CHAPTER VIII.

BEVERLY AND JOANNA.

In the Temple, near the hour of dawn, on the morning of the 24th of December, 1844.

"Fallen!"

Yes, fallen! nevermore to press the kiss of a pure mother upon the lips of her innocent child. Fallen! never more to meet her husband's gaze, with the look of a chaste and faithful wife. Fallen!--from wifely purity, from all that makes the past holy, or the future hopeful--fallen, from all that makes life worth the having,--fallen! and forever!

"Fallen!"

Oh, how this word, trembling from her lips--wrung from her heart--echoed through the stillness of the dimly-lighted chamber.

She was seated on the sofa, her noble form clad in the white silken robe--her hands clasped--her golden hair unbound--her neck and shoulders bare: and the same light hanging from the ceiling, which disclosed the details of that luxurious chamber--carpet, chairs, sofa, mirror, and the snow-white couch in a distant recess--fell upon her beautiful countenance, and revealed the remorse that was written there. There was a wild, startled look in her blue eyes; her lips were apart; her cheek was now, pale as death, and then, flushed with the scarlet hues of unavailing shame.

He was reclining at her feet; his arm resting on the sofa; his face upturned--his eyes gazing into hers. Clad in the costume of the white monk--a loose robe of white cloth, with wide sleeves, edged with red--Beverly Barron toyed with his flaxen curls, as he looked into her face, and remarked her with a look of mingled meaning. There was base appetite, gratified vanity, but no remorse in his look.

And the light fell on his florid face, with its sensual mouth, receding chin, wide nostrils, and bullet-shaped forehead, encircled by ringlets of flaxen hair--a face altogether _animal_, with scarcely a single ray of a higher nature, to light up or refine its grossness.

"Fallen!" cried Joanna; and clasped her hands, and shuddered, as if with cold.

"Never mind, dear," said Beverly, and he bent forward and kissed her hands--"I will love you always!"

"Oh, my God!"--and in that ejaculation, all the agony of her soul found utterance,--"Oh, my God! my child!"

Beverly knelt at her feet, and kissed her clenched hands, and endeavored to soothe her with professions of undying love; but she tore her hands from his grasp--

"My husband! How can I ever look into his face again!"

Had you seen that noble form, swelling in every fiber; had you seen the silken robe, heaved upward by the agony which filled her bosom; had you seen the look, so wild--remorseful--almost mad--which stamped her face,--you would have felt the emphasis with which she uttered these terrible words, "My husband! How can I ever look into his face again!"

"Your husband," whispered Beverly, with something of the devil in his eyes, "your husband, even now, is on his way to Boston, where the chosen mistress of his heart awaits him. His brother is at the point of death, is he? ha, ha, Joanna! 'Twas a good excuse, but, like all excuses, rather lame--when found out. The poor, good, dear Joanna, sits at home, pining at her husband's absence, while he, the faithful Eugene, consoles himself in the arms of his Boston love!"

"It cannot be! it cannot be!" cried Joanna, beating the carpet with her foot, and pressing her clenched hands against her heaving breast.

"Do you see this, darling?" and, throwing the robe of the white monk aside, he disclosed his "flashy" scarf, white vest and gold chain. "Do you see this, pet?" and from beneath his white vest he drew forth a package of letters.--"_Her_ letters to her dear Eugene! How she loves him--how she pities him, because he is not married to a _sympathetic_ soul,--how she counts the hours that must elapse before he comes! It is all written here, darling!"

Joanna took the package and passed it absently from one hand to the other. "Yes, yes, I read them yesterday! It is true, beyond hope of doubt. He loves her!--he loves her!"

"And you,"--Beverly arose and seated himself by her side, winding his arm about her waist. "And you, like a brave, noble woman, whose dearest affections have been trampled upon,"--he wound his left hand amid the rich masses of her golden hair,--"you, like a brave, proud heart, whose very May of life has been blighted by a husband's treachery,--have _avenged_ yourself upon him!"

He pressed his kiss upon her lips. But the warmth of passion had passed away. Her lips were cold. She shrunk from his embrace. The vail had fallen from her eyes; the delusion, composed of a mad passion and a mad desire for revenge, had left her, and she knew herself to be no longer the stainless wife and holy mother--but that thing for which on earth there is no forgiveness--an adulteress!

"No, Beverly, no. It will not avail. His fault was no excuse for my crime. For his fault affects me only--wrongs me alone--but mine--," there was a choking sensation in her throat--she buried her face in her hands--"Oh God! oh God! my child!"

Beverly took a bottle of champagne which stood upon the table, drew the cork, and filled two brimming glasses.

"You are nervous, my darling," he said, "take this. Let us pledge each other--for the past, forgetfulness--for the future, hope and love."

He stood erect beneath the lamp--his tall form, clad in the robe of the white monk, relieved by the very gloom of the luxurious chamber; he pressed the glass to his lips, and over its rim surveyed the white couch, which looked dim and shadowy in its distant recess,--he murmured, "Eugene, your magnificent wife is mine!"

And then drained the glass without moving it from his lips.

She took the glass and drank; but the same wine which an hour ago had fired her blood, and completed the delusion of her senses, now only added to her remorse and shame.

"My father,--so proud of his name, so proud of the honor of his son, the purity of his daughter, how shall I ever meet his eye? how can I ever look him in the face again?"

And the image of that stern old man, with wrinkled visage and snow-white hair, rose vividly before her. Her father was an aristocrat of the old school--proud, not of his money, but of his blood. The royal blood of Orange flowed in his veins. Loving his only daughter better than his own soul, he would have put her to death with his own hand, sooner than she should incur even the suspicion of dishonor.

"Pshaw, Joanna! He need never know anything about the adventures of this night. You have been slighted, and you have taken your revenge;--that is all. No one need know anything about it. You will mingle in society as usual; these things, my darling, are almost things of course in the fashionable world, among the 'upper ten.' Among the beautiful dames whom you see at the opera, on a 'grand night,' how many do you suppose would waste one thought of regret upon an adventure like this?"

Joanna buried her burning temples in her hands. All of her life rushed before her. Her childhood--the days of her pure maidenhood--the hour of her marriage, when she gave herself to the husband who idolized her,--the hour of her travail, when she gave birth to her child,--all rushed upon her, with the voices, tones, faces of other days, commingled in one brief but vivid panorama.

"You see, my pet, you know but little of the world," continued Beverly. "In the very dawn of your beauty, ignorant of the world, and of the value of your own loveliness, you wedded Eugene. Life was a rose-colored dream to you; you thought of him only as the ideal of your existence. You thought that he regarded you in the same light. You did not dream that he would ever regard you simply as the handsomest piece of furniture about his splendid establishment,--a splendid fixture, destined to bear him children who would perpetuate the name of Livingston,--while his roving affections wandered about the world, constantly seeking new objects of passionate regard. You never dreamt of this, did you, darling?"

Joanna uttered a groan. Pressing her hands to her throbbing temples, she felt her bosom swell, but could not frame a word.

"Now, my dear, you are a woman; you know something of the world. Like hundreds of others of your wealth and station, you can, under the vail of decorum, select the object of a passionate attachment, and indulge your will at pleasure. A bright future, rich in love and in all that makes life dear, is before you----"

And Beverly drew her to him, putting one arm about her neck, while his left hand girdled her bosom. As he kissed her, her golden hair floated over his face and shoulders.

At this moment the door opened without a sound, and a man wrapped in a cloak, with a cap over his brow, advanced with a noiseless step toward the sofa.

It was not until his shadow interposed between them and the light, that they beheld him. As Joanna raised her head, struggling to free herself from the embrace of her seducer, she beheld the intruder, who had lifted his cap from his brow.

"O God, Eugene!" she shrieked, and fell back upon the sofa, not fainting, but utterly paralyzed, her limbs as cold as marble, her blood turned to ice in her veins.

It was Eugene Livingston. Gently folding his arms, cap in hand, he surveyed his wife. His face was turned from the light,--its ghastly paleness could not be seen. His cloak hid the heavings of his breast. But the light which fired his eyes, met the eyes of his wife, and burned into her soul.

He did not speak to her.

Turning from her, he surveyed Beverly Barron, who had started to his feet, and who now stood as if suddenly frozen, with something of the look and attitude of a man who is condemned to watch a lighted candle, as it burns away in the center of a barrel of gunpowder.

Not a word was spoken.

Joanna crouching on the sofa, her chin resting on her clasped hands,--Beverly on the floor, his hands outspread, and his face dumb with terror,--Eugene standing between them, folding his cloak upon his breast, as he silently turned his gaze, first to his wife, and then to her seducer.

At length Eugene spoke,--

"Come, Joanna," he said, "here is your father. He will take you home."

She looked up and beheld the straight, military form, the stern visage and snow-white hair of her father. One look only, and she sank lifeless at his feet. She may have meant to have knelt before him, but as she rose from the sofa, or rather, glided from it, she fell like a corpse at his feet. The old general's nether lip worked convulsively, but he did not speak.

"General, take her to my home, and at once," whispered Eugene. "There must be no scandal, no noise, and----" he paused as if suffocating,--"no _harshness_, mark you."

The general was a stalwart man, although his hair was white as snow,--a man whose well-knit limbs, erect bearing, and sinewy hands, indicated physical vigor undimmed by age, but he trembled like a withered leaf as he raised his daughter from the floor.

"I will do as you direct, Eugene," he said, in a husky voice.

"You will find her cloak in the next room," said Eugene, "and the carriage is at the door."

The general girded his insensible daughter in his arms, and bore her from the room. As he crossed the threshold, he groaned like a dying man.

Eugene and Beverly were alone. Beverly at a rapid glance surveyed the room. Eugene stood between him and the door; he turned to the windows, which were covered with thick curtains. Those windows were three stories high. There was no hope of escape by the windows.

"Will you take a chair, my friend," said Eugene.

Beverly sank into a chair, near the table; as he seated himself, he felt his knees bend beneath him, and his heart leap to his throat.

Eugene took a chair opposite, and shading his eyes with his hand, surveyed the seducer. There was silence for a few moments, a silence during which both these men endured the agonies of the damned.

"You have a daughter, I believe," said Eugene, in a voice that was broken by a tremor. "You may wish to send some word to her. Here is a pencil and tablets. Let me ask you to be brief."

He flung the pencil and tablets upon the table. Beverly recoiled as though a serpent had stung him.

"Eugene," he faltered, for the first time finding words, "you--you do not mean to murder me?"

And his florid face grew ashy with abject terror.

Eugene did not reply, but knocked twice upon the marble table with his clenched hand. Scarcely had the echo of the sound died away, when the door was once more opened, and two persons advanced to the table.

The first was a tall, muscular man, with a phlegmatic face, light hair, and huge red whiskers. His blue frock-coat was buttoned to the throat, and he carried an oblong box in his hands.

"Joanna's brother!" ejaculated Beverly.

The second person was a dapper little gentleman, with small eyes, a hooked nose, and an enormous black moustache. He was dressed in black, with a gold chain on his breast, and a diamond pin in his faultless shirt bosom.

"Major Barton!" ejaculated Beverly, bounding from his seat, for in Major Barton he recognized an old and intimate acquaintance.

"Robert," said Eugene, turning to Joanna's brother, "what have you there?"

"The dueling pistols," quietly responded Robert.

"Have you and this gentleman's friend arranged the _preliminaries_?"

"We have," interrupted the dapper Major; "distance, ten paces,--place, Weehawk, opposite the city,--time, right off."

"This without consulting me!" cried Beverly, who at the mention of a duel, felt a hope lighten up in his heart, for coward as he was, he was also a capital shot.

"Gentlemen, I beg to say,----" he drew his White Monk's robe over his heart, and assumed a grand air,--"gentlemen,----"

The dapper little major glided to his side,--

"Bev., my boy, better be quiet. Eugene waited on me an hour ago and explained all the circumstances,--desired me to act as your friend. As I'd rather see you have a chance for your life in a duel, than to see you killed in such a house as this, like a dog, I consented. Bev., my boy, better be quiet."

"If you don't wish to fight, say so," and the phlegmatic Robert stepped forward, eyeing Beverly with a look of settled ferocity, that was not altogether pleasant to see,--"if you decline the duel, just say so in the presence of your friend, Major Barton. Just say no."

And Robert eyed Beverly from head to foot, as though it would afford him much pleasure to pitch him from the third story window.

"I will fight," said Beverly, pale and red by turns.

"Then I'll get your hat, and coat, and cloak," said the obliging major,--"they're in the next room. We must leave the house quietly, and there's a boat waiting for us, at the foot of the street, or the North River. We can cross to the Jersey shore, before morning breaks. It will be a nice little affair all among ourselves. By-the-bye, how about a surgeon?"

"Yes, a surgeon!" echoed Robert, turning to Eugene, who, seated by the table, rested his forehead against his hand.

"We will not need a surgeon," said Eugene, raising his face, from which all color of life had fled. "Because our fight is to the death."