Prince Zilah Part 21

She gently disengaged herself from his embrace, with a s.h.i.+vering sigh; and, going slowly toward the door, she turned, and threw him a kiss, saying:

"I will come back soon, my Andras!"

And, although wis.h.i.+ng to go for her mantle, nevertheless she still stood there, with her eyes fixed upon the Prince and her mouth sweetly tremulous with a pa.s.sion of feeling, as if she could not tear herself away.

The piano upon which Andras had cast the package given him by Varhely was there between them; and the Prince advanced a step or two, leaning his hand upon the ebony cover. As Marsa approached for a last embrace before disappearing on her errand, her glance fell mechanically upon the small package sealed with red wax; and, as she read, in the handwriting she knew so well, the address of the Prince and the signature of Michel Menko, she raised her eyes violently to the face of Prince Zilah, as if to see if this were not a trap; if, in placing this envelope within her view, he were not trying to prove her. There was in her look fright, sudden, instinctive fright, a fright which turned her very lips to ashes; and she recoiled, her eyes returning fascinated to the package, while Andras, surprised at the unexpected expression of the Tzigana's convulsed features, exclaimed, in alarm:

"What is it, Marsa? What is the matter?" "I--I"

She tried to smile.

"Nothing--I do not know! I--"

She made a desperate effort to look him in the face; but she could not remove her eyes from that sealed package bearing the name Menko.

Ah! that Michel! She had forgotten him! Miserable wretch! He returned, he threatened her, he was about to avenge himself: she was sure of it!

That paper contained something horrible. What could Michel Menko have to say to Prince Andras, writing him at such an hour, except to tell him that the wretched woman he had married was branded with infamy?

She shuddered from head to foot, steadying herself against the piano, her lips trembling nervously.

"I a.s.sure you, Marsa--" began the Prince, taking her hands. "Your hands are cold. Are you ill?"

His eyes followed the direction of Marsa's, which were still riveted upon the piano with a dumb look of unutterable agony.

He instantly seized the sealed package, and, holding it up, exclaimed:

"One would think that it was this which troubled you!"

"O Prince! I swear to you!--"

"Prince?"

He repeated in amazement this t.i.tle which she suddenly gave him; she, who called him Andras, as he called her Marsa. Prince? He also, in his turn, felt a singular sensation of fright, wondering what that package contained, and if Marsa's fate and his own were not connected with some unknown thing within it.

"Let us see," he said, abruptly breaking the seals, "what this is."

Rapidly, and as if impelled, despite herself, Marsa caught the wrist of her husband in her icy hand, and, terrified, supplicating, she cried, in a wild, broker voice:

"No, no, I implore you! No! Do not read it! Do not read it!"

He contemplated her coldly, and, forcing himself to be calm, asked:

"What does this parcel of Michel Menko's contain?"

"I do not know," gasped Marsa. "But do not read it! In the name of the Virgin" (the sacred adjuration of the Hungarians occurring to her mind, in the midst of her agony), "do not read it!"

"But you must be aware, Princess," returned Andras, "that you are taking the very means to force me to read it."

She s.h.i.+vered and moaned, there was such a change in the way Andras p.r.o.nounced this word, which he had spoken a moment before in tones so loving and caressing--Princess.

Now the word threatened her.

"Listen! I am about to tell you: I wished--Ah! My G.o.d! My G.o.d! Unhappy woman that I am! Do not read, do not read!"

Andras, who had turned very pale, gently removed her grasp from the package, and said, very slowly and gravely, but with a tenderness in which hope still appeared:

"Come, Marsa, let us see; what do you wish me to think? Why do you wish me not to read these letters? for letters they doubtless are. What have letters sent me by Count Menko to do with you? You do not wish me to read them?"

He paused a moment, and then, while Marsa's eyes implored him with the mute prayer of a person condemned to death by the executioner, he repeated:

"You do not wish me to read them? Well, so be it; I will not read them, but upon one condition: you must swear to me, understand, swear to me, that your name is not traced in these letters, and that Michel Menko has nothing in common with the Princess Zilah."

She listened, she heard him; but Andras wondered whether she understood, she stood so still and motionless, as if stupefied by the shock of a moral tempest.

"There is, I am certain," he continued in the same calm, slow voice, "there is within this envelope some lie, some plot. I will not even know what it is. I will not ask you a single question, and I will throw these letters, unread, into the fire; but swear to me, that, whatever this Menko, or any other, may write to me, whatever any one may say, is an infamy and a calumny. Swear that, Marsa."

"Swear it, swear again? Swear always, then? Oath upon oath? Ah! it is too much!" she cried, her torpor suddenly breaking into an explosion of sobs and cries. "No! not another lie, not one! Monsieur, I am a wretch, a miserable woman! Strike me! Lash me, as I lash my dogs! I have deceived you! Despise me! Hate me! I am unworthy even of pity! The man whose letters you hold revenges himself, and stabs me, has been--my lover!"

"Michel!"

"The most cowardly, the vilest being in the world! If he hated me, he might have killed me; he might have torn off my veil just now, and struck me across the lips. But to do this, to do this! To attack you, you, you! Ah! miserable dog; fit only to be stoned to death! Judas! Liar and coward! Would to heaven I had planted a knife in his heart!"

"Ah! My G.o.d!" murmured the Prince, as if stabbed himself.

At this cry of bitter agony from Andras Zilah, Marsa's imprecations ceased; and she threw herself madly at his feet; while he stood erect and pale--her judge.

She lay there, a ma.s.s of white satin and lace, her loosened hair falling upon the carpet, where the pale bridal flowers withered beneath her husband's heel; and Zilah, motionless, his glance wandering from the prostrate woman to the package of letters which burned his fingers, seemed ready to strike, with these proofs of her infamy, the distracted Tzigana, a wolf to threaten, a slave to supplicate.

Suddenly he leaned over, seized her by the wrists, and raised her almost roughly.

"Do you know," he said, in low, quivering tones, "that the lowest of women is less culpable than you? Ten times, a hundred times, less culpable! Do you know that I have the right to kill you?"

"Ah! that, yes! Do it! do it! do it!" she cried, with the smile of a mad woman.

He pushed her slowly from him.

"Why have you committed this infamy? It was not for my fortune; you are rich."

Marsa moaned, humiliated to the dust by this cold contempt. She would have preferred brutal anger; anything, to this.

"Ah! your fortune!" she said, finding a last excuse for herself out of the depth of her humiliation, which had now become eternal; "it was not that, nor your name, nor your t.i.tle that I wished: it was your love!"

The heart of the Prince seemed wrung in a vise as this word fell from those lips, once adored, nay, still adored, soiled as they were.

"My love!"

"Yes, your love, your love alone! I would have confessed all, been your mistress, your slave, your thing, if I--I had not feared to lose you, to see myself abased in the eyes of you, whom I adored! I was afraid, afraid of seeing you fly from me--yes, that was my crime! It is infamous, ah! I know it; but I thought only of keeping you, you alone; you, my admiration, my hero, my life, my G.o.d! I deserve to be punished; yes, yes, I deserve it--But those letters--those letters which you would have cast into the fire if I had not revealed the secret of my life--you told me so yourself--I might have sworn what you asked, and you would have believed me--I might have done so; but no, it would have been too vile, too cowardly! Ah! kill me! That is what I deserve, that is what--"