But that cry, wrung, it seemed, from the man’s heart in his own despite, pierced her heart. How could she refuse, if his life hung on her act, if by lifting her finger, she could save him without risk to herself? The thought of him was repugnant to her, shamed her, filled her with contempt of herself. But she had loved him once, or had fancied in her folly that she loved him; and he asked for his life. He, a man, lay at the mercy of a woman, a girl; how could she refuse? If her heart were obdurate, her sex spoke for him.
“And oh! for God’s sake spare me!”
She read the words again and again, and shuddered. If she refused, and afterwards when it was too late, when nothing could be done, she repented? If when judgment had passed upon him, and the day was come and the hour and the minute—and in her brain, though she were one hundred miles away, St. Sepulchre’s bell tolled—if she repented then how would she bear it?
She would not be able to bear it.
And then other considerations not less powerful, and all pointing in the same direction, arose in her mind. If she did this thing, whatever it was, the man would escape. He would vanish from the country and from her knowledge and ken. There would be an end of him, and the relief would be great. Freed from the shameful incubus of his presence she would breathe again. She might make a new start then, she might frame some plan for her life. She was too young to suppose that she could ever be happy after this, or that she would live to smile at these troubles. But at least she would not be harassed by continual fears, she would not be kept in a panic by the thought of that which every hour might bring forth. She would be spared the public trial, the ordeal of the witness-box, the shame of open confession. Should she do, then, that which he wished? Ay, a thousand times, ay. Her heart cried, ay, her mind was made up. And rising, she walked the room in excitement. Her pulse beat high, her head was hot, she was in a fever to begin, to be doing, to come to an end of the thing and be safe.
But the thing? Her heart sank a little when she turned to that, and conned the note again and marked the hour. Ten? The evenings were long and dark, and the house was abed by ten. How was she to pass out? Nor was that all. What of her position when she had passed out? She shrank from the thought of going alone to meet she knew not who in the darkness by the lonely edge of the water. There would be no help within call at that hour; nor any, if she disappeared, to say which way she had gone or how she had met her fate. If aught happened to her she would vanish and leave no trace. And they would think perhaps that she had fled to him!
The prospect was terrifying. And nine girls out of ten, though of ordinary courage, would have shrunk hack. But Henrietta had a spirit—too high a spirit or she had not been here!—and she fancied that if ever it behoved her to run a risk, it behove her to run one now. And that not for the man’s sake only, but for her own. She rose above her momentary alarm, therefore, and she asked herself what she had to fear. True, when she had met him that morning she had imagined in the gloom of the kitchen that she read murder in his eyes. But for an instant only; now she laughed at the notion. Safe in her chamber she found it absurd: the bizarre creation of her fancy or her timidity, aided by some shadow cast athwart his face. And for the matter of that, why should he harm her? Her presence at the trysting-place would be his surety that she had no mind to betray him; but that on the contrary she was willing to help him.
“I will go, I must go,” she thought. “I must go.”
Yet vague alarms troubled her; and she hesitated. If there had been no menace in his eyes that morning—the eyes that had so often looked into hers and languished on her with a lover’s fondness—why had she fled so precipitately? And why had her knees shaken under her? Pshaw, she had been taken by surprise. It was repugnance rather than fear which she had felt. And because she had been foolish once, and imagined things, because she was afraid, like a child, of the dark, because she shrank from meeting a stranger after nightfall, surely, surely she was not going to let a man perish whom she could save with one of her fingers!
And still, prudence whispered her, asking why he fixed so late an hour. Why had he not fixed five or six, if it were only out of respect for her? At five it was already dark, yet the world was awake and astir, respectable folk were abroad, and help was within call. She would have met him without hesitation at five or at six. But there, how stupid she was! It was the very fact that the world was astir and awake that made an early hour impossible. If she went at five or at six she would be followed, her movements would be watched, her companion would be noted. The very air would be full of eavesdroppers. She knew that, for the fact irritated her hourly and daily. And doubtless he too, hedged about by fears and suspicions, knew it.