May Agnes Fleming

“ Can you ever forgive me for the brutal words I used—for the brutal way I acted?"
"My Everard! my beloved husband! My darling! my darling! You are not—you will not be angry with your poor little Harrie?"
"I could not, my life! What is the world worth to us if we can not love and trust? I do love you, God alone knows how well! I will trust you, though all the world should rise up against you!"
"Thank Heaven! thank Heaven! Everard, dearest, I can not tell you—I can not—how miserable I have been! If I lost your love I should die! Trust me, my husband—trust me! Love me! ”

“ And there, on the wall, was the crest of the house—the uplifted hand grasping a dagger—and the motto, in old Norman French, "Strike once, and strike well."
It is a very fine thing to be a baronet—a Kingsland of Kingsland, with fifteen thousand a year, and the finest old house in the county; but if Death will stalk grimly over your threshold and snatch away the life you love more than your own, then even that glory is not omniscient. For this wintery midnight, while Sir Jasper Kingsland walks moodily up and down—up and down—Lady Kingsland, in the chamber above, lies ill unto death. ”

“ Mr. Parmalee took the oars and rowed away in the direction of the park. The sickly glimmer of the moon showed him the stone terrace and the solitary figure standing waiting there. But the noise of the wash on the beach and the sighing of the trees prevented Harriet from hearing the dip of the sculls. On the sea the night was so dark that the boat glided along unseen.
He had neared the spot and rowed softly along under the deep shadow of overhanging trees, when he espied a second figure, muffled in a cloak, emerge and confront the lady. ”

“ Miss Hunsden's young lady friends were few and far between, and Mildred Kingsland and the rector's sister and twelve-year-old daughter were to comprise the whole list.
The wedding-day dawned—a sullen, overcast, threatening December day. A watery sun looked out of a lowering sky, and then retreated altogether, and a leaden dullness overspread the whole firmament. An icy wind curdled your blood and tweaked your nose, and feathery snowflakes whirled drearily through the opaque gloom. ”

“ I'll pay you out, my fine feller, if ever I get a chance! You're a very great man, and a very proud man, Sir Everard Kingsland, and you own a fine fortune and a haughty, handsome wife, and G. W. Parmalee's no more than the mud under your feet. Very well—we'll see! 'Every dog has his day,' and 'the longest lane has its turning,' and you're near about the end of your tether, and George Parmalee has you and your fine lady under his thumb—under his thumb—and he'll crush you, sir—yes, by Heaven, he'll crush you, and strike you back blow for blow! ”

“ As usual, a woman is at the bottom of it. Sir Jasper Kingsland is in love."
There was a pause. The baronet winced a little.
"It is in Spain—glowing, gorgeous Spain—and she is one of its loveliest children. The oranges and pomegranates scent the burning air, the vineyards glow in the tropic sun, and golden summer forever reigns. But the glowing southern sun is not more brilliant than the Spanish gypsy's flashing black eyes, nor the pomegranate blossoms half so ripe and red as her cheeks. She is Zenith, the Zingara, and you love her!" ”

“ Flung away the scabbard, and advanced with it in her hand and horrible words upon her lips.
"I swore by the Lord who made me I would murder you if you ever came again to meet that man! False wife, accursed traitoress, meet your doom!"
There was a wild shriek. In that fitful light she never doubted for a moment but that it was her husband.
"Have mercy!" she cried. "I am innocent, Everard! Oh, for God's sake, do not murder me!"
"Wretch—traitoress—die. You are not fit to pollute the earth longer! ”

“ Every one shrunk in terror and dismay; Sir Jasper stood as a man might stand suddenly struck by lightning. And if looks were lightning, the blazing eyes of the young woman might have blasted him where he stood. A tall and handsome young woman, with black eyes of fire, streaming, raven hair, and a brown gypsy face.
"Who are you, in mercy's name?" cried the Reverend Cyrus Green.
"I am the daughter of this wretch, as your baronet yonder is pleased to call my mad mother. Yes, Mr. Green, she is my mother. ”

“ Sometimes anger held the day, and he would pace up and down like a madman, raging at her, at himself, at Parmalee, at all the world.
He was haggard and worn and wild, and his friends stared at him and shrugged their shoulders, and smiled significantly at this outward evidence of post-nuptial bliss.
It was almost midnight when the young baronet mounted Sir Galahad and rode home. Kingsland Court lay dark and still under the frowning night sky. He glanced up at the window of his wife's chamber. A light burned there. ”

“ Very pale, very proud, looked my lady. She disliked and distrusted this brilliant, black-eyed Miss Silver, and Miss Silver knew it well.
"You wish to speak with me, Miss Silver?" my lady said, in her most superb manner.
"Yes, my lady—most particularly, and quite alone. I beg your pardon, but your maid is not within hearing, I trust?"
"We are quite alone," very coldly. "Speak out; no one can overhear you."
"I do not care for myself," Sybilla said, her glittering black eyes meeting the proud gray ones. "It is for your sake, my lady."
"For my sake!" in haughty amaze. ”

“ When Pietro is dead, and Zara is old and feeble, and Zenith dust and ashes, you will live, my radiant angel, my black-eyed beauty, to perpetuate the malediction. When his son is a man, you will be a woman, with all a woman's subtle power and more than a woman's beauty, and you will be his curse, and his bane, and his blight, as his father has been ours! ”

“ He sat and looked at her, lost in wonder.
"You do not speak—you sit and stare as though you could not believe your eyes or ears. It is hard to believe, I know—the humble, the meek Sybilla metamorphosed thus. But the Sybilla Silver you knew was a delusion. Behold the real one, for the first time in your life!"
"Woman, who are you? What are you?"
"I am the granddaughter of Zenith the gypsy, the woman your father wronged to the death, and your bitterest enemy, Sir Everard Kingsland!" ”

“ Before she could speak again he was gone.
"And he's as mad as a hatter!" said Harrie, ruefully. "Oh, dear, dear! what torments men are, and what a bore falling in love is! And I liked him, too, better than any of them, and thought we were going to be brothers in arms—Damon and—what's his name?—and all that sort of thing! It's of no use my ever hoping for a friend. I shall never have one in this lower world, for just so sure as I get to like a person, that person must go and fall in love with me, and then we quarrel and part. It's hard."
Miss Hunsden sighed deeply, and went into the house. ”

“ Young, handsome, rich, high-born, surrounded by friends, the wealthy and the great, one woman's work brings you to this! I have said my say, and now I leave you; here we part, Sir Everard Kingsland. Call the jailer; tell him what I have told you—tell it through the length and breadth of the land, if you choose. Not one will believe you. It is an utterly mad and impossible tale. I have only to calmly and scornfully deny it. And to-morrow, when the glorious sun rises I will be far away. ”

“ Sir Everard's frantic jealousy of Mr. Parmalee, his onslaught in the picture-gallery, the threats he had used again and again, overheard by so many, the oath he had sworn to take her life if she ever met the American artist again, his ominous conduct that night, his rushing like a madman to the place of tryst, his returning covered with blood—white, wild, like one insane. Then the finding of the scabbard, marked with his initials, and his own words:
"Blood! Good God! it is hers! She is murdered!" ”

“ That one radiant look would have told you how he loved his wife.
"You, Olivia?" he cried, advancing. "Surely this is a surprise! My dearest, is it quite prudent in you to leave your room?"
He took the slender, white-robed figure in his arms, and kissed her as tenderly as a bridegroom of a week might have done. Lady Kingsland laughed a soft, tinkling little laugh.
"A month is quite long enough to be a prisoner, Jasper, even although a prisoner of state. And on my boy's christening fete—the son and heir I have desired so long—ah, surely a weaker mother than I might essay to quit her room." ”

“ Sir Everard caught both her hands across the bed, and his voice was hoarse with its concentrated emotion. "You don't know how I love you. If you refuse I shall go mad. I will be the truest, the tenderest husband ever man was to woman."
"I am dying, Harrie," her father said, sadly, "and you will be all alone in this big, bad world. But if your heart says 'No,' my own best beloved, to my old friend's son, then never hesitate to refuse. In all my life I never thwarted you. ”

“ Tell my lady I'll be there right on
the minute; and do you take care that confounded baronet finds it out.
I said I'd pay him off for every blow, and I'll do it, by the Eternal!"
"And strike through her!" hissed Sybilla, with glittering black eyes, "and every blow will go straight through the core of his proud heart. We'll torture him, George Parmalee, as man never was tortured before."
"What a little devil you are, Sybilla!" he said, with lover-like candor. "I've heard tell that you wimmin knock us men into a cocked hat in the way of hating, and I now begin to think it is true. ”

“ Extreme cases require extreme measures, my dear young lady. Throw aside your honorable scruples, break your promise, and tell us this secret which has caused a murder."
Sybilla Silver looked from judge to jury, from counsel to counsel, and clasped her hands.
"Don't ask me!" she cried—"oh, pray, don't ask me to tell this!"
"But we must—it is essential—we must have it, Miss Silver. Come, take courage. It can do no harm now, you know—the poor lady is dead. And first—to plunge into the heart of it at once—tell us who was the mysterious lady with Mr. Parmalee?" ”

“ Very softly, stealing on tiptoe, the twain approached the entrance of the avenue. The watery moonlight breaking through a rift in the clouds, shone out for an instant above the trees, and showed them a man and a woman, standing face to face, earnestly talking. Mr. Edwards barely repressed a cry of consternation.
"Good Lord!" he gasped; "it's my lady!"
"Hush!" cried Sybilla. "Who is the man?"
As if some inward prescience told him they were there, the man lifted his hat at that very instant, and plainly showed his face.
"The Hamerican, by Jove!" gasped the horrified valet. ”

“ Sunny Spain, with its olives and its vineyards, its pomegranates and its Zenith the Gitana, is left far behind, and you are roaming, happy and free, through La Belle France. And lo! Zenith the forsaken lies prone upon the ground, and goes stark mad for the day-god she has lost. There, Sir Jasper Kingsland! the record is a black one. I wish to read no more."
He flung the baronet's hand away, and once more his eyes glowed like the orbs of a demon. But Sir Jasper Kingsland, pale as a dead man, saw it not.
"Are you man or devil?" ”

“ CHAPTER XI. "FOR LOVE WILL STILL BE LORD OF ALL." My Lady Carteret's ball was a brilliant success, and, fairest where all were fair, Harrie Hunsden shone down all competitors. As she floated down the long ball-room on the arm of Lord Ernest, light as a swimming-sprite, a hundred admiring male eyes followed, and a hundred fair patrician bosoms throbbed with bitterest envy.
"The little Hunsden is in full feather to-night," lisped George Grosvenor, coming up with his adored Lady Louise on his arm. "There is nothing half so beautiful in the room, with one exception. ”

“ My answer was, 'I will be in the Beech Walk at eight tonight. If he wishes to see me let him come to me there.'"
"Then you own to have deliberately deceived me? The pretended headache was—a lie?"
"No; it was true. It aches still, until I am almost blind with the pain. Oh, Everard, be merciful! Have a little pity for me, for I love you, and I am the most wretched creature alive!"
"You show your love in a singular way, my Lady Kingsland. It is not by keeping guilty secrets from your husband—by meeting other men by night and by stealth in the grounds—that you are to convince me of your love. ”

“ What is mine you shall have—every farthing I own, every trinket I possess—on condition that you depart and never trouble me more. That is all I can do—all I will do. Decide which you prefer."
"There is no choice," replied the American, sullenly; "half a loaf is better than nothing. I'll take the three hundred pounds. And now, my lady, what do you mean to do about her? She wants to see you."
"See me!" An expression of horror swept over my lady's face. "Not for ten thousand worlds!"
"Well, now, I call that hard," said Mr. Parmalee. "I don't care what she's done or what she's been, it's hard! ”

“ Sir Jasper followed her out of the room, down the stairs, and back into the library, with the face of a man who has just been reprieved from sudden death. As he re-entered the library, he paused and started a step back, gazing fixedly at one of the windows. The heavy curtain had been partially drawn back, and a white, spectral face was glued to the glass, glaring in.
"Who have we here?" said the baronet to himself; "that face can belong to no one in the house." ”

“ Parmalee had gone back to Dobbsville, at peace with all the world, Sir Everard Kingsland included.
"You're a brick, baronet," his parting speech had been, as he wrung that young man's hand; "you air, I swan! And your wife's another! Long may you wave!"
Sir Everard laughed aloud now at the recollection.
"Money can never repay our obligation to that worthy artist. May his shadow never be less! We shall go over to Dobbsville and see him, and have our pictures taken, next year. Look, Harriet! how the chalky cliffs are melting into the blue above! ”

“ Sybilla gazed after him with her dark, evil smile.
"Fume and fret as you please, my dear Sir Everard, but this is only sowing the first seed. I shall watch your wife, and I will tell you my suspicions and my fancies, and you will listen in spite of your uplifted sublimity now. Jealousy is ingrained in your nature, though you do not know it, and a very little breath will fan the tiny coal into an inextinguishable flame."
She arose, rang the bell for the servant to clear the table, shook out her black silk robe, and went, with a smile on her handsome face, to do the fascinating to Mr. Parmalee. ”