Chapter XXXV: The Meeting

Away, address thy prayers to Heaven,
Before thy star of life is set:
Learn if thou there can’st be forgiven;
If mercy may absolve thee yet!
But here, upon this earth beneath,
There’s not a spot where thou and I
Together for an hour could breathe.
Away! I would not see thee die!—_Byron._

When Mr. Deville left the stage-box, he hurried from the theatre, out into the open street, and walked up and down the pavement, that the fresh night air might cool the fever of his blood and calm the agitation of his nerves. For an hour or more, he walked thus, and then having regained some degree of composure, and judging that the long tragedy of five acts must be near its close, he returned to the theatre and entered by the side door used by the actors and actresses, and leading behind the scenes. He entered without hesitation the passage leading to the door of the green-room, and meeting there an officer of the establishment, he said, in a peremptory voice:

“Conduct me at once to the private dressing-room of Mrs. Norl.”

“It is not my business, sir; I must not leave the door,” replied the man.

“Then call some one whose business it may be,” said Mr. Deville, in the same peremptory tone.

The man raised his head, looked up and down the passage, and spying a boy crossing the way, called him, and bade him summon Mrs. Norl’s page.

The boy nodded and disappeared, and in a few moments a fair-haired, blue-eyed, delicate lad approached, bowed, and stood awaiting orders.

“You are Mrs. Norl’s page?”

“Yes, sir,” answered a sweet voice.

“Then show me at once to her room,” said Mr. Deville, in a tone of command.

“But my mistress is still upon the stage.”

“No matter, I can wait for her.”

For a moment the lad hesitated, and then with the instinct of obedience, bowed his head, and preceded the visitor down the passage to a side-door, leading to other passages, until they got to a narrow staircase, which they descended to find themselves in a sort of stone ante-chamber, small and gloomy as a vault.

“Mrs. Norl’s room is immediately under the stage,” said the fair-haired lad, opening a door leading into a little chamber, hung with crimson cloth, and lighted by a single hanging-lamp, beneath which stood a marble-topped table, near which sat an easy chair. A lounge stood against the wall on the right, and a dressing-table, with looking-glass and toilet apparatus on the left.

“Does your mistress usually admit visitors to this room?” inquired Mr. Deville, as he threw himself into the easy chair beside the table.

“No, sir—never.”

“Why, then, have you admitted me?”

“I thought—by the way you spoke—that you had a right—or was expected—or——,” said the boy, hesitating, and beginning to look doubtful and troubled.

“You were correct, perfectly correct in your thought,” said Mr. Deville, smiling strangely, and then adding: “You may go; and you need not announce to your mistress that any one awaits her here.”

The boy bowed and withdrew.

Scarce ten minutes passed when a commanding step was heard approaching, a haughty tone was heard giving some order without, and the next instant the door was opened and the great tragedienne, still in her imperial robes, entered the room. Unconscious of the presence of another, she advanced proudly, and threw herself into the chair. Leaning her elbow upon the table, and her regal head upon her hand, she fell into bitter and sarcastic musing.

For a few minutes, with the strangest feelings, Orville Deville, from his unseen and unsuspected position on the lounge, watched her. There was something of the old admiration, the old fascination of the snake that had beguiled him; something of fear and wonder at the virulence of passion, visible even in the repose of those fine features; something of desire that all this might cease, and that the sight of this beautiful Lamia might not act as a galvanic battery upon his nerves, putting his very manhood to shame.

She sat there in her wondrous beauty, strength and power, the very ideal of a physically perfect woman. Her splendid purplish black hair, partly confined in the classic roll at the back of her regal head, partly escaping the diamond-studded fillet, and falling upon the rounded ivory bosom and shoulder; her faultless features in repose; her dark eyes cast down until their long lashes swept a shadow upon her flushed cheek; her crimson lips compressed; her rounded chin supported upon the graceful hand; the purple velvet drapery falling away from the beautiful arm and bosom, and sweeping in massive folds around her perfect form.

He watched her only for a moment, and then, rising silently, stood before her.

She started and looked up, hissing—

“Deville!”

“Yes, madam—Deville, as you are undoubtedly Lionne!” he answered, folding his arms and fixing his eyes upon her, while he added: “At last I see you—bodily, visibly, tangibly—before me! No optical delusion! no apparition, called up from the dead by a troubled mind! no spectre, created by excited nerves!—but Lionne, as I am Deville!”

“What do you want?” she inquired, in the slow and solemn tones of one questioning a ghost, and returning his fixed gaze until his own eyes fell as scathed by her look.

“What do I want, you ask?”

“Yes.”

“Woman! tigress! fiend! how long is this pursuit of me and mine to last?” he asked, in an excited voice, once more raising his eyes to meet her burning gaze.

She arose, put back her chair, struck one hand upon her chest, and in the low, deep, stern tones of intense passion and ruthless determination, she answered—

“So long as this fierce sense of wrong burns in my bosom, firing every thought to vengeance!—until the hunted is driven to self-destruction, or the huntress expires in the pursuit!”

“Cruel and vindictive woman! what good will all that bring you?” exclaimed Deville, bitterly.

“_What good?_” she repeated, with a horrible laugh. “That is a question for a sage, not for a man of the world! What good does _any_ object of pursuit bring to the pursuer? What good does _gold_ bring to the avaricious: _power_ to the ambitious, _possession_ to the covetous, glory to the aspiring? Such good will vengeance bring me!”

“Demon!” ejaculated Orville Deville.

“‘Angel!’ _I used to be!_” sneered Lionne. Then, leaving her scornful tone, she bitterly exclaimed—

“Ay, angel and demon scarcely exaggerate, scarcely express, what I _was_ and what I _am_! All human creatures live for an object—the avaricious for gold, the ambitious for power, the aspiring for glory! _I_ once lived to love and serve and bless. I now live to hate, blast, and curse! Can any two purposes more strongly illustrate the angel and the demon life? And who has made the change?—let him who made it take the consequences! A simple, pure-hearted, loving girl of fifteen, I fell into your manly hands. You might have made an angel or a demon of me. You chose to make the demon! receive the work of your own hands!”

For a few seconds he quailed, as the guilty must always quail, before the terrible truth of this accusation; then, gathering an evil courage, he answered, sternly—

“Woman! you forget that the very fact of your standing before me in bodily form places you in my power!”

“Ha!” she said, in atone of caustic irony; “in what manner, I _pray_ you, sir?”

“As a felon!”

“FELON?” she repeated, in a low, deep, hissing tone, gathering her dark brows until the eyes beneath them flashed like lightning from a thunder-cloud—“FELON?”

“Ay, felon! kidnapper! abductor!”

She laughed again her awful laugh.

“_Where is my child?_” asked Deville, in a stern tone.

“_Where is_ MINE?” she repeated, in a terrible voice.

“I will have no prevarication!—Woman, thief, child-stealer, where is my daughter?”

“_Which of them?_” asked Lionne, with horrible irony.

“I tell you I will not bear prevarication! I speak of the only one I recognize! and I ask you again—Where is my child?”

“The only child of _yours_ of which _I_ can testify competently, found a grave—in the stomach of a wild beast, years ago!” she said, with the same awful irony.

“I know nothing about what you are talking of,” said Orville Deville, growing deadly pale; “but I ask you—Where is my child?”

“Search and see if you can find her!”

“Imp of Hades, you shall not escape me thus! I will denounce and prosecute you as the murderer of my child! You shall exchange the theatre for a court-room, the boudoir for a prison-cell, the stage for the scaf——”

“Stay! your proof?” said Lionne, in a low, sneering tone.

That somehow calmed his excitement.

“Proof? proof? I have grounds enough to justify your arrest. The proof will afterwards be sought,” replied Mr. Deville.

“Go on, then. The charge can but inconvenience me for an hour or two! Meanwhile _I shall lay before the burghers the original papers of which you have the copies_!”

“Perdition!” exclaimed Deville, in a low voice. “This woman has me irretrievably in her toils!”

“_She has!_” muttered Lionne, in a deep, stern tone.

“I will bear this no longer!” exclaimed Deville, starting up and rushing from the room—“I will bear this no longer! Time—a very little time shall show which of us two shall triumph!”

“Come back—I have somewhat more to say to you!” pealed the deep, bell-like tones of Lionne, as Deville left the room.

He strode back, and with folded arms stood before her.

“What is your will, madam?”

“I would ask you a question.”

“Go on!”

“Who was that young girl whom I saw at your side?”

“Suppose I refuse to answer?”

“It can make but little difference in my settled purpose.”

“What have _you_ to do with my adopted daughter?”

“Oh! your _adopted daughter_, is she? It is well; my question is answered,” said Lionne, with cool contempt.

“Since you have led me to betray myself, witch, I repeat my question—What have _you_ to do with Perdita Deville?”

“Perdita Deville is her name, then! That will do. I want nothing more.”

“I ask you, fiend, what would you have with Miss Deville?”

“I would have nothing more with you or her. _Good-night_,” said Lionne, coolly.

“Demon! what hellish scheme are you meditating now?” exclaimed Deville.

“I do not take _you_ into my counsel, whatever my purpose may be. _Good-night._”

“Devil! listen, then, to _this_—whatever your schemes may be—_dare_ to harm a hair of Perdita’s head, and——”

“Do you not understand, sir, that you are dismissed? _Good-night._”

With a fierce stamp of impatience, Deville turned and rushed from the room. Hurrying along the same passage through which he had entered, he soon reached the outer door and the street. His carriage had been taken away by Colonel Bingham at the time the latter carried Perdita home, and so he had no other course to pursue than to walk rapidly home.

On reaching his hotel, he hurried up into his private apartment, where he found Lady Adelaide still up and awaiting him. She was wrapped in her graceful blue cashmere dressing-gown, and her lovely hair was partly shaded by a delicate white lace cap. Her sweet, fair face wore such a heavenly expression of resignation and trust, modifying its keen anxiety, that Deville could not but think that compared with the illustrious, but most wretched woman he had just left, this quiet Christian wife and mother looked a very angel of light.

“Two o’clock, and you still up?” said Deville, glancing at the time-piece on the mantel-shelf. “I’m sorry that you waited for me, Adelaide. You should not have allowed my absence to have kept you from rest.”

“_Anxiety_ kept me from rest, Mr. Deville.”

“Anxiety, love? Surely not on my unworthy account?”

“It was upon Perdita’s. I dreaded the effect this evening’s amusement would have upon her excitable temperament.”

“But my lovely Puritan, Perdita must have been at home for two hours!”

“Yes, and her appearance only served to indorse and augment my anxiety.”

“Why, fairest saint, what _can_ you mean?”

“Why, that the evil effect I dreaded has been _more_ than realized!—The girl has been attracted—fascinated—fairly enchanted by Mrs. Norl!”

“Why, so has every one else been!”

“But not to the same extent! Perdita declares that she must know this woman, and cannot live without her! _Is_ she not conquered? _Is_ she not crazed?”

Instead of answering immediately, Mr. Deville fell into deep thought.

“But—what make you of all this?” inquired Lady Adelaide, anxiously.

“Before answering your question I would ask you—do you know who this Mrs. Norl _is_?” inquired Mr. Deville.

“Not only that she is——said to be a dangerous syren—

‘One of those women _women_ dread,
_Men_ fatally adore!’”

“You are right!” said Orville Deville, in a deep, stern, sorrowful voice—“You are right! She is all and more than all you have said!—In one word, she is——

“LIONNE!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide, interrupting him with a dreadful start.

“Yes!—but how, love, could you have guessed this?” inquired Deville, with surprise.

“Oh, the prophetic boding of my heart!” cried Lady Adelaide, clasping her hands.

“Dear love! do not let the fact of this wretched woman being near us, trouble you so much!”

“Oh, Mr. Deville! Mr. Deville! her proximity always troubles me! even before she makes her appearance I feel her influence in the very air! So I have felt her all this evening, scarce knowing what spiritual evil it was that agitated me!”

“You are very sensitive!” said Mr. Deville.

Lady Adelaide arose and walked several times up and down the floor, then returning, sat down, and forcing herself to speak calmly, said:

“Mr. Deville, tell me all!”

“Can you bear the subject?”

“Yes.”

“Question me then, dear; I prefer that you should.”

“She recognized you?”

“In an instant! I am sure she knew me the moment she came upon the stage and chanced to raise her eyes to our box—though by no look or sign did she betray her recognition?”

“She ever possessed the greatest self-command?”

“Yes! and upon this occasion so complete was her impassibility as to raise a doubt in my breast as to whether I were not a dupe of my own imagination! The shock, and then the doubt, so troubled me, that _I_ could not entirely control my agitation, and therefore pleaded a business engagement, and left the theatre. At the close of the performance, I returned and sought ‘Mrs. Norl’s’ withdrawing room, where I waited until she came in.”

“Oh, no! no! do not say you came again in conflict with that terrible woman!” exclaimed Lady Adelaide.

“Yes! I wished to ascertain for my own satisfaction whether the fancied identity were _real_—in a word, whether Lionne, reported dead, and buried long ago, and seeming to return to earth always to blast, destroy and curse—really lived, and moved and had her being in the form of this mysterious Mrs. Norl——”

“And you met _her_—Lionne—face to face!”

“I met her face to face! We had a stormy interview of which the purport better be left to your imagination. One thing should be told you! At the conclusion of our wrathful conference, when I was about to retire, she called me back, and, in the most peremptory manner, demanded information concerning ‘the young girl’ who was with me in the box.”

“Perdita?” asked Lady Adelaide, in a faint voice.

“Of course, Perdita.”

“Oh, merciful Lord! I understand it all! all now!” faltered the gentle lady, growing very pale.

“Understand—_what_ do you understand, Adelaide?”

“Oh, Orville, Orville! suspicions that have haunted my breast for years are confirmed now!” she exclaimed, clasping her slender white fingers convulsively together.

“Adelaide, I do not comprehend you!” he answered in perplexity.

“Oh, Orville! Orville! the voice of nature is as strong as it is profound! the ties of consanguinity are as keenly perceptible as they are eternal!”

“My love, you speak in enigmas!”

“Oh, Mr. Deville! do you not love Perdita with—a _father’s_ love?”

“Why, of course,—how can you doubt it?”

“I do _not_ doubt it! And does not Perdita love you with a _daughter’s_ fervent affection?”

“Unquestionably!”

“And yet she does not love _me_ so!”

“Little ingrate! I know she does not!”

“No! she is _natural_, and not ungrateful; she bestows on _me_ only friendship and respect, while she lavishes upon you a most fervent love!”

“Ah! you are too saintly to be jealous, my Adelaide. But to what does all your talk tend? Your manner is full of mystery.”

“I did not mean it should be so! I meant to elucidate a mystery!”

“Go on, love!”

“You acknowledge that while Perdita is only moderately attached to _me_, her heart is powerfully drawn to _you_.”

“Strange perversity! yes.”

“It is natural! I have also to remind you that at the first sight of Lionne, the heart of the girl was irresistibly drawn toward——_her mother_!”

“WHAT!” almost shrieked Orville Deville.

“Oh! Orville! do you not feel that this _must_ be so!” she said, in a faint voice.

“Adelaide, you are mad! simply mad! your singular trials have made you so!” he faltered.

“Oh, no, not mad! you know it! all my reasons are too well founded—Oh, my husband! have not the circumstances, the coincidences and correspondence between all we knew of Perdita’s history, and all we have heard of Lionne’s lost child—struck you before?” she asked, earnestly.

Without directly replying to her question, he exclaimed in a voice rendered hoarse by excessive agitation—

“Oh, Adelaide! this is terrible! terrible! terrible! What words for you to speak and me to hear!”

“Dear Orville, compose yourself! Think that at least, even while ignorant of her great claims upon us, we have done our duty to this child,” she said, soothingly.

“_Our_ duty! claims upon _us_! What claims, for instance, could my—could Lionne’s——”

“Hush—dear—hush—do not finish the sentence! Upon _you_ she had every claim that a child could have upon a father! Upon _me_ every one that a helpless, forlorn babe could have upon the handmaid of Him who saith, ‘Whoso’ receiveth one such little one in My name, receiveth me.’”

“My angel! Oh, my angel! Yet I will not call you so! that word is too often debased and misapplied to suit you! but, my saint! Oh, my sweet saint! you can forgive and you can speak so!” said Orville Deville, in a voice trembling with agitation, as the tears started to his eyes.

“_I_ have nothing to forgive! Oh, Orville, if this affecting compunction, offered _me_,—your faulty wife, your fellow-sinner,—were only offered up to Him against whom only you have sinned!” she fervently exclaimed, taking his hand.

“Sweet saint, I only feel how I have wronged _you_. But, Adelaide, about Perdita! it seems we are coming to conclusions too quickly! You may be—you _must_ be—mistaken!”

“Ah, Orville! does not your heart tell you that I am not?”

“Our hearts are not sure guides,” he said, evasively—then inquired:

“Adelaide, how long have you entertained these suspicions concerning Perdita?”

“Ever since she was first cast upon my protection they have been growing—fed by continued circumstantial evidence.”

“And this evidence—these coincidences, correspondences, resemblances—what are they?”

“Lionne, poor girl, believed that her child was devoured by wild beasts in the cavern where she had left it for a short season alone, on the fifteenth of August, seventeen hundred and sixty. On the same day of the same year, Nimrod Kyte found in a cavern in the wilderness a deserted infant, which he brought away and gave into my charge, and whom I christened Perdita. I did not know until long afterwards of this coincidence.”

“Good heaven! that is very striking! yet I was never told of it! What more?”

“At Glen Lennark Castle I saw a portrait of the Lady Leonora Lorne at four years of age. It was the perfect image of our Perdita, who was just three years old! _That_ increased my suspicions! Lately, as the child has grown towards womanhood, I have fancied a growing resemblance to that beautiful, unfortunate woman, whom I have only seen a few times in my life.”

“Enough! enough! oh heaven, Adelaide! why were not these suspicions confided to me!”

“Because, until to-night, they were _only_ suspicions. To-night, they were all confirmed by the strong corroboration of Perdita’s own heart! ay, and of Lionne’s also, as you reveal it to me! and therefore I do not delay to tell you.”

“Adelaide! Good heavens! what—if this be true—what is our course?”

“First investigate the facts for your own satisfaction—then—whatever be the cost of suffering to ourselves of others, we must do—what is right!”

“Adelaide! should this child of your love, and care, and prayers for so many years, prove to be the daughter of Lionne—would you give her up?”—

“—To share her mother’s fatal career—oh, that would be terrible!” exclaimed the lady.

“And yet, in the case put, her mother would have the only legal right to her!”

“I know it! therefore was I made so anxious by Perdita’s strong attraction to Lionne! oh! none but the Lord can help us in this dark strait! I must pray!”

“You must sleep now, dearest! You are tired,” said Mr. Deville, looking kindly into her pale and anxious face.

“Nay, Orville, I shall spend the remainder of the night in prayer, that the demon band of evil passions that at this very hour besieges that wretched woman’s heart, may not be able to prevail! that God’s angels may be near her and God’s grace may appear to her,” said Lady Adelaide. Then offering her lips for her good-night kiss, she glided from the bedchamber into the small, adjoining room, where she usually retired, to offer up her prayers to Heaven.