The night was a winter’s night—long and dark. Stapylton sat down in his solitary room, and tried to think. He would let her alone, was his first thought; he would leave her at peace. No doubt she had gone away to the baby who was her idol. She must have told him a lie when she said it was gone. But he would leave her to herself: he had plenty to think of, Heaven knew. ‘It was not I that killed him,’ he said to himself, as he had said a thousand times before. Oh, the intolerable night! so silent, so full of horrible suggestions; and that aching void into which all in a moment any horror might spring. He took up his candle, in his misery, and went wandering all over the house, trying every door. He went to the door of the room in which the servants had locked themselves, and heard them rustling in their beds, and whispering to each other in their panic; and he went to another door from which came no sound—‘Isabel, Isabel, come back to me!’ he said, and a sigh seemed to breathe through the house, but no answer came. He wanted her not so much to return to him and resume the common life, as to come and protect him at that awful moment, to keep spirits and appearances away from him. He had hours of darkness to get through, and how was he to live through them by himself? It was this panic that made him try the doors; but it sent a deeper panic into the hearts of the three women who listened to his movements in the silence. Isabel, alone in the room where her child had been, believed in her heart that he had come to kill her, as he said, and wound herself up in her misery to bear whatever she might be compelled to bear; and yet trembled and wept, in a stillness as of death.
For seven or eight awful hours of darkness this torture continued. No one closed an eye in the agitated house; and yet, save when Stapylton went or came, a horrible silence reigned in it, unbroken by any complaint or appeal for help. It was not daylight at last which aroused her from that century-long vigil—daylight did not come till about eight o’clock, when the morning was far advanced. It was the first sound of early life outside,{304} which came like a voice from Heaven to Isabel. When she heard it she rose up softly from the cramped position she had maintained all night, thrust up into the corner, and very quietly, with trembling hands and heart, utterly unnerved by the horrors of the night, prepared to make her escape. She could bear it no longer. She had faced the man who had threatened to kill her, with dauntless resolution, on the previous night, feeling almost that such a conclusion would be as desirable as any other. But the night had taken away all her courage and force. She trembled like a leaf and could not command herself. Before her, like a vision of Heaven, appeared that little room at the Glebe, where her child no doubt was sleeping. If she could but reach that palace of peace! Stealthily, that no sound might betray her, she bathed her hot forehead, and put up her hair, and drew her cloak round her. It was more difficult to open the door without noise, and steal down the stairs, which creaked under her, soft as her steps were. When she stepped out at last into the darkness, which was no longer night but morning, and felt the chill air on her face, and heard behind her sounds of the early world beginning to stir, a certain excitement of hope rose in Isabel’s mind. She thought she had escaped.
But her husband had heard her movements, soft as they were. He was fully dressed as he had been on the previous evening, and, like her, feverish with passion and want of sleep. He took out a pistol from the box in which it reposed beside his desk. The pistol was old-fashioned as well as the desk, and he had been in the habit of calling the weapons curiosities. He charged it hurriedly in the dark, not knowing what he did, and put it in the breast-pocket of his coat, and rushed out after his wife into the rain and wind.
She was half way up the lower slope towards the Loch Diarmid road, when she heard his step behind her, and felt, with a sudden leap of all her pulses, that not yet—not yet, had she escaped her fate. It was no surprise to her when he came up and laid his hand on her shoulder: the first far-off sound of his step had made it evident to her that there was still a struggle to come.
‘You are flying from me,’ he said to her, breathless. ‘Do you think I will let you escape from me like this without another word?’
‘I was not thinking of escape,’ said Isabel, faltering. ‘I could not bear it longer. I could not bear it. That was all.’
‘And yet you think I am to bear it,’ he said, making a clutch at her arm. ‘False accusations and abuse and{305} scorn, and desertion, and all your hard words and contempt of me. You think I am to bear it all!’
‘Alas!’ she said, ‘when did I ever show contempt of you? But, oh! let me go. What can we do but weary each other with vain words? If we had quarrelled we might talk and talk and mend it. But that which is between us is beyond help. Let me go.’
‘No, by God!’ he cried, holding her fast, ‘after the price I have paid for you. No! What is to hinder me from killing you as you say I did—him? I will not be left alone to think. You shall stay with me and share with me, or by God, I will make an end of you!’
Isabel felt that her last hour was come. It was so dark that she could with difficulty see his face. There was silence and blackness round them—not a human creature from whom to ask help—and if there had been a thousand, she would have asked help from none.
‘It must be as you will,’ she said, with the sudden calm of despair—‘as you will!’ and waited, wondering, would it be a knife or a bullet, or the more horrible agony of his hands and blows—his hands, which had embraced her so often—at her throat? She closed her eyes instinctively, as if the darkness was not enough, and stood waiting, waiting for the touch of the death, which was so near.
‘And you have not a word to say for yourself,’ he said, his breath burning her cheek. ‘Not a word? Have you nothing to offer me for your life?’
The bitterness of death was upon her; his grasp upon her shoulder was like iron. ‘Let it be quick!’ she said, with a shudder. ‘Maybe it’s best so—maybe it’s best.’
‘And that is all?’
‘Oh! do it and be done,’ she cried, falling at his feet, ‘or leave me living for your own sake—for your sake. Is my life worth struggling for now? but for yourself let me be——’
‘Is that all?’ he said again. And then drew something from his breast, and a cold mouth of iron touched Isabel’s cheek. An involuntary cry burst from her by instinct. Now it had come. Suddenly she heard a report, and started aside from the sudden flash in the darkness, and fell back, but not wounded. She had been so sure of death that her safety threw her into a convulsive fit of horror and fear; there was an awful moment in which she could not tell what had happened, if it was her who was killed or anyone. Then there was a movement, a swing of his arm—his dark shadow was still standing beside her—and the pistol was thrown high ever her head, and went dashing down over the rocks,{306} into the black invisible Loch, which raged and beat upon the unseen shore.
‘Isabel,’ he said, ‘give me a kiss before we part.’
Oh, awful darkness that enclosed them round and round! Oh, awful nearness and separation! Her heart melted and sunk within her at that last prayer.
‘Oh, Horace, let me die!’
She would have fallen, but for his arms round her; but even at that supreme moment he did not know why she would rather have died than have been thus enveloped for the last time in his embrace. The melting of her heart, the old love rising up within her like a giant, the struggle of faithful nature which could die, but could not forsake and abandon, wrung Isabel’s whole being, body and soul. But not his; he kissed her, and he let her go. He stood for a moment in the darkness before her, and then he turned and went away.
It was all over. She called after him faintly, ‘Horace!’ in a voice swallowed by the wind, and sank down on the cold ground, prostrate, covering her face with her hands. She could hear his steps going down the hill and count them, each echoing on her heart. It was all over. Death, and danger, and love, and strife, and happiness, had all departed from her.
It was nearly noon before Isabel, stumbling at every step, reached the Glebe Cottage, the aim she had been vaguely struggling to—was it for hours or days? She went in with her haggard face, so changed and drawn with suffering, that Jean gave a cry of terror, and did not know her. She had not even a smile for her child, nor any interest in her. ‘Let me rest! Let me rest!’ was all she could say. Jean put the baby down on the carpet in the parlour, and gave all her care to the young mother thus come back to her for pity and consolation. ‘Ye’ve been caught in the storm, my lamb!’ she said, tenderly. But Isabel gave no explanation. She suffered herself to be undressed and laid in her own room—the little chamber she had occupied for the greater part of her life. Nothing but a murmur of thanks, or a sudden shudder, or a sigh, came from her as her stepmother tended and caressed her. When Jean questioned her, she shook her head and made no answer. The good woman was driven to her wits’ end. To her limited perceptions it was apparent that there had been a quarrel between the husband and wife about little Margaret; that Isabel, after leaving her child in safety the previous night, had come back again to see her, and had been caught in the storm, and that at ‘any moment’ Stapylton himself might appear to claim the runaway. ‘He never could think she would take it to heart like this,’ Jean said{307} to herself. But the strangest thing was, that Isabel took no notice of the baby after suffering so much for her. When Jean could bear the mystery and responsibility no longer, she sent a mysterious message to Miss Catherine: ‘My mother says, if you ever cared for our Isabel, you’re to come now, and lose no time,’ said little Mary, who was the messenger and in whose hands the mystery lost none of its power. ‘Lord bless me, is your mother mad?’ was Miss Catherine’s forcibly reply. But notwithstanding, she made haste to get her great waterproof cloak and her umbrella, and set out as soon as there was a pause in the rain to ascertain what grounds there might be for so strange an appeal.
‘There is nae love lost between him and me,’ Jean explained, when Miss Catherine had been introduced into Isabel’s room, and had looked horror-stricken at the change in her face, without, so far as they could see, being recognised by the sufferer. ‘But I couldna bear to expose the family; what am I to say to the doctor, if I send for him? When a woman is as ill as that, she should be in her ain house.’
‘Say!’ said Miss Catherine. ‘It may be life or death—let him see her first, and tell us what is to be done, and then we will t............