Stories with a Vengeance — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE SPECTRE OF THE STRAND. your conversation,” said a young man—it was Evremond De Mouvrier, but, ah, how changed !—“ Was the lady’s name Massi- lon P” “It was. Why ?” Did Evremond utter a sigh, or relax the frigidity of his icy heart as he thought of Marie’s deep trouble P No! Nor could he force himself to reflect that Marie had erred as many a weak woman had erred—had been forgiven, and had repented. No! Though starving for bread, he considered himself a Crosus in the possession of his revenge. He was rich—rich! The false one had been hu- miliated and shamed before the world! Now he began to live. He could work now with a will, before, with his punctured and aching heart, he could not work. In a week he was engaged as a forei correspondent for a mercantile firm. tn three months he was independent of the world, for he had saved money, and his employers were his best friends. * *% * od * ** Show the lady in!” said Evremond De Mouvrier, whilst seated in his study one evening. | It was New Year’s Eve—two years after that memorable evening when he listened to what seemed his death sentence from the lips of his unfaithful sweetheart. It was Marie, in deep mourning. Her husband had died in prison—a convicted felon. Her child had breathed its last in a common lodging-house in Gray’s Inn Road. What a pathetic sight! No words would have been necessary to lead to the reconciliation of the unhappy couple had the wrong inflicted not been so cruel and so bitter—had Evremond not suffered so much—so very much. “ No!” he replied. He could not forgive. She had spoken the words that had marred his life, and, for a time? unseated his reason. She had committed what neither murderer nor bandit could perform with knife or stiletto. The past could not be recalled! And so she glided slowly from that room out into the melancholy twilight, the in- exorable “No” which Evremond pro- nounced re-echoing like thunder in her ears—a sentence which ‘only death itself could alter. * * * * *% Unyielding man! Could his eyes have seen the ghastly forms of Want, Penury, Regret, Despair—ay, Suicide—which his Google -_- 125 words would call forth—pitiless torturers! to dog him and her night and day in future years of undreamt-of woe—how would he have shrunk from pronouncing the words which so irrevocably parted them ! “Is there no hope, dear Evremond ?” she had asked, her voice recalling the scenes of their childhood—‘“ no hope that we may yet be the same to each other as then P” Yes; in the horrible calm of that hateful room, whose walls had only lately echoed with her soft voice and footsteps, he now took a frightful pleasure in recalling her each particular look, and word, and gesture during that never-to-be-forgotten inter- view. Would he never be able to banish that sorrowful face from his eyes! “ Away !—away!” he groaned, as he heat his breast, while his eyes flashed with an unnatural glare. “I must not think of it !” Now a knock comes—a timid and unob- trusive tap outside. Tis she! “ Marie!” he shrieks, as he rushes to her arms. His face is lit up with a delight truly horrible to see. Alas! that timid tap at his door was not by the gentle, wasted, yet lovely fingers of his darling Marie; but only a favourite little child, who screams with terror as she sees his face in the half-light of that door- way, while he stands ealling down curses on his soul, his life—praying that the hight of his eyes may be quenched for ever, for his cruelty to that penitent creature who had pleaded for his love, yet pleaded in vain ! Out into the streets, bareheaded and coatless ; out through da1kness and pelting rain; out into the terrible vacuum called the world—that frightful void —that emptiness known as earth—frightful, hor- rible, because to him it possessed not Marie! By the river! Down by the stairs and the wharves; through the slush and the gravel; out into the dark, deep, rushing stream. Reckless madman! he will be drowned ! She is not there! The streets—the bridges—the Embank- ment—the seats—the arches—the filthy crevices into which the houseless poor creep by night for shelter. She is not there! How illimitably vast the great city seems to have grown!—all to allure the weeping Marie from the grasp of his burn- ing hands. . @ JOO S CO)