“Janice Gale,” he said, in a changed and much more gentle voice, “I wish you would tell me what the accursed—mystery means. Do you remember last night? Do you remember—do your lips remember our kisses? I can't look at the sweetness and the sorrow of them and believe it. Is this your real self, or is that? Are you possessed by a night-demon, or is this a mask of youth and innocence? I do believe you must be a victim of that strange psychic affliction of a divided personality. Janice—tell me, do you know what you do”—he dropped his voice as a man who speaks of ghostly and unhallowed things—“after you have gone to sleep?”
I wanted to tell him, but I wanted more strongly to triumph over him. The rush of tenderness had passed. I could not forget the insult of his tone to me, the jeering, biting contempt of his speeches. I longed passionately to bring him down to my feet, to humble him, and then—to raise him up. Love is a cruel sort of madness, a monster perfectionist. My love for him could not forgive his blindness. He ought to have known, he ought to have seen my soul too clearly to be so easy a dupe, and his love for me ought to have driven him shuddering from those other lips. It ought to have been his shield and weapon of defense, instead of his lure.
“I have nothing to confess,” I told him coldly. “Why should I confess to you? You have come to this house to persecute and to insult me. How do you dare”—I shook with a resurgent rage and disgust—“to speak to me of—kisses? When are you going away from this house? Or must I go, and begin to struggle again, to hunt for work? If I had a brother or a father or any protector strong enough to deal with the sort of man you are, I should have you horse-whipped for your conduct to me! Oh, I could strike you myself! I hate and loathe you!” I sobbed, having worked myself up almost to the frenzy of the past night. “I want to punish you! You have hurt and shamed me!” I fought for self-control. “Thank God! It will soon be over.”
I stood up, and tried to pass him. He held out his arms to bar me, and, looking down at me, his face flushed and quivering, he said between his teeth: “When it is over, as you must know, my dear Sphinx, one of us two will be dead. I am not the first man, I fancy, that you have driven to madness or worse. I hope I shall have the strength to make the world safe from you before I go. That's what I live for now, though you've made my life rather more of a hell than even I ever thought life could be made.”
Our eyes met, and the looks crossed like swords.
“Let me go out. Your faith is not much greater than your skill, Master Detective-Lover. I think the outcome will astonish you. Let me go out, I say.”
He moved away, grim and pale, his jaws set, and I went out.
On my way to my room Mary met me in the hall. “I want to speak to you,” she began; then broke off, “Oh, Miss Gale, dear, how bad you look!” she said.
I was so glad to see her dear, honest, trusting, truthful face that I put my head down on her shoulder, and cried like a baby in her arms. She made me go to my room and lie down, she bathed my face and laid a cold, wet cloth across my temples.
“Poor blessed girl!” she said in her nursey way, “she's all wore out. Poor soul! Poor pretty!” A dozen such absurd and comforting ejaculations she made use of, how comforting my poor motherless youth had never till then let me know. When I was quieter she brought her sewing and sat beside my bed, rocking and humming. She asked no questions; just told me when I tried to apologize to “hush now and try to get a little nap.” And actually I did go to sleep.