“Rose, dear Rose! think of your little daughter. Turn back, dear one, for God’s sake! turn back! Have you forgotten your mother and father, your brother and your loving husband? Rose, come with me. Fly for your life! Fly for your soul! Come! Come! There is no time to lose.”
Duval was urging the foolish, distracted woman at the same time, pleading his misery, and contrasting her dull, unhappy life in Woodsome village with all the joys he promised her in Cuba. And Rose was weeping bitterly. It was also evident that she had been taking wine, and very likely some drug in it. For her mind was dull, and her conscience was dull, and she seemed too inert to decide so momentous a question herself.
But as they stood thus together, and Rose was weakly clinging to Yanna’s arm, Antony came towards 236 them, swift and stern as Fate. He put his hand on Rose’s shoulder, and turned the dear wretched sinner round till she faced him. He had no need to speak. She looked piteously at Yanna, and said, “Tell Antony why I came—there is nothing wrong.” And then she laughed so foolishly that Adriana thought the laugh far more pitiful than tears.
“Mr. Duval is going to Cuba,” said Adriana to her brother. “We will now say ‘farewell’ to him.”
“Mrs. Van Hoosen is going to Cuba also,” said Duval, with a mocking air. “Come, Rose, my love!”
Then in his throat Antony gave him the lie, and with one back-handed blow, struck him in the mouth and sent him reeling backward like a drunken man.
Ere he could recover himself, Rose and Antony, followed by Adriana, were going down the gangway, and a sailor was ringing a bell, and bidding all not for the voyage to make for the shore. Duval did not make for the shore. He waited until Antony was putting Rose and Adriana in the carriage ere he shouted after Antony scandalous epithets, which he did not deign to notice. But they went like fire into his ears; and he looked into Rose’s apathetic face, sullen and angry, with a sense of such shame and misery as he had never before experienced.
Silently they drove to Adriana’s house, and then Antony kissed her, and said with some difficulty, “I can never thank you enough, Yanna,” and Yanna, smiling sadly in reply, turned to Rose and said, “Good-bye, Rose. I shall see you at Woodsome, I hope, soon.”
Rose did not respond in any way. Her eyes were cast down, she seemed to be lost to sense and feeling, except for a perceptible drawing away from her 237 husband when he took the seat which Yanna had vacated. Furtively she glanced into his face, and she was aware of, though she was not sorry for, its utter wretchedness. Indeed, in no way did she evince the slightest contrition for her offence. Antony, however, doubted whether she was in a condition to fully realize it. With soulless eyes, she gazed on the panorama of the streets, and if she had any just knowledge of sin committed, it lay in some corner of her conscience, far below the threshold of her present intelligence.
It seemed a never-ending ride to Antony. The familiar streets were strange to him, and his own house was like a house in a dream. He fancied the coachman looked curious and evilly intelligent. It was not that his body burned, his very soul burned with shame and pity and just anger. He gave Rose his arm, however, up the flight of steps, but she withdrew herself with a motion of impatience as soon as they entered the hall, and she was not at all aware of a feeling, an atmosphere, a sense of something sorrowful and unusual, which struck Antony as quickly as he passed the threshold. The next moment a door opened, and the family physician came forward.