"Wasn't it enough that he came between you and me, and that our
love----"
"Love! Helena! Helena! Can you talk of our love _here_ ... _now_?"
She dropped her head before his flashing eyes, and again he reached over
to her and said in the same breathless whisper--
"Is _this_ love ... for me ... to become the wife of another man? ...
Helena, what are you saying?"
She did not speak; only her hard breathing told how much she suffered.
"Then think of the other man! His wife! When a woman becomes a man's
wife they are one. And to marry a man in order to ... to ... Oh, it is
impossible! I cannot believe it of you, Helena."
Suddenly, without warning, she burst into tears, for something in the
tone of his voice rather than the strength of his words had made her
feel the shame of the position she occupied in his eyes.
After a moment she recovered herself, and, in wild anger at her own
weakness, she flamed out at him, saying that if she was Ishmael's wife
it was in name only, that if she had married Ishmael it was only as a
matter of form, at best a betrothal, in order to meet his own wish and
to make it possible for her to go on with her purpose.
"As for love ... _our_ love ... it is not _I_ who have been false to it.
No, never for one single moment ... although ... in spite of everything
... for even when you were gone ... when you had abandoned me ... in the
hour of my trouble, too ... and I had lost all hope of you ... I----"
"Then why, Helena? You hated Ishmael and wished to put him down while
you thought he was coming between you and me. But why ... when all
seemed to be over between us----"
Her lips were twitching and her eyes were ablaze.
"You ask me why I wished to punish him?" she said. "Very well, I will
tell you. Because--" she paused, hesitated, breathed hard, and then
said, "because _he killed my father_."
Gordon gasped, his face became distorted, his lips grew pale, he tried
to speak but could only stammer out broken exclamations.
"Great God! Hele----"
"Oh, you may not believe it, but I _know_," said Helena.
And then, with a rush of emotion, in a torrent of hot words, she told
him how Ishmael Ameer had been the last man seen in her father's
company; how she had seen them together and they were quarrelling; how
her father had been found dead a few minutes after Ishmael had left him;
how _she_ had found him; how other evidence gave proof, abundant proof,
that violence, as a contributory means at least, had been the cause of
her father's death; and how the authorities knew this perfectly, but
were afraid, in the absence of conclusive evidence, to risk a charge
against one whom the people in their blindness worshipped.
"So I was left alone--quite alone--for you were gone too--and therefore
I vowed that if there was no one else _I_ would punish him."
"And that is what you----"
"Yes."
"O God! O God!"
Gordon hid his face in his hands, being made speechless by the awful
strength of the blind force which had governed her life and led her into
the tragic tangle of her error. But she misunderstood his feeling, and
with flashing, almost blazing eyes, though sobs choked her voice for a
moment, she turned on him and said--
"Why not? Think of what my father had been to me and say if I was not
justified. Nobody ever loved me as he did--nobody. He was old, too,
and weak, for he was ill, though nobody knew it. And then this ... this
barbarian ... this hypocritical ... Oh, when I think of it I have such a
feeling of physical repulsion for the man that I can scarcely sit by his
side."
Saying this she rose to her feet, and standing before Gordon, as he sat
with his face covered by his hands, she said, with intense bitterness,
as if exulting in the righteousness of her vengeance--
"Let him go to Damietta or to death itself if need be. Doesn't he
deserve it? Doesn't he? Uncover your face and tell me. Tell me if ...
if ... tell me if----"
She was approaching Gordon as if to draw away his hands when she began
to gasp and stammer as though she had experienced a sudden electric
shock. Her eyes had fallen on the third finger of his left hand, and
they fixed themselves upon it with the fascination of fear. She saw that
it was shorter than the rest, and that, since she had seen it before, it
had been injured and amputated.
Her breath, which had been labouring heavily, seemed to stop altogether,
and there was silence once more, in which the voice of Ishmael came
again--
"When the Deliverer comes will he find peace on the earth? Will he find
war? Will he find corruption and the worship of false gods? Will he
find hatred and vengeance? Beware of vengeance, O my brothers! It
corrupts the heart; it pulls down the pillars of the soul! Vengeance
belongs to God, and when men take it out of His hands He writes black
marks upon their faces."
The two unhappy people sitting together in the guest-room seemed to hear
their very hearts beat. At length Gordon, making a great call on his
resolution, began to speak.
"Helena!"
"Well?"
"It is all a mistake--a fearful, frightful mistake."
She listened without drawing breath--a vague foreshadowing of the truth
coming over her.
"Ishmael Ameer did not kill your father."
Her lips trembled convulsively; she grew paler and paler every moment.
"I know he did not, Helena, because--" (he covered his face again)
"because I know who did."
"Then who ... who was it?"
"He did not intend to do it, Helena."
"Who was it?"
"It was all in the heat of blood."
"Who was----"