced the American, again turning deadly pale,
while her quivering lips and trembling voice betrayed the excitement of
her feelings. The monster was the choice of my heart--judge how much so
when I tell you that, confiding in _his_ honor, and in the assurance
that our union would take place immediately, I surrendered to him
_mine_. A constant visitor at Major Montgomerie's, whose brother officer
he was, we had ample opportunities of being together. We were looked
upon in society as affianced lovers, and in fact it was the warmest wish
of Major Montgomerie that we should be united. A day had even been fixed
for the purpose, and it wanted, but eight and forty hours of the time,
when an occurrence took place which blasted all prospect of our union
for ever.
"I have already told you, I think," resumed Matilda, "that this little
temple had been exclusively erected for my own use. Here however my
false lover had constant ingress, and being furnished with a key, was in
the habit of introducing himself at hours when having taken leave of the
family for the evening, he was supposed by Major Montgomerie and the
servants to have retired to his own home. On the occasion to which I
have just alluded, I had understood from him some business, connected
with our approaching marriage, would detain him in the town to an
hour too advanced to admit of his paying me his usual visit. Judge my
surprise, and indeed my consternation, when at a late hour of the night
I heard the lock of the door turn, and saw my lover appear at the
entrance."
There was a short pause, and Matilda again proceeded.
"Scarcely had he shown himself, when he again vanished, closing the door
with startling violence. I sprang from the sofa and flew forth after
him, but in vain. He had already departed, and with a heart sinking
under an insurmountable dread of coming evil, I once more entered the
temple, and throwing myself upon the sofa, gave vent to my feelings in
an agony of tears."
"But why his departure, and whence your consternation?" asked Gerald,
whose curiosity had been deeply excited.
"I was not alone," resumed Matilda, in a deep and solemn voice. "When he
entered, I was hanging on the neck of another."
Gerald gave a half start of dismay, his arm dropped from the waist of
the American, and he breathed heavily and quickly.
Matilda remarked the movement, and a sickly and half scornful smile
passed over her pale features. "Before we last parted, Gerald, I told
you, not only that I was in no way connected with Major Montgomerie by
blood, but that I was the child of obscure parents."
"What then?"
"The man on whose neck I hung was my own father."
"It was Desborough!" said the youth, with an air and in a voice of
extreme anguish.
"It was," returned Matilda, her face crimsoning as she reluctantly
acknowledged the parentage. "But how knew you it?"
"Behold the proof!" exclaimed Gerald, with uncontrollable bitterness, as
he drew from his bosom the portrait of a child which, from its striking
resemblance, could be taken for no other than her to whom he now
presented it.
"This is indeed mine," said Matilda, mournfully. "It was taken for me,
as I have since understood, in the very year when I was laid an orphan
and a stranger at the door of that good man, who, calling himself my
uncle, has been to me through life a more than father. Thank God," she
pursued, with great animation, her large, dark eyes upturned, and
sparkling through the tears that forced themselves upwards, "thank God,
he at least lives not to suffer through the acts of his adopted child.
Where got you this, Gerald?" she proceeded, when, after a short struggle
she had succeeded in overcoming her emotion.
Gerald, who in his narrative of events, had purposely omitted all
mention of Desborough, now detailed the occurrence at the hut, and
concluded what the reader already knows, by stating that he had observed
and severed from the settler, as he slept heavily on the floor, the
portrait in question, which, added to the previous declaration of
Matilda as to the obscurity of her birth, connected with other
circumstances on board his gun-boat, on his trip to Buffalo, had left an
impression little short of certainty that he was indeed the father of
the woman whom he so wildly loved.
For some minutes after this explanation there was a painful silence,
which neither seemed anxious to interrupt. At length Gerald asked:
"But what had a circumstance, so capable of explanation, to do with the
breaking off of your engagement, Matilda? or did he, more proud--perhaps
I should say less debased--than myself, shrink from uniting his fate
with the daughter of a murderer?"
"True," said Matilda, musingly; "you have said, I think, that he slew
your father. This thirst for revenge, then, would seem hereditary.
_That_ is the only, because it is the noblest, inheritance I would owe
to such a being."
"But your affair with your lover, Matilda--how terminated that?"
demanded Gerald, with increasing paleness and in a faltering tone.
"In his falsehood and my disgrace. Early the next morning I sent to him,
and bade him seek me in the temple at the usual hour. He came, but it
was only to blast my hopes--to disappoint the passion of the woman who
doated upon him. He accused me of vile intercourse with a slave, and
almost maddened me with ignoble reproaches. It was in vain that I swore
to him most solemnly, the man he had seen was my father--a being whom
motives of prudence compelled me to receive in private, even though my
heart abhorred and loathed the relationship between us. He treated my
explanation with deriding contempt, bidding me either produce that
father within twenty-four hours, or find some easier fool to persuade,
that one wearing the hue and features of the black, could by human
possibility be the parent of a white woman. Again I explained the
seeming incongruity, by urging that the hasty and imperfect view he had
taken was of a mask, imitating the features of a negro, which my father
had brought with him as a disguise, and which he had hastily resumed on
hearing the noise of the key in the door. I even admitted as an excuse
for seeing him thus clandestinely, the lowly origin of my father and the
base occupation he followed of a treacherous spy, who, residing in the
Canadas, came, for the mere consideration of gold, to sell political
information to the enemies of the country that gave him asylum and
protection. I added that his visit to me was to extort money, under a
threat of publishing our consanguinity, and that dread of his (my
lover's) partiality being decreased by the disclosure, had induced me to
throw my arms, in the earnestness of entreaty, upon his neck, and
implore his secresy; promising to reward him generously for his silence.
I moreover urged him, if he still doubted, to make inquiry of Major
Montgomerie, and ascertain from him whether I was not indeed the niece
of his adoption, and not of his blood. Finally, I humbled myself in the
dust, and, like a fawning reptile, clasped his knees in my arms,
entreating mercy and justice. But no," and the voice of Matilda grew
deeper, and her form became more erect; "neither mercy nor justice dwelt
in that hard heart, and he spurned me rudely from him. Nothing short of
the production of him he persisted in calling my vile paramour, would
satisfy him; but my ignoble parent had received from me the reward of
his secresy, and he had departed once more to the Canadas. And thus,"
pursued Matilda, her voice trembling with emotion, "was I made the
victim of the most diabolical suspicion that ever haunted the breast of
man."
Gerald was greatly affected. His passion for Matilda seemed to increase
in proportion with his sympathy for her wrongs, and he clasped her
energetically to his heart.
"Finding him resolute in attaching to me the debasing imputation,"
pursued the American, "it suddenly flashed upon my mind that this was
but a pretext to free himself from his engagement, and that he was glad
to accomplish his object through the first means that offered. Oh,
Gerald, I cannot paint the extraordinary change that came over my
feelings at this thought! much less give you an idea of the rapidity
with which that change was effected. One moment before, and, although
degraded and unjustly accused, I had loved him with all the ardor of
which a woman's heart is capable: _now_ I hated, loathed, detested him;
and had he sunk at my feet, I would have spurned him from me with
indignation and scorn. I could not but be conscious that the very act of
having yielded myself up to him, had armed my lover with the power to
accuse me of infidelity, and the more I lingered on the want of
generosity such a suspicion implied, the more rooted became my dislike,
the more profound my contempt for him, who could thus repay so great a
proof of confidingness and affection.
"It was even while I lay grovelling at his feet," pursued Matilda, after
a momentary pause, during which she evinced intense agitation, "that
this sudden change (excited by this most unheard-of injustice) came over
my mind--I rose and stood before him; then asked, in a voice in which no
evidence of passion could be traced, what excuse he meant to make to
Major Montgomerie for having thus broken off his engagement. He started
at my sudden calmness of manner, but said that he thought it might be as
well for my sake to name what I had already stated to him in regard to
the obscurity of my birth, as a plea for his seceding from the
connexion. I told him that, under all the circumstances, I thought this
most advisable, and then, pointing to the door, bade him be gone, and
never, under any pretext whatever, again to insult me with his presence.
When he had departed, I burst into a paroxysm of tears; but they were
tears shed not for the loss of him I now despised, but of wild sorrow at
my unmerited degradation. That conflict over, the weakness had for ever
passed away, and never, since that hour, has tear descended cheek of
mine, associated with the recollection of the villain who had thus dared
to trifle with a heart the full extent of whose passions he has yet to
learn."
There was a trembling of the whole person of Matilda which told how much
her feelings had been excited by the recollection of what she narrated,
and Gerald, as he gazed upon her beautiful form, could not but wonder at
the apathy of the man who could thus have heartlessly thrown it from him
for ever.
"Had the injury terminated here," resumed Matilda, "bitter as my
humiliation was, my growing dislike for him who had so ungenerously
inflicted it, might have enabled me to endure it. But, not satisfied
with destroying the happiness of her who had sacrificed all for his
sake, my perfidious lover had yet a blow in reserve for me, compared
with which his antecedent conduct was mercy. Gerald," she continued, as
she pressed his arm with a convulsive grasp, "will you believe that the
monster had the infamy to confide to one of his most intimate
associates, that his rupture with me was occasioned by his having
discovered me in the arms of a slave--of one of those vile beings
communion with whom my soul in any sense abhorred? How shall I describe
the terrible feeling that came over my insulted heart at that moment.
But no, no--description were impossible. This associate--this friend of
his--dared on the very strength of this infamous imputation, to pollute
my ear with his disrespectful passion, and when, in a transport of
contempt and anger, I spurned him from me, he taunted me with that which
I believed confined to the breast, as it had been engendered only in the
suspicion, of my betrayer. Oh! if it be dreadful to be accused by those
whom we have loved in intimacy, how much more is it to know that they
have not had even the common humanity to conceal our supposed weakness
from the world. From that moment revenge took possession of my soul, and
I swore that my destroyer should perish by the hand of her whose
innocence and whose peace he had blasted for ever.
"Shortly after this event," resumed Matilda, "my base lover was ordered
to join his regiment, then stationed at Detroit. A year passed away, and
during that period my mind pondered unceasingly on the means of
accomplishing my purpose of revenge; and so completely did I devote
myself to a cool and unprejudiced examination of the subject, that what
the vulgar crowd term guilt, appeared to me plain virtue. On the war
breaking out, Major Montgomerie was also ordered to Detroit, and thither
I entreated him to suffer me to accompany him. He consented, for knowing
nothing of the causes which had turned my love into gall, he thought it
not improbable that a meeting with my late lover might be productive of
a removal of his prejudices, and our consequent reunion. Little did he
dream that it was with a view to plunge a dagger into my destroyer's
false heart, that I evinced so much eagerness to undertake so long and
so disagreeable a Journey.
"Little more remains to be added," pursued Matilda, as she fixed her
dark eyes with a softened expression on those of Gerald, "since with the
occurrences there you are already sufficiently acquainted. Yet there is
one point upon which I would explain myself. When I first became your
prisoner, my mind had been worked up to the highest pitch of
determination, and in my captor I at first beheld but an evil genius who
had interposed himself between me and my just revenge, when on the very
eve of its consummation. Hence my petulance and impatience while in the
presence of your noble General."
"And whence that look, Matilda, that peculiar glance, which you bestowed
upon me even within the same hour?"
"Because in your frank and fearless mien I saw that manly honor and
fidelity, the want of which had undone me."
"Then if so, why the cold, the mortifying reserve, you manifested when
we met at dinner at my uncle's table?"
"Because I had also recollected that, degraded as I was, I ought not to
seek the love of an honorable man, and that to win you to my interest
would be of no avail, as, separated by the national quarrel, you could
not by any possibility be near to aid me in my plans."
"Then," said Gerald reproachfully, "it was merely to make me an
instrument of vengeance that you sought me. Unkind Matilda!"
"Nay, Gerald--recollect, that then I had not learnt to know you as I do
now--I will not deny that when first I saw you, a secret instinct told
me you were one whom I would have deeply loved had I never loved before;
but betrayed and disappointed as I had been, I looked upon all men with
a species of loathing--my kind, good, excellent more than father,
excepted--and yet, Gerald, there were moments when I wished even him
dead" (Gerald started)--"yes! dead--because I knew the anguish that
would crush his heart, if he should ever learn that the false brand of
the assassin had been affixed to the brow of his adopted child." Matilda
sighed profoundly, and then resumed. "Later, however, when the absence
of its object had in some degree abated the keenness of my thirst for
revenge, and when more frequent intercourse had made me acquainted with
the generous qualities of your mind, I loved you, Gerald, although I
would not avow it, with a fervor I had never believed myself a second
time capable of entertaining."
Again the countenance of Matilda was radiant with the expression just
alluded to by her lover. Gerald gazed at her as though his very being
hung upon the continuance of that fascinating influence, and again he
clasped her to his heart.
"Matilda! oh, my own betrothed Matilda!" he murmured.
"Yes, your own betrothed," repeated the American, highly excited, "the
wife of your affection and your choice, who has been held up to calumny
and scorn. Think of that, Gerald; she on whose fond bosom you are to
repose your aching head, she who glories in her beauty only because it
is beauty in your eyes, has been betrayed, accused of a vile passion for
a slave; yet he--the fiend who has done this grievous wrong--he who has
stamped your wife with ignominy, and even published her shame--still
lives. Within a week," she resumed in a voice hoarse from exhaustion,
"yes, within a week, Gerald he will be here--perhaps to deride and
contemn you for the choice you have made."
"Within a week he dies," exclaimed the youth. "Matilda, come what will,
he dies. Life is death without you, and with you even crime may sit
lightly on my soul. But we will fly far from the habitations of men. The
forest shall be my home, and when the past recurs to me you shall smile
upon me with that smile, look upon me with that look, and I will forget
all. Yes," he pursued, with a fierce excitement snatching up the holy
book, and again carrying it to his lips, "once more I repeat my oath. He
who has thus wronged you, my own Matilda, dies--dies by the hand of
Gerald Grantham--of your affianced husband."
There was another long embrace, after which the plan of operations was
distinctly explained and decided upon. They then separated for the
night--the infatuated Gerald, with a load of guilt at his heart no
effort of his reason could remove, returning by the route he had
followed on the preceding evening to his residence in the town.