"What do you mean?"
"I will answer you by asking a question. Will you promise to reply to it?"
"Cela dépend. I won't be rash."
"Do you care for me—just a little?" he asked, tenderly but hopefully.
Oh, horrible! A vision seemed to float suddenly before my eyes. The darkness faded away, to be replaced by a little whitewashed chamber in a distant land. I saw an old man dying, with his eyes fixed upon me full of mute reproach, his trembling fingers pointed at me with scorn, and his lips framing a feeble curse. Suddenly his look changed, his arm fell, his face grew suddenly bright and joyful, and the curse changed into a fervent blessing. Then the room widened, and the little figure under that spotless coverlet faded away. It was a chamber in a palace, and I saw Lady St. Maurice, also on her death-bed. Her husband and her son knelt by her side with bared heads, and the air was laden and heavy with the sound of their sobs. She alone did not weep, and her pale, spiritualized face glowed like the face of a martyred saint. And as I watched I seemed to hear one word constantly escaping from those who watched by her side, and caught up and echoed a thousand times by the sad wailing wind until it rang in my ears unceasingly—and the word was "Murderess!"
It passed away—vanished in a phantom of mist, like some weird morbid fancy, but the joy of those last few minutes was quenched. I drew myself from his arms, and pressed my hand to my side. There was a sharp pain there.
"We must go back to the house," I said. "I have been a little mad, I think, and I am very wet."
He looked at me, amazed.
"Won't you answer my question first?" he pleaded. "Margharita, make me very happy. Be my wife."
His wife. Oh, the grim grotesque agony of it all. My strength would never be sufficient to carry me through all this. My heart was faint, and my speech was low; yet it was as cold and resolute as I could make it.