"Ours is no white bridal, lad," she told him. "Come in and set down—yes, take that chair," and she pushed Glasson's accustomed seat forward for her lover.
Conversation languished during the meal—Willie Strick was bewildered by the oddness of everything, Vashti included; his was no level head to plan any details or set a scene—Vashti won by stealth, anywhere and anyhow, was all he had thought of or wished for. Hers was the master-mind and he was helpless before it, and while she inflamed him she frightened him too.
A full moon swam up over the line of distant sea that showed in a dip of the moorland, and the lamp began to smell and burn low. They had finished supper, and Willie was drinking rather freely of the whisky she had set before him. Vashti turned out the lamp, and as she did so a sudden harsh noise sent the heart to her throat, while Willie sprang up fearfully. It was only the poker, that, caught by the full skirt of the black silk frock, had been sent clattering to the ground, but it made them stare at each other in a stricken panic for a speechless minute. The white light of the moon shone clearly into the room, throwing a black pattern of window-shadow over the disordered supper table, where the chrysanthemums, overturned by Willie's movement, lay across an empty dish, and in the silence the two startled people could hear the rhythmic sound of the water as it drip-drip-dripped on to the floor.
Vashti was the first to recover herself. "Us be plum foolish, Willie!" she said, with an attempt at a laugh. "Do believe us both thought it was James, and him safe to Truro."
"If 'tes," said Strick madly, "he shan't take 'ee from me now. I'll have 'ee, I swear it."
Vashti did not answer—with fascinated eyes she was watching the door slowly open—she could see the strip of moonlit brightness, barred by the darkness of an arm, grow wider and wider. She knew, before the form—so terribly like Willie's, now its masked face was against the light—appeared, that it was her husband.
Quite what happened next she could not have told. The little room seemed full and dark with fear—blind, unreasoning fear, that beat even about her head. The long-drawn-out crash of the overturned table added to her confusion—then quite suddenly the sounds of struggling ceased and one man rose to his feet. In the dimness of the room, seeing only the shape of him, she could not tell whether it were James or Willie, until he turned his face to the moonlight, and she saw, with a throb of relief, Strick's face.
"Get a light, Vassie," he whispered. "I fear he's dead."
She lit a candle and they knelt down by Glasson. In falling his head had hit the fender, and blood was trickling on to the floor. She ripped open his shirt and felt for his heart as well as her trembling fingers would allow. She lifted his arm and let it fall—it dropped a dead weight on to the tiled floor. It seemed to her excited fancy that already he was turning cold.
"Willie, you've killed 'en!" she whispered. They both spoke low, as though they thought the dead man could overhear.