Armstrong turned savagely upon Keren-Happuch. “Go!” he said sharply.
“I knowed it,” muttered the girl as she went out. “Men can’t keep to their words, and it’s very hard on us poor girls.”
Armstrong stood facing his visitor as the door closed, and then the giddiness came over him again. He staggered to a chair, dropped into it, and his head fell upon his hand.
“How could you be so mad!” he groaned. “Go back to your husband; we must never meet again. Woman, you have been a curse to me and ruined my poor life. But there, I will not reproach you.” He closed his eyes, for his senses nearly left him, and his visitor stood gazing sadly down at him not a yard away.
“I suppose you will despise me,” he groaned, “but I cannot help that. You will think that I ought to hold to you now, and save you from your husband’s anger. But I can do nothing. Broken, conscience-stricken, if ever poor wretch was in despair it is I. There, for God’s sake, go back to him. He will forgive you, as I ask you to forgive me now.”
He paused, and then went on as if she had just spoken something which coincided with his thoughts.
“You will despise me and think me weak, but I am near the end, and I do not shrink from speaking and telling you that I go to meet your husband with the knowledge that I have broken the heart of as pure and true a woman as ever breathed.”
A low, pitiful sigh came from behind the veil.
“Don’t, for Heaven’s sake, don’t, now. It is all over; the mad comedy is played out—all but the last scene. Try and forget it all, and go with the knowledge that his life is safe for me, for I will not raise my hand against him—that I swear.”
He uttered a low moan, for the place seemed strange to him, and his words far distant, as if they were spoken by some one else. Incipient delirium was creeping in to assault his brain, and in another minute he would have been quite insensible; but a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and the touch electrified him, making him spring wildly from his seat with a cry.