“Yours, H. M.”
There was a gurgling sound in Georgie’s throat, as her first impulse was to scream, while a prickly sensation ran like lightning all through her right side, and she felt as if her mouth was twitching and turning toward her right ear; but she did not stop to question the meaning of these strange symptoms. She only thought of the fatal letter and its signature, and how she was ruined forever. The evil she had so much dreaded, and from which she had thought to escape, had come upon her at last. He was not dead; he still walked the earth; he lived and breathed not very far away, and had summoned her to meet him, and she must go. She had no thought of doing otherwise, and with the fearful agony gnawing at her heart, she consulted her watch to see how long before twelve. Nearly one hour and a half, and she clasped her hands together so tightly that the nails broke the skin in more than one place. But she did not feel it, or know that the blood was trickling from her nose until she saw the stains upon her white dressing-gown and on her long black hair. Mechanically she walked to the marble basin and washed and bathed her face until the flow had ceased; then she took up the letter again and read it a second time, while every fibre quivered and throbbed, and her eyes felt as if protruding from their sockets. And all this time she had uttered no sound; but when by chance she saw upon her table Roy’s picture, which, since her engagement she had kept in her room, the magnitude of the calamity which had overtaken her, burst upon her at once, and with a low moan she fell prostrate upon her face, whispering to herself, “Roy is lost,—lost,—and so am I.”
She knew that was so; knew there was no help, no escape for her now, and again that prickly sensation ran through her side, and a keen pain like a knife cut through her temples, where the veins were swelling and growing purple with the pressure of blood. Fortunately for her, unconsciousness came at last to her relief, unconsciousness which lasted until half-past eleven, and everything and everybody in the house was still. Then she roused herself, looked at her watch again, and prepared for action. He had written:
“Bring jewels if you have no money:” and knowing his rapacious disposition, she took her costly diamonds, necklace and all, her emeralds and pearls, and placing them in a little box, hunted up her purse, and laughed a kind of delirious laugh to find there were one hundred dollars in it.
She had no hope of Roy; it was impossible now that she should be his wife; there was a bar between them,—a living bar,—raised, as it were, from the dead; and, though possibly, nay, probably, silence with regard to the past could easily be bought, and Roy need never know her secret even now, she was not bad enough at heart to let him take her to his arms while that man waiting for her outside lived and roamed through the world.
She had given Roy up when she lay upon her face, with the prickling sensation in her side, and the terrible pain in her heart; had buried forever that dream of happiness, and now the worst she would ever endure was past. No phase of suffering could come to her like what she had already felt, unless, indeed, Roy should hear the story of her shame, and that he must never do. She could guard against that; she knew the nature she had to deal with, and so she took her richest jewels,—thousands of dollars in value,—and throwing around her the same water-proof she had worn to Annie’s bedside, went noiselessly out into the hall, and down the stairs, and on through another hall, the outer door of which communicated with the garden, and was far removed from the sleeping apartments of the family.
The night was a glorious one, and the moonlight lay like waves of silver upon the green-sward, and the shrubs, and the beds of bright June flowers, while the perfume of the roses filled the air with sweetness. But Georgie saw nothing of all this, and the night might have been one of thick darkness, so little she recked of it, or knew of the beauty around her. The woodbine arbor was all she thought about, and she sped swiftly down the broad, gravelled path, uttering a low scream as she saw the figure of a man rising to meet her.
One quick, searching glance she gave him to make sure it was he, then with a gasp she staggered forward, and would have fallen at his feet, had he not caught her by the arm and held her firmly up.
“Sit down, Lu,” he said, not unkindly, and he drew a chair for her. “Don’t take it so hard,” he continued, as he saw how white she was, and how rapidly her heart was beating. “I do not mean to harm you; upon my word, I do not; though I’ve no special reason for doing you a favor except that you are a woman, and I once loved you too.”
Georgie shuddered then, and pushed her chair a little farther from him, as if afraid he might touch her. But he had no such intention. However much he might have loved her once, he was well over the feeling now. He had summoned her to a purely business interview, and seating himself upon a stool not very far from her, he continued: