"Good God!"
"Think of that a while and then I 'll tell you more."
"Is she hurt, is she badly hurt?"
Without replying Donaldson returned to his chair on the opposite side of the bed and watched him as a physician might after injecting a medicine. Arsdale stared back at him in dumb terror. Donaldson could almost see the gruesome pictures which danced witch-like through his disordered brain. He did n't enjoy the torture, but he must know just how much he had upon which to work.
It was in the early hours of the morning that Donaldson had become conscious of the new and tremendous responsibility which rested upon him. To leave Arsdale behind him alive in such a condition as this would be to leave the curse upon the girl,—would be to desert her to handle this mad-man alone. He had seen red at the thought of it. It would be to brand his own act with unpardonable cowardice; it would be to go down into his grave with the helpless cries of this woman ringing in his ears; it would be to shirk the greatest and most sacred duty that can come to a man. The cold sweat had started upon his forehead at the thought of it.
The inexorable alternative was scarcely less ghastly. Yet in the face of this other the alternative had come as a relief. If it cost him his immortal soul, this other should not be left behind to mar a fair and unstained life. He would throttle him as he lay there upon the bed before he would leave him behind to this. He would go to his doom a murderer before he would leave Arsdale alive to do a fouler murder. That should be his final sacrifice,—his ultimate renunciation. In its first conception he had been appalled by the idea, but slowly its inevitability had paralyzed thought. It had made him feel almost impersonal. Considering the manner in which he had been thrust into it, it seemed, as it were, an ordinance of Fate.
Though this had now become fixed in his mind, there was still the scant hope that he had grasped from what he had observed in Arsdale's manner. Given the morsel of a man, and there was still hope. Therefore it was with considerable interest that he watched for some evidence of the higher nature, even if only expressed in the crude form of shame. At times Arsdale looked like a craven cornered to his death—at times like a man struggling with a great grief—at times like a man dazed and uncomprehending.
To himself he moaned continuously. Frequently he rose to his elbow with the cry, "Is she hurt?"
Still in silence Donaldson watched him. Once Arsdale fell forward on his chin, where he lay motionless, his eyes still upon Donaldson. The latter helped him back to the pillow, but Arsdale shrank from his touch.
"Your eyes!" he gasped, covering his own with his trembling hand. "They are the eyes of a devil. Take them off me—take them off!"