The Unseen Bridgegroom by May Agnes Fleming (books to read for self improvement TXT) 📕

gas-light and silence reigned in her prison.

"Oh, dear, dear! what will become of me if this sort of thing goes on?" cried Mollie, aloud, starting up and wringing her hands. "I shall go stark, staring mad! Oh, what crime did my father and mother ever commit, that their sin should be visited upon me like this? I will stab myself with the carving-knife to-morrow, after dinner, if this keeps on!"

Mollie paced up and down like a bedlamite, sobbing and scolding to herself, and quite broken down with one day's imprisonment.

"I thought I could stand it--I thought I could defy him; I had no idea being imprisoned was so awful. I wish I could die and make an end of it! I'd starve myself to death, only I get so dreadful hungry, and I daren't cut my throat, because the sight of blood makes me sick, and I know it must hurt. Oh, Mollie Dane, you miserable little wretch! I wish you had never been born!"

Another dreary interval, and then for the third time came Sarah bearing a tray.

"Your supper, miss." said Sarah, going through the formula. "I hope you liked your dinner."

"Oh, take it away!" cried Millie, twisting her fingers. "I don't want any supper--I'm going crazy, I think! Oh, what a hard, flinty, unfeeling heart you must have, you wicked young woman!"

Sarah looked at her compassionately.

"It is hard, I know. But why didn't you do as master wished you, and get away?"

"Marry him! How dare you? I wish I could poison him! I'd do that with the greatest pleasure."

"Then you must stay here, miss, for weeks and weeks, months and months, and every day be like this. Your friends will never find you--never!"

"Sarah, look here! I shall be dead in a week, and I'll haunt you--I vow I will! I'll haunt you until I make your life a misery to you!"

Sarah smiled quietly.

"I am not afraid, miss. You're a great deal too young and too healthy to die; and you won't kill yourself, for life is too sweet, even in prison. The best thing you can do is to marry master, and be restored to your friends."

"Sarah Grant--if that be your name," said Mollie, with awful calmness--"go away! if you only come here to insult me like that, don't come here at all."

Sarah courtesied respectfully, and immediately left. But her words had made their mark. In spite of Mollie's appealing dignity, any avenue of escape--even that--was beginning to took inviting.

"Suppose I went through the form of a ceremony with this man?" mused Mollie. "It wouldn't mean anything, you know, because I did it upon compulsion; and, immediately I got out, I should go straight and marry Sir Roger. But I won't do it--of course, I won't! I'll be imprisoned forever before I yield!"

But you know it has got to be a proverb, "When a woman hesitates, she is lost." Mollie had begun to hesitate, and Mollie was lost.

All that long night she never slept a wink. She lay awake, tossing and tumbling on the bed, or pacing up and down the floor, in a sort of delirious fever. And--

"If I thought for certain sure he would let me go after the sham ceremony was performed, I would marry him," was the conclusion she had arrived at by morning. "No matter what happens, nothing can be half so bad as this."

It was morning, though Mollie did not know it, when she threw herself on the bed, and for the second time fell asleep. And sleeping, she dreamed. She was standing up before the minister, to be married to the masked man. The ceremony went on--Miriam was bride-maid and Sir Roger Trajenna gave her away. The ceremony ended, the bridegroom turned to salute the bride. "But first I must remove my mask," he said, in a strangely familiar voice; and lifting it off, Mollie saw smiling down upon her the most beautiful face ever mortal were, familiar as the voice, yet leaving her equally unable to place it.

It may seem a little thing, but little things weigh with young ladies in their seventeenth year, and this dream turned the scale. Mollie thought about it a great deal that morning as she made her toilet.

"I wonder if he is so very handsome? I like handsome men," mused Mollie. "He told me he was, and I know he must be, if he ever was a flirter of mine. Mr. Sardonyx is the plainest man I ever let make love to me, and even he was not absolutely plain. I shouldn't wonder if my captor were he, or else Doctor Oleander. Oh, why--why--why can't I recognize that voice?"

That day wore on, long, drearily, endlessly, it seemed to poor Mollie. Its dull course was broken, as usual, by Sarah fetching the daily meals; and it ended, and night came, and still Mollie had not spoken.

Another day dawned, and its dawning brought the climax. She had passed a sleepless night, and awoke feverish, unrefreshed, and utterly desperate.

"If it was death instead of marriage I had to undergo," said Mollie to herself, "I should prefer it to this slow torture. It's horrid to yield, but it's a great deal more horrid to hold out. I'll yield."

Accordingly, when Sarah came up with the morning meal, Miss Dane promptly addressed her:

"Sarah, is your master in the house?"

"Not at present, miss."

"Do you expect him?"

"Oh, yes, miss! He comes every day."

"Is he coming up here no more until I send for him?"

"I think not, miss. He is a great deal too polite to force himself upon a lady."

A glance of withering scorn from Mollie.

"He is a cowardly, contemptible tyrant, and you are a vile, lost creature and fool! But that is not what I wanted to say. As soon as he comes, tell him I wish to see him."

"Very well, miss."

Sarah departed. The long hours dragged on--oh, so long!--oh, so long! Mollie could take no breakfast that morning. She could only walk up and down her prison-chamber in a frenzy of impatience for the coming of the man she hated.

He came at last--cloaked and masked, and wearing the false hair and beard--utterly unrecognizable.

"At last, Miss Dane," he calmly said, "you have sent for me. You are tired of your prison? You long for freedom? You accede to my terms?"

"Yes," said Mollie, with a sort of sobbing cry, for she felt utterly broken down. "Anything, anything under heaven for freedom! Another week like this, and I should go mad! But, oh! if you are a man--if you have any pity in your heart--don't ask this sacrifice! Let me go as I am! See, I plead to you!--I, who never pleaded to mortal before! Let me go, for pity's sake, now, as I came! Don't, don't, don't ask me to marry you!"

She held up her clasped hands--bright tears standing in her passionate eyes. But the tall, masked man loomed up like a dark, stern ghost.

"You were merciless to me, Mollie Dane."

"But I am only a girl--only a silly, flirting girl of sixteen! Oh, forget and forgive, and let me go!"

"I can not, Mollie, for--I love you!"

"Love me?" Mollie repeated, scorn and anguish in her voice. "Love me, and torture me like this!"

"It is because I love you. I torture you because you shall be my wife. Mine, Mollie, mine! Because you would never consent of your own free will. It goes to my heart to hear you plead; but I love you with my whole heart and soul, and I can not yield."

"I shall plead no more," said Mollie, proudly, turning away; "your heart is of stone."

"Will you consent to marry me, Mollie? Remember the terms. One week from the hour that makes you my wife will see you going forth free, if you wish it."

"Free! wish it!" she repeated, with unutterable scorn. "Free, and bound to you! Wish it, when for that privilege I sacrifice myself forever! Oh, you know well I love my liberty dearly, when I can not lie here and rot sooner than leave my prison your wife! But, man--demon--whatever you are," she cried, with a sort of frenzy, "I do consent--I will become your wife, since my only chance of quitting this horrible dungeon lies that way!"

If Mollie could have seen the face behind the mask, she would have seen the red glow of triumph that overspread it at the words; but aloud he spoke calmly.

"My happiness is complete," he said. "But remember, Mollie, it will be no sham marriage, that you will be at liberty to break. A real clergyman shall unite us, and you must promise me to make no appeal to his sympathy--to make no attempt to converse with him. The attempt would be quite useless, but you must promise."

"I promise," she said, haughtily; "and Mollie Dane keeps her word."

"And I keep mine! A week from the ceremony you go forth free, never to be disturbed by me again. I love you, and I marry you for love and for revenge. It sounds inconsistent, but it is true. Yet, my promise of vengeance fulfilled, I shall retain you against your will no longer. I will love you always, and you will be my wife--my wife, Mollie. Nothing can ever alter that. I can always say hereafter, come what will, I have been blessed!"

There was a tremor in the steady voice. He paused an instant, and then went on:

"To-night the clergyman will be here. You will be ready? You will not retract your word?"

"I never retract my word," Mollie said, abruptly turning her back upon him. "I will not now. Go!"


CHAPTER VIII.

THE MIDNIGHT MARRIAGE.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh sat before a blazing sea-coal fire, in his cozy study, in comfortable, after-dinner mood. He lay back in his cushioned and carved arm-chair, a florid, portly, urbane prelate, with iron-gray hair and patriarchal whiskers, a steaming glass of wine punch at his elbow, that day's paper open upon his lap, an overfed pussy purring at his knee, the genius of comfort personified in his own portly person.

The world went well with the Reverend Raymond. Silks rustled and diamonds flashed every Sunday in the cushioned pews of his "uptown" church; the _élite_ of Gotham sat under his teaching, and his sixty years and the cares of life rested lightly on his broad shoulders.

It had been a very smoothly flowing life--those sixty years--gliding along as sluggishly calm as the waters of a canal. But on this night the still surface was destined to be ruffled--on this night, so strange, so extraordinary an adventure was destined to happen to him, that it actually compensated, in five brief hours, for all the lack of excitement in those sixty years.

A wet and stormy night. The rain beat ceaselessly against the curtained windows; the wild spring wind shrieked through the city streets, icily cold; a bad, black night--starless, moonless.

The Reverend Raymond Rashleigh gave a little comfortable shiver as he listened to it. It was very pleasant to listen to it in that cozy little room. He poked the blazing coals, sipped his red port, stroked pussy, who bore a most absurd feline resemblance to himself, and took up his paper again.

For the second time he read over a brief paragraph among the "Personals:"

"LEFT HER