"Ay,mock!"she said,setting her teeth,"thinking that I am conquered--yet am I not!'Twas an honest blow struck by a creature goaded past all thought!Ay,mock--and yet,but for one man's sake,would I call in those outside and stand before them,crying:'Here is a villain whom I struck in madness--and he lies dead!I ask not mercy,but only justice.'"She crouched still nearer,her breath and words coming hard and quick.'Twas indeed as if she spoke to a living man who heard--as if she answered what he had said.
"There would be men in England who would give it me,"she raved,whispering."That would there,I swear!But there would be dullards and dastards who would not.He would give it--he!Ay,mock as thou wilt!But between his high honour and love and me thy carrion SHALL not come!"By her great divan the dead man had fallen,and so near to it he lay that one arm was hidden by the draperies;and at this moment this she saw--before having seemed to see nothing but the death in his face.A thought came to her like a flame lit on a sudden,and springing high the instant the match struck the fuel it leaped from.
It was a thought so daring and so strange that even she gasped once,being appalled,and her hands,stealing to her brow,clutched at the hair that grew there,feeling it seem to rise and stand erect.
"Is it madness to so dare?"she said hoarsely,and for an instant,shuddering,hid her eyes,but then uncovered and showed them burning."Nay!not as I will dare it,"she said,"for it will make me steel.You fell well,"she said to the stone-faced thing,"and as you lie there,seem to tell me what to do,in your own despite.
You would not have so helped me had you known.Now 'tis 'twixt Fate and I--a human thing--who is but a hunted woman."She put her strong hand forth and thrust him--he was already stiffening--backward from the shoulder,there being no shrinking on her face as she felt his flesh yield beneath her touch,for she had passed the barrier lying between that which is mere life and that which is pitiless hell,and could feel naught that was human.Apoor wild beast at bay,pressed on all sides by dogs,by huntsmen,by resistless weapons,by Nature's pitiless self -glaring with bloodshot eyes,panting,with fangs bared in the savagery of its unfriended agony--might feel thus.'Tis but a hunted beast;but 'tis alone,and faces so the terror and anguish of death.
The thing gazing with its set sneer,and moving but stiffly,she put forth another hand upon its side and thrust it farther backward until it lay stretched beneath the great broad seat,its glazed and open eyes seeming to stare upward blankly at the low roof of its strange prison;she thrust it farther backward still,and letting the draperies fall,steadily and with care so rearranged them that all was safe and hid from sight.
"Until to-night,"she said,"You will lie well there.And then--and then--"She picked up the long silken lock of hair which lay like a serpent at her feet,and threw it into the fire,watching it burn,as all hair burns,with slow hissing,and she watched it till 'twas gone.
Then she stood with her hands pressed upon her eyeballs and her brow,her thoughts moving in great leaps.Although it reeled,the brain which had worked for her ever,worked clear and strong,setting before her what was impending,arguing her case,showing her where dangers would arise,how she must provide against them,what she must defend and set at defiance.The power of will with which she had been endowed at birth,and which had but grown stronger by its exercise,was indeed to be compared to some great engine whose lever 'tis not nature should be placed in human hands;but on that lever her hand rested now,and to herself she vowed she would control it,since only thus might she be saved.The torture she had undergone for months,the warring of the evil past with the noble present,of that which was sweet and passionately loving woman with that which was all but devil,had strung her to a pitch so intense and high that on the falling of this unnatural and unforeseen blow she was left scarce a human thing.Looking back,she saw herself a creature doomed from birth;and here in one moment seemed to stand a force ranged in mad battle with the fate which had doomed her.
"'Twas ordained that the blow should fall so,"she said,"and those who did it laugh--laugh at me."'Twas but a moment,and her sharp breathing became even and regular as though at her command;her face composed itself,and she turned to the bell and rang it as with imperious haste.
When the lacquey entered,she was standing holding papers in her hand as if she had but just been consulting them.
"Follow Sir John Oxon,"she commanded."Tell him I have forgot an important thing and beg him to return at once.Lose no time.He has but just left me and can scarce be out of sight."The fellow saw there was no time to lose.They all feared that imperial eye of hers and fled to obey its glances.Bowing,he turned,and hastened to do her bidding,fearing to admit that he had not seen the guest leave,because to do so would be to confess that he had been absent from his post,which was indeed the truth.
She knew he would come back shortly,and thus he did,entering somewhat breathed by his haste.
