After that public outbreak of passion, which had scared the cook, and Mrs. Wilcox, the lady of the house retreated to her room, and was taken or feigned to be taken ill. Her son was sent for, in great haste, and found her prostrate, and broken down, scarcely able to speak, and quite unlikely to attack his stronghold again. His sisters implored him to take a cab, and follow the course of the only doctor who could relieve these perilous pains; and after seeing to his locks and bolts, he departed on that mission.
No sooner had the front gate swung behind him, than up jumped the feeble sufferer, wrote a few lines to the nearest blacksmith, and sent the boy in buttons to take them, with orders not to lose a moment. In a quarter of an hour the blacksmith and his foreman were at the obnoxious door, with sledge-hammer, crowbar, cold chisel, and wrench.
Some one within seemed inclined to help them, for they heard a heavy bolt shot back; but the door was fastened on the outside also with a heavy chain and padlock. The smith laid hold of this chain with his pincers, and so kept the padlock against the post, where a few swinging blows from the foreman shattered it, like an egg-shell. In a minute they cast the door back on its hinges, and a narrow dark passage was before them.
“Let no one follow me,” said the lady of the house; “but wait till I return to you.” She closed the heavy door behind her, and passed through the gloom to an inner door. This was neither locked nor bolted, and she turned the handle and entered.
The room was lofty, but very dark. Not only the bulk of the ilex-tree, but close blinds, fixed in the window-frame, obscured the fading sunlight. The lady marched in with a haughty air; she would soon let this poor vagrant know who was the owner of this house and who the gutter-squatter. But suddenly she stopped, and speech was flown from her tongue to her eyes; she could only stare.
Against the high mantlepiece, whose black marble covered with dust was as dull as slate, a tall and bulky man was leaning, peacefully smoking a long cigar. The cigar was fixed between two strips of muslin, concealing the chin, lips, and nose, if any. A slouched hat, with a yellow feather in it, covered the hairless crown; and only the knotted forehead, and the fierce red eyes, showed that here was a human face alive.
But the massive cast of figure, and the attitude, and slouch and even some remembrance of the fierce red glance, told the haughty woman who it was that stood before her. In a moment, fury changed to fear, and triumph became trembling. Without a word she turned to fly; but a great muffled hand was laid on her.
“No hurry, faithful wife! You have insisted upon seeing me. Come to the light, and you shall have that pleasure.”
The great figure swept her to the window with one arm, while she vainly strove to cry, or even to fall upon her knees. Then throwing back the blind, the leper drew her closer to him, and tearing off his swathings held her so that she must gaze at him.
“This is your work. Are you pleased with it? True love is never changed by trifles. Embrace me, my gentle one. You always were so loving. How you will rejoice to show a wife’s affection, and to tend me daily; for I mean to leave you never more. Monica, gentle, loving Monica, whisper your true love where my ears used to be.”