The Abbess Of Vlaye

by Stanley John Weyman

With her face turned from him she lifted the gauzy veil with one hand and with the other--it trembled violently--she raised the wine to her lips. Still with her shoulder to him--but he set this down to modesty--she gave him back the empty cup, and he went and set it down on the table beside the door. When he turned again to her she had raised her veil and risen to her feet, and stood facing him with shining eyes.

"By Heaven!" he cried. And he recoiled a pace, his swarthy face gone sallow. Was he mad? Was he dreaming? The priest had been silent on the Abbess's visit. He believed her leagues distant. He had no reason to think otherwise. And he had not been more astonished if the one woman had turned into the other before his eyes. "By Heaven!" he repeated. For the moment sheer astonishment, the stupor of bewilderment, held him dumb.

She did not speak, but neither did she quail. She stood confronting him, erect and stately, her beauty never more remarkable than now, her breast heaving slightly under the lace.

"Am I mad?" he muttered again. And he closed his eyes and opened them. "Or dreaming?"

"Neither!" she replied.

"Then who in God's name are you?" he retorted, in something approaching his natural voice; though the awe of the unnatural still held his mind.

"Your wife," she answered.

"My wife!" With the words the full shock of that which had happened struck him.

"Your wife," she rejoined unblenching, though her heart beat wildly, furiously, in her bosom, and she feared, ah, how she feared! "Your wife! And which of us two"--she continued proudly--"has a better right to be your wife? I,"--and with the word she flung the lace superbly from her head and shoulders, and stood before him in the full splendour of her beauty--"or that child? That puny weakling? That doll? I," with increasing firmness--he had not struck her yet!--"who have your vows, sir, your promises, your sacred oath--and all my due, as God knows and you know--or that puppet? I, who dare, and for your sake have dared--you know it only too well!--or that craven, puling and weeping and waiting for the first chance to flee you or betray you? What I have done for you"--and proudly she held out her hands to him--"you know, sir. What she would have done you know not."

"I know that you have ruined me," he said, looking darkly at her.