Part 48 (2/2)
Eleanor interprets the look. With a swift movement she wrenches herself from the wall against which she has seemed to be held as if by a strong magnet, crosses the room with quick and noiseless tread, fastens the folding window doors together with a click, facing Philip in defiant silence.
”You have come for him,” she hisses, the hatred in her eyes gleaming forth. ”You would kill--Carol.”
At the mention of his name from her lips Philip starts.
”Is it not so?” she cries wildly, raising her voice, which trembles with emotion, vibratos with dread.
For the moment Philip does not reply, only his face lights up as with the glory of revenge.
Eleanor's fingers tighten on the window fastening. She clings to it for support.
A strangled cry breaks from her lips, and the half incoherent words: ”My G.o.d! My G.o.d!”
CHAPTER XXIII.
OH, I DEFY THEE, h.e.l.l, TO SHOW ON BEDS OF FIRE THAT BURN BELOW, A DEEPER WOE.--_E. A. Poe_.
Philip pushes a chair forward as if to signify there is no need to guard the window.
The action excites Eleanor to pa.s.sion.
”It is cowardly to kill,” she cries through her clenched teeth.
”And if I did, what should I get in return for all he has stolen from me? Could he give me back your heart? Could he blot out the past with his blood? Should I regain the pure thing I lost, the wife I treasured, the woman I adored? Think how he shattered my life and wrecked my happiness, when he enticed you with the golden apple, that rots and decays, turning to wormwood between the lips! You were allured by the seductive cajolery, the d.a.m.nable influence of a scoundrel.”
Eleanor's breast heaves, she staggers forward in a frenzy.
”Stop! What you say is false. I was not 'enticed.' I went because I loved him body and soul; because existence without him was empty--impossible. If I had stayed with you, loving him, I should not have been true to myself; I should have played the traitor in my own home; the curse would have been on you and on your children. If such a thing were possible, here in this new land, my pa.s.sion developed, increased, tenfold. The night and day, the light, the darkness, they hold nothing for me but this rapturous love, all that is precious, tender, sweet. I have fed on in this paradise till _you_ came, like an image of death, to bring back all that is odious, hateful.”
”Yes,” he replies slowly, ”I can believe you were happy, clinging to the prize you held so dear. Your words have not surprised me, I have listened to them so often in fancy, picturing this scene, when you and I alone should stand together and bare our souls. I expected to hear your short-lived rapture hurled at me as a s.h.i.+eld, a fortification! I am ready to judge it, to weigh it if you will, in the scales of right and wrong. Will you not continue?”
His words wither Eleanor's defence; she shrinks back into herself.
”Surely you have something more to say,” with an ironical laugh, that re-echoes discordantly round the room.
She shakes her head mournfully, and drops her hands to her sides.
”Perhaps,” he continues, ”I was to blame. I was not in harmony with you; I failed to please.”
”Oh! Philip!”
The words are a protest, wrung from the bottom of her soul.
”Or I did not place sufficient confidence in you; we had 'family jars,'
'vexed questions,' 'disagreements.'”
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