There are times when a great shock paralyses the whole being, and makes
it incapable of action; and there are other circumstances under which it
stimulates every power, sends the blood coursing to the heart, and fills
the mind with such promptitude of despair, as renders thought
unnecessary. At this awful moment both these effects were produced on
Isabel. She was paralysed. The sight of that terrible token changed her
into stone. The convulsive trembling of her figure steadied gradually as
she stood by the window looking at that terrible evidence of what had
happened to her; and, as it did so, a sudden, swift, indescribable sense
of what she had to do swept through her mind--not what she had to
suffer; that was swept out of sight for the moment; besides she was
dead, and there was no sense of suffering in her; all she was conscious
of was what she had to do.
She took the fatal little drawer first, and locked it up in a box of her
own, but walked over the pocket-book on the floor in utter
unconsciousness, having lost perception of everything that did not
concern the one frightful subject-matter of her thoughts. Then, with
hasty hands, she put on her bonnet and cloak, and hurried out to little
Margaret’s room, leaving Stapylton’s desk open. She took the baby out of
Nelly Spence’s arms, and began to put on its out-door dress. She had got
over her trembling, but her face was ashy white, paler than Nelly had
ever seen any living creature before. ‘Oh, where are ye going? Oh, let
me take the wean! Oh, mistress, ye’re no fit to be out of your bed!’
wailed Nelly in her consternation. Isabel made no reply. She was even so
far mistress of herself as to be able to smile a ghastly smile, and nod
her head at the baby as she put on its wraps. ‘I shall be back
before--dinner,’ she said as she went away. ‘Before dinner!’ Could
anything be more horrible than to think of the household table, the
common daily use and wont, in face of such a tragical conclusion? But
Isabel took no note of her own words. She took the child in her arms;
she repeated the same explanation to the maid in the kitchen; and,
passing out, took the way across the hill to Loch Diarmid. Little
Margaret, in her infant unconsciousness, babbled sweetly over her
mother’s shoulder, pulling Isabel’s veil and bonnet with her dimpled
hands, and smiling radiantly at the unaccustomed pleasure. Her little
voice ran on, with now and then a half-articulate word, in broken rills
of baby exclamation, wonder, delight, amusement--the little, loving,
broken monologue, which is so sweet to kindred ears; and Isabel, without
a look round her, without a pause, pressed on. It was a lonely, long,
dreary road, over the hill. She had never carried such a burden before,
and the baby was lively and happy, and not to be kept quiet. The only
conscious thought in the mother’s mind was, Oh, if she would but go to
sleep, and relieve the tired arms in which she danced and frolicked.
Once or twice Isabel sat down for a moment on the roadside, but dared
not prolong her rest, she had so much--so much to do. The early winter
twilight was fading when she went in breathless to the Glebe Cottage,
and sank, without a word, into the great old high-backed chair in the
kitchen. Jean, with joy and wonder, and then with wonder and
consternation, rushed forward to take the child, and overwhelmed her
with welcome and astonishment. ‘Eh, my wee darling--eh, Isabel, my
bonnie woman! Where have ye come from so sudden? There’s nae boat at
this hour!’ Jean said in her amaze. And then the delight of the child’s
return fortunately occupied her, and gave Isabel a moment’s
breathing-time. Breathless, fainting, weary to death, she lay back in
the great chair. Her arms ached, her head ached, her heart was panting
with the effort for breath. She seemed to require rest only--nothing but
rest. The warmth of the fire, the quiet, the familiar objects round her,
lulled her as if they had been singing a cradle-song. A confused
longing came over her to end here and stay, and go no farther. Alas, how
was she ever, ever to retrace that weary, darkling path over the hills!
‘You’ve never walkit all the way?’ cried Jean at last. ‘It’s enough to
have killed you, Isabel, my woman! You’re awfu’ white, and ye dinna say
a word. Is there anything ails ye? and what has brought ye walking with
the wean ower the hills? Eh, I’m feared something’s happened! Bide a
moment, my bonnie woman, till I get you a glass of sherry wine!’
The wine restored Isabel a little to herself. It brought back the energy
which had begun to fail her. ‘I have brought you Margaret,’ she said.
‘It is nothing. I could have sent Nelly, of course, but it
was--pleasanter--I mean I liked better--to bring her myself. She is fond
of you--you’ll be very, very good to her--whatever happens!’
‘Oh, Isabel! what should happen?’ cried Jean.
‘One never knows,’ said Isabel, drearily. ‘That is not what I meant to
say; I mean, you’ll take great care of my baby; she is all I have.
Except for her, what do I care what happens? Nelly will come, you know,
with her things. I will send her as soon as I get--home.’
‘But, my bonnie woman, there’s no boat to-night,’ cried Jean. ‘Walk! na,
I would never hear of that. Ye canna walk a’ the way to Kilcranion ower
the hills.’
‘I must go at once,’ said Isabel. And then, again, the thought, Must she
go? came over her. Could not she stay here in her own house, where she
had taken refuge? Were there not her old friends, who would arrange
everything for her? A sudden sickening of heart came over her; and yet
her whole being was so confused, that she was not sure whether it was
the mere walk, or what would come after that walk, which overwhelmed her
most.
‘Oh, if you would hide me!--Oh, if ye would take me away!’ she cried, in
the misery of her soul.
‘Hide ye! take ye away! Oh, Isabel, has it come to this? Aye, I’ll hide
ye--aye, I’ll defend ye!’ cried Jean, roused up to sudden wrath. ‘Trust
to me, my bonnie woman. Nae man, were he the king, shall come rampaging
here!’
These very words, which expressed the deepest evil Jean could dream of,
and which yet were so trifling, so shallow, compared to the facts, awoke
Isabel fully to a sense of her position. She rose up, composing herself
as best she could.
‘Hush!’ she said. ‘I must go back. I was speaking--like a fool. I have a
great deal to do. The only thing is, that you’ll take care of little
Margaret; you’ll never let her out of your sight. My bonnie darling! let
me kiss her, and I’ll go.’
‘No this night--oh, no this night!’ cried Jean. ‘Ye’ll drop down on the
hill, ye’ll be that wearied; it’s enough to be your death.’
‘That would be the best of all!’ said Isabel under her breath. When she
was in movement she was not conscious how weary she was; but as she
stood thus, with the child holding out its arms to her, with the old
home wooing her, with a possibility, it might be, of escape and flight
thus presenting itself before her, her limbs ached, her heart failed.
But no, no; that which had to be done could be done only by herself.
‘I must be going now,’ she said, faintly. ‘Don’t ask me any questions.
Let me kiss her once again. Oh, you’ve been a kind woman to Margaret and
me! Promise me that you’ll never--never forsake my little bairn!’
‘Isabel, dinna break my heart. How could I forsake her, the darling,
that was born into my very arms?’
‘And you’ll never let her out of your sight?’ said Isabel. She was gone
again before Jean could say another word. When she rushed, with the
child in her arms, to the door, the young mother was already almost out
of call, speeding up the hill-side like a shadow. The sun had set even
beyond the western hills, and had been out of sight here at the Glebe
for three-quarters of an hour. ‘Though it’s longer light on the other
side of the hill, it’ll be dark night before she gets home,’ said Jean
to herself. ‘Oh, did I no ay say it was to her destruction she was
taking that English lad?’ She stood and watched as long as the
retreating figure was visible, with thoughts of rushing after her, of
appealing to Miss Catherine or the Dominie, or someone who could aid.
‘But wha can interfere between man and wife?’ Jean said to herself, with
homely wisdom, shaking her head as she went back to her fireside with
the child who had been thus suddenly dropped into her arms. ‘My wee pet!
at least she may be easy in her mind about you,’ she said, with tears,
kissing the little creature, who could give no explanation; and thus
accepted the mystery on which, for this night at least, it appeared no
light could be thrown.
Isabel had reached the middle of her homeward course before she awoke to
any sort of consciousness of what was before her. Was it on such another
night as this--darker still, more cloudy and stormy--that one man had
struck another down, and wrenched from his breast that little token of
innocent affection and tragic misery? O God! could it be? Then she saw
herself at the opera, with that fatal eye upon her; she recalled the
sense of something malign regarding her, of which she had been conscious
in the Manse garden the night before the minister’s death. These
recollections and impressions came one by one, each thrusting her
through with a sharper and a sharper dart. She tried to escape from
them--to think what she ought to do. Something there was that must be
done. She was going back to him--her husband, her husband’s slayer--to
him who had dared to take her into his arms, knowing the awful ghost
that stood between them. Isabel hid her face, as if some accusing eye
had looked at her, and cried aloud, in the agony of her shame. How was
she polluted!--she who was Margaret’s mother and the minister’s wife! He
had come to her with that blood on his hand, knowing his own guilt, and
plucked her like a flower--taken her in spite of herself--made her his,
to bear his name, and bound her to him for ever and ever. She writhed
upon that sword as she sat and rocked herself on the dark wayside. It
seemed to her as if some cruel, avenging angel--as if God Himself--had
put the bitter weapon through her heart, and held it there, despite her
struggles, keeping her to a sense of the deepness of her misery,
preventing her from thinking rather what she must do. What was she to
do? Oh, if she could only think of that question, instead of writhing
and aching, and stabbing herself through and through with this!
But the night grew darker, and the wind moaned louder, and Isabel
started with a thrill of natural terror. She stood on the highest point
of the road, feeling that there was still a choice before her, for one
wild moment. She might turn, and fly back to the Glebe even now. She
might shut fast the doors, and send for her friends, and barricade
herself from the approach of the murderer; her husband’s murderer--that
was what he was! She stood with her breath coming in sobs against the
wind, all alone in Heaven and earth, to make her decision. Oh! she could
so easily gather a body-guard to defend her!--friends that would hold
her fast, and her baby, and keep her from all fear. What need had she to
go back, to see his dreadful murderer’s face--to be touched by the hands
which---- Isabel turned and made a rush downwards on the side of Loch
Diarmid to her safe and silent home. Then she paused, and painfully
retraced her steps. Her heart was gashed and cut in two by that awful
sword, which God would not withdraw for a moment. She was the wife at
once of the slayer and the slain. God help her! If she sent for her
friends to avenge her husband, would not that be to kill her husband?
Kill her husband! She walked up and down like a wild creature on the
top of the hill. The clouds seemed to be drooping over her, so near they
rolled in their great, tumultuous waves; big drops of rain fell from
their skirts, like something cast at her out of the heavens. The storm
was rising from Loch Diarmid as if to hunt her before it down to the
gloomy shores of Loch Goil. Over there, in the west, there was a pale
glimmer that seemed to direct her--where? To him who, no doubt, was now
waiting for her--the man whose name she bore--whose wife she was; her
first love--her worst enemy. Was she to devote herself to him, loathing
him as she did? Was she to denounce him, loving him as she did? What,
oh! what--was there no counsel in Heaven or earth?--was she to do?
When she arrived at the house Isabel was drenched with the torrent of
rain which had swept her before it down the dark slope of the hill. The
blast had been so violent, and the feverish strength of excitement was
so great in her, that she had made up for all the time she had lost on
the summit by the swiftness of the descent. And when she reached home
she found that her husband had not yet returned. ‘The boat’s no in yet,’
said the maid from the kitchen; ‘and, oh! mem, but you’re wet; you’ll
have time to change your wet things afore the maister can be back.’
‘And where’s the bairn?’ said Nelly, open-mouthed.
‘You must pack up all her things,’ said Isabel, collecting all her
powers, ‘and take them on to the Glebe. I left her at the Glebe
with--Mrs Diarmid. If it is too late to-night go to-morrow morning. I
don’t think I shall have her here again.’
The maids were in a panic, alarmed for her sanity. They looked at her
with suspicious looks. ‘Mrs. Stapylton,’ said Nelly, with an effort for
breath, ‘you’re sure you ken what you’re saying. Oh! dinna be angry, if
you’re _yoursel_. You’re sure you’ve done the wean no harm?’
‘Me! harm my darling!’ said Isabel, incredulous that the fear could be
real; and then a blaze of momentary indignation came to her aid. ‘Go to
your work both of you,’ she said; ‘and don’t take it upon you to
criticise what I do. Stand aside, Nelly, I am going upstairs.’
They let her pass them with momentary bewilderment, not knowing what to
do. ‘But I’ll tell him as soon as he comes in,’ said the elder woman; ‘a
man ought to know.’
‘You’ll do nothing of the kind,’ said Nelly, who had a spirit. ‘She’s
mair like a living creature now, and no so like a ghost. Bide, and let
him find out for himself.’
‘But, woman, the bairn!’
‘Never you mind the bairn. She’s safe in the Glebe, I dinna doubt, with
Jean. They’ve had some quarrel about her,’ said Nelly, with precocious
insight, ‘and this is the upshot. Let us haud our tongues, and see what
will come o’ ‘t. Eh, woman! a’body said ill would come o’ ‘t; and ye see
it was true.’
‘As she has made her bed so must she lie,’ said the other,
sententiously; and she went back to her kitchen to see after the dinner,
which was being prepared all the same, whatever tragedies might come to
pass. Nelly stole upstairs after Isabel; but dared not follow her to her
room, much as she longed to do so; and lights began to be visible in the
windows, and everything was made ready for the husband’s coming home.
Isabel had come to herself; her thoughts had lulled as the wind lulled,
for no reason she knew of--perhaps out of weariness. When she went into
her room she perceived the desk standing open, the pocket-book lying on
the floor; and had so much possession of herself as to put them away,
restoring the book to its place and closing the desk. She could do this
with a certain calm, feeling as if her discovery had been made years
ago, and since then she had had time to face the idea and accustom
herself to it. She took off her wet gown, and dressed herself as usual.
All this she did mechanically, in a sudden hush, scarcely thinking,
scarcely feeling anything. When she heard his step coming to the door
there rose within her a tempest just as sudden. Should she go down to
meet him, or let him come here? Should she wait till he assailed her, or
should she announce her awful discovery at once? None of these questions
could Isabel answer for herself. She had to act mechanically, not
knowing in one moment what she would do the next. He came in with an
angry inquiry about ‘your mistress,’ which she could hear where she was.
His voice was louder than usual; his very step betrayed irritation. But
what was his irritation now to her? It even struck her with a curious
sense of wonder that he could take the trouble to be moved by trifling
causes to trifling passion--he who, as he and she knew---- Mechanically
still, and quite suddenly, as if some spring had been touched in her of
which she was unconscious, she went down, and went into the room. He had
placed himself with his back to the fire, full of wrath, which was
evidently ready to burst forth the moment she entered. The table was
spread for dinner. An air of homely comfort was about the place; the
light was dim, to be sure--but it was as much as they were used to; and
the candles brightened the white-covered table with its gleams of
reflection, and the ruddy, quivering firelight filled the room. All
these calm details of ordinary life encircled the two at this dreadful
moment with that hypocrisy of nature which cloaks over the fiercest
passion; and in the kitchen the dinner was preparing, not without much
serious anxiety on the part of the maid lest the fish should be spoiled;
for Stapylton was ‘very particular’ about his dinner, and prompt to
wrath when anything impaired its perfection.
‘Well,’ he said, when Isabel came into the room, ‘I hope you have
something to say for yourself. What did you mean by sending me such a
message to-day? I wonder if you are mad, or if it is only pride and
obstinacy. No answer? How dared you, when I had sent you my directions,
send back such a message to me?’
‘Because I was stunned,’ she said, ‘and did not know what I was saying.
Let us not speak of it till you have eaten. Wait till then. I have
much--much--to say.’
‘Much to say!--a great deal too much I don’t doubt,’ he said; ‘if you
think this sort of thing will do for me, you are mistaken, Isabel. You
may as well know at once. I am not the man to be trifled with. My wife
must obey me--do you understand? I can’t have two wills in my house. My
wife must obey me!’ he went on, striking his hand against the table. ‘I
have borne as much of your self-will as I mean to bear. My wife must
have no will but mine.’
Isabel looked at him as from some height of knowledge, feeling no
movement of anger, no irritation at his words. Oh! to think he should be
occupied about matters so trifling at a moment so terrible! To get his
wife to obey him! Could he care for that, when this life was over,
blasted in a moment, and nothing remained for either of them but a blank
existence of despair? Her heart bled for him, making himself angry thus
at the merest trifles, not knowing what was to come.
‘The dinner is coming,’ she said, wondering at herself that she could
form the words, ‘and the woman will be in the room. Would you wait till
it is over? And you must want food and support,’ she added, with an
ineffable pity. It was not the pity of love. It was the compassion with
which she might have fortified a criminal with food and wine, before
telling him the awful news of his approaching execution--a human
sentiment of pity for a weak creature in unconscious peril, about to be
strained to the utmost, and unaware of it. He gave her an angry look, to
see what she meant, but could not divine it, so wrapt was she in the
unconscious elevation and tragic seriousness of the crisis. He did not
know what a crisis it was. And he could not understand the strange
superiority of her calm.
‘And then the inconsistency of it,’ he said, moodily placing himself at
the head of the table. ‘You pretend to want me to stay, and when I begin
to entertain the idea, and was actually in treaty for some land, you
step in, in your perversity, and break it off by disobeying my orders.
What did you mean by it? What reason could you have? By Jove! if I had
gone off at once and never come near you again, it would have served you
right.’
Oh! if he had done so, Isabel murmured within herself; but the servant
was in the room, the dinner being placed on the table, and nothing more
was practicable. She sat there happily concealed by the cover of the
dish placed before her, and made motions as though she were eating, and
listened to all his grumbling over the indifferent meal. The fish was
spoiled; the meat was badly roasted; the vegetables were uneatable. ‘If
you would give a little more attention to this sort of thing, and waste
less time over that precious baby, it would be more to the purpose,’ he
said, ‘that woman is an idiot; so are all these Scotch women; and, by
Jove! I was the greatest idiot of all to come and settle myself down
here.’ Isabel made no answer. That he should be on such a brink, and yet
be disturbed by the arrangement of the grasses on the edge of the
precipice! She had no inclination to reply to him, or to take offence.
She gazed at him across the table wistfully, with a compassion that was
almost tender, and yet felt she could not go to him, could not touch
him, or bear his touch, not for all the world.
Then there came the moment when the table was cleared and the door
closed, and they sat looking at each other with the two candles lighting
the little white space between them. There was perfect quiet in the
house. The maids were in the kitchen, frightened, not knowing what might
happen, with the door shut between them and their master and mistress.
Outside, the little world was hushed; not a sound, except an occasional
blast of rain on the windows, or melancholy splash of the Loch on the
beach, breaking the utter silence; still as the grave, which seemed to
rise up between the two as they looked at each other in the pause before
the storm.
‘Well?’ said Stapylton.
Isabel had made no preparation of what she was to say. She did not know
what words would come to her lips. She felt herself passive, not so much
an actor as the spectator of this scene. The only thing she had done was
to bring down with her, wrapped in her handkerchief, the little secret
drawer of his desk containing the awful token she had found. When he
looked across at her, demanding with contemptuous defiance her apology
or explanation, she gazed back at him for a moment without a word to
say. Words would not come to her aid. She took up her enclosure and
unfolded it with trembling hands. She began to tremble over all her
frame, even to her lips, which refused to move articulately. He sat
looking on unsuspicious, surprised, and scornful, while she fumbled with
the handkerchief. Then she rose up and held it out to him. Her face was
as pale as death; her eyes dilated; her hands, in both of which she held
it, shaking wildly. ‘Look what I found!’ she cried, with her eyes fixed
upon him. They were the only things steady about her. Her voice was
inarticulate; her arms powerless. All her life had retreated into her
eyes.
He sprang up to his feet at the same moment, and swore a great oath,
bending over the table to see what it was. Then he fell back in his
chair again, as pale as she was, trembling as she did. He was taken by
surprise. ‘Good God, Isabel!’ he said, ‘Good God, Isabel!’ stumbling at
the words almost as she did, ‘what do you mean?’
‘Look, and see!’ cried Isabel, with her lips suddenly opened, ‘look and
see! oh, man! was there no other woman in the world that you should make
me vile and make me miserable? Was there no other spot in the world,
that you should come to shed blood here? You had eaten his bread and
drunk his cup. You had taken my heart’s love and the flower of my youth.
Could you not have been content? We were thinking you no harm, doing you
no harm--and ye came and killed my man, my blessed man! And even that
was enough. What harm was I doing you, a lone creature with my bairn,
that you should come again and pollute me, and put his blood on me? Oh,
look and see! Ye took me to your arms with that horror in your mind. How
dared you do it, Horace Stapylton? How dared you put yourself with that
blood upon you, between the dead and me?’
He had recoiled and shrunk away from her, pushing back his chair. He had
been so taken by surprise that his very wits failed him. ‘For God’s
sake, don’t scream at me,’ he cried, with a thrill of terror. ‘Do you
know they are listening? For God’s sake, woman, speak low, whatever you
have to say.’
Then she gave a sudden low cry, and sank back into her seat. She had not
said it to herself. She had never permitted herself to think it; and yet
at the bottom of her heart there had been a hope that he would deny,
that somehow he might be able to disprove even what that silent witness
said. But he had not attempted to deny it--it was all true, true! And
she lived and he lived, with _that_ between them. She could not stand,
her limbs failed her; but she kept her hand upon that terrible evidence
of his guilt, and kept looking at him with her dilated eyes.
‘Well,’ he said, getting up after a terrible pause, ‘so this is your
story--this is what you have made up. You think you can ruin me with
it--perhaps you think you can kill me. But it is all a mistake. Throw it
into the fire--that is the wisest thing that can be done both for you
and me.’
‘Not yet,’ said Isabel, under her breath.
‘Not yet! Do it of your own will, that will be wisest. Don’t drive me to
compel you to do it,’ he said, pacing up and down; and then he came to a
sudden pause before her. ‘One word, Isabel, before things go too far.
You know what accusation you are bringing against me? You can’t prove
it. _That_ is no proof. Do you understand what I say? And more, it is
not true.’
‘Oh!’ she said, clasping her hands, ‘say it is not true! Say you found
it--or bought it--or--Horace, say it was not you!’
He paused a moment, gazing at her with an evident struggle going on in
his mind whether to seek his own safety or to gratify his feelings. ‘I
neither bought it nor found it,’ he said at last, under his breath, with
a glance of fury in his eyes; and then he added with a sudden shudder,
‘but what killed him was the fall from his horse.’
‘And you--oh, tell me a lie rather--tell me a lie! You!’ cried Isabel,
‘struck an old man, a defenceless man, when he was down----?’
‘Who told you that?’ he cried, sharply. And then with another flash of
fury, ‘How much more evil had he done to me?’ he exclaimed, throwing
himself into his chair again with great drops of moisture standing like
beads upon his forehead. And there was a pause like a lull in a storm.
Then the gust rose again, menacing and sudden. ‘You think I am making a
confession,’ he said, ‘but I am doing nothing of the sort. You cannot
harm me. I am safe, at least from the wife of my bosom. You can’t bear
witness against your husband, though you had ten thousand proofs. Thank
the law for that. If all this passion were not a pretence to start with!
Was there ever a woman that quarrelled with her lover for anything he
could do for her sake?’
‘For _my_ sake!’ said Isabel, with a low cry of horror.
‘Yes, for what else? for your beauty and your love? Did I know what a
cold-blooded phantom you were? I swore to have you when I saw you by
his side! Curse him! And I have had you. Do what you will, you can’t
alter that--you are my wife now, and not his.’
‘Oh, don’t make me loathe myself more than I do,’ she cried, wildly.
‘Don’t make me more hateful than I am to myself.’
‘But it is true,’ he said, once more approaching her; ‘you are mine, and
you are harmless against me. I have had my desire, and I have disarmed
my enemy. And look here, Isabel, you may as well hear reason,’ he added,
coming up to her and grasping her shoulder, ‘you need not think of
putting it into other hands. If I did _that_ for your sake, what do you
think I should be capable of for my own?’
She looked up and their eyes met, and they gazed at each other for one
awful moment--he like a tiger ready to spring--she pale and resolute as
an image of death.
‘Of killing me,’ she said, never turning her eyes from him, ‘as you
would kill a fly.’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘you are right--as I would kill a fly; if you put me in
danger, or threaten my life.’
The voices of both had sunk into absolute calm. The anxious servants in
the kitchen concluded that the storm was over. ‘They’re talking as quiet
as you and me,’ Nelly Spence said, with a sigh of relief, as she came
back from an anxious vigil at the door. While the husband stood by his
wife’s chair, with his hand on her shoulder, speaking to her in a voice
as quiet and subdued as if the words had been the tenderest words of
love.
‘It is well you should know what you have to expect,’ he said. ‘Submit,
and I will forgive all this, and take you back to my heart. Shudder if
you please, but my arms are the only ones open to you now; I will take
you back, notwithstanding that you mean to betray me; but if you keep
your own way, Isabel, understand that I will crush you like a fly.’
She kept looking at him, undaunted, not moving a hair-breadth back, nor
changing her position. Her shrinking youth, her womanly tremor, all
extinguished in an emergency more terrible than any death.
‘Would I care?’ she said softly, as if to herself; ‘now that life itself
is dead and gone? You cannot frighten me now.’
‘Like a fly!’ he repeated, as if he liked the image, closing his hand as
if upon it; ‘you, and that child you make your idol. Ah, I touch you
now!’
‘She is safe out of your reach,’ said Isabel, though not without a
tremble. And he, too, started slightly. The duel was to the death, and
his opponent was unencumbered, free to beard him to the last extremity.
‘What do you want?’ he asked abruptly, seating himself in front of her.
‘In all this I suppose you mean something. What do you want of me now?’
Then it rushed upon Isabel in a moment what she ought to say.
‘You are in danger,’ she said; ‘you were seen that night. At any moment
they might remember it was you. And I know. And never more--never, never
more can you and me be as we have been. Never more! Sooner, I would
die!’
The shudder in her voice thrilled him with wild irritation; but he gave
no sign of it, waiting for what she had to say.
‘What I want of you is, that you should leave me,’ she went on. ‘Leave
me--that is all! Go where you were going when we met. Hear me out! I
will give you everything I can give you; all I have you shall have; but
save yourself, Horace, and go.’
‘Is it for me you are thinking?’ he said; and suddenly his heart melted,
and he tried to take her hand.
‘Let me be! oh, let me be!’ cried Isabel, shrinking from him. ‘It is for
you, too. How could we live and face each other, now I know? I would
speak; it would burn out my heart, till, sleeping or waking, I would
speak. And--they--would remember it was you. But never will I breathe
your name when you are gone. Never will I say a word--never one word of
blame. And I will--forgive you!’ she said, with a sudden cry.
She was capable of no more.
The servants, hearing no sound that alarmed them, began to move about in
the house going to bed. The sound of the door being locked, and the
shutters closed, roused the two from their deadly argument. After a
while, one of the women came in to close the windows for the night, and
see if anything more was wanted. This sudden breaking in of the ordinary
and commonplace intensified beyond all power of description the tragic
misery of the scene. It might have lasted through the whole night but
for that. It might have led to any horrible conclusion. Isabel rose and
went up to him, while the maid barred and bolted, and made all fast. ‘I
have said all I have to say,’ she whispered in his ear with white,
quivering lips. ‘Now, it is in your hands.’
It never occurred to him that these were her last words. When he looked
up from his moody reverie and found her gone, it did not even strike him
as strange. He followed her upstairs slowly after an interval of
thought. The room was empty, a light burning, his pocket-book lying on
the table, and all traces of his wife gone. The house was all silent,
dark, and motionless. Then for the first time horror and fear came over
him. He did not dare make a commotion in that stillness, or call for her
to come back to him. Whatever might happen, the woman whom he had loved
after his fashion had disappeared for ever out of Stapylton’s life.