Blake Shorland thought of the lust of cruelty, of the wounds, and the acids of torture. “Not yet,” he said; “but the marriage is set for the twenty-six of this month.”
“How I could spoil all that!”
“Yes, you could spoil all that. But you have spoiled enough already. Don’t you think that if Luke Freeman does marry, you had better be dead as you have been this last five years? To have spoiled one life ought to be enough to satisfy even a woman like you.”
Her eyes looked through Blake Shorland’s eyes and beyond them to something else; and then they closed. When they opened again, she said: “It is strange that I never thought of his marrying again. And now I want to kill her—just for the moment. That is the selfish devil in me. Well, what is to be done, monsieur? There is the Morgue left. But then there is no Morgue here. Ah, well, we can make one, perhaps—we can make a Morgue, monsieur.”
“Can’t you see that he ought to be left the rest of his life in peace?”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“Well, then!”
“Well—and then, monsieur? Ah, you did not wish him to marry me. He told me so. ‘A fickle foreigner,’ you said. And you were right, but it was not pleasant to me. I hated you then, though I had never spoken to you nor seen you; not because I wanted him, but because you interfered. He said once to me that you had told the truth in that. But—and then, monsieur?”
“Then continue to efface yourself. Continue to be the woman in the Morgue.”
“But others know.”