"A Modern Hercules," The Tale of a Sculptress/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
SALE OF "THE MODERN HERCULES."
Almost immediately after Olivia Winters and Mr. Connors had departed Horatio Nugent returned to Ouida's presence.
"I have just seen Marie Salmon and Milton Royle," said he.
"Milton Royle," she said, "so he has returned from abroad?"
"Yes, and radiant with victory. He has won the first prize at Rome, and was most anxious to offer his gratitude to you, but I knew you were weary with the trials of the day, and begged him to come some other time."
"I am glad you did so. The sight of his beaming face would have recalled memories that would have made me doubly sad."
"Yes, the period of your triumphs before I cast my dark and grim shadow over the sunshine of your life. Woe is me!"
"And do you think," said Ouida, with infinite tenderness, "that I regret you?"
"That is the very thought that sears my soul. I know my wrong to you. Yet through it all your brave smile remains. Oh! for the power to blot out the past; to dower you with the past."
"I would refuse the gift," said Ouida, "if I could not share my life with you. You seem fevered tonight, love. Any good results today?"
"No, dearest, only added torment," said he, sadly. "You remember last week I left my manuscript with Dixon & Company, the publishers? Their reader told me to call today. I did, with large hope and expectations. I was ushered into his office, furnished with artistic taste. 'Your work,' said he, 'is clever and original, but I have made some inquiries about you. You are Nugent, the preacher, are you not, who was concerned in an escapade with Ouida Angelo?' I could not and would not deny my connection with you. 'I like your work,' said he, 'but our house cannot afford to insult society, which it certainly would do, if we fathered anything from your pen.' With a careless nod he handed me my bundle of papers and dismissed me. And as I left, my heart almost bursting with indignation, I wished you again upon the very throne of art, that you might tear out my soul, and use it as a model for a creation, 'The Agony of Despair.'"
"Come, Horatio, lay your head upon my knee and let me soothe your aching brow." He gladly complied with her sweet suggestion. There was a brief silence, when, looking up into her face, he suddenly said:
"Do you not think, Ouida, that you and I have fairly tried the world?"
"Yes," said she, firmly, "and surely we have reached the end."
"Think you self-destruction is ever justified?"
"Have you abandoned hope so completely," she said, "that you let such dark visions come into your mind?"
"I am full of despair tonight," said Nugent, gloomily. "I see naught before me save the impregnable wall of fate. I can neither break through its thickness, nor scale its height."
"True," said Ouida, dreamily, "our lives have utterly failed, and if we quietly sought oblivion, the world would wag its tongue for one brief hour, then would speedily forget that we ever lived."
Horatio rose to his feet, and said with impressive solemnity:
"I have thought that when two, through their love, pure in itself, had gained but grief and tears, when they had reached that point when starvation, both of body and soul, confronted them like a hideous spectre; when their pride had been stung by pity; when love views love with more than mortal agony, affording no hope; Oh, Ouida, beloved, I have thought 'twere best to end it all with one bold stroke, and solve the mystery of the fate beyond the stars!"
"Your magnetic eloquence," said the woman, "moves me beyoud expression, We cannot longer live together. Your agony each day kills me a million times. Mine utterly unnerves you. Whatever course you deem best I'll share without a sob or tear."
"Then, since you are content, let us die together!"
"I assent," said Ouida, almost with joy.
"No vulger death of violence," said her lover. "I could not stab you with a knife, for the sight of your red, spurting blood, would rob me of the strength to do the deed upon myself. To blow your brains out with a pistol would be brutish. But see, here is a poison. This, in a small quantity of water, will provide enough to send our souls hence into the other world. Shall I prepare the drink?"
"Yes, and without delay. The morning sun shall shed its earliest rays upon our soulless dust."
And Horatio Nugent, upon whose eloquence once hung breathless, countless thousands, mixed the drink, with firm hand, that would self-murder two human lives. When ready, said he:
"The fatal distillation is ready for the taking. Farewell, my queen! Would to God I had never crossed your life and dragged you to the dust!"
He held ready the glass almost to his lips.
"And you, my king, farewell! Let me drink first. I would not look upon your rigid limbs, environed in the grip of death."
"Have your wish," he said, "here is the cup."
She raised the small vessel to her lips, and was about to quaff its fatal contents, when Edward Salmon, the lawyer, broke into the room, and quickly seizing the horror of the situation, struck the cup from her hand, and it fell with a crash upon the floor.
"Thank God!" exclaimed the lawyer, "in time to save you both."
"Sir," said Horatio, "may we not be permitted to die in peace?"
"You know not," said Ouida, "the grief you have prolonged."
"You told me yesterday to sell 'The Modern Hercules,'" said Salmon, breathlessly. "I have found a purchaser."
"Then sell it," said Ouida, "and dig our graves in decency."
"Sell it rather," said Salmon, in deepest sympathy, "and with the proceeds begin life anew."
"Our lives have run their course. We can no longer hold up beneath the world's black frown," said Horatio.
"That is the talk of the moral coward," said Salmon, boldly. "Come, I know your story. Draw out your strength, your manhood. Fate brought me here in time. You both shall live to look upon this hour with shame."
"He is right," said Ouida, arousing herself with mighty effort. "Look up, my love, we may yet wring from fortune's grasp a noble fate. Where is the purchaser?"
"He awaits without. Would see the work, pay the price and go."
"Let him come," said Ouida.
Salmon retired for a moment, and when he returned, brought with him—Paul Strogoff, the sinned against!
He only said: "I come not in anger, nor in vengeance; only in sorrow, to crave your pardon, that I live."
"Would that I had died ere this," said Ouida.
Horatio bowed his head in shame and humiliation.