She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her.
“None—none?” he insisted.
He had to bend his head to hear her answer. “Only one!”
“What, my dearest? What?”
“Don’t touch me! That he may die!”
They drew apart again, hearing each other’s quick breathing through the darkness.
“You wish that too?” he said.
“I wish it always—every day, every hour, every moment!” She paused, and then let the words break from her. “You’d better know it; you’d better know the worst of me. I’m not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes back I say to myself: ‘Are you here again?’ When I hear of people being killed in accidents, I think: ‘Why wasn’t he there?’ When I read the death-notices in the paper I say: ‘So-and-so was just his age.’ When I see him taking such care of his health and his diet—as he does, you know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much—when I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn’t gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: ‘What can kill a man who thinks only of himself?’ And night after night I keep myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he’s dead. When I dream that, and wake and find him there it’s worse than ever—”
She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart.
“There, you know the truth!” she said.