The woman had taken but one glimpse of the terrible face before her, and then shrunk bowed and crouching into the corner of the lounge. Her neck and forehead flushed crimson, spasmodic retchings of the throat commenced, and when Manton stretched forth his hands, as if to clutch her, there was a deep suffocating cough, and the red, warm blood gushed in an appalling current from her mouth, bedabbling his fingers and her clothing.
The man was startled from his rage into immeasurable terror, as he shrank back with upraised hands—
“My God! I have killed—I have killed her by my brutal violence! I am accursed! I am accursed for ever! I have slain the white dove of peace they sent to me from Heaven!” Snatching a towel, he was on his knees by her side in an instant; and placing it within her bloody hands, which were clutched upon her mouth, as if to stay the fatal tide, he burst into an agony of tears, praying in frantic accents to be forgiven; for he could see nothing but immediate death in a hemorrhage so violent as this seemed, and he remembered now, but too vividly, how often she had told him of her melancholy predisposition to such attacks from the lungs, by which she was kept constantly in expectation of being carried off.
Ah, with what fierce remorse, what agonised penitence, all these things came up to him now, as gush after gush of crimson saturated the towel! In answer to his prayers for forgiveness, she at last reached one cold, bloody hand to his, pressing it gently.
And now his self-possession was immediately restored. His only thought, at first, had been forgiveness before she died; now he thought alone how to save her. Strange, he did not once think of giving the alarm, and sending for medical aid; for he instantly felt the case was one beyond the reach of ordinary remedies, and one in which the most perfect restoration of both the moral and physical natures to absolute repose could alone avail.
He reached another towel from the toilet-table, on which he found, by the way, abundant supply, which, innocently enough, seemed to him remarkably apropos; then, seating himself by her side, he endeavored, by the use of all tender epithets which could be applied, to soothe and calm her. She suddenly seized his right hand and placed it upon the top of her head, and from that moment he thought he could faintly perceive an increase of his control over the more violent symptoms of the case.
More than half an hour of harrowing suspense had passed, before the paroxysm of bleeding had so far subsided as to enable him to breathe more freely; but even when the bleeding had at length entirely ceased, a long period of coma, or deathlike sleep, induced by exhaustion, and suspended sensation, supervened, during which he continued to watch her with the most painful anxiety, still holding his right hand upon her head, while, with the other, he clasped the fingers of her left hand as she had requested. As she immediately showed signs of restlessness on his attempting to remove either hand, he felt himself compelled to sit thus, without change of position, for several hours, awaiting whatever might occur.
And, finally, after a slight stirring of the limbs, she suddenly opened her eyes upon his, and smiled with a clear, sweet smile, rather of pity and affection than of forgiveness or reproach. He felt his heart bound within him, and he could only utter, in a low tone, “The good God be blessed! I have not killed you! Oh, I will never be ugly and cruel again! I will be your good boy now, always!”
“Yes, yes,” she said in a clear, firm voice, “you were very naughty; but I am strong again now. You will never speak harshly to me again, will you? Lean here, my beautiful tiger; let me feel that fierce cheek upon my bosom once more. You have suffered, too; I must soothe you.”
Manton, who, by this time, had become thoroughly exhausted, bowed his head lightly towards her, in obedience; but he leaned it rather upon the cushion than her person.