University of Virginia Library

13. CHAPTER THIRTEENTH.
THE ANCIENT COIN.

Madeline!

The moon gleams through the narrow window, whose white curtains
are turned aside from the small panes, framed in lead, and shining over
the dark coverlet of the bed, discloses the snowy form reposing in
its centre.

It is by no means a spacious room, nor are the walls concealed by rich
purple tapestry, nor do the creations of the painter's soul glow in the
moonlight, from frames profuse in gilding and decked with elaborate carvings.
The floor is bare; the walls covered with panels of dark oak; two
windows give light to the narrow apartment, one looking to the west and
the other to the south. Between these windows, in the corner, stands a
small bed; two or three quaint chairs, and a walnut dressing-bureau, surmounted
by an oval mirror, complete the scanty furniture of the room.

And it is a very pleasant thing to see the moonlight gushing over the
dark coverlet from the southern window. While all is dreary winter,
white snow-drifts, and leafless woods, and cloudless sky without; while,
from the room below, echo the sounds of the midnight carouse, here,
in the Maiden's bed-chamber, all is silent, and the only light that comes
to bless her slumbering form, is the clear moonshine, gushing through the
narrow window-pane.

She rests upon the bed, her form enveloped in the folds of a white garment,
which, covering her arms with its loose sleeves, and her head with
something like a hood or cowl, suffers her clasped hands, and face with
the brown hair twining round its warm cheeks, to be visible. But the
moonlight comes lovingly to bless her slumbering form, and in its pale
glow, she seems not a living woman, but resembles the form of a dead
Nun, laid upon her sinless couch, with every limb and feature composed
in the sleep of death.

The shadows and the moonbeams struggle for the mastery, in the dim
and narrow room; now the light glares on the mirror and widens upon the
bed. The tread of the dancers, the mad music of the revel, echo from
the room beneath, but still she slumbers, her virgin face looking very
pure and altogether loveable, as the white hood and brown tresses contrast
with her dark brows, delicately defined eyelashes, warm lips and
rosy cheeks.

And the clasped hands gently rise and as gently fall, moved by the
regular pulsations of her virgin breast.

As she slumbers, her lips move, and the silence is broken by an incoherent
ejaculation.

“It is so beautiful! * * * And thou art indeed the Lord of these
valleys—* * * this gloomy hall where we stand, looking forth upon the
field and forest, the lake and river, smiling in the summer sun, is thine!”

Strange dream, that speaks altogether of lordly halls, and magnificent
hills and valleys, with no shadow to dim the sunshine, no cloud to darken
the brightness of the Future

“Madeline!”

The rays of a lamp fell softly over the face of the sleeping girl, and a
countenance, almost deformed by the struggle of contending passions,
looked in upon her slumber.

It was the young stranger, attired in the gray surtout, with curls of
brown hair clustering around his white forehead. Lamp in hand, he had
crossed the threshold with the stealthy footstep of a man conscious of a
Guilty Thought; he had closed and bolted the door, drawn the curtains
over the southern window, and now stood by the couch,—alone with his
sleeping victim.

“Madeline!”

It was spoken in a whisper deepened by passion, but the orphan girl,
wrapped in her dreams, did not hear the voice that uttered her name.

Turning in her slumber, she rested her cheek upon her right arm, and
her face was beneath the gaze of the intruder. Like a slumbering nun in
her white garment and hood, she lay before him, a soft flush stealing over
her clear brown cheek, her eyelids moving gently as their fringes shone
with moisture, her lips parting until the ivory teeth shone through their
glowing red.

He laid his hand upon her arm, and there was a sad look of determined
passion on his handsome face, as he heard the sleeper murmur his name
in her dreams.

With his hand grasping her arm, the enticing loveliness of her face
glowing in the light, he turned his gaze away, and his eye wandered to
the bolted door. It was yet time to relent; he might cross that threshold
in a moment, and the sleeping girl would be saved.

Ah, that some good Angel, whose solemn care it is to watch over the
sleep of child-like maidenhood, had warned him back; and in that moment
when he paused in trembling suspense, even beside the bed, had guided
his footsteps from the room, and from the home of the Orphan Girl!

“But no! The world would laugh when it heard the story—even
Jacopo would jeer! She loves me, and is already mine; for even in her
dreams she speaks my name!”

In silence he surveyed the sleeping girl, as the light fell in mild radiance
over her face.

“An hour! only an hour! And yet a great many things may be done
in an hour!”

His hand pressed her bared arm; his fingers encountered a stray tress
of her brown hair.

“Hah! She wakes—she will utter a shriek as she beholds me—all is
lost!”

While John stood spell-bound, unable to utter a word, the young girl
started up into a sitting posture, her feet hanging over the side of the bed,
her hands slightly clasped, and resting upon the white folds of her dress.

Her eyes unclosed. John uttered an involuntary cry of terror; for
their light was unnatural and glassy; they did not look into his handsome
face with the impetuous glance of voluptuous impulse, or the moist tenderness
of powerless passion but glared upon him with the cold stare
of death.

“The potion has killed her—I am guilty—” faltered the young man,
unable to turn his glance away from those glaring eyes.

It was with a feeling of unutterable surprise, mingled with a terror that
chilled every vein, and made his heart beat with a sluggish and painful
pulsation, that the Unknown heard the first words which came from the
lips of the Orphan Madeline.

“Reginald Lyndulfe!” she uttered, in a voice of unnatural intonation.

The face of John expressed the very extremity of apathetic wonder.

“My name!”

The Maiden, sitting on the edge of the bed, her gently clasped hands
resting on her dress, the light shining full upon her eyes, whispered,
still in that voice, unnatural as her glassy stare—

“Reginald Lyndulfe! A great lord, the son of a lord, he comes to
this forest home, eager to win a noble victory. With soft words and
gentle smiles, eyes whose glances thrill, and tones whose music maddens,
he comes to the home of the poor Orphan Girl, and comes to win her
from purity and innocence, into pollution and shame. It is a noble deed
for one so noble and fair to look upon! And the poor girl, sitting upon
her virgin couch, her senses wrapped in the delirium of an unknown
poison, speaks these words in the ears of Reginald, Lord of Lyndulfe, and
feels that in a moment she will wake from her dream—only awake to
forget the teachings of that dream—only awake to be more completely in
her Seducer's power!”

The young man stood beside the bed, the light in his hand, but without
speech or motion. The ruddy hue of health had passed from his face;
his dark blue eyes grew large and wild; an idiotic smile agitated his
nether lip.

He could not speak; he could not find in his heart the word which
was to answer these incredible words of the Somnambulist, nor had he
the physical power to frame an audible sound.

“Yes, Reginald—” she said, her large eyes yet veiled by that deathly
glassiness—“it is true. In this strange sleep I know you, know your
real name, and know your secret purposes. It is also true, that in a
moment I will awake from this dream—wonder to find you here, in my
chamber,—listen to your words, and yield to their deceit.”

Not one line of her features moved; not a tremor of the expanded lid,
nor a smile of the set lips, gave to the Somnambulist the appearance of
life. She looked like a beautiful image of Death, freshly gathered from
the coffin; and yet her beauty was more terrible to behold than the most
loathsome skull or skeleton of the charnel-house.

Spell-bound, unable to advance or recede, John stood by the bed, the
arm which extended the lamp, stiff and rigid as an arm of iron. He felt
the cold damps upon his forehead; he could not look to the right or the
left; the glassy eyes of Madeline enchained him, and held him motionless
and dumb.

The wind howled dismally without; he heard it, and fancied it was
some strange funeral knell, tolling from an unearthly bell, rung by demon
hands.

Even as the grotesque conceit flashed over his bewildered brain, there
came, crowding together, a mass of incoherent thoughts:

“The drug has the influence of some devil's spell * * * It has destroyed
her reason * * * It is not her voice which I hear, but the voice of a spirit
* * * So pale, so beautiful, so like a dead Maiden half-restored to life!”

Thoughts like these crowded over his brain, but he could not speak a
word.

She rose from her bed. With a footstep that seemed not to touch the
floor, but to glide over it, like the footstep of a spiritual thing, she passed
the form of the young man, her hands extended, and her glassy eyes fixed
on the vacant air.

“Here—on this very spot where now I stand—my Mother stood!”

He heard the voice, but could not turn and look upon her. It seemed
as though the same spell which wrapped her senses in this delirium,
filled his veins with ice.

“Here she stood, and begged for mercy! `Spare me!—if not for the
sake of God, if not for the sake of mercy, for the sake of my unborn
child!' And yet they killed her—”

Her voice, hollow and unnatural as it was, thrilled with a more ghost-like
accent, as she said these words:

“And yet they killed her! Upon this floor, ere the first cry of her
babe had melted on her ears, ere she had seen the face of that new-born
child, they murdered her, in her very anguish and travail!—Mother, your
robes are very white, but there is blood upon their whiteness. Mother,
your face is very fair, but there is the stain of blood upon it, too;—blood
on the brow and lip, blood everywhere!”

Still, with the light shining over the untenanted bed, the young man
stood there, conscious that the Orphan Girl was near him, but unable to
turn and gaze upon her deathly eyes, although her voice penetrated his
very blood.

“In a moment, Mother—” he heard her voice, as, in that slow, measured
tone, she spoke—“your daughter will kneel upon this very spot,
and plead, not for her life, but for her honor. Plead, not with her Murderer,
but with her Seducer. And, like you, Mother, she will pray to an
ear that is brass, a heart that is stone!”

The light, shining over the young man's shoulder, lighting up his
graceful form and livid face, also shone upon the white image at his back,
and imparted a faint glow to the pale face and motionless eyeballs.

How shall we explain this scene? This Orphan Girl, with her blood
wrapped in a spectral somnambulism,—chilled at its fountains,—her
bosom pulseless, her eye glassy—while her soul seems to burst into a
new life,—a life at once conscious of the unknown Past and the unknown
Future? Shall we say that all this was the work of the drug administered
not an hour ago, or the result of witchcraft? Or shall we boldly
imagine that it is not the soul of the Orphan Girl which speaks from her
lips, but that some spiritual Presence from the Other World now fills her
bosom?

Let us look round the walks of our everyday life, and explain the
thousand incidents, which to us appear so dark and inexplicable. Let us
summon to our aid all the old-time wisdom which was called Magic, or
the modern Philosophy, which bears the name of Magnetism. Where
will our explanations end? Where they began. We can only record
the facts—or what to us appear like facts;—the explanation is reserved
for another and more intelligent age of the world, perchance for another
and brighter state of being.

So, in relation to this incredible scene, now before us, we can only
picture, not explain. Perchance, in future pages of this history, we may
learn the mystery of poor Madeline's life.

Suddenly a sound, as of a corse hurled fiercely from its coffin—dashed
rudely on the hard floor—broke the stupor which paralyzed the senses
of the stranger. Distinctly he heard that sound—listened with hushed
breath for the voice of Madeline—all was still.

The blood flowed freely again; the strange terror which had held him
speechless was gone; he could speak, but could not muster courage to
turn himself, and look upon the maiden.

“Ah—this is some devil's wizard-craft! Jacopo! Jacopo! You
shall pay dearly for this!”

He turned—

At his feet, no longer pale and spectral, but throbbing and panting, as
with the first pulses of a new life, was stretched the Maiden Madeline,
her cheeks glowing redly against the brown curls and the white hood;
her eyelids, half-unclosed, gleaming with the moist radiance which they
could not altogether veil.

“She awakes from this wizard spell—” faltered John, or Reginald, as
you may choose to designate him.

Bending over her, light in hand, he soon forgot all his terrors—soon
forgot the pale, glassy-eyed maiden, in that half-slumbering image of voluptuous
loveliness.

“Madeline!” he softly said, while his cheek was flushed, his deep blue
eye, warm and passionate in its light—“Awake! It is I—it is your—”

Lover? He could not speak the word; and as for “Husband,” it only
rose before him coupled with the sneer of the—World.

“Marry her!” Even as she bloomed beneath his gaze, trembling softly
into a warm and passionate life, a sneer curled his lip—“Reginald of
Lyndulfe, and the Peasant Girl of Wissahikon! The world will forgive
the—the outrage, but a marriage—never!”

Merrily from the room below came the sounds of the midnight revel;
sad and knell-like the wind howled through the glen of Wissahikon; but
the young man, bending over the half-conscious girl, did not heed the echo
of the dancers' tread, nor mark the roaring of the blast.

His gaze was centred upon her eyes, shining dimly through their half
closed lids; he seemed to gloat upon the freshness of her parted lips, the
glowing warmth of her cheeks.

The bosom which, only a moment past, had rested beneath the white
robe, like a dead bosom in its shroud, now began to rise and swell. She
suddenly stretched forth her arms—with eyes wide open, glared wildly
about her—started to her feet, and shrunk away from the Stranger, as
though his very gaze filled her with indefinable anguish.

“You here—in my chamber—at this lone hour!—”

She faltered the words, and, joining her hands, stood in her white robe
before this unknown man, her hair coursing freely over her neck and
shoulders.

“Madeline, you do not love me,” he slowly uttered, his voice low and
distinct, his gaze centred upon her face.

“Ah—it is some dream. It cannot be. You—you would not—could
not be so base! To pass the threshold of my chamber at the dead hour
of night—to whisper words of love to a poor forest girl, whose faith is
plighted to another. Ah—it is not your voice that I hear.”

Without removing his gaze, the young man raised his clasped hands,
and, in a voice that was almost hallowed by the deep reverence which
was mingled with its passion, he continued:

“Madeline, will you listen to me? Hear me, before you reject my

suit with scorn. Do not condemn me unheard. Oh, when I stand thus
before you, and feel that we are indeed alone with each other, shut out
from all the world, and think how often I have longed, prayed for this
moment, I could kneel at your feet and thank—”

He covered his face with his hands. Did he fear to complete the sentence?—was
he afraid to take the name of God upon his lips?

“Madeline, will you listen to me?” he cried, starting forward, his
hands outstretched, his voice broken by emotion. She could see his chest
heave and swell beneath the coarse garb that covered it; and his manly
face, flushed by passion, and lighted by earnest eyes, seemed to impress
her with an emotion as wild and singular as his own.

“John—” she muttered, sinking into a chair beside the bed, as though
her strength had failed her—“You know that I am the plighted Wife of
Gilbert Morgan. When last we met, I told you the story of my life.
Depart—leave me—leave me—I cannot—”

Her words were incoherent, her accents tremulous and broken. As the
blushes warmed over her brown cheek, she absently tossed the tresses of
her hair aside from her face, and cast her eyes—shining with moisture
—to the floor.

“You cannot love him!” cried the young man—“That is it, Madeline.
Nay, do not attempt a denial. Your own heart confirms my words.”

Madeline raised her eyes—her face was very pale, her voice earnest
though tremulous as she spoke:

“Only a month ago, beneath the withered chesnut tree that stands near
the water-side, I first beheld you, first listened to your voice. That hour
brought woe and madness to me! Before I saw you, my life was calm
—thoughtless—but it was happy. An humble peasant girl, I had been
reared in these solitudes; cherished beneath the roof which now shelters
us; my only adviser, a rude Indian man, who, but an hour ago, warned
me to fear you, John; aye, to dread you as the Manitto of Evil. There
was another friend—a man, now aged, who dwells in the Monastery up
the stream, and who, from the hour of earliest childhood, unclosed to my
eyes the pages of the Bible, the knowledge of the world's past history.
It was Father Luke, of the Wissahikon Monastery, who taught the friendless
Orphan Girl the speech of the great world, and the lessons of that
holy Religion which says to all of us, even to the poorest and the humblest—`There
is a God, and he is our Father. There is another World,
a better and a brighter world, and it shall be our Home, when our bones
are dust.”'

She paused, her pale cheek glowing into sudden life, her eyes gleaming,
and a look of almost hallowed purity trembling over the lineaments
of her face.

“And Father Luke has warned me, John,” she said, “warned me to
fear you as I would fear the Enemy of Mankind!”

“Madeline, it is true that I have only known your name for a brief
month. It is true that your love dawned suddenly upon my soul. But
since the hour when I first saw you, I have not been the master of my
own fate. For love of you, Madeline, I would sacrifice all that is dear
to me in the world; in your presence alone I exist; away from your side,
my life is dark—Oh, dark—a dreary waste, without a flower; a gloomy
night withont a star! Listen to me, Madeline—instead of being as I am,
but the poor clerk of a wealthy Merchant, were I the titled heir of some
princely estate, I would fling title and lands at your feet, and be proud to
call the humble girl of Wissahikon my bride.”

Seated on the chair beside the bed, her flushed cheek relieved by the
brown hair, which swept freely from the folds of the white hood, over
her shoulders, Madeline looked up into the face of her lover, with a sensation
of peculiar character. It was not love, it was not fear. He stood
some paces from her side, in the centre of the floor, the light which he
held disclosing his manly face encircled by curls of waving brown hair,
his muscular and agile form enveloped in the suit of coarse cloth, which,
buttoned to the throat, relieved his countenance, and displayed the bold
outline of his chest, the sinewy proportions of his arms.

“It may not be,” she said, in a voice almost inaudible—“Our paths in
this world lie apart. I am the plighted Wife of another. You—you—
are unknown to me. Your very name—”

She cast her eyes on the floor; brighter and deeper the blushes glowed
over her cheek.

John placed the lamp upon a small table of unpainted pine, which stood
near the bed. Then, seating himself upon the edge of that couch, he took
the hand which she had not the power to withdraw. Her eyes were
downcast, but he could feel the hand which he clasped grow cold as ice,
and the tremulous motion of her white robe marked the throbbing of her
bosom.

“Madeline—” he said, in a voice which, low and faltering in its accents,
at once enchained the heart of the poor girl—“I have a few words
to say to you. You will listen to me—listen in silence and in patience;
for when those words are said, I will leave you for ever.”

She did not answer; with her eyes downcast, and her bosom swelling
with an emotion that was denied the blessing of speech, she felt the hand
of this unknown man pressing her own, and could not withdraw her hand
from his grasp.

“You have read of other lands, Madeline. Have you not, in some old
book of romance, read a story something like this?—Once, in a wild
forest, dwelt a beautiful girl, who did not know that she was beautiful,
though the stream told it to her, as her face was reflected in its clear
waves; and the wild rose which bloomed in her path, seemed pale and
withered, when compared with the warm hue of her cheek, the moist

ripeness of her lips. It was in England, Madeline, in some shadowy
valley of a Yorkshire forest, that this orphan girl dwelt; and many hundred
years have passed since the dust was laid upon her bosom—”

As if absorbed in the memories of his narrative, Reginald pressed the
hand which trembled in his grasp, and toyed absently with her flowing
hair.

“One day, as, bending over the waves, she saw her face smiling upon
her, in all its youth, hallowed by the innocence of a stainless heart, there
came suddenly to her side, an unknown man, dressed in the garb of a
peasant. At once the forest girl loved him, aye, as though some spell
had won her heart, she could not look into his face without emotion, nor
hear his voice without trembling. She loved him, from the very moment
when, gazing in the stream, she saw his face reflected beside her own.
Loved him with a love that was not without a strange and indefinable fear.”

Madeline shuddered. Something there was in the story of Reginald
that penetrated her heart with an indefinable agitation.

“And yet he was unknown to her. She was even ignorant of his
name.”

The young girl raised her eyes, and for an instant glanced upon her
lover's handsome face. Again an involuntary shudder shook her form.

“For him, Madeline, this unknown man, she forsook her wild-wood
valley; she followed his fate into the great world. She forsook, for him,
those dear old woods, in whose tranquil solitudes her form had ripened
into beauty; forsook the calm waters which had reflected her virgin
face; forsook all the peace and quiet of her lonely life, and went forth,
with the unknown stranger, into the unknown world.”

Madeline's head drooped slowly on her bosom; Reginald could not
read the expression of her face, nor mark her tears, but he heard her
gasping breath, he felt that gently tremulous hand.

“They wandered forth together—” whispered Madeline.

“Yes, unblessed by priestly rites; they went on their way, hand
linked in hand, and hearts hallowed in the bond of a stainless love. One
day, Madeline, just as the sun was setting, they stood together on the
summit of a hill, the dusk woods stretching toward the west, while in the
east, centred on the wide sweep of a grassy lawn, arose an ancient castle,
with the banners of a lordly race floating from its loftiest tower, and
strains of music, rich, deep, festival music, gushing from its vine-clad
casements. Around that noble hall, Madeline, invested as it was with all
the outward indications of rank and wealth, bands of marriage guests were
scattered, their gay costumes glittering from the verdure of the lawn.
They awaited the return of the lord of this fair domain. In some far
land, he had taken to himself a bride. Whether rich or poor, young or
old, they knew not; but word had been received that he would return to
his castle, at the hour of sunset, with this unknown wife on his arm.”

The story seemed to absorb the very soul of the Orphan Girl. Her
bosom fluttering, her face averted, she surrendered her hand, her arm, to
the grasp of Reginald, and awaited in undisguised suspense the conclusion
of the old-time Legend.

“The peasant girl, standing on the hill-top—her rudely clad lover by
her side, beheld this scene, as the soft warmth of the summer evening
invested her face with new loveliness.

“`It is indeed beautiful!' she said, her eyes enchained by the scene
which stretched beneath her feet—`Hark! how the music, softened by
distance, comes gently over the lawn!'

“Her lover did not answer her. His face, not altogether hideous or
wrinkled, you may be sure, although his rough garb indicated a life of
poverty and want,—his face, I say, was shadowed by an emotion which
the peasant girl could not comprehend. There was a sad look upon his
brow, but around his lips, a smile hung trembling;—it was as though joy
and sorrow contended for the mastery on the lines of his countenance.
He did not speak to her—”

“He did not speak to her—” echoed Madeline, without seeming conscious
of the words.

“No, Madeline; but led her gently down the hill-side. Through the
lofty gates which stood by the roadside, they went together, she trembling
nearer to him, afraid, in her peasant garb, of all this music and
splendor. He took her silently by the hand, and as she clung closer to
his side, they passed over the lawn, and through the marriage guests, in
their glittering costumes, and up the great steps of the ancient castle,
where a Priest, in the robes of his solemn office, awaited the coming of
the young Lord and his Bride.”

“`Let us depart,' she faltered—`This is no place for us. We are but
poor and humble; these great people, so richly arrayed, look with scorn
upon our mean attire.—”'

“And she buried her head upon his breast, clinging to his arms for
support, as her long hair waved over his shoulders.

“`Look up,' cried her lover, speaking the name of his Peasant Bride,
`and behold our home!”'

“Need I pursue the story, Madeline? Need I tell to you the wonder
and the joy which covered the face of the Peasant Girl with new beauty,
as she heard her unknown Lover addressed by his Lordly title, and felt
her footstep press the threshold of her princely home?”

His voice deepened by emotion, his hand entwined about her neck, her
cheek drooping nearer to his own, his eyes devoured the warm loveliness
of her face, which seemed to ripen into a more luxuriant beauty beneath
his gaze. She trembled at his touch; her downcast eyes were filled with
tears.

“It is a beautiful dream—” she faltered.

“No dream, Madeline, no dream! It is truth, all truth.”

“Truth!” She lifted her gaze, and beheld his earnest face—“What
mean you?”

“Pardon the deception, Madeline. I said that this maiden lived in a
valley of England, in the ages long since past. She does dwell in a
beautiful valley; her own form the incarnation of all that is beautiful in
cloudless skies, or unruffled waves, or the deep silent night, when the blue
heaven is set with countless stars. It is the valley of the Wissahikon;
and here, at her feet, behold her lover in his rough peasant garb!”

He sunk beside her, clasping her hands within his own.

“No peasant, but the heir of a lordly line. Yes, Madeline, Reginald,
Lord of Lyndulfe, asks your love, and beseeches the Orphan Girl of
Wissahikon to become his bride.”

“Reginald of Lyndulfe!” murmured Madeline, and her eyes, even amid
their tears, assumed the glassy appearance which had veiled their brightness
but a few moments before. “I have heard that name—”

With her hands upon her forehead, she seemed absorbed in some painful
memory. Meanwhile, Reginald, clutching her robe with a tremulous
grasp—passion in his flashing eyes, his breast heaving violently, his
parted lips and brow deformed by swollen veins—looked up into her
half-veiled face, as he whispered once more the frenzied request.

“Be mine, Madeline! Be mine—rank—power—” his voice
was broken, his words incoherent.

No answer came from the lips of the forest girl. While her hands
veiled her eyes, her cheek became death-like and crimson by turns, and
the folds of her robe, or garment, call it as you will, were violently agitated
by the impetuous swelling of her bosom.

It was the decisive moment of her fate. She could not speak a word
in answer; but, as if enveloped by the frenzies of a dream, she felt his
arms encircle her waist, and could not resist their pressure. She felt his
burning kiss upon her lip, and could not turn her face away. His hand
toyed with the loose tresses of her hair—his gloating eye surveyed the
half-revealed whiteness of her bosom; she trembled in his embrace, and,
unable to move, sank on his encircling arm, her eyes swimming in the
light of powerless passion.

“Reginald—” she faltered, as though some memory had flashed upon
her, like a lightning spark from a midnight cloud—“On this very spot—
eighteen years ago—My Mother—pleaded for her life—do not—do not—
destroy the honor of her child!—”

The kiss of the lover drowned the maiden's earnest words.

The sound of the dance, the echo of song had died away. All was
silent in the room below—a deathly stillness reigned throughout the farm-house.
There was no sudden blast of wind, howling through the gorge
of Wissahikon, to break the midnight quiet of the scene. No voice was

heard to warn the Seducer back in his career of treachery; in his arms,
blushing and powerless, the maiden hung, her lips pressed again and
again by his guilty kiss.

But, from the withered chesnut tree, whose leafless branches touched
the panes of the western window, a face distorted by agony more terrible
than death, was gazing on the Maiden's peril with glaring eyes.

“Mad'lin'!” exclaimed a rough voice,—but it did not reach the ears
of the girl, nor excite for an instant the attention of Reginald Lyndulfe

And on the outer side of the bolted door, a crouching figure bent in the
darkness, his ear laid against the panels, as the words of the Tempter
broke the deathly stillness.

“She yields!” muttered the tremulous voice of an aged man—“In a
moment, all is lost—Ah! The fiend has mocked me!”

And while the figure of Gilbert, revealed by the cold moonlight, was
seen upon the limbs of the chesnut tree, his face against the window
frame, the knife shining in his hand—while the old man, enshrouded in
the darkness of the passage, listened for the fatal word which was to seal
the maiden's shame, Reginald of Lyndulfe, pressing his lips to the burning
cheek of Madeline, gathered her closer to his breast.

“Come! Fly with me to night—this hour—this moment—”

Frenzied by his guilty passion, he said these words, and did not feel
that the Lie of his heart was written upon his forehead, darkened by the
swollen veins.

“Mercy! I am but a poor weak girl—alone in the world—”

With a last effort, she endeavored to free her lip from his kiss, her
waist from his tightening arm. The effort was vain. Her loosened hair
floated over his shoulders, as his kisses burned her lips.

Gilbert, clinging to the withered limb, beheld the flushed face of Reginald,
and laid one hand upon the sash of the narrow window. His face,
pressed against the glass, was hideous with hatred and despair. One blow
of his sturdy arm, and the sash would fall before him; with his right
hand he clutched the knife.

“Warm kisses—” Gilbert muttered through his set teeth—“Hah!
There is a gay dress beneath your coarse gray coat—a spangled dress of
silk and di'monds. By * * *! I'll make it gayer and brighter with
your—”

The Huntsman, laying one hand upon the sash, grasping the knife with
the other, his eye dilating as it was rivetted by the scene within the chamber,
felt the withered limb bend beneath him. With an oath, he endeavored
to grasp a higher branch of the tree, but the knife fell from his
hand, as the withered limb, with a sudden crash, snapped under his
weight.

He fell; the knife clattered upon a heavy mass of granite at the foot of

the tree. For an instant the Huntsman saw nothing but a vague blank,
heard nothing but the echo of the snapping branch. When he recovered
his consciousness, he found himself hanging by the arms to the lowest
limb of the huge chesnut, his feet dangling near the earth. Above him
shone the window of Madeline's room.

“Curses on it! I'm crazy, I believe! To lose my hold at sich a moment!
They are watchin' me, too—watchin' from yonder thicket. But
it does not need their watchin' to make me go forrad now.”

Releasing his hold, he fell on his feet, picked the knife from the stone,
and, placing it between his teeth, began to ascend the tree. Once, as he
clomb from limb to limb, he turned his head over his shoulder. Through
the clear heavens the moon was shining brightly. The farm-house, the
thicket near, and the distant woods, were darkly contrasted with the glittering
waste of pure white snow.

“They watch me from the thicket!” muttered Gilbert, as he sprang
upon a limb, which commanded a view of the interior of Madeline's
chamber. As the stout Huntsman, whose brain was somewhat bewildered
by the events of this crowded night, looked through the window panes,
an oath escaped from his lips.

He saw that chamber by the rays of the lamp, the bed yet bearing the
impress of the maiden's form, the quaint, old-fashioned furniture, the
dressing-bureau, and the door which led into the corridor of the farm-house.

But neither Madeline—nor her seducer were visible.

From the limb—on which Gilbert poised his weight, grasping a branch
above him—to the window, was a dangerous leap, but he did not pause to
think. With a desperate bound he reached the window, dashed the sash
before him—it hung on hinges and opened like a door—and in an instant
stood in the centre of the chamber, beside the maiden's bed.

All was silent there.

“They've gone together—she has fled with him—” the features of the
Hunter, distorted by rage, became softened suddenly by a look of rude
but unutterable anguish. “Mad'lin'! This is a little too hard to bear. So
good and pure as you was, that an angel couldn't scarcely be a better
thing—Now—in a few hours—all your goodness gone—”

He clenched the knife, and gazed wildly round the chamber.

“Yer Bible's thar, gal—and you could do it! Leave the man that 'ud
'a torn his heart into splinters for you—But it's his work, his devil's
tongue—”

He turned, and, with a cry of surprise mingled with hatred, beheld that
the door leading into the corridor was open.

“I'll follow you, my fine feller, and paint yer spangled feathers with
yer blood!”

As he rushed to the door, his purpose—it was Murder—written on his

face, a sound that was scarcely audible, so low, and like the echo of a
rustling leaf, arrested his footsteps.

Again he turned, and, near the foot of the bed, beheld the unconscious
form of Madeline. She was stretched upon the floor; her eyes were
closed; her arms lay stiffened by her side. The dress had been torn
from her bosom by a rude grasp; upon those globes, whose veins, like
threads of azure, were traced beneath the transparent skin, the livid print
of a brutal hand was visible.

Gilbert knelt beside her. His face was from the light, which streamed
over the back of his head, glowing upon his chesnut curls. The agony
that convulsed his features was lost in the shadow.

No groan came from his compressed lips; perchance the light of contending
love and hatred grew deeper and wilder in his eyes, but not a
sound betrayed his agony.

“Beautiful gal, with yer brown hair about yer pale face, an' that bosom,
which, as much as I loved you, and as often as you had said you'd
be my wife, I never yit dared to touch, or look upon—an' that bosom
bare, with the print of his hand upon it. Beautiful! An Angel fresh
from 'tother world couldn't be purtier; but—”

The knife which he grasped, rested its shining point upon the floor.
At once the memory of his strange mission came over the hunter—he
trembled like a man who beholds some horrible Apparition rising by his
bed at dead of night.

“She don't breathe. It's likely that she's dead already. As it is,
she'll only wake up to misery and shame—By * * *, I think it 'ud
be a blessed thing to kill her!'

The bosom moved—very slightly—with a pulsation as gentle as the
motion of a feather, agitated by a sleeper's breath. And as it fluttered
with that soft motion, Gilbert beheld a faded ribbon, wound about the
neck of the insensible girl. To this ribbon was attached a small coin,
which lay upon her breast, and rose with the almost imperceptible pulsation.
The huntsman lifted her head, and took the ribbon from her neck.
In the action his hand encountered her luxuriant tresses, and the strong
man felt the tears start into his eyes. Not for the world, or the wealth of
a thousand worlds, would he have touched that bosom.

“It was stainless once—pure as the drifted snow—now—”

Holding the small coin, or medal, toward the light, he endeavored in
vain to decipher the strange figures which were inscribed upon its surface.
The metal was gold; it was very bright, and worn smooth as glass, as by
the pressure of countless hands.

“I can't read it, gal, but I'll take it as a memory of you—”

In silence he wound the ribbon round his neck, and then, with a quivering
hand, placed the point of the knife upon her bosom.

“In the name of the Covenant—” he gasped, and at the same moment

the girl unclosed her eyes. She beheld that face, convulsed with agony,
wet with tears; she felt the sharp point of the knife.

Behind the hunter, with a stealthy footstep, which he did not hear,
came the bent figure of an old man, whose blue eyes shone with a cold,
icy light, as he beheld the knife resting upon the beautiful bosom of
Madeline.

“Gilbert!” even in that moment of half-consciousness she knew him.

Nearer stole the old man, his pale face writhing in every nerve.

“It ain't no use now, Mad'lin—” said the Hunter, his face glooming
with a profound despair—“It's too late!”

His hand was upon the hilt—and the blood started, as the point entered
the white breast of Madeline.

A sound of half-suppressed laughter disturbed the silence, and in the
door-way appeared the rotund form and white-bearded face of the jovial
Peter Dorfner.