“You can’t make me marry you,” she said, with infinite scorn and contempt.
He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. Into his eyes there sprang a blaze which she had never before seen, but dimly, in the eyes of any man; but she needed no experience to tell her its despicable meaning. His lips, which had been snarling, suddenly took a downward twitch, and were half parted. His nostrils were distended, and the blood, flooding into his face, empurpled it.
“Then I’ll have you anyhow!” he hoarsely told her, and, his arms tensed and his head slightly lowered forward, he made as if to advance toward her. He saw in her frightened eyes that she would scream, but he did not know that at that moment she could not. Her heart seemed to have lost its action, and she stood, trembling, faint, in the midst of her strewn music, with the sensation that the room was turning dark.
The house was very quiet. Mrs. Sargent and Mrs. Davies were upstairs. The servants were all in the rear of the house, or below, or in the upper rooms, at their morning work. He turned swiftly and closed the door of the music room, then he whirled again towards her, with ferocity in his eyes. He came slowly, every movement of him alive with ponderous strength. He was a maniac. He was insane. He was frenzied by one mad thought which had swept out of his universe every other consideration, and the glut to kill was no more fearful than the purpose which possessed him now.
Gail, standing slight, fragile, her brown eyes staring, her brown hair dishevelled about her white brow, felt every atom of strength leaving her, devoured in the overwhelming might of this monstrous creature. The sheet of music, which she had been holding all this time, dropped from her nerveless fingers and fluttered to the floor!
That noise, slight as it was, served to arrest the progress of the man for just an instant. He was in no frame to reason, but some instinct urged him to speed. He crouched slightly, as a wild beast might. But the flutter of that sheet of music had done more for Gail than it had for him. It had loosed the paralysis which had held her, had broken the fascination of horror with which she had been spellbound. Just behind her was a low French window which led to a small side balcony. With one bound she burst this open, she did not know how, and had leaped over the light balcony rail, and ran across the lawn to the rectory gate, up the steps and into the side door, and into the study, where the Reverend Smith Boyd sat toiling over a sermon.
CHAPTER XXXI
GAIL BREAKS A PROMISE
The Whitecap would have been under way except for the delay of the gay little Mrs. Babbitt and her admiring husband, who sent word that they could not arrive until after dinner, so the yacht, long and low and slender and glistening white, lay in the middle of the Hudson River, while her guests, bundled warmly against the crisp breeze, gathered in the forward shelter deck and watched the beginnings of the early sunset.
“I like Doctor Boyd in his yachting cap,” commented Lucile, as that young man joined them, with a happy mother on his arm.
“It takes away that deadly clerical effect,” laughed Arly. “His long coat makes him look like the captain, and he’s ever so much more handsome.”