Cruel as the grave
"Very well. I will do so. Anything else?"
"Nothing now, thank you," said Sybil, kissing her hand as she left the
room.
And Sybil, dressed now in the plain, close-fitting camlet gown and prim
white linen cap, cuffs, and collar of the Puritan maid, and with a pale,
young looking mask on her face, reentered the saloon to try her
experiment.
She looked around, and soon saw her husband and her rival sitting
side-by-side, on the little retired sofa in the corner. They were
absorbed in each other's attractions, and did not see her. She glided
cautiously into a seat near them.
They were sitting very close together, talking in a very low tone. Her
hand rested in his. At length, Sybil heard her inquire:
"Where is your wife? I have not seen her for some time."
"She has left the room, I believe," answered Mr. Berners.
"Oh, that is such a relief! Do you know that I am really afraid of her?"
"Afraid of her! why? With me you are always perfectly safe. Safe!" he
repeated, with a light laugh--"why, of course you are! Besides, what
could harm you? Of whom are you afraid? Your friend, my wife, Sybil? She
is your friend, and would do you only good."
Rosa Blondelle slowly shook her head, murmuring:
"No, Lyon, your wife is not my friend--she is my deadly enemy. She is
fiercely jealous of your affection for me, though it is the only
happiness of my unhappy life. And she will make you throw me off yet."
"Never! no one, not even my wife, shall ever do that! I swear it by all
my hopes of--"
"Hush! do not swear, for she will make you break your oath. She is your
wife. She will make you forsake me, or--she will do me a fatal mischief.
Oh, I shiver whenever she comes near me. Ah, if you had seen her eyes
as I saw them through her mask to-night. They were lambent flames! How
they glared on me, those terrible eyes!"
"It was your fancy, dear Rosa; no more than that. Come, shake off all
this gloom and terror from your spirit, and be your lovely and sprightly
self!"
"But I cannot! oh, I cannot! I feel the burning of her terrible eyes
upon me now."
"But she is not even in the room."
(Here Sybil slipped away to a short distance, and joined a group of
masks as if she belonged to them.)
"But I shiver as if she were near me now."
Lyon Berners suddenly looked around and then laughed, saying:
"But there is no one near you, dear Rosa, except Death."
"Death!" she echoed with a start and a shudder.
"Why, how excessively nervous you are, dear Rosa," said Lyon Berners
laying his hand soothingly upon her shoulder.
"Oh, but just reflect what you have just said to me. 'No one near me but
Death!' Death near me!" she repeated, trembling.
"Poor child, are you superstitious as well as nervous? It was the mask I
meant. The mask that was Sybil's partner in the quadrille which we
danced with them," laughed Lyon Berners.
"Oh, yes, I know. And they stood opposite to us. So that we danced with
them more than with any one else! And my own hand turned cold every time
it had to touch his. What a ghastly mask!"
"Yes, indeed. I wonder any man should choose such a one," added Lyon.
"Who is he? Who is that mask?"
"Indeed I do not know. Some one among our invited guests, of course.
But he maintains his incognito so successfully, that even I, who have
discovered most people in the room, have not been able to detect his
identity. However, at supper all will unmask, and we shall see who he
is."
"Look, is he still near me?" inquired Rosa, shaking as if with an ague.
Mr. Berners turned his head, and then answered:
"Yes, just to your left."
"Oh! please ask him to go away! I freeze and burn, all in one minute,
while he is near!"
That was enough for Lyon Berners. He arose and went to Death, and said:
"Excuse me, friend. No offence is meant; but your rather ghastly costume
is too much for the nerves of the lady who is with me. I do not ask you
to withdraw to some other part of the room; but I ask you whether you
will do so, or whether I shall take the lady away from her
resting-place?"
"Oh! I will withdraw! I know that my presence is not ever welcome,
though I am not always so easily got rid of!" answered Death as, with a
low inclination of his head, he went away.
"Oh! I breathe again! I live again!" murmured Rosa, with a sigh of
relief.
"And now you are sufficiently rested, the music is striking up for a
lively quadrille, and so, if you please, we will join the dancers and
dance away dull care!" said Lyon Berners, rising and offering his arm to
Rosa Blondelle.
She arose and took his arm.
(Sybil, in her little Puritan's dress moved after them.)
He led her to the head of a set that was about to be formed.
"Oh! there she is!" suddenly exclaimed Rosa.
"Who?"
"Sybil."
"Where?"
"There!"
And Rosa pointed to one of the doors, at which Beatrix Pendleton, in
Sybil's disguise, was just entering the room.
"No matter! See! she has taken another direction from this, and will not
be near you, dear child; so be at rest," said Lyon Berners soothingly.
"Oh! I am so glad! You don't know how I fear that woman," replied Rosa.
"But you did not use to do so!"
"No! not until to-night! To-night when I met her terrible eyes," said
Rosa.
"Come, come, dear! Cheer up," smiled Mr. Berners, encouragingly, as he
took her hand and led her to the order--"Forward four!"
The dance began, and Sybil heard no more; but she had heard enough to
convince her, if she had not been convinced before, of her guest's
treachery and her husband's enthrallment.
She went and sat down quietly in a remote corner, and "bided her time."
And waltz succeeded quadrille, and quadrille waltz. At the beginning of
every new dance, some one would come up and ask for the honor of her
hand, which she always politely refused--taking good care to speak in a
low tone, and disguised voice. At length Captain Pendleton came up, and
mistaking her for his sister, said:
"Sulking still, Trix?"
Not venturing to speak to him, lest he should discover his mistake, she
shrugged her shoulders and turned away.
"All right! sulk as long as you please. It hurts no one but yourself, my
dear," exclaimed the Captain, sauntering off.
She saw Beatrix Pendleton, in her dress, moving merrily through the
quadrille, or floating around in the waltz. She heard a gentleman near
her say:
"I thought that lady never waltzed. I know she refused me and several
others upon the plea that she never did."
And she heard the other lightly answer:
"Oh, well, ladies are privileged to change their minds."
The waltz of which they were speaking came now to an end. Sybil saw
Beatrix led to a seat near her own. She also saw her partner bow and
leave her. She seized the opportunity and glided up to Beatrix, and
whispered:
"There will be but one more quadrille, and then supper will be served. I
am going to my room. Do not dance in the next quadrille, but follow me,
that we may change our dresses again. We have to be ready to unmask at
supper, you know."
"Very well! I will be punctual. I really have enjoyed myself in your
dress. And you?"
"As much as I expected to. I am satisfied."
At this moment the music for the quadrille struck up, and gentlemen
began to select their partners. Two or three were coming towards Sybil
and Beatrix. So with a parting caution to Beatrix to be careful, Sybil
left the saloon.
She glided up to her chamber, where she was soon joined by Beatrix.
They began rapidly to take off their dresses, to exchange them.
"Oh, I have had so much amusement!" exclaimed Beatrix, laughing.
"Everybody took me for you. And oh, I have received so many flattering
compliments intended for you; and I have heard so much wholesome abuse
of myself! That I was fast; that I was eccentric; that I was more than
half-crazy; that I had a dreadful temper. And you?"
"I also received some sweet flattery intended for the pretty little
Puritan maiden, and learned some bitter truths about myself," answered
Sybil.
"How hollow your voice is, Sybil! Bosh! who cares for such
double-dealing wretches, who flatter us before our faces and abuse us
behind our backs?" exclaimed Beatrix, as she quickly finished her
Puritan toilet, and announced herself ready.
Sybil was also dressed, and they went down stairs and entered the
drawing-room together.
The last quadrille before supper was over, the supper-rooms were thrown
open, and the company were marching in.
Captain Pendleton hastened to meet Sybil, and another gentleman offered
his arm to Beatrix, and thus escorted, they fell in the line of march
with others.
As each couple passed into the supper-room, they took off their masks,
and handed them to attendants, placed for that purpose, to the right and
left of the door. Thus, when the company filled the rooms, every face
was shown.
There were the usual surprises, the usual gay recognitions.
Among the rest, "Harold the Saxon" and "Edith the Fair" stood confessed
as Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle, and much silent surprise as well as
much whispered suspicion was the result.
"Is it possible?" muttered one. "I took them for a pair of lovers, they
were so much together."
"I thought they were a newly married pair, who took advantage of their
masks to be more together than etiquette allows," murmured a second.
"I think it was very improper; don't you?" inquired a third.
"Improper! It was disgraceful," indignantly answered a fourth, who was
no other than Beatrix Pendleton, who now completely understood why it
was that Sybil Berners wished to change dresses with her, and also how
it was that Sybil's voice was so hollow, as she spoke in the
bed-chamber. "She wished to put on my dress that she might watch them
unsuspected, and she was right. She detected them in their sinful
trifling, and she was wretched," said Beatrix to herself. And she looked
around to catch a glimpse of Sybil's face. Sybil was sitting too near
her to be seen. Sybil was on the same side with herself, and only two or
three seats off. But Beatrix saw Mr. Berners and Mrs. Blondelle sitting
immediately opposite to herself, and with a recklessness that savored of
fatuity, still carrying on their sentimental flirtation.
Yes! Rosa was still throwing up her eyes to his eyes, and cooing "soft
nonsense" in his ears; and Lyon was still dwelling on her glances and
her tones with lover-like devotion. Suddenly assuming a gay tone, she
asked him:
"Where is our ghastly friend, Death! I do not see him anywhere in the
room, and I was _so_ anxious to see him unmasked, that I might find out
who he is. Where is he? Do you see him anywhere?"
"No; he is not here yet; but doubtless he will make his appearance
presently," answered Mr. Berners.
"Do you really not know who he is?"
"Not in the least; nor does any one else here know," replied Mr.
Berners.
Suddenly Rosa looked up, started, and with a suppressed cry, muttered:
"Good heavens! Look at Sybil!"
Mr. Berners followed the direction of her gaze across the table, and
even he started at the sight of Sybil's face.
That face wore a look of anguish, despair, and desperation that seemed
fixed there forever; for in all its agony of passion that tortured and
writhen face was as still, cold, hard, and lifeless as marble, except
that from its eyes streamed glances as from orbs of fire.
Mr. Berners suddenly turned his eyes from her, and looked up and down
the table. Fortunately now every one was too busily engaged in eating,
drinking, laughing, talking, flirting, and gossiping to attend to the
looks of their hostess.
"I must go and speak to her," said Lyon Berners in extreme anxiety and
displeasure, as he left Rosa's side, and made his way around the table,
until he stood immediately behind his wife. He touched her on her