CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR.
But we must now return to Gerelda. She fell back, pale and trembling,among the cushions of the carriage, her brain in a whirl, her heartpanting almost to suffocation.
At the entrance gate of the old mansion, Gerelda dismissed the cab.Stealing around by the rear wall, she entered the grounds by an unusedgravel walk, and gained the arbor. Then she crept up to one of thewindows whose blind had swung open from a fierce gust of wind. The roominto which she gazed had not changed much. A bright fire glowed cheerilyin the grate, its radiance rendering all objects about it clear anddistinct.
She distinguished two figures standing hand in hand in the softenedshadows. The girl's face, radiant with the light of love, was upturnedtoward the handsome one bending over her. He was talking to her in thesweet, deep musical voice Gerelda remembered so well.
She saw the girl lay one little hand caressingly on his arm, and droopher pretty, golden head until it nearly rested on his broad shoulder.Then Gerelda heard him say, "I have in my pocket the wedding-gift withwhich I am to present you. It is not so very costly, but you willappreciate it, I hope," disclosing as he spoke a ruby velvet case, thespring of which he touched lightly, and the lid flew back, revealing amagnificent diamond necklace and a pendant star.
"Oh, Hubert, you can not mean that that is for me!" cried Jessie.
But the second dinner-bell rang, and ere the sound died away, Mrs.Varrick and a few guests entered the room. All further privateconversation was now at an end, but from that moment all sights andsounds were lost to the creature outside. She had fallen in a littledark heap on the ice-covered porch, lost to the world's misery inpitiful unconsciousness.
The house was wrapped in darkness when she woke to consciousness.Gerelda struggled to her feet, muttering to herself that it was surelydeath that was stealing slowly but surely over her.
Slowly, from over the distant hills, she heard some church-clock ringout the hour. "Eleven!" she counted, in measured strokes. As the sounddied away, Gerelda crept round the house to the servants' entrance.
To her intense delight, the door yielded to her touch, and Gereldaglided noiselessly across the threshold. The butler sat before the dyingembers of the fire, his paper was lying at his feet, and his glasseswere in his lap. So sound was his slumber that he did not awaken as thedoor opened. Gerelda passed him like a shadow and gained the door-waythat led into the corridor.
She knew Hubert's custom of going to the library long after the rest ofthe family had retired for the night. She would make her way there, andconfront him. As she reached the door she heard voices within. Sherecognized them at once as Hubert's and his mother's.
She crouched behind the heavy velvet _portieres_ of the arched door-way,until his mother should leave.
"Good-night again, Hubert," the mother said.
"Good-night mother," he answered.
He flung himself down in the soft-cushioned arm-chair beside the glowinggrate, drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it, dreamily watchingthe curling rings. Suddenly he became aware that there was anotherpresence within the room beside his own.
His eyes became riveted upon a dark object near the door-way. Itoccurred to him how strangely like a woman the dark shadow looked.
And as he gazed, lo! it moved, and to his utmost amazement, advancedslowly toward him. For an instant all his powers seemed to leave him.
"Gerelda, by all that's merciful," he cried.
"Yes, it is I, Gerelda!" she cried, hoarsely, confronting him. "I havecome back from the grave to claim you!"
She did not heed his wild cry of horror, but went on, mockingly: "You donot seem pleased to see me, judging from your manner."
For an instant the world seemed closing around Hubert Varrick.
She cried, "I repeat that I am here to claim you!" flinging herself inan arm-chair opposite him.
"Now that your wife is with you once again, you are saved thetrouble--just, in time, too--of wedding a new one;" adding: "You are notgiving me the welcome which I expected in my husband's home. Turn onthe lights and ring for every one to come hither!" she said. "If yourefuse to ring the bell, I shall."
Hubert Varrick cried out that he could not bear it; he pleaded with herto leave the house with him; that since Heaven had brought her back tohim, he would make the best of it; all that he would ask would be thatshe should come quietly away with him.
This did not suit Gerelda at all; she had set her heart upon abusingJessie Bain, and she would brook no refusal. She sprang hastily for thebell-rope. Divining her object, he caught her arm.
If he had not been so intensely excited he would have realized, even inthat dim light, that there was something horribly wrong about her; thatonce more reason, which had been until so lately clouded, wavered in thebalance.
"Unhand me, or I shall scream!" she cried.
Varrick placed one hand hurriedly over her mouth, in his agony, hardlyheeding what he was doing.
"For the love of Heaven, I beg you to listen to me!" he cried. "Youmust--you shall!"
She sprang backward from him, falling heavily over one of the chairs asshe did so. There was a heavy thud which awakened with a start thesleeping butler on the floor below. With one bound he had reached thedoor that opened upon the lower corridor.
"Thieves! robbers!" he ejaculated under his breath.
His first impulse was to cry aloud, but the next moment it occurred tohim that the better plan would be to break upon the midnight intruderunawares, and assist his master in vanquishing him. The door was ajar,and in the semi-darkness he beheld Hubert Varrick, his master,struggling desperately with some dark, swaying figure. In that sameinstant Varrick tripped upon a hassock and fell backward, striking hishead heavily against the marble mantel.
The butler lost no time. Quick as a flash he had cleared the distancebetween the door-way and that other figure--which attempted to clutch athim in turn--and raising the knife he had caught up from the table ofthe room below, he buried it to the hilt in the swaying, writhing form.The next instant it fell heavily at his feet. A moan, that soundedwonderfully like a woman's, fell upon his horrified ear.
Varrick did not rise, though the terrified butler called upon himvehemently. He had the presence of mind, even in that calamity, to turnon the gas, and as a flood of light illumined the scene, he saw that itwas a _woman_ lying at his feet--ay, a woman into whose body he hadplunged that fatal knife!--while his master lay unconscious but a fewfeet distant.
"Help! I am dying!" gasped the woman.
Those words recalled his scattered senses. Self-preservation is strongwithin us all. As in a glass, darkly, the terrified butler, realizingwhat he had done, saw arrest and prison before him, and realized thatthe gallows yawned before him in the near future.
The thought came to him that there was but one thing to do, and that wasto make his escape.
Every moment was precious. His strained ear caught the sound of acommotion on the floor above. He knew in an instant more they would findhim there with the tell-tale knife, dripping with blood, in his hand.
He flung it from him and made a dash from the room. It was not a momenttoo soon, for the opposite door, which led to the private stair-way, hadbarely closed after him ere the sound of approaching footsteps wasplainly heard hurrying quickly toward the library.
In that instant Hubert Varrick--who had been dazed by his fall, and theterrible blow on his head caused by striking it against the mantel--wasstruggling to a sitting posture. Varrick had scarcely regained his feetere the _portieres_ were flung quickly aside, and his mother and half adozen servants appeared.
A horrible shriek rent the air as Mrs. Varrick's eyes fell upon her son,and the figure of a woman but a few feet from him with a knife lyingbeside her.
"What does it mean?" cried Mrs. Varrick.
He pointed to the fallen figure.
"Gerelda has come back to torture me, mother!" he cried.
By a terrible effort Gerelda struggle
d to her knees.
"Hear me, one and all!" she cried. "Listen; while yet the strength ismine, I will proclaim it! See, I am dying--that man, my husband, is mymurderer! He murdered me to keep me from touching the bell-rope--to tellyou all I was here!"
With this horrible accusation on her lips, Gerelda sunk backunconscious.
Who shall picture the scene that ensued?
"It is false--all false--so help me Heaven!" Hubert panted. That was allthat he could say.
The sound of the commotion within had reached the street, and hadbrought two of the night-watchmen hurrying to the scene. Their loudpeal at the bell brought down a servant, who admitted them at once. In atrice they had sprung up the broad stair-way to the landing above, fromwhence the excited voices proceeded, appearing on the threshold just intime to hear Gerelda's terrible accusation. Each laid a hand on HubertVarrick's shoulder.
"You will have to come with us," they said.
Mrs. Varrick sprung forward and flung herself on her knees before them.
"Oh, you must not, you shall not take him!" she cried; "my darling sonis innocent!"
It was a mercy from Heaven that unconsciousness came upon her in thatmoment and the dread happenings of the world were lost to her. Therewere the bitterest wailings from the old servants as the men of the lawled Hubert away.
In the excitement no one had remembered Gerelda; now the servantscarried her to a _boudoir_ across the hall, and summoned a doctor.
"If this poor girl recovers it will be little short of a miracle," hesaid.
Through all this commotion Jessie Bain slept on, little realizing thetragic events that were transpiring around her. No one thought ofawakening her. The sun was shining bright and clear when she opened hereyes on the light the next morning.
How strangely still the house seemed! For a moment Jessie wasbewildered. Had it not been that the sun lay in a great bar in thecenter of the room--and it never reached this point until nearly eightin the morning--she would have thought that it was very, very early.
"My wedding-day!" murmured the girl, slipping from her couch and gazingthrough the lace-draped windows on the white world without. But at thatmoment a maid entered and she told Jessie Bain the story of the tragedy.
A thunder-bolt from a clear sky, the earth suddenly opening beneath herfeet, could not have startled Jessie Bain more. A few minutes later sherecovered her composure and hurried to Mrs. Varrick's room.
Mrs. Varrick reached out her hand to Jessie, and the next moment theywere sobbing wildly in each other's arms. Little by little the girl'snoble spirit in all its grandeur gained the ascendency. Slowly sheturned to the housekeeper, who was sobbing over the fact that there wasno one to take care of Hubert's wife, until a trained nurse the doctorhad expected should arrive.
"She shall be _my_ care," said Jessie, determinedly. "I will go to herat once; lead the way, please."
Who shall picture the dismay of Jessie when she looked upon the face ofthe woman who had come between her and the man she was to have weddedthat day and found that it was the very creature whom she herself hadsheltered--the girl whom she had known as Margaret Moore?
The doctor was greatly moved at the heroic stand Jessie Bain proposed totake in nursing her rival back to health and strength.
"Not one woman in a thousand would do it," he declared. "May Heavenbless you for it! Besides," he added in a low, grave voice, "you couldserve poor Hubert Varrick in no better way than by restoring her. Ifshe dies it will go hard indeed with young Varrick."
Jessie realized this but too well, and bent all her energies to nurseher back to health and strength, though what she suffered no one in thisworld could tell.
If Margaret recovered, she knew that she would go away with Hubert. Hemight not love her, but he would be obliged to live his whole life outwith her. If she died, he would hang for it. Better that he should live,even with the other one, than die.
Her heart went out to Hubert Varrick in the bitterest of sorrow. Sherealized what he must be suffering. She would have flown to him on thewings of love, but she dared not.
She wrote a letter to him for his mother, at her dictation, adding alittle tear-blotted postscript of her own, making no mention of her owngreat love and the sorrow that had darkened her young life. In thatletter she urged him to keep up brave spirits; that everything was beingdone for Gerelda, his wife, that could be done; that she was sitting upnight and day nursing her.
When Hubert Varrick received that tear-stained missive, in theloneliness of his desolate cell he bowed his head and wept like a child,crying out to Heaven that he was surely the most wretched man on God'searth.
He tried to think out all the horrors of that bitter midnight tragedy,which seemed more like a dream to him than a reality. He could notunderstand how Gerelda came by that wound, unless, through her terriblerage, she had attempted to take her life by her own hand; and throughthe same intense rage, strong even in death, wanted to persecute himeven after she had known that her moments were numbered.
As for Gerelda, her life hung by the slenderest of threads for many daysafter, and during these anxious hours no one could induce Jessie Bain toleave her bedside. But at last the hour came when the doctors pronouncedGerelda out of danger.