A Mad Marriage by May Agnes Fleming (mini ebook reader .TXT) 📕

of you, Chris, for I have been a brute, that’s the truth. And look

here, I don’t mean this really, you know, but if anything happened;

if”—with a slight laugh—“I chanced to die, for instance—”

But she interrupts him with a shrill cry, like a child that has been

struck.

“Eric!”

“Foolish child! Do I look like dying? It is only a suppositious

case—let me put it. If I chanced to die, say to-morrow, you would

forgive me all my wrongdoing, my neglect? You would not have one hard

thought of me, would you?”

She half raises herself, and tries to look at him. But, still laughing,

he holds her so that she cannot see his face. “Answer, sweetheart—would

you?”

“I never had one hard thought of you in all my life, Eric, never, so I

could have nothing to forgive. If you died”—she catches her breath with

a sort of gasp as she says it—“do you think I could live? Oh, love,

that is all past. I can never have any life now apart from you!”

“You think so,” he says, uneasily; “but you are young, and—you only

think so.”

“I know so,” she answers, under her breath; and instinctively he knows

it too.

“Well,” he says, at length, after a long pause, “regrets are useless,

but I wish with all my soul the past three weeks could come over again.

I ought to have made you happy, little wife, and I have not. If—if the

time is given me, I swear I will. Now, let me go; I have letters to

write, and much to do this evening.”

“You”—she pauses, and looks at him with oh, such wistful, longing

eyes—“you are going out, as usual, Eric?”

“No,” he says, smiling down upon her. “I am going to remain in, as

un-usual, Crystal. Lie here until dinner is announced; I will write my

letters in your boudoir. You know I must always be alone when my

epistolatory attacks come on.”

He unlooses the clasping arms and goes. And Crystal nestles down among

her pillows, and shuts her eyes to keep back the joyful tears that come

to women alike in bliss and in pain. Just now her bliss is so great,

that it is almost pain; she cannot, cannot realize it.

He passes through the dressing-room, into the pretty, mirror-lined,

satin-hung nest beyond, that is Crystal’s sitting-room, leaving both

doors ajar. He lights the lamps himself, draws pens, ink, and paper

before him, and sits down to write. He must leave a few parting lines

with Boville for his mother and Crystal in case of the worst. He wishes

he had made a will to-day instead of going to Asni�res, but it is too

late for that. The title and estate go to a distant cousin of his

father’s, unless—yes, there is one unless. It is something Crystal has

never spoken of—he thinks himself it is unlikely.

“By Jove!” he says, under his breath. “I hope so, for her sake, poor

little soul. It will console her; and dead or alive, a fellow likes to

perpetuate the title.”

He begins his mother’s letter first. It will be the easier. He writes,

“Hotel du Louvre, February 26, 18—. My dear mother,” and there he

stops, and gnaws the gold handle of his pen, and pulls his amber

mustache, and stares at the blank sheet with troubled blue eyes. What

shall he say? It will almost go as hard with her as with Crystal.

Absolutely these preliminaries are worse than the thing itself.

The minutes tick off—still he sits and stares at the white paper. What

shall he say—how shall he word it? Some fellows have a knack of writing

things—he has none—never had. Beauty and brains don’t, as a rule,

travel in company. Eric, Lord Dynely, never felt the want of the

latter—that refuge of the destitute, before. By Jove! What shall he say

to her? Then, as he plunges the pen in desperation down in the ink,

determined to say something or perish, the door is burst suddenly

open, and Terry Dennison comes impetuously in. Terry Dennison, flushed

of face, excited of eye, and strides up to him at once.

“Eric, what is this? Is it true?”

Eric lays down his pen, and flushes also with haughty amaze and anger.

“Dennison! again! and after what passed between us the other day.”

“Do you think I would let that stop me now?” Dennison bursts forth,

excitedly. “Do you think I would heed anything you may have said at such

a time as this? Is it true?”

“Is what true?” still in haughty anger.

“Your duel with Di Venturini. I met De Concressault out yonder, and he

dropped a hint, but would not speak plainly. I know that Di Venturini is

back, I heard of your rencontre at the bal masque, and I feared

something of this. But I did not think you would be so mad—yes, so mad,

Dynely, as to accept his challenge. Tell me, is it true?”

“It is quite true. May I inquire in what way it concerns Mr. Dennison?”

“In what way! Great Heaven! he can talk to me like this. In what

way—his murder—for it is nothing less. Eric, I say, this must not go

on.”

“Indeed!”—with a sneer. “How do you propose to prevent it?”

“I will give information to the police. I will—I swear! If I can stop

it in no other way, the gens-d’armes shall be on the ground before you.

Eric, you shall not fight Di Venturini!”

Eric arose to his feet, that lurid light of anger the other knew so

well, in his eyes.

“You dare to stand there and tell me this! Meddler! Fool! If you are a

coward yourself, do you think to make me one? Begone! and interfere,

tell the police, at your peril. By George, if you do, when the prince

and I have met elsewhere, whichever of us survives shall shoot you!”

There was a moment’s silence—Eric livid with passion, Terry’s eyes

aflame, his breath coming quick and hard—then:

“You mean to tell me, Dynely, that if I prevent your meeting

to-morrow you will meet Di Venturini elsewhere?”

“So surely as we both live I shall meet Di Venturini when and where he

pleases.”

“But, Heavens and earth, Eric, don’t you know he means to kill you?

Don’t you know he is a dead shot, and that you don’t stand a chance. No,

by Jove! not the shadow of a chance. A duel! why this will not be a

duel, it will be a cold-blooded murder.”

“Call it by what name you please, only be kind enough to go.”

“Eric, you shall not—you shall not meet the prince. He means to take

your life; you haven’t a shadow of a chance, I repeat. Oh! dear old

fellow, stop and think. I don’t mind what you say to me—I don’t mean to

be meddlesome—I don’t mean to quarrel with you. Dear old boy, stop and

think. It is not you alone Di Venturini will kill—it is your mother—it

is your wife.”

“This is all nonsense!” Eric cried, angrily and impatiently “a waste of

time. I have letters to write, and I want to get to bed early to-night.

If you talked until the crack of doom you couldn’t alter things one

iota. Let it kill whom it may, I can’t and won’t show the white feather.

Di Venturini has challenged me, and I am to meet him at day-dawn

to-morrow—that is as fixed as fate. He means to shoot me, I haven’t the

slightest doubt; but that has nothing to do with it. The Dynelys have

never been noted for rigid virtue of any sort, or an overstock of

brains; but at least none that I ever heard of were cowards. I won’t be

the first to disgrace the name. Have we palavered enough over this, or

has more to be said? I warn you, I won’t listen. If you will not leave

me, then I shall leave you.”

He gathered up his papers angrily to go. Dennison advanced and laid his

hand on his shoulder.

“Eric! if you have no mercy on yourself, have mercy on your wife and

mother. It will kill them—that you know as well as I. Let me meet this

Italian cutthroat in your place. I’m a better shot than you, and he’ll

never know the—”

“You’re a fool, Terry!” Eric cried, throwing off the hand. “You talk

like a puling baby. Let you meet Di Venturini in my place, and I sneak

at home like a whipped school-boy, behind the petticoats of my wife and

mother! For Heaven’s sake get out, and stop talking such infernal rot!”

Terry drew back, and folded his arms.

“It is inevitable then, Dynely? You mean to meet the prince?”

“It is inevitable, Dennison. If your head had not been made of wood, you

might have known that from the first. I shall meet Di Venturini as

surely as the sun will shine in the sky to-morrow.”

A sort of smile crossed Dennison’s face at the simile. The rain was

pelting against the windows hard.

“The sun will not shine in the sky to-morrow,” he said, under his

breath. Then aloud: “And you are quite sure, old boy, that you know the

prince means to kill you?”

“I am quite sure he means to try,” Eric answered, coolly; “I am not at

all so sure that he will succeed. Now, then, Terry, I’ll forgive you

everything—everything on my word, if you’ll only take yourself off at

once, and stop being a confounded bore! When a man expects to be shot at

break of day, he naturally has no end to do the night be–-”

He never finished the sentence. With a face of white horror, Dennison

was pointing to the door of the dressing-room. Eric whirled round, and a

cry broke from his lips. There, in her wrapper, her face like snow, her

eyes all wild and wide, her lips apart, his wife stood. She had heard

every word.

“Great Heaven! Crystal!” Eric cried.

He sprang toward her. She was swaying like a reed in the wind, but at

the sound of his voice the blind, bewildered eyes turn toward him, the

arms instinctively outstretched. It was the doing of a second—before

he could reach her, she had fallen heavily forward on her face, a stream

of bright red blood flowing from her lips.

The two men stood petrified, horror-stricken. It was all so sudden that

for an instant it stunned them. Then Eric awoke. With a horrible oath he

sprang forward, seized Dennison by the throat, and struck him with all

his might across the face.

“It is all your doing, you fool! You meddlesome, thick-witted fool! If

you have killed her, by –- I’ll have your life!”

He flung him from him like a madman. By laying hold of the wall Dennison

alone saved himself from falling. The onslaught had been so swift, so

unexpected, that he had had no chance to defend himself at all.

Now he was forced to stand for an instant to regain his breath. The

flush had faded from his face, leaving it ghastly, only where the red,

cruel mark of the brutal blow lay. Then he plunged blindly after his

assailant, but in that instant Eric had stooped, raised his wife in his

arms, and passed with her into the inner room.

Dennison drew back, laid his arm against the wall, and his face upon it.

So he stood for a