The Masked Bridal Part 17

"Well, Correlli, I am bound to confess that you have stolen a march upon us to-night, in fine style," he remarked, in a mocking tone, "and madam--Mrs. Correlli, I should say--allow me to observe that you have outshone yourself this evening, both as an actress and a beauty!

Really, the surprise, the _denouement_, to which you have treated us surpa.s.ses anything in my experience; it was certainly worthy of a Dumas! Permit me to offer you my heartiest congratulations."

Edith crimsoned with anger to her brows and shot a look of scorn at the man, for his manner was bitterly insolent and his tone had been violent with wounded feeling and derision throughout his speech.

"Let this wretched farce end here and now," she said, straightening herself and lifting her flas.h.i.+ng eyes to his face. "I am heartily sick of it, and I trust you will never again presume to address me by the name that you have just used."

"Indeed! and are you so soon weary of your new t.i.tle? Not yet an hour a bride, and sick of your bargain!" retorted Gerald G.o.ddard, with a mocking laugh.

"I am no 'bride,' as you very well know, sir," spiritedly returned Edith.

The man regarded her with a look of astonishment.

He had been very much interested in his wife's clever play, until the last act, when he had been greatly startled by the change in the leading characters, both of whom he had instantly recognized in spite of their masks. He wondered why they had been subst.i.tuted for Alice and Walter Kerby; when, upon also recognizing the clergyman, it had flashed upon him that this last scene was no "play"--it was to be a _bona fide_ marriage planned, no doubt, by his wife for some secret reason best known to her and the young couple.

He did not once suspect that Edith was being tricked into an unwilling union.

He had known that Emil Correlli was fond of her, but he had not supposed he would care to make her his wife, although he had no doubt the girl would gladly avail herself of such an offer. Evidently the courts.h.i.+p had been secretly and successfully carried on; still, he could not understand why they should have adopted this exceedingly strange way to consummate their union, when there was nothing to stand in the way of a public marriage, if they desired it.

He was bitterly wounded and chagrined upon realizing how he had been ignored in the matter by all parties, and thus allowed to rush headlong into the piece of folly which he had committed, earlier in the evening, in connection with Edith.

Thus he had held himself aloof from the couple until every one else had left the parlors, when he mockingly saluted them as already described.

"No bride?" he repeated, skeptically.

"No, sir. I told you it was simply a farce. I was merely appealed to to take the place, in the play, of Miss Kerby, who was called home by telegram," Edith explained.

Mr. G.o.ddard glanced from her to his brother-in-law in unfeigned perplexity.

"What are you saying?" he demanded. "Do you mean to tell me that you believe that last act was a farce?--that you do not know that you have been really and lawfully married to the man beside you?"

"Certainly I have not! What do you mean, sir, by such an unwarrantable a.s.sertion?" spiritedly retorted the young girl, but losing every atom of color, as a suspicion of the terrible truth flashed through her mind.

Gerald G.o.ddard turned fiercely upon his brother-in-law at this, for he also now began to suspect treachery.

"What does she mean?" he cried, sternly. "Has she been led into this thing blindfolded?"

"I think it would be injudicious to make a scene here," Emil Correlli replied, in a low tone, but with white lips, as he realized that the moment which he had so dreaded had come at last.

"What do you mean? Why do you act and speak as if you believed that mockery to be a reality?" exclaimed Edith, looking from one face to the other with wildly questioning eyes.

"Edith," began Mr. G.o.ddard, in an impressive tone, "do you not know that you are this man's wife?--that the ceremony on yonder stage was, in every essential, a legal one, and performed by the Rev. Mr. ---- of the ---- church in Boston?"

"No! never! I do not believe it. They never would have dared do such a dastardly deed!" panted the startled girl, in a voice of horror.

Then drawing her perfect form erect, she turned with a withering glance to the craven at her side.

"Speak!" she commanded. "Have you dared to play this miserable trick upon me?"

Emil Correlli quailed beneath the righteous indignation expressed in her flas.h.i.+ng glance; his eyes drooped, and conscious guilt was shown in his very att.i.tude.

"Forgive me--I loved you so," he stammered, and--she was answered.

She threw out her hands in a gesture of repudiation and horror; she flashed one withering, horrified look into his face, then, with a moan of anguish, she swayed like a reed broken by the tempest, and would have fallen to the floor in her spotless robes had not Gerald G.o.ddard caught her senseless form in his arms, and, lifting her by main strength, he bore her from the room and upstairs to her own chamber.

CHAPTER XIV.

"YOUR FAITHLESSNESS TURNED ME INTO A DEMON."

Emil Correlli followed Mr. G.o.ddard and his unconscious burden, looking like anything but a happy bridegroom.

He had expected that Edith would weep and rave upon discovering the trap into which she had been lured; but he had not expected that the revelation would smite her with such terrible force, laying her like one dead at his feet, as it had done, and he was thoroughly alarmed.

When Mr. G.o.ddard reached the girl's room he laid her upon her bed, and then sent one of the servants for the housekeeper. But Mrs. Weld could not be found, so another maid was called, and Edith was gradually restored to consciousness.

But the moment her glance fell upon Emil Correlli, who insisted upon remaining in the room, and she realized what had occurred, she relapsed into another swoon, so deathlike and prolonged that a physician, who happened to be among the guests, was summoned from the ball-room to attend her.

He excluded every one but the maids from the room, when he ordered his patient to be undressed and put into bed, and after long and unwearied efforts, she was again revived, when she became so unnerved and hysterical that the physician, becoming alarmed, was about to give her a powerful opiate, when she sank into a third fainting fit.

Meanwhile, in the ball-room below, gayety was at its height. There had been a little stir and commotion when it was learned that Edith had fainted; but the matter was pa.s.sed over with a few well-bred comments of regret, and then forgotten for the time. But as soon as she could do so without being observed, madam stole from the place and went into the house to ascertain how the girl was.

She was, of course, aware of the cause of the swoon, and, as may be readily imagined, was in no comfortable frame of mind. She was met at the head of the second flight of stairs by her husband, whose face was grave and stern.

"How is she?" madam inquired.

"In a very critical condition; Dr. Arthur says she is liable to have brain fever," he tersely replied.

"Brain fever!" exclaimed his wife, in a startled tone. "Surely, she cannot be as bad as that!"

"Woman, what have you done?" the man demanded, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper.

"How have you dared to plot and carry out the dastardly deed that you have perpetrated this night?"

Anna G.o.ddard's eyes began to blaze defiance.

"That is neither the tone nor the manner you should employ in addressing me, Gerald, as you very well know," she retorted, with colorless lips.

"Have done with your tragic airs, madam," he cried, laying a heavy hand upon her arm. "I have had enough of them. I ask you again, how have you dared to commit this crime?"

"Crime?" she repeated, with a start, but flas.h.i.+ng him a glance that made him wince as she shook herself free from his grasp. "You use a harsh term, Gerald; but if you desire a reason for what has occurred to-night, I can give you two."

"Name them," her companion curtly demanded.

"First and foremost, then--to protect myself."

"To protect yourself--from what?"