A Woman Martyr

by Alice M. Diehl

He embraced her fondly, adjured her to be most careful of herself, suggested that she should keep to the grounds while he was away--he did not like her "wandering about the country alone"--and promising to return as soon as his legal business was over, he left her.

She stood at the door watching the dog-cart speed away through the park until it disappeared into the avenue of limes; then feeling as if her heart were a huge leaden weight within her breast, she went to her boudoir, a room Vansittart had had refurnished for her in white and pale blue, and where they had sat together since their arrival when they were not out of doors. It was one of those close, thundery summer days which encourage gloom; and as she flung aside her hat and gloves and sank hopelessly into a chair, she wondered how she would contrive to get through those hours before his return.

Evidently Vansittart had become not only all in all to her, but she hardly dared face life without him. A nervous terror seized upon her. She felt, as she looked fearfully round, as if mocking spirits were rejoicing to find her without his protecting presence. Faint, jeering laughter seemed in the air, or was it only a singing in her ears?

"If I don't fight this awful feeling, he will find me mad when he comes home!" she wildly thought. So she rang the bell, and asked for the housekeeper, who presently came in in a brand-new, rustling silk, a little fluttered. But she felt gratified by her mistress asking so sweetly to be "shown everything," and the hours before the luncheon bell rang were whiled away by an inspection of the mansion and its contents from offices to attics and lumber-rooms.

Then came luncheon in the big, pompous dining-room: luncheon alone, with strange-looking ancestors painted by Vandyck, Lely, and others, gazing grimly out upon the slim girl in the white frock sitting in solitary grandeur at the table, obsequious men-servants in solemn, silent attendance. After that ordeal she felt she could bear no more, and tying on her hat fled into the grounds.

Here the extraordinary stillness of everything under the dense canopy of slowly massing clouds oppressed her still more. She felt more and more eerie and distraught as she wandered, until she came to the river. Here there was movement, something like life again. A faint breeze stirred the wavelets as the flood rushed steadily seawards.

"I will get out a boat and have a row. That may make me feel less horrible!" she determined. She went to the boathouse, chose a skiff, and was soon rowing rapidly up stream. She had learnt to row as a child. The boat sped cleanly along, as she neatly, deftly, handled the sculls.

Her melancholy slightly dispelled by the exercise, she forgot how time was going--how far she had rowed out of bounds, when suddenly an arrow of lurid lightning went quivering down athwart the dense grey horizon, followed by a detonating roar of thunder.

"I am in for it, there's no doubt of that!" she told herself, almost with a smile. Rain, storm, thunder, lightning--what items they were in the balance against a conscience bearing a hideous load such as hers! As she turned and began to row steadily homewards, she realized her mental state almost with awe.

Another flash illumined the whole landscape with a yellowish-blue glare, then a clap of thunder followed almost instantaneously. Down came such a deluge of rain that for a minute she was blinded; she sat still, wondering whether the slight craft would fill and be sunk.