For a moment my eyes, clouded by the darkness, were dazzled by the light of the room within; but despite the loud crying of the wind around me, I heard a murmur of voices. Then I distinguished the form of my wife on a sofa drawn up before the fire, and, bending over her, the form of the minister. Her back was turned to me, but I saw his face, noticed the burning eyes fixed eagerly on hers.
What were they saying—doing? I strained my eyes, my ears. At last I caught a sound. “Go now!” she was saying; “go now, I beseech you!”
Even as she spoke, he flung himself wildly on his knees, placing his arms around her.
“Oh, you are mad, mad!” she cried.
“Not mad, but desperate,” he answered. “I have thought it all over; I have struggled and struggled, but it is in vain. Ellen, have pity! There is no peace or happiness for me, in this world or the next, without your love. My darling! my angel!”
“Silence, for God’s sake! Oh, if you should be heard——”
“I do not care who hears me. I am beyond fear. As for that man, your husband, he is busy, no doubt, with his blasphemous books, his sinful investigations. Oh, my darling, that you should be linked to such a man! A man without religion—a man without God! It was that which first made me pity you, and pity is akin to love. You owe him no duty. He is a heretic—an atheist, as you know.”
As he clung to her and embraced her, she struggled nervously. Carried beyond himself, he covered her hands-with kisses, and would have kissed her lips, but she drew back.
“Go, go!” she moaned. “Hark! I hear footsteps. If you do not go now, I will never speak to you again.”
He rose to his feet, hot, flushed, and trembling like a leaf.