Sharing Her Crime Part 51

Faugh! do not make me despise you as well as hate you."

"You cannot despise me, Minnette; you know you cannot," said Celeste, with something like indignation in her gentle voice, as her truth-beaming eye met undauntedly the flas.h.i.+ng orbs before her. "You know I have spoken the truth. You know in your own heart I am no hypocrite. Hate me if you will--I cannot prevent you; but you shall not despise me. I have never intentionally wronged you, and I never will. If Louis Oranmore loves you as you say, I wish you both all happiness. I shall no longer stand between you and his heart."

"Oh! wonderful heroism!" cried Minnette, in bitter mockery. "You can well afford to say you give him up, when you know he loves me no longer; when you know you have surely and unalterably won him to yourself. Well do you know this pretended self-denial of yours will elevate you a thousand times higher still in his estimation, and make him love you far more than ever before. Oh! you have learned your trade of deception well. Pity all cannot see through it as I do. Think not to deceive me as you have done so many others; I, at least, can see your shallow, selfish, cold-blooded heart."

"I will not stay to listen to your words, Minnette; they are too dreadful. Some day, perhaps, you will discover how you have wronged me.

I am not deceiving you; he _must_ give me up if what you say be true. I will even go away if you wish it--anywhere, so that you may be satisfied. I will write and tell him, and never see him more, if that will satisfy you." Her voice faltered a little, but she went on; "I will do anything--anything, Minnette, if you will only not call me such terrible things. It is fearful--horrible, to be hated so without cause."

Minnette did not speak, but glared upon her with her burning, flaming eyes. Two dark purple spots--now fading, now glowing vividly out--burned on either cheek; otherwise, no snow-wreath was ever whiter than her face. Her teeth were set hard; her hands tightly clenched; her dark brows knit, as though about to spring upon the speaker and rend her to pieces. She made one step toward her. With a piercing cry of terror, Celeste sprang away, darted through the garden gate, flew up the narrow path, burst into the cottage, closed and bolted the door, and sank, panting and almost fainting, on the ground.

"Good heavens! child, what is the matter?" asked Miss Hagar, rising, in alarm.

"Oh! save me--save me from her!" was all Celeste could utter.

"Save you from whom? Who are you speaking of? Who has frightened you so?" inquired Miss Hagar, still more astonished.

Celeste slowly rose from the ground, without speaking. Consciousness was beginning to return, but she was still stunned and bewildered.

"Merciful Father!" cried Miss Hagar, as Celeste turned toward the light, "what has happened?"

And truly she might exclaim, at beholding that deadly paleface--those wild, excited eyes--the disheveled golden hair--the blood-stained, and torn and disordered dress.

"Nothing! oh, nothing, nothing!" said Celeste, pa.s.sing her hand slowly over her eyes, as if to clear away a mist, and speaking in a slow, bewildered tone.

"But, child, there is something the matter!" insisted Miss Hagar. "You look as though you were crazed, and your face is stained with blood."

"Is it? I had forgotten," said Celeste, pus.h.i.+ng her hair vacantly off her wounded forehead. "It is nothing at all, though. I do not feel it."

"But how did it happen?"

"Oh!--why, I was frightened, and ran, and fell," said Celeste, scarcely knowing what she said.

"What was it frightened you?" pursued Miss Hagar, wondering at her strange manner.

Celeste, without reply, sank upon a seat and pressed her hands to her throbbing temples to collect her scattered thoughts. She felt sick and dizzy--unable to think and speak coherently. Her head ached with the intensity of her emotions; and her eyes felt dry and burning. Her brow was hot and feverish with such violent and unusual excitement. Her only idea was to get away--to be alone--that she might collect her wandering senses.

"Miss Hagar," she said, rising, "I cannot tell you what has happened. I must be alone to-night. To-morrow, perhaps, I will tell you all."

"Any time you please, child," said Miss Hagar, kindly. "Go to your room by all means. Good-night."

"Good-night!" said Celeste, taking her lamp and quitting the room.

She staggered as she walked. On reaching her room she set the lamp on the table, and entwined her arms above her head, which dropped heavily upon it. Unaccustomed to excitement of any kind, she felt more as if heart and brain were on fire. Loving Louis with the strong affection of her loving heart, the sudden disclosure and jealous fury of Minnette stunned and stupefied her for a time. So she lay for nearly an hour, unable to think or realize what had happened--only conscious of a dull, dreary pain at her heart. Then the mist slowly cleared away from her mental vision--the fierce words of Minnette danced in red, lurid letters before her eyes. She started to her feet, and paced her chamber wildly.

"Oh! why am I doomed to make others miserable?" she cried, wringing her hands. "Oh, Louis, Louis! why have you deceived me thus? What have I done that I should suffer such misery? But it is wrong to complain. I must not, will not murmur. I will not reproach him for what he has done, but try to forget him. May he be as happy with Minnette as I would have striven to render him! To-morrow I will see him, and return all the gifts cherished for his sake; to-morrow I will bid him a last adieu; to-morrow--but, oh! I cannot--I cannot!" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately. "I cannot see him and bid him go. Oh, Father of the fatherless! aid me in my anguis.h.!.+"

She fell on her knees by the bedside, and a wild, earnest prayer broke from her tortured lips.

By degrees she grew calm; her wild excitement died away; the scorching heat left her brain, and blessed tears came to her aid. Long and bitterly she wept; long and earnestly she prayed--no longer as one without hope, but trustful and resigned, bending her meek head to the blow of the chastening rod.

She arose from her knees, pale, but calm and resigned.

"I will not see him," she murmured. "Better for us both I should never see him again! I will write--I will tell him all--and then all that is past must be forgotten. In the creature I was forgetting the Creator; for the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d I was subst.i.tuting the wors.h.i.+p of man; and my Heavenly Father, tempering justice with mercy, has lifted me from the gulf into which I was falling, and set me in the narrow way once more.

Henceforth, no earthly idol shall fill my heart; to Him alone shall it be consecrated; and I will live on in the hope that there is yet 'balm in Gilead' for me."

It was very easy to speak thus, in the sudden reaction from despair to joy--very easy to talk in this way in the excitement of the moment, after her heart had been relieved by tears. She thought not of the weary days and nights in the future, that would seem to have no end, when her very soul would cry out in wild despair for that "earthly idol" again.

And full of her resolution, with cheeks and eyes glowing with the light of inspiration, she sat down at the table, and, drawing pen and paper before her, began to write.

A long, earnest, eloquent letter it was. She resigned him forever, bidding him be happy with Minnette, and forget and forgive her, and breathing the very soul of sisterly love and forgiveness. Page after page was filled, while her cheek flushed deeper, and her eyes grew brighter, and her pen flew on as if inspired.

There, in the holy seclusion of her chamber, in the solemn stillness of night, she made the total renunciation of him she loved best on earth, scarcely feeling now she had lost him, in the lofty exaltation of her feelings.

It was finished at last. The pen dropped from her hand, and she arose to seek for the few gifts he had ever given her. A little golden locket, containing his likeness and a lock of his hair; her betrothal-ring; and the oft-mentioned gold cross. That was all.

She opened the likeness, and through all her heroism a wild, sharp thrill of anguish pierced her heart, as she gazed on those calm, beautiful features. The sable ring of hair twined itself round her fingers as though unwilling to leave her; but resolutely she replaced it, and drew off the plain gold circlet of their betrothal, and laid them side by side. Then her cross--it had never left her neck since the night he had placed it there. All the old tide of love swelled back to her heart as she gazed upon it. It seemed like rending her very heart-strings to take it off.

"I cannot! I cannot!" was her anguished cry, as her arm dropped powerless on the table.

"You must! you must! it is your duty!" cried the stern voice of conscience; and, with trembling fingers and blanched lips, the precious token was removed and laid beside the others.

Then, sealing them up, with one last, agonizing look, such as we might bestow on the face of a dear friend about to be consigned to the grave, she sealed and directed the packet, and then threw herself on her bed and pressed her hands over her eyes to hide out the face of her dead.

But in spite of sorrow, sleep _will_ visit the afflicted, and a bright morning sunbeam fell like a halo on her pale face, calm in sleep, and on the golden eyelashes, still wet with undried tear-drops.

That same broad July sunbeam fell on Minnette lying p.r.o.ne on her face in the damp pine woods, her long, black hair and dark garments dropping with the soaking dew. The dark, lonely woods had been her couch the livelong night.

CHAPTER x.x.x.

GIPSY HUNTS NEW GAME.

"And by the watch-fire's gleaming light, Close by his side was seen A huntress maid in beauty bright With airy robes of green."--SCOTT.

It was early afternoon of that same day on which the events related in the last chapter occurred. Squire Erliston, in after-dinner mood, sat in his arm-chair; Louis lay idly on a lounge at a little distance, and Gipsy sat by the window, yawningly turning over a volume of prints. Mrs.

Oranmore, swathed in shawls, lounged on her sofa, her prayerbook in her hand, taking a succession of short naps.

It was the squire's custom to go to sleep after dinner; but now, in his evident excitement, he seemed quite to forget it altogether.

"Yes, sir," he was saying to Louis, "the scoundrel actually entered the sheriff's house through the window, and carried off more than a hundred dollars, right under their very noses. It's monstrous!--it's outrageous!

He deserves to be drawn and quartered for his villainy! And he will be, too, if he's taken. The country 'll soon be overrun with just such rascals, if the scoundrel isn't made an example of."

"Of whom are you speaking, papa?" inquired Lizzie, suddenly walking up.

"Of one of Drummond's negroes--a perfect ruffian; Big Tom, they call him. He's fled to the woods, and only makes his appearance at night. He stabbed young Drummond himself; and since then, he's committed all sorts of depredations. Simms, the sheriff, came down yesterday with constables to arrest them; and during the night, the scoundrel actually had the audacity to enter the sheriff's window, and decamped with a hundred dollars before they could take him. He met one of the constables in the yard as he was going out. The constable cried 'murder,' and seized him; but Big Tom--who is a regular giant--just lifted him up and hurled him over the wall, where he fell upon a heap of stones, breaking his collar-bone, two of his legs, 'and the rest of his ribs,' as Solomon says. The constable's not expected to live; and Big Tom got off to his den in safety with his booty."