A Woman Martyr

by Alice M. Diehl

Through all which might happen--even if Paul Naz changed his mind, and followed up his suspicions; if the man who found the bottle of drugged brandy happened to recognize her as the woman he had seen; if "that actress girl" could identify her as the person she passed in the hansom; if, indeed, any scraps of her letters or some old photograph of her had been found among Mercier's belongings--nothing, she believed, would altogether alienate Vansittart's love.

She clung to the thought; it seemed her one anchor to life. But even as she gradually recovered from the shocks of that awful hour at the theatre, she regained a certain amount of hope.

The very pomp and circumstance of her wedding; the accounts in the papers; the laudation of herself, Vansittart, and their respective families--all must surely help to avoid exciting the suspicion that she, the heroine of the glorification, was a whited sepulchre; that she had stolen out by night and, alone in a poor room in a lowly dwelling-house with her lover, had poisoned him and then left him to die.

Conscience did not soften the facts of the case. She had to face them in all their unlovely turpitude and deal with them as best she might.

But that night when she had to see her own story partly enacted on the stage, and, worse still, hear it commented upon with unconscious brutality by the dramatic critic, Mr. Hunt, seemed the climax, the crisis.

As the night gave place to day--and the day was full of pleasing incidents as well as of fresh proofs of Vansittart's devotion; he arrived early, and took "her in hand," kept her cheerful, and, with his flow of joyous content, would not allow her a leisure moment for her "morbidity," as he called it--she seemed to settle down a little, as one respited for a time, who deliberately determines to make the most of the term of peace. The days went by quickly, for with such a function as a brilliant wedding imminent, there was a perpetual bustle, there were continual obligatory goings to and fro. Besides, Vansittart mapped out the days--rides, drives, receptions, dances, all formed part of his scheme to entertain her until she would be his wife, feeling his emotions, thinking his thoughts. Only the theatre was rigidly excluded. He avoided even the subject of the stage, nor did he allow her to hear much music. He considered that of all the arts music had the greatest power to reproduce past sensations, to recall memories, especially undesirable ones. He was rewarded for his solicitude by seeing his beloved outwardly cheerful, and apparently at ease.

Joan was, indeed, as the days went quietly by, encouraged by the lack of disturbing elements, by the entire absence of any signs that the tragedy of Victor Mercier's death had any life left in it to torment her. She had promised herself that, if nothing happened before her marriage day, she might consider that she was practically safe. And at last the happy day dawned--a glorious summer morning--and, arising with gratitude in her heart, she murmured a fervent "Thank God!"

The house was crammed full of visitors--mostly the bridesmaids and their chaperons. At an early hour these girls, attired in their delicate chiffon frocks and "picture hats," were fluttering about the mansion like belated butterflies; for the marriage was to be early, for a fashionable one, to enable Lord and Lady Vansittart to start betimes for their honeymoon, which was to be spent on board Vansittart's yacht, but where, remained the young couple's secret. The bride was closeted in her room, Julie alone was with her. "I do not wish any one to see me before I appear in church," she had said, so decidedly, that her attendant maidens subdued their curiosity and started for the church in a couple of carriages--there were eight of them--without having had even a glimpse of the bridal attire.

Joan felt that she could not have borne the innocent chatter of those bright, unconscious girls, so happy in their unsullied ignorance of life and its undercurrent of horrors. Only in a silent, inward clinging to the thought of Vansittart--so soon to be her husband, her mainstay, her refuge, her only hope--could she endure the few hours before she would be safe--safe--alone with him on the high seas, no one knowing where they were or whither they were going.

Julie? Julie was her servant, of late quite her obsequious slave, with the prospect of being maid to "a great lady," and therefore a personage among her compeers before her. Julie was silent when she was silent. So no bride had ever been decked for the altar with greater show of solemnity than was Joan on her wedding morn.