WHAT HAPPENED AFTER MIDNIGHT.
"My demands are few, Lady Studleigh. You are to be married to-morrow to
Earle Moray, according to _your_ arrangement; according to _mine_,
nothing of the sort will happen, but you will give your poet his
dismissal, and marry me instead."
"I shall do nothing of the kind, my lord," she replied.
"Yes, you will. You will find that alternative, bad as it is, better
than the fate that awaits you if you refuse. I grant that it is a
thousand pities matters have gone so far; it is your own fault; you will
find yourself in a great dilemma: you should have been more
straightforward. To-morrow, instead of being married, you must tell the
earl, your father, who indulges you so absurdly in everything, that you
have altered your mind; that there will be no wedding, after all. He
cannot possibly be surprised at any caprice of yours. It will cause no
alteration in any one's plans, as no one has been told of the marriage."
"You have planned it all easily," she said, haughtily.
"Yes, when one sees such determined opposition to a settled plan, it is
time to make arrangements. I must confess that, coming along, I planned
it all, so as to give you the least trouble."
"You are, indeed, kind," she said, sarcastically.
"Ah, my lady, I do not mind your sneers; not the least in the world. You
must send for the earl in the morning; tell him the wedding must be
deferred, that you have been thinking matters over, and you have come to
the conclusion that your happiness is at stake. If you do not like to
stay here after such a grand _expose_, then ask him to take you abroad,
or anywhere else. I will join you in a few weeks. Then _my_ wooing can
begin, and _I will marry you_."
She laughed a mocking, bitter, satirical laugh, that drove him half mad.
"I shall do nothing of the kind," she said. "Now for your alternative."
"If you refuse, I shall go away now. To-morrow I shall return, and,
before the man who is to be your husband, before your parents and
friends, I will tell what you were to me, and what my claim on you is."
"Very well," she replied, calmly; "I accept the alternative; tell them.
I cannot answer for the earl and countess; what they will do is, of
course, a mystery to me; but Earle will forgive me, I feel quite sure of
it; he loves me so dearly, he will forgive me and make me his wife. You
will have proved yourself a villain and coward for nothing."
"Earle will never marry you," he said; "no man in his senses would, when
he knows what I can tell him."
"I will risk it," she replied. "Do you know that it is even a relief to
me that the worst is come? I do not know what I have dreaded, but I am
quite sure of one thing--you will do your worst, and you have told me
what it is. Let the sword fall: it has hung over my head long enough.
Earle loves me. Earle is just as noble and generous as you are the
reverse. Earle is forgiving; he will be hurt and angry, but when I tell
him how vain I was, and how you tempted me, he will forgive me."
"I do not think so, Lady Studleigh."
"Because you do not know him; you judge him by yourself. Even if he
refuses to pardon me at first, if he thinks me beyond forgiveness. I
will be patient and humble, and wait. He will love me again in time, and
my sorrow will purify me from my sin."
A tender beautiful light came over her white face, a sweet smile played
round her lips. She raised her eyes fearlessly to his.
"You see," she said, "how little you can do, after all. You might kill
me, but you could not bend my pride; you could not incline my heart to
one loving thought of you."
"So I perceive. Then you positively prefer open shame and disgrace, the
scorn and mocking of the world?"
"Yes," she said; "I prefer it."
"You must hate me very much, Lady Studleigh."
Sudden passion flamed in her eyes.
"I do, indeed," she replied. "No woman ever hated man more."
"And yet I love you."
She turned from him with an air of haughtiest indignation. He followed
her. Suddenly his eyes fell upon the white glittering bridal costume.
"What is that?" he cried, and his whole face worked with fury,
indignation and anger.
Before she could interfere to stop him, he had taken the wreath and veil
in his hands. He laughed as he held them in derision.
"Oh, fair, pure and spotless bride!" he cried; "well may they robe you
in bridal white, hide your face with a bridal veil, crown you with
orange blossoms! They will do well."
She made a step forward and would have taken the veil from his hands,
but he would not release it.
"See," he cried, "how I serve your bridal veil! I would do the same to
your heart, and his, if I could."
His face was transformed with rage, his eyes flashed fire, sudden fury
leaped from his heart to his lips, sudden murder sprung like a flame of
fire that seemed to scorch him.
He tore the beautiful veil into shreds, he trampled it under foot, he
stamped on it in the violence of his rage and anger.
"So I would serve you!" he cried; "so I would serve him if I could!"
She drew back as his violence increased; not frightened--she was
physically too brave for that; but wondering where it would lead him to,
what he would do or say next.
"You are the falsest woman under heaven!" he cried. "You ought not to
live; you are a mortal enemy of man!"
A weaker or more cowardly woman would have taken alarm and have cried
out for help; but she did not know fear. If she had but given the least
alarm, there were brave hearts near who would have shed their last drop
of blood in her defense, who would have died over and over again for
her; but she stood still, with a calm, sorrowful smile on her face.
"So much for your veil!" he cried, with a mocking sneer. "Now for the
wreath!"
He took the pretty, scented flowers from the box, where loving hands had
so gently laid them, and crushed them into a shapeless, dead heap.
"That will never lie on your golden hair, my Lady Studleigh," he said.
She made no effort to save the pretty wreath; his furious violence
dismayed her and made her mute. She saw him stamp on the orange blossoms
that should on the morrow have crowned her; she saw them lie crushed,
torn, destroyed at his feet, and she looked on in a kind of trance. To
her it was like a wild, weird, dark dream.
Then he took the costly wedding-dress, with its rich trimmings of white
lace, and he laughed as he tore it asunder, flinging it under his feet;
then pausing to look on his work of destruction with a smile.
"There will be no wedding to-morrow, fair lady," he said. "Ah, Dora, why
have you driven me mad? why have you unmanned me? why have you made me
ashamed of myself?"
There was a strange glitter in her eyes, and a strange expression on her
face.
"I did not mean to be so violent; you have driven me to it. Not that I
regret destroying your wedding-dress: I would do it over again a hundred
times; but I am sorry to have frightened you."
"You could not frighten me," she replied.
And if ever calm scorn was expressed by any human voice, it was by hers.
There came a lull in the storm. He stood looking partly at the ruin he
had caused, partly at her. She seemed, strange to say, almost to have
forgotten him. She stood where the light of the lamp fell on her
disheveled hair and flushed face.
The fragrant calm of the summer night reigned unbroken outside, a calm
broken only by the musical rustle of the leaves. The moon shone bright
as day; its beams fell on the sleeping flowers, and silvered the waving
trees; they fell, too, on the beautiful face, with its look of restless
scorn.
During that moment so strangely silent she thought of Earle--Earle, whom
she was to marry to-morrow--Earle, whom she would marry, let the morrow
bring what it might. No matter if her wedding-dress were torn into
shreds--no matter if Lord Vivianne stood with a drawn sword in his hand
to bar her progress to the altar--no matter if the whole world cried
out, with its clanging, brazen voice, that she was lost, she would marry
him!
She turned to her enemy, with a flush on her face, a scornful light in
her eyes.
"You are but a coward after all," she said, "a paltry, miserable coward!
You can do me no real harm, and you cannot take me from Earle."
"You did not always think me a coward, my Lady Dora. There was a time
when you delighted to sun yourself in my eyes; you have not always held
aloof from me as you do now. I have held you in my arms; I have kissed
your lips; I have won you as no one else will ever win you. I like to
look at you and remember it; I like to dwell on my recollections of
those old days. Ah! your face flushes. Let me kiss you now."
He hastened toward her, trampling in his hot haste on the torn shreds of
the wedding-dress.
"Do not touch me!" she cried. "Do not come near me!"
"I have kissed you before, and I will kiss you again," he said.
"I will kill you if you dare to touch me!"
She snatched up the first thing that came to her hand; it was the long,
shining, sharp knife that had been used to prune the overhanging
branches.
"I will kill you," she repeated, with flaming eyes, "if you come near
me!"
He laughed, but the angry blood surged into his brain. He went nearer;
he seized the white hand that held the knife. The beautiful face, the
white, bare neck were close to him.
"I hate you!" she hissed.
Only God, who sees all things, knows what followed. Her words, may have
angered him to murder heat; his passion of love and sense of wrong may
have maddened him--only God knows.
There was a struggle for one half minute, followed by a low, gasping
cry:
"Oh, Heaven! I am not fit to die!"
It may have been that in the struggle the point of the knife was turned
accidentally against her; but the next moment she fell to the ground,
with the blade buried deep in her white breast.
The crimson life-blood flowed--it stained his hands, still grasping
her--it stained the torn wedding-dress, the bridal veil--it soon formed
a pool on the carpeted floor. He stood over her for a minute, stunned,
horrified.
"Dora!" he said, in a low, hoarse voice. "Oh, Heaven! I did not mean to
kill her."'
She opened her eyes, and her white lips framed one word, half sigh, half
moan--"Earle!"--and then the soul of the unhappy girl went out to meet
its Judge.
He made no attempt to raise her; he stood like a man lost.
The crimson stain crept onward until it touched his feet.
"Oh, Heaven!" he cried again; "I did not mean to kill her."
Then his whole soul seemed to shrink and wither away with fear. He had
killed her; it was the pallor of death blanching the lovely face;
and--oh, horror!--the crimson stain had reached the golden hair.
She was dead; he had slain her in his mad frenzy. He looked at the cruel
knife buried in the white flesh--he dare not touch it. He looked at the
face so rapidly growing cold in death--he dare not touch it. He would
have given his life to have touched those cold, dead lips, but he dare
not, because he had murdered her. He clinched his strong hands in an
agony that knew no words.
"Oh, Heaven!" he cried again; "I have slain her!"
He gave one hurried glance around on a scene he was never to forget--the
luxurious boudoir, its hangings, its lights and flowers; the bridal
costume, all torn into shreds: the crimson stain, spreading so slowly,
so horribly; the beautiful dead face upraised to the light; the white
breast, with its terrible wound; the quiet figure, the golden hair--and,
with a moan of unutterable remorse, he turned away.
It just occurred to him that his only safety lay in flight. The door was
opened that led to the spiral staircase; the next moment he was creeping
along under the shadow of the wall, and Lady Doris Studleigh lay dead
and alone!