“Well?” said the great city man.
“You will let me see my little one before I go, Richard? I won’t let my head get hot. You will not mind that. I will do all that you wish. But why not let us be together? She is not mad; but that would not matter. Let me have her, and go away from here. She is so little, I could carry her; and we would never trouble you again. Indeed, indeed—never, never again!”
If he could only have placed faith in those words, what a burden Richard Pellet would have felt to be off his shoulders! But no; he dared not trust her; and in the few moments while she stood with her wild strange eyes gazing appealingly in his face, he saw her coming to his office for help, then down to Norwood, declaring that she was his wedded wife, and trouble, exposure, perhaps punishment, to follow, because, he told himself, he had declined to let this poor helpless maniac stand in the way of his advancement.
Richard Pellet’s face grew darker as he turned to leave the room.
“But you will let me see her once, Richard—only once before I go? Think how obedient I have been, how I have attended always to your words—always. I know what you mean to do—to shut me up in a dreadful madhouse, and all because—because my poor head grows so hot. It was not so once, Richard.”
She dropped her work upon the floor, and elapsed her hands as she stood before him.
“Only once, Richard,” she exclaimed again; “only once, for ever so short a time,” and the voice grew more and more plaintive and appealing—the tones seeming to ring prophetically in Richard Pellet’s ears, so that he found himself thinking—“Suppose those words haunt me at my deathbed!”
He started the next moment.
“Be quiet,” he exclaimed, harshly, as he might have said “Down!” to a dog; when, rightly interpreting his words, the woman uttered a low wail, letting herself sink upon the floor, as she covered her face with her hands, and convulsively sobbed. But the trembling hands fell again as she shook her head with the action of one throwing back thick masses of curling hair, and looking sharply up, she listened, for the sound of a bell fell upon her ear. The cause was plain enough, for Richard Pellet stood before her with the rope in his hand.
Then she slowly rose, sighing as she closed her eyes, and stood motionless until the woman of the house came into the room and laid her talon-like hand upon her shoulder. But though the prisoner shivered, she did not move from her place; she only opened her eyes and gazed once more imploringly at Richard, who avoided her look, and, walking to the window, peered through the bar-like blinds.