“Oh, God, not that, not that!”
She rose, catching her breath in short, sharp spasms, shaking back the hair from off her shoulders. The torture was too sharp with her for tears. It was a wringing of the heart, a dashing of all devotion, a falling away of happiness from beneath her feet! She stretched out her arms in the dark like a woman who reaches out to a love just dead.
Catherine turned, saw the empty bed, and the white face of the moon. The memories of the evening rushed back on her, wistful and infinitely tender. “No, no, no!” Her heart beat out the contradiction like a bell. It was unbelievable, unimaginable, that he should have played the hypocrite that night. They had spoken of the children, their children, and would he have lied to her, knowing that this vile devil’s drug was in the house? Her heart cried out against the thought. Her love came forth like an angel with a burning sword.
With white hands trembling in the moonlight, Catherine lit her candle, slipped her bare feet into her shoes, and went down the stairs. The inarticulate and pitiable mumbling still came from the little room. In the hall she halted, irresolute, the candle wavering in her hand. The shame of it, the pity of it! Could she go in and see the “animal” stammering in triumph over the “man”? No, no, it would be desecration, ignominy, an unhallowed wounding of the heart. He would sleep presently. The madness would flicker down like fire and die. Yes, she would wait and watch till he had fallen asleep. To see him in the throes of it, no, she could not suffer that!
With a dry sob in the throat, Catherine set the candle down on the table, beside the bowl of roses that she had arranged but yesterday with her own hands. How cold the house was, even for summer! She returned to her bedroom, took down her dressing-gown from behind the door, and wrapped it round her, thanking Heaven in her heart that she was alone with her husband in the house. The village woman slept away, and came at seven in the morning. She had all the night before her to recover her husband from his shame.
Going down to the hall again, she walked to and fro, listening from time to time at the closed door. The restless babbling of the voice had ceased. The fumes were dulling the wine fire in his brain. She prayed fervently that he would fall asleep.
An hour passed, and she heard no sound save the sighing of her own breath. For a moment the pathos of it overcame her as she leaned against the wall, the child in her crying out for comfort, for she felt alone in the emptiness of the night. The weakness lasted but a second. She grappled herself, opened the door noiselessly and looked in.
The lamp was still burning in the room, its shade of crocus yellow tempering the light into an atmosphere of mellow gold. On the gate-legged table stood Porteus Carmagee’s ill-omened hamper, the lid open, and straw scattered about the floor. Fragments of broken glass glittered among the litter, with the twisted stem of the Venetian goblet. An empty bottle had trackled its lees in a dark blot on the green of the carpet.
Catherine would not look at her husband for the moment. She was conscious of a shrunken and huddled figure, a red and gaping face, the reek of the wine, the heavy sighing of his breath. Her nerve had returned to her with the opening of the closed door. Her heart knew but one great yearning, the prayer that the downfall had not been deliberately cruel.
A sheet of note paper lay crumbled amid the straw. She stooped and reached for it, and recognized the writing. It was Porteus Carmagee’s half-jesting letter, and she learned the truth, how the fatal stuff had come.