In the case of Count de Mürger his career was cut short at the
moment when he was, as he thought, on the eve of his most daring and
villainous success. If his death cast a shadow upon the reputation of
Fenella, since it occurred in her chamber, it threw around her the halo
of a wifely devotion not unworthy of the classic days of classic virtue.
It is only the reader, however, of the present history who can
understand all that is meant by this revelation of wifely atonement
and love. Fenella, like many another wife, had sought to amuse herself
with a would-be lover; she had also played him off against the supposed
indifference of her husband in a careless rivalry of his harmless
flirtations.
When the police entered the chamber of Lady Francis Onslow, they found
the count lying dead on the floor. Looking to her for some explanation,
she drew herself to her full height, and, flinging upon the body the
silver-hilted dagger she had worn in her hair, she said, “This man
attempted my life, and I killed him.”
It is curious how situations of a kindred character often inspire
similar explanation. It will be remembered by many that when the deputy
in “The Dead Heart” drew the attention of the guard to the dead Abbé,
he did so in words quite similar to those used by Lady Onslow.
It was a most pathetic figure--the slim, pale woman, as she drew her
brocaded gown about her and fixed her expressive eyes on the police.
Lord Francis Onslow little dreamed of what had occurred as he fled from
the hotel. And yet it was he whom his wife was shielding in her strange
confession. It was Lord Francis himself who had slain the count, and in
her presence.
It is known that great discoveries have been made during so-called
sleep. Men have made long journeys in their dreams, and awakened
unconscious of their travels. Others have arisen refreshed with a new
sense of knowledge and power. Louis Stevenson has confessed that he
dreams his stories, and then writes them out. There was in a recent
Academy the picture of a young girl walking with closed eyes amid
poppies and hemlocks. The present writer has experienced, in his own
career, an incident of hypnotic sleep or mesmeric trance, during which
he went forth in very truth with knife and pistol to commit, as it
seemed, some great crime, and was only prevented by the kindly guidance
of a loving arm, that held his own and led him back to the couch from
which he had risen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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