Margaret’s agitation was terrible to behold. This was the first time that she had ever spoken to a soul of all these things, and now the long restraint had burst as burst the waters of a dam. Arthur sought to calm her.
“You’re ill and overwrought. You must try to compose yourself. After all, Haddo is a human being like the rest of us.”
“Yes, you always laughed at his claims. You wouldn’t listen to the things he said. But I know. Oh, I can’t explain it; I daresay common sense and probability are all against it, but I’ve seen things with my own eyes that pass all comprehension. I tell you, he has powers of the most awful kind. That first day when I was alone with him, he seemed to take me to some kind of sabbath. I don’t know what it was, but I saw horrors, vile horrors, that rankled for ever after like poison in my mind; and when we went up to his house in Staffordshire, I recognized the scene; I recognized the arid rocks, and the trees, and the lie of the land. I knew I’d been there before on that fatal afternoon. Oh, you must believe me! Sometimes I think I shall go mad with the terror of it all.”
Arthur did not speak. Her words caused a ghastly suspicion to flash through his mind, and he could hardly contain himself. He thought that some dreadful shock had turned her brain. She buried her face in her hands.
“Look here,” he said, “you must come away at once. You can’t continue to live with him. You must never go back to Skene.”
“I can’t leave him. We’re bound together inseparably.”
“But it’s monstrous. There can be nothing to keep you to him. Come back to Susie. She’ll be very kind to you; she’ll help you to forget all you’ve endured.”
“It’s no use. You can do nothing for me.”
“Why not?”
“Because, notwithstanding, I love him with all my soul.”