CHAPTER IV.

THE BRIDAL CHAMBER.

It was the bridal chamber. A strange hour, and a strange bridal!

In the luxurious apartment, where Nameless and Frank first met, a Holy Bible was placed wide open upon a table, or altar, covered with a snow-white cloth. On either side of the book were placed wax candles, shedding their clear light around the room, upon the details of the place, and upon the gorgeous curtains of the marriage-bed.

Frank and Nameless joined hands beside that altar, before the opened Bible. Never had Frank's magnetic beauty shone with such peculiar power. She was clad in black velvet, her dark hair gathered plainly aside from her brow, and the white cross rose and fell with every throb of her bosom. Nameless wore the black tunic which, with his dark brown hair, threw his features into strong relief. The golden cross hung on his breast, over his heart. He was pale, as if with intense thought, but his large, gray eyes met the gaze of Frank, as though his soul was riveted there.

And thus they joined hands, near the morning hour.

The Rev. Dr. Bulgin stood a little in the background, his broad red face glowing in the light. His cardinal's attire thrown aside, he appeared in sleek black, with the eternal white cravat about his neck. There was the flush of champagne upon the good doctor's florid face.

Behind Nameless stood Colonel Tarleton, dressed as the hidalgo, his right hand grasping a roll of paper, raised to his mouth, and his eyes gazing fixedly from beneath his down-drawn brows. It was _the_ moment of his life.

"Once married and the way is clear!" he thought. "To think of it--after twenty-one years my hand grasps the prize!"

"We will walk through life together," said Frank, pressing the hand of Nameless.

"And devote our wealth to the elevation of the unfortunate and the fallen!" he responded, as a vision of future good gave new fire to his eye. And then he pressed his hand to his forehead, for his temples throbbed. A vivid memory of every event of his past life started up suddenly before his soul, every event invested with the familiar faces, the well-known voices of other days. He raised his eyes to the face of Frank, and the singular influence which seemed to invest her like an atmosphere, again took possession of him. It was not the influence of passion, nor the spell of her mere loveliness, although her person was voluptuously moulded, and the deep red in the center of her rich brown cheek, told the story of a warm and passionate nature; but it was as though her very soul, embodied in her lustrous eyes, encircled and possessed his own.

Was it love, in the common acceptation of the word? Was it fascination? Was it the result of sympathy between two lives, each of which had been made the sport of a dark and singular destiny?

"Had not we better go on?" said Dr. Bulgin, mildly. "Summoned to this house to celebrate these nuptials at this unusual hour, I feel somewhat fatigued with the duties of the day," and he winked at Tarleton.

"Proceed," said Tarleton, pressing the right hand, with the roll of paper to his lip.

The marriage service was deliberately said in the rich, bold voice of the eloquent Dr. Bulgin. The responses were duly made. The ring was placed upon the finger of the bride, and the white cross sparkled in the light, as it rose with the swell of her proud bosom.

"Husband," she whispered, as their lips met, "I have been sacrificed to others, but I never loved but you, and I will love you till I die." And she spoke the truth.

"Wife!"--he called that sacred name in a low and softened voice,--"let the past be forgotten. Arisen from the graves of our past lives, it is our part to begin life anew." And his tone was that of truth and enthusiasm.

"My son!"--Tarleton started forward and clasped Nameless by the hand,--"Gulian, my son, let the past be forgotten,--forgiven, and let us look only to the future! The proudest aspiration of my life is fulfilled!"

Nameless returned his grasp with a cordial pressure; but at the same instant a singular sensation crept like a chill through his blood. Was the presence of the dead father near at the moment when his son joined hands with the false brother?

"Here, my boy," continued Tarleton, laughingly, as he spread forth upon the table the roll of paper which he had held to his lip; "sign this, and we will bid you good night. It's a mere matter of form, you know. Nay, Frank, you must not see it; you women know nothing of these matters of business." Motioning his daughter back, he placed pen and ink before Nameless, and then quietly arranged his dark whiskers and smoothed his black hair; and yet his hand trembled.

Nameless took the pen, and bent over the table and read:--

DECEMBER 24, 1844.

TO DR. MARTIN FULMER:--

_This day I transfer and assign to my wife, Frances Van Huyden, all my right, title, and interest in the estate of my deceased father, Gulian Van Huyden; and hereby promise, on my word of honor, to hold this transfer sacred at all times, and to make it binding (if requested), by a document drawn up according to the forms of law._

Nameless dipped the pen in the ink, and was about to sign, when Frank suddenly drew the paper from beneath his hand. She read it with a kindling cheek and flashing eye.

"For shame!" she cried, turning to her father, "for shame!" and was about to rend it in twain, when Nameless seized her wrist, and took the paper from her hand.

"Nay, Frank, I will sign," he exclaimed, and put the pen to the paper.

"O, father," whispered Frank, with a glance of burning indignation, "this is too much--" Her words were interrupted by the sudden opening of the door.

"Is there no way of escape,--none?"--a voice was heard exclaiming these words, in tones of fright and madness,--"Is there no way of escape from this abode of ruin and death?"

The pen dropped from the hand of Nameless. That voice congealed the blood in his veins.

Turning his head over his shoulders, he saw the speaker,--while the whole scene swam for a moment before his eyes,--saw that young countenance, now wild with affright, on which was imprinted the stainless beauty of a pure and virgin soul.

"The grave has given up its dead!" he cried, and staggered toward the phantom which rose between him and the door; the phantom of a young and beautiful woman, clad in the faded garments of poverty and toil; her unbound hair streaming wildly about her face, her eyes dilating with terror, her clasped hands strained against her agitated bosom.

"The grave has given up its dead," he cried. "Mary!" O, how that name awoke the memories of other days! "Mary! when last I saw thee, thou wert beside my coffin, while my soul communed with thine." And again he called that sacred name.

It was no phantom, but a living and beautiful woman. She saw his face,--she uttered a cry,--she knew him.

"Gulian!" she cried, and spread forth her arms. Not one thought that he had died and been buried,--she saw him living,--she knew him,--he was before her,--that was all. "Husband!"

He rushed to her embrace, but even as his arms were outspread to clasp her form, he fell on his knees. His head rested against her form, his hands clasped her knees. The emotion of the moment had been too much for him; he had fainted at her feet.

She knelt beside him, and took his head to her bosom, and pressed her lips against his death-like forehead, and then her loosened hair hid his face from the light. She wept aloud.

"Husband!"

At this moment turn your gaze to the marriage altar. Dr. Bulgin is still there, gazing in dumb surprise, first upon the face of Frank, then upon her father. It is hard to tell which looks most ghastly and death-like. Tarleton looks like a man who has been stricken by a thunderbolt. Frank rests one hand upon the marriage altar, and raises the other to her forehead. For a moment death seems busy at her heart.

With a desperate effort, Tarleton rallies his presence of mind.

"Good evening, or, rather, good morning, doctor," he says, and then points to the door. The reverend gentleman takes the hint, and quietly fades from the room.

At times like this, one moment of resolve is worth an age. Tarleton's face is colorless, but he sees, with an ominous light in his eyes, the way clear before him. He turns aside for a moment, to the cabinet yonder, and from a small drawer, takes a slender vial, filled with a colorless liquid; then quietly glides to his daughter's side.

"Frank!"--she raises her head,--their eyes meet. He holds the vial before her face--"your husband has fainted; this will revive him." That singular smile discloses his white teeth. Frank reads his meaning at a glance. O, the unspeakable agony,--the conflict between two widely different emotions, which writhes over her face!

"No, father, no! It must not be," and she pushes the vial from her sight.

His words, uttered rapidly, and in a whisper, come through his set teeth,--"It must be,--the game cannot be lost now; in twelve hours, you know, this vial will do its work, and _leave no sign_!"

An expression which he cannot read, crosses her face. A moment of profound and harrowing thought,--a glance at the kneeling girl, who hides in her flowing hair, the face of her unconscious husband.

"Be it so," Frank exclaims, "give me the vial; I will administer it." Taking the vial from her father's hand, she advances to the cabinet, and for a moment bends over the open drawer.

And the next instant she is kneeling beside Nameless and the weeping girl.

"Mary!" whispers Frank, and the young wife raises her face from her husband's forehead, and they gaze in each other's face,--a contrast which you do not often behold. The face of Frank, dark-hued at other times, and red with passion on the cheek and lip, but now, lividly pale, and only expressing the intensity of her organization in the lightning glance of the eyes,--the face of Mary, although touched by want and sorrow, bearing the look of a guileless, _happy_ soul in every outline, and shining all the love of a pure woman's nature from the large, clear eyes. It was as though night and morning had met together.

"Mary!" said Frank,--her hand trembling, but her purpose firm,--"your husband will die unless aid is rendered at once. Let me revive him."

Before Mary can frame a word in reply, she places the vial to the lips of Nameless, and does not remove her hand until the last drop is emptied. Tarleton yonder watches the scene, with his head drooping on his breast, and his hand raised to his chin.

"He will revive presently," Frank exclaims with a smile.

"God bless you, generous woman,----"

But Frank does not wait to receive her thanks.

Returning to her father's side,--"Come, let us leave them, _now_," she whispers; "_now_ that your request is obeyed."

"But he must not die in this house."

"O, you will have time, ample time to remove him before the vial has done its work,"--a bitter smile crosses her face,--"Leave them together for an hour at least. Let them at least enjoy one hour of life, before his eyes are closed in death; only one hour, father!"

She takes her father by the hand, and hurries him from the room,--let us not dare to read the emotions now contending on her corpse-like face. From that room, which was to have been her bridal chamber,--the starting-point of a new and happy life!

"I must now see after the _other_," Tarleton soliloquizes, as he crossed the threshold. "_This one_ removed, _the other_ must be ready for _to-morrow_."

And Frank and her father leave the room.

The chest of Nameless began to heave,--his eyes gradually unclosed. With a vacant glance he surveyed the apartment.

"It is a dream," he said.

But there were arms about his neck, kisses on his lips, a warm cheek laid next to his own. Certainly not the clasp, the kiss, or the pressure of a dream.

"Not in a dream, Carl," she said, calling, him by the name which he had borne in other days.

"Carl? Who calls me Carl?"

"Not in a dream, Carl, but living and restored to me."

Even as he lay in her arms, his head resting on her young bosom, he raised his eyes and beheld her face.

"Mary!"

"Thou art my husband!"

"Thou art my wife!"

That moment was a full recompense for all they had suffered, yes, for a lifetime of suffering and anguish. They forgot everything,--the dark past,--the strange chance or providence which had brought them together,--they only felt that they were living and in each other's arms.

At sight of the pure, holy face of Mary, all consciousness of the fascination which Frank had held over him, passed like the memory of a dream from the soul of Nameless.

"O, Mary, wife, thou art living,--God is good," he said, as she bent over him, baptizing his lips with kisses, and his face with tears. "Do you remember that hour, when I lay in the coffin, while you bent over me, and our souls talked to each other, without the medium of words: 'you have seen him for the last time,' they said; 'not for the last time,--we will meet again,' was your reply. And now we have met! Mary--wife! let us never accuse Providence again, for God is good!"

Moment of joy too deep for words.

Drink every drop of the cup, now held to your lips, Carl Raphael! For even, as the arms of your young wife are about your neck, even as her young bosom throbs against your cheek, and you count the beatings of her heart, death spreads his shadow over you. The poison is in your veins,--your young life is about to set in this world forever.