“Hermione, how far was I guilty? Standing within the pure presence of the great God, I swear to you I do not know. I was not master of myself. The red flame seemed to leap about me and to mock me! Hisses of laughter sounded in my ears! Oh! my darling, when I saw her sitting there, so bright, so beautiful, so happy—when I remembered that her fraud had parted me forever from you, I went mad! It all returns to me as the memory of a scene in which I had no share—as though I had stood by and seen some other person do it. I remember taking out the dagger and creeping silently behind her chair, she neither saw nor heard me. She was singing in a soft, low voice to herself. I saw the rings of golden hair on her white neck. A fury of murderous hate came over me. She had parted me from you.
“A thousand mocking devils seemed to be mocking around me as I plunged that dagger right into her heart. She uttered no cry, no sound, but fell with her face foremost into the lake, and I ran away.
“I remember how the green bough was swaying and the little birds singing when I turned round to see, and there was a gleam of golden hair in the cool, dark water. Hermione, I am making no false excuses to you—I am not seeking to clear myself from blame—but sure as I am now living and writing the words, so sure was I mad when I murdered the unhappy girl, whose only fault had been loving me too well and forging a letter that she thought would bring me to her feet. I was mad! God knows it! Believe me, sweet wife!”
CHAPTER LIV.
A DREAM AND THE AWAKENING.
Lord Lorriston’s voice died away in a low sob as he read the words.
“It is terrible,” said Kenelm, “that Ronald is right. When he did that deed he was mad. What a fearful love his was.”
Then Lord Lorriston read on:
“There came to me, Hermione, a curious instinct of self-preservation the moment that terrible deed was done. The red flame, the mocking devils, the hissing flame all vanished. I was cold, sick, faint, shuddering with awful, unknown dread. I went straight home into the library. I opened some paper, took a pen in my hand and waited.
“How long did I wait? Oh, my God! when I remember the agony of those bright, sunny, cruel hours—how the sun shone, how the flowers bloomed, how the bees and butterflies flitted past the roses in the window, how the birds sang, how warm gusts of sweet odor came floating into the room, and I sat motionless, silent, mute and dumb with horror, waiting till some one should come and tell me what was the matter in the woods. Waiting with a soul so full of horror I wonder that I did not die. Waiting with such sick dread as no words can realize—every golden gleam of sunlight bringing to my mind the fair hair floating in the dark water. Waiting until it seemed to me the whole world was still in one awful pause—the sunbeams never moved, the listening air was still—the deep, brooding silence grew so awful, so terrible that I tried to cry out, but could not.
“Then it came—the rush of many feet, the murmur of many voices, all crying for Sir Ronald—Sir Ronald—for my lady was drowned in the wood!