Part 49 (1/2)
A half-smothered cry struggled across the orphan's trembling lips that had suddenly grown colorless, and he saw her clutch her fingers.
”And if she lives?”
”If she lives, and will accept the affection I shall offer her, the remainder of my years will be devoted to the work of making her forget the sorrows that have darkened the early portion of her life. I do not wish to conceal the fact that she is inexpressibly dear to me.”
During the long silence that ensued, a lifetime of agony seemed compressed into the compa.s.s of a few moments, but Salome stood motionless, with her arms pressed over her aching heart, and her head thrown haughtily back, while the moonlight streamed down on her face where pride and pain were struggling for right to reign.
When all expectation of earthly happiness is smothered in a proud, pa.s.sionate soul, and the future robes itself in those dun hues that only the day-star of eternity can gild, nerves and muscles shrink and s.h.i.+ver at the ma.s.sacre of hopes which despair hews down, in the hour that it ”storms the citadel of the heart, and puts the whole garrison to the sword.”
Dr. Grey could not endure the sight of that fixed, hardened face, and sorely distressed by the consciousness of the suffering which he had unintentionally inflicted on one so young, he moved away, and for some time walked slowly under the arching laurestines. Although his stern integrity of purpose acquitted him of all blame, and he could accuse himself of no word or deed that might be held amenable to conscience for the mischief and misery that had resulted from his acquaintance with this unfortunate girl, he regretted that he had remained in the same house, and, by constant a.s.sociation, fed the flame that absence might have extinguished.
While he pitied the weakness that had induced her to yield so entirely to the preference she indulged for him, he felt humiliated at the thought that he, who had intended to guide and elevate this wayward child of nature, had been instrumental in darkening and embittering her young life.
When he came back to the spot, whence she had not moved, and laid his hand gently on her shoulder, she smiled strangely, and
”Unbent the grieving beauty of her brows.
But held her heart's proud pain superbly still.”
”My little sister, you must not stay here any longer. Would you prefer to go home at once in my buggy, or remain in the parlor until daylight?”
”Neither. Let me sit down on the stone terrace till the end comes. I will disturb no one. It will be three hours before day breaks, and when you know whether your idol will live or die, come and tell me.
Take your hand from my shoulder.”
He had endeavored to detain her, but she shrank away from his grasp, and glided down the smooth sward to the terrace which divided it from the ripple-barred and ringed sands of the shelving beach.
As he returned to the house, the wind sprang up and moaned through the dense foliage above him, and an owl, perched in some cl.u.s.tering bough that overhung the portico, screamed and hooted dismally. The sound was so startling that the greyhound leaped to his feet and set up an answering howl, which almost froze Katie with fright, and caused even Mrs. Gerome's heavy eyelids to unclose.
Salome sat down on the paved terrace, crossed her arms over the low stone bal.u.s.trade, and resting her chin upon them, looked out at the burnished bosom of the ocean. Just beneath her, and near enough to moisten the granite with the silvery spray,--
”Its waves are kneeling on the strand, As kneels the human knee, Their white locks bowing to the sand, The priesthood of the sea.”
If the old Rabbinical legend of Sandalphon be grounded in some solemn vision granted to the saints of eld, who walked in Syria, then peradventure on this night, the angel must have been puzzled indeed concerning the pet.i.tions that floated up, and demanded admission to the Eternal ear.
From the anxious heart of the sincere and humble Christian who knelt at the bedside of the invalid, rose a fervent prayer that if consistent with the Father's will, He would lay His healing hand upon the sufferer, and restore her to health and strength; while the wretched girl on the terrace prayed vehemently that G.o.d would crush the feeble flicker of life in Mrs. Gerome's wasted frame, would take from the world a woman whose existence was a burden to herself and threatened to prove a curse to others.
The pa.s.sionate cry of Salome's soul was,--
”Punish me in any way, and all other ways! Send sickness, dest.i.tution, humiliation,--let every other affliction smite me; but save me from the intolerable anguish of seeing that woman his wife! O my G.o.d! the world is not wide enough to hold us both. Take her, or else call me speedily hence. I am not fit to die, but I shall never be better, if I am doomed to witness this marriage. I would sooner go down to perdition now, than live to see that thing of horror. Of two h.e.l.ls, I choose that which takes me farthest from her.”
For the first time in her life she felt that the hours were flying, that the day of doom was rus.h.i.+ng to meet her, and she shuddered when one after another the constellations slipped softly and solemnly down the sky, and vanished behind the dim shadowy outline of the western hills. Gradually the moon sank so low that the sea could no longer reflect her beams, and as the mighty waste of waters slowly darkened, and the wind stiffened, and the song of the surf swelled like a rising requiem, the girl felt that all nature was preparing to mourn with her over the burial of her only hope of earthly peace.
If Mrs. Gerome died, a quiet future stretched before the orphan, and she could bear to live without the love which she had the grim satisfaction of knowing brightened no other woman's life.
The happiness of the man for whom she almost impiously prayed, was a matter of little importance compared with the ease of her own heart; and she had yet to learn that the welfare and peace of the object she loved so selfishly would one day become paramount to all other aims and considerations. That pure and sublime spirit of self-abnegation which immolates every hope and wish that is at variance with the happiness of the beloved had not yet been born in Salome's fiery nature; and she cared little for the anguish that might be Dr. Grey's portion, provided her own heart could be spared the pang of witnessing his wedded bliss.
Through the trees, she could see the steady light of the lamp that burned in the room where the sick woman lay, and so she watched and waited, s.h.i.+vering in the shadow that fell over earth and ocean just before the breaking of the new day.
Along the eastern horizon, the white fires of rising constellations paled and flickered and seemed to die, as a gray light stole up behind them; and the gray grew pearly, and the pearly opaline, and ere long the sky crimsoned, and the sea reddened until its waves were like ruby wine or human gore.