"He carried a pistol—yes, but why should he look to the priming since you were to fight with swords?" she whispered, shaking my arm with a little impatient movement. "Did you not see? His walk grew slow, his head drooped—drooped. He was tired, you see, so tired;" and she uttered a low, mirthless laugh while her eyes burned into me. It was a sound which, I thank God, I have never heard but the once. It was as though a preternatural horror claimed a preternatural expression. "It was not worth while," she resumed.
"Ah, no," I cried, as her meaning broke in upon me. "I'll not believe that. I'll not believe it;" and once or twice I thrust out with my hands as if that way I could keep belief aloof.
"But you do," she returned, and the whisper of her voice took on a certain eagerness. It seemed that she must have a partner in her thought. "You do believe it. Look, am I pale? Then I am your mirror. Do I tremble? It is an ague caught from you. You do believe it. We know, you and I—guilt binds us in knowledge. We heard this morning. He told us, he warned us. If his wife proved false, he would not count it worth his while to punish the betrayer. But he has—he has punished us, so perfectly that he himself would pity us, were he alive to do it. Would God we both were dead!" And again she laughed, and letting drop my arm she moved away into the room.
I had no doubt her words were true, and from the bottom of my heart I echoed her vain prayer. I remembered the conviction with which he had spoken—all the more assured for the very quietude of his voice. Yes, those trees, motionless under a leaden sky, in a leaden silence, were the watchers about his bed. I braced myself to descend, but as my first step crunched the gravel of the terrace, Mrs. Herbert was again as my side.
"No," she cried. "Not yet, not without me, and I dare not go."
"Nay, madam," I replied, "do you stay here. There is no need for you to come."
"But there is—there is," she insisted, looking at me wildly, like one distraught "Step by step we must go together. And so it will be always. You will see, you and I are fettered each to each by sin, and there's no breaking the locks." She shook her hands piteously.
"Nay," I said, "I will go alone."
"I dare not be left alone," she replied. "For what if he passed you while you searched for him!" and she gave a shuddering cry and recoiled into the room. "What if he came striding from the thicket across the grass to where I waited here! No! No! Wait, wait until it's dark. I will go down with you. But now, in the daylight! His eyes will be open; I dare not."
She stood with her hands clasped before her, toppling towards madness. I dared not leave her. There was no choice for me; between the dead man and the living woman there was no choice. I returned to the room.