The Destroying Angel

by Louis Joseph Vance

Then he shut the outside door with a convincing bang.

"If this be marriage...!" He smiled his twisted smile, laughed a little quietly, and became again his normal, good-natured self, if a little unusually preoccupied.

Leaving the kitchen light turned low, he went to his own room and, as on the previous night, threw himself upon the bed without undressing; but this time with no thought of sleep. Indeed, he had no expectation of closing his eyes in slumber before the next night, at the earliest; he had no intention other than to attempt to swim to the nearest land. In the illusion of night, his judgment worked upon by his emotions, that plan which had during the afternoon suggested itself, been thoroughly considered, rejected as too desperately dangerous, and then reconsidered in the guise of their only possible chance of escape at any reasonably early date, began to assume a deceptive semblance of feasibility.

He did not try to depreciate its perils: the tides that swept through that funnel-shaped channel were unquestionably heavy: heavier than even so strong a swimmer as he should be called upon to engage; the chances of being swept out to sea were appallingly heavy. The slightest error in judgment, the least miscalculation of the turn of the tide, and he was as good as lost.

On the other hand, with a little good luck, by leaving the house shortly after moonrise, he should be able to catch the tide just as it was nearing high water. Allowing it to swing him northwest until it fulled, he ought to be a third of the way across by the time it slackened, and two-thirds of the distance before it turned seawards again. And the distance was only three miles or so.

And the situation on the island had grown unendurable. He doubted his strength to stand the torment and the provocation of another day.

Allow an hour and a half for the swim—say, two; another hour in which to find a boat; and another to row or sail back: four hours. He should be back upon the island long before dawn, even if delayed. Surely no harm could come to her in that time; surely he ought to be able to reckon on her sleeping through his absence—worn down by the stress of the day's emotions as she must certainly be. True, he had given her to understand he would not leave her; but she need not know until his return; and then his success would have earned him forgiveness.

An hour dragged out its weary length, and the half of another while he reasoned with himself, drugging his conscience and his judgment alike with trust in his lucky star. In all that time he heard no sound from the room above him; and for his part he lay quite unstirring, his whole body relaxed, resting against the trial of strength to come.

Insensibly the windows of his room, that looked eastward, filled with the pale spectral promise of the waning moon. He rose, with infinite precaution against making any noise, and looked out. The night was no less placid than the day had been. The ruins of his three beacons shone like red winking eyes in the black face of night. Beyond them the sky was like a dome of crystal, silvery green. And as he looked, an edge of silver shone on the distant rim of the waters; and then the moon, misshapen, wizened and darkling, heaved sluggishly up from the deeps.

Slowly, on tiptoes, Whitaker stole toward the door, out into the hall; at the foot of the stairs he paused, listening with every nerve tense and straining; he fancied he could just barely detect the slow, regular respiration of the sleeping woman. And he could see that the upper hallway was faintly aglow. She had left her lamp burning, the door open. Last night, though the lamp had burned till dawn, that door had been closed....