Part 90 (1/2)

”What have I done? What have I done?”

”You've killed me, that's all,” she answered, with a curious amus.e.m.e.nt.

”It was such a funny thing for you to do, so old-fas.h.i.+oned.”

There is a strange fact about wounds in the heart. If they are not so deep that they flood the lungs and smother out life they inspire a wild desire to talk, a fluttering garrulity.

So Persis, now, with that madly st.i.tching shuttle in her breast, and that red seepage from her side, had unnumbered things to say. She chattered desperately, disjointedly:

”Oh, I suppose it had to come. It's what I get for trying to run things my own way. And now the tango-shop's closed up. But it's so funny that you should be the one to--and with a knife! You didn't mar my face, anyway. I thank you for that much. I'd hate to have my face hidden at the funeral. I should hate to make an ugly cor--”

Her lips refused the awful word as a thing unclean, abominable. Her body and all the voluptuous company of her senses felt panic-stricken at the thought of dissolution. She moaned and struggled with her chair.

”No, no, not that! What have I to do with death? I'm not ready to die.

I'm not ready to die.”

Willie got up and ran to her left side, but shrank back from what was there, and moved cautiously round on the slippery floor, crying: ”You're too beautiful to die, too beautiful! You'll not die! The doctors will save you!”

”They must come very soon, then,” Persis said, ”for I'm bleeding--oh, so fast.” She looked down along her side and complained: ”See, my gown is quite ruined. And it was such a pretty gown. I'm afraid of my blood. How it gushes! Will it never stop? And it hurts! Willie, it hurts!”

In a long writhe of pain she gathered the table-cloth about her left side as if to stanch its flow. There was a rattle of falling gla.s.ses and a c.h.i.n.k of tumbled silver as she moaned: ”Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” And she turned her head this way and that, panting as one pursued, bewildered, utterly at a loss. ”Oh, what shall I do? I don't want to die. It's an awful thing to die--just now of all times, with no chance to make good the wrong I've done.”

”You can't die; I won't let you die. You're too beautiful to die,”

Willie protested, and then turned to pleading: ”I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to strike you, Persis, at all. It was just my hand. It wasn't me that stabbed you, Persis. I couldn't hurt you, Persis.”

”Oh, that's all right, Willie. I understand. I understand things better now, with so few minutes more to live. It is you that must forgive me. I haven't been a good wife to you, Willie. And he--he, of all men!--said I wasn't worth fighting for! Faithless to you--faithless to him! But oh, G.o.d knows, most faithless to myself. And now I must die for it.”

”You are too beautiful to die! I won't let you die! You can't die!”

”But I must, boy. Don't hate me too much. I didn't mean to harm you.

Some day--long after--you'll forgive me, won't you?”

”Oh, if you only won't die I'll forgive you anything.”

”That's awfully nice of you, Willie,” she said, with almost a smile. ”I wonder if G.o.d will be as polite? They--they usually pray for dying people, don't they? I'm afraid they'll never get a doctor in time, to say nothing of a preacher. So you'd better pray for me, Willie.”

The idea was so ridiculously tragic that she laughed; but he would not so far surrender her as to pray. He sobbed:

”You've got to live! I don't know a single prayer. You mustn't die, I tell you. You've got to live!” And he wept his little heart out as he knelt at her side, and, clinging to her hand, mumbled it with kisses.

She wept, too; moaned, and dreaded the black Beyond, which she must voyage prayerless. Still she must talk. From her silence came a frail, thin voice like a far-off cry.

”It's growing very dark, Willie--very dark! And I'm drifting, I wonder where? Can you hear my voice away off there? Better throw me a kiss, and wish me bon voyage! for this--is the last--of Persis. Poor Persis!”

Something of old habit reminded her of the gossip that would break into storm at her death. This spurred her heart to strive again. She clutched at the table and at Willie's arm and shoulder, and held herself erect as with claws, while she babbled: