University of Virginia Library

14. CHAPTER XIV.

I find it difficult for me to close this narriative. The events
startle myself as I recall them with an air of utter improbability;
—and yet I know them to be true, and how many share my
knowledge. The next week the famous Prima Donna—she who
had been the orb of loveliest attraction, rising nightly in song
and splendour before the eyes of the whole city—the next week
she had not only survived her glory, but was a corpse! She
went to rehearsal the morning after the seene which I have just
described was over; and, though indisposed, she played successfully
that night. I saw her, and saw that there was a serious
sickness in her system; but I ascribed the sickness rather to her

soul than to her body—to that poor heart—so fond, so young, so
tender, so attractive,—sacrificed in the first hour of its maiden
dawn to such a dreadful tyranny as that from which she suffered.
For two nights after, being those of Saturday and Sunday, I saw
nothing of her. Monday night she was announced to play, but
her malady had increased—she did not appear, and her absence
was accounted for by the manager. Tuesday produced a crisis
in her professional fortunes. The great harlequin, who could
jump twenty feet and take the ceiling in his teeth, made his
appearance that night with wondrous éclat, and the Prima
Donna, as my friend the editor had predicted, was almost as
much forgotten as if she had never been. The next morning
she was dead! The terrible annunciation came to me, while at
the breakfast-table, in the morning papers:

“Mysterious. We are told, just as our paper was going to
press, that Mam'selle —, the lady who has been making
such a sensation in the musical circles of our city for the last ten
days, died suddenly last night, at the house of her protector,
Mons. —, in —'s Place. There are some circumstances
connected with this event which have awakened the suspicions
of the police. An examination by the coroner takes place at an
early hour this morning. The lady was young, very pretty, and
singularly well constituted for the part of Prima Donna in the
company to which she was attached. She was acknowledged
by Mons. —, to be his wife, and her virtue is stated to be
beyond reproach, though, we understand, it has not been without
suspicion. We trust for the credit of our city, that her death
will be found to have taken place according to the ordinary
events of nature.”

What a shock did I feel when I read this paragraph. I felt as
if sight had been suddenly deprived me; but I recovered instantly
to the most acute excitement of feeling. I darted up from the
table, hurried to my chamber, put myself in condition to go forth,
and reached the dwelling of the lovely victim in time for the examination.
I too had my suspicions of foul play, and in my
heart I swore that the malignant wretch who claimed to be her
husband, and who, I felt sure, must have been her murderer,
should not escape from the talons of justice and a just punishment,
if my vigilance could fix them upon him.

A crowd was already assembled, and the coroner busy in telling
out jurors for the examination. The corpse of the victim was
placed at length upon a table. The eyes were closed—the features
composed—she had died seemingly without a struggle, and
this appeared to prove that she had died without pain. The
presumptions were, accordingly, in favour of the supposition that
her death had been natural. Not a muscle seemed out of place,
governed by extreme tension, or strained in the slightest particular.
The blood-vessels of the neck and forehead were charged

fully, and shone,—oh, how freshly with life and beauty,—through
the clean transparent whiteness of her skin. I could have bent
down, amidst all that crowd, and pressed my lips upon those
rigid features which had teemed, but a few days before, with all
that was pure, and sweet, and charming, in my sight.

The examination led to no discoveries, though it was conducted
with considerable closeness and sagacity. The coroner was
familiar with his duties, and not disposed to pretermit their exercise.
He was acute in his inquiries and closely observant of the
persons who were examined as witnesses. Among these was
Mons. —. His features, now passionless and cold, dark yet
inexpressive, confirmed the impressions of my own bosom that
he was guilty of her death. How was it that he, who, while she
lived, had been jealous to madness of all her movements, should
so soon, so suddenly, lose all interest in her fate, unless he himself
knew the fitting solution of the mystery. This, though to
me conclusive, of the one conviction, was quite as conclusive with
all around me of his innocence. His composure was in his
favour. Strange enough! as if a man who was innocent of her
murder, could have looked with composure, upon the inanimate
form of one who had lately slept upon his bosom, whose eyes
had gleamed with fire, whose cheeks with youth—whose voice
had sent forth such heavenward aspirations of tenderness and
love.

A cautious verdict of the jury finished the investigation. She
“died from the visitation of God.” True: death from any cause,
however strange,—however hurried—is still a visitation of God
—God in that form of power which is most terrible to man. The
glance of dire enmity and malignant hate which the Italian shot
towards me from his half-shut eyes, as the verdict was declared,
convinced me, not the less, however, that she died also from the
“visitation of the devil.” His black heart had decreed her doom
—his viperous hands had compassed it—his Italian art had enabled
him to do so with impunity. “After life's fitful fever she
sleeps well!”—The murderer still lives, but is he, therefore, the
less a token of God's eternal justice? Has he escaped punishment?
Is he safe? No! no! The hangman is for ever present
to his imagination—fear dogs his footsteps—he is haunted by the
hounds of terror—he breathes the breath of sleepless apprehension—bitterness
is in the bread he eats, and venom in the cup
from which he drinks. He lives a prolonged form of death, only
too happy if it could be that he might not live for ever.