The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [3812]
I had always thought her timid, afraid of the night and all threatening things. But as I listened to the sound of her soft footfall at the door, I realized that even her breast could grow strong under the influence of a real or fancied passion. It was a shock--but I did not cry out--only set my teeth together and turned a little so that what light there was would fall on my form rather than on my face.
She entered; I felt rather than heard the tremulous push she gave to the door, and the quick drawing in of her breath as she put her foot across the threshold. These sapped my courage. This fear, this almost hesitation, drew me from thoughts of myself to thoughts of her, and it was in a daze of mingled purposes and regrets that I felt her at last at my side.
"Walter!" fell softly, doubtfully from her lips.
It was the name of him the dip of whose oars as he made for his boat I could now faintly hear in the river below us.
Turning, I looked her in the face.
"You are late," said I. God gave me words in my extremity. "Walter has gone." Then, as the madness of terror replaced love in her eyes, I lifted her forcibly and carried her to the window, where I drew aside the vines. "That is his boat's lantern you see drawing away from the dock. I bade him God-speed. He will not come again."
Without a word she looked, then fell back on my arm. It was not life which forsook her face, and left her whole sweet body inert--that I could have borne, for did she not merit death who had killed my love, killed me?--but happiness, the glow of youthful blood, the dreams of a youthful brain. And seeing this, seeing that the heart I thought a child's heart had gone down in this shipwreck, I felt my anger swell and master me body and soul, and before I knew it, I was towering over her and she was cowering at my feet, crushed and with hands held up in defense, hands that had been like rose-leaves in my grasp, futile hands, but raised now in entreaty for her life to me, to me who had loved her.
Why did they not move me? Why did my muscles tighten instead of relax? I do not know; I had never thought myself a cruel man, but at that instant I felt that this toy of my strong manhood had done harm far beyond its value, and that it would comfort me to break it and toss it far aside; only I could not bear the cry which now left her lips:
"I am so young! not yet, not yet, Philo! I am so young! Let me live a little while."
Was it a woman's plea, conscious of the tenderness she appealed to, or only a child's instinctive grasping after life, just life? If it were the first, it would be easy to finish; but a child's terror, a child's longing--that pulled hard at my manhood, and under the possibility, my own arm fell.
Instantly her head drooped. No defense did she utter; no further plea did she make; she simply waited.
"You have deserved death." This I managed to utter. "But if you will swear to obey me, you shall not pay your forfeit till you have had a further taste of life. Not in my house; there is not sufficient freedom within its walls for you; but in the broad world, where people dance and sing and grow old at their leisure, without duty and without care. For three months you shall have this, and have it to your heart's content. Then you shall come back to me my true wife, if your heart so prompts; if not, to tell me of your failure and quit me for ever. But--" Here I fear my voice grew terrible, for her hands instinctively rose again. "Those three months must be lived unstained. As you are in God's sight this hour, I demand of you to swear that, if you forget this or disregard it, or for any cause subject my name to dishonor, that you will return unbidden