“THAT BEAUTIFUL FORM WAS MADE TO BE DRAPED IN RICH ATTIRE!”
As the door closed on Harold Castello’s form, Violet flung herself on
the couch with a choking sob.
“Oh, Heaven, how wicked I feel! There is murder in my heart!”
The wrongs she had suffered had indeed almost maddened gentle Violet.
Torn from her lover, betrayed by her cousin and her grandfather into
the power of the man she hated, hers was indeed a terrible fate. No
wonder that her gentle nature was almost frenzied by the shock, and
that she felt a mad, guilty longing to take the life of the man who had
come so fatally between her and happiness.
“I could kill him if I only had a weapon, and rejoice in my crime. Oh,
they have changed me into a fiend!” she cried, wildly.
Her loathing eyes wandered about the beautiful room that her hated
husband had prepared for her, and she shuddered in disgust, hating it
all with sickening horror.
Yet how differently she would have viewed it had it been as Cecil
Grant’s bride she had come to this place.
The beautiful rooms would have charmed her then, in her happiness with
the one she adored.
But Harold Castello’s bride! Oh, the limitless anguish and horror of
that awful thought!
“His from the dainty foot’s slight tip
Up to the crimson of the lip--
His from the halo of the hair
To the white hand’s magic in the air!
“All her bearing seemed to say:
I am yours. Bid me obey;
But the rebel in my soul
Spurns to answer your control.
“Rich was the shadow of the room,
And warm the shifting firelight’s bloom
That lofty wall and ceiling wreathed;
Heavy the perfumed air she breathed.
“But the lightnings of her eyes
More than swift and low replies,
Whose music hid the words they said,
Sharper than an arrow’s head.
“Hushed and told him all was loss,
All his wealth but gilded dross;
Bars retain nor rubies buy
Love, whose light wings cleave the sky!”
She thought with anguish of her lost lover’s cruel plight, exiled from
his ancestral home and believing her false, perhaps cursing her very
memory for the trick she had seemingly played on him in marrying Harold
Castello.
“Oh, that is the most cruel blow of all, for Cecil to believe me false
and hate my memory!” she cried, and involuntarily flung out her white
hand with a gesture of despair. The opal ring threw out a hundred
changeful, shifting lights, and she suddenly recalled the words Cecil
had uttered when he placed it on her hand:
“Let me put this little ring on your finger, precious. It is an opal,
and is gifted with the power to show whether lovers keep their faith.
If false, the gem will grow dull and lifeless, its brightness all gone;
but if true, it will glow with the fiery hues of the furnace. Wear it
always, my darling, and let it be the test of my love till the happy
day that unites us forever.”
The beautiful jewel, glowing with its rich prismatic hues, put new
faith into the heart of the poor, unhappy girl.
“He loves me still, I know it by my ring,” she cried, tenderly kissing
the gem. “He loves me still, in spite of all they have done to turn his
heart against me. Oh, Cecil, could I but escape from my prison, I would
fly to you, and you would find some means to break these cruel fetters
and set me free from Harold Castello.”
She began to turn over in her mind wild schemes for escaping from the
prison in which Harold Castello had sworn to keep her till she became
reconciled to her fate.
She knew well that she would have no help from the outside world, since
Amber had made every one believe she was gone of her own free will to
be a rich man’s bride.
Within this house she was surrounded by the minions of Harold Castello,
who were paid to keep her a prisoner. She had not a dollar of her own
to bribe them with, and no jewels of any value save Cecil’s ring. With
this she could not part.
To God alone must she look for help in this dark and fateful hour.
Dismissing her dark and evil mood, Violet fell on her knees by the
white velvet couch, and with clasped hands and earnest, upraised eyes,
prayed Heaven to aid her in this darkest hour of her young life, to
look with pity on her terrible strait and deliver her safely from the
power of the man she hated and feared. Then she prayed for her dear
lost lover, that God would comfort him in his distress, and open up
some way to save Bonnycastle from falling into the hands of her cruel
grandfather. She knew that the old man had done that cruel thing to
punish Cecil for loving her, and she lamented bitterly that through
her such harm had come to her darling.
A little comforted by her earnest prayer and the hope that God in His
infinite mercy would answer it kindly, Violet rose from her knees and
began to pace up and down the room, trying to form some plan of escape.
She was interrupted by the entrance of Suzanne with a tray of delicious
refreshments.
“You have had no supper, Mrs. Castello, so your husband ordered
something sent to you,” she said, courteously, as she set the silver
tray down on a little stand.
Violet would have delighted in the dainty edibles and exquisite fruits
at any other time, for she had the appetite of a healthy young girl,
but now she shuddered with loathing and exclaimed, imperiously:
“You may take the food away at once, Suzanne, for I shall not taste one
morsel. I have no doubt it is drugged, and I need all my senses about
me to plan my escape.”
“Escape, miladi?” with pretended surprise.
“Yes. You know perfectly well that I am a prisoner here against my
will, Suzanne, and that I shall escape at the first opportunity.”
“Oh, madame, that will ever be impossible! You are locked into this
house, watched and guarded so that you can never get free!” returned
Suzanne, with a knowing look that struck despair to the heart of her
hapless young mistress.
She cried out, desperately:
“Oh, Suzanne, you are a sister woman, and ought to have a kind heart
in your body! Have pity upon me! I will tell you all my sad story, and
surely, surely you will help me to escape!”
The tears in the beautiful blue eyes might have moved a heart of stone,
but Suzanne was pitiless, although she listened with all the curiosity
that is imputed to the female sex.
Poor Violet poured all her tortured heart into the appeal to the French
maid.
She told her, through raining tears, of her hapless love affair and
the opposition it had encountered, of her cousin’s treachery that
had brought her into this terrible pass, and she besought her aid in
escaping from Harold Castello.
When she had finished, the woman did not betray any surprise. She
simply bowed and began to argue the case, although in the most
respectful manner.
She told Violet that since she had become Mr. Castello’s wife it would
be wiser to accept the situation.
“Even if you escaped you would have nowhere to go, for your grandfather
would only return you to your husband if you went there,” she said.
“I should not return to that cruel old man and my treacherous cousin,
Amber. I should seek out my dead father’s people and throw myself on
their protection. They would help me to break this unholy marriage,”
cried Violet, desperately.
“That you might marry Monsieur Grant, the poor man; is it not so?”
queried the Frenchwoman, with a contemptuous emphasis on the epithet
“poor man.”
“Yes, that I might marry my darling Cecil,” Violet answered, proudly.
The woman gave a derisive laugh and said, curtly:
“You are a silly girl to wish to exchange a rich husband for a poor
one. No girl in her senses would do that, Mrs. Castello. Beauty like
yours, madame, so fine and rare, should be beautifully arrayed. That
beautiful form was made to be draped in rich attire; that ivory-white
neck, those finely molded wrists to be encircled in pearls and
diamonds, such as Monsieur Castello can give you. It were a shame that
a beauty like you should wed a poor man. Oh, think, miladi, you would
have to wear common calico and cook your own food; your lovely little
white hands would be soiled with dish-washing and sweeping, and soon
you would grow to hate the man who had sunk you into poverty! Perhaps
there would be little children clinging round your knees, and you would
have to toil for them, perhaps take in sewing or washing to buy bread
for them, and----”
“Hush! No more; I will not listen!” Violet cried, indignantly; then her
voice sank to a pleading cadence as she added:
“Once more, Suzanne, will you pity me? Will you help me to escape?”
“Certainly not, madame,” the woman replied, bluntly, taking up the
rejected tray of food to leave the room.
“Certainly not,” echoed Harold Castello, gayly, as he abruptly entered
again, having listened outside to the whole conversation.