CHAPTER I.
THE PLOTTERS.
"'Tis a woman hard of feature,
Old, and void of all good nature.
'Tis an ugly, envious shrew,
Railing forever at me and you."—Pope.
t was Christmas Eve. All day long crowds of gayly dressed people had walked the streets, basking in the bright wintry sunshine. Sleigh after sleigh went dashing past, with merrily jingling bells, freighted with rosy cheeks, and bright eyes, and youthful faces, all aglow with happiness.
But the sun must set on Christmas Eve, as on all other days; and redly, threateningly, angrily, he sank down in the far west. Dark, sullen clouds came rolling ominously over the heavens; the wind blew piercingly cold, accompanied with a thin, drizzling rain that froze ere it fell.
Gradually the streets were deserted as the storm increased in fury; but the Yule logs were piled high, the curtains drawn, and every house, save one, in the handsome street to which my story leads me, was all aglow, all ablaze with light.
In a lull of the storm the sounds of music and merry-making would rise and swell on the air, as light feet tripped merrily amid the mazes of the dance; or a silvery peal of laughter would break easily on the wayfarer's ear. The reflection of the light through the crimson curtains shed a warm, rosy glow over the snowy ground, brightening the gloom of that stormy winter's night.
But rising dark, grim, and gloomy amid those gayly lighted mansions, stood a large, quaint building of dark-red sandstone. It stood by itself, spectral, shadowy, and grand. No ray of light came from the gloomy windows that seemed to be hermetically sealed. All around was stern, black, and forbidding.
And yet—yes, from one solitary window there did stream a long, thin line of light. But even this did not look bright and cheerful like the rest; it had a cold, yellowish glare, making the utter blackness of the rest of the mansion blacker still by contrast.
The room from which the light issued was high and lofty. The uncarpeted floor was of black polished oak, as also were the wainscoting and mantel. The walls were covered with landscape paper, representing the hideous Dance of Death, in all its variety of frightful forms. The high windows were hung with heavy green damask, now black with dirt and age. A large circular table of black marble stood in one shadowy corner, and a dark, hard sofa, so long and black that it resembled a coffin, stood in the other.
A smoldering sea-coal fire, the only cheerful thing in that gloomy room, struggled for life in the wide, yawning chimney. Now it would die away, enveloping the apartment in gloom, and anon flame fitfully up, until the ghostly shadows on the wall would seem like a train of ghastly specters flitting by in the darkness. The elm trees in front of the house trailed their long arms against the window with a sound inexpressibly dreary; and the driving hail beat clamorously, as if for admittance.
On either side of the fire-place stood two large easy-chairs, cushioned with deep crimson velvet. In these, facing each other, sat two persons—a man and a woman—the only occupants of the room.
The woman was tall, straight, and stiff, and seemingly about fifty years of age. Her dress was a rustling black satin, with a small crape handkerchief fastened on her bosom with a magnificent diamond pin. Her hands, still small and white, were flashing with jewels as they lay quietly folded in her lap. A widow's cap rested on her head, which was alternately streaked with gray and jet. But her face—so stern, so rigid, no one could look upon it without a feeling of fear. The lips—so thin that she seemed to have no lips at all—were compressed with a look of unswerving determination. Her forehead was low and retreating, with thick black eyebrows meeting across the long, sharp nose, with a look at once haughty and sinister. And from under those midnight brows glittered and gleamed a pair of eyes so small, so sharp and keen—with such a look of cold, searching, steely brightness—that the boldest gaze might well quail before them. On that grim, hard face no trace of womanly feeling seemed ever to have lingered—all was stern, harsh, and freezingly cold. She sat rigidly erect in her chair, with her needle-like eyes riveted immovably on the face of her companion, who shifted with evident uneasiness beneath her uncompromising stare.
He was a man of forty, or thereabouts, so small of stature that, standing side by side, he could scarcely have reached the woman's shoulder. But, notwithstanding his diminutive size, his limbs were disproportionately large for his body, giving him the appearance of being all legs and arms. His little, round bullet-head was set on a prodigiously thick, bull-like neck; and his hair, short, and bristling up over his head, gave him very much the look