Cruel As the Grave

CHAPTER I.. The Berners of the Burning Hearts.

THE BERNERS OF THE BURNING HEARTS.

"Their love was like the lava flood That burns in Etna's breast of flame."

Near the end of a dark autumn-day, not many years ago, a young couple, returning from their bridal tour arrived by steamer at the old city of Norfolk; and, taking a hack, drove directly to the best inn.

They were attended by the gentleman's valet and the lady's maid, and encumbered besides with a great amount of baggage, so that altogether their appearance was so promising that the landlord of the "Anchor" came forward in person to receive them and bow them into the best parlor.

The gentleman registered himself and his party as Mr. and Mrs. Lyon Berners, of Black Hall, Virginia, and two servants.

"We shall need a private parlor and chamber communicating for our own use, and a couple of bedrooms for our servants," said Mr. Berners, as he handed his hat and cane to the bowing waiter.

"They shall be prepared immediately," answered the polite landlord.

"We shall remain here only for the night, and go on in the morning, and should like to have two inside and two outside places secured in the Staunton stage-coach for to-morrow."

"I will send and take them at once, sir."

"Thanks. We should also like tea got ready as soon as possible in our private parlor."

"Certainly, sir. What would you like for tea?"

"Oh, anything you please, so that it is nice and neatly served," said Mr. Berners, with a slightly impatient wave of his hand as if he would have been rid of his obsequious host.

"Ah-ha! anything I please! It is easy to see what ails him. He lives upon love just now; but he'll care more about his bill of fare a few weeks hence," chuckled the landlord, as he left the public parlor to execute his guest's orders.

The bridegroom was no sooner left alone with his bride than he seated her in the easiest arm-chair, and began with affectionate zeal to untie her bonnet-strings and unclasp her mantle.

"You make my maid a useless appendage, dear Lyon," said the little lady, smiling up in his eyes.

"Because I like to do everything for you myself, sweet Sybil; because I am jealous of every hand that touches your dear person, except my own," he murmured tenderly as he removed her bonnet, and with all his worshipping soul glowing through his eyes, gazed upon her beautiful and beaming face.

"You love me so much, dear Lyon! You love me so much! Yet not too much either! for oh! if you should ever cease to love me, or even if you were ever to love me less,--I--I dare not think what I should do!" she muttered in a long, deep, shuddering tone.

"Sweet Sybil," he breathed, drawing her to his bosom and pressing warm kisses on her crimson lips--"sweetest Sybil, it is not possible for the human heart to love more than I do, but I can never love you less!"

"I do believe you, dearest Lyon! With all my heart I do!--Yet--yet--"

"Yet what, sweet love?"

She lifted her face from his bosom and gazing intently in his eyes, said:

"Yet, Lyon, if you knew the prayer that I never fail to put up, day and night! What do you think it is for, dear Lyon?"

"I know; it is for Heaven's blessing to rest upon our wedded lives."

"Yes, my prayer is for that always, of course! but that is not what I mean now! That is not the stronger, stronger prayer which I offer up from the deeps of my spirit in almost an agony of supplication!"

"And what is that prayer, so awful in its earnestness, dear love?"

"Oh, Lyon! it is that you may never love me less than now, or if you should, that I may never live to know it," she breathed with an intensity of suppressed emotion that drew all the glowing color from her crimson cheeks and lips and left them pale as marble.

"Why, you beautiful mad creature! You are a true daughter of your house! A Berners of the burning heart! A Berners of the boiling blood! A Berners of whom it has been said, that it is almost as fatal to be loved, as to be hated, by one of them! Dear Sybil! never doubt my love; never be jealous of me, if you would not destroy us both," he earnestly implored.

"I do not doubt you, dearest Lyon; I am not jealous of you! What cause, indeed, have I to be so? But--but----"

"But what, my darling?"

"--Ever since I have been in this house, a darkness and coldness and weight has fallen upon my spirits, that I cannot shake off--a burden, as of some impending calamity! And as there is no calamity that can possibly affect me so much as the lessening of your love, I naturally think most of that," she answered, with a heavy sigh.

"Dear love! this depression is only reaction! fatigue! the effect of this damp, dull, dreary room! We will change all this!" said Lyon Berners, cheerfully, as he pulled the bell-cord and rang a peal that presently brought the waiter to his presence.

"Are our rooms ready?" shortly demanded Mr. Berners.

"Just this moment ready, sir," answered the man, with a bow.

"Gather up these articles, then, and show us to our rooms," said Mr. Berners, pointing to a collection of outer garments and travelling bags that occupied a centre-table.

With another bow the man loaded himself with the personal effects of the guests and led the way up-stairs.

Mr. Berners, drawing his wife's arm through his own, followed the waiter to a cheerful little private parlor, where the bright red carpet on the floor, the bright red curtains at the windows, the bright red covers of the chairs and sofas, the glowing coal fire in the grate, and above all the neatly spread tea table, with its snowy damask table-cloth, and its service of pure French china, invited the hungry and weary travellers to refreshment and repose.

Through a pair of partly drawn sliding doors a vista was opened to a clean and quiet chamber, furnished to match the parlor, with the same bright-red carpet, window curtains, and chair covers, but also with a white-draperied tent-bedstead, with bed-pillows and coverings white and soft as swan's down. In the glow of the coal fire in the inner room sat and waited a pretty mulatto girl, Delia, or Dilly, the dressing maid of Mrs. Berners.

On seeing her mistress enter the parlor, Dilly quickly arose and met her, and handed a chair and relieved the waiter of his burden of portable personal property, which she hastened to carry into the chamber to put away.

"Bring in the tea immediately and send my own man Hannibal here to attend us," said the guest to the waiter, who promptly left the room to execute the orders.

"Come, my darling! Take this easy-chair in the corner and make yourself comfortable! Here is a scene to inspire the saddest heart with cheerfulness," said the bridegroom cordially, as he drew forward the easy arm-chair and led his bride to it.

She sank into the soft seat and smiled her satisfaction.

In a few moments the waiters of the inn entered and arranged a delicious little repast upon the table and then withdrew, leaving Hannibal, the faithful servant of the bridegroom, to attend his master and mistress at their tea.

The young pair sat down to the table. And in that quiet and cheerful scene of enjoyment, the young bride recovered her spirits. The transient shadow that had for a moment darkened the splendor of her joy, even as a passing cloud for an instant obscures the glory of the sun, had vanished, leaving her all smiles and gayety.

To say that these wedded lovers were very happy, would scarcely express the delirium of pure joy in which they had dreamed away their days and nights for the last few weeks--joy that both were too young and untried to know could not last for ever, could not indeed even last long--joy so elevated in its insanity as almost to tempt some thunderbolt of malignant fate to fall upon it with destroying force, even as the highly rarefied air sometimes draws on the whirlwind and the storm.

But then the story of their loves was rare and strange, and almost justified the intensity of their mutual devotion, and that story is briefly this:

CHAPTER II.. John Lyon Howe.

JOHN LYON HOWE.

"A brow half martial and half diplomatic, An eye upsoaring like an eagle's wing."

John Lyon Howe was the younger son of a planter, residing in one of the wildest mountain regions in central Virginia. The elder Howe was blessed with a large family, and cursed with a heavily mortgaged estate--a combination of circumstances not unusual among the warm-hearted, generous and extravagant people of the Old Dominion.

John Lyon Howe had been educated in the Law School of the University of Virginia, where, at the age of twenty-three, he graduated with the highest honors.

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