out the day of the trial--after I'd blown out his, the scoundrel! But since I have you, I know a way to worry him better than by blowing his brains out. To know that you are mine is hell to him. And in that hell I'll keep him, as long as my body and soul will hang together!"
"What should he care whether I am yours or not?"
"Because he loves you--that's why he cares! Ay, you needn't start. He loves you, and it's hell to him to feel that another man has you. How many thousand pounds do you think he'd give to kiss this little hand as I kiss it now? I wish he could see me do it!"
"Nonsense, you are crazy.... And so you only care for me to spite him?"
"No, not that. God knows--if there is a God--I love you, Kate, with all there is left of me--except what hates him! That's my life--love for you and hate for him. And I believe I hate him less than I love you, though that's saying a great deal!"
"Oh, I think you love that brandy better than you do me."
"You do? If you say so, I'll never touch it again!"
"Oh, I don't care. I don't want you to give up anything that makes you comfortable."
"Ay, you do love me, don't you, Kate?"
"Come, Richard, our courting days are over. And I must go. Good-by!"
"No, don't go! I feel, somehow, as if I couldn't spare you to-night."
"Shall I pour you out another glass?"
"Yes--no! I'll drink no more to-night. Kate...."
"Well?"
"I'm getting old. In the natural course of things I should die long before you. I sha'n't die yet a while--but some time, you know. Will you promise something?"
"I'll promise nothing to-night. I dare say you'll outlive me."
"Promise, come what will, you'll never marry him; eh, Kate?"
"Really, Richard, I--I never heard anything so foolish! I can't stay to hear any more such talk. You are not your right self. There--let me go!"
"Go?--go where? Gad, I've a mind to say you sha'n't go! Well, yes, I didn't mean it; forgive me, Kate! Only you're my wife, you know, and I'm your husband; and I love you; and somehow I feel afraid to let you out of my sight--as if I might not see you again. Well, then.... But one thing you shall do--you shall give me a kiss before you go! Else you sha'n't go at all!"
Thus compelled, Mrs. Pennroyal kissed her husband, or let herself be kissed by him; and then she escaped from the room, with a shudder and a sinking of the heart.
Richard Pennroyal sat there alone; the embers of the fire were now gray and lifeless. He stirred them with his foot, and they fell into ashes. He felt cold. How still the house was; how lonely! And he had no pleasant thoughts to keep him company now that his wife had left him; but many thoughts, many memories that were far from pleasant, were lying in wait for him in the dark corners of his mind, ready to leap out upon him if he gave them a chance. Among them, why did the foolish face of crazy old Jane, his wife of many years ago, persist in obtruding itself? Why did it wear that look of stupid, unreasonable reproach? yes, unreasonable; for how was he to blame? He had but let things take their course; no more than that ... well, scarcely more! And yet that face, that silly old face, that dull, lifeless, drowned old face, kept meeting his in the dark corners, turn where he would. If he closed his eyes, it was still visible through the eyelids, and seemed nearer than ever.
So he opened his eyes; and there hovered the face, in the gloom beyond the lamp. What an expression! Was it signalling him to come away? Was it mocking him for fearing to come? Fearing? He was not afraid. He was a Pennroyal; he had noble blood in his veins; though he was now a bit old and shaky, and had, perhaps, been taking a little too much brandy of late. But--afraid! not he. Why, he would follow the thing, if it came to that; follow it to....
He rose slowly from his chair, still keeping his eyes steadily fixed upon it, and moved toward it, with his hands outstretched. He did not get any nearer to it; it was retreating before him, like a will-o'-the-wisp. He kept on, crossing the length of the room; it seemed to pass through the substance of the door, and yet he saw it beyond. He opened the door softly; yes, there it was in the hall. A pistol was lying on the little table beside the door, which Richard knew to be loaded. Mechanically, and without looking at it, he took it up as he passed. Then down the hall on tiptoe, the shadowy, unmeaning face marshalling him the way, and leering at him if he hesitated. Ay, he would follow it to the end, now. Fortunately, the house-door stood open; there would be no noise in getting out. Out they glided, pursuer and pursued, into the cold stillness of the night. There was a moon, but it was dim and low down. The shadows seemed more real than the light. There was no snow to betray footprints. But whither would this chase lead? It seemed to be heading toward the northwest--toward Malmaison; ay, and toward the pool that lay on the borders of the estate. Richard shuddered when he thought of that pool, and of the grisly significance of his being led thither by this witless, idiotic old phantom of his dead wife's face. Stay, the face seemed to have got itself a body within the last few moments: it was a gray figure that now flitted on before him; gray and indistinct in the dim moonlight, with noiseless, waving drapery. It was going the very path that old Jane had gone that day, many years ago--her last day on earth; and yet, was she not here again to-night? And she was leading him to the pool; and what then?
Swiftly she flitted onward, some seventy paces in advance apparently, now lost in shadow, now reappearing in the light. She never turned nor beckoned, but kept straight on, and Richard had much ado to keep pace with her. At length he caught the gleam of the dark pool some little distance beyond. He set his teeth, and came on. The gray phantom had paused at last. But was that Jane after all? Not Jane's was that tall and graceful figure. This must be some other woman's ghost. Was it a ghost? And if so, was that another--that man who issued from behind a clump of bushes, and came toward her? The two figures met; the man took the woman in his arms, and kissed her many times on the lips and eyes. Kisses! ay, those were kisses indeed! Now they seemed to be conversing together; his arms were round her waist. The moonlight revealed his features; it was the enemy--it was Archibald Malmaison! And the woman was not the dead wife, but the living one.
"We are perfectly safe, my darling," Archibald was saying. "The room was all prepared for you, and there is no possibility of discovery. There will be a great outcry and confusion for a week or so, and they will search for you, dead and alive; and I along with the rest, the better to disarm suspicion. It will be settled, at last, that you must have escaped to some foreign country; or, maybe, Richard himself will fall under suspicion of having made away with you, as he did with his first wife. Sooner or later, at any rate, they will give up the search; and, whether or not, we shall always be free to each other. You could not persuade any one at Malmaison to so much as put his nose into the east chamber, and as to the other, you and I are the only living creatures who even dream of its existence. Darling, you will not mind being a prisoner for a little while, since love will be a prisoner with you?"
The woman clung to him tremulously. "I did not know it would be so hard to leave him," she murmured. "I hate him, and yet it was hard. He is so wretched; and he is all alone. What will he do now? He kept saying that he loved me and asking me to love him, and to call him Dick; and ... he made me kiss him. Oh, Archie, I feel that kiss beneath all yours. I shall always feel it!"
"No, this shall make you forget it--"
"Hush! I hear something!"
"You
