The Classic Mystery Collection - Arthur Conan Doyle [3814]
"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh," I said.
The man stared.
"I will go meet Mrs. Ocumpaugh now," I repeated, and tried to rise.
But my limbs refused; death had entered my heart, and it was some few minutes before I found myself upon the lawn outside.
When I got there I was trembling and so uncertain of movement that I tottered at the gate. But seeing signs of her presence within, I straightened myself and went in.
She was standing at the extreme end of the room when I entered, in the full light of the solitary moonbeam which shot in at the western casement. She had thrown aside her hat and coat, and never in all my life had I seen anything so ethereal as the worn face and wasted form she thus disclosed. Had it not been for the haunting and pathetic smile which by some freak of fate gave poignancy to her otherwise infantile beauty, I should not have known the woman who stood there with my name formed on her lips.
"Destroyed!" was my thought; and the rage which I felt that moment against fate flushed my whole being, and my arms went up, not in threat against her, but to an avenging Heaven, when I heard an impetuous rush, an angry growl, and the delicate, trembling figure went down under the leap of the monstrous animal which I had taught to love me, but could never teach to love her.
In horror and unspeakable anguish of soul I called off the dog; and, stooping with bitter cries, I took her in my arms.
"Hurt?" I gasped. "Hurt, Aline?" I looked at her anxiously.
"No," she whispered, "happy." And before I realized my own feelings or the passion with which I drew her to my breast, she had nestled her head against my heart, smiled and died.
The shock of the dog's onslaught had killed her.
I would not believe it at first, but when I was quite sure, I took out the pistol I carried in my breast and shot the cowering brute midway between the eyes.
When this was done, I turned back to her. There was no light but the moon, and I needed no other. The clear beams falling on her face made her look pure and stainless and sweet. I could almost have loved her again as I marked the tender smile which lingered from that passing moment on her lips. "Happy," she had said. What did she mean by that "Happy"? As I asked myself I heard a cry. The companion who had been with her had rushed in at the doorway, and was gazing in sorrow and amazement at the white form lying outstretched and senseless against that farther wall.
"Oh," she cried, in a tone that assured me she had not seen the dog lying in his blood at my back; "dead already? dead at the first glance? at the first word? Ah, she knew better than I, poor lamb. I thought she would get well if she once got home. She wearied so for you, sir, and for Homewood!"
I thought myself quite mad; past understanding aright the words addressed to me.
"She wearied--" I began.
"With all her soul for you and Homewood," the young woman repeated. "That is, since her illness developed."
"Her illness?"
"Yes, she has been ill ever since she went away. The cold of that first journey was too much for her. But she kept up for several weeks--doing what no other woman ever did before with so little strength and so little hope. Danced at night and--"
"And--and--what by day, what?" I could hardly get the words out of my mouth.
"Studied. Learned what she thought you would like--French--music--politics. It was to have been a surprise. Poor soul! it took her very life. She did not sleep--Oh, sir, what is it?"
I was standing over her, probably a terrifying figure. Lights were playing before my eyes, strange sounds were in my ears, everything