The Strand Magazine/Volume 4/Issue 22/At Eagle's Gorge
At Eagle's Gorge.
By E. M. Hewitt.
ASHA was painfully ugly. The Moon and Saturn were her dominating astrological influences, and the planet of fatality had written all his signatures upon her. She was tall, thin, high-shouldered, and pale; her arms were long and bony, her movements slow and awkward. She had none of the roundness or grace of youth, and her sallow skin, rusty black hair, and hollow cheeks seemed like those of a woman prematurely old. Her dark, strangely lambent eyes, shaded by heavy brows that met above her thin nose, failed to inspire terror only because they were infinitely sad. Her lips rarely smiled, but their want of fulness betokened self-repression and strength of will rather than coldness or egotism. Silent and sensitive, the girl appeared weighed down by the consciousness of her entire lack of beauty. She walked listlessly, with downcast eyes, and she loved solitude.
Thoughtless people, afraid to scorn her ugly face, sometimes spoke of her as a witch; but Nasha had a soul so beautiful that it attached to her all things innocent and sweet. Love of the beautiful was a passion with her, and this was the secret of the power which drew to her all that might otherwise have been repelled by her unlovely face. She seemed to possess a subtle influence that made the flowers hasten to bud and blossom under her hand, so that her garden in the wild mountain pass was a marvel of colour from early spring to late autumn.
"Little children would run to her."
Dogs would show an almost human joy at the sound of her voice, and little children would leave their mothers' skirts to run to her. All women who were sad or suffering hailed her coming with delight; but no one could have told you exactly why they loved her, for they were wiser than they themselves knew. They discerned the true Nasha behind the mask of her ugliness—that mean outer garb which was but the matrix that contained the gem.
The real woman was the pure, heroic soul, the faithful, mysterious, invisible being who walked the mountains, who pondered in loneliness, who was thrilled by the music of Nature's thousand voices and the breath of Nature's thousand. perfumes. It was for a glimpse of this beneficent mystery that the children clung to her gown, the sorrowful women sought her, and the dumb creatures were glad in her presence; and but for this comradeship Nasha's indeed have been a sorry life. Home, to her, meant simply the grim, grey building, wedged between great rocks, and called the Eagle's Gorge. Her only ostensible friends were Getha, the old woman who waited upon her, and Lyoff, her Russian wolfhound. The great complex world was only accessible to her through the crowded bookshelves of the library, in the blue-ceilinged chapel, with its tawdry altar and its shabby prie-dieu, and in the mountains round her home. The castle belonged to Nasha, not because the mother, who left it her, bore her any special affection, but because the articles of the loveless marriage from which Nasha sprang stipulated that the little estate in the mountains should descend to female children, while the husband, out of his own resources, should provide for his sons. As it happened, one daughter and one son were the only offspring of the union, and they became orphans when the boy was ten and the girl five years old. Nasha had, since the death of her parents, remained for nine months out of every year alone at the castle, her brother's life being led elsewhere.
Winter at Eagle's Gorge was a time of siege, against which provisions were laid in and logs stored up. The kennel was brought indoors, and Nasha, Getha, and Lyoff would sit around the fire, listening to the storms howling through the pass, conscious that the pure, refulgent snow was piling itself up around their fastness, drifting high against doors and windows, filling every cranny with its gentle flakes, and clothing the ravines in delicate splendour. With the spring came Volmer, who was not always as welcome to Nasha as the soft days that brought him. But she remembered he was her only brother, the head of her house, and she gave him the best greeting in her power, recollecting his favourite dishes, his tastes, and even his whims. He made but a poor return for her generous hospitality, lounging about the rooms, grumbling at their shabby appointments, and sneering at the primitive customs of the household at Eagle's Gorge.
It was not astonishing he should hate it; the contrast it presented to Paris, his usual dwelling-place, was so great. The brother and sister had no interests or sympathies in common; nothing, in fact, but their name united them. A beautiful woman might have been of use to the worldling Volmer; she might have given a reflected brilliancy to his career; she might even have lured gold into his pockets; but Nasha was worse than useless, and Volmer consequently, considering himself aggrieved, never looked at her without cursing his bad luck. Nasha, whose tranquillity concealed her painful thoughts, realized with pangs of a half-passionate despair the effect of her ugliness upon her fate. She, whose existence lay in such a sombre groove, dreamed often of the life that might have been. She had not bored over the library treasures in vain; from them she knew something of the world beyond her mountains, and she learned to believe that in the whole wide range of human life there is no magic like a woman's beauty.
Beauty could procure all the heart's desires—love, gold, pomp, power, the homage of genius, the devotion of kings—but the woman without beauty was passed by or frowned upon; men did not want her; women held her in contempt. Nasha thought of these things with poor attempts at self-consolation, but she seldom succeeded in even soothing her restless spirit; the aching would not be cured; the old longing would reassert its protest against Fate, but the futile wishes which sprang from it were never put into words.
Few guests came to the castle, as it lay far out of the beaten track, and Volmer always seemed to leave the memory of his Paris life behind him when he crossed its threshold. Nasha had never even heard the name of any of his friends. She was not curious; Paris and her brother's life were mere shadows to her. She knew enough of Volmer's character to be sure that, excepting while he was at Eagle's Gorge, she had no place in his thoughts. She kept on her way uncomplainingly, incuriously, giving him a gracious, if not very hearty, welcome when he appeared, and speeding his departure without regrets; but at last Volmer made his coming eventful.
One evening, as they sat at supper, he flung a portrait across the table to her, as though to challenge an opinion. Nasha looked long at it and returned it without a word.
"What do you think of him?" asked Volmer.
"He is very handsome."
"He is. All the women in Paris are mad over him."
Nasha made no response.
"You are not curious?" exclaimed Volmer, interrogatively. "Why don't you ask questions?"
"As you say, I am not curious. There is nothing I want to know. It is late—I am tired—" She moved towards the door.
"Nasha!" said her brother.
"Well?"
"Come here."
"What is it?"
"Will you marry this man?"
"You have never made sport of me before, Volmer," she replied, glancing at his animated face, and swiftly dropping her eyes.
"I say, will you have this man for a lover?"
"You are mad! Let me go. He is a king among men. He must marry a beautiful woman."
"He shall marry you."
"Volmer, be silent!"
"He is coming here," said Volmer, sardonically.
"I will not see him."
"But he shall marry you!"
"Not with his eyes open."
"Probably not."
"I thought you were merciful enough not to taunt me," said the girl, with an accent of bitter pain in her voice.
"I am not taunting you. I am in earnest. Wait. This time next year you will thank me as the best of brothers for the boon I am giving you."
"I do not understand. I have no wish to understand," said Nasha, almost passionately. "This only will I say, that while I am mistress of Eagle's Gorge, no friend of yours shall cross its threshold!"
"I have no wish to understand."
She controlled all further expression of feeling and walked away, leaving Volmer laughing. The next day he went back to Paris, and life at the sombre castle fell again into its quiet routine. But on the eve of his departure there had swept over Nasha's existence a great wave of excitement, which, all unawares to her, was to prevent her world ever looking the same again. She tried to live in her round of duties, and to banish the troops of thoughts that would invade her mind; she sought to put down rose and the passionate longings that swelled in her breast; she resolutely turned from sudden visions of a husband; of a sweet, helpless, thankless thing that should lie in her arms and nestle to her breast; of glad-faced, bright-haired children who should call her mother, and whose young voices should make music of the echoes around Eagle's Gorge. She strove to stifle the overpowering heart-hunger of her awakened womanhood, to drown it in bitter draughts of recollection and of realization of the actual, but she strove in vain. Her day-dreams became more frequent, longer, and ever more fascinating. The vague Prince of her childish and girlish imaginings irrevocably assumed the likeness of a living man the man of Volmer's scheme. There were no mirrors in the inhabited part of Nasha's home; they had all been banished to the disused room which was her mother's bridal chamber, where the tell-tale faces were turned to the wall, and their backs whitened with the dust of years.
It was thought better for the young mistress of Eagle's Gorge to be spared their painful testimony to her ugliness; but she knew their resting-place as well as she knew the reason of their withdrawal, and now that the strange and awful longing for "the life of which her nerves were scant" had come upon her in all its force, she remembered the heart-shaped mirror framed in silver, which had reflected her mother's sad eyes, and she was impelled, in her agony of longing, to mount to the tower-room and consult its truthful face.
"Am I indeed so very ugly?" groaned the girl, as, trembling, she lifted the heavy glass. the cold, smooth surface seemed to mock her with the answer:—
"You know it!"
She carried the thing to her own room, where she polished the delicate silver so that it grew beautiful again, and she locked it away, for fear of Getha's sharp eyes, among her mother's yellowing laces. Many times a day would she ask it the same question, till the mirror, like a sentient thing, seemed to sympathize with her desire, and gave her back the strange reply:—
"Love is a great beautifier."
"Love is a great beautifier!"
After that Nasha never consulted the mirror again; it had pained and tormented her more even than her brother.
The summer wore away, and winter dragged through its slow months to February, which brought a reminder of Volmer's return. Never had the thought of his presence been more unwelcome. His letters, which had grown more frequent than usual since his last visit, were filled with hints that frightened Nasha, and whispers had also reached her concerning the nature of his life in Paris. Ruin seemed the doom of all the men whose friendship he acquired. More than one noble name had been dragged, through him, in the mire; more than one princely fortune had been gambled into his hands—to leave them again quickly. His insolent triumphs were beginning to be ascribed to no common means. Men sometimes spoke of him on the boulevards and in the cafés as in league with the devil, as a votary of the black art, as an accomplished sorcerer. These things came to his sister's ears, and a sinister warning, personal to herself, seemed to underlie them.
The date Volmer fixed for his return was earlier this spring than Nasha had ever known it to be. He also spoke of a prolonged stay, and hinted at a service Nasha was to render him. Partly because of this, and partly because of a presentiment of evil, the girl was less willing than ever to welcome him to her house. He was to reach Eagle's Gorge about sunset, and Nasha went out on the terrace with Lyoff to watch for the carriage, not because she was eager for its advent, but to master herself in the realization of Volmer's approach, in order that when he met her he should detect no trace of fear or suspicion in her face or voice. She saw the carriage at last, a speck on the white road below, and she sat down on a ledge of rock to watch its tedious upward journey. While she sat there pondering, more than half repining and quite excited, the conviction seized her that Volmer was not alone, and that the companion he was bringing to the castle would be, somehow, the victim of his reckless egotism.
By-and-by the wolfhound growled. It was his welcome to the travellers, whose steps, as they mounted the last part of the ascent on foot, now sounded on his quick ears. Volmer came first upon the terrace. He was a bold-looking man, with somewhat shifty eyes and a charming smile, beneath which a keen observer might have detected the possibility of relentless cruelty. After him came the impersonation of all Nasha's ideals—alas alas! the original of the portrait she had looked on once and not forgotten. It had not lied; he was supremely handsome, he was beautiful. The portrait had said as much as that, but what it had not told, what no portrait could ever reveal, was the perfect blending of delicacy and manliness in the smooth, fair skin, the dimpled chin, the sensitive nostrils, the laughing brown eyes, and the throat like a column of ivory, upon which Nasha's gaze was fastened. The man's splendid proportions, combining strength with the utmost elegance, forbade the insinuation that his beauty was too feminine in its refinement, and he stood before his friend's sister an all but perfect type of masculine humanity.
The shame of her own dearth of attractions rushed upon Nasha in the presence of so much wealth, and she crimsoned with mingled sadness and resentment. Then a bitter pain filled her heart, and she felt she could not forgive her brother this moment of torture. He was speaking, but she did not hear his words. He presented her to the stranger, reversing the rightful order of the ceremony, but in her suffering she did not note the slight. Her hand was cold as death when she laid it in the stranger's, but then there came a surprise which sent the blood coursing quickly through her veins. She dared to look into his face, but she vainly sought the expression of pity or scorn which she expected to see there. She could almost have thought he found her beautiful, so earnestly were his brown eyes fixed upon her, so entirely did they seem to appeal to that inner self which she felt to be independent of the ugly envelope enshrining it.
"Her appearance seemed to fascinate the stranger."
Perhaps her costume pleased him also, for she perceived his glance travel over its details, and a bright smile light up his expressive features. She was wearing her usual dress, that of the peasants of the district; a laced scarlet bodice over a white chemisette, a short black skirt, strong shoes, and her hair plaited with ribbons. Her appearance seemed to fascinate the stranger, and his pleasure in it, though entirely well bred, was very manifest; but Nasha rapidly grew uneasy under the novel sense of receiving admiration. She was almost terrified by so complete a reversal of her previous experience, and she thankfully responded to old Getha, who, calling to her from the castle, enabled her to escape from the surprising presence of her brother's guest.
No preparations had been made for company, and the accommodation at Eagle's Gorge was of a scanty description; but the hostess and her old adherent did the best their ingenuity suggested, and in spite of all their visitor expressed himself more than content. When Nasha spoke of the dulness of life at the rock-bound castle, he laughed; and when the brother and sister wondered how he could endure its monotony, he looked at Nasha and declared that he had never known happiness before. The significance of his tone, and his persistent seeking of her society, filled his hostess with a weird dread which soon mastered all the passionate delight his presence kindled within her. She went one day to her brother, and said, with an effort to which she had braced herself:—
"This is witchcraft! I will have nothing to do with it."
Volmer took her slender wrists into his strong hands, and forced her to look at him.
"Then you are the witch," he said, ignoring the latter half of her speech. "Nasha, when this man asks you to be his wife———"
"When! Yes?"
"He will ask you. Do not refuse him; he loves you."
"Are you not trying to carry a trick too far?"
"And if it were a trick—would you find it difficult to forgive me? Would that be a great sin in your eyes which gave you the man you worship? No, do not struggle; you must hear me out. You will do me a service in marrying Ivo, and in return I give you, as I said before, his love."
"You have bewitched him! I will tell him the truth!"
"You may do as you please; but I swear to you that you go down on your knees and solemnly vow by your patron saint, he will not believe you—he will only believe what I corroborate."
"Then he only thinks as you command—you have made him believe me beautiful!" cried the girl.
"I see you already forgive me," said Volmer, quietly.
"I cannot!" she exclaimed. "Ah! Volmer, let him go. Take him away again. Take him back to Paris. His life must not be ruined!"
"Wild horses would not drag him away from you," said Volmer, sardonically. "And you do not consider me at all. Unless you marry this man, Nasha, I am lost! Marry him, and I promise to turn over a new leaf."
"Is this the truth?" asked the girl, regarding him fixedly. He returned her gaze with an earnest look of his strange, inscrutable eyes, which seemed to her to dilate, and in some horrible manner to lay hold upon her.
"Yes," said Volmer, and the monosyllable dropped into her consciousness like a plummet breaking through weak, intervening barriers, and seemed to lie, a dead weight, in the bottom of her mind. Her heart was assailed by a great temptation, and she could not, try as she would, rally the forces of her intellect and her scruples against it. In her brother's eyes, which did not leave her face, she seemed to read all the marvellous transformation that might come over her existence. Ivo made, by some strange power, to see her as she longed to be, loving her as she yearned to be loved, and taking eagerly all the wealth of love which she had to give him!
She, the sad, lonely, hungry woman to whom Nature had been so cruel, could be his honoured, cherished wife, the mother of his children, the companion of his bright and of his cloudy days. She could have the right, as she knew she had within her the power, to entrance, to soothe, to sustain him; to live for him as he would live for her, his twin soul, his needed half, and together they would grow into a perfect being. Nasha was a mystic; her heart's cravings had taught her some truths which are only revealed by the two great teachers, Pain and Joy. Pain had hitherto schooled her; but now, in this supreme moment of temptation, she felt the presence of neither pain nor joy; she was only conscious of a mighty power within her, responding to a mighty power outside of her, of an impetuous rush of her will to a decision, and she accepted the life which Fate, through her brother, proffered.
She drew a long, quivering breath after those moments of tension, during which her heart had scarcely seemed to beat.
"If he ever learns the truth he will kill you," she said quietly, as she turned away.
"No," laughed Volmer, "he will kill you."
Her courage did not fail. There were moments, out of Ivo's presence, when conscience stirred within her. There were moments when, after the passionate delight in gazing at his beloved face with all the wild but secret worship of a soul ardent for self-sacrifice, a terrible fear dominated her, and conscience stabbed her cruelly. At such times she would fling herself on her knees before the altar in the little chapel, and lie in mute supplication, or she would walk half-way down the mountain to confess to the old curé in the village; but she always turned back before she reached him. She could not bring herself to speak of the love that filled her. Not to a creature apart from Ivo could she utter a word of the sacred marvel, the secret and the crown of life which she and he had discovered together. So she allowed the moments of torment to pass in silence, and her heart grew stronger till she almost forgot that Ivo was deceived. After all, was that a fraud which revealed her true self to him?
For some sinister purpose of his own Volmer hurried on the marriage, which was solemnized in the ugly little chapel, the bride wearing the peasant's dress in which her lover had first seen her, and which had charmed his artist eyes. Volmer and Getha were the only witnesses of the ceremony, and after it was over the former left the wedded pair to their honeymoon; but he returned, like a bird of ill-omen, after a brief three weeks' absence.
"I could almost believe I had hypnotised myself," he told Nasha an hour after his arrival, as he watched her supervise the preparations for his supper; "you have come wonderfully near to being beautiful!"
Ivo's wife made a movement of impatience, and did not immediately respond; then, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes, she answered him with a question:—
"How long is this to last?"
"What? Are you tiring of your idyll already? It will last, if you must know, just so long as I live."
"Then—should you die—"
"Your dream will be over. Make the most of it. Not that I intend to die yet, but one never knows."
"It was not for my sake at all that you worked this spell?" said Nasha.
"No. It was partly to test my powers, and partly to keep his money in the family."
"You are the devil's self!" she exclaimed. "But you shall not ruin him as you have ruined others. He shall know———"
"What? That he has been trapped into marrying a scarecrow whom he believes to be a Venus? How do you think he would bear the knowledge? Be sensible, Nasha, and keep a still tongue. Thank the saints you have so skilful a brother. One word from me, and you lose Ivo for ever!"
"Volmer and Getha were the only witnesses."
Launching this shaft Volmer left the room, laughing softly and glancing at his sister with a certain furtive expression, which was very feline. Nasha sat plunged in thought. At first she had accepted the deception for her own sake, but very quickly her longing and desire had become intensified by the realization that Ivo would gain more than she could by the love that united them. Before he met her wealth had been degrading him, and he was beginning to feel not only enervated, but disgusted by life. The old enthusiasms which illumined his days of poverty and obscurity had flared out fruitlessly in the early days of his sudden prosperity. He had unexpectedly inherited a large fortune, and in the indulgence of every fancy and of every generous impulse he had lost his hold upon himself, and become the easy prey of those who make life an ignoble chase after sensuous satisfaction—miscalled happiness. Nasha knew that she had recalled him to his better self; knew that her love had rekindled the high thoughts and aims the days before he became a mere votary of pleasure; knew that if he learnt the truth he would, in losing faith in her, lose faith in everything human and divine, sink into a deepening despondency, and end a despairing sceptic. Could she, dared she, risk this? No! Her first wrong had given her future wrong the guise of "the only practicable right."
Volmer heard no more from his sister on the subject of illusion, and when he announced his intention of returning to Paris, and taking Ivo with him, Nasha made no sign. But alone with her husband, a wild desire came upon her to test Volmer's influence over him, to pit her power against her brother's. Surely, love like hers was stronger than any mesmeric spell. She put her arm round Ivo's neck, and turned his face towards her own:—
"Must you go to Paris, love? I shall be so lonely without you!"
"It is Volmer's wish; I must go, my darling!"
"Ah! I see how it is. You are growing weary of this life—of me."
"Nasha! I implore you! Have I not told you a thousand times my happiness is here with you that I never knew what it was to be truly happy till I loved you?"
"Then why leave me?"
"Because Volmer has asked me to go to Paris with him. It will only be for a few weeks."
"Take me with you."
"Impossible, dearest; we are going on business. Volmer———"
"Volmer, Volmer! It is always Volmer! Are you a child to be led like this? One would think you had no will but his."
Ivo's sensitive mouth trembled, his eyes grew dim and troubled, the sunshine seemed suddenly to die out of his beautiful face. He laid his head upon his wife's shoulder, wearily, like a tired child, and clung to her strong hand.
"No will but his! Sometimes I think so."
Nasha's heart sank within her. Her punishment had begun. The deceit by which she had won him was beginning to work out its own retribution, and he, the innocent, must suffer with her, the guilty. For his sake, she would make a last effort.
"Dear Ivo, do you love me?"
He raised his eyes to her face, then gently released himself from her arm, and holding her from him said, speaking low and gravely:—
"Have I given you cause to doubt me, Nasha?"
"No, oh, no! I am only too much afraid of believing my own heart. I like to hear you say what it tells me; then I feel sure."
"My love, my dear love!"
"If I am that, stay with me!" pleaded Nasha; "let Volmer go to Paris alone."
"You ask an impossibility. I cannot take back my word, dearest. I am bound."
"I am bound."
Nasha kept silence. He did not know how true his words were. Bound? Yes! And she, who loved him better than her life, had consented to and riveted that bondage. Her love was powerless to save him; he would have to go the fatal way of all her brother's victims, while she stood by, watching, but impotent. This would be her awful punishment.
The following week the two men went back to Paris. Old Getha shook her head as their carriage passed out of sight. She had always known how it would be! No good ever came of hurried bridals; of course, the handsome gentleman had wearied of his wife, and no wonder! The Countess Nasha was as good as gold, and much more clever than most men; but gay young fellows only cared for pretty faces, and the chances were the Countess would never see her husband again. Beauty should mate with beauty.
For a long time similar thoughts filled Nasha's sad heart, and a thousand wild ideas, a thousand schemes, came into her head during her sleepless nights. She would go to Paris and bring him back—she would ask him at Volmer's hands, and then—but, no! She had done him a great wrong, and, now that he was free, she would not stir a finger to bring him back to captivity. His rightful place was in the world, where he could do so much good. Or, again, she would give way to her intense desire for his presence, and nurse the thought that he would return in the summer or the early autumn. But autumn brought nothing, save a hope that should have drawn him closer to her. Getha shook her head more mournfully than ever, but she was soon absorbed by her usual preparations for the winter, and by the time the frosts had come and the snow had put the household in a state of siege, all seemed as it had been in the years gone by, save for the ring on Nasha's finger and the unwonted fabrication of little garments which occupied her hands.
By the mercy of the saints the snow began to melt in January, and the first emissary to Eagle's Gorge from the outside world was the postman with a telegram for Nasha.
"Volmer has died suddenly. I am coming back to you.—Ivo."
Coming back alone! Coming back to what? To a loving wife whose face was hideous, whose long figure was lean and ungainly, who lacked all the grace and attraction he had been bewitched into attributing to her. He was coming back to shocking disenchantment—perhaps to such disgust and loathing that he would make her bitter grief more bitter by cursing and forswearing her and her unborn child. Even so: she loved him well enough to bear all silence, to let him go, renounce, forget her, and to wear out her own heart in the solitary wilds of Eagle's Gorge, where none would intrude upon her desolation or remark her pain. Volmer was dead! Doubtless his life had flashed out in some swift disaster of his own occasioning, and there had been no time to set things right for her, so that her peace, her joy, her dream of continued happiness had vanished with him. The second effect of Ivo's message was to appal and stupefy her; but she soon reawakened to the full significance of the fatal words. She understood all they meant, and all the years to come would mean, and she was driven near to frenzy.
"Oh, God! let me keep him! Let me be always beautiful in his eyes! Let him never know me other than what he believes me to be. Let me die rather than he should know the truth. He must not know! He shall not know! I would sooner have him blind—blind!..."
Ah, God! what was she saying? What was she praying for? Where was her terror driving her? It was her husband, the father of her child, upon whom she was invoking calamity. The thought of the helpless being who was not wholly hers nor wholly his, but the belonging to both, seemed to stem the torrent of her remorseful passion, and to partly calm the storm in her heart. She instinctively turned towards the chapel, and throwing herself at the foot of her bridal altar she silently sought help and guidance from the long-suffering God whose name is so often taken in vain.
"Getha found her senseless."
There, several hours later, Getha found her senseless, Ivo's telegram clutched in her hand. The old woman read it by the flickering light of the lamp she carried, and she thought she comprehended the situation. Her one fear was lest the long-absent husband might return too late.
When Nasha awoke to consciousness the year was two months old. She remembered everything perfectly. She asked for a calendar, and counted the days since the fatal news had been brought her. Probably in the interval he had come, seen her, and gone, but she dared ask no questions. She lay mute and white for awhile, feeling more than thinking; then she bent over the baby face sleeping beside her, and carefully scrutinized its tender lineaments. Thank God! Some, at least, of her strenuous prayers had been answered: her infant did not resemble her.
Love, the mysterious artificer, working unseen, had moulded the little creature in the image of its father; the bud contained the promise of as rich a beauty; it would blossom by-and-by into as fine and sweet a flower. "Enfant de l'amour ressemble-toujours au père." Nasha lay long pondering on the sweet phase of her life which was for ever passed, and letting one of her sensitive hands stray over the precious little hostage she had given to fortune, while her other hand and arm held it fast. The room was darkened, but her eyes, accustomed to the gloom, saw that the place where her attendant had been sitting was vacant, and that she was alone.
By-and-by someone fumbled at the latch of the door. Evidently the person was a stranger, unacquainted with the old-fashioned fastening; yet surely there was light in the corridor, and they could see the way to lift it. Was this still a part of the wearying, confused dream through which she had been so long struggling, and which had just now seemed dispelled? The thought—the dread of Ivo rushed upon her, and her delirium threatened to return. Her arm tightened round her child, and every combative instinct within her became suddenly on the alert. He should not take this treasure from her—all else, his love, himself, his name, she deserved to lose, for she had cruelly deceived him; but the child should not be torn from her while she lived. How softly and uncertainly he was moving now that he had got into the room. She watched him from under her half-closed lids—watched him intently, her heart nearly standing still in the stress of her agonizing suspense. He approached her with outstretched arms. She saw that he wore his travelling cloak, and that it was thrown open, showing his firm white throat. Oh, how dear he was to her! What fate could be worse than losing him? Could she survive another parting? She clasped the child and trembled; the bitterness of death was in that moment.
His step was unsteady, and he seemed afraid of knocking something down. Perhaps the outside sunshine still dazzled his eyes, and he could not perceive the objects in that darkened room; but presently he reached the carved bedpost and grasped it with an eager gesture; then he began feeling along the edge of the coverlet towards where she lay. She thought she understood the action; he fancied she was asleep. She could not speak, her throat seemed parched; terror of the moment when he would see her and know the truth, paralyzed her. He seemed to be groping by the side of the bed—it was a strange and ugly word, but she could find no other to express his peculiar movements; then she felt his hand upon her, and her soul seemed to rush out to him, while a convulsive movement agitated her whole being, but no sound came from her parted lips, though she strove to speak his name. Then he stooped, and she felt his lips on hers in such a kiss as they had known but once before.
"Nasha!"
His voice was full of love, and of a new tenderness. She looked into his face, and saw that he was gazing fixedly at her, but there was no horror, no surprise in his eyes. She must have shown the eager astonishment in her, but Ivo did not appear to notice it. She could not immediately to his fond greeting—she could not obey the impulse to raise her unoccupied hand and touch his dear head, for the dread lest he did not yet understand, and lest he would still repudiate her, weighed down her heart. Had Volmer lived long enough to make all right for her? He had been wild, and she had thought him heartless, but perhaps he had loved her, and had remembered, if there had been time—
"Nasha!".
Ivo was clinging to the hand which lay outside the bedclothes. He was bending over her until she could feel his heart beat, and she found him searching for her face as though his eyes were in his fingers. Ah! he loved her still. Volmer's spell was yet upon him, but now he would love the child, and if the child outlived the spell she would form a new and powerful link between them that would make all further spell needless.
"Do you see the child?" she asked, following out her thoughts; "she is so beautiful!"
"How could it be otherwise, Nasha, when her mother is so beautiful?"
She grew paler than ever against the white pillows.
"But you must look at her. See, Ivo!"
He felt for the baby's face as he had felt for hers.
"Is she not beautiful?" asked Nasha.
"You tell me so, love!"
Something in the intonation of his voice, or in his manner, struck a chill into her. She looked keenly at him, forgetting everything in the world beside him; she struggled into a sitting posture, letting the child slip from her arm, and stretched out her strong, supple white hands—those hands he had so justly admired in the early days of their love—to draw him to her. She sought to scrutinize his face, but he lowered his head from her keen eyes; yet in the rapid glance she realized anew that the baby was very like him. The tender thoughts and hopes which had been her sole consolation during the long months of his absence had fulfilled themselves in her infant daughter.
"Let me look at you, Ivo," she entreated, gently turning up his reluctant chin. Then she saw, as she gazed upon him, gaining courage from his undaunted calm, many things she had never noted in his face before; first, great weariness, then a terrible pallor, then—ah! surely she was dreaming—she feared to resolve her doubt.
"You have been ill!" she cried.
"Yes. It was that which kept me from you."
"There is something the matter with your eyes!"
His answer sounded more like a sob than a sigh.
"You are blind?" questioned Nasha, faltering.
"Totally," said Ivo, with a gesture unutterable of weariness.
"Can you not see the child?"
"No," he responded, drawing a deep breath that expressed a sort of heart-broken resignation.
"Nor—me?"
"No, my beloved; but I can remember your face. I shall never forget."
Nasha was silent; the tumult in her heart was too great for speech. She clasped him close, and caressed his tired head, kissing the eyes that were so pathetically unaware of all her outward deficiencies. Blind? Could it indeed be true? Would he nevermore behold the light? What was the impious prayer which had been upon her lips when darkness overtook her, and she was stricken down at the foot of her bridal altar? "Come what may, let me keep his love! Let him never know—" But she had not meant this! No, no; this was not an answer to her prayer. She writhed under the thought, though she repelled it so quickly. She had only prayed to retain his love; she had not asked God to hide her from him; and, with her, his child, and all the beautiful earth, the flowers, the trees, the sunshine he had so rejoiced in! No, no; this was too cruel! Gradually, while her arms were twined about him, the full extent of his calamity became clear to her mind, and with the realization a faintness overcame her. She released her husband, and lay back among the pillows, with difficulty repressing a groan of mingled terror and remorse. He sat patiently upon the bed, listening keenly to her movements, and fondling the child, which his hands had discovered.
"I tried to save him."
After a while Nasha spoke:—
"How was it?"
"There was a fire at the hotel. Volmer had come into my room. I tried to save him."
"You lost your sight trying to save Volmer's life?"
"My darling, he was your brother."
"He was your worst enemy—and mine!"
"Hush, Nasha! He is dead!"
"And he deserved to die! But you—you—oh! to have this death in life close down upon you! It is my sin, my sin that has brought it about! But you shall know the truth, and then—"
"Nasha, dear love, be calm! You are overwrought. Let me call Getha."
"No, no! Stay here. I must tell you I am nothing that you believe me to be, Ivo. You have thought me beautiful. I am hideous! Now—go!"
"Nasha, Nasha, I entreat you! It is not you who speak. You are beside yourself!"
"Not now—I have been—and you, too, have been made mad. You have been fooled, tricked, duped, trapped, made the subject of experiment. But now I am sane I am going to cure you. Volmer hypnotised you for his own devilish ends, and made you believe that I was beautiful. It is a lie! It has all been a lie! Go! go!"
"Do you send me from you, Nasha? I loved you, and I love you—but, alas! I am not only a blind man now, I am poor, helpless, ruined!"
"Ruined? By whom? Is that Volmer's work, too?"
"He is dead, Nasha!"
"Dead! He deserved death! Forger, thief, gambler, sorcerer!"
"Dearest, for my sake, forgive him. I forgave."
"He did not deserve your forgiveness! I do not deserve it! I am his sister."
"You are my wife, Nasha, my beloved, my"
"You do not believe what I have told you. You think me raving! But it is true."
"I must believe because you say it. But if it be true, what matter? I loved you for a beauty which you tell me is an illusion of my senses, but I also loved you for the soul within. I cannot cease to love you till you persuade me that you have ceased to be what I have proved you—pure, noble, generous, and brave. You are none the less the Nasha of my heart for this strange story—my Nasha, whom I yearned anew for when this darkness came upon How I me. How I craved for you! How I longed for the sound of your voice, the touch of your hand! All my life I had been seeking you, until the happy day when Volmer brought me here. And now—oh, my darling, I will not fetter you—you shall be freed! I am a poor, helpless creature, not the man you married. You do not deserve to have such a burden thrust upon you""
"Ivo, Ivo, you are more precious to me than anything in the world but this!" cried Nasha, raising herself and pressing the baby's waxen fingers to his face; "and this is only so precious because it is yours, too."
"But a helpless beggar, Nasha! Think of the shadow on your life, and how it will spoil it."
"Not so, dear love, not so. You are my sun, my world, my all. Thank God, you have no home but this! Now, indeed, I truly feel that you are mine, my own twin soul, and nought can come between us."
"She drew the blind man down."
She drew the blind man down until his brown head rested on her bosom beside their child's, and both were encircled in her passionate embrace. Instead of taking up a load, she was conscious in that moment of losing a heavy weight of care and trouble. What Ivo called a burden was indeed a burden of joy. Love, satisfied, content, sent a new strength coursing through her pulses, and Duty, wearing the aspect of an angel, whispered the words retribution, expiation, which fell like music on her ear. Joyfully her glad soul re-echoed the soft accents, and never, since the world began, did penance prove so easy, nor expiation so sweet.