The Midnight Queen [115]
there Prudence got rid of Honorine in a singular manner. A
packet was about starting for the island of our destination, and
she saw a strange-looking little man carrying his luggage from
the wharf into a boat. She had the infant in her arms, having
carried it out for the identical purpose of getting rid of it;
and, without more ado, she laid it down, unseen, among boxes and
bundles, and, like Hagar, stood afar off to see what became of
it. That ugly little man was the dwarf; and his amazement on
finding it among his goods and chattels you may imagine; but he
kept it, notwithstanding, though why, is best known to himself.
A few weeks after that we, too, came over, and Prudence took up
her residence in a quiet village a long way from London. Thus
you see, Sir Norman, how it comes about that we are so related,
and the wrong I have done them all."
"You have, indeed!" said Sir Norman, gravely, having listened,
much shocked and displeased, at this open confession; "and to one
of them it is beyond our power to atone. Do you know the life of
misery to which she has been assigned?"
"I know it all, and have repented for it in my own heart, in dust
and ashes! Even I - unlike all other earthly creatures as I am -
have a conscience, and it has given me no rest night or day
since. From that hour I have never lost sight of them; every
sorrow they have undergone has been known to me, and added to my
own; and yet I could not, or would not, undo what I had done.
Leoline knows all now; and she will tell Hubert, since destiny
has brought them together; and whether they will forgive me I
know not. But yet they might; for they have long and happy lives
before them, and we can forgive everything to the dead."
"But you are not dead," said Sir Norman; "and there is repentance
and pardon for all. Much as you have wronged them, they will
forgive you; and Heaven is not less merciful than they!"
"They may; for I have striven to atone. In my house there are
proofs and papers that will put them in possession of all, and
more than all, they have lost. But life is a burden of torture
I will bear no longer. The death of him who died for me this
night is the crowning tragedy of my miserable life; and if my
hour were not at hand, I should not have told you this."
"But you have not told me the fearful cause of no much guilt and
suffering. What is behind that mask?"
"Would you, too, see?" she asked, in a terrible voice, "and die?"
"I have told you it is not in my nature to die easily, and it is
something far stronger than mere curiosity makes me ask."
"Be it so! The sky is growing red with day-dawn, and I shall
never see the sun rise more, for I am already plague-struck!"
That sweetest of all voices ceased. The white hands removed the
mask, and the floating coils of hair, and revealed, to Sir
Norman's horror-struck gaze, the grisly face and head, and the
hollow eye-sockets, the grinning mouth, and fleshless cheeks of a
skeleton!
He saw it but for one fearful instant - the next, she had thrown
up both arms, and leaped headlong into the loathly plague-pit.
He saw her for a second or two, heaving and writhing in the
putrid heap; and then the strong man reeled and fell with his
face on the ground, not feigning, but sick unto death. Of all
the dreadful things he had witnessed that night, there was
nothing so dreadful as this; of all the horror he had felt
before, there was none to equal what he felt now. In his
momentary delirium, it seemed to him she was reaching her arms of
bone up to drag him in, and that the skeleton-face was grinning
at him on the edge of the awful pit. And, covering his eyes with
his hands, he sprang up, and fled away.
CHAPTER XXII.
DAY-DAWN.
All this time, the attendant, George, had been sitting, very much
at his ease, on horseback, looking after Sir Norman's charger
packet was about starting for the island of our destination, and
she saw a strange-looking little man carrying his luggage from
the wharf into a boat. She had the infant in her arms, having
carried it out for the identical purpose of getting rid of it;
and, without more ado, she laid it down, unseen, among boxes and
bundles, and, like Hagar, stood afar off to see what became of
it. That ugly little man was the dwarf; and his amazement on
finding it among his goods and chattels you may imagine; but he
kept it, notwithstanding, though why, is best known to himself.
A few weeks after that we, too, came over, and Prudence took up
her residence in a quiet village a long way from London. Thus
you see, Sir Norman, how it comes about that we are so related,
and the wrong I have done them all."
"You have, indeed!" said Sir Norman, gravely, having listened,
much shocked and displeased, at this open confession; "and to one
of them it is beyond our power to atone. Do you know the life of
misery to which she has been assigned?"
"I know it all, and have repented for it in my own heart, in dust
and ashes! Even I - unlike all other earthly creatures as I am -
have a conscience, and it has given me no rest night or day
since. From that hour I have never lost sight of them; every
sorrow they have undergone has been known to me, and added to my
own; and yet I could not, or would not, undo what I had done.
Leoline knows all now; and she will tell Hubert, since destiny
has brought them together; and whether they will forgive me I
know not. But yet they might; for they have long and happy lives
before them, and we can forgive everything to the dead."
"But you are not dead," said Sir Norman; "and there is repentance
and pardon for all. Much as you have wronged them, they will
forgive you; and Heaven is not less merciful than they!"
"They may; for I have striven to atone. In my house there are
proofs and papers that will put them in possession of all, and
more than all, they have lost. But life is a burden of torture
I will bear no longer. The death of him who died for me this
night is the crowning tragedy of my miserable life; and if my
hour were not at hand, I should not have told you this."
"But you have not told me the fearful cause of no much guilt and
suffering. What is behind that mask?"
"Would you, too, see?" she asked, in a terrible voice, "and die?"
"I have told you it is not in my nature to die easily, and it is
something far stronger than mere curiosity makes me ask."
"Be it so! The sky is growing red with day-dawn, and I shall
never see the sun rise more, for I am already plague-struck!"
That sweetest of all voices ceased. The white hands removed the
mask, and the floating coils of hair, and revealed, to Sir
Norman's horror-struck gaze, the grisly face and head, and the
hollow eye-sockets, the grinning mouth, and fleshless cheeks of a
skeleton!
He saw it but for one fearful instant - the next, she had thrown
up both arms, and leaped headlong into the loathly plague-pit.
He saw her for a second or two, heaving and writhing in the
putrid heap; and then the strong man reeled and fell with his
face on the ground, not feigning, but sick unto death. Of all
the dreadful things he had witnessed that night, there was
nothing so dreadful as this; of all the horror he had felt
before, there was none to equal what he felt now. In his
momentary delirium, it seemed to him she was reaching her arms of
bone up to drag him in, and that the skeleton-face was grinning
at him on the edge of the awful pit. And, covering his eyes with
his hands, he sprang up, and fled away.
CHAPTER XXII.
DAY-DAWN.
All this time, the attendant, George, had been sitting, very much
at his ease, on horseback, looking after Sir Norman's charger