The passionate cry of Salome’s soul was,—
“Punish me in any way, and all other ways! Send sickness, destitution, humiliation,—let every other affliction smite me; but save me from the intolerable anguish of seeing that woman his wife! O my God! the world is not wide enough to hold us both. Take her, or else call me speedily hence. I am not fit to die, but I shall never be better, if I am doomed to witness this marriage. I would sooner go down to perdition now, than live to see that thing of horror. Of two hells, I choose that which takes me farthest from her.”
For the first time in her life she felt that the hours were flying, that the day of doom was rushing to meet her, and she shuddered when one after another the constellations slipped softly and solemnly down the sky, and vanished behind the dim shadowy outline of the western hills. Gradually the moon sank so low that the sea could no longer reflect her beams, and as the mighty waste of waters slowly darkened, and the wind stiffened, and the song of the surf swelled like a rising requiem, the girl felt that all nature was preparing to mourn with her over the burial of her only hope of earthly peace.
If Mrs. Gerome died, a quiet future stretched before the orphan, and she could bear to live without the love which she had the grim satisfaction of knowing brightened no other woman’s life.
The happiness of the man for whom she almost impiously prayed, was a matter of little importance compared with the ease of her own heart; and she had yet to learn that the welfare and peace of the object she loved so selfishly would one day become paramount to all other aims and considerations. That pure and sublime spirit of self-abnegation which immolates every hope and wish that is at variance with the happiness of the beloved had not yet been born in Salome’s fiery nature; and she cared little for the anguish that might be Dr. Grey’s portion, provided her own heart could be spared the pang of witnessing his wedded bliss.
Through the trees, she could see the steady light of the lamp that burned in the room where the sick woman lay, and so she watched and waited, shivering in the shadow that fell over earth and ocean just before the breaking of the new day.
Along the eastern horizon, the white fires of rising constellations paled and flickered and seemed to die, as a gray light stole up behind them; and the gray grew pearly, and the pearly opaline, and ere long the sky crimsoned, and the sea reddened until its waves were like ruby wine or human gore.
In the radiant dawn of that day which would decide the earthly destinies of three beings, Salome saw Dr. Grey coming across the lawn. His step was quiet,—neither slow nor hasty, and she could not conjecture the result; but as he approached, she rose, wrapped her shawl about her, and advanced to meet him. He paused, took off his hat, and she knew all before a syllable passed his lips.
“Salome, God has heard my prayers,—has mercifully taken my darling from the arms of death, and given her to me. I do not think I am too sanguine in saying that she will ultimately recover, and my heart can not find language that will interpret its gratitude and joy.”