Part 30 (2/2)
”AM I A MURDERER?”
Footsteps outside his door roused Alan from his train of thoughts. Only his landlady came along that pa.s.sage, for there were no lodgers on the same floor, nor on the one above it. A louder knock than Mrs. Gorman was wont to give made him start from his seat.
”Come in!” he cried; but before the words were spoken the door was thrown open and Cora made her appearance. Alan turned sick at heart, and stood leaning on the end of the mantelpiece, gazing at her without a word.
”Ah, my dear,” she said, with a little laugh of amus.e.m.e.nt as she saw the disconcerted look on his face, ”they have not deceived me! They did not offer to conduct me, but they said I should find you here--first floor front--and here you are! It is long since we met, is it not? You have sent huissiers, and gendarmes, and police to bring me your messages, as a king to his subject, or a judge to a criminal. You should have come yourself, my friend, for I have longed to see you. Are you not glad that we meet thus, alone, face to face, without fear of intrusion?”
She had shut the door behind her, and sat down in his easy chair by the table, inviting him with a gesture to take a seat by her side.
”Approach!” she said, in a soft but mocking voice. ”Be amiable! Let us talk. I come for peace, not for war. Let us make terms with each other.
I am sick of this farce of hostility between husband and wife--let us arrange our little disagreements. Come!”
Her familiar tone was odious to him. The sudden perversion of his thoughts from Lettice to this creature, from his dream of purity and elevation to this degrading reality, filled him with disgust. Nay, something more than disgust entered his mind as he saw the smile on her besotted face. A demon of revenge seized upon him, and all but gained the mastery. For one instant he was perilously near to springing on her where she sat, and strangling the life out of her. All pa.s.sions and all possibilities are in the soul of every one of us, at every moment; only the motive power, the circ.u.mstance, the incitement, are needed to make us cross the boundary of restraint. If Alan was not a murderer, it was not because the thing was impossible to him, but because at the crisis of temptation his heart had been penetrated by the influence of the woman whom he revered, and filled with higher thoughts--even through the channel of humiliation and self-contempt.
He answered her calmly.
”There is no arranging what has happened between us two--nor do you wish it any more than I. Say what you want to say, and go.”
”Good! I will say what I want to say--but I will not go. I mean to stay with my husband; it is my right. Till death do us part--are not those the pretty words of the farce we played together?”
”Who made it a farce--did I?”
”Listen, my friend. This is one thing I want to say. a.s.suredly it was you, and no other, who made our marriage a miserable failure. You took me from a life I loved, from friends who loved me, from a freedom which I valued, and you made no effort to study my tastes and accommodate yourself to my habits.”
”G.o.d knows I made the effort. But what were those tastes and habits?
Think of them--think of them all! Could I have accommodated myself to all--even to those you concealed from me?”
”Bah! you should have known whom you had married. You were so blind and foolish, that I had a right to think you would never interfere with my liberty. I was the child of liberty--and liberty is a sacred possession, which it is an outrage to take away from any woman. You expected me to change, to become all at once another being, cold and impa.s.sive like yourself--while, as for you, you were to change in nothing! It was your duty to come to my level--at least to approach it. I would have met you halfway; we could have made our contract, and I would have kept my part of the bargain. You demanded too much, and that is why you lost everything. I condemn you--humanity condemns you. The ruin was your work!”
”There is something novel in the theory, but I don't think many people would accept it.” He was prepared to talk seriously with her, if she wished it, but no man could be serious in view of such a preposterous claim. So he fell back upon the cold, ironical calmness which exasperated Cora far more than a storm of rage would have done. ”At any rate,” he said, ”I did not deprive you of your liberty. You retained that!”
”I kept it for myself. You would have taken it away, and you hated me for keeping it. I keep it still. I have been free to go where I would, free to wander over this terrible and desolate city, free now to come back to you, and stay with you, until you swear to cease your persecutions, and swear to make a new compact on more equitable terms.”
”It is impossible to make terms with you, for you do not observe them.
The law will bind you down more strictly. Meanwhile you cannot remain here, as you propose.”
”Do you mean to throw me into the street?” she asked, pa.s.sionately.
”Alive or dead, I stay here until the compact is made.”
”You need have no fear of me; I am not going to kill you.”
”Fear! Of you! Do not flatter yourself, my friend!”
With an insulting laugh she plucked a thin stiletto from under her cloak, and brandished it before him. Alan recognized it as one which he had missed after her visit to Montagu Place.
”Look there! Would you like to feel if it is sharp, or will you take my word for it? We may want that before we part. I do not much care whether you use it or I; but I will not leave this room unless you concede all that I ask. Do not stand so far from me, coward. You smile, but you are afraid!”
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