Masterpieces of Mystery Part 16

"As I believe in heaven," she answered.

"And this was the reason that we parted--this the sole cause of our estrangement?"

"Was it not enough?" she said. "I erred, but it was as one in a dream.

When I awoke I could no longer err and be at peace. At peace did I say?

I have known no peace since I knew you; but I should have died and waked up in h.e.l.l, if I had not parted with you. This is all the truth, believe it or not as you will; but there may, there can be nothing in future between you and me. Pray let me pa.s.s you."

"But that--that--box, Blanche!" exclaimed Herbert Laurence, with drops of sweat, notwithstanding the temperature of the day, upon his forehead.

"It was an accident, a misfortune; _you_ did not do it?"

She turned upon him eyes which were full of mingled horror and scorn.

"I _do_ it!" she said; "what are you dreaming of? I was mad; but not so mad as that! How could you think it?" and the tears rose in her eyes more at the supposition which his question had raised than at the idea that he could so misjudge her.

"But why do you keep this? why do you carry it about with you, Blanche?

It is pure insanity on your part. How long is it since you have travelled in company with that dreadful box?"

"More than two years," she said in a fearful whisper. "I have tried to get rid of it, but to no purpose; there was always some one in the way.

I have reasoned with myself, and prayed to be delivered from it, but I have never found an opportunity. And now, what does it matter? The burden and heat of the day are past."

"Let me do it for you," said Mr. Laurence. "Whatever our future relation to one another, I cannot consent that you should run so terrible a risk through fault of mine. The strain upon your mind has been too great already. Would to heaven I could have borne it for you! but you forbid me even the privilege of knowing that you suffered. Now that I have ascertained it, it must be my care that the cause of our separation shall at least live in your memory only." And as he finished speaking he attempted to lift the box; but Mrs. Damer sprang forward and prevented him.

"Leave it!" she cried; "do not dare to touch it; it is _mine_! It has gone wherever I have gone for years. Do you think, for the little s.p.a.ce that is left me, that I would part with the only link left between me and my dread past?" and saying this she threw herself upon the black trunk and burst into tears.

"Blanche! you love me as you ever did," exclaimed Herbert Laurence.

"These tears confess it. Let me make amends to you for this; let me try to make the happiness of your future life!"

But before his sentence was concluded Mrs. Damer had risen from her drooping att.i.tude and stood before him.

"Make amends!" she echoed scornfully. "How can you 'make amends'?

Nothing can wipe out the memory of the shame and misery that I have pa.s.sed through, nothing restore the quiet conscience I have lost. I do not know if I love you still or not. When I think of it, my head swims, and I only feel confused and anxious. But I am sure of one thing, that the horror of my remorse for even having listened to you has power to overwhelm any regret that may be lingering in my unworthy breast, and that the mere fact of your bodily presence is agony to me. When I met you to-day I was battling with my invention to devise some means of leaving the place where you are without exciting suspicion. If you ever loved, have pity on me now; take the initiative, and rid me of yourself."

"Is this your final decision, Blanche?" he asked, slowly. "Will you not regret it when too late, and you are left alone with only _that_?"

She shuddered, and he caught at the fact as a sign of relenting.

"Dearest, loveliest," he commenced.--This woman had been the loveliest to him in days gone past, and though she was so terribly changed in eyes that regarded her less, Herbert Laurence, her once lover, could still trace above the languor and debility and distress of her present appearance, the fresh, sparkling woman who had sacrificed herself for his sake; and although his style of address signified more than he really thought for her, the knowledge of how much she had undergone since their separation had the power to make him imagine that this partial reanimation of an old flame was a proof that the fire which kindled it had never perished. Therefore it did not appear absurd in his mental eyes to preface his appeal to Mrs. Damer thus: "Dearest, loveliest--" but she turned upon him as though he had insulted her.

"Mr. Laurence!" she exclaimed, "I have told you that the past is past; be good enough to take me at my word. Do you think that I have lived over two years of solitary shame and grief, to break the heart that trusts in me _now_? If I had any wish, or any thought to the contrary, it would be impossible. I am enveloped by kind words and acts, by care and attention, which chain me as closely to my home as if I were kept a prisoner between four walls. I could not free myself if I would," she continued, throwing back her arms, as though she tried to break an invisible thrall. "I must die first; the cords of grat.i.tude are bound about me so closely. It is killing me, as nothing else could kill," she added, in a lower voice. "I lived under your loss, and the knowledge of my own disgrace; but I cannot live under his perpetual kindness and perfect trust. It cannot last much longer: for mercy's sake, leave me in peace until the end comes!"

"And the box?" he demanded.

"I will provide for the box before that time," she answered, sadly; "but if you have any fear, keep the key yourself: the lock is not one that can be forced."

She took the key from her bosom, where it hung on a broad black ribbon, as she spoke, and handed it to him. He accepted it without demur.

"You are so rash," he said; "it will be safer with me: let me take the box also?"

"No, no!" said Mrs. Damer, hurriedly; "you shall not; and it would be no use. If it were out of my sight, I should dream that it was found, and talk of it in my sleep. I often rise in the night now to see if it is safe. Nothing could do away with it. If you buried it, some one would dig it up; if you threw it in the water, it would float. It would lie still nowhere but on my heart, where it ought to be!--it ought to be!"

Her eyes had rea.s.sumed the wild, restless expression which they took whilst speaking of the past, and her voice had sunk to a low, fearful whisper.

"This is madness," muttered Herbert Laurence; and he was right. On the subject of the black box Mrs. Damer's brain was turned.

He was just about to speak to her again, and try to reason her out of her folly, when voices were heard merrily talking together in the hall, and her face worked with the dread of discovery.

"Go!" she said; "pray, go at once. I have told you everything." And in another moment Herbert Laurence had dashed through the pa.s.sage to the privacy of his own room; and Mrs. Clayton, glowing from her drive, and with a fine rosy baby in her arms, had entered the apartment of her cousin.

II

Bella found her cousin sitting in an arm-chair, with the cloak still over her shoulders, and a face of ashy whiteness, the reaction of her excitement.

"My dear, how ill you look!" was her first exclamation. "Have you been out?"

"I went a little way into the shrubberies," said Mrs. Damer; "but the day turned so cold."

"Do you think so? We have all been saying what a genial afternoon it is: but it certainly does not seem to have agreed with you. Look at my boy: isn't he a fine fellow?--he has been out all day in the garden. I often wish you had a child, Blanchey."

"Do you, dear? it is more than I do."

"Ah, but you can't tell, till they are really yours, how much pleasure they give you; no one knows who has not been a mother."

"No; I suppose not."

Mrs. Damer s.h.i.+vered as she said the words, and looked into the baby's fat, unmeaning face with eyes of sad import. Mrs. Clayton thought she had wounded her cousin, and stooped to kiss the slight offence away; but she fancied that Blanche almost shrunk from her embrace.

"She must be really ill," thought the kindly little Bella, who had no notion of such a thing as heart-sickness for an apparently happy married woman. "She ought to see a doctor: I shall tell Colonel Damer so."

In another half-hour they were at her side together, urging her to take their advice.

"Now, my darling," said the Colonel, when Mrs. Damer faintly protested against being made a fuss about, "you must be good for my sake. You know how precious you are to me, and how it would grieve me to have you laid up; let me send for Dr. Barlow, as your cousin advises. You were very much overcome by the long journey here, and I am afraid the subsequent excitement of seeing your kind friends has been too much for you. You do not half know how dear you are to me, Blanche, or you would not refuse such a trifling request. Here have I been, for five years, dearest, only looking forward from day to day to meeting my dear loving little wife again; and then to have you so ill as this the first month of our reunion, is a great trial to me. Pray let me send for Dr. Barlow."

But Mrs. Damer pleaded for delay. She had become chilled through being out in the shrubberies; she had not yet got over the fatigue of her journey; she had caught a cold whilst crossing from Havre to Folkestone: it was anything and everything but an illness which required medical attendance. If she were not better in the morning, she promised to make no opposition to their wishes.

So she forced herself to rise and dress for dinner. She appeared there calm and collected, and continued so throughout the evening, talking with Mr. Laurence quite as much as with the rest of the company; and she went to bed at the same hour as the other guests of Molton Grange, receiving with her cousin's good-night, congratulations on the evident improvement of her health.

"I cannot quite make out what has come to that cousin of yours, Bella,"

said Harry Clayton to his wife, as they too retired for the night; "she doesn't appear half such a jolly woman as she used to be."

"She is certainly very much altered," was Mrs. Clayton's response; "but I think it must be chiefly owing to her health; a feeling of debility is so very depressing."

"I suppose it can't be anything on her mind, Bella?" suggested the husband, after a pause.

"On her _mind_, Harry!" said Bella, sitting up in bed in her wonderment; "of course not; why, how could it be? She has everything she can wish for; and, I am sure, no woman could have a more devoted husband than Colonel Damer. He has been speaking a great deal about her to me to-day, and his anxiety is something enormous. On her _mind_!--what a funny idea, Harry; what could have put that in your head?"