At last the heavily fringed lids quivered, drooped, the magnificent eyes closed as if to shut out some vision too torturing even for their brave penetrating gaze, and in her rigid whiteness she seemed some unearthly creature, who had done for ever with feverish life and the frail toys of time.
Raising her arms above her head, she rested her clasped hands upon her brow, and in a low, strangely quiet tone her words dropped like icicles.
"It was a groundless fear, that when the long-sought opportunity came my weak womanish nature would betray me, and I should fail, break down utterly under the crushing weight of tender memories, sacred associations. What are they?
"Three dreamy weeks of delirious wifehood, balanced by thirteen years of toil, aspersion, hatred, persecution; goaded by want, pursued ceaselessly by the scorpion scourge whose slanderous lash coiled ever after my name, my reputation. Three weeks a bride,—unrecognized as such even then,—twelve years an outcast,—repudiated, insulted,—mother and child, denied, derided,—cast off as a serpent's skin!—Ah, memory! thou hast no charm to stir the blackened ashes in a heart extinguished by the steady sleet of a husband's repudiation. When love is dead, and regret is decently buried, and the song of hope is hushed for ever, then revenge mounts the chariot and gathers the reins in her hands of steel; and beyond the writhing hearts whose blood dyes her rushing wheels sees only the goal. Some wise anatomists of that frail yet invincible sphinx—woman's nature, babble of one weighty fact, one conquering law,—that only the mother-joy, the mother-love, fully unseals the slumbering sweetness and latent tenderness of her being; for me, maternity opened the sluices of a sea of hate and gall. Had I never felt the velvet touch of tiny fingers on my cheek, a husband's base desertion might in time have been forgiven, possibly at least, forgotten; but the first wail from my baby's lips awoke the wolf in me. My wrongs might slumber till that last assize, when the pitying eyes of Christ sum up the record, but hers—have made a hungry panther of my soul. Come, memory, unlock your treasure house, uncoil your spells, chant all your witching strains, and let us see whether the towers of Notre Dame will not tremble and dissolve as soon as I?"
Bending to a trunk near her chair, she unlocked it, and taking out a papier-maché box, opened it with a small key that hung from her watch chain, and placed it on the table before her, where she had thrown the unread letters. Leaning forward, she crossed her arms upon the marble, and looked down on the contents of the box,—her child's letters,—her own unanswered appeals in behalf of her babe,—a photograph of the latter,—and most prominent of all, a large square ambrotype of a handsome boyish face, with a short curl of black hair lying inside the case.
"Idolatrous? Yes all women are, embryo pagans, and the only comfort is, that when the idol crumbles into clay, mocking our prayers and offerings, we still worship at the same old shrine, having dusted and garnished and set thereon—maybe the Furies, which bid fair to survive the wreck of gods, of creeds, and of time. Like Oenone, we are all betrayed sooner or later by our rose-lipped Paris,—
'Beautiful Paris, evil-hearted Paris,'
and after the inevitable foolish tears of vain regret we dry our eyes, and hunt Cassandra, to listen to the muttering of the thunder that is gathering to avenge us—in Troy. Bride and bridegroom, face to face— Cuthbert! So you looked, when we parted, when you strained me to your heart, and swore that before a fortnight passed you would hold 'darling Minnie in your arms once more!' Did you mean it even then? No, no, already the hounds of slander were snuffing in my path, and the toils were spread for my unwary feet. Here, look back at me, my husband, with those fond peerless eyes, as on that day when I saw you last—all mine! To-night—across the gulf of separation, and of shameful wrong—we shall look into each other's faces once more, while another woman wears my name, fills my place at your side. Fair treacherous face of my first and only love,—handsome as a god!—false as Apollyon!"
She had lifted the ambrotype and held it close to her eyes, then her hand sank until the picture dropped back into its place, and the lonely desolate woman buried her face in her palms. The pretty guilt clock on the mantle ticked monotonously, and the hum of life, and the busy roll of vehicles in the vast city, was borne in through the window, like the faint roar of yet distant Niagara; and after awhile when the sharp stroke of the clock announced four the bowed figure raised herself.
Sweeping back the blinding veil of hair, her brilliant brown eyes shone calm and dry, dimmed by no tears of fond womanly regret, and as they fell upon the photograph of Regina, a smile of indescribable bitterness curled the lovely lips that might have served as model for Psyche's.