"Sick or well, I am your husband--in sickness or in health, you know."

She answered patiently. "Yes; I know. I am not likely to forget."

She took out a tiny handkerchief, wiping her trembling lips with it.

The action drew his attention to the tourmalin ring she wore above her wedding-ring. He s.n.a.t.c.hed at her hand, pulled off the ring, and flung it into the heart of the fire which glowed dully afar off in the old-fashioned steel grate, for the day had not been warm.

"An end of that," he said. "I only used it to get it out of your mother's hands."

She drew in her breath in a long sigh, but made no other demonstration, though she felt her head swim. He was holding her with both hands, and his touch seemed as if it seared. He looked as if he longed to provoke some sign of acute feeling.

"You are proud," he said, under his breath. "Proud as Lucifer. But I'll tame your pride."

There seemed no answer to this, and she attempted none.

"You are going to be the pa.s.sive martyr, the persecuted victim, are you?" he went on. "That is the role you select? But don't try me too far, or you may provoke me to _make_ you show yourself in your true colours."

She raised her hands to her mouth with a little moan. "Oh!" she faltered, shaken with the storm of her wounded heart. "Isn't it enough for you to know me broken? Must you see the tears and hear the cries before you can be satisfied? Well, you will--very soon. I--don't feel as if I can bear much more. But to-night you have hit too hard. You have blunted all feeling. I _could_ not care, whatever happened. I have got past that."

With a sudden gasping for breath, she made an effort to rise. For a moment he seemed minded to constrain her, but almost immediately let her go. She stood, supporting herself a moment against the corner of the table, then tried a few uncertain steps, and collapsed softly in a little forlorn heap of silk and gauze upon the carpet, midway to the door.

Gaunt rose, his face dark with annoyance. This was altogether so unlike his own forecasts of the scene that he was bewildered. He had expected coaxings, blandishments, the pleadings and wiles with which Virginia the elder had made him so intimately acquainted. He remembered how, when in the old days his sullen temper had made him harsh, she had hung about him, how sweetly and pathetically she had put him in the wrong, how deftly she had smoothed his ruffled fur and achieved her own ends whatever they were.

Continually in his solitude, brooding over the wreck of his life, he had told himself that now he knew, now he was wise with the wisdom we garner from the fields of tragedy and disappointment. He was proof against the sirens, his ears were plugged with wool. Was he not the man to punish and reform a coquette?

He went and stood over Virginia; then knelt at her side, pa.s.sed an arm under her, and arranged her in a more easy posture. She was in a dead faint. He stared doubtfully, rose, haltingly crossed the room, and laid his fingers upon the bell. He did not ring it. His hand fell away; he went to the table, poured some water into a gla.s.s, knelt and dabbed her temples. She did not move.

After a minute or two he rose, went softly to the door and peered out into the hall. There was no sound of Hemming or the coffee. Turning back he stooped, lifted Virgie with ease, carried her into the drawing-room, laid her on a sofa near the window, and opened the cas.e.m.e.nt wide upon the night. The fresh, strong air revived her. She opened her eyes, and looking upward, saw the canopy of stars in the deep-blue velvet heavens.

Slowly coming back to the realisation of the present moment, she turned her head, and saw Gaunt stooping over the hearth, placing a fresh log upon the fire. She sat up, sick and shivering. He looked round quickly at her movement, but turned away again and did not speak. He stood gazing down at the leaping flames in brooding silence; then, facing about with one of his sudden, flinging movements, which sent her heart into her mouth, he marched across the room, opened the grand piano and sat down.

Virginia was conscious of great astonishment as he began to play. It was wild, Hungarian music, leaping and striking like lightning flashes.

But it seemed the one thing she could have borne at the moment. With a sigh of utter fatigue, she let her head droop against the hard, uncompromising cushion of the old-fashioned sofa and listened. He had been playing about ten minutes, when Hemming and the coffee came in; and Virginia was able to sit up and help herself with composure.

"Hemming," said Gaunt, as the servant was leaving the room, "Mrs. Gaunt is overtired. Tell Grover she will be coming upstairs almost at once."

"Yes, sir."

The man departed, and again the closing of the door awoke those faint, mysterious reverberations which were like the last contact of the outside world with the tragedy of the isolated and rock-chained maiden.

So might Andromeda have felt, when the smith had hammered into place the last rivet of her fetters, and she was left--left helpless and in an anguish of suspense, to await the oncoming of the monster.

Gaunt drank his coffee seated upon the piano-stool. Then he set down his cup and began once more to play. This time it was soft and gentle, a lullaby, like falling water. It brought the tears rushing to Virginia's eyes, so that she hid her face against the cushions, and covered her mouth to suppress her crying.

Oh for just one moment of the clinging of Pansy's arms; of the bear's hug from a leaping boy in pyjamas, declining to go to bed tractably, wasting his sister's time in the fashion in which she loved to have it wasted! What were they all doing now, at this hour? Caroline, the new maid, was just bringing up Pansy's cup of Benger's food. Was it properly made?--"thin, but not too thin," like Mr. Woodhouse's gruel?

Virgie had taken pains to show Caroline exactly how to do it. She had seemed to understand.

Were they missing their sister? Would Pansy--intolerable thought--cry for Virgie's good-night kiss and tuck-in? Oh, no, surely not! They would all be lapped in their new comfort and security. They would be better cared for than she, with all her goodwill, had been able to accomplish, unsupported by funds.

Yet, oh, to be back, with that burden hanging over her as of old! To take up and shoulder the weight that had been crushing her, even if to do so meant death--a maiden death, a blessed release from this hard, difficult world.

She grasped, she clutched at the only consolation she had. Her present agony of terror and apprehension was just the price she had to pay for their safety and welfare. She had determined to pay it, and she would carry out her resolve. She must not flinch because it was turning out so much worse than she had thought possible. What did it matter--what _could_ it matter, what became of her? They were happy and secure; Gaunt was tightly bound down to go on helping them, even in the case of her own death. She felt so weak, so scared that night, that she thought for the first time in all her life of death as a thing which might conceivably happen to herself.

"What is the use of minding," she whispered, trying to rea.s.sure herself. "It doesn't matter--n.o.body but me will ever know."

Her sobbing ceased. Something in the music helped to soothe it. The flutter of harmonious notes was like the beating of wings. It suggested the flight of wild birds. She thought of the swans which used to cross the sky in autumn at Lissendean, flying to seek new spheres for themselves. There came to her mind that story of Hans Andersen, in which the princess has to weave coats of nettles for the princes, her brothers, in order to break the spell that binds them. Should she not gladly plait her nettle-coats, endure her doom, to lift from those two beloved heads the evil spell of poverty and sickness?

The music stopped.

With it, her thoughts ceased as if shivered suddenly to fragments.

Her husband rose from the piano. Her heart was in her mouth, and she found herself shuddering in a panic terror which drove out every other sensation. He came up and stood looking at her, with a somewhat resentful expression.

"You seem quite done up," he observed. "You had better go to bed and to sleep. A good night's rest is what you want. To-morrow let us hope you will be more fit to take up your new duties."

She raised her wet eyes with a glance of incredulous grat.i.tude. "I am sorry I gave way," she murmured. "I am not usually so weak. But you see, a great deal has happened ... and I hardly slept at all last night, and I am very tired." Slowly she stood up, eagerly but silently questioning him.

After a moment's embarra.s.sment she held out her hand. He drew his own from his pocket to present in return. Half contemptuously, he threw a glance at the little girlish fingers lying in his square brown palm.

"I'll give you another ring," he said brusquely, "but I couldn't stand seeing you wear that other. When we meet to-morrow morning, I hope you will be rested. Good night. Off with you."

She needed no second bidding.

CHAPTER XI

A FIRST EXPERIENCE

"_Living alone in an empty house Here half hid in the gleaming wood, ...

Till a morbid hate and horror have grown Of a world in which I have hardly mixt, And a morbid, eating lichen fixt On a heart half turned to stone._"--Tennyson.

It seemed to Virginia, as she let her limbs relax in the big, downy old bed, as though she never could sleep again. Somewhere in that silent house couched the Monster, as yet inert, but one day to awake, one day to rise before her as she cowered there chained to her rock. The very silence seemed full of breathings, the whispering of the trees outside her window was like a stealthy approach. How could sleep visit her? Yet youth exhausted will have its way, and she had not been laid to rest more than half an hour when she was in a profound and tranquil slumber, which lasted without a break until she was called next morning.

Grover had drawn back the curtains, and her room was full of sunshine.

The maid brought her tea to the bedside, and smiled as though she could not help smiling at the angelic little face in its tumbled golden halo.

"Dear me, ma'am, if you'll pardon the liberty, it does seem that odd to have a lady in this house," said she benevolently.

"Why? Does Mr. Gaunt not have many visitors?" asked Virgie drowsily.

"Oh, never ladies, ma'am! Why, ever since I came, no lady has stayed in this house--no, nor so much as dined! What is it they call the master in these parts--it means one that hates women?"

"Misogynist?" said Virgie. "Have I married a misogynist?"

"Indeed, ma'am; it's high time he was cured. A fine man like him, strong and in the prime of life. We've all wished it, many a time! And cured he could not help but be, once he had seen you, as we all agreed last night," was the flattering verdict, given rather timidly.