A few moments only, and then she started from him.
“No, no,” she cried wildly, as she cast back the thought which, for a moment, she had gladly harboured. “Impossible! It could not be.”
“I speak the truth,” he said gently. “I must tell you now—while there is time.”
She clasped her hands, and her fingers seemed to grow into her flesh with the agonised pressure as she crouched there, trembling, by his bed, her lips apart, her throat dry, and her breath coming and going with a harsh laboured sound, while his came feebly, and his words were harder to hear in the darkness which now shrouded them.
“Yes,” he sighed; “I must tell you before it is too late.”
He was silent for a moment or two, and then went on, with every word sending a pang of agony and shame through his listener’s ears.
“Glynne, dearest, since that night I have often prayed that I might die, but death is long in coming to those who ask its help. I had raised my hand to steal one leaf from the creeper, when it fell to my side. Yes,” he said, with a hurried intensity now taking the place of his feeble whisper, “I remember—I see all clearly now. I had raised my hand, but it fell to my side, and a pang of horror shot through me, for there was the noise of struggling overhead, faint, half-stifled cries, and then the baying of a dog. For a moment I was dazed, then I turned to run to the door and raise an alarm, when a cry rang out again, and, for the first time, I knew that it came from your window above my head.”
He stopped, panting heavily, and Glynne, trembling violently now, drew nearer and nearer to him, with the darkness closing in, and Alleyne’s face dimly seen on the grey pillow.
“Listen,” he went on; “it was dark—so dark that I could hardly see that your window was thrown wide; but it was as if a horrible scene were being flashed into my brain, as I ran back over the short grass to stand beneath and begin to climb up by the thick rope-like stems that ran above. Then, as I grasped them, they were shaken violently; a man who had climbed out slipped rapidly down, and I seized him. But he was lithe and active, as I was slow, heavy, and unused to such an effort. He shook himself free, but I grasped him again, and once more he escaped me. But again I tried to seize him, and this time he struck at me, and I felt a sharp blade pass through my hand.
“It gave him a few moments’ start, but not more; and as he ran, a madman was at his heels. Yes, a madman, for the passion within me was not that of one in the full possession of his senses.”