A strange marriage was solemnized in the Old King's Chapel. The bride wore no rose or orange flower in her braided hair, and a long, black veil enveloped her from head to foot. In fact, her entire raiment, and that of the bridegroom, was of the same ghastly hue; and the ceremony was performed beneath the light of torches, which threw their funeral glare upon the mortuary tablets and reliefs that decorate the interior of the sacred edifice. As the newly-married pair were about to step into the carriage at the door, a thin figure in black approached the bride, and laid its hand upon her arm. The countenance was not visible. The bride uttered a sharp cry of pain and terror, and the figure instantly stepped back.
"Hold up your torch, there, sexton," cried the painter; "some one has insulted the bride."
A tall figure was seen stealing away through the tombstones in the churchyard, to which he had probably gained access through a breach in the wall, at that time wholly ruinous.
It is not our intention to describe the happiness of Malise Grey and his strangely-found and strangely-wedded bride. Enough to say, it was like all the circumstances that composed his existence—dream-like and strange. So vivid were his dreams and reveries, that he often wondered whether they were not the actual, and his marriage life the imaginary, part of his existence. He could not give himself up to enjoyment; and sometimes, when his young wife would have lavished on him the wealth of her innocent caresses, he turned from her moodily, and muttered, "What have I to do with a spirit bride? When the sun rises, these shadows will disperse."
Esther Grey had often solicited her husband to paint her portrait, since the likeness in the family picture showed her under the influence of grief. She wished a record of her happiness. Grey set about complying with her request. He assumed the task in a moment of inspired and fresh feeling, and went to work with heart and soul. His sketch was instantaneously executed, and then
"His touches they flew like leaves in a storm;
And the pure pearly white, and the carnation warm,
Contending in harmony, glowed."
Suddenly he threw down his pencil, and paced the apartment to and fro with rapid strides. "The doomed look!" he muttered, "the doomed look! Esther, I can paint no more to-day."
But the morrow found him early at his task. A few hours' work completed a portrait which, for fidelity of likeness, harmony of accessories, and felicity of coloring, was almost unsurpassable. Yet the painter refused to have it framed, and concealed it from view behind a curtain in his studio.
A day or two afterwards, a stranger called upon the artist. He was a tall, thin man, attired in a threadbare suit of black bombazine. He was frightfully pale. His jaws were prominent, and the sallow, shrunken skin clung close to every muscle of his countenance. His dark, sunken, and glossy eyes had an unearthly expression, and his air was melancholy in the extreme. A nameless chill came over the painter as he surveyed the aspect of his unknown visitor. The stranger coldly surveyed the productions of the artist, and honored them with a few brief comments. At length he paused before the veiled picture, and said, "This picture of your wife belongs to me."