On the Brink of a Chasm: A record of plot and passion

by L. T. Meade

He glanced full up into her lovely eyes. Her face caused his heart to beat wildly.

“I will come,” he said in a hoarse voice.

Barbara could not but observe his agitation. She repented of having asked him.

“We dine at seven,” she said coldly, falling back into her seat as she spoke. “We shall expect you at that hour.”

He answered in the affirmative, and the carriage bowled rapidly away.

With his heart still beating faster than usual, the man returned to the inn. The moment had come for him to strike his great blow, but the look in Barbara’s eyes disarmed him. After all, he need even now do nothing. In his hand lay potent and terrible possibilities—the power to quench the happiness in those eyes, the power to drive that young heart to the verge of madness. After all, Pelham was only the instrument with which he (Tarbot) should strike at Barbara’s heart. If only even now she would be kind to him—a little kind—he might reconsider the situation; but then he began to say to himself that she had never been unkind, never since he had known her. It had always been her way to be gentle and sweet, she was that to all the world. He did not want her sweetness; her indifference nearly maddened him—she was sweet because she was indifferent. He would rather have her hatred than her indifference. Yes, hatred was better than the condition which means neither love nor hate. When he did what he meant to do, she would hate him. In all the future of her life he would stand before her as a monster who had dragged her husband to disgrace, ruin, and death.

Yes, better that feeling than the present. The time would come when she would plead with him. To see her at his feet pleading, imploring, beseeching of him to withhold his hand—ah, then indeed his revenge would be accomplished. His heart quickened, he felt happy, at being so far away from Clara. When he thought of Clara his determination not to spare Barbara grew and intensified in force. Had he not married Clara in order to promote his vengeance? If Barbara had married him, as he had once told her, he would have been a good man. She had rejected him, and he was a bad one. On her own head the blame must fall.

He wandered about, too restless to go indoors, too restless to accept the invitation of the jolly landlord of the “Pelham Arms” to go into the bar parlor and have a smoke, too restless to do anything but long intensely for the moment when he might go up to the Towers and look at Barbara.

The time flew by, the hour arrived. He dressed with care. He put a light overcoat over his evening suit and walked the short distance from the “Arms” to the Towers. He arrived at the old place a few minutes before seven o’clock. He was shown at once into the rose drawing-room, a lovely apartment with oriel windows of colored glass fashioned in the shape of roses. The rose drawing-room opened into wide conservatories, the doors of which were unclosed, and the scent of many exotics filled the beautiful room.

Barbara, in a dress of white silk, stood near the hearth. Neither Pelham nor Mrs. Pelham had yet made their appearance. Barbara came a step forward when Tarbot entered.