"Here is the marriage certificate. Look at that first, my lady, if you please," said Mrs. Brown, putting the doc.u.ment in her hands.
Salome gazed at it with beclouded vision, but she saw that it was a genuine certificate of marriage between Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, Marquis of Arondelle, and, Rose Cameron, signed by James Smith, Rector of St. Margaret"s Church, Westminster, and witnessed by John Thomas Price, s.e.xton, and Ann Gray, Pew-opener.
"The man must have been mad! mad! to have done this, in the first instance, and then--done what he has just this morning," moaned Salome, as she returned the certificate to the woman.
"My lady, he thought as he had got Rose Cameron lagged, he would never be found out. Here, my lady, is the first letter he wrote to her after they were married. I reckon it is a foolish love-letter enough, not worth reading; but what I want you to notice is, his handwriting, and the way he commences his letter--"My Darling Wife," and the way he ends it--"Your Devoted Husband, Arondelle.""
"I recognize the handwriting, and I note the signature. I do not wish to read the letter," muttered Salome, waving it away.
"Well, then, my lady, here is a photograph of his grace, given to his wife a few days before their marriage," said the widow, offering a small card.
Salome took it, looked at it, and dropped it with a long, low wail of anguish.
It was a duplicate of one presented to herself by the Duke of Hereward, from the same negative.
Silence again fell between the lady and her visitor until it was broken by a rap at the door, and the voice of the maid without, saying:
"Beg pardon, your grace, but Lady Belgrade desires me to say that you have but fifteen minutes to catch the train."
"Very well," replied the young d.u.c.h.ess; but her voice sounded strangely unlike her own.
"Your ladyship will not go on your bridal tour?" said the visitor, imploringly.
"No, I shall not go on a bridal tour. How can I?--I am not a bride. I am not a wife. I am not the d.u.c.h.ess of Hereward. I am just Salome Levison, as I was before that false marriage ceremony was performed over me! But do you be discreet. Say nothing below stairs of what has pa.s.sed between us here," said Salome, speaking now with such amazing self-control that no one could have guessed the anguish and despair of her soul but for the marble whiteness and rigidity of her face.
"Be sure I shall not say one word, my lady," answered Mrs. Brown.
There was another low rap at the door, and again the voice of the maid was heard:
"Please your grace, what shall I say to Lady Belgrade?"
"Tell her ladyship that I am nearly ready," answered the young d.u.c.h.ess.
"And, Margaret," she added, "show this good woman out. And then, do not return here until I ring."
The visitor courtesied and went to the door, where she was met by the maid, who conducted her down stairs.
Salome locked and double-locked and bolted the doors leading from her apartments to the front corridor, and then she retreated to her dressing-room, alone with her terrible trial.
Who can conceive the mortal agony suffered by that young, overburdened heart and overtasked brain.
Who can estimate the force of the conflict that raged in her bosom, between her pa.s.sion and her conscience? Between her love and her duty?
Between what she knew of her worshiped husband, from daily a.s.sociation, and what she had just heard proved upon him by overwhelming testimony, confirmed also by the evidence of her own too long discredited senses!
He--her Apollo--her ideal of all manly excellence--her archangel, as in the infatuation of her pa.s.sion she had called him--he a bigamist, and an accomplice in the murder of her father!
It was incredible! incomprehensible! maddening!
Or surely it was some awful nightmare dream, from which she must soon awake.
What should she do? How meet again the people below?
She would not look upon _his_ face again. She could not. She felt that to do so would be perdition.
In the darkness of her despair a great temptation a.s.sailed her.
But we must leave her alone to wrestle with the demon, while we join the wedding-party below.
CHAPTER XVI.
VANISHED.
After the withdrawal of the bride and her attendant from the breakfast-table, the bridegroom and his friends remained a few moments longer, and then joined Lady Belgrade and the bridesmaids in the drawing-room.
They pa.s.sed some fifteen or twenty minutes in pleasant social chat upon the event of the morning, the state of the weather, and the political, financial, or fashionable topics of the day.
In half an hour they felt disposed to yawn, and some surrept.i.tiously consulted their watches.
Then one of the bridesmaids, at the request of Lady Belgrade, sat down to the piano and condescended to favor the company with a very fine wedding march.
Three quarters of an hour pa.s.sed, and then the Baron Von Levison--(Paul Levison, the head of the great Berlin branch of the banking-house of "Levison," had been enn.o.bled in Germany, as his brother had been knighted in England)--Baron Von Levison then inquired of the bridegroom what train he intended to take.
"The tidal train, which leaves London Bridge Station at three-thirty,"
answered the duke.
"Then your grace should leave here in fifteen minutes, if you wish to catch that train," said the baron.
The bridegroom spoke aside to Lady Belgrade.
"Had we not better send and see if Salome is ready? We have but little time to lose."
"Yes," said her ladyship, who immediately rang the bell, and dispatched a message to the young d.u.c.h.ess"s dressing-maid.
A few minutes elapsed, and an answer was returned to the effect that her grace would be ready in time to catch the train.
The travelling carriage was at the door, and all the lighter luggage, such as dressing-bags, extra shawls and umbrellas, were put in it.
And they waited full fifteen minutes, without seeing or hearing from the loitering bride.
"I will go up to Salome myself," said Lady Belgrade, impatiently.
"No, pray do not hurry her; if we miss this train we can take the next, and though we cannot catch the night-boat from Dover to Calais, we can stop at the "Lord Warden" and cross the Channel to-morrow morning,"
urged the duke.
"At least I will send another message to her, and let her know that the time is more than up," said her ladyship.