“No,” she answered in a quiet voice, for her instincts overcame her fears; “I have promised to live with you, though you know why I married you, and I’ll do it till it kills me, even if you are mad; but I’ll not tell you a lie, for I never promised to love you, and I hate you now more than ever I did.”
Samuel turned deadly white, then poured out a glass of neat brandy and drank it before he answered.
“That’s straight, anyway, Joan. But it’s queer that while you won’t lie to me of one thing you ain’t above doing it about another. P’raps you didn’t know it, but I was there to-day when you had your ‘few words’ with your lover. He never saw me, but I followed him from Bradmouth step for step, though sometimes I had to hide behind trees and hedges to do it. You see I thought he would lead me to you; and so he did, for I saw you kissing and hugging —yes, you who belong to me—I saw you holding that man in your arms. Mad, do you say I am? Yes, I went mad then, though mayhap if you’d done what I asked you just now I might have got over it, for I felt my brain coming right; but now it is going again, going, going! And, Joan, since you hate me so bad, there is only one thing left to do, and that is——” And with a wild laugh he dashed towards the mantelpiece to reach down the gun which hung above it.
Then Joan’s nerve broke down, and she fled. From the house itself there was no escape, for every door was locked; so, followed by the madman, she ran panting with terror upstairs to the room where she had washed her hands, and, shutting the door, shot the strong iron bolt not too soon, for next instant her husband was dashing his weight against it. Very shortly he gave up the attempt, for he could make no impression upon oak and iron; and she heard him lock the door on the outside, raving the while. Then he tramped downstairs, and for a time there was silence. Presently she became aware of a scraping noise at the lattice; and, creeping along under shelter of the wall, she peeped round the corner of the window place. Already the light was low, but she could see the outlines of a white face glowering into the room through the iron bars without. Next instant there was a crash, and fragments of broken glass fell tinkling to the carpet. Then a voice spoke, saying, “Listen to me, Joan: I am here, on a ladder. I won’t hurt you, I swear it; I was mad just now, but I am sane again. Open the door, and let us make it up.”
Joan crouched upon the floor and made no answer.
Now there came the sounds of a man wrenching at the bars, which apparently withstood all the strength that he could exert. For twenty minutes or more this went on, after which there was silence for a while, and gradually it grew dark in the room. At length through the broken pane she heard a laugh, and Samuel’s voice saying:
‘A white face glowering into the room.’
“Listen to me, my pretty: you won’t come out, and you won’t let me in, but I’ll be square with you for all that. You sha’n’t have any lover to kiss to-morrow, because I’m going to make cold meat of him. It isn’t you I want to kill; I ain’t such a fool, for what’s the use of you to me dead? I should only sit by your bones till I died myself. I’ve gone through too much to win you to want to be rid of you so soon. You’d be all right if it wasn’t for the other man, and once he’s gone you’ll tell me that you love me fast enough; so now, Joan, I’m going to kill him. If he sticks to what I heard him tell his servant this morning, he should be walking back to Rosham in about an hour’s time, by one of the paths that run past Ramborough Abbey wall. Well, I shall be waiting for him there, at the Cross-Roads, so that I can’t miss him whichever way he comes, and this time we will settle our accounts. Good-bye, Joan: I hope you won’t be lonely till I get home. I suppose that you’d like me to bring you a lock of his hair for a keepsake, wouldn’t you? or will you have that back again which you gave him this day the dead brat’s, you know? You sit in there and say your prayers, dear, that it may please Heaven to make a good wife of you; for one thing’s certain, you can’t get out,” and he began to descend the ladder.