"You can see me in the dark?"

"Of course," she said. "I don't understand what you mean. Of course I can see you when you are there before my eyes."

"But----" I began; and then her obvious and complete surprise at my questions stopped them. I still held her hands in mine, and their extreme coldness roused me to the remembrance that she was unclothed.

"You will be ill if you stay here," I said. "Come back to your room."

She said nothing, and I led her back, waited while she got into bed, and then, placing the candle on the dressing-table, sat down in a chair by her side.

The strong determination to take prompt action, to come to an explanation, to end these dreary mysteries of mind and conduct, was still upon me.

I did not think of the strange hour; I did not care that the night was gliding on towards dawn. I was self-absorbed. I was beyond ordinary considerations.

Yet I did not speak immediately. I was trying to be quite calm, trying to think of the best line for me to take. So much might depend upon our mere words now. At length I said, laying my hand upon hers, which was outside the coverlet:

"Margot, what were you doing in that room at such a strange hour? Why were you there?"

She hesitated obviously. Then she answered, not looking at me:

"I missed you. I thought you might be there--writing."

"But you were in the dark."

"I thought you would have a light."

I knew by her manner that she was not telling me the truth, but I went on quietly:

"If you expected me, why did you cry out when I came to the door?"

She tried to draw her hand away, but I held it fast, closing, my fingers upon it with even brutal strength.

"Why did you cry out?"

"You--you looked so strange, so cruel."

"So cruel!"

"Yes. You frightened me--you frightened me horribly."

She began suddenly to sob, like one completely overstrained. I lifted her up in the bed, put my arms round her, and made her lean against me.

I was strangely moved.

"I frightened you! How can that be?" I said, trying to control a pa.s.sion of mingled love and anger that filled my breast. "You know that I love you. You must know that. In all our short married life have I ever been even momentarily unkind to you? Let us be frank with one another. Our lives have changed lately. One of us has altered. You cannot say that it is I."

She only continued to sob bitterly in my arms. I held her closer.

"Let us be frank with one another," I went on. "For G.o.d's sake let us have no barriers between us. Margot, look into my eyes and tell me--are you growing tired of me?"

She turned her head away, but I spoke more sternly:

"You shall be truthful. I will have no more subterfuge. Look me in the face. You did love me once?"

"Yes, yes," she whispered in a choked voice.

"What have I done, then, to alienate you? Have I ever hurt you, ever shown a lack of sympathy, ever neglected you?"

"Never--never."

"Yet you have changed to me since--since----" I paused a moment, trying to recall when I had first noticed her altered demeanour.

She interrupted me.

"It has all come upon me in this house," she sobbed. "Oh! what is it?

What does it all mean? If I could understand a little--only a little--it would not be so bad. But this nightmare, this thing that seems such a madness of the intellect----"

Her voice broke and ceased. Her tears burst forth afresh. Such mingled fear, pa.s.sion, and a sort of strange latent irritation, I had never seen before.

"It is a madness indeed," I said, and a sense almost of outrage made my voice hard and cold. "I have not deserved such treatment at your hands."

"I will not yield to it," she said, with a sort of desperation, suddenly throwing her arms around me. "I will not--I will not!"

I was strangely puzzled. I was torn with conflicting feelings. Love and anger grappled at my heart. But I only held her, and did not speak until she grew obviously calmer. The paroxysm seemed pa.s.sing away. Then I said:

"I cannot understand."

"Nor I," she answered, with a directness that had been foreign to her of late, but that was part and parcel of her real, beautiful nature. "I cannot understand. I only know there is a change in me, or in you to me, and that I cannot help it, or that I have not been able to help it.

Sometimes I feel--do not be angry, I will try to tell you--a physical fear of you, of your touch, of your clasp, a fear such as an animal might feel towards the master who had beaten it. I tremble then at your approach. When you are near me I feel cold, oh! so cold and--and anxious; perhaps I ought to say apprehensive. Oh, I am hurting you!"

I suppose I must have winced at her words, and she is quick to observe.

"Go on," I said; "do not spare me. Tell me everything. It is madness indeed; but we may kill it, when we both know it."

"Oh, if we could!" she cried, with a poignancy which was heart-breaking to hear. "If we could!"

"Do you doubt our ability?" I said, trying to be patient and calm. "You are unreasoning, like all women. Be sensible for a moment. You do me a wrong in cherishing these feelings. I have the capacity for cruelty in me. I may have been--I have been--cruel in the past, but never to you.

You have no right to treat me as you have done lately. If you examine your feelings, and compare them with facts, you will see their absurdity."

"But," she interposed, with a woman's fatal quickness, "that will not do away with their reality."

"It must. Look into their faces until they fade like ghosts, seen only between light and darkness. They are founded upon nothing; they are bred without father or mother; they are hysterical; they are wicked. Think a little of me. You are not going to be conquered by a chimera, to allow a phantom created by your imagination to ruin the happiness that has been so beautiful. You will not do that! You dare not!"

She only answered:

"If I can help it."

A pa.s.sionate anger seized me, a fury at my impotence against this child.

I pushed her almost roughly from my arms.

"And I have married this woman!" I cried bitterly. I got up.