"Yes, you will meet him, and stand face to face with him, and—the rest is yet to be known."
He felt for his knives and pistols,—they were safe in the belt about his waist; and then, conscious that the crisis of his fate was near at hand, he silently pursued his way.
Return for a moment to the house in Broadway.
Esther is there, alone in her chamber, standing before a mirror, with a light in her hand. The mirror reaches from the ceiling to the floor; and never did mirror image forth before, a face and form so perfectly beautiful.
She has changed her attire. The green habit no longer incloses her form. A dress or robe of spotless white, leaves her neck and shoulders bare, rests in easy folds upon her proud bust, and is girdled gently to her waist by a sash of bright scarlet. The sleeves are wide, the folds loose and flowing, and the sleeves and the hem of the skirt are bordered by a line of crimson. The only ornament which she wears is not a diamond, brooch or bracelet, not even a ring upon her delicate hand, but a single lily, freshly gathered, which gleams pure and white from the blackness of her hair.
And what need she of ornament? A very beautiful woman, with a noble form, a voluptuous bust; a face pale as marble, ripening into vivid bloom on the lip and cheek, relieved by jet-black hair, and illumined by eyes that, flashing from their deep fringes, burn with wild, with maddening light. A very beautiful woman, who, as she surveys herself in the mirror, knows that she is beautiful, and feels her pulse swell, her bosom heave slowly into light, her blood bound with the fullness of life in every vein.
One hand holds the light above her dark hair—the other the letter which, three hours and more ago, she received from Mr. Hicks.
"It requested me to attire myself in the dress which I would find in my chamber, the costume of Lucretia Borgia. And I have obeyed. And then to enter the carriage, which at a quarter past twelve, will await me at the next corner, and bear me to the Temple. I will obey."
She smiled—a smile that disclosed the ivory of her teeth, the ripeness of her lips—lit up her eyes with new light, and was responded to by the swell of her proud bosom.
Take care Esther! You wear the dress of Lucretia Borgia, and you are even more madly beautiful than that accursed child of the Demon-Pope; but have a care. You are yet spotless and pure. But the blood is warm in your veins, and perchance there is ambition as well as passion in the fire which burns in your eyes. Have a care! The future is yet to come, Esther, and who can tell what it will bring forth for you?