“I have been on the gallery since twilight, looking through the lace curtains at Mrs. Gerome lying on her bed, and at you sitting in the arm-chair. Her eyes are keener than yours, for she saw me peeping through the window, and told you so. When you left the room I came out among the trees to escape observation. I scorn all equivocation, and have no desire to conceal the truth, for if I am not dowered
|
‘With blood trained up along nine centuries, To hound and hate a lie,’ |
at least I hold my pauper soul high above the mire of falsehood; and
| ... ‘The things we do, We do: we’ll wear no mask, as if we blushed.’” |
They had walked away from the hedge, and Dr. Grey paused at the mound, where the Ariadne gleamed cold and white in the moonbeams that slanted across it like silver lances.
Revolving in his mind the best method of extricating the orphan from the unfortunate predicament in which her rashness had plunged her, he did not answer immediately, and Salome continued, impatiently,—
“If you imagine that I came here to act as spy upon your actions, you most egregiously mistake me, for I know all that the most rigid surveillance could possibly teach me. I heard you say that this night would prove a crisis in Mrs. Gerome’s case, and I was so anxious to learn the result that I could not wait quietly at home until morning. I begged you to bring me, and you refused; consequently, I came alone. Deal frankly with me,—tell me, will that woman die?”
The breathless eagerness with which she bent towards him, the strained, almost ferocious expression of her keen eyes, sickened his soul, and he put his hand over his face to shut out the sight of hers.
“Tell me the truth. I must and will know it.”