Agatha remained quite still. Her heart was beating wildly, but
she showed no outward sign of fear, and it was too dark now for
him to see that her face was as white a death.
"Take away your hand," she said, presently, in a tone that
startled even herself, it was so calm, and with a touch of
dignity in it not to be withstood. Truly, "courage mounteth with
occasion."
Darkham let her go instinctively, but he still stood facing her,
and through the deepening of the night she felt that his eyes
were on her. At last he spoke.
"You think you will marry him," he said. His voice was low, not
at all violent; but it frightened Agatha the more perhaps for
that. At all events it rang in her ears for days afterwards.
His hopes were at fever height when he reached the villa. He had
entered the tiny avenue and come cautiously up, hidden by the
rhododendrons, to that small gate inside which the girl so often
at this hour ministered to her flowers.
And then he had seen her--in Dillwyn's arms.
The evening was not so far advanced, and the delicate light of a
first love that lay on her beautiful face was quite clear to him.
He saw her lift her arms, and let Dillwyn take her into his. They
kissed each other.
He went a little mad then. He lost consciousness for a moment or
two, and clung to a tree close to him. So much had been dared and
done, and now was it all to be in vain?
He recovered himself presently, remembering everything, and a
great oath broke from him. He swore to himself that the one
terrible deed of his life should not lie fallow. Something should
come of it. It should bear fruit.
He withdrew into the denser shadow, and waited, and watched, and
listened. He was not naturally a man of base understandings.
There was nothing small about him, and probably under happier
circumstance he would have disdained to lie there in ambush
watching and listening; but now passion mastered him, and his
love for Agatha--the one pure sentiment of his life--was
unhappily the undoing of him. It _should_ have ennobled him; it
only debased him.
Everything seemed to be falling from him. This girl on whom his
soul was set would not so much as look at him, and Dillwyn--
that affair of General Montgomery's had touched him. In time the
wedge, that now had got in its thin edge, would work deeper and
take from him his practice. A hatred against Dillwyn had always
been in his breast ever since those earliest days when he first
came to Rickton, and now it blazed and grew to monstrous
dimensions.
What! was Dillwyn to "supplant him these two times?" Never! His
courage came back to him. His indomitable will grew strong again.
As Dillwyn passed him on his way home he raised is hand as if to
strike him to the earth, but paused.
"You think you will marry him," said he again. "You think it
possible to escape me." He was quite beside himself, or he would
hardly have dared so to speak to her.
"I don't understand you," said Agatha coldly. "It is late. I wish
to go in."
"Not too late, however, for you to see your lover!"
"Dr. Darkham! This is not the first time you have spoken to me
like this. I must ask you to let it be the last. For you to
dictate to me on any subject is impertinence," she said
haughtily. "I am sure you must see it. I am nothing to you, and
you are, if possible, less to me."
"You are wrong there!" He took a step nearer to her, and the girl
set her teeth hard. If he were to _touch her!_ At this moment the
moon came out from behind a cloud and showed her his face--
dark, determined, passionate. "You are all the world to me. Life
itself! Do you hear? Do you understand? You are my very life! And
a man fights hard for his life. I shall fight hard," he said.
"It is bad to fight for failure," said she. Her hands were icy
cold now, but her face was impassive. "I hope you will go away
now. My aunt, as you know, is not in, and---"
"Did Dillwyn know that too--that your aunt was not in? Do you
think he would have come here if he had not known it?"
"I am sure he would," said the girl. There was a change in her
voice as she spoke of him, a sudden tenderness, a glad delight.
The man listening noticed it, and it maddened him the more.
"You---" He stopped short, as if to complete the sentence was
beyond him. His voice was thick, uncertain. "You will tell me
next," said he, leaning forward and gazing at her threateningly,
"that you love him!"
"Yes; I love him!"
Darkham burst into a wild laugh.
"Him! Love him! A man who courts you clandestinely, who has not
the courage or the desire to do so openly. Has he spoken to your
aunt? Come, what has he done? Has he asked your hand in marriage
of your only guardian? Or is he playing fast and loose with you?
It would not be the first time he had played that game. Why,
there are tales of him in the village."
Agatha made a gesture of contempt.
"There are no tales of Dr. Dillwyn in this village or any other,"
she said. "As for his speaking to Mrs. Greatorex, he would have
spoken to her to-day but that I forbade him. He will speak to her
to-morrow."
"So he says, no doubt. But even if he does speak--what then?
Will Mrs. Greatorex listen to the proposals of a pauper?"
"She will, I am sure, listen to the proposals of a gentleman."
She had not meant this as a cut to him, but it went home. He
writhed under it.
"She will listen to me," said he. "To me only--though I may not
be what you in your arrogance class as a gentleman."
"Dr. Darkham. I assure you--I--" She was shocked at his
reading of her words. Her face, pale and beautiful, turned to him
full of contrition. It seemed terrible to her, to have even
inadvertently hurt the feelings of any one. "I did not mean
that."
This sudden change on her part, from extreme coldness to a faint
kindness, came as the dew from heaven to Darkham. This little
touch of sweetness, what might it not lead to if he pleaded with
her? Pleaded with all his soul--_for_ his soul!
"Agatha!" cried he, "hear me. I beseech you to hear me.
Everything is against me; I know that; but you--if you could
only understand what you are to me!"
"I do not wish to understand." She broke into his stammering
speech with a certain courage, but a courage that she felt was
failing her. For the first time real fear seized upon her.
"You _shall_ understand," said he. "When I tell you that my very
soul is in your keeping---"
He broke off and tried to take her hand, but she pushed him from
her. She felt terrified.
"Your soul! _Yours!_" she said. "Oh, no, no, no!"
There was such horror, such open shrinking, in her whole air that
he stood and looked at her. Had she heard anything? Was there a
suspicion in her mind? Impossible! He dismissed that thought, but
another rose. He felt now that his case was hopeless, so far as
she was concerned. He was abhorrent to her. She loathed him, and
--strongest lever of all against him--she loved another. Had
she been free he might have won her, but he knew her well enough
--and it was this knowledge that had drawn him to her--to
understand that when once steadfastly determined she would be
hard to move.
"You have decided?" said he.
She made a little movement to signify acquiescence.
"You deliberately choose a life of want?"
"I choose the life I wish to lead."
"And Mrs. Greatorex? She has been good to you. You will go
against her? yet you owe her something."
"I owe her more than I can ever repay," said Agatha with emotion.
"But not the selling of my soul."
"You have made up your mind?" said Darkham again. His tone was a
question, and the question conveyed a threat. "You absolutely
refuse me? Think--think again, Agatha--_think!_"
"I have thought."
He broke out then,--
"You defy me?"
She faced him bravely even at this moment, when her heart was
dying within her.
"Yes, I defy you!"
He drew nearer to her, and caught her arm. His face was close to
hers. _Such_ a face!
"To defy _me_"--he spoke below his breath--"you must be mad
to defy me. Now, hear me! You will never marry that fool of
yours. I _shall_ prevent that, even though"--he paused
ominously--"I have to destroy him."
The word "destroy" might have had reference to Dillwyn's
profession, but to the girl's over-wrought imagination it sounded
like a death-knell. Oh, to get away! To think!
She would have tried to pass him, but something warned her that
such a movement would be unwise. To show cowardice of any sort in
his present excited state would be madness. She held her ground
bravely, and prayed to Heaven for deliverance of some sort.
And Heaven sent it.