“Unless it was a blind.”
“Well?”
“Well, I dursn’t say more then, but presently, as she sat at tea with me, I caught her eating some green gages that was on the table in an oddly ravenous way, stones and all. ‘What ever are you doing, Nell?’ says I. ‘You’ll be ill for sure if you swallow those stones like that.’ And she looks at me with an odd smile. ‘I’m practising,’ says she. ‘I may have to swallow worse than that some day.’ I stared at her, thinking perhaps her trouble had touched her head, poor thing! And then I got quite cold, fancying perhaps she had it in her mind to make away with herself. And I says, ‘Nell, if ever you feel tempted to do a mischief to yourself, think of them that cares for you truly—of poor Ned, away across the seas!’—yes, I said that, Ned—‘and of me, that’s always cared for you like as if you’d been one of my own!’ Then up she started from her chair, and began to roam about the room again, restless like, just as she’d done the last time. ‘Don’t be afraid, lass,’ says she to me, in a voice she meant to be rough. ‘I’m not going to do anything foolish—not more foolish than I’ve done already, that is. While there’s life there’s hope, they say, though perhaps there’s not much of either left for me!’ ‘What do you mean, Nell?’ says I, frightened. She didn’t answer me for a minute; then suddenly she turned, with her great black eyes flashing, and said, ‘If I’m found dead, Mattie, you’ll know I didn’t put an end to myself. And I tell you I’ll let others know it too, if my body lies buried fifty years first.’ Oh, Ned, I shall never forget her face. It was white like death, and the lips all drawn back from her teeth. ’Twas as if all life and the wish to live were burning out of her. ‘Why, Nell, this man, whoever he is, he surely never threatened to kill you!’ ‘Not in words, no,’ says she, with her eyes fixed in front of her. ‘But there was murder in his eyes the last time I saw him. If he’s past caring for me, he may kill me; I don’t care. But he shan’t live happy with the love of that other woman; I swear it. I’ve been true to him. I’ve done for him what there’s hardly a girl in England would have done; I’ve held my tongue when just to speak would have ruined him. But I’ll not die, and be put out of the way, and him go unpunished!’ I was that frightened, Ned, I could scarcely speak. I told her not to have such dreadful thoughts, and I reminded her again of you, and how fond you were of her. ‘Yes,’ says she, with a queer smile that made me feel cold; ‘Ned would see me righted if any one tried to wrong me. And whether I’m alive or dead he will.’”
Ned Mitchell did not move. His face was set like a rock, and, beyond the fact that he was deeply attentive to every detail, it was impossible to guess what effect the story had upon him. He nodded to the woman to go on.
“‘Alive or dead, Nell!’ says I, when I could speak for trembling. ‘What makes you harp so on death, if you mean rightly by yourself and them that love you? As for the rascal that’s brought you to this, if you won’t make a clean breast of it to your brother Sam, you’d best keep out of the creature’s way, seeing you think so ill of him as to believe him ready to do you a mischief. It’s no good of courting harm. You’ve no need to give way. If Sam was to turn against you when it all comes out, you could go away to Ned; he’d receive you fast enough, whatever you’d done, I’ll warrant. Keep a heart in you, my girl.’ But she took no notice, and went on eating the green gages, stones and all, in just the same way, till I tried to take the dish away. Then she threw back her head with a hard laugh, and, says she, ‘Look here, Mattie, you may as well leave those things here. I’m not cracked; I’ve a reason for what I’m doing. I shall go and meet him again; I tell you I’m that mad about him I can’t keep away when he tells me to come. But if he tries any tricks with me, I’ve made up my mind that I’ll find a chance to swallow something of his, if it’s but a shirt stud or a button, so as my body, when it’s found, shall bear witness against him just as well as my tongue could if I was alive. Now you remember that, Mattie, if things come to the worst.’
“And with that she was off and out of the house. But I ran after her, and caught up with her, and, ‘Nell,’ says I, ‘when are you going to see this man?’ For I had it in my mind to stop her. And she gave me a queer look out of the corners of her eyes. ‘I’m going to meet him to-morrow night,’ says she. And she snatched away her arm and ran off. That was the last I saw of her, alive or dead.”
There was a short pause.
“Then you might have saved her,” said Ned Mitchell, at last, in a rasping voice.
“Don’t say that, Ned,” pleaded the woman in low tones. “Many and many’s the time I’ve said that to myself, and reproached myself. But, remember, she said, ‘To-morrow night’—”
“Well, you might have known it was only a blind, with her heart set on the fellow like that. I should have known. However, it’s no use wasting words over it now. You thought you would see about it next day, and when next day came it was all over with the girl.”