CHAPTER XXVII.

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 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 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 pa.s.sed away, the hour of their departure had been that of the increased domination of pa.s.sion, and far from her whose beauty was ever present to his mind, his imagination had drawn and lingered on such pictures that, a.s.sured 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 circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sion 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 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 had appeared as days since his rising, 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 pa.s.sed 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 breast, groaned and wept bitterly.

"What! already, Gerald, do you repent? Nay, tell me not that one thus infirm of purpose, can be strong of pa.s.sion. 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 the 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 n.o.bler principles in which my youth has been nurtured, have proved too weak to stem the tide of guilty pa.s.sion. You say I love you not!" and he laughed bitterly. "What greater proof would you require than the oath I have just taken?"

"Its 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 cla.s.s with crime, the strong term virtue."

"Virtue! what, to spill the blood of a man who has never injured me; to become a hired a.s.sa.s.sin, 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 pa.s.sionately 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 will 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 anything 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's blood of his fellow man, and yet 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 G.o.d sanctions and approves the slaying of his creatures, because they perish, not singly at the will of one man, 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 her whole manner and person. Her eye sparkled and dilated, and the visible heaving of her bosom told how strongly her own feelings entered into the principles which 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 a.s.sa.s.sin'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 pa.s.sed 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?"

"a.s.suredly. Satisfy yourself."