A tragedy of love and hate

“Leave her for a few minutes,” said Kenelm to the earl; “she will recover herself best alone.”

But when they went to quit the room he was obliged to guide Lord Lorriston’s steps, for he stumbled like a blind man.

“What does this mean, Kenelm?” he asked, when they stood out in the sunlit corridor. “Are you and Lady Hermione both mad?”

“Lord Lorriston, it is a sad story. God forbid that I should judge. You know, everybody knows, that I have sworn to bring the murderer to justice. I would not have taken that oath had I known the murderess was your daughter.”

“It is not true,” cried the earl, setting aside all moral reason. “Hermione has not the physical strength or daring for such a deed.”

“I cannot tell; she says she is guilty, and surely she knows best.”

“Tell me all about it; then I can judge,” said the unhappy father, despairingly.

“The all is very simple. Yesterday I was helping Lady Alden to search for some papers, and I found hidden most carefully in the secret drawer of a box the dagger with which Lady Clarice was slain.”

“You found that here?” he cried, “I will not believe it.”

“There can be no reasonable doubt of it. Lady Hermione was terribly distressed at first. I thought, and naturally, too, that Ronald was guilty, and I told her that even were he my own brother, I would denounce him. When she found that I was resolved upon justice she owned herself guilty. Jealousy and love led her to do the deed.”

“I will never believe it. I know too well how tender she is. I saw her grow, remember, from a babe to a woman, and I tell you she is incapable of a murder as I am of picking your pockets. There is some terrible mistake.”

Suddenly he covered his face with his hands and moaned:

“How long is it that I boasted that my life was all sunshine; that I knew trouble only by name? Is it to punish my heart that the hand of God is laid so heavily upon me?”

He turned from his companion and walked away abruptly. No human eyes must see how keen and bitter was his grief. No human eyes must see tears fall like rain from the eyes of one of England’s proudest peers.

They had left her alone, and she sank back in her chair overpowered again by the strange, faint, fluttering pain at her heart.

“What can it be?” she gasped. “Is it death?”

And there came to her a memory of how, when she was a child, those pains had troubled her, and the doctors said something about disease of the heart. Was it that—was it death’s cold hand clutching at her heart and causing it first to beat so madly, then almost to stop, that sent such strange shuddering through every nerve?

Oh, welcome death! Death that would place her at Ronald’s side again. Once more the pain passed, and she looked around her with frightened eyes.

“I wish I were not quite alone,” she said. “Oh Ronald, Ronald, how cruel has fate been to us! Oh! my own love! my dearest, only love! Are you where you can hear me? Ronald, when I call to you, do you hear me? My husband, I have kept my vow; I was willing to die for you; I would have gone to the scaffold and have smiled while I died for you. There came a strong temptation to me when they told me you were dead, for one moment—a temptation to save myself—but I trampled it under foot. I will save you, and screen you still; your fair name, even in death, is dearer to me than my own life.”

She looked at the little parcel still clinched in her hand.

“I must destroy it,” she said. “Ronald is dead. He is safe when this is destroyed; it matters but little what becomes of me. Oh! my love! my love! You repented before you died. I pray that I may stand at your side again.”

She tried to rise to destroy that packet, but fell back with a long, shuddering moan; the cold hand had touched her heart again, the sharp, intolerable anguish thrilled every nerve.

“It is death,” she whispered, faintly; “death, and I am all alone—death, and I have no strength to destroy this!”

Grim darkness seemed to be closing round her, thick and heavy. The light faded from her eyes, another sharp pain, and the cold hand seemed to hold the panting heart more tightly in its grasp. The fair head drooped; once, twice the white lips opened as though she would fain cry for help, and then—ah! then the dark curtain was torn from before the portals of eternity, and she who had loved him so faithfully stood by Ronald’s side again. Lady Alden was dead.

It was an hour before her father and Mr. Eyrle returned. Then the earl knew all that had passed, and was firm in maintaining his daughter’s innocence.

“There is a mystery in this mystery,” he said, “and you will find it so. Let us return to my unhappy child and try to solve it.”

He opened the door of the pretty morning-room where he had left her, and saw her lying back in the huge lounging chair. He placed his fingers on her lips.

“Hush!” he said to Mr. Eyrle; “she has cried herself to sleep. Do not awaken her; that does not look much like guilt, does it?”

There was a strange, brooding stillness in the room, no sound broke it, even the birds had ceased singing. The earl went up to the chair. Was this sleep; this strange, deep, unbroken calm, this hushed, solemn repose?

He bent over her, and a cry that Kenelm Eyrle never forgot came from his lips—a cry of such horror, such dread, that it rang through the silence with a terrible sound. He laid his hand on the cold face, on the silent heart.

“Oh, my God!” he said, in a terrible voice. “She is dead!”

Ah! they might do as they would—run here and there in hot haste for doctors, apply remedies—the grim angel laughed. She was stone dead.

Kenelm Eyrle saw the little packet, and took it from her hands.

“This is something very precious and very sacred to her,” he said, “or she would not have it so tightly clasped in this poor, dead hand.”

And Lord Lorriston, hardly knowing what he did, took it from him, little dreaming that its contents had killed his daughter. Then they carried her upstairs and laid her on the bed. They sent in hot haste for doctors, they called up the servants, but there was no human help for Lady Alden. Was that sweet smile lingering on her face because she stood by Ronald’s side again?

Unutterable horror lay over the stately mansion of Aldenmere. One heard the weeping of children who were to be loved and tended by her no more, the loud lament of servants, the smothered weeping of friends.

“There must be a curse on the house,” said the old housekeeper, raising her trembling hands. “I have seen two bonny brides brought home, and two dead wives carried out; there must be a curse on Aldenmere.”

She did not know that the curse was one of ill-regulated, undisciplined passion, the heaviest curse that can fall on mortal man.

They looked from one to another in tearless dismay, those faithful servants. Most of them had been there when Lady Clarice had met with her sudden death, and now another fairer and more dearly loved mistress had gone from their midst. Superstitious fear and horror was ripe among them. Then, to add to their horror, Mr. Eyrle announced to them the intelligence received that morning from abroad.

So it came to pass that the little motherless boy, weeping for the mother he was never to see again, was now Sir Henry Alden of Aldenmere.

At first all was confusion and dismay, but after a time Mr. Eyrle took the reins of government and restored something like order. When the news began to spread there were callers innumerable. The country that night supped full of horrors. Sir Ronald Alden had died abroad and the shock of his death had killed the beautiful, lovely wife, so devoted to him.

They robed her in white, as they had done the first Lady Alden; they covered her with flowers, they laid them on the silent breast, in the white hands, and crowned with them the golden head. So fair, and still, and silent she lay when Lord Lorriston and Kenelm Eyrle between them led the unhappy mother into the room. No words could tell her grief. Did there flash across her a memory of that evening so long ago when she had taken Sir Ronald into the sunlit garden to renew his friendship with Lady Hermione and Miss Severn?

It was not until she had gone away and the two gentlemen stood in the death chamber alone, that Lord Lorriston remembered the packet.

He spoke of it to Mr. Eyrle.

“Will you fetch it, Kenelm?” he said, “and I will read it here in her presence. I have a conviction that there we shall find the key to the mystery.”

Kenelm went in search of it. It lay on the table in the room where she died. He brought it at once to the earl, who took it from him.

“Before I read what may be her justification, Kenelm,” said Lord Lorriston, “look at her face. Was anything ever so fair, so noble, so true? That face is but the index of a soul more fair, more noble, and truer still. Nor murder, nor jealousy, nor unholy hate ever marred the perfect beauty of that soul, or ever found a home there. That is the temple of a pure spirit—how could you so misjudge her?”

“Only from her own words; and those I heard against my own will.”

Lord Lorriston bent down and kissed that white brow.

“There was no justification necessary, in my eyes,” he said; “still I will read what is written here.”