"Rail on! Mock my misery! Turn me on the hot coals on which my ill fortune has placed me! But you well know, mean and contemptible being that you are, how I hate, how I loathe all mankind, and that these forced expiations to which I am condemned only serve to increase my detestation of those who compel me to make them, and those who profit by them. By all that is sacred, it pa.s.ses human malice to condemn me to live in endless misery, such as would dismay the stoutest nature, while my fellow creatures, as they are called, have all their griefs a.s.suaged at the cost of my dearly prized treasures! Oh, that priest who but now quitted us, loading me with blessings while my heart seemed like one vast ocean of fiery gall and bitterness against himself and all mankind--oh, how I longed to plunge a dagger in his breast! "Tis too much--too much for endurance!" cried he, pressing his clenched hands to his forehead; "my brain burns, my ideas become confused, I shall not be able much longer to resist these violent attacks of impotent, futile rage,--these unending tortures; and all through you, Cecily,--fatal, adored Cecily! Will you ever know all the agonies I have borne on your account, and will you still haunt me with that mocking smile? Cecily, Cecily! Back to the fiends from whom you sprung, and drive me not to destruction!"
All at once a hasty knock was heard at the door of the apartment.
Polidori immediately opened it, and perceived the princ.i.p.al clerk in the notary"s office, who, pale and much agitated, exclaimed, "I must speak with M. Ferrand directly!"
"Hush!" answered Polidori, in a low tone, as he came forth from the room and shut the door after him; "he is very ill just now, and cannot be disturbed on any account."
"Then do you, sir, who are M. Ferrand"s best and most intimate friend, step forward to help and a.s.sist him; but come quickly, for there is not an instant to be lost!"
"What has happened?"
"By M. Ferrand"s orders, I went to-day to the house of the Countess Macgregor, to say that he was unable to wait on her to-day, according to her request. This lady, who seems quite out of danger at present, sent for me to her chamber; when I went in, she exclaimed, in an angry, threatening manner,"Go back to M. Ferrand, and say to him that if he is not here in half an hour, or at least before the close of the day, he shall be arrested for felony. The child he pa.s.sed off as dead is still living; I know into whose hands he gave her up, and I also know where she is at this present minute.""
"This lady must be out of her senses," cried Polidori, shrugging up his shoulders. "Poor thing!"
"I should have thought so myself, but for the confident manner in which the countess spoke."
"I have no doubt but that her illness has affected her head; and persons labouring under any delusion are always impressed with the most perfect conviction of the truth of their fancies."
"I ought also to state that, just as I was leaving the room, one of the countess"s female attendants entered all in a hurry, and said, "His highness will be here in an hour"s time!""
"You are sure you heard those words?" asked Polidori.
"Quite, quite sure, sir! And I remember it the more, because I immediately began wondering in my own mind what highness she could mean."
"It is quite clear," said Polidori, mentally, "she expects the prince; but how comes that about? What strange course of events can have induced him to visit one he ought never again to meet? I know not why, but I greatly mistrust this renewal of intimacy. Our position, bad as it is, may even be rendered still worse by it." Then, addressing himself to the clerk, he added, "Depend upon it there is nothing of any consequence in the message you have brought; "tis merely the effects of a wandering imagination on the part of the countess; but, to prevent your feeling any uneasiness, I promise to acquaint M. Ferrand with it directly he is well enough to converse upon any matter of business."
We shall now conduct the reader to the house of the Countess Sarah Macgregor.
CHAPTER II.
RODOLPH AND SARAH.
A salutary crisis had occurred, which relieved the Countess Macgregor from the delirium and suffering under which, for several days, her life had been despaired of.
The day had begun to break when Sarah, seated in a large easy chair, and supported by her brother, Thomas Seyton, was looking at herself in a mirror which one of her woman on her knees held up before her. This was in the apartment where La Chouette had made the attempt to murder.
The countess was as pale as marble, and her pallor made her dark eyes, hair, and eyebrows even more striking; and she was attired in a dressing-gown of white muslin. "Give me my bandeau of coral," she said to one of her women, in a voice which, although weak, was imperious and abrupt.
"Betty will fasten it on for you," said Seyton; "you will exhaust yourself; you are already very imprudent."
"The bandeau,--the bandeau!" repeated Sarah, impatiently, who took this jewel and arranged it on her brow. "Now fasten it, and leave me!" she said to the women.
The instant they were retiring, she said, "Let M. Ferrand be shown into the little blue salon." Then she added, with ill-dissembled pride, "As soon as his royal highness the Grand Duke of Gerolstein comes, let him be introduced instantly to this apartment."
[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Was Looking at Herself in a Mirror_"
Original Etching by Adrian Marcel]
"At length," said Sarah, as soon as she was alone with her brother, "at length I trust this crown--the dream of my life: the prediction is on the eve of fulfilment!"
"Sarah, calm your excitement!" said her brother to her; "yesterday your life was despaired of, and to be again disappointed would deal you a mortal blow!"
"You are right, Thomas; the fall would be fearful, for my hopes were never nearer realisation! Of this I feel a.s.sured, for it was my constant thought of profiting by the overwhelming revelation which this woman made me at the moment of her a.s.sa.s.sination that prevented me from sinking under my sufferings."
"Again, Sarah, let me counsel you to beware of such insensate dreams,--the awaking would be terrible!"
"Insensate dreams! What, when Rodolph learns that this young girl, who is now locked up in St. Lazare, and formerly confided to the notary, who has pa.s.sed her off for dead, is our child! Do you suppose that--"
Seyton interrupted his sister. "I believe," he said, bitterly, "that princes place reasons of state, political conveniences, before natural duties."
"Do you then rely so little on my address?"
"The prince is no longer the ingenuous and impa.s.sioned youth whom you attracted and swayed in other days; that time is long ago, both for him and for you, sister."
Sarah shrugged her shoulders, and said, "Do you know why I was desirous of placing this bandeau of coral in my hair,--why I put on this white dress? It is because the first time Rodolph saw me at the court of Gerolstein I was dressed in white, and wore this very bandeau of coral in my hair."
"What!" said Seyton, "you would awake those remembrances? Do you not rather fear their influence?"
"I know Rodolph better than you do. No doubt my features, changed by time and sufferings, are no longer those of the young girl of sixteen, whom he so madly loved,--only loved, for I was his first love; and that love, unique in the life of man, always leaves ineffaceable traces in the heart. Thus, then, brother, trust me that the sight of this ornament will awaken in Rodolph not only the recollection of his love, but those of his youth also; and for men these souvenirs are always sweet and precious."
"But these sweet and precious souvenirs will be united with others so terrible: the sinister _denouement_ of your love, the detestable behaviour of the prince"s father to you, your obstinate silence to Rodolph. After your marriage with the Count Macgregor, he demanded his daughter, then an infant,--your child,--of whose death, ten years since, you informed him so coldly in your letter. Do you forget that from that period the prince has felt nothing but contempt and hatred for you?"
"Pity has replaced his hatred. Since he has learned that I am dying, he has sent the Baron de Graun every day to inquire after me; and just now he has promised to come here; and that is an immense concession, brother."
"He believes you dying,--that you desire a last adieu,--and so he comes.
You were wrong not to write to him of the discovery you are about to disclose to him."
"I know why I do so. This discovery will fill him with surprise, joy, and I shall be present to profit by his first burst of softened feeling.
To-day or never he will say to me, "A marriage must legitimise the birth of our child!" If he says so, his word is sacred, and then will the hope of my life be realised!"
"Yes, if he makes you the promise."
"And that he may do so, nothing must be neglected under these decisive circ.u.mstances. I know Rodolph; and once having found his daughter, he will overcome his aversion for me, and will not retreat from any sacrifice to a.s.sure her the most enviable lot, to make her as entirely happy as she has been until now wretched."
"However brilliant the destiny he may a.s.sure to your daughter, there is, between the reparation to her and the resolution to marry you in order to legitimise the birth of this child, a very wide abyss."
"Her father will pa.s.s over this abyss."
"But this unfortunate child has, perhaps, been so vitiated by the misery in which she has lived that the prince, instead of feeling attracted towards her--"
"What are you saying?" cried Sarah, interrupting her brother. "Is she not as handsome, as a young girl, as she was a lovely infant? Rodolph, without knowing her, was so deeply interested in her as to take charge of her future destiny, and sent her to his farm at Bouqueval, whence we carried her off."
"Yes, thanks to your obstinacy in desiring to break all the ties of the prince"s affection, in the foolish hope of one day leading him back to yourself!"
"And yet, but for this foolish hope, I should not have discovered, at the price of my life, the secret of my daughter"s existence. Is it not through this woman, who had carried her off from the farm, that I have learned the infamous deceit of the notary, Ferrand?"