But Arsdale could not endure his blindness long. It made the ugly visions worse. So, he saw the girl with red blood streaming down her cheeks.
The sight of this writhing soul raised many new speculations in Donaldson's mind especially in connection with its possible outcome. In the matter of religion he was negative, neither believing any professed creed nor denying any. He had received no early impetus, and had up to now been too preoccupied with his earthly interests, with no great grief or happiness to arouse him, to formulate any theory in his own mind. Even at the moment he had swallowed the poison the motive prompting him to it had been so intensely material that it had started but the most momentary questions. It was the thought of Mrs. Wentworth, the sight of the baby, the indefinable boundaries of his own love—it was love that pressed the question in upon him. Now the other extreme embodied in the sight of the man before him, capped by the acute query of what the sin of murder might mean, sharpened it to a real concern. If such love as the mother and the girl connoted forbade the conception that love expired with life, the torture of this other stunted soul seemed prophetic of what might be awaiting his own future, dwarfed by the shifty expedient he had adopted to check its development. If punishment counted for anything, he was, to be sure, receiving his full portion right here on earth. The realization of what he was leaving was an inquisition of the most exquisite order. But would this be the end? His consciousness, as he sat there, refused to allow the hope,—refused even to allow the hope to be desired.
So, face to face, each of these two struggled with the problem of his next step. To each of them life had a new and terrible significance. From a calm sea it had changed to wind-rent chaos. It was revealing its potentialities,—lamb-like when asleep, lion-like when roused. Tangle-haired Tragedy had stalked forth into the midst of men going about their business.
The man on the bed broke out again,
"Why did n't I die before that? Why did n't I die before?"
Then he turned upon Donaldson with a new horror in his eyes.
"I did n't kill her?" he gasped.
The answer to his cry came—though he could not interpret it—in the ringing of the telephone. Donaldson crossed to it, while Arsdale cowered back in bed as though fearing this were news of some fresh disaster. To him the broken conversation meant nothing; to Donaldson it brought a relief that saved him almost from madness.
"Is that you, Mr. Donaldson?" she asked.
"Yes. And you—you are well?"