All at once he stopped short and threw up his head as though at a signal. He tossed away his cigarette. He stared at the arbor, the one where poor Mary used to watch her little charge at play, and then, as though he were drawn against his will, he went slowly towards it, hesitated, bent his head a little, and stepped in. I heard the low murmur of his voice. I thought that Mrs. Brane was in the arbor, and my heart grew sick with jealousy. I was about to drag myself away from the window when another figure came out of the arbor and stood for an instant in the bright moonlight looking straight up to my window. I grew cold. I stood there holding my breath. I heard a little, low, musical, wicked laugh. The creature—my own cloak drooping from her shoulders—turned and went back into the shelter of the vine. My God! What was she about to do to Paul, the blind fool to sit there with that horrible thing and to fancy that he sat with me? Having failed in her attempt to drown him, she was now beguiling him out of the house for a few hours, in order to give one of her accomplices a chance to search the bookcase. I had no scruples about playing eavesdropper. I took off my shoes and hurried noiselessly down the stairs. I stole to a shuttered window in the dining-room, and, inch by inch, with infinite caution, I raised the sash. I was so near to the arbor that a hand stretched out at the full length of its arm could touch the honeysuckle vines. I stood there and strained my ears.
The woman was speaking so low that it was but a gentle thread of voice. It was extraordinarily young and sweet, the tone—sweeter than my voice, though astonishingly like it.
“Why did I save you, Paul Dabney?” she was murmuring, “can't you guess? Now, can't you guess?”
There came the sound of a soft, long-drawn, dreadful kiss. I burned with shame from head to foot.
“You devil—you she-devil!” said Paul Dabney in low, hot speech; “you can kiss!”
I could bear no more. She must be in his arms. What was the reason for this deviltry, this profanation of my innocence and youth, this desecration of my name? I hated and loathed Paul Dabney for his hot voice, for his kiss. He thought that he held me there in his arms, that he insulted me, tamely submissive, with his words, “You devil, you she-devil...” I fled to my room. I threw myself upon my bed. I sobbed and raved in a crazed, smothered fashion to my pillow. I struck the bed with my hands. I do not know how long that dreadful meeting lasted; I realized, with entire disregard, that while it lasted Sara was searching the bookcase. To this day I can think of it only with a sickness of loathing. Once I fancied that I heard Paul Dabney's step under my window. But I hid my head, covered my ears. I lay in a still fever of rage and horror all that night. The insult—so strange and unimaginable a one—to my own unhappy love was more than I could bear. I wanted to kill, and kill, and kill these two, and, last, myself.
CHAPTER XII—NOT REG'LAR
I MEANT to ask Mrs. Brane the next morning to excuse me from my work of cataloguing the books of her husband's library. I had no courage to face Paul Dabney. Unluckily, Mrs. Brane did not come down to breakfast. She had a severe headache. I did not like to disturb her with my request, nor did I like to give up my duty without permission, for the catalogue was nearly completed and Mrs. Brane was very impatient about it, so I dragged myself into the bookroom at the usual time. Paul Dabney was not yet there. He breakfasted late, going out first for a long tramp and a swim. I hoped that he would not come at all this morning.