There on one of the stone benches of the lovely room sat Aileen, the level pool of water before her, the sunrise glow over every thing, tropic birds in their branches, and she, her hair disheveled, her face pale, one arm—her left—hanging down, ripped and bleeding, trickling a thick stream of rich, red blood. On the floor was a pool of blood, fierce, scarlet, like some rich cloth, already turning darker in places.
Cowperwood paused—amazed. He hurried forward, seized her arm, made a bandage of a torn handkerchief above the wound, sent for a surgeon, saying the while: “How could you, Aileen? How impossible! To try to take your life! This isn’t love. It isn’t even madness. It’s foolish acting.”
“Don’t you really care?” she asked.
“How can you ask? How could you really do this?”
He was angry, hurt, glad that she was alive, shamed—many things.
“Don’t you really care?” she repeated, wearily.
“Aileen, this is nonsense. I will not talk to you about it now. Have you cut yourself anywhere else?” he asked, feeling about her bosom and sides.
“Then why not let me die?” she replied, in the same manner. “I will some day. I want to.”
“Well, you may, some day,” he replied, “but not to-night. I scarcely think you want to now. This is too much, Aileen—really impossible.”
He drew himself up and looked at her—cool, unbelieving, the light of control, even of victory, in his eyes. As he had suspected, it was not truly real. She would not have killed herself. She had expected him to come—to make the old effort. Very good. He would see her safely in bed and in a nurse’s hands, and would then avoid her as much as possible in the future. If her intention was genuine she would carry it out in his absence, but he did not believe she would.