The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1891-04-05

the Forest. 1naJ some 1eArLui brnSeQy
lay behind the impenetrable mystery
that wrapped him like pail she felt
only too sure, and this suspicion was
vaguely but terribly confirmed on the
very day after their arrival at Janosz
castle.
The two earlier meals having been
taken in their own room, the evening re-
past was tho princess first introduction
to the great dining hall, which, having
been built to hold scores of armed men,
looked indescribably dreary and desolate
when tenanted only by their two selves;
Cor the silent, spectral retainers, who
came and went like shadows in their
black, funereal dress, only intensified
the crushing sense of loneliness instead
of relieving it. The brides eyes wan
dared with secret terror over Pc huge
bare walls, the massive pillars festooned
with torn and dusty banners, the vault
ed roof with its mighty cross beams Ct
solid oak, the pine torches that famed
and CRACKED in their iron stands over
head, and the vast antique fireplace,
with its fantastic carvings, till her ti1nid
gaze rested at length upon another OBJ
ject more strange and startling than all.
just behind her husbands tall oaken
chair stood life size wax figure Tor what
appeared to be such) holding small sill
yer lamp in its outstretched hand. 1t
represented Young man of marvellous
beauty picturesquely set off by the
snowy uniform of Honyed hussar; but
the face, instead Of wearing the fixed,
unmeaning stare common to such fig
ures, was writhed and distorted as if by
spasm of mortal agony, which looked
SO horribly real in the fitful glare of the
torchlight that Madeleine fairly started.
She was Just about to ask some question
respecting this weird ornament, when
Keretsenyi, catching her inquiring
glance, replied to it with a smile more
fierce and cruel and terrible than his
blacklist frown, which froze the half
formed words on her lips.
So far as she herself WAS concerned,
however, the FIRST few weeks gave Made
leine no valid reason for her unconquer-
able terror Of he%husband. To her he
was always attentive and affectionate,
though his affection resembled rather
the watchful care of kind guardian
than the passionate tenderness Of q bride
groom in his honeymoon. He did his
utmost in various ways to make the
grim isolation of this strange life more
endurable to her. Horses Of that match
less Hungarian breed which he had hith-
erto known only through books of travel
were always at her disposal, and her
morning gallops over the hills by her
husbands side, with the sun shining in
cloudless sky and the fragrance of the
pine woods filing the whole air, were
almost the only bright spots her dreary
existence.
Keretsenyi, too, seemed to feel their
influence as well as herself, and to
shake off for moment on such occa-
sions the mysterious gloom which at all
other times weighed him down like a
nightmare. AS his horse hoofs ratified
along the steep rocky ledge paths and
the mountain breeze whistled through
his long hair he seemed almost happy,
but the moment they re-entered the dark
walls of the grim old castle the gloomy
spell was upon him once more and upon
his bride likewise.
When they were together in the even
ing Keretsenyi would often tell her ex-
citing stories of the strange people and
wonderful sights that he had seen in his
travels, which appeared to have extend
ed over every part of the earth, and
which he described with such startling
power and vividness that Madeleine all
most forgot her terror Of him in the in
terest with which she listened. But
then all at once he would stop short, as
if something choked him, and she, look
ing up in amazement, would find him
gazing at her with sad, wistful look,
full of pity and of yearning tenderness
/ such aloolz as Jephthah might have cast
at his only child the moment before he
slew her.
On one of these occasions, moved by
a strange impulse of womanly compass
sion which she herself hardly under
stood, she took his hand in both her own
and pressed it to her lips. The strong
man started as if stung by viper,
clasped her passionately to him for one
moment, and kissed her as if his whole
soul went into the caress, and then
thrust her fercely away and rushed
headlong from the room.
The morning after this strange out.
burst the prince suddenly announced to
her that he must leave her that very
day, ON an errand which might detain
him for several weeks, and before she
had time to recover from her amazemeni
at this unexpected news (for hitherto he
had hardly let her out Of his sight, and
would never allow her to go beyond the
castle gates alone) he was actually gone
and she stood watching his lessenine
figure as he spurred his black horse along
narrow, 1gzag, broken path, which
skirted the brink of precipice so terrific
that few men would have cared to pas:
it even at a walk.
But just then she caught fragment
of the talk of two passing peasants below
her, who, like herself, had paused tx
watch the reckless course of the distant
horseman.
Uncle" said the younger of the two
who was o stranger in that neighbor
hood, IF yon prince of thine Away
rides as madly as this, he hath done vel
to marry again 80 soon. lest the race O.
y - = y IL L.