“No: but she had some difficulty in getting admission to the house, as I think you had; and it is possible that the man would not admit her till she had promised not to interfere, and had sent away her servants. Indeed, I thought I overheard as much.”
“No doubt the fellow will be troublesome. The only thing to be done is to keep such a force here as will be able to control him. As long as we are here we can do this; but when we leave we must leave behind others who will make our places good. I think I can arrange for this.... Now that we have come to an understanding, let us go in; but do you take the lead, as is fitting, in making the changes.”
When they re-entered the room they found the man standing where they had left him—with anything but amiability in his face.
“We have agreed,” said the leech to him, “in order to satisfy important friends, to try for a while a change in the treatment. Sometimes the failing powers will rally wonderfully under a complete change of conditions. At any rate we will try it.”
He at once set wide open door and casement. Then going to the water-jug, he poured out a large cup full of water and brought it to Aleph, who had kneeled at the bedside and was listening again at the parched and twitching lips of the unconscious woman. He let a few drops fall upon them. He gently tried to part the locked teeth, and dropped more. At last he put the cup to her mouth.
“STOP!” shouted the husband, as he rushed up—his face white with passion and a demon looking out of his eyes—and with his clenched hand struck the cup aside, spilling a large part of the water on the woman’s face—“Stop! I say: this woman is under my protection.”
In a moment, Aleph was erect and confronting him:
“And such a protection!” he scornfully said. “Such a protection as the thunder cloud gives to the tree it strikes—such a protection as you have been giving her, ever since you enticed her away from her friends under the pretense that you were a man and not a brute. To my eyes the very shadow that you cast, and a very black shadow it is, is that of a wild beast of the meaner kind. I have not listened at these white lips in vain. I know something of your story, and expect to know more shortly—know enough now to say that this woman wishes no such protector. Death would be a better one. After having made her life miserable you shall not go on to put her to death—as you seem to wish. Now, do you understand that we shall proceed to treat this woman as the leech has said, and if you interfere, or make any disturbance whatever unsuitable to a sick-room, we will find such ways of quieting you as may be necessary—for quiet we will have, even if we have to turn you over to the police as a dangerous character.”
Aleph said this, not loudly, but in so determined and commanding a manner, and with such rebuking and threatening eyes fastened on the hateful face before him, that for a moment that face took on a shade of fear and shame among its other shades—of which it had not a few. But it was only for a moment. He reinforced himself, as such fellows are apt to do, by a mighty oath and seemed about to spring on the young man; but noting again his watchful eye, the cane in his hand, and his whole attitude so full of lithe and conscious power, he thought better of it, and fell back on the fighting resources of his tongue.