He pressed his kiss upon her lips. But the warmth of passion had passed away. Her lips were cold. She shrunk from his embrace. The vail had fallen from her eyes; the delusion, composed of a mad passion and a mad desire for revenge, had left her, and she knew herself to be no longer the stainless wife and holy mother—but that thing for which on earth there is no forgiveness—an adulteress!
"No, Beverly, no. It will not avail. His fault was no excuse for my crime. For his fault affects me only—wrongs me alone—but mine—," there was a choking sensation in her throat—she buried her face in her hands—"Oh God! oh God! my child!"
Beverly took a bottle of champagne which stood upon the table, drew the cork, and filled two brimming glasses.
"You are nervous, my darling," he said, "take this. Let us pledge each other—for the past, forgetfulness—for the future, hope and love."
He stood erect beneath the lamp—his tall form, clad in the robe of the white monk, relieved by the very gloom of the luxurious chamber; he pressed the glass to his lips, and over its rim surveyed the white couch, which looked dim and shadowy in its distant recess,—he murmured, "Eugene, your magnificent wife is mine!"
And then drained the glass without moving it from his lips.
She took the glass and drank; but the same wine which an hour ago had fired her blood, and completed the delusion of her senses, now only added to her remorse and shame.
"My father,—so proud of his name, so proud of the honor of his son, the purity of his daughter, how shall I ever meet his eye? how can I ever look him in the face again?"
And the image of that stern old man, with wrinkled visage and snow-white hair, rose vividly before her. Her father was an aristocrat of the old school—proud, not of his money, but of his blood. The royal blood of Orange flowed in his veins. Loving his only daughter better than his own soul, he would have put her to death with his own hand, sooner than she should incur even the suspicion of dishonor.
"Pshaw, Joanna! He need never know anything about the adventures of this night. You have been slighted, and you have taken your revenge;—that is all. No one need know anything about it. You will mingle in society as usual; these things, my darling, are almost things of course in the fashionable world, among the 'upper ten.' Among the beautiful dames whom you see at the opera, on a 'grand night,' how many do you suppose would waste one thought of regret upon an adventure like this?"