Run to Earth, Mary Elizabeth Braddon [classic literature books txt] 📗

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"I am going on a journey, Paulina, on business," he said; "business, which I can only transact myself. I shall, therefore, be compelled to be absent from you for a week; it may be even more. Perhaps we shall never meet again. Will that be very distressing to you?"

"Douglas," exclaimed Paulina, "how strangely you speak to me to-night! If this is a jest, it is a very cruel one."

"It is no jest, Paulina," answered her lover. "Life is very precarious, and within the last week I have learnt to consider my existence in imminent peril."

"You are ill, Douglas," said Paulina; "and illness has unnerved you. Pray do not give way to these depressing thoughts. Consult some other physician than the man who is now your adviser."

"Yes, yes; I will do so," answered Douglas, with, a sudden change of tone; "you are right, Paulina. I will not be so weak as to become the prey of these distressing fancies, these dark forebodings. What have I to fear? Death is no terrible evil. It is but the common fate of all. I can face that common doom as calmly as a Christian should face it. But deceit, treachery, falsehood from those we love--those are evils far more terrible than death. Oh, Paulina! tell me that I have no need to fear those?"

"From whom should you fear them, Douglas!"

"Aye, from whom, that is the question! Not from you, Paulina?"

"From me!" she echoed, with a look of wonder. "Are you mad?"

"Swear--swear to me that there is no falsehood in your heart, Paulina; that you love me as truly as you have taught me to believe; that you have not beguiled me with false words, as false as they are sweet!" cried the young man, in wild excitement.

"My dear Douglas, this is madness!" exclaimed Madame Durski; "folly too wild for reproof. This passionate excitement must be surely the effect of fever. What can I say to you except that I love you truly and dearly; that my heart has been purified, my mind elevated by your influence; that I have now no thought which is not known to you--no hope that does not rest itself upon your love. You ought to believe this, Douglas, for my every word, my every look, should speak the truth, which I do not care to reiterate in protestations such as these. It is too painful to me to be doubted by you."

"And if I have wronged you, I am a base wretch," said Douglas, in a low voice.

Early the following morning he paid another visit to Dr. Westbrook.

"I will not trespass on your time this morning," he said, after shaking hands with the physician. "I have only come here in order to ask one question. If the poison were discontinued for a week, would there be any cessation of the symptoms?"

"There would," replied the doctor. "Nature is quick to reassert herself. But if you are about to test your butler, I should recommend you to remain away longer than a week--say a fortnight."

But it was not to test his old servant that Douglas Dale absented himself from London, though he had allowed the physician to believe that such was his intention. He started for Paris that night; but he took Jarvis with him.

His health improved day by day, hour by hour, from the day of his parting from Paulina Durski. The low fever had left him before he had been ten days in Paris; the perpetual thirst, the wearisome debility, left him also. He began to be his old self again; and to him this recovery was far more terrible than the worst possible symptoms of disease could have been, for it told him that the hidden foe who had robbed him of health and strength, was to be found at Hilton House.

In that house there was but one person who would profit by Douglas Dale's death, and she would profit largely.

"She has never loved me," he thought to himself. "She still loves Reginald Eversleigh. My death will give her both fortune and liberty; it will leave her free to wed the man she really loves."

He no longer trusted his own love. He believed that he had been made the dupe of a woman's treachery; and that the hand which had so often been pressed passionately to his lips, was the hand which, day by day, had mingled poison with his cup, sapping his life by slow degrees. Against the worldly wisdom of his friends he had opposed the blind instinct of his love; and now that events conspired to condemn this woman, he wondered that he could ever have trusted her.

At the end of a fortnight Douglas Dale returned from Paris, and went immediately to Paulina. He believed that he had been the dupe of an accomplished actress--the vilest and most heartless of women--and he was now acting a part, in order to fathom the depth of her iniquity.

"Let me know her--let me know her in all her baseness," he said to himself. "Let me tax the murderess with her crime! and then, surely, this mad love will be plucked for ever from my heart, and I shall find peace far from the false syren whose sorcery has embittered my life."

Douglas had received several letters from Paulina during his visit to Paris--letters breathing the most devoted and disinterested love; but to him every word seemed studied, every expression false. Those very letters would, a few short weeks ago, have seemed to Douglas the perfection of truth and artlessness.

He returned to England wondrously restored to health. Jarvis had been his constant attendant in Paris, and had brought him every morning a cup of coffee made by his own hands.

At the Temple, he found a note from Paulina, telling him that he was expected hourly at Hilton House.

He lost no time in presenting himself. He endeavoured to stifle all emotion--to conquer the impatience that possessed him; but he could not.

Madame Durski was seated by one of the windows in the drawing-room when Mr. Dale was announced.

She received her lover with every appearance of affection, and with an emotion which she seemed only anxious to conceal.

But to the jaundiced mind of Douglas Dale this suppressed emotion appeared only a superior piece of acting; and yet, as he looked at his betrothed, while she stood before him, perfect, peerless, in her refined loveliness, his heart was divided by love and hate. He hated the guilt which he believed was hers. He loved her even yet, despite that guilt.

"You are very pale, Douglas," she said after the first greetings were over. "But, thank heaven, there is a wonderful improvement. I can see restored health in your face. The fever has gone--the unnatural brightness has left your eyes. Oh, dearest, how happy it makes me to see this change! You can never know what I suffered when I saw you drooping, day by day."

"Yes, day by day, Paulina," answered the young man, gravely. "It was a gradual decay of health and strength--my life ebbing slowly--almost imperceptibly--but not the less surely."

"And you are better, Douglas? You feel and know yourself that there is a change?"

"Yes, Paulina. My recovery began in the hour in which I left London. My health has improved from that time."

"You required change of air, no doubt. How foolish your doctor must have been not to recommend that in the first instance! And now that you have returned, may I hope to see you as often as of old? Shall we renew all our old habits, and go back to our delightful evenings?"

"Were those evenings really pleasant to you, Paulina?" asked Mr. Dale, earnestly.

"Ah, Douglas, you must know they were!"

"I cannot know the secrets of your heart, Paulina," he replied, with unspeakable sadness in his tone. "You have seemed to me all that is bright, and pure, and true. But how do I know that it is not all seeming? How do I know that Reginald Eversleigh's image may not still hold a place in your heart?"

"You insult me, Douglas!" exclaimed Madame Durski, with dignity. "But I will not suffer myself to be angry with you on the day of your return. I see your health is not entirely restored, since you still harbour these gloomy thoughts and unjust suspicions."

His most searching scrutiny could perceive no traces of guilt in the lovely face he looked at so anxiously. For a while his suspicions were almost lulled to rest. That soft white hand, which glittered with gems that had been his gift, could not be the hand of an assassin.

He began to feel the soothing influence of hope. Night and day he prayed that he might discover the innocence of her he so fondly loved. But just as he had begun to abandon himself to that sweet influence, despair again took possession of him. All the old symptoms--the fever, the weakness, the unnatural thirst, the dry, burning sensation in his throat--returned; and this time Jarvis was far away. His master had sent him to pay a visit to a married daughter, comfortably settled in the depths of Devonshire.

Douglas Dale went to one of the most distinguished physicians in London. He was determined to consult a new adviser, in order to discover whether the opinion of that other adviser would agree with the opinion of Dr. Harley Westbrook.

Dr. Chippendale, the new physician, asked all the questions previously asked by Dr. Westbrook, and, after much deliberation, he informed his patient, with all proper delicacy and caution, that he was suffering from the influence of slow poison.

"Is my life in danger, Dr. Chippendale?" he asked.

"Not in immediate danger. The poison has evidently been administered in infinitesimal doses. But you cannot too soon withdraw yourself from all those who now surround you. Life is not to be tampered with. The poisoner may take it into his head to increase the doses."

Douglas Dale left his adviser after a long conversation. He then went to take his farewell of Paulina Durski.

There was no longer the shadow of doubt in his mind. The horrible certainty seemed painfully clear to him. Love must be plucked for ever from his breast, and only contempt and loathing must remain where that divine sentiment had been enthroned.

Since his interview with the physician, he had carefully recalled to memory all the details of his life in Paulina's society.

She had given him day by day an allotted portion of poison.

How had she administered it?

This was the question which he now sought to solve, for he no longer asked himself whether she was guilty or innocent. He remembered that every evening after dinner he had, in Continental fashion, taken a single glass of liqueur; and this he had received from Paulina's own hand. It had pleased him to take the tiny, fragile glass from those taper fingers. The delicate liqueur had seemed sweeter to him because it was given by Paulina.

He now felt convinced that it was in this glass of liqueur the poison had been administered to him.

On more than one occasion he had at first declined taking it; but Paulina had always persuaded him, with some pretty speech, some half coquettish, half caressing action.

He found her waiting him as usual: her toilet perfection itself; her beauty enhanced by the care with which she always strove to render herself charming in his eyes. She said playfully that it was a tribute which she