CHAPTER XXX.

A REVELATION.

Madame Hesslein, standing on the deck where Margaret had bidden her

adieu--weeping in her lace handkerchief until it was wet, and waving it

after her until it was dry, seemed so well worth losing a thousand

pounds for, that the Chevalier Calembours quickly overcame his sincere

regrets at the mad Margaret's departure into the jaws of death, and,

flinging all uncomfortable emotions into the limbo of forgetfulness, he

abandoned himself to the care of this fair creature who was left upon

his hands.

"There they go, these doomed ones!" sobbed madame, with a great gush of

tears. "Farewell, farewell, poor devoted Griselda."

"Be content, dear madame, I do not forsake thee--take comfort of thy

slave!"

"Oh, chevalier, is there ever a man on this stale old globe who can show

a heart like faithful Margaret's?"

"_Mon Dieu!_ I know such a man."

"I do not. I have yet to meet the man who is content to love without one

hope of recompense; who counts it joy to lay his all at the feet of the

one who has scorned him--who rushes with a willing soul to brave death

in the service of his enemy."

"Madame is skeptical, madame is cruel. Ah--could she read the heart of

Calembours----"

"Ha, ha, ha!" mocked madame, wildly, "perhaps I can. Perhaps I have met

with such before, and sifting it well, found it the heart of a fiend.

But enough, 'tis a long time since I have believed in love, and

faithfulness, and such mawkish sentimentality; now, do you know what I

believe in, monsieur?"

"_Pardieu_, no--cruel that thou art."

"Ambition is my god," breathed madame, tauntingly. "I will climb to the

highest step of the social ladder, and there I'll feel content."

The chevalier grew pale with envy.

"If madame would accept my poor help to raise her to her throne," sighed

he.

"_Yours!_" she interrupted, scornfully.

"Madame, I am not what I seem."

"Faith, I don't think you are."

"Madame, on the honor of a chevalier, I possess some fine titles and

estates."

"Foolish man, to cloak your royalty with this disguise!"

"I am Count de S. S. Turin."

"I salute you, count."

"I am Knight of the Three Sicilies."

"Receive my obeisance, knight."

"I possess fine vineyards in Hungary, and a jewel-mine."

"My congratulations, illustrious sir."

"And I am your devoted slave, Madame Hesslein." The luring, mocking,

maddening face of the lady lit up with fierce joy. She averted it

quickly. "I will resume these titles so dignified," cried the chevalier,

"I will return to my fatherland; ver' good, _mon ange_, you shall

accompany, you shall be my wife. You shall rule over nine hundred

vinedressers, and seven vineyards, _ma chere_; they are worth seventy

thousand florins in the year; and you shall wear the gems of agate, of

jasper--of diamonds as you wear this leetel ribbon--madame, all I have

shall be yours."

She heard with a cool smile, but a bitter pulse beat in her throat.

"You are flattering, chevalier," she remarked, "and I shall think of

it."

He seized her fair hands, and pressed them to his lips, but she snatched

them away with a flash from the smoldering fire in her eyes.

"But first," said madame, with a keen glance, "you must assure me that

the station you offer me is not gilded by imagination unassisted by

gold."

Monsieur sighed in heart-rending despondency.

"Incomparable woman, you doubt what is to the Hungarian noblesse dearer

than life--my honor. But come, I will give you my proofs."

He escorted her to her state-room where waited the two maids of the

charming lady, who always traveled with a complete retinue of servants,

and going to his own cabin, presently he returned holding solemnly in

his hands an elegantly silver-mounted coffer which he placed upon the

table.

Unlocking it, he drew from thence various parchments of official aspect,

with huge seals appended, and displayed them to the smiling inamorata.

"These are the rewards with which my country has honored my poor

services," he said, with humility. "These papers attest to my right to

wear these titles you have just heard, madame. _Voila!_ 'To the Count of

Santo Spirito, Turin,' and 'To the Knight of the Order of Three

Sicilys.' _Mon ange_, what more can I say?"

A wicked smile was playing around her mouth.

"I accept your statements, chevalier--and yourself!" she murmured, with

an exquisite side glance.

The little chevalier beamed with triumph, and bowed low over the lovely

hand which she extended, and then she snatched it quickly from him, made

a queenly obeisance, and vanished like a spirit from his sight.

Madame Hesslein was seen no more until the steamer entered New York; she

was either ill or coy; in reply to the chevalier's tender reproaches she

declared for the first named, although her flashing eyes and healthy

appearance emphatically contradicted the assertion.

What a dream of joy tinctured with horrible doubts the succeeding month

was for poor little Calembours! To-day she was amiable, gay, bewitching;

to-morrow she would be locked in her room, and would send down a frantic

entreaty to the good _fiance_ to leave her in peace; presently she would

reward his importunities by flitting into his presence, white, vengeful,

and torturing him with covert taunts and maddening allusions to his

forgotten past.

And yet she was so beautiful, and so changeful, and so reckless that the

wild Bohemian fire blazed up in the poor little man's soul, and he could

not help loving her with a devotion worthy of a better object.

He expended his hoarded gains in loading her with costly gifts; and with

mad prodigality assumed a splendor of estate which drained his finances

to the lowest ebb; anxious only to win her for his own and calmly

leaving the _denouement_ until after the happy day, when madame could

not help herself.

How he hoped to obtain her forgiveness when she discovered all, Heaven

knows; but love not seldom infatuates men and goads them on to their

complete ruin.

Not true love, though of a worthy object; 'tis ofttimes the only savior

of a sinking man.

Presently the illustrious foreigner, loaded with his titles, penetrated

to the upper circle of society where Madame Hesslein moved, a solitary

queen among shrinking ladies of _haut ton_, who with one accord admired,

and hated, and courted her because she was the attraction, and it was

"the thing" to say, "we had little Madame Hesslein here last night."

What her beauty and refinement did for her, the chevalier's _applomb_

and versatility of genius did for him. Every one talked of the clever,

polished Frenchman--in good society monsieur spoke only French, and wore

his Legion of Honor flauntingly--every one raved about the dazzling

witch he paid such faithful court to; every one vowed that such a pair

were expressly created for each other, none else.

On the last evening of this intoxicating dream the chevalier attended a

brilliant assembly which madame held at her hotel.

Magnates of the highest rank were there to give homage to their

resistless hostess; and belles of tried skill were there, to waste their

ammunition upon the enthralled chevalier; but Romeo and Juliet had no

eyes for any but themselves, although their smiles were showered on all.

Madame Hesslein, gorgeous as an Eastern houri, convened her little court

about her ottoman, singled the happy Calembours out from all his vexed

competitors, and threw him into raptures by addressing her next remarks

more particularly to him.

Fascinated, the gay throng watched that set, cruel face, its glimmering,

chrysolite eyes, its wreathing, quivering lips, and its wild mischief as

the fair dame told her little story to the Chevalier de Calembours:

"Dear Monsieur, your latest anecdote puts this good company in your

debt, so I shall do myself the honor of paying that debt with a

narrative which is new, true, and pertinent.

"There was living in the town of Raleigh, some twenty years ago, a

remarkable girl called--shall we say for the present--Dolores? for that

indeed was her fate.

"She was very pretty, they said, but execrably poor. Her father was a

blacksmith, you see, and her mother was glad to obtain laundry work from

her richer neighbors; so that poor Dolores started in life with the

disadvantages of an undeniable beauty and a penniless purse.

"When sixteen, she considered it quite a lift in life to be promoted to

the position of waiting-maid to the wealthy Mrs. Maltravers, instead of

trudging round the town with her mother's baskets of clear-starched

garments to the various houses which patronized her labor.

"Mrs. Maltravers was old, and fanciful, and she good-naturedly taught

the girl how to speak well, and how to dress neatly, and gave her that

perception of the true value of elegance which only the rich can give.

"Dolores liked to be well dressed, and to sway her humble court by the

cleverness of her conversation, and Mrs. Maltravers was surprised and

amused at her aptness in such branches, and taught her with pleasure.

"So Dolores thankfully made the most of her position, and became much

too fine a lady for the rough home she had left, and was flouted at by

her rude brothers and awkward sisters, until she cut herself adrift from

them all.

"Mr. and Mrs. Maltravers went to Europe to travel for two years, and the

waiting-maid went with them.

"Dolores liked the strange life, and learned more and more every day.

"At last the travelers came to Austria, and pleased with the rich, warm

summer of the plain they stopped in Hungary for six months.

"The name of the town was--Szegedin; you have some acquaintance with it,

count; you will take especial interest in a narrative that unfolds its

climax in your birthplace.

"Our pretty Dolores had here the fortune to fall in love with a man of

the barbarous name of Ladislaus Schmolnitz; and when you learn that,

added to his shocking name, he followed the profession of a tailor, you

will only wonder at little Dolores' infatuation.

"But this little man, so handsome, clever, and bland, met her often on

the banks of the Theiss, and talked sentiment, and poetry and other

pretty nonsense in the shocking language of Hungary to simple Dolores,

and made her forget that he was a wretched little tailor.

"And he taught her to prattle in Hungarian, and then he asked her to

love him, and she did love him--ah, friends! so passionately, so

heroically, that I only wonder that her splendid love did not ennoble

his.

"Ladislaus Schmolnitz, the Szegedin tailor, ran off with Dolores, the

waiting-maid, and laughed at the pursuit of the shocked Maltravers, who

grudged the girl to a little rascal of a Hun.

"But Madame and Monsieur Schmolnitz lived together for two years and

were very happy.

"Very happy, dear friends, notwithstanding the poverty-stricken shifts

which they were at to keep the wolf from the door.

"So happy, dear friend, that foolish Dolores wished for no other heaven

than the heaven of the little tailor's love, and toiled, my heart how

she toiled, to keep the treasure safe.

"At last, Monsieur Schmolnitz saw a chance to rise in the world, and

took his wife and baby-boy to Paris, where he energetically began to

teach languages, having a clever turn that way.

"He began also to neglect his Dolores, and to prove an indifferent

spouse; even to accuse her of unfaithfulness, alas! she loved him far

too wildly for such madness.

"But he disappeared from little Dolores one day, and never came back to

her, and the silly girl's heart broke, she despaired.

"Homeless, nameless, incumbered with a boy twelve months old, what could

the poor wretch do?

"She went away with the man who had roused the perfidious tailor's

jealousy, a cotton manufacturer from Manchester, and became a wealthy

woman, and quite forgot what cold and hunger were, although, good luck!

she could not forget what true love had been to her.

"She loved the boy, she nurtured him with care, and he was her only

consolation when her heart was crushed with pain and what she then

called--guilt.

"When her protector died, she married an American who took her out to

Washington; but by this time her heart was so old, and cold, and weary

of beating that it could hold no love for any man, and she devoted

herself to the pretty boy, and brought him up a little gentleman,

although she never dared treat him as her son for fear she should hate

him some day for his wicked father's sake.

"She sent the boy to the North to gain a finished education, and lived

very wearily with her jealous husband, finding her only amusement in

attracting the homage of the men she met, and repaying it with scorn.

"At last she grew too restive under the yoke, and having had experience

before of the evils of jealousy in a husband, she declined rehearsing

her part a second time, and forestalled the humiliation by eloping with

a Virginian planter.

"Hapless wretch! Can you blame her, dear count? no, no, we shall blame

it all on that perfidious little tailor who broke her heart at first.

"She liked the sumptuous life on the fine plantation passably well, her

mansion was admirably arranged, her _menage_ was fine, her slaves

numerous and docile; Dolores reigned royally.

"But her malevolent destiny could not leave her long in comfort, poor

soul; it swooped upon her when she was almost contented, and with

inflexible hand pushed her into misery once more.

"The war broke out, the slaves fled, monsieur, her kind friend went to

Richmond and got a company, and Dolores was left in the great house with

only one quadroon girl and a couple of old negroes to protect her from

danger.

"In the second year of the war, her fate was sealed.

"One day a detachment of Federal soldiers encamped in the plantation,

and two colonels came to the mansion to demand shelter for their

wounded.

"The terrified Dolores was hastening down stairs to see them, when a

voice which she had not heard for eighteen years sang a gay French

_chanson_, which she last had heard from Ladislaus Schmolnitz, on the

pretty banks of Theiss.

"Friends, this wretched woman recognized that voice as belonging to her

once loved little tailor.

"Ah! her heart was not dead after all, it stirred in its long

death-sleep, and thrilled with joy. Oh, Heaven! why is love so deathless

in a woman's breast when it is ever her curse, her ruin?

"Well, she fled to her room again, and disguised herself as well as she

could, for she yearned to meet her renegade husband, and to converse

with him unsuspected. She did so. She concealed her pretty figure with

clumsy padding, she browned her white face, she covered her yellow hair

with a wig, and entering, she bowed low to her renegade husband and

spoke only French, which he had never before heard her speak.

"But he could not feel at ease, he gazed suspiciously again and again at

her, her eyes recalled the old love story by the banks of the Theiss--he

feared the French madame of middle age.

"What her emotions were, it is scarce worth telling. She was happy to

know that he was alive, she exulted that she had seen him, but she was

bound to the kind planter and feared to betray herself to Schmolnitz,

she let him go, not intending to reveal herself.

"But, at the moment of parting, a volley of shot was fired at the front

of the mansion by some Confederate troops, who had surprised the

encampment, and a cannon ball crashed in the doorway, almost in the

midst of the little group in the hall.

"Dolores was startled out of her disguise and clung madly to the little

tailor, crying out that she was his Dolores, and that she loved him

still.

"Simple idiot! when she could live in palaces if she chose!

"Dear friends, that abject little tailor had the brutality to shake her

off, to swear at her; to protest that he had suspected as much, and to

fling her from him in a dead faint in the hall and escape with his

comrade.

"Ah! count, could you believe that a fiend in man's form could be so

dastardly?

"But Dolores did not fall a victim to the cruelty of the small

Mephistopheles; her servants carried her out of the house, which was in

flames, and she soon escaped to Richmond, where she fell ill, and on

recovering learned that her friend, the planter, was killed in battle.

"Some months had passed, but this insane creature was so enslaved by her

passion for that unworthy man that no sooner was she recovered from her

illness than she determined to search out the little tailor, and display

her true beauty, which was singularly heightened by the years which had

passed since they parted.

"She seriously hoped to win back his worthless heart, and dreamed of

nothing but of endowing him with the wreck of her fortune, which was

still quite a handsome possession.

"So she took to visiting the hospitals and prisons, fancying that he

might have been wounded or captured; but without success.

"No wonder, for the ineffable rascal had long since deserted from the

North to the South, and was plying the profession of spy, under the

ostensible one of commissary-general for the stores for the wounded.

"At last, Dolores chanced to ride out to a station where she had heard

there were some Northern soldiers lying wounded; and there she came upon

her own son, the dear consolation of her wretched life, lying starving

on a handful of straw, and the place surrounded by Northern soldiers,

who had just come to rescue their comrades.

"The unfortunate woman was just in time to see her brave boy die, and

then, indeed, she thought that her cup of misery was full--but no,

Heaven is prodigal of its punishments to such as she.

"While mourning over her boy, the renegade commissary rode up with his

staff, intending to remove the invalids to Richmond, and was instantly

attacked by the Federals; Dolores filled with mad grief, drew her

old-time husband into the shed and bade him look upon his son, and the

next moment beheld him struck down by a ball at her feet.

"She thought him dead, poor wretch, and lifted his head to her lap, and

told him that she loved him with a love that could never die, and swore

that she would water the graves of her husband and her son with her own

heart-blood.

"When the skirmish was over the Northerners moved on with the wounded

man as their prisoner, and this woman rode beside him, leaving her dear

son dead in the shanty.

"At midnight, when the party stopped to rest, it was found that

Schmolnitz was not dead, and he soon recovered enough to speak.

"Dolores bent over him, his head in her lap, and hoped that he would

recognize her; but he did not, in the gloom, until she spoke, entreating

him for the sake of her love years ago to take her back to him.

"Most brutally he repudiated her, assuring her that she could not be his

wife, and that he would never own her as such.

"Then, indeed, she sounded the shallow waters of his soul, and desired

revenge.

"She would have stabbed him to the heart even then, if she had not been

prevented, but she swore beside the heartless wretch that she should

have vengeance; then she and her attendants rode back to Richmond.

"Months passed, all trace of the man was lost to her; but patiently she

searched for him until she found a clew.

"After many adventures, she found him in this city, and what think you

were the titles which this little tailor had assumed?

"Dear count, will you not make a guess?

"Friends, I believe our honored count is indisposed--how pale he has

become! Little wonder, for he sympathizes with every word I say.

"Do not, good Count de Calembours, forsake us until my story is

completed.

"You must go? Then I shall hasten.

"Friends, the miserable little tailor, this renegade, dastard and spy,

had entered the highest circles in New York under the title which this

man wears--the Count de Calembours!"

She swooped forward, she seized the arm of the retreating chevalier, and

wheeled him round until he faced the company.

He was frightfully pale, his eyes flickered ominously, he glared

helplessly at his tormentor, the beautiful bride-elect.

"What! has my _fiance_ nothing to say?" jibed madame, with flashing

eyes, green as a tigress. "Is he choked by a skein of thread? Felled by

a thimble? Stabbed by a tailor's needle? Fie, fie! Ladislaus Schmolnitz,

to let the coat fit you so well! To stand dumb as your own goose! Oh,

cowardly little tailor!"

Shrilly the scoffing denunciation rang out; stepping back a pace she

pointed her finger in his face and laughed wildly; and the good company,

suddenly catching the resistless drollery of the farce, burst into a

long, convulsive, mocking peal of merciless laughter, till the room rang

again, the glasses jingled, and the poor little tailor threw himself on

his knees before the ferocious Nemesis and begged for mercy.

But the good company pointed their fingers in the wretch's appalled face

and hissed him down; and the air seemed alive with ten thousand

serpents, and the room swam around with eyes of mockery and ire; and

deafened, horror-stricken, and utterly routed, the poor little tailor

fell forward on the carpet in a dead swoon.

When he recovered his senses, the room was deserted, the lights were

out, and one small, airy figure stood at a distant door with a taper in

her hand and looking on the fallen hero.

"Better, good Monsieur Schmolnitz?" mocked Madame Hesslein.

He rose unsteadily, and held by the back of a chair.

"Beast! traitress! you are my wife, are you?" hissed he, in a furious

whisper. "I had my doubts of you all the while. But this shall ruin

you."

"Oh, no, my excellent tailor, I am above your puny attacks. So, now that

we have squared accounts, I will bid you a long adieu."

She bowed to the floor, rose, and gave him one long, fierce, taunting

glance.

He drew a pistol from his breast, took deliberate aim, and fired it full

at her face, just as she closed the door. It missed her by a

hair-breadth.

She looked in again with a diabolical laugh, and vanished; and he, too,

fled by the opposite door, just as the hotel servants rushed in to quell

the tumult.