THE HUSBAND'S LAST APPEAL.
Early on the following day Edith received a request from Leon for
another interview. This request was acceptable in every way, for the
last interview had been no more satisfactory to her than to him, and she
could not help hoping that something more definite might result from a
new one. She therefore went down, and found him already in the room.
On this occasion Leon showed nothing of that languor which he had
previously affected. He appeared, on the contrary, uneasy, nervous, and
impatient. So abstracted was he by his own thoughts that he did not
notice her entrance. She sat down and waited for a little while, after
which she said, quietly,
“Did you wish to see me, Captain--a--Dudleigh?” Leon started, then
frowned; then, after a little silence, he began abruptly:
“You may deny it as much as you choose, but it's no use. You are
actually married to me. You are really and truly my wife, both in the
eyes of man and in the eyes of the law. From that marriage nothing can
ever deliver you but a divorce.”
“You are mistaken,” said Edith, quietly. “Even if that miserable
performance should turn out to be a marriage--which is absurd--still
there is one other thing that can free me.”
“Ah?--and what may that be?”
“Death!” said Edith, solemnly.
Leon turned pale. “Is that a threat?” he asked at length, in a trembling
voice. “Whose death do you mean?”
Edith made no reply.
“Yes,” said Leon, after a pause, going on with his former train of
thought, “at any rate you are my wife, and you can not help it. You may
deny it as much as you please, but that will not avail. In spite of
this, however, I do not molest you, although I might so easily do it. I
never trouble you with my presence. I am very forbearing. Few would do
as I do. Yet I have rights, and some of them, at least, I am determined
to assert. Now, on the whole, it is well for you--and you ought to see
it--that you have one here who occupies the peculiar position toward you
which I do. If it were not for me you would be altogether in the power
of Wiggins. He is your guardian or your jailer, whichever you choose to
call him. He could shut you up in the vaults of Dalton Hall if he
chose--and he probably will do that very thing before long--for who is
there to prevent him? I am the only one who can stand between you and
him. I am your only hope. You do not know who and what this man is. You
think you know him, but you don't. You think of him as a villain and a
tyrant. Let me tell you that in your bitterest hate of that man you have
never begun to conceive the fraction of his villainy. Let me tell you
that he is one who passes your comprehension. Let me tell you that,
however much you may hate me, if I were to tell you what Wiggins is, the
feelings that you have toward me would be almost affection, compared to
those which you would have toward him.”
Leon paused. He had spoken most earnestly and vehemently; but upon Edith
these words produced no effect. She believed that this was a last effort
to work upon her feelings by exciting her fears of Wiggins. She did not
believe him capable of speaking the truth to her, and thus his words
produced no result.
“If you had not been married to me when you were,” continued Leon, “I
solemnly assure you that by this time you would have been where hope
could never reach you.”
“Well, really,” said Edith, “Captain--a--Dudleigh, all this is
excessively childish. By such an absurd preamble as this you, of
course, must mean something. All this, however, can have no possible
effect on me, for the simple reason that I consider it spoken for
effect. I hope, therefore, that you will be kind enough to come at once
to business, and say precisely what it is that you want of me.”
“It is no absurd preamble,” said Leon, gloomily. “It is not nonsense, as
I could soon show you. There is no human being who has done so much
wrong to you and yours as this Wiggins, yet you quietly allow him to be
your guardian.”
“I?” said Edith. “I allow him? Let me be free, and then you will see
how long I allow him.”
“But I mean here--in Dalton Hall.”
“I do not allow him any thing. I am simply a prisoner. He is my jailer,
and keeps me here.”
“You need not be so.”
“Pray how can I escape?”
“By siding with me.”
“With you?” asked Edith--“and what then?”
“Well, if you side with me I will drive him out.”
“You seem incapable of understanding,” said Edith, “that of the two, you
yourself, both by nature and by position, are by far the more abhorrent
to me. Side with you! And is this the proposal you have to make?”
“I tell you that you are in no danger from me, and that you are from
him.”
“Really, as far as danger is concerned, my prospects with Wiggins are
far preferable to my prospects with you.”
“But you don't know him. He has done terrible things--deeds of horror.”
“And you--what have you done? But perhaps I have mistaken you. When you
ask me to side with you, you may perhaps mean that I shall be at
liberty, and that when you expel Wiggins you will allow me to go also.”
At this Leon looked down in evident embarrassment.
“Well--not--yet,” he said, slowly. “In time, of course; but it can not
all be done just at once, you know.”
“What can not be done at once?”
“Your--your freedom.”
“Why not?”
“Well, there are--a--certain difficulties in the way.”
“Then what can I gain by siding with you? Why should I cast off Wiggins,
and take a new jailer who has done to me a wrong far more foul and far
more intolerable than any that Wiggins ever attempted?”
“But you mistake me. I intend to let you go free, of course--that is, in
time.”
“In time!”
“Yes; every thing can not be done in a moment.”
“This is mere childishness. You are trifling. I am astonished that you
should speak in this way, after what you know of me.”
“But I tell you I will set you free--only I can not do that until I get
what I want.”
“And what is it that you want?”
“Why, what I married you for.”
“What is that?”
“Money,” said Leon, abruptly.
“Money,” repeated Edith, in surprise.
“Yes, money,” said Leon, harshly.
“You must really apply to Wiggins, then,” said she, carelessly.
“No; you yourself are the only one to whom I must apply.”
“To me? I have no money whatever. It is of no use for me to inform you
that Wiggins is all-powerful here. I thought by your professed knowledge
of his wonderful secrets that you had some great power over him, and
could get from him whatever you want.”
“Never mind what you thought,” growled Leon. “I come to you, and you
only, and I ask you for money.”
“How can _I_ give it?”
“By signing your name to a paper, a simple paper, which I can use. Your
signature is necessary to effect what I wish.”
“My signature? Ah! And what possible inducement can you offer me for my
signature?”
“Why, what you most desire.”
“What? My freedom?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Will you drive me to the village at once?”
Leon hesitated.
“Well, not just at once, you know. You must remain here a short time,
and go through certain formalities and routine work, and attest certain
things before a lawyer.”
Edith smiled.
“What a simpleton you must still think me! How easy you must think it is
to impose upon me! Perhaps you think me so credulous, or so much in the
habit of confiding in you, that no such thing as doubt ever enters my
mind.”
Leon glared angrily at her.
“I tell you I must have it,” he cried, in excited tones. “I must have
it--by fair means or foul.”
“But of the two ways I _presume_ you have a preference for the
latter,” said Edith.
“I tell you I must and will have it,” reiterated Leon.
“I don't see how you can get my signature very well--unless you forge
it; but then I suppose that will not stand in your way.”
“Now by all that is most holy,” cried Leon, vehemently, “you make me
hate you even worse than I hate Wiggins.”
“Really, these feelings of yours are a subject in which I do not take
the smallest interest.”
“I tell you,” cried Leon, struggling to repress his rage, “if you sign
this paper you shall be free.”
“Let me be free first, and then I will think about it.”
“If you get free you'll refuse to sign,” said Leon.
“But if I were to sign first I should never be free.”
“You shall be free. I promise you on the honor of a gentleman,” cried
Leon, earnestly.
“I'm afraid,” said Edith, in a tone of quiet contempt, “that the
security is of too little value.”
Leon looked at her with fury in his eyes.
“You are driving me to the most desperate measures,” he cried.
“It seems to me that your measures have all along been as desperate as
they well can be.”
“I swear by all that's holy,” thundered Leon, “that I'll tame you yet.
I'll bring you into subjection.”
“Ah! then in that case,” said Edith, “my comfort will be that the
subjection can not last long.”
“Will it not?” asked Leon.
“No, it will not, as you very well know,” said Edith, in cold, measured
tones, looking steadfastly at him with what seemed like a certain solemn
warning. She rose as she said this, still looking at Leon, while he
also rose in a state of vehement excitement.
“What do you meant” he cried. “You look as blood-thirsty as an
assassin.”
“I may yet become one,” said Edith, gloomily, “if this lasts much
longer. You have eyes, but you will not see. You treat me like some
silly, timid child, while I have all the time the spirit of a man. This
can only end in one way. Some one must die!”
Leon looked at her in astonishment. Her voice and her look showed that
she was in earnest, but the fragile beauty of her slender form seemed to
belie the dark meaning of her words.
“I came with a fair offer,” said he, in a voice hoarse with passion.
“You!” said Edith, in cold scorn; “you with a fair offer! Fairness and
honor and justice and truth, and all such things, are altogether unknown
to such as you.”
At this Leon frowned that peculiar frown of his, and gnawed his mustache
in his rage.
“I have spared you thus far,” said he--“I have spared you; but now, by
Heaven, you shall feel what it is to have a master!”
“You!” she cried--“you spared me? If I have escaped any injury from you,
it has been through my own courage and the cowardice of your own heart.
You my master! You will learn a terrible lesson before you become
that!”
“I have spared you,” cried Leon, now beside himself with rage--“I have
spared you, but I will spare you no longer. After this you shall know
that what I have thus far done is as nothing to that which is yet before
you.”
“What you have done!” said Edith, fixing her great wrathful eyes more
sternly upon Leon, with a look of deadly menace, and with burning
intensity of gaze, and speaking in a low tone that was tremulous with
repressed indignation--“what you have done! Let me tell you, Captain
Dudleigh, your heart's blood could never atone for the wrongs you have
done me! Beware, Sir, how you drive me to desperation. You little know
what I have in my mind to do. You have made me too familiar with the
thought of death!”
At these words Leon stared at her in silence. He seemed at last to
understand the full possibility of Edith's nature, and to comprehend
that this one whom he threatened was capable, in her despair, of making
all his threats recoil on his own head: He said nothing, and in a few
moments afterward she left the room.
As she went out of the door she encountered Hugo. He started as she
came noiselessly upon him. He had evidently been listening to all that
had been said. At this specimen of the way in which she was watched,
though it really showed her no more than what she had all along known,
there arose in Edith's mind a fresh sense of helplessness and of peril.
* * * * *
[Illustration: EDITH SET TO WORK. ]