He did not speak—he did not move—only he drew a step back and folded his arms over his breast.
"Dearest Willard! I feared you would not come; but, oh! I am so glad you are with me once more!" And her encircling arms clasped him closer, while her sunny head sank on his breast.
With the storm within and the storm without, he heard not, heeded not the name of Willard. But another flash of heaven's fire showed him a slight, slender form, with the shining, golden hair of his faithless wife.
And now, for the first time, she noticed his strange silence; and lifted her sweet face in surprise, saying:
"What is the matter? Why do you not speak to me? What have I done? Oh, I am so sorry, if I have angered you. What, what have I done? Oh, indeed, I love you more than life!"
His teeth closed together with a galvanic snap, his eyes were like two living coals set in a ghastly skull, and his hand clutched something within the folds of his cloak with a convulsive grasp.
And still she clung to him, and still he maintained that strange silence.
"Tell me what I have done? Speak to me, or I shall die!" she cried out, in anguish and terror. "Oh, indeed, I love you better than any one in the world! I would die sooner than offend you!"
"Die, then!" fairly shrieked the maddened man; "die, since your own lips have proclaimed your guilt!" And clutching her fiercely by the throat, he plunged the hidden knife into her side.
One piercing, terrific shriek, and she sank writhing, quivering at his feet in mortal agony. And the wretched maniac above her unable to speak, or move, or think, with distending eyeballs, glazing eyes—his ghastly face like that of the dead—his trembling hands red with her life-blood—stood rooted to the ground, caring not, feeling not the furious storm now.