At length Leopold opened his eyes, gave a terrified glance around, held out his arms to her, and drew her down upon his face.
“I saw her!” he said, in a voice that sounded as if it came from the grave, and she heard it in her heart.
“Nonsense, dear Poldie! it was all fancy—nothing more,” she returned, in a voice almost as hollow as his; and the lightness of the words uttered in such a tone jarred dismayfully on her own ear.
“Fancy!” he repeated; “I know what fancy is as well as any man or woman born: THAT was no fancy. She stood there, by the wardrobe—in the same dress!—her face as white as her dress! And—listen!—I will tell YOU—I will soon satisfy you it COULD be no fancy.”—Here he pushed her from him and looked straight in her eyes.—“I saw her back reflected in the mirror of the wardrobe-door, and”—here the fixed look of horror threatened to return upon his face, but he went on—“listen,—there was a worm crawling on it, over her lovely white shoulder! Ugh! I saw it in the mirror!”
His voice had risen to a strangled shriek, his face was distorted, and he shook like a child on the point of yelling aloud in an agony of fear. Helen clasped his face between her hands, and gathering courage from despair, if indeed that be a possible source of courage, and it is not gathered rather from the hidden hope of which I speak, and the love that will cleave and not forsake, she set her teeth, and said:
“Let her come then, Poldie! I am with you, and I defy her! She shall know that a sister’s love is stronger than the hate of a jilt—even if you did kill her. Before God, Poldie, I would after all rather be you than she. Say what you will, she had herself to blame, and I don’t doubt did twenty worse things than you did when you killed her.”
But Leopold seemed not to hear a word she said, and lay with his face to the wall.
At length he turned his head suddenly, and said,
“Helen, if you don’t let me see Mr. Wingfold, I shall go mad, and then everything will come out.”