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 also 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 enable him 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 still 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 bad
appeared as days since his rising, and who 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 chest, 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 your 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?"
"It's 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 wilt 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 any thing
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 blood of his fellow
man, and set 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 or approves the slaying
of his creatures because they perish, not singly at the
will of one men, 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 the whole manner and person
of Matilda. Her eye sparkled and dilated, and the visible
heaving of her bosom told how strongly her own feelings
entered into the principles 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 venemous 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 could 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 every thing," 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 them," 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,
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 (from which I had removed my own
key) turn, and my lover appear at the entrance."
There was a short pause, and Matilda again proceeded.
"Scarcely had he shown himself when he had 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 greater 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 a 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 although 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 secrecy; 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 secrecy, 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 ardour 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 fingered 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 sadden 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 begone, 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 on her beautiful form, could not but wonder at the
apathy of the man who could thus have heartlessly thrown
if 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 falsely accused by those whom we have loved in
intimacy, how much more so 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 join the Regiment at
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 at Detroit
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;
besides it flashed across my mind that daring, such as
I have witnessed yours in the capture of our boat, might,
if enlisted in my behalf, securely accomplish my revenge.
"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
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
exertion. "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 man. The forest
shall be our 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 it 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.