“God help you!” she said sobbingly—“God console you!”
At this, some demon in me broke loose, and springing to her side I caught her hands in mine.
“Do not dare to talk of God!” I said in passionate accents; “Not in this room,—not in that presence! Why should you call curses down upon me? The help of God means punishment,—the consolations of God are terrible! For strength must acknowledge itself weak before He will help it,—and a heart must be broken before He will console it! But what do I say!—I believe in no God—! I believe in an unknown Force that encompasses me and hunts me down to the grave, but nothing more. She thought as I do,—and with reason,—for what has God done for her? She was made evil from the first,—a born snare of Satan....”
Something caught my breath here,—I stopped, unable to utter another word. Mavis stared at me affrighted, and I stared back again.
“What is it?” she whispered alarmedly. I struggled to speak,—finally, with difficulty I answered her—
“Nothing!”
And I motioned her away with a gesture of entreaty. The expression of my face must have startled or intimidated her I fancy, for she retreated hastily and I watched her disappearing as if she were the phantom of a dream,—then, as she passed out through the boudoir, I drew close the velvet portiére behind her and locked the intermediate door. This done I went slowly back to the side of my dead wife.
[p 397]
“Now Sibyl,”—I said aloud—“we are alone, you and I—alone with our own reflected images,—you dead, and I living! You have no terrors for me in your present condition,—your beauty has gone. Your smile, your eyes, your touch cannot stir me to a throb of the passion you craved, yet wearied of! What have you to say to me?—I have heard that the dead can speak at times,—and you owe me reparation,—reparation for the wrong you did me,—the lie on which you based our marriage,—the guilt you cherished in your heart! Shall I read your petition for forgiveness here?”
And I gathered up the written sheets of note-paper in one hand, feeling them rather than seeing them, for my eyes were fixed on the pallid corpse in its rose-silk ‘negligée’ and jewels, that gazed at itself so pertinaciously in the shining mirror. I drew a chair close to it, and sat down, observing likewise the reflection of my own haggard face in the glass beside that of the self-murdered woman. Turning presently, I began to scrutinize my immovable companion more closely—and perceived that she was very lightly clothed,—under the silk peignoir there was only a flowing white garment of soft fine material lavishly embroidered, through which the statuesque contour of her rigid limbs could be distinctly seen. Stooping, I felt her heart,—I knew it was pulseless; yet I half imagined I should feel its beat. As I withdrew my hand, something scaly and glistening caught my eye, and looking I perceived Lucio’s marriage-gift circling her waist,—the flexible emerald snake with its diamond crest and ruby eyes. It fascinated me,——coiled round that dead body it seemed alive and sentient,—if it had lifted its glittering head and hissed at me I should scarcely have been surprised. I sat back for a moment in my chair, almost as rigid as the corpse beside me,—I stared again, as the corpse stared always, into the mirror which pictured us both, we ‘twain in one,’ as the sentimentalists aver of wedded folk, though in truth it often happens that there are no two creatures in the world more widely separated than husband and wife. I heard stealthy movements and suppressed whisperings in the passage outside, and [p 398] guessed that some of the servants were there watching and waiting,—but I cared nothing for that. I was absorbed in the ghastly night interview I had planned for myself, and I so entered into the spirit of the thing, that I turned on all the electric lamps in the room, besides lighting two tall clusters of shaded candles on either side of the toilet-table. When all the surroundings were thus rendered as brilliant as possible, so that the corpse looked more livid and ghastly by comparison, I seated myself once more, and prepared to read the last message of the dead.
“Now Sibyl,”—I muttered, leaning forward a little, and noting with a morbid interest that the jaws of the corpse had relaxed a little within the last few minutes, and that the smile on the face was therefore more hideous—“Confess your sins!—for I am here to listen. Such dumb, impressive eloquence as yours deserves attention!”