The Forfeit

by Ridgwell Cullum

THE RETURN HOME

A long day of anxiety and fevered apprehension merged into a night of terror. It was the outcome of a conviction that was irresistible. The shadow of disaster was marching hard upon her heels. Nor had she the power to avoid it.

As night came on Elvine remained alone in her twilit bedroom. She had no desire to come into contact with the servants, she had no desire for human companionship of any sort. So, with the fading light, she betook herself to the bedroom.

But there was no relief. It was haunted to-night, teeming with the fancies of a dreading imagination. It seemed to her like the cell of a condemned prisoner.

The day had passed heavily, drearily. Every moment of it had been filled with the thought that Jeff was on his way to Orrville. On his way to meet Dug McFarlane. On his way to meet the one man in whose hands her whole fate lay. He alone knew the source of the ten thousand dollars which she had carried back to her paternal home as the net result of her first marriage. He alone knew it to be the price of the blood of men, amongst whom was the twin brother of her present husband.

Memory was alive, and full of a poignant torture. It brought back to her the scene when she had driven her first husband to help her to the money she had desired to possess. He had spoken, in his horror and anger, of "blood money," of "Judas," and she would not hear. She had derided him, she had lashed him with the scorn of an unbridled tongue, she had turned upon him in her selfish craving, without a thought of any principle.

Now she understood what she had done, but she only understood because of the threat which overshadowed her. It was no spiritual awakening. It was again the self in her, threatened in its desires as a result of her earlier wanton actions. Her motives, even the picture of the carnage in that hidden valley, which came back to her unbidden, had no power to add to the hopelessness of her feelings. Every emotion was wrapped in the thought that she was about to be robbed of all the fruits of the one great passion of her life.

She had one desire now, one motive in life only. It was the man she had married. The man she had designed to marry for the station and wealth he could offer her, and who had almost instantly become the centre of her whole life. Nothing of any worldly consideration counted any longer. There was nothing could interest her of which he did not occupy the centre of the focus. Self dominated still, but it was a more human type of self, which had, perhaps, some rightful claim on human sympathy.

The shadows grew, and the wide airy room was filled with a hundred added terrors which claimed reality in the troubled brain. The silence of the world about her became a threat. The darkening of the cloudless sky beyond the open window. She sat on, refusing to invoke the aid of lamp-light to banish the gathering legions of her dread. She knew it was impossible to banish them.

Oh, she had no physical fear of the world about her. What was there to fear? Did she not know it all? Had she not lived it all before? The two wide open windows invited her. She moved to one of them, and drew a chair so that she could rest upon the sill and gaze out into the space so perfectly jeweled. And the cool night air fanned her cheeks, and seemed to relieve the fever that was raging behind her hot eyes.