I looked at the veiled figure beside me and wondered at its stillness. The light of the little lantern inside the carriage flickered upon the crimson of the velvet cloak and the white folds of the veil that hid her face from me. Then I awoke to the consciousness of the sorry figure I must present in her eyes, and, drawing from my pocket a ring,—the richest I had been able to find among my aunt’s rich store,—I took the hand that lay half hidden and passive beside me, meaning to slip the jewel over the plain gold circlet I had already placed upon it. Now, as I took the hand into my own, I was struck with its smallness, its slenderness, its lightness; I remembered that even in the dark church, and with but the tips of the fingers resting in my own, a similar impression had vaguely struck me. I lifted it, spread out the little, long, thin fingers—too often had I kissed the dimpled firm hand of her Serene Highness not to know the difference! This was my wife’s hand; there was my ring. But who was my wife?
I felt like a man in a bad dream. I do not know if I spoke or not; but every fibre of me was crying out aloud, as it were, in a frenzy. I suppose I turned, or looked; at any rate my companion, as if in answer to a question, said composedly:
“Yes, sir, it is so.” At the same moment, putting up her veil with her right hand, she disclosed to me the features of Ottilie, the lady-in-waiting.
CHAPTER VII
I must have stared like a madman. For very fear of my own violence, I dared not move or speak. Mademoiselle Ottilie, or, to call her by her proper name, Madame de Jennico, very composedly removed her veil from her hair, pushed back her hood, and withdrew the hand which I still unconsciously clutched. Then she turned and looked at me as if waiting for me to speak first. I said in a sort of whisper:
“What does this mean?”
“It means, Monsieur de Jennico, that, for your own good, you have been deceived.”
There was a little quiver in her voice. Was it fear? Was it mockery? I thought the latter, and the strenuous control I was endeavouring to put upon my seething passion of fury and bewilderment broke down. I threw up my arms, the natural gesture of a man driven beyond bounds, and as I did so felt the figure beside me make a sudden, abrupt movement. I thought that she shrank from me—that she feared lest I, I, Basil Jennico, would strike her, a woman! This aroused me at once to a sense of my own position, and at the same time to one of bitterest contempt for her. But as I wheeled round to gaze at her, I saw that whatever charges might be laid upon her—and God knows she had wrought a singular evil upon me!—the accusation of cowardice could not be part of them. Her face showed white, indeed, in the pale light, her features set; but her eyes looked fearlessly into mine. Every line of her figure expressed the most dauntless determination. She was braced to endure, ready to face, what she had drawn upon herself. This was no craven, rather the very spirit of daring.