The Masked Bridal Part 49

"You look like a ghost, Anna," he remarked, as he searched her face with some anxiety. "What is the matter with you? I fear you are going to be ill."

"I am ill," she said, in a hoa.r.s.e, unnatural tone.

"Then let me call your physician," said her brother, eagerly. "I am going out immediately, and will leave a message for him."

"No, no," she nervously replied; then with a hollow laugh that smote heavily upon her companion's heart, she added: "My case is beyond the reach of Dr. Hunt or any other physician."

"Anna, have you been quarreling with Gerald again?"

"Yes," was the brief response.

"Well, of course I can understand that such matters are beyond the skill of any physician," said the young man, with a half-impatient shrug of his shoulders; "neither have I any business to interfere between you," he added; "but my advice would be to make it up as soon as possible, and then try to live peaceably in the future. I do not like to leave you looking so white and miserable, but I must go. Take good care of yourself, and I shall hope to find you better and happier when I return."

He bent down to give her a farewell caress, and was amazed by the pa.s.sion she manifested in returning it.

She threw her arms around his neck and held him in a convulsive embrace, while she quivered from head to foot with repressed emotion.

She did not utter one word of farewell, but a wild sob burst from her; then, as if she could bear no more, she pushed him from her and rushed into her chamber, shutting and locking the door behind her.

Emil Correlli left the boudoir, a puzzled expression on his handsome face; for, although his sister was subject to strange attacks, he had never seen her like this before.

"Anna will come to grief some day with that cursed temper of hers," he muttered, as he went to his room to pack his portmanteau, but he was too intent upon his own affairs to dwell long upon even the trouble of his sister, and a couple of hours later was on his way to New York to begin his search for his runaway bride.

The next morning Mrs. G.o.ddard was "too ill to rise," she told her maid, when she came at the usual hour to her door. She would not admit her, but sent word to her husband that she could not join him at breakfast.

He went up later to see if she would allow him to call a physician for her, but she would not see him, simply telling him she "would do well enough without advice--all she needed was rest, and she did not wish to be disturbed by any one until she rang."

Feeling deeply disappointed and depressed by her unusual obstinacy, the wretched man went downstairs and shut himself into the library, where he remained all day, while there was such an atmosphere of loneliness and desolation about the house that even the servants appeared to feel it, and went about with solemn faces and almost stealthy steps.

Could any one have looked behind those closed doors he could not have failed to have experienced a feeling of pity for the man; for if ever a human being went down into the valley of humiliation, Gerald G.o.ddard sounded its uttermost depths, while he battled alone with all the powers of evil that beset his soul.

When night came he was utterly exhausted, and sought his couch, looking at least ten years older than he had appeared forty-eight hours previous.

He slept heavily and dreamlessly, and did not awake till late, when an imperative knock upon the door and a voice, calling in distress, caused him to spring suddenly from his bed, and impressed him with a sense of impending evil.

"What is it, Mary?" he inquired, upon recognizing the voice of his wife's maid.

"Oh, sir! come--come to madam; she is very ill!" cried the girl, in a frightened tone.

"I will be there immediately. Send James for the doctor, and then go back to her," commanded her master, as he hurriedly began to dress.

Five minutes later he was in his wife's room, to find her lying upon the lounge, just as he had seen her thirty-six hours previous.

It was evident that she had not been in bed at all for two nights, for she still had on the same dress that she had worn at the Copley Square Hotel.

But the shadow of death was on her white face; her eyes were glazed, and though only partially closed, it was evident that she saw nothing.

She was still breathing, but faintly and irregularly. Her hands were icy cold, and at the base of the nails there was the unmistakable purple tint that indicated approaching dissolution.

Gerald G.o.ddard was shocked beyond measure to find her thus, but he arose to the occasion.

With his own hands and the a.s.sistance of the maid, he removed her clothing, then wrapped her in blankets and put her in bed, when he called for hot water bottles to place around her, hoping thus by artificial heat to quicken the sluggish circulation and her failing pulses.

But apparently there was no change in her, and when the physician came and made his examination, he told them plainly that "no effort could avail; it was a case of sudden heart failure, and the end was but a question of moments."

Mr. G.o.ddard was horrified and stricken with remorse at the hopeless verdict, for it seemed to him that he was in a measure accountable for the untimely shock which was fast depriving of life this woman who had loved him so pa.s.sionately, though unwisely.

He put his lips to her ear and called her by name.

"Anna! Anna! You must try to arouse yourself," he cried, in a voice of agony.

At first the appeal seemed to produce no effect, but after several attempts he thought he detected a gleam of intelligence in the almost sightless eyes, while the cold fingers resting on his hand made an effort to close over his.

These slight signs convinced him that though she was past the power of speech, she yet knew him and clung to him, in spite of the clutch which the relentless enemy of all mankind had laid upon her.

"Doctor, she knows me!" he exclaimed. "Pray give her some stimulant to arouse her dormant faculties, if only for a moment."

"I fear it will be of no use," the physician replied, "but I will try."

He hurriedly prepared and administered a powerful restorative; then they waited with breathless interest for several moments for some sign of improvement.

It came at last; she began to breathe a trifle more regularly; the set features became a little less rigid, and the pulse a shade stronger, until finally the white lids were lifted and the dying woman turned her eyes with a pitiful expression of appeal upon the man whom, even in death, she still adored.

"Leave us alone!" commanded Gerald G.o.ddard, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper, and physician and servants stole noiselessly from the room.

"Anna, you know me--you understand what I am saying?" the wretched man then questioned.

A slight pressure from the cold fingers was the only reply.

"You know that you are dying?" he pursued.

Again that faint sign of a.s.sent.

"Then, dear, let us be at peace before you go," he pleaded, gently.

"My soul bows in humiliation and remorse before you; for years I have wronged you. I wronged you in those first days in Rome. I have no excuse to offer. I simply tell you that my spirit is crushed within me as I look back and realize all that I am accountable for. I would have been glad to atone, as far as was in my power, could you have lived to share my future. Give me some sign of forgiveness to tell me that you retract those last bitter words of hate--to let me feel that in this final moment we part in peace."

At his pleading a look of agony dawned in the woman's failing eyes--a look so pitiful in its yearning and despair that the strong man broke down and sobbed from sorrow and contrition; but the sign he had begged for was not given.

"Oh, Anna! pray show me, in some way, that you will not die hating me," he pleaded. "Forgive--oh, forgive!"

At those last words those almost palsied fingers closed convulsively over his; the look of agony in those dusky orbs was superseded by one of adoration and tenderness; a faint expression of something like peace crept into the tense lines about the drawn mouth, and the repentant watcher knew that she would not go out into the great unknown bearing in her heart a relentless hatred against him.

That effort was the last flicker of the expiring flame, for the white lids drooped over the dark eyes; the cold fingers relaxed their hold, and Gerald G.o.ddard knew the end had almost come.

He touched the bell, and the physician instantly re-entered the room.

"It is almost over," he remarked, as he went to the bedside, and his practiced fingers sought her pulse.