THE MESSENGER OF LOVE. 839
“Sit down," she said, forcibly pushing me
back into my chair, “I want to speak to you.”
Turning those burning eyes full upon me, she said, “Madge, my poor Madge, do you love that young man to whom you are betrothed?”
“Yea,” I replied, under my breath, subdued by those gazing eyes.
“And are you so blind and deluded as to believe that he loves you?”
“I trust him with all my heart.”
“Then,” said she, in a low voice, “it is even as I thought. And you do not believe that his truth will turn to treachery, his fond words and smiles to sneers and taunts?”
“No, surely not, Cecile.”
“No; and it shall not be,” she cried, with a sudden flash, “I will save you from that destroying fate. I will liberate your soul while it is yet young with hope, The anguish which has corroded my life shall not be yours.”
“What do you mean, Cecile?” I asked, filled with a vague alarm.
“I will cut the thread of your life—see,” said she, drawing from the folds of her dress a long carving-knife, stolen, I suppose, from the buller’s pantry. “I will pass this across your throat once, only once, and you will be safe, Madge, and free.”
For the first time the fearful truth dashed upon me—Cecile was mad.
I turned icy cold; but steadying my nerves, replied calmly,
“Cecile, I do not wish to die. I do not dread the fate that you think is in store for me; you do not know Gerald,”
“I know best what is for your good. You must die!”
“But I am not ready to die yet. Give me a few days to prepare for death.”
“No!” she cried, with gathering excitement, “you shall not have another day. I have waited for this hour.”
I tried to think. Should I call? Thomas was the only one who could have heard me, and he was far away.
“Cecile, you do not feel well, I will bring you a glass of wine.” With a quick movement, as I spoke, I rose from my chair and moved toward the door. But the Frenchwoman was quicker. She seized me by the shoulders, I tried to release myself; but she shook me violently, as you would a small child, and forcing me back into the chair, said with m look of wicked cunning,
“Oh! your strength is nothing when measured with mine. Why, little fool, I could crush you with one embrace tonight.”
I leaned wy face upon my hands, shuddering to contemplate that swollen visage. A confused recollection of the last words of the doctor in New Orleans, “If Madame Bassigny cannot be diverted from thut profound melancholy, there are grave fears that her mind may sink under so heavy a pressure;” the careless comments of all upon her strange ways surged over my wind, Cecile had loved me, dreamed, poor wretch, that she loved me still; but could I argue with a maniac? It was no longer my well-known friend—it was a creature utterly bereft of all that distinguishes mankind from the brutes that perish, I was beyond the hearing of any human being. Despair, sudden and sharp, clutched at my heart.
Cecile had been walking hurriedly up and down the room, muttering and whispering to herself. At a slight movement from me she paused, flashed once more before my eyes that deadly knife, and said, in the constrained voice I remembered so well, “I have spoken to them; at twelve o'clock your happy spirit will leave this blighted earth. Do not fear, you shall not go alone.”
Like lightning she drew the key from the door and turned it from the outside; with a sudden peal of loud laughter she sped down the passage. My first thought was, would her darkened mind hold the design which rioted in its empty chambers? Would she return, as she said, at twelve o’clock, to give me to a violent death? It could not be. She would forget, and vent her frenzy in impotent ravings. But, not her sole mania was to spare me, by an early death, the miseries of her own blighted life; there was no hope that her object would be forgotten I had often said, that to die seemed no terror to me; but at this sudden view of death so near, so dreadful, my strong, young life rose up in fixed resistance to a fate so cruel. I sprung to the door and tried the lock—of course it resisted me, I put my hand to my forehead, I tried to remember how it was that a lock was forced. I thought of the scissors—with the thought they were in my hand inserting them carefully into the lock. I tried to turn it, the faithless steel snapped. A fender of thick wire stood in one corner of the room; with hands lacerated by their ragged edges, I tore the wires apart, twisted off a scrap of the thickest, and bent it, as nearly as I could remember into the shape of the little tool used by locksmiths. Alas! the broken fragments of scissors left in the lock rendered that effort useless. A strong, iron poker was lying on the hearth. I inserted it into the ward, and exerted my utmost strength
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