"so it was true. there were such things. but at least his limbs were free, and to his joy he discovered that he was not afraid. no; he had a dull feeling of coming disaster, but no fear. she was[207] a young woman, with big shadowy eyes and a strange mouth. she had on a long, loose white nightgown, open at the throat, and she carried a little lamp. 'go!' he saw in her eyes as plainly as if she said it. he looked about the room—he could have sworn it was changed. it had the air of a woman's room, that she is living in and keeps her things in. he had no right there—none. he should have gone. but he was proud because he wasn't afraid, and he answered her with his eyes that he would not go. a tired, puzzled look came into her face, a kind of frown, and she leaned over the footboard and begged him with those big dark eyes, begged him hard to go. he had his chance—oh, yes, the fool had his chance!
"but he was so proud that he could master her, master a returned soul—for lovely as she was, he knew she wasn't human—that he only set his teeth and started up to come nearer her. but she raised her hand and he fell back, feeling queer and drowsy. then she came to the edge of the bed and sat down and took from behind her a soft red silk sash and drew it across his face. a sweet, languid[208] feeling stole over him; the bed seemed like a cloud of down, her sash smelled like spice and sandalwood in a warm wind. he felt he was being drugged and weakened, and he tried to stumble up, but the soft silk smothered him, and he became almost unconscious.
"he only wanted one thing—to feel her fingers touch his face and to hold her long brown hair. and while she drew the sash across his mouth he stretched out his hands on either side to catch it and reach her fingers. there was nothing ghostly about her—she was only a lovely dream-woman. maybe he was asleep....
"and then she pulled the sash away, and he caught her eye and awoke with a start—her look was full of triumph. she didn't beg him any longer. this was no helpless, gentle spirit of a woman; this was a weird elemental creature; she hadn't any soul or any pity; something made her act out all this dreadful tragedy, without any regard for human life or reason. he knew somehow that she couldn't help his weakness; that though in some fiendish way she had bound him hand and foot,[209] she did it not of herself, but in obedience to some awful law that she couldn't help any more than he. and then he began to be afraid. slowly great waves of horror rose and grew and broke over him. he tried to move his feet and hands, but he could not so much as will the muscles to contract. he strained till the drops stood on his forehead, but still his arms lay stretched motionless across the bed.
"just then he met her eyes again, and his heart sank, they were so mocking and bitter. 'fool! fool!' they said. they were so malignant, and yet so impersonal—he could have sworn that she was afraid too. what was to happen? would she kill him? his tongue was helpless. he worked his lips weakly, but they made no words. and she turned down her mouth scornfully and played with the sash. why did she wait? for she was waiting for a time to come—her eyes told that. what was that time? a great joy that darby was safe outdoors came to him, and he remembered that darby would come at twelve! he would break the spell. and just then she left the bed and bent down over the little[210] lamp, and when she took it up it was lighted. she moved across to the window and set it in the sill. then she glided to the door and locked it. joan heard the bolt slip.
"steps sounded on the ladder outside. into joan's half-dulled thought came a kind of comfort. darby was coming. some one knocked on the pane and the window was raised from the outside.
"'joan! joan!' whispered darby, 'are you all right? why did you light the lamp? where are you?' and then joan, the fool, forgot that if he had not answered, darby would surely have come in. it seemed to him that if he did not speak now, he was lost. he strained his throat to say four words—only four: 'all right. come in.' just that. the first two to reassure darby, the second to bring him. he made a mighty effort. 'all—all right!' he shouted, 'c—c—,' and then her eyes were on him and he faded into unconsciousness. he saw in them a terror and surprise. he understood that she wondered at his speaking. there was a stinging pain in his throat, and he heard darby whisper angrily,
[211]
"'keep still, can't you? don't howl so! it's quarter to one. i looked in at twelve, and didn't want to wake you. you'd better get up now—who's that down there?' and with a sickening despair he heard darby hurry down the ladder.
"the leaves rustled a little and then all was still. he didn't struggle any longer. it was clear to him now. he was to play the lover in this ill-fated tragedy, whose actors offered themselves, fools that they were, unasked, each time. and what happened to the lover? why, he was killed. well, rather that he should die than darby. it seemed to him so reasonable, now. no one had asked him to suffer. he had had his chance to go and refused it. no one could help him now. not even she. they must play it out, puppets of an inexorable drama.
"and then the girl dashed to the bed, and sank beside it as if to pray. and he felt her hair on his face, as he had hoped, but it brought no joy to him. for something was coming up from the floor below. something that sent a thrill before it, that advanced, slowly, slowly, surely. the girl shuddered and grasped the bed and tried to pull her[212]self up, but she sank helplessly back. and slowly the bolt of the door pushed back. no one pushed it, but it slipped back. then slowly, inch by inch, the door opened. joan grew stiff and cold, and would not have looked but that his eyes were fixed. wider, wider, till it stood flat against the wall.
"then up the stairs came steps. and with them others, quick and pattering. what was that? who walked so quickly, with padding, thudding feet? he longed for them to come in—he dreaded their coming. the door was ready for them. the room was swept and clean.
"up, up, they came, the heavy steps and the scratching, pattering feet. nearer, nearer—they came in. the man, large, dark, heavy-jawed; the stone-grey, snarling hound, licking its frothing jaws, straining at its chain. the girl writhed against the bed in terror—she opened her lips, but with a stride the man was upon her, his heavy hand was over her mouth. he dragged her up, shaking and sinking, he snatched the sash and bound her mouth, he held her at arm's length[213] and stared once in her eyes. scorn and rage and murder were in his.
"joan forgot his own danger in terrified pity. he struggled a moment, but it was useless. his dreadful bonds still held. the man came to the bed, dragging the hound, and joan shut his eyes, not to see the dark evil face. he would die in the dark, alone, unaided. oh! to call once! to hear a human voice! but there was no sound but the panting of the great, eager dog.
"the man seemed not to see him. he seized the girl, and turning her toward the light that burned at the pane, he bound her to the bed-post with the silken sash. she writhed and bent and tried to grasp his feet; she pleaded with her eyes till their agony cut joan like a knife, but the man tied her straight and fast. then he walked to the pane and crouched down by it and held the dog's muzzle, and became like a stone image.
"and suddenly it flashed across joan's mind, with a passion of fear to which all that had gone before was as nothing, that darby was coming up that ladder to that light! darby, whom he had[214] thought so safe, was to come unknowing, unwarned, to that straining, panting beast. he turned faint for a moment. and then with all the power of his soul he tried to scream. he felt his throat strain and bend and all but burst with the tremendous effort. he tried again, and the pain blinded him. at his feet there the girl strained and twisted, great tears rolling down her cheeks. and yet there was a ghastly silence. the stifled panting of that hound echoed in a deadly quiet. it was horrible, pitiful! the girl's white gown was torn and mussed; her soft naked shoulder quivered when she strained against the cruel sash. he could see that her arm was red where it was tied.
"she trembled and bent and bit her lip till the blood stained her chin. he cursed and prayed and shrieked till the sound, had it come, would have deafened him—but it was all a ghastly mockery! it was as still as a quiet summer afternoon—and the dog and the man waited at the window.
"there was a sound of scraping. someone was coming up the ladder—someone who whistled[215] softly under his breath, and came nearer every moment. up, up—the ladder rattled against the window-frame. the man at the window slipped his hand slowly, slowly from the dog's muzzle. the dog stiffened and drew back his black, dripping jaws from his yellow teeth. the man's fingers sunk in the beast's wrinkled neck and he held him back, while he threw one look of hate and triumph at the tortured woman behind him.
"the man bound to the bed couldn't bear it any longer. as a hand grasped the window-sill from outside, he summoned all his iron will, and with a rasping, rending effort that brought a sickly, warm taste to his mouth, he gave a hoarse cry.
"then the woman leaned over till the sash sunk into her soft flesh, and shrieked with a high, shrill note that cut the air like a knife. but even as she shrieked, a form rose over the sill, there was a rush from inside, and their voices were drowned in a cry of terror, a scream so broken and despairing that joan could not recognise the voice. and then there was a horrid crashing fall, and the light went out, and something snapped in the brain of[216] the man chained to the bed, and he dropped for miles into a deep, black gulf."
there was a dead silence in the room. no one dared to speak. the stranger's voice had quavered and broken, and in a hoarse whisper he said, rising and stumbling to the door while they made way for him silently:
"and when he knew his friends again, darby had been buried a long time. joan did not know whether a broken neck is so much worse than anything else in the world. he hadn't any curiosity about the mill—he didn't care to hear the details of how they burned it to the ground. perhaps after a while he will be too tired to contradict ignorant people. but he thinks—he has said, that when a man has not slept five hours in a week, nor spoken for days together without agony, much may be forgiven him in the line of intolerance of other people's ignorance—a blessed ignorance gentlemen, a blessed ignorance."
the door closed behind him and the men drew a long breath. no one turned out the gas and it[217] burned till morning, for they took their keys in silence and went upstairs, for the most part arm in arm, haunted by the hoarse, rough voice of the stranger, whom they never saw again.
and indeed they did not care to see him. "for what could one say?" as young sanford demanded, the next day. "it either happened, or it didn't. if it didn't, he can say no more; if it did, then he is right, and we are in blessed ignorance." and no one of the circle but nodded and looked for a moment at the chair behind the stove.
