Oh, she was like a fawn, chased to the plain,
Half blind with grief and mad with sudden pain
That plunges wildly in its first despair,
To any copse that offers shelter there.
It was near midsummer when one of the city postmen of Philadelphia
entered a large warehouse in the business part of that city. He
approached the principal desk with a bundle of papers and letters on one
arm, from which he drew a single letter bearing the New Orleans
post-mark. A young man who stood at the desk writing what appeared to be
business notes, of which a pile, damp with ink, lay at his elbow, took
the letter, and thrusting his pen back of one ear, prepared to open it.
There was an appearance of great and even slovenly haste about this
letter. The paper was folded unevenly. The wax had been dropped upon it
in a rude mass, and was roughly stamped with a blurred impression which
it would have been difficult to make out. The address was blotted, and
every thing about it bore marks of rough haste. The young merchant broke
open the seal with some trepidation, for the singular appearance of the
letter surprised him not a little. He read half a dozen of the first
lines, then looking over his shoulder as if afraid some one might see
that which he had read, he turned his back to the desk and was soon
wholly absorbed in the contents of the epistle. As he turned over the
page, you would have seen the color gradually deepen upon his cheeks,
and even flush up to the forehead, as if there was something in the
epistle which did not altogether please him. After a little he folded
the letter, compressing his lips the while, and fell into deep thought.
The service which this letter required of him was one against which
every honest feeling of his heart revolted; but his worldly prospects,
his hopes of advancement in life, all depended upon the writer. Ross had
been his friend; had placed him in the Philadelphia branch of a great
commercial house; and to thwart one of his wishes might prove absolute
ruin.
Ross had omitted in that epistle nothing that could persuade or reason
into wrong. It was doubtful, he said, even if Clark ever had been
married to Zulima; or, being so, if he would not deem it a good service
in his friends to relieve him of the obligations imposed by that union.
Bitter and cruel were the accusations urged against that poor young
wife; and with his interests all with her enemies, joined to a lively
desire to think ill of her, in order to justify his conduct to his own
heart, this weak and cruel man yielded himself to become the tool of a
deeper and far more unprincipled villain than himself. Again and again
he perused that letter, and at length put it carefully away in his
breast-pocket, close to a heart which its evil folds were doomed to
harden against the secret whisperings of a conscience that would not be
entirely hushed.
Perhaps, had James Smith been given time for after reflection, he might
have become shocked with the part that he was called upon to perform;
but the letter which opened this wicked scheme to him had been delayed
and carried in a wrong direction by the mail, and nearly two weeks had
been thus lost after the time when it should have reached him.
Smith had scarcely turned from his desk with the evil letter in his
bosom, when another man entered the warehouse and placed a little
rose-tinted note in his hand. A vague idea that this note had some
connection with the slovenly epistle that he had just read took
possession of him, before he broke the drop of pale-green wax that
sealed it.
The conjecture proved real—Zulima had written that note. She was in
Philadelphia, and hoped through her husband’s _protege_ to hear some
news of him. Smith had no time for reflection; he was called upon to act
at once. He went to the hotel where Zulima was staying. Smith entered
the hotel hurriedly, as one who has a painful task to accomplish and
wishes it over. He was not villain enough to act with deliberation, or
with that crafty coldness which fitted Ross so singularly for a domestic
conspirator. When he found himself in the presence of this helpless
young mother; when he gazed upon her beauty, dimmed—it is true, by all
that she had suffered, but obtaining thereby a soft melancholy that was
far more touching than the glow of youth in its full joy can ever
be,—his heart smote him for the wrong it had meditated against her. He
sat down by her side, trembling and almost as anxious as she was.
“My husband,” said Zulima, turning her eloquent eyes upon his downcast
face; “you know him, sir—he is your friend; tell me where he is to be
found.”
“Your husband, madam! of whom do you speak?”
“Of Mr. Clark—Daniel Clark—your benefactor and my husband,” said Zulima.
“Daniel Clark, lady?”
“I wish to see him—I _must_ see him—tell me where he is to be found.”
Zulima was breathless with impatience; her large eyes brightened, her
cheeks took a faint color. She was determined that nothing should keep
her from the presence of her husband.
“And you—you are the young lady that went South with him the last time
he was here?” said Smith, bending his eyes to the floor and faltering in
his speech.
“Yes, I went with him—I was his wife!”
Smith shook his head; a faint smile crept over his mouth; he seemed to
doubt her assertion.
Zulima saw it, and her face kindled with indignant passion. “I _am_ his
wife!” she said.
“The marriage—was it not secret? was it not almost without witness?”
“Secret? yes; but not entirely without witnesses. I can prove my
marriage.”
“You can prove that some ceremony took place; but can you prove that it
was a real marriage ceremony? Indeed, have you never had reason to doubt
that it was such?”
“Never, sir,” replied Zulima, turning pale, “never!”
“You were very young, very confiding,” replied Smith. “Yet you had some
experience in the perfidy of man: this should have made you cautious.”
“Oh, my experience! it had been bitter—terrible!” murmured Zulima,
clasping her hands, and gazing on the face of her visitor with a look of
wild excitement.
“And yet you trusted again!”
Zulima stood up; her face grew white as death. “Do you mean to say, sir,
that my husband—that Daniel Clark deceived me like the other?”
“I mean to say nothing,” replied Smith; “nothing, save that from my
heart I pity you, sweet lady. So much beauty, so trusting; who could
help pitying you?”
“You pity me? Oh, Father of mercies!” cried the excited young creature,
bending like a reed and raising her locked hands to her eyes; “if this
thing should be true!” She fell upon a chair; her slight figure waved to
and fro in the agony of her doubts.
“Has he written—did he send for you?” questioned Smith, steeling himself
against her grief.
“No, no!”
“Is he aware of your coming?”
“No; I shall surprise him; I wished to surprise him!” cried the wretched
young creature, dropping her hands.
“I am afraid you _will_ surprise him, and unpleasantly, too!” said
Smith.
Zulima turned her dry eyes upon him; her lips parted, but she had no
power to utter the questions that arose in her heart. A thousand black
doubts possessed her. “Why—why—?” It was all she could say.
Smith hesitated; he was reluctant to consummate the last act of villainy
required of him. It seemed like striking down a lamb, while its soft,
trusting eyes were fixed upon his. But he had gone too far, he could not
recede now.
“It is rumored,” he said—“it is rumored that Mr. Clark is soon to be
married!”
A sort of spasmodic smile parted Zulima’s pale lips, till her white
teeth shone through. She did not attempt to speak, but sat perfectly
still gazing upon her visitor.
“Had your marriage been real, Mr. Clark would not thus openly commit
himself.”
“Where _is_ Mr. Clark?” said Zulima, sharply, and starting, as if from a
dream.
“He is in Baltimore now.”
“And—and the lady?”
“She, too, is in Baltimore.”
“And I—I will go there also!”
“You! and after that which you know?”
“If these things are true, I will have them from the lips of my—of
Daniel Clark. If they are not true—Oh, Father of heaven! then will his
wife lie down and die at his feet—die of sorrow that she has ever
doubted him.”
Smith was startled; he had not anticipated this resolute strength in a
creature so young and child-like. Did she see Daniel Clark, he knew that
all was lost to those whose interest it was to keep the husband and wife
asunder. He attempted to dissuade Zulima from her plan, but this he saw
only excited her suspicion without in the slightest degree changing her.
All the answer that she made to his arguments was, “I will see my
husband; I must have proof of these things!”
Smith would have urged his objections further, but they were
interrupted. The room in which they sat was a parlor to which others
might claim admission. Just then the door opened, and a young gentleman
entered with the easy and confidential air of an old acquaintance. He
cast a glance at Zulima, seemed surprised by the terrible agitation so
visible in her face, and then fixed his penetrating eyes searchingly
upon Smith.
“You do not seem well,” he said, approaching Zulima, and Smith could
detect that in his voice which ought to have startled Zulima long
before. “Has any thing gone amiss?” and he cast a stern look on Smith.
“I am not well!” said Zulima, and tears came into her eyes.
“But you seem worse than ill—you look troubled.”
Zulima lifted her eyes up with a painful smile, but made no answer.
The young man looked distressed; he stood a moment before Zulima, and
then walking toward a window, began to drum on the panes with his
fingers, now and then casting furtive glances toward the sofa where
Zulima and Smith were sitting.
Smith arose to go. A new gleam of light had broken upon him—he saw and
understood more than that fated young creature had even guessed at.
“Then you are determined to undertake this journey?” he said, in a low
voice.
“Yes!”
“When will you set out?”
“To-morrow!”
“Alone?”
Zulima unconsciously glanced toward the young man; he had been very kind
to her, and it seemed hard to start off utterly alone.
“I don’t know,” she faltered; “yes, I shall take the journey alone.”
“Your health seems delicate, you are so young,” urged Smith, reading her
thoughts and hoping that she would be guided by the first imprudent
impulse.
“I am young—I am not well—but I shall go alone,” she answered, with
gentle firmness.
The young man at the window seemed restless. He walked toward a table,
and taking up two or three books, cast them back again with an air of
impatience. Smith observed this, and smiled quietly within himself, as
he went out. Zulima saw nothing: she only knew that she was very, very
wretched, and casting her arms over the back of the sofa, buried her
face upon them and groaned in bitter anguish.
Zulima was so lost in the agony of her feelings, that she did not know
when the young man placed himself by her side. She was quite unconscious
of his approach till her hand was in his, and his voice uttered her name
in tones that made her nerves thrill from head to foot. Tenderness had
given to that voice an intonation startlingly like the low tones of
Daniel Clark when love most softened his proud nature.
She started and looked wildly at the young man, her hand trembling in
his—her lips parted in a half smile—the delusion had not quite left her.
“Zulima, what is it that troubles you? Oh, if you only knew, if you
could but guess, how—how it wrings my heart to see you thus! What has
the man been saying to wound you?”
“To wound me?” repeated Zulima, recovering from the sort of dream into
which his voice had cast her, and drawing her hand away. “Oh, everybody
says things to wound me, I think!”
“But I never have.”
“No, I believe not,” replied Zulima, listlessly; “I believe not.”
“And never will,” urged the young man, regarding her with a look of deep
tenderness.
“I don’t know,” was the faint reply, and Zulima’s face fell back on her
folded arms again.
The young man arose and began to pace up and down the room; many a
change passed over his features meanwhile, and he cast his eye from time
to time upon the motionless figure of Zulima, with an expression that
revealed all the hidden love, the wild devotion with which he regarded
her. He sat down again and took her passive hand. She did not attempt to
withdraw it. She did not even seem to know that it was in his.
“Do you know how I love you—how, with my whole life and strength, I
worship you, Zulima?” he said. “There is nothing on earth that I would
not do, could it give you a moment’s happiness.”
Zulima slowly unfolded her arms, and lifting her head, looked earnestly
in his face with her eyes. She did not seem to understand him.
“Oh, you must have seen how I love you,” he said passionately.
Zulima smiled—oh, what a mocking smile! how full of wild anguish it was!
“Another!” she said; “so now another loves me.”
“No human being ever loved as I love you, Zulima,” said the young man,
in that pure, sweet voice, which had so affected her before.
“That is a marvel,” said Zulima, with a bitter smile. “Others have loved
me so well. You do not know how others have loved me.”
“I do not wish to know any thing except how I can make you happier than
you are, Zulima.”
“If you wish to make me happy, do not even mention love to me again. The
very word makes me faint,” said Zulima. “I am ill—I suffer. Do not, I
pray you, talk this way to me. I can not bear it.”
“I will say nothing that can distress you,” replied the young man
gently, but with a look of grief.
Zulima reached forth her hand. It was cold and trembling. “Farewell!”
she said, very kindly; “I shall go away to-morrow. Farewell!”
He would not release her hand.
“You are not going far—you will return in a few days? Promise me that
you are not saying farewell forever.”
“I do not know—the Father in heaven only knows what will become of me;
but you have been kind to me—very. You have respected my unprotected
lot. You did not know how wrong it was to love me. I can not blame you.
When I say farewell thus, I much fear that it is to the only true friend
that I have in the world. You could not wish me to feel more regret than
I do. Is it not casting away all the unselfish kindness—all the real
friendship that I have known for a long, long time?”
“But this love—this idolatry, rather?” persisted the young man; “must it
be forever hopeless? Shall I never see you again?”
“It is wrong, therefore should be hopeless,” replied Zulima. “You do not
know what trouble it would bring upon you.”
“Why wrong?—why should it bring trouble upon me?”
“Should we ever meet again, you will know. Everybody will know why it is
wrong for you to love me. Now I must go.”
Zulima drew away her hand, using a little gentle force; and while the
young man was striving to fathom the meaning of her words, she opened
the door and disappeared.
Every way was poor Zulima beset. The false position in which the
concealment of her marriage had placed her, made itself cruelly felt at
all times. She had taken a long journey, alone and entirely unprotected.
Young and beautiful—to all appearance single—she was naturally exposed
to all those attentions that a creature so lovely and unprotected was
sure to receive, even against her will. In the young man whom she had
just left, those attentions gradually took a degree of tender interest
which, but for her state of anxious preoccupation, she must have
observed long before, as others less interested had not failed to do.
But she had literally given the devotion, so apparent to others, no
thought. Knowing herself to be bound by the most solemn ties to the man
who seemed to have forgotten her, she never reflected that others knew
nothing of this, or that she might become the object of affectionate,
nay, passionate regard, such as the man had just declared.
Now it only served to add another pang to the bitterness of her grief;
heart-wounded, neglected as she had been, it was not in human nature to
be otherwise than flattered and very grateful for devotion which soothed
her pride, and which in its possessor was innocent and honorable. But
even these feelings gained but a momentary hold upon her; they were
followed by regret and that shrinking dread which every new source of
excitement is sure to occasion where the heart has been long and deeply
agitated. She went away then with a new cause of grief added to those
that had so fatally oppressed her.
* * * * *
Zulima reached Baltimore in the night. Weary with travel and faint with
anxiety, she took a coach at the stage-house and went in search of the
hotel where she learned that her husband was lodged. As she drove up to
the hotel a private carriage stood at the entrance; a negro in livery
was in the seat, and another stood with the carriage door in his hand,
watching for some one to come down the steps; the door opened, and by
the light that streamed through, Zulima saw her husband richly dressed
as if for some assembly. One white glove was held loose in his hand with
an embroidered opera-cap, which he put upon his head as he came quickly
down the steps.
Zulima was breathless; she leaned from the window of her hackney-coach,
and would have called to him aloud, but her tongue clove to her mouth;
she could only gaze wildly on him, as just touching the step of his
carriage with one foot he sprung lightly in. The door closed with a
noise that went through Zulima’s heart like an arrow. She saw the negro
spring up behind the carriage; the lamps flashed by her eyes, and while
every thing reeled before her, the coachman of her own humble hack had
opened the door.
“No, no, I do not wish to get out,” she said, pointing toward the
receding lamps with her finger. “Mount again and follow that carriage.”
The man hastily closed the door, and mounting his seat, drove rapidly
after Mr. Clark’s carriage. Zulima was now wild with excitement; the
blood seemed to leap through her heart—her cheeks burned like fire. She
gasped for breath, when a turn in the streets took those carriage-lamps
an instant from her sight.
They came in sight of a fine old mansion house, standing back from the
street and surrounded by tall trees; an aristocratic and noble dwelling
it was, with the lights gleaming through its windows, and those rare old
trees curtaining its walls with their black branches, now gilded and
glowing with the golden flashes of light that came through all the
windows. The house was evidently illuminated for a party—one of those
pleasant summer-parties that are half given in the open air. A few lamps
hung like stars along the thick branches that curtained the house, and
glowed here and there through a honeysuckle arbor, or in a clump of
bushes, just lightly enough to reveal the dewy green of the foliage,
without breaking up the quiet evening shadows that lay around them. Mr.
Clark’s carriage stopped before this noble mansion, and Zulima saw him
pass lightly into the deep old-fashioned portico while her vehicle was
yet half a block off.
“Do you wish to get out here?” said the coachman, going again to the
door; “the carriage that you ordered me to follow does not seem to be
going any farther.”
“I know, I see,” said Zulima; “not now, I will wait. Draw off to the
opposite side of the street, and then we shall be in nobody’s way.”
The man expressed no surprise at her strange orders, but drove back to
the shadowy side of the street and waited, standing by the door a
moment, to learn if she had any further directions to give. Zulima bent
from the window; she was terribly agitated and her voice trembled.
“Whose house is this?” she said, hurriedly.
The man told the owner’s name. It was one celebrated in the history of
our country; and Zulima remembered with a pang that the daughters of
that house were among the most lovely and beautiful women of America.
Smith had told her that her husband was about to be married. Was it in
that stately old mansion house that she must search for a rival? How her
cheek burned, how her lip trembled, as she asked herself the question!
“Did you know,” she said, addressing the man; “did you know the
gentleman who just went in yonder?”
“Oh yes, everybody here knows Mr. Clark,” said the man. “I guessed well
enough where his carriage was driving to, when it started from the
hotel. He is going to marry one of the young ladies; at least the papers
say so.”
Zulima drew back into the carriage; it seemed as if she would never
breathe again; she sat like a famished bird, gazing on the house without
the wish or power to move.
There seemed to be a large party assembled; gayly-dressed people were
constantly gliding before the window, and she could see the gleam of
rich wines and trays of fruit, as they were borne to and fro by the
attendants. Sometimes a couple would saunter out into the deep old
portico, where she could see more distinctly by the wreath of colored
lamps, festooned with trumpet-flowers, roses, and honeysuckles that fell
like a curtain overhead. Zulima saw one couple after another glide into
the flowery recess, and away again, as if the music that came pouring
through doors and windows were too exciting for a prolonged
_tête-à-tête_. Still she kept her eyes fixed upon the spot; she was
certain that Mr. Clark would be among those who haunted that flower
nook, so like a cloud of butterflies. She knew his tastes well. Sure
enough, while her eyes were fixed on the open doors, through which the
background of the portico was flooded with golden light, she saw Mr.
Clark come slowly down the hall, not alone—oh, how she had hoped for
that—but with a beautiful woman leaning on his arm—leaning heavily with
that air of languid dependence which so often marks the first
development of passion. His head was bent, and he seemed to be
addressing her in a low voice; and though he smiled while speaking,
Zulima could see that in repose his face was grave, almost sad. It only
lighted up when those large blue eyes were lifted toward him. They sat
down in the portico, and seemed to converse earnestly—ten minutes—half
an hour, and hours—thus long did the two sit side by side under that
canopy of lighted blossoms, and then Zulima could watch them no longer;
a heavy faintness crept over her, and in a dull, low voice she asked the
coachman to drive her back to the hotel.
Poor Zulima! she hoped to see her husband alone in that portico, if it
was only for one minute. How long, how patiently had she waited, and
that beautiful woman never left his side for a moment. It was very
cruel.
When Zulima left her room early the next morning, she found Mr. Smith,
who seemed to have just left the stage-coach. She knew him at once, and
he recognized her with great cordiality.
“I have come,” he said, in a low, friendly voice—“I have come in hopes
of seeing you with Mr. Clark. He is in the hotel, I hear.”
“He is,” said Zulima. “I saw him last night!”
Mr. Smith turned pale; but there was a deep depression in Zulima’s voice
and manner, that re-assured him the interview could not have been a
happy one, to leave that cheek so hueless, the eyes so heavy—he was not
yet too late.
“I saw him,” said Zulima, “but he did not know it; to-day, within
another hour, I shall know why he has treated me thus; tell me how I can
get a message conveyed to him.”
“I will convey it; I will urge your cause.”
“Only tell him I am here; I want no one to plead for me with _him_. Only
do that, and I will thank you much.”
“I will do that, and more,” said Smith, bowing.
What influence was it that kept Mr. Clark so wakeful on the night when
Zulima, his young wife, slept beneath the same roof with himself? He
knew nothing of her presence—he felt not the bitter tears that almost
blistered her pale cheek, as she tried to stop thinking of him—the sobs
that shook her frame till the bed trembled under it—none of them reached
his ear. It was not any remembrance of the lovely young being who had
hung upon his arm, and sat beside him in that flower-lit portico but a
short time before: her beauty had pleased him, her conversation had
wiled away a little of that time which was often spent in bitter
thoughts, since he had begun to receive the letters of Ross and to yield
credence to the reports regularly sent him of the estrangement and
faithlessness of his young wife.
She had fled now—fled from his friend’s roof, and come northward no
doubt to obtain greater freedom, and escape the vigilance of those he
had placed about her. Thus ran the last letter that Clark had received
from his friend.
Clark read the letter over, after he returned home that night, for
something seemed constantly whispering of Zulima; he could not drive her
from his mind. It seemed to him as if some great mistake had arisen, as
if he had not read the letters of his friend aright. No; when he perused
this letter again, it was clearly written; nothing ambiguous was there,
nothing hinted; his wife had ceased to love him; she had fled. Still
there was something at his heart that would not be thus appeased; the
mysterious presence of this young creature seemed to haunt his room,
haunt the innermost chambers of his heart; he thought of the letter she
had written him, and which he had burned while under the terrible
influence of his friend’s epistle. He began to regret now, to wish that
he had at least seen the contents of that letter; still his friend was
dispassionate, just—why should this calm report be doubted? a report
evidently wrung from him by a strong sense of duty.
Mr. Clark slept little that night; his better angel was abroad. Zulima,
too, was weeping beneath the same roof; he knew it not, but still he
could not sleep!
In the morning Smith came to the chamber where Mr. Clark was sitting at
breakfast. His face was sad; he seemed ill at ease.
“I thought it best to come and bring this news to you first; it might
save you from great embarrassment.”
“What news?—what embarrassment?” said Clark, who had no idea that Smith
knew any thing of Zulima, or her connection with him. “Surely nothing
has gone wrong in the business?”
“No; but the young lady who says she knew you in New Orleans—that she
has claims upon you!”
Mr. Clark turned deathly white; this sudden mention of his wife unnerved
him.
“And is she in Philadelphia?—where is she?—how came she to find you
out?”
“I do not know; she sent me a note, and I went to her hotel.”
“Was she alone—was she alone?” questioned Mr. Clark, starting up.
“No, not quite alone,” replied Mr. Smith, with a meaning smile; “I saw
only one person with her, a young and remarkably handsome man.”
Mr. Clark sunk to his chair as if a bullet had passed through his heart.
“Go on,” he said, after a moment; “go on, I am listening.”
“This lady, sir, seemed determined to see you; she came on here—she is
now in Baltimore.”
“And her companion?” said Mr. Clark, with a ghastly smile.
“No,” replied Smith; “I think she would not do that. She wishes to see
you; I do not know what her object is,”
“I will not see her; I will never see her again,” said Mr. Clark, and
his face looked like marble. “If she needs any thing, supply her; she
is, sir, the mother of my child; she is—but I will not talk of it; let
her want for nothing—she is my wife.”
“You will not see her then?”
“No, it is enough.” Mr. Clark rang the bell—a man entered. “Have my
carriage brought up at once; I shall set out for Washington. Mr. Smith,
you know how to act. Save me from a repetition of this: you see how it
tortures me. I loved that young creature—I thought, fool, madman, that I
was—but she seemed to love me.”
Mr. Clark went into another room; he could not endure that other eyes
should witness his emotion. The coachman now came up; his proud master
understood that every thing was ready, and without speaking a word, left
his apartments. He stepped into his carriage; he was gone—gone without
hearing the wild shriek that broke from the lips of that poor young
wife, who had caught one glimpse of him from her window. She shook the
sash—she strove to call after him; but her arms trembled—her voice was
choked; with all her effort she made but little noise; those in the next
room heard nothing of it, till she fell heavily on the floor. Mr. Smith
found her there, lying like a corpse rigid and insensible. Then his
heart smote him—then would he have given worlds that the falsehoods
which brought all this misery had not been uttered. He had tried to
think ill of his victim, to believe that between her and her husband
there was neither love nor sympathy; how had the last hour undeceived
him. Maddened by doubt and jealousy, his benefactor had not even
attempted to conceal the anguish occasioned by what he deemed the
perfidy of his wife; and she—was she not there, cold as marble, white as
death, prostrate at his feet?
But he could not go back—his evil work must be fully accomplished; now
to shrink or waver, would be to expose himself; that he could not
contemplate for a moment. Zulima became sensible, at last. It was a long
time, but finally she opened her eyes and sat up. “He is gone,” she said
lifting her heavy eyes to Smith, “he is gone without a word of
explanation.”
“What could he explain, but that which he would not wish to say face to
face with his victim? He has deceived you with a mock marriage. I knew
that it would prove so. You are free, you are wealthy, if you choose. Be
resigned; there is no redress.”
“No redress!” Zulima repeated the word over and over again. “No redress!
I thought myself his wife; I am the mother of his child; O God! Myra,
Myra, my poor, poor child—” * * * *
They were parted—Zulima solemnly believed that she had never been the
wife of Daniel Clark, that she was free—oh, how cruelly free—and another
loved her. Wounded in her pride, broken in spirit, outraged, humiliated,
utterly alone; was it strange that the poor torn heart of that young
creature at length became grateful for the affection that her grief and
her desolation had excited? She told him all, and still that young man
loved her, still he besought her to become his wife; and she, unhappy
woman—consented.
There was to be no secresy—no private marriage now; in the full blaze of
day—robed in satin, glossy and white as the leaves of a magnolia, her
magnificent tresses bound with white roses, her bridal vail looped to
the curls upon her temple with a snowy blossom, and falling over her,
wave after wave, like a cloud of summer mist. Thus went Zulima Clark
forth to her last bridal. It was a mournful sight; that young girl so
beautiful, so fated, standing before the altar, her large eyes
surcharged with sorrowful remembrances of the past, and her poor heart
heaving with a wild presentiment of coming evil, till the rose upon her
bosom, and the pearls upon her throat, trembled as if a wind were
passing over them. It was a mournful, mournful wedding; for there,
Zulima, the wife of Daniel Clark, sealed the perfidy of her enemies.
Beautiful bride, innocent woman, thine was a hard destiny!