THE BRIDE OF DEATH.
Meanwhile Violet had risen from her white couch, strong with the force
of fever, and stolen, unnoticed, from the room and the house.
Her poor brain, crazed with the news of her lover’s falsity, had
conceived a dreadful plan.
She would seek the spot by the river where Cecil had uttered those
sweet, sweet vows of love that he had so quickly broken, and cast
herself into the darkling waves, that would hide her forever from the
bitterness of her sorrow.
“The bride of death!” she murmured, and sped with tender, bare, white
feet, across the daisied lawn.
It was the last night of summer, and the first faint chill of
approaching autumn was already in the night air. But the full moon
poured a flood of radiant white light over the beautiful country
landscape, and the dew, glittering on the grass and flowers, made the
world look like fairyland.
Cecil Grant had not gone away as he had told Amber. His heart failed
him at the last moment. He had heard in the village that Violet was
dying, and he could not tear himself away, although he dared not
venture up to the great house, for fear of a scene with the irascible
old man, who had been so cruel to him and Violet.
He sought the river-bank, where he had been so happy with his darling,
where he had clasped the lissom form in his arms and kissed the sweet,
rosy lips.
He remembered how her heart had throbbed against his own, how she had
trembled with exquisite joy.
What bright hopes they had cherished! What dreams they had dreamed of
wedded bliss! Dreams that faded so soon, for, torn apart from each
other, his own heart was breaking, and Violet was dying.
Alone beside the mystic river, whose low voice seemed to be singing her
dirge, he watched with anguished eyes the dimly lighted window of the
room where his beautiful young love lay dying.
In his tortured brain throbbed echoes of sad verses somewhere read----
“From the altar a myriad tapers down shone,
But they fell on a face and a bosom like stone;
They gleamed in the hair,
But no bride vail was there--
Their quaver and glow could not wake her, my Clare!
“The organ wept softly a wail for the dead,
And the low sound of sobbing kept time to the strain,
While afar to the Future its echoings fled,
To bring back that hour and its desolate pain;
And apart in a spot where the light could not shine,
I knelt in the gloom that henceforward is mine,
As she lay over there,
With no thought and no care,
And she was to have stood there, my bride, my Clare!”
He looked across the lawn to her window, his heart aching to stand by
her side, to pillow her dying head on his throbbing breast.
“Dying, and I not there!” he groaned. “Dying, perhaps already dead!”
Suddenly he gave a start of superstitious terror and awe.
Across the grassy lawn a white form was gliding toward him so close
that he could see the floating lengths of shining, golden hair, the
pale, lovely face, the gleaming eyes, the thin, white gown, and the
tiny, bare feet so pearly-white and fair.
“It is Violet!” he moaned. “My darling is dead, and her wraith has
flown to her lonely lover to breathe a last farewell!”
She flew past him, as with a rush of wings, and hovered over the river,
shrieking, wildly:
“The bride of death!”