Chapter XXXVII: The Crisis

Destruction—swift destruction
Fall on my recreant head, and be my fate
The terror of all hearts when I forgive him!—_Otway._

“Adelaide! the time has come when all concealments, from whatever cause, between us, must be at an end,” said Orville Deville, as with a pale and resolute brow, he stood before his wife in her dressing-room.

With eyes full of sympathy, that Christian wife took his hand, and drew him towards a chair near her sofa.

“Where is Donald and Perdita?” inquired Mr. Deville.

“With their language-master in the parlor, at their studies. They are safe for some hours.”

“It is well; for I would not be interrupted.” He paused, passed his hand across his brow, and seemed perplexed.

“Dear Orville, speak freely to me—you know that there is very little which I do not already know.”

“You know nothing! since I have told you nothing! You only conjecture, though we have conversed upon that conjecture as though it had been mutually recognized truth. That is past. Now all must be open and clear between us.”

Adelaide looked up at him with eyes full of anxious inquiry.

“Hear me, then, Adelaide! Lionne, when, years ago, she broke in upon your happiness, told you nothing but the truth! truth until now unacknowledged by me! Yes, Adelaide, I married her!—forgetful or ignorant of the nature of that indissoluble bond that from our childhood united me to yourself, and yielding to a violent, though false and transient excitement of the senses, I dared to unite my fate with that beautiful young lionness of the forest—afterwards discovered to be our cousin, the daughter and heiress of the banished Earl of Glen Lennark, the Lady Leonora Lorne.”

Adelaide dropped her eyes, compressed her lips, and tightly clasped her hands, as if to constrain and repress the emotion that was swelling at her heart. Mr. Deville continued—

“I was called from the side of my fatal bride to the sick-bed of my mother, where, alas! I soon learned that my mad passion was as evanescent as it had been violent, and that my hasty marriage was a crime and a felony, exposing my liberty and honor to degradation and ruin! I found you, whom, years ago, I had left a child, now grown up into a lovely and loving woman, bearing my name, everywhere recognized as my wife. I soon came to love you, not with the blind idolatry of passion, but with all the holiest devotion of my soul. I sought to forget the fatal episode of the forest, and to confirm my true marriage with you! As we were preparing for our bridal tour, Lionne came, and you know the rest!”

Adelaide dropped her head upon her bosom, and wrung her pale hands together, as though silently wrestling with the strong agitation that was shaking her whole frame.

Mr. Deville continued—

“The rage, grief and despair of Lionne was at first natural, justifiable! but her long-continued, persistent, ruthless malignity against me and all connected with me, is madness!”

“Let us be just! she had enough to drive her mad,” sighed Lady Adelaide.

“And now,” continued Mr. Deville, “affairs approach a crisis! The certificate of my—yes! I will speak the fatal word—_felonious_ marriage with herself is in her possession, a terrible weapon for my destruction! _She will use it!_”

Lady Adelaide shuddered as with an ague fit, and covered her face with her hands.

“_She will use it_ unless I obey the order she gives me, however unreasonable, improper, or even criminal that order may be.”

“Oh, Orville!”

“At her command I gave up, without possible explanation, the earldom of Glen Lennark.”

“It was her right and not ours, dear husband.”

“At her command I stepped down from the seat of distinction upon which the suffrages of my friends had placed me.”

Lady Adelaide clasped and unclasped her hands in troubled thought.

“And finally, when her commands become impossible to fulfil, or when she cares no longer to make them, she will still, with the relentless, ruthless malignity of her nature, use her power to crush me.”

Again Lady Adelaide shook as with an ague-fit, while she covered her pale face with her hands.

“I own, Adelaide, that in my early youth the dread of the possible exposure, disgrace and ruin attending a criminal trial deterred me from meeting the crisis that _must_ come sooner or later. _Longer_, it were unmanly to shrink. Something must be done.” As he said this he looked inquiringly at the pale and quivering face of his wife, as though he would have discovered therein whether she had courage to meet that terrible ordeal at which he hinted. She understood his unspoken doubts, and controlling her awn agitation, she raised her face, pale and still, to that of her husband, and answered:

“Let us try to reflect what is right to be done, and do it—braving the consequences.”

“My noble wife! It is what I myself judged best. The present demand of this most unhappy woman is, that we give up to her our adopted daughter, Perdita. Were I mad enough to obey this insane command, how can I be sure that her next command would not be that I should give up you? And where would her despotism stop? I will dare and meet the trial! The essence of all crime is in the intention. I had no intention to commit a crime. The jury will understand that. Yes, once for all, I will dare the certificate!” said Mr. Deville, rising and pressing a kiss upon the brow of his wife, before leaving the room.

“And I,” murmured Lady Adelaide, “I will get the certificate from her; for I know how to appeal to that better spirit that, however confined, still lives in every human heart.”

“_And I call on earth and hades to crush me with a swift destruction the day, the hour that I relent!_” muttered, in low, deep thunder, a terrible voice at her side.

Adelaide started and looked up to see Lionne, the relentless, the terrible, the ubiquitous, standing before her.

Yes, the rivals were again face to face. What a picture they made! What a contrast they formed!

Lady Adelaide, with her fair face softly shaded by her pale, golden tresses, and by the fine, semi-transparent lace of a delicate breakfast-cap, and her fragile form wrapped in a soft, snow-white, cashmere negligé, reclining on her easy chair, and—

Lionne, with her unconfined, long, glittering, black ringlets rolling fiercely back from her dark, bright, resplendent countenance,—her tall, finely-curved figure arrayed in a close-fitting black habit, and drawn up to its proudest height.

They gazed at each other—the soft, blue eyes deprecatingly; the fierce, black ones defiantly.

Lionne muttered the repetition of her cruel word:

“And I call on earth and hades to crush me with a swift destruction the day, the hour that I relent!”

“An awful adjuration of the evil powers, madam! I meet it with an appeal to the better and higher—ay, to the Best and Highest—God! and I call on Heaven to turn aside from you the curse you have invoked upon yourself; to endow you with the grace of mercy, and to bless you—_forgiving_ others, _forgiven_ yourself!” said Lady Adelaide, in a soft and prayerful tone.

Lionne smiled in bitter scorn.

“Will you sit down, madam?” said Lady Adelaide, putting out her hand, and drawing another chair nearer to her own.

Lionne silently threw herself into the offered seat.

“And now will you tell me in what manner I can be of service to you?” inquired Lady Adelaide, deprecatingly, for she felt herself, indeed, as it were, a lamb in the power of a lioness.

The haughty visitor hesitated, paused in deep thought for a moment, while Lady Adelaide added:

“If I can be of use to you, in any way, believe me, I shall be glad.”

An ironical smile flitted over the face of Lionne, and in a sarcastic voice, she answered:

“Very well! I _will_ inform you how you can be of use to me, since to ‘_serve_’ me will make you glad.”