Tales of terror Chapter 25: Part 25

that he had heard the flapping of wings at his window, and when, out of a kindly feeling, he arose and opened the window, thinking that some poor storm-beaten bird was in distress, he was greeted with eldritch laughter and shrill screams that pealed through the forest. Others, again, said that they had heard heavenly music; but several, who occupied apartments near those in which the count had been placed, affirmed that they were startled by awful and unearthly sounds proceeding from his room, and yet they were unable to define those sounds. The more level-headed guests smiled as they heard these fantastic stories, and were disposed to attribute them to the figments of wine-heated brains. The mysterious count was almost the last to put in an appearance at the breakfast table, and when he gathered the subject of the conversation a dark smile of unutterable meaning played round his saturnine features, which then relapsed into an expression of the deepest melancholy. He addressed his conversation principally to Marguerite, and talked enthusiastically of the different climes he had visited, of the sunny regions of Italy, where the very air breathes the fragrance of flowers, and the summer breeze sighs over a land of sweets. When he spoke to her of those delicious countries where the smile of the day sinks into the softer beauty of the night, and the loveliness of heaven is never for an instant obscured, he drew sighs of regret from the bosom of his fair auditor, and for the first time in her life she longed to leave her home and wander in the lands of delight of which the count drew such graphic pictures. It soon became evident that the count was bent upon making an impression upon the heart of Marguerite, and when a week had elapsed he still lingered at the castle, although most of the guests had departed, but he begged his host’s permission to be allowed to prolong his stay, as he had never before experienced so much happiness. As the baron had now quite come to believe he was entertaining the king’s brother, and the probable future king, he was nothing loth that the stranger should stay, and he even began to think that he could now reconcile himself to the loss of his daughter, so long as there was a prospect of her becoming a queen. For that high honour he was prepared to sacrifice even his own feelings. Days rolled on, and every moment increased the fervour of the inexpressible sentiments with which the stranger had inspired Marguerite. He never discoursed of love, but he looked it in his language, in his manner, in the insinuating tones of his voice, and in the slumbering softness of his smile; and when he found that he had succeeded in impressing her, a sneer of the most diabolical meaning spoke for an instant, and died again on his dark-featured countenance. When he met her in the company of her father he was at once respectful and submissive, and it was only when alone with her, in her rambles through the forest with her favourite hounds, that he assumed the guise of the more impassioned admirer. As he was sitting one evening with the baron in a wainscoted apartment of the library, the conversation happened to turn upon supernatural agency. The stranger remained reserved and mysterious during the discussion, but when the baron in a sneering manner denied the existence of spirits, and satirically invoked their appearance, if there was any truth in the many stories he had heard, the count’s eyes seemed to glow with unearthly lustre, and his form to dilate to more than its natural dimensions. When the conversation had ceased, to the astonishment of everyone a chorus of celestial harmony was heard pealing through the dark forest glade. The stranger was disturbed and gloomy; he looked at his noble host with compassion, and something like a tear swam in his dark eyes. After the lapse of a few seconds the music died gently in the distance, and all was hushed as before. The baron soon after quitted the apartment, and was followed almost immediately by the stranger. He had not long been absent from the room when harrowing groans were heard, as if some person was suffering the agonies of an unusually painful death, and when the attendants and others rushed out to ascertain the cause the baron was discovered stretched dead in the corridor. His countenance was convulsed with pain, and the grip of a human hand was clearly visible on his blackened throat. The alarm was instantly given, the castle searched in every direction, and, to the alarm and consternation of everyone, it was found that the count had disappeared. Guests and servants alike mounted their horses and scoured the forest in every direction, but not a trace of the stranger could be discovered, and it was noted that the many paths diverging from the castle were covered with the unsullied and untrodden snow. There was no sign of either man or horse having passed. How, then, had the count gone away? The mystery was profound, and a strange fear fell upon the assembly. In due course the body of the baron was committed to the earth with all the pomp and ceremony befitting the burial of a person of his high rank, and then those who had remained behind to pay their last respects to the dead host dispersed to their homes, and the remembrance of the dreadful transaction was recalled but as a thing that should be spoken of with bated breath. Men shuddered as they referred to it, and women became hysterical. What was the awful mystery? Would it ever be cleared up? Who was the strange count, and how had he disappeared? He had gone as he came; no one knew how. After the disappearance of the stranger who had fascinated her and won her love, the spirits of the gentle Marguerite declined. The loss of her lover and the awfully mysterious death of her father threw the girl into a profound melancholy, and she refused to be comforted. She would walk early and late in the walks that he had once frequented so that she might recall his last words, dwell on his honeyed smile, and wander to the spot where she had once discoursed with him of love. She avoided all society, and when alone in the solitude of her chamber she gave vent to her affliction in tears, and the love that the pride of maiden modesty concealed in public burst forth in the hours of privacy. So beauteous, yet so resigned, was the fair mourner that she seemed already an angel freed from the trammels of the world and prepared to take her flight to heaven. The winter slowly passed. It lingered unusually long that year, but at length the snow melted under the warm rays of the spring sunshine, and in a little while thereafter summer burst in all its glory, and the great forest was resonant with a thousand glad voices of revivified nature. Marguerite had had a seat erected in a spot commanding a magnificent view which had more than once called forth the admiration of the count, although he had only seen it under its winter aspects. Here one summer day she sat wrapped in thought, when she was suddenly startled by someone approaching. She turned round quickly, and to her infinite surprise beheld the count, looking even handsomer and more fascinating than when she last beheld him. He stepped gaily to her side, and commenced an animated conversation. ‘You left me,’ exclaimed the delighted girl, ‘and I thought all happiness was fled from me for ever; but you return, and shall we not be happy?’ ‘Happy,’ replied the stranger with a scornful burst of derision, ‘can I ever be happy again? Can the--but excuse the agitation, my love, and impute it to the pleasure I experience at our meeting. Oh! I have many things to tell you; aye! and many kind words to receive. Is it not so, sweet one? Come, tell me truly, have you been happy during my absence? No! I see in that sunken eye, in that pallid cheek, that the poor wanderer has at least gained some slight interest in the heart of his beloved. I have roamed to other climes, I have seen other nations, I have met with other women, beautiful and accomplished, but I have met with but one angel, and she is here before me. Accept this simple offering of my affection, dearest,’ continued the stranger, plucking a heath-rose from its stem; ‘it is beautiful as yourself, and sweet as is the love I bear thee.’ ‘It is sweet, indeed,’ replied Marguerite, ‘but its sweetness must wither ere night closes around. It is beautiful, but its beauty is shortlived, as the love evinced by man. Let not this, then, be the type of your attachment. Bring me the delicate evergreen, the sweet flower that blossoms throughout the year, and I will say, as I wreathe it in my hair, “The violets have bloomed and died, the roses have flourished and decayed, but the evergreen is still young, and so is the love of my wanderer.” Ah, don’t think me immodest if I confess my love for you. You taught me love, why then should I conceal my feelings? You will not--cannot desert me again. I live but in you; you are my hope, my thoughts, my existence itself, and if I lose you I lose my all. I was but a solitary wild flower in the wilderness of nature, and can you now break the fond heart you first taught to glow with passion?’ ‘Speak not thus,’ returned the stranger, suddenly changing his manner; ‘it rends my very soul to hear you. Leave me, forget me, avoid me for ever, or your eternal ruin must ensue. I am a thing abandoned of God and man, and did you but see the seared heart that scarcely beats within this moving mass of deformity you would flee me as you would an adder in your path. Here is my heart, love, feel how cold it is. There is no pulse that betrays its emotion, for all is chilled and dead as the friends I once knew.’ Marguerite was alarmed. ‘You are unhappy, love,’ she exclaimed; ‘but do not think I am capable of abandoning you in your misfortunes. No! I will wander with you through the wide world, and be your servant, your slave, if you will have it so. I will be true to you, and though the cold world may scorn you, though friends fall off and associates wither in the grave, there shall be