gail, in a pretty little rose-coloured morning robe, with soft frills of lace around her white throat and at her white elbows, sat on the floor of the music room amid a chaos of sheet music. she was humming a gay little song suggested by one of the titles through which she had leafed, and was gradually sorting her music for the yacht party; instrumental pieces here, popular things there, another little pile of old-fashioned glees which the assembled crowd might sing, just here a little stack of her own solos, nearby the rector’s favourites, between the two their duets. it was her part in one of the latter she was humming now, missing, as she sang, the strong accompaniment of the reverend smith boyd’s mellow voice. she was more peaceful this morning than she had been for many days.
the butler came through the hall, and gail looked up with a suppressed giggle as she saw him pass the door. she always had an absurd idea that his hinges should be oiled.
“miss gail is not at home, sir,” she heard the butler say, and gail paused with a sheet of music suspended in her hand, the whole expression of her face changing. she had only given instructions that one person should receive that invariable message.
“i beg your pardon, sir!” was the next observation 310gail heard, in a tone of as near startled remonstrance as was possible to the butler’s wooden voice.
there was a sound almost as of a scuffle, and then allison, with his top coat on his arm and his hat in his hand, strode to the doorway of the music room, followed immediately by the butler, who looked as if his hair had been peeled a little at the edges. allison had apparently brushed roughly past him, and had disturbed his equanimity for the balance of his life.
gail was on her feet almost instantaneously with the apparition in the doorway, and she still held the sheet of music which she had been about to deposit on one of the piles. allison’s eyes had a queer effect of being sunken, and there was a strange nervous tension in him. gail dismissed the butler with a nod.
“you were informed that i am not at home,” she said.
“i meant to see you,” he replied, with a certain determined insolence in his tone which she could not escape. there was a triumph in it, too, as if his having swept the butler aside were only a part of his imperious intention. “i have some things to say to you to which you must listen.”
“you had better say them all then, because this is your last opportunity,” she told him, pale with anger, and with a quaver in her voice which she would have given much to suppress.
he cast on her a look which blazed. he had not slept since he had seen her last. he smiled, and the smile was a snarl, displaying his teeth. something more than anger crept into gail’s pallor.
“i have come to ask you again to marry me, gail. the matter is too vital to be let pass without the most serious effort of which i am capable. i can not do 311without you. i have a need for you which is greater than anything of which you could conceive. i come to you humbly, gail, to ask you to reconsider your hasty answer of last night. i want you to marry me.”
for just a moment his eyes had softened, and gail felt a slight trace of pity for him; but in the pity itself there was revulsion.
“i can not,” she told him.
“you must!” he immediately rejoined. “as i would build up an empire to win you, i would destroy one to win you. you spoke last night of what you called the cruelty and trickery of the building up of my big transportation monopoly. if it is that which stands between us, it shall not do so for a moment longer. marry me, and i will stop it just where it is. why, i only built this for you, and if you don’t like it, i shall have nothing to do with it.” in that he lied, and consciously. he knew that the moment he had made sure of her his ambition to conquer would come uppermost again, and that he would pursue his dream of conquest with even more ardour than before, because he had been refreshed.
“that would make no difference, mr. allison,” she replied. “i told you, last night, that i would not marry you because i do not, and could not, love you. there does not need to be any other reason.” there was in her an inexplicable tension, a reflex of his own, but, though her face was still pale, she stood very calmly before him.
the savageness which was in him, held too long in leash, sprang into his face, his eyes, his lips, the set of his jaws. he advanced a step towards her. his hands contracted.
“i shall not again ask you to love me,” he harshly 312stated; “but you must marry me. i have made up my mind to that.”
“impossible!” angry now and contemptuous.
“i’ll make you! there is no resource i will not use. i’ll bankrupt your family. i’ll wipe it off the earth.”
gail’s nails were pressing into her palms. she felt that her lips were cold. her eyes were widening, as the horror of him began to grow on her. he was glaring at her now, and there was no attempt to conceal the savage cruelty on his face.
“i’ll compromise you,” he went on. “i’ll connect your name with mine in such a way that marriage with me will be your only resource. i’ll be an influence you can’t escape. there will not be a step you can take in which you will not feel that i am the master of it. marry you? i’ll have you if it takes ten years! i’ll have no other end in life. i’ll put into that one purpose all the strength, and all the will that i have put into the accomplishment of everything which i have done; and the longer you delay me the sooner i’ll break you when i do get you.”
out of her very weakness had come strength; out of her overwhelming humiliation had come pride, and though the blood had left her face waxen and cold, something within her discovered a will which was as strong in resistance as his was in attack. she knew it, and trembled in the knowledge of it.
“you can’t make me marry you,” she said, with infinite scorn and contempt.
he clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. into his eyes there sprang a blaze which she had never before seen, but dimly, in the eyes of any man; but she needed no experience to tell her its despicable meaning. his lips, which had been snarling, suddenly took a downward 313twitch, and were half parted. his nostrils were distended, and the blood, flooding into his face, empurpled it.
“then i’ll have you anyhow!” he hoarsely told her, and, his arms tensed and his head slightly lowered forward, he made as if to advance toward her. he saw in her frightened eyes that she would scream, but he did not know that at that moment she could not. her heart seemed to have lost its action, and she stood, trembling, faint, in the midst of her strewn music, with the sensation that the room was turning dark.
the house was very quiet. mrs. sargent and mrs. davies were upstairs. the servants were all in the rear of the house, or below, or in the upper rooms, at their morning work. he turned swiftly and closed the door of the music room, then he whirled again towards her, with ferocity in his eyes. he came slowly, every movement of him alive with ponderous strength. he was a maniac. he was insane. he was frenzied by one mad thought which had swept out of his universe every other consideration, and the glut to kill was no more fearful than the purpose which possessed him now.
gail, standing slight, fragile, her brown eyes staring, her brown hair dishevelled about her white brow, felt every atom of strength leaving her, devoured in the overwhelming might of this monstrous creature. the sheet of music, which she had been holding all this time, dropped from her nerveless fingers and fluttered to the floor!
that noise, slight as it was, served to arrest the progress of the man for just an instant. he was in no frame to reason, but some instinct urged him to speed. he crouched slightly, as a wild beast might. but the 314flutter of that sheet of music had done more for gail than it had for him. it had loosed the paralysis which had held her, had broken the fascination of horror with which she had been spellbound. just behind her was a low french window which led to a small side balcony. with one bound she burst this open, she did not know how, and had leaped over the light balcony rail, and ran across the lawn to the rectory gate, up the steps and into the side door, and into the study, where the reverend smith boyd sat toiling over a sermon.
