While the guests still were making merry, the bride and her bridesmaids
went up to the bridal chamber. The virgins who prepared Iphigenia for
her sacrifice had a task no less terrible. Then, amidst the animal
jocularities that were looked on as wit in that day, the bridegroom
followed, and the best man locked the door on the married pair and put
the key in his pocket.
The dance went gaily on, but not for long. High above the sound of the
violins, the laughter that grew more unlicensed as the night wore on,
the sound of voices, the thud of feet, the tap of heels and rustle of
brocades on a polished floor, came terrible shrieks and groans that made
the heart of each wedding guest stand still. There could be no doubt
from which room they came, and the panic-struck company dashed upstairs
like a breakaway mob of cattle. The best man, livid-faced and with a
shaking hand, unlocked the door, and on the threshold stumbled over the
body of the bridegroom, terribly wounded and streaming with blood. At
first they could see no bride, and then, in the corner of the wide
chimney, they found her crouching, with no covering but her shift, and
that dabbled with gore.
"She sat there grinning at them, mopping and mowing," so says Sir Walter
Scott--"in a word, absolutely insane.
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