"O, Miss, ain't it beautiful!" cried Caroline, displaying the dress before me, "and the bonnet and vail to match it, will be here to-night, an' your new di'monds. It's really fit for a queen."
It was indeed a magnificent dress.
"Who is it for?" I asked.
"Now, come, ain't that good! 'Who is it for?' And you lookin' so innocent as you ask it. As if you did not know all the while, that it's your bridal dress, and that you are to be married airly in the mornin', after which you will set off on your bridal tower."
"Caroline, where did you learn this?" I asked, my heart dying within me.
"Why, how can you keep such things secret from the servants? Ain't your mother been gettin' ready for it all day, and ain't the servants been a-flyin' here and there, like mad? And Mr. Wareham's been so busy all day, and lookin' so pleased! Laws, Miss, how can you expect to keep such things from the servants?"
I heard this intelligence, conveyed in the garrulous manner of my maid, as a condemned prisoner might hear the reading of his death warrant. I saw that nothing could shake my mother in her purpose. She was resolved to accomplish the marriage at all hazards. In the morning I was to be married, transferred body and soul to the possession of a man whom I hated in my very heart.
But I resolved that he should not possess me living. He might marry me, but he should only place the bridal ring upon the hand of a corpse.
The resolution came in a moment. How to accomplish it was next my thought.
Approaching Caroline in a guarded manner, I spoke of my nervousness and loss of sleep, and of a vial of morphine which my mother kept by her for a nervous affection.