"Oh! Arthur, tell me at once, or kill me. You look as if you hated me."
"Hate you!—There's a hereafter. God sees."
"I can't understand you, Arthur; you wish to distract me. I'd rather know anything. For mercy's sake speak out."
"Lie you down, and wait."
She did lie down. The hour of judgment had come as a thief in the night. The blood in her temples seemed to drum on the pillow. There was not a clear thought in her brain, only the one stunning consciousness.
"He knows all! I am ruined." Yet the feminine instinct of finesse was not quite overpowered.
Having placed the candle on the chimneypiece, so that the curtain at the foot of the bed throw its shadow over that recess in which the sorcerer Varbarriere had almost promised to show the apparition, old Lennox sat down at the bedside, next this mysterious point of observation. Suddenly it crossed him, as a break of moonlight will the blackest night of storm, that he must act more wisely. Had he not alarmed his wife?—what signal might not be contrived to warn off her guilty accomplice?
"Jennie," said he, with an effort, in a more natural tone, "I'm tired, very tired. We'll sleep. I'll tell you all in the morning. Go to sleep."
"Good-night," she murmured.
"That will do; go to sleep," he answered.