“I wish to be by myself,” I said.
He took his pipe from his lips.
“You know the way. If you object to mine, there is the ladder in your
room--and the skylight--and all the forest to choose from”--and he
began to smoke again.
I left him, without another word, and, ascending to my closet, dropped
the trap with a slam. It was an outrage beyond endurance. I threw
myself upon my bed, and wept tears of rage. What a fool I had been,
what a fool, to commit my destinies to a savage! I had thought romance
had come to find me, walking on two feet in the starlight, and all the
time it had been leaving me, stumping sorrowfully away on its poor
wooden legs. My soul gushed out in fresh mourning for the dear monster
I had wronged.
More than once I rose, in the full determination to fly and rejoin
him. As often, the hopelessness of my position cast me down again. I
had no idea where I was; I dared not face the prospect of wandering,
lost and alone, in those savage solitudes. The wretch had played his
part well--and for what? Why for me.
The thought, at last, quieted my grief--brought me to a little reason.
After all, I had been cold with him, something less than grateful.
What had brought him to repudiate the customs of his caste? I fell
into a fit of speculation. Perhaps it was in scorn of an order that
had basely disinherited him. His words had seemed to imply so. Perhaps
he had meant no more than to read me a lesson in feeling.
I sighed. I was wilful and imperious, I knew, I said to myself. I had
been spoilt a little, perhaps, by admiration, and my better qualities
obscured. It was a wonder he could have seen anything to covet in me.
Was it my part to convince him of his mistake?
I sighed again, and then rose and walked about. Every detail of the
tiny chamber was witness to the loving expectations he had formed of
me. What was I to do? How climb down and keep my place in my own eyes?
He meant to leave me to resolve the question for myself, it appeared.
All day I waited and hungered, and not a sound of his footstep
approaching did I hear. At length, when it was dark, quite desperate
I took my candle, and, softly opening the trap, listened a moment, and
descended. The cellar was empty; only the board and stools, and
nothing else. I went swiftly scanning it, holding the light overhead.
I tried the door at the end; it was fast locked. Unless he had gone
out that way, there was no accounting for his disappearance.
All at once I heard the thin mutter of voices--his and another’s, I
was sure. Seeking to localise them, I came upon the low hole in the
wall through which he had dragged the breakfast tray. I stooped, and
hearing, I thought, the whisper clearer, sunk to my knees and looked
through. Here was a passage, I found to my surprise, wide enough for a
man to creep by; and, beyond, it seemed, a faintly lighted room. As I
bent, I heard the chairs of the talkers drag, as if the two were
rising, and, fearful of discovery, fled on tiptoe to my room once
more, and, noiselessly closing the trap, stood panting and rigid by
it. To what dark mystery was I being made the innocent and unconscious
accessory? I felt suddenly bewildered and terrified. The light in my
hand swayed and leaped, evoking gusty phantoms on the wall. A wind
seemed to boom in my brain. I was really light-headed with hunger, I
think. Presently, from sheer giddiness, I threw myself on my bed once
more, and fell into a sort of waking stupor.
In the midst, after how long I know not, a voice reached me. He was
summoning me, if I needed it, to supper. If I needed it! What cruelty!
He would not give my pride a chance. Half in fear, half fury, I turned
my face to the wall, and did not answer.
He wasted no time on me. I heard him withdraw in a moment, whistling.
I had hoped he would think me escaped; would venture in, perhaps,
panic-struck, to encounter the full torrent of my indignation. But he
showed no concern whatever. He felt secure of his wretched little
trapped bird, I supposed. And he was justified--was justified. Then I
cried as I had never cried before. He might have had some patience,
some consideration. At last, quite famished and exhausted, I fell
asleep.
I awoke, in full day, to find him standing over and regarding me. I
felt weak, and too utterly subdued to resent his presence as it
deserved. There was no pity in his eyes even then. I closed my own,
feeling my throat swell.
“I thought you might be hungry,” he said. “Are you?”
At that, for all my efforts, the tears came.
“Don’t you know?” I said. “But I suppose you think to starve me into
submission.”
“Submission to what?” said he. “You were offered food, and refused it.
But I have brought you some bread.”
He held out to me a dry crust. I turned from it in anger.
“O, very well!” said he, and was returning it to his pocket.
Then physical need conquered me. I could not face the thought of
another day’s starvation. I sat up, and held out my hands.
“If you will be so cruel,” I said. “Let me have it, please.”
He gave it to me at once, stood by with a sort of sombre smile on his
face, while I appeased my ravenous first hunger.
“That’s right,” he said. “Are you better? There was room for
improvement.”