That vague and shadowy resemblance to the baronet, which Mr. Parmalee had once noticed, was very palpable and really striking when she threw over all a long riding-cloak which Sir Everard often wore.
"You will do, I think," she said, to her transformed image in the gla.s.s. "Even my lady might mistake you for her husband in the uncertain moonlight."
She left the mirror, crossed the room, unlocked a trunk with a key she took out of her bosom, and drew forth a morocco scabbard case. The crest of the Kingslands and the monogram "E. K.," decorated the leather.
Opening this, she drew forth a long, glittering Spanish stiletto, not much thicker than a coa.r.s.e needle, but strong and glittering and deadly keen.
"Sir Everard has not missed his pretty toy yet," she muttered. "If he had only dreamed, when he saw it first, not a fortnight ago, of the deed it would do this night!"
She closed the trunk, thrust the dagger into its scabbard, the scabbard into her bosom, blew out the lamp, and softly opened the door. All was still as the grave.
She locked her door securely, put the key in her pocket, and stole toward Sir Everard"s rooms. Her kid slippers fell light as snow-flakes on the carpet. She opened the baronet"s dressing-room door. It had been his sleeping-room, too, of late. His bed stood ready prepared; a lamp burned dimly on the dressing-table. Beside the lamp Miss Silver placed her anonymous letter, then retreated as noiselessly as she had entered, shut the door, and glided stealthily down the corridor, down the stairs, along the pa.s.sages, and out of the same door which my lady had pa.s.sed not ten minutes previously.
Swift as a snake, and more deadly of purpose, Sybilla glided along the gloomy avenues of the wood toward the sea-side terrace. Every nerve seemed strung like steel, every fiber of her body quivered to its utmost tension. Her eyes blazed in the dark like the eyes of a wild cat; she looked like a creature possessed of a devil.
She reached the extremity of the woodland path almost as soon as her victim. A moment she paused, glaring upon her with eyes of fiercest hate as she stood there alone and defenseless. The next, she drew out the flashing stiletto. Flung away the scabbard, and advanced with it in her hand and horrible words upon her lips.
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man! False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
There was a wild shriek. In that fitful light she never doubted for a moment but that it was her husband.
"Have mercy!" she cried. "I am innocent, Everard! Oh, for G.o.d"s sake, do not murder me!"
"Wretch--traitoress--die. You are not fit to pollute the earth longer!
Go to your grave with my hate and my curse!"
With a sudden paroxysm of mad fury the dagger was lifted--one fierce hand gripped Harriet"s throat. A choking shriek--the dagger fell--a gurgling cry drowned in her throat--a fierce spurt of hot blood--a reel backward and a heavy fall over the low iron railing--down, down on the black sh.o.r.e beneath--and the pallid moonlight gleaming above shone on one figure standing on the stone terrace, alone, with a dagger dripping blood in its hand.
She leaned over the rail. Down below--far down--she could see a slender figure, with long hair blowing in the blast, lying awfully still on the sands. Not five feet off the great waves washed, rising, steadily rising. In five minutes more they would wash the feet of the terrace--that slender figure would lie there no more.
"The fall alone would have killed her. Before I am half-way back to the house those waves will be her shroud."
She wrapped her cloak around her and fled away--back, swift as the wind, into the house, up the stairs. Safe in her own room, she tore off her disguise. The cloak and the trousers were horribly spotted with blood. She made all into one compact package, rolled up the dagger in the bundle, stole back to the baronet"s dressing-room and listened, and peeped through the key-hole. He was not there; the room was empty. She went in, thrust the bundle out of sight in the remotest corner of the wardrobe, and hastened back to her chamber. Her letter still lay where she had left it. The baronet bad not yet returned.
In her own room Miss Silver secured the door upon the inside, according to custom, donned her night-dress, and went to bed--to watch and wait.
The mess dinner was a very tedious affair to one guest at least. Major Morrell and the officers told good stories and sung doubtful songs, and pa.s.sed the wine and grew hilarious; but Sir Everard Kingsland chafed horribly under it all, and longed for the hour of his release.
A dull, aching torture lay at his heart; a chill presentiment of evil had been with him all day; the tortures of love and rage and jealousy had lashed him nearly into madness.
Sometimes love carried all before him, and he would start up to rush to the side of the wife he loved, to clasp her to his heart, and defy earth and Hades to part them. Sometimes anger held the day, and he would pace up and down like a madman, raging at her, at himself, at Parmalee, at all the world.
He was haggard and worn and wild, and his friends stared at him and shrugged their shoulders, and smiled significantly at this outward evidence of post-nuptial bliss.
It was almost midnight when the young baronet mounted Sir Galahad and rode home. Kingsland Court lay dark and still under the frowning night sky. He glanced up at the window of his wife"s chamber. A light burned there. A longing, wistful look filled his blue eyes, his arms stretched out involuntarily, his heart gave a great plunge, as though it would break away and fly to its idol.
"My darling!" he murmured, pa.s.sionately--"my darling, my life, my love, my wife! Oh, my G.o.d to think, I should love her, wildly, madly still, believing her--knowing her to be false!"
He went up to his dressing-room, his heart full to bursting. A mad, insane longing to go to her, to fold her to his breast, to forgive her all, to take her, guilty or innocent, and let pride and honor go to the winds, was upon him. He loved her so intensely, so pa.s.sionately, that life without her, apart from her, was hourly increasing torture.
The sight of a folded note lying on the table alone arrested his excited steps. He took it up, looked at the strange superscription, tore it open, ran over its diabolical contents, and reeled as if struck a blow.
"Great Heaven! it is not true! it can not be true! it is a vile, accursed slander! My wife meet this man alone, and at midnight, in that forsaken spot! Oh, it is impossible! May curses light upon the slanderous coward who dared to write this infernal lie!"
He flung it, in a paroxysm of mad fury, into the fire. A flash of flame, and Sybilla Silver"s artfully written note was forever gone. He started up in white fury.
"I will go to her room; I will see for myself! I will find her safely asleep, I know!"
But a horrible misgiving filled him, even while he uttered the brave words. He dashed out of his room and into his wife"s. It was deserted. He entered the bedroom. She was not there; the bed had not been slept in. He pa.s.sed to her boudoir; that, too, was vacant.
Sir Everard seized the bell-rope and rang a peal that resounded with unearthly echoes through the sleeping house. Five minutes of mad impatience--ten; then Claudine, scared and shivering, appeared.
"Where is your mistress?"
"_Mon Dieu_! how should I know? Is not my lady in bed?"
"No; her bed has not been slept in to-night. She is in none of her rooms. When did you see her last?"
"About ten o"clock. She dismissed me for the night; she said she would undress herself."
"Where is Miss Silver?"
"In bed, I think, monsieur."
"Go to her--tell her I want to see her at once. Lose no time."
Claudine disappeared. Miss Silver was so very soundly asleep that it required five minutes rapping to rouse her. Once aroused, however, she threw on a dressing-gown, thrust her feet into slippers, and appeared before the baronet, with a pale, anxious, inquiring face.
"Where is my wife? Where is Lady Kingsland?"
"Good Heaven! is she not here?"
"No. You know where she is! Tell me, I command you!"
Sybilla Silver covered her face with both hands, and cowered before him with every sign of guilt.
"Spare me!" she cried, faintly. "I dare not tell you!"
He made one stride forward, caught her by the arm, his eyes glaring like the eyes of a tiger.
"Speak!" he thundered; "or by the Heaven above us, I"ll tear it from your throat! Is she with him?"
"She is," cowering, shrinking, trembling.
"Where?"