When breakfast was over, she said in a low, level voice:
“Ronald, have you thought over what I said last night?”
“Last night?” I answered, with an effort.
“Yes, about the coldness between us. I think I have been unwell,
unhappy, out of sorts. You know that--that women are more subject to
moods than men, moods they cannot always account for even to themselves.
I have hurt you lately, I know. I am sorry. I want you to forgive
me, to--to”--she paused a moment, and I heard her draw in her breath
sharply--“to take me back into your heart again.”
Every word, as she said it, sounded to me like a sinister threat, and
the last sentence made my blood literally go cold in my veins.
I met her eyes. She did not withdraw hers; they looked into mine. They
were the blue eyes of the cat which I had held upon my knees years ago.
I had gazed into them as a boy, and watched the horror and the fear dawn
in them with a malignant triumph.
“I have nothing to forgive,” I said in a broken, husky voice.
“You have much,” she answered firmly. “But do not--pray do not bear
malice.”
“There is no malice in my heart--now,” I said; and the words seemed like
a cowardly plea for mercy to the victim of the past.
She lifted one of her soft white hands to my breast.
“Then it shall all be as it was before? And to-night you will come back
to me?”
I hesitated, looking down. But how could I refuse? What excuse could I
make for denying the request? Then I repeated mechanically:
“To-night I will come back to you.”
A terrible, slight smile travelled over her face. She turned and left
me.
I sat down immediately. I felt too unnerved to remain standing. I was
giving way utterly to an imaginative horror that seemed to threaten my
reason. In vain I tried to pull myself together. My body was in a cold
sweat. All mastery of my nerves seemed gone.
I do not know how long I remained there, but I was aroused by the
entrance of the butler. He glanced towards me in some obvious surprise,
and this astonishment of a servant acted upon me almost like a scourge.
I sprang up hastily.
“Tell the groom to saddle the mare,” I said. “I am going for a ride
immediately.”
Air, action, were what I needed to drive this stupor away. I must get
away from this house of tears. I must be alone. I must wrestle with
myself, regain my courage, kill the coward in me.
I threw myself upon the mare, and rode out at a gallop towards the moors
of Eskdale along the lonely country roads.
All day I rode, and all day I thought of that dark house, of that
white creature awaiting my return, peering from the windows, perhaps,
listening for my horse’s hoofs on the gravel, keeping still the long
vigil of vengeance.
My imagination sickened, fainted, as my wearied horse stumbled along
the shadowy roads. My terror was too great now to be physical. It was a
terror purely of the spirit, and indescribable.
To sleep with that white thing that waited me! To lie in the dark by it!
To know that it was there, close to me!
If it killed me, what matter? It was to live and to be near it, with it,
that appalled me.
The lights of the house gleamed out through the trees. I heard the sound
of the river.