Part 19 (2/2)
She moved toward the spot indicated, he following mechanically, and seating himself beside her, in obedience to her gesture.
”Do I know the reason?” he repeated. ”Do I guess it? Oh, if I could guess it; it has haunted me every moment; that strong desire to know what drove my sister to this fate? It is the question I came here to ask. Con., help me to think; she must have said something; must have given you some hint.”
”Alas. But she never did.”
”And you can not guess; you have no clue to help us unravel this mystery?”
Constance shook her head.
”Con., oh, Con., _you_ don't think--you can't think that she loved that--that beast?”
”No, Evan, I can't think that.”
”Then,” excitedly; ”you must think as I do; that there is a mystery; that there has been foul play. Con., I don't care for anything on earth, except Sybil; I _must_ know what has driven her to this; I must help her; I can help her; I can take her from that brute.”
His face was livid, and his eyes glowed with the fierce light that we have seen in the eyes of his elder brother. Constance saw the growing excitement, and sought to soothe it.
”Evan, let us not antic.i.p.ate,” she said, gently. ”All that we can do for Sybil shall be done, but it must be with her consent. When does your father come?”
”I don't know,” sullenly; ”I telegraphed him Sat.u.r.day; he will come to-day, no doubt. But he will come too late.”
”Alas, yes; I regret so much that it was for my sake he was absent from home at such a time, and Frank, too.”
”Frank? bah! What could he do? What could any one do?”
She turned, and scanned his face keenly.
”Evan, you suspect, or you know something.”
”I have a thought,” he replied. ”I hardly dare call it a suspicion. If I could know it to be the truth,” he hissed, between set, white teeth, ”I should know what to do, then.”
”Don't look like that, Evan; you look wicked.”
”I feel wicked,” he cried, fiercely. ”You can never guess how wicked.
When I think of that brute, that beast, that viper; of the power he must hold over _her_, I am mad, crazed. But he will come back, and then--then I will murder him, and set her free.”
With his gleaming eyes, his clenched hands, his white, uplifted face, he looked like a beautiful evil demon. Constance shuddered as she gazed, and then her hand closed firmly upon his arm, as she said:
”Evan, listen: Do you think it would lighten Sybil's burden to hear you rave thus? Do you want to make her lot still harder to bear? Sybil loves you. Would it make her heart lighter to have you embroil yourself for her sake? You know your faults. If you let this hideous idea take place in your mind now, it will break out some day when the demon possesses you. If Sybil Lamotte returns, and hears you utter such threats, she will have an added torture to bear; she will have two curses instead of one. You can not help Sybil by committing an act that would cut you off from her forever. You have caused her heart-aches enough already. See, now, if you can not lighten her burden in some different, better way.
But all this is superfluous, perhaps. I wonder if Sybil will come back, at all?”
Lower and lower sank his head, as he listened, and then something that she had said seemed to chain and hold his thoughts.
Slowly the evil light faded from his eyes, and into his face crept a strange, fixed look. Forgetful of time, or of his companion's presence, his thoughts followed this new course, his hands clenching and unclenching themselves, his teeth burying themselves from time to time in his thin under lip. So long he sat thus, that Constance herself, from watching and wondering at his strange mood, wandered off into a sad reverie, the subject of which she could hardly have told, it was such a vague mixture of Sybil's sorrows and her own unrest.
After a time he stirred as if arousing himself with difficulty from a nightmare; and Constance, recalled to herself, in turn, looked up to encounter his gaze, and to be astonished at the new, purposeful self-restraint upon his face, and the inscrutable intentness of his eye.
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