‘There is no object in telling me that,’ returned Greifenstein, still keeping his eyes fixed upon her. ‘There is something the matter with you, and it is something serious. I have watched you for a long time. Either you are bodily ill, or else some matter troubles your mind.’
‘Oh no! Nothing, I assure you,’ she replied in a scarcely audible tone.
‘I repeat that it is of no use. I do not wish to question you, my dear,’ he continued, almost kindly. ‘Whatever your thoughts are, they are your own. But I cannot see you wasting away before my eyes without wishing to help you. It is part of my duty. Now a man is stronger than a woman, and less imaginative. It may be that you are distressing yourself with little reason, and that, if you would confide in me, I might demonstrate to you that you have no cause for repining. Consider well, whether you can tell me your trouble, and give me an answer.’
Clara listened, at first scarcely heeding what he said. Then as she realised the nature of his request and thought of her secret, she fancied that she must go mad. It seemed as though some diabolical power were at hand, forcing her slowly, slowly, against her will, to rise up from her chair, to tell the story, to speak the truth. Her brain reeled. She could hear the fatal words ringing through the room in the familiar tones of her own voice, distinctly, one by one, omitting nothing in the immensity of her self-accusation. She could feel the icy horror creeping through bone and marrow, as the truth tortured her in the utterance of it. She could see Greifenstein’s grey face transformed with rage and hatred, she trembled under the inhuman savageness of his fiery eyes, she saw his tall body rise up before her, and his hand raised to strike, and she covered her face to die.
It was only a waking dream. The stillness roused her to life, her hands dropped from her eyes, and she saw her husband sitting quietly in his place and gazing at her with the same kindly, anxious glance as before. She had not spoken, nor uttered any sound, and Greifenstein had not seen the death-pallor under her paint. He had only seen her lift her hands to her face and take them away again almost immediately. In that moment she had suffered the pain of hell, but her secret was still her own. That terrible, unseen power that had pressed her to speak was gone, and no one knew what was in her heart.
‘You are certainly very far from well,’ said Greifenstein, returning to the attack with characteristic pertinacity. ‘Can you not make up your mind to tell me?’
‘No!’ she cried suddenly in a terrified voice. Then out of sheer fright she made an enormous effort over herself, and laughed aloud. Under the influence of that mortal dread, in the supreme exertion she made to destroy the effect of the monosyllable that had escaped her lips, the laugh sounded natural. It was well done, for it was done for life or death, and if it failed she was betrayed. That single ‘No’ had been almost enough to ruin all, but her laugh saved her, though she trembled in every weakened joint when its echoes died away among the carved rafters of the great room, and she felt the drops of cold perspiration moving softly over her forehead towards the rouge on her cheeks.
‘Ah,’ exclaimed Greifenstein, ‘that sounds more like yourself. Perhaps we ought to talk more in the evening. It does me good to hear you laugh nowadays. Let us talk, by all means. I am sure all this is only a foolish fit of melancholy, is it not?’
‘Oh, no doubt it is. Let us try and talk, if you like.’
‘I am too silent a man for you, Clara,’ said her husband reflectively. ‘It is certainly my duty to make an effort.’