[CHAPTER XIV.]
THE SALE IS COMPLETE.
When I awoke again—but I cannot proceed. There are crimes done every day, which the world knows by heart, and yet shudders to see recorded, even in the most carefully vailed phrase. But the crime of which I was the victim, was too horrible for belief. Wareham the criminal, my own mother the accomplice, the victim a girl of fifteen, who had been reared in purity and innocence afar from the world.
When I awoke again—for the potion failed to kill—I found myself in my room, and Wareham by my side, surveying me as a ghoul might look upon the dead body which he has stolen from the grave. The vial given to me by the maid did not contain a fatal poison, but merely a powerful anodyne, which sealed my senses for hours in sleep, and—combined with the reaction of harrowing excitement—left me for days in a state of half dreamy consciousness. I awoke * * * * My sight was dim, my senses dulled, but I knew that I was lost! Lost! O, how poor and tame that word, to express the living damnation of which I was the victim! The events of the next twenty-four hours, I can but vaguely remember. I was taken from the bed, arrayed in the bridal costume, and then led down stairs into the parlor. There was a marriage celebrated there (as I was afterward told)—yes! it was there that a minister of the Gospel, book in hand, sanctified with the name of marriage, the accursed bargain of which I was the victim—marriage, that sacrament which makes of home, God's holiest altar, the truest type of Heaven—marriage was, in my case, made the cloak of an unspeakable crime. I can remember that I said some words, which my mother whispered in my ear, and that I signed my name to a letter which she had written. It was the letter which Ernest received, announcing my intention to visit Niagara. As for the letter which I had written to him, on the previous day, it never went farther than from the hands of Caroline to those of my mother. I was hurried into a carriage, Wareham by my side, and then on board of a steamboat, and have a vague consciousness of passing up the Hudson river. I did not clearly recover my senses, until I found myself at Niagara Falls, leaning on Wareham's arm, and pointed at by the crowd of visitors at the Falls, as "the beautiful bride of the Millionaire."
From the Falls, we passed up the Lakes, and then retraced our steps; visited the Falls again; journeyed to Montreal, and then home by Lake Champlain and the Hudson river. My mother did not accompany us. We were gone three months, and as the boat glided down the Hudson, the trees were already touched by autumn. As the boat drew near Tapaan bay, I concealed myself in my stateroom—I dared not look upon my cottage home.
We arrived at home toward the close of a September day. My mother met me at the door, calm and smiling. She gave me her hand—but I pushed it gently away. Wareham led me up the steps. I stood once more in that house, from which I had gone forth, like one walking in their sleep. And that night, in our chamber, Wareham and myself held a conversation, which had an important bearing on his life and mine.
I was sitting alone in my chamber, dressed in a white wrapper, and my hair flowing unconfined upon my shoulders; my hands were clasped and my head bent upon my breast. I was thinking of the events of the last three months, of all that I had endured from the man whose very presence in the same room, filled me with loathing. My husband entered, followed by Jenkins, who placed a lighted candle, a bottle of wine and glasses on the table, and then retired.
"What, is my pretty girl all alone, and in a thinking mood?" cried Wareham, seating himself by the table and filling a glass with wine; "and pray, my love, what is the subject of your thoughts?"
And raising the glass to his lips, he surveyed me from head to foot with that gloating gaze which always gave a singular light to his eyes. His face was slightly flushed on the colorless cheeks. He had already been drinking freely, and was now evidently under the influence of wine.