Her Dark Inheritance

by Mrs. E. Burke Collins

"Beware!"

Under the spell of a weird fascination, Beatrix stood before the portrait in her dream, her heart beating fast with a strange terror, her limbs trembling, a cold chill creeping slowly over her. She seemed on the verge of suffocation; her breath came in fitful gasps.

She awoke. Good heavens! where was she? She found herself alone in the round room in the western tower, in her long white night-robe, with a lighted lamp in one hand, gazing about her with wild, dilated eyes. How had she reached that room, traversed the long corridors, ascended the spiral staircase in her sleep?

With a shivering terror creeping slowly over her, the girl was about to turn away and retrace her steps to her own room; but at that moment her eyes fell upon a small knob, like an electric button, in one of the panels of the wall. She had never seen it before, notwithstanding her frequent visits to the room. It was at the very spot where in her dream she had seen the portrait. Impelled by a strange impulse, Beatrix pressed her finger lightly upon the knob. It moved, and the wooden panel slowly revolved, turned outward, and revealed the portrait of a woman's face—the very face of her dream. She stood before it pale and trembling, full of a strange terror for which she could not find a name. Would the painted lips open and speak even as in her dream?

Who was the woman before her? She drew nearer and peered curiously into the painted face. There was a look of piteous sadness in the large, dark eyes, as though an awful doom was resting upon her. As she gazed spell-bound, her sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a name affixed to the portrait. She bent her head to read it, and her heart gave a great bound and then stood still, for the name was Mildred Dane. So this was her mother, her own dear mother, whom she had never seen, whom she could not remember. Why was the picture hidden away in this room—this mysterious room—in the deserted and unfrequented tower? What strange mystery enshrouded the fate of Mildred Dane? How had she suffered? For that some tragedy was connected with her life Beatrix had long been convinced, and it needed only a look into that beautiful, heart-broken, hopeless face to confirm her suspicions. Why was the portrait hidden here, and what was the secret of Mildred Dane's life? In vain did Mildred Dane's daughter turn the question over in her mind; there was no answer. But as she stood staring blankly into the pictured face before her she caught a glimpse of a folded paper lying in the embrasure where the picture stood. When it swung around and disclosed itself there was a narrow space left behind, and there the paper lay. Beatrix snatched it up.

"I will see what it is!" she exclaimed. "This is my mother's portrait, and I have a right. Tomorrow I will demand of Bernard Dane why her portrait is hidden here, its face to the wall, alone in this dreary room which was used in times past for God only knows what dreadful purposes. I must know the meaning of this mystery!"

Grasping the folded paper in one cold hand, Beatrix made her way back to her own chamber, locked herself in, and sat down to examine the paper so strangely come into her possession.

It was a letter addressed to Bernard Dane in a delicate hand, the ink faded, but still legible.

"You have loved me, Bernard Dane"—so ran the written lines—"and I am grateful for your love, though I can not return it. But since you have told me all—all the bad, black secret of my doomed life, which has been concealed from me until now—I feel that with love or ties of friendship I have nothing to do. For me there can be no earthly affection, no love-lit future, no tender care. The ties of home, the love of little, innocent children are not for me. Oh, Bernard, surely, in this bitter knowledge that has come upon me at last, you are amply avenged! for I am accursed—accursed! The heritage into which I have come—descended to me straight from my South American ancestors—has wrought the ruin of my whole life. Yet I never knew it, never suspected it, until it was too late, and they had forced me to marry old Godfrey Dane. Upon my little child—my little, innocent Beatrix—the curse will descend—the awful curse which has desolated my life. Her dark inheritance will come upon her, and she will long for death, and curse the mother who gave her birth. Oh, Bernard, Bernard! pity me and help me to escape. Kill me, Bernard, will you not? It will be such a grand relief to be free from this horrible burden—to be done with this curse, and get out of the world—anywhere—anywhere—"

Here the writing ceased abruptly, and the letter ended with its grewsome secret still untold. Beatrix crumpled the letter in her shaking hand, and rising to her feet, began to pace to and fro, her face as white as the face of the dead, her eyes wild with horror—the madness of despair.