登陆注册
5386000000286

第286章

Mr. Bashwood had barely completed his report of what had happened at the terminus; Mr. Bashwood's imperious mistress was still sitting speechless under the shock of the discovery that had burst on her--when the door of the room opened; and, without a word of warning to proceed him, Midwinter appeared on the threshold. He took one step into the room, and mechanically pushed the door to behind him. He stood in dead silence, and confronted his wife, with a scrutiny that was terrible in its unnatural self-possession, and that enveloped her steadily in one comprehensive look from head to foot.

In dead silence on her side, she rose from her chair, In dead silence she stood erect on the hearth-rug, and faced her husband in widow's weeds. He took one step nearer to her, and stopped again. He lifted his hand, and pointed with his lean brown finger at her dress.

"What does that mean?" he asked, without losing his terrible self-possession, and without moving his outstretched hand.

At the sound of his voice, the quick rise and fall of her bosom--which had been the one outward betrayal thus far of the inner agony that tortured her--suddenly stopped. She stood impenetrably silent, breathlessly still--as if his question had struck her dead, and his pointing hand had petrified her.

He advanced one step nearer, and reiterated his words in a voice even lower and quieter than the voice in which he had spoken first.

One moment more of silence, one moment more of inaction, might have been the salvation of her. But the fatal force of her character triumphed at the crisis of her destiny, and his. White and still, and haggard and old, she met the dreadful emergency with a dreadful courage, and spoke the irrevocable words which renounced him to his face.

"Mr. Midwinter," she said, in tones unnaturally hard and unnaturally clear, "our acquaintance hardly entitles you to speak to me in that manner." Those were her words. She never lifted her eyes from the ground while she spoke them. When she had done, the last faint vestige of color in her cheeks faded out.

There was a pause. Still steadily looking at her, he set himself to fix the language she had used to him in his mind. "She calls me 'Mr. Midwinter,' " he said, slowly, in a whisper. "She speaks of 'our acquaintance.' " He waited a little and looked round the room. His wandering eyes encountered Mr. Bashwood for the first time. He saw the steward standing near the fireplace, trembling, and watching him.

"I once did you a service," he said; "and you once told me you were not an ungrateful man. Are you grateful enough to answer me if I ask you something?"He waited a little again. Mr. Bashwood still stood trembling at the fireplace, silently watching him.

"I see you looking at me," he went on. "Is there some change in me that I am not conscious of myself? Am I seeing things that you don't see? Am I hearing words that you don't hear? Am I looking or speaking like a man out of his senses?"Again he waited, and again the silence was unbroken. His eyes began to glitter; and the savage blood that he had inherited from his mother rose dark and slow in his ashy cheeks.

"Is that woman," he asked, "the woman whom you once knew, whose name was Miss Gwilt?"Once more his wife collected her fatal courage. Once more his wife spoke her fatal words.

"You compel me to repeat," she said, "that you are presuming on our acquaintance, and that you are forgetting what is due to me."He turned upon her, with a savage suddenness which forced a cry of alarm from Mr. Bashwood's lips.

"Are you, or are you not, My Wife?" he asked, through his set teeth.

She raised her eyes to his for the first time. Her lost spirit looked at him, steadily defiant, out of the hell of its own despair.

"I am _not_ your wife," she said.

He staggered back, with his hands groping for something to hold by, like the hands of a man in the dark. He leaned heavily against the wall of the room, and looked at the woman who had slept on his bosom, and who had denied him to his face.

Mr. Bashwood stole panic-stricken to her side. "Go in there!" he whispered, trying to draw her toward the folding-doors which led into the next room. "For God's sake, be quick! He'll kill you!"She put the old man back with her hand. She looked at him with a sudden irradiation of her blank face. She answered him with lips that struggled slowly into a frightful smile.

"_Let_ him kill me," she said.

As the words passed her lips, he sprang forward from the wall, with a cry that rang through the house. The frenzy of a maddened man flashed at her from his glassy eyes, and clutched at her in his threatening hands. He came on till he was within arms-length of her--and suddenly stood still. The black flush died out of his face in the instant when he stopped. His eyelids fell, his outstretched hands wavered and sank helpless. He dropped, as the dead drop. He lay as the dead lie, in the arms of the wife who had denied him.

She knelt on the floor, and rested his head on her knee. She caught the arm of the steward hurrying to help her, with a hand that closed round it like a vise. "Go for a doctor," she said, "and keep the people of the house away till he comes." There was that in her eye, there was that in her voice, which would have warned any man living to obey her in silence. In silence Mr.

Bashwood submitted, and hurried out of the room.

同类推荐
  • 庄子翼

    庄子翼

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 佛说罗摩伽经卷上

    佛说罗摩伽经卷上

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • The Georgics

    The Georgics

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 文史通义

    文史通义

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 郁迦罗越问菩萨行经

    郁迦罗越问菩萨行经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 遇见·汪国真

    遇见·汪国真

    全书以汪国真一生为线索,以他对诗歌的狂热至成名后的众多细节故事来展现了一位诗人的成长历程。从中可见一代人的成长历程与社会的变迁。全书共用了21章的篇幅书写了他的一生,描述细腻、流畅,并巧妙地将诗作穿插全书,读来非常有味。其抒情的语言,对汪国真诗的合理引用,也是全书引人入胜之处。
  • Queen Victoria

    Queen Victoria

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 愿你给我细水长流

    愿你给我细水长流

    一个生性冷淡,一个为情而伤。两人本以为今生与爱无缘的人因联姻走到一起,是各奔东西,还是缠缠绵绵,,,几十年后,回首往事,他说,对不起,我从未给过你轰轰烈烈的爱情。她说,我只要你的细水长流。
  • 安静的下午

    安静的下午

    周六的下午,我拿到了《岁时记》。下个月的季题正是“落叶”。我还是头一次参加大多由老前辈们出席的这类句会,因此心情多少有些忐忑。朋友转交的会刊上,登的就是在上次句会上的作品。名列其中的,有著名公司的会长,学士会的会员的大名,完全是沙龙气氛的句会。十月将尽,庭院里的银杏和樱树的树叶开始飘落。寻望间,一只斑鸫飞落到窄窄的草坪。这鸟不合群,也不聒噪。它的动作尽管敏捷,但仪态却是落落大方的。据说它要是在玻璃窗边和镜子上看到自己的影子就会跑上来打斗,自从在什么书上看到这类说明以后,我就不知不觉地留心起了这鸟。
  • 最强弃兵

    最强弃兵

    【推荐大侠新书《花都绝品医神》,都市好文。】他是华夏龙组的龙少,因为一场变故成为龙组弃子流落海外,但他自强不息。他行事偏激,笃信一个真理,杀出片天地,于是他成了刽子手、恶魔、撒旦,但他不论走到哪里,都不曾忘记红旗下许下的誓言。他逆境成长,成为最强兵王,归隐都市。大侠官方书迷群:136214093
  • 暗杀时代

    暗杀时代

    狙击本文故事开始的1905年,按干支纪年为乙巳年,属蛇。新世纪的最初十年,犹如一幕大戏,至此正好演到剧半,正派反派,主角配角,尽是龙盘虎踞的一时之豪,就是那些暂时跑龙套的,台下作看客的,也都不安于一时之运命,或拿血一拼,或拿命作豪奢一赌,于那绛紫色的历史天鹅绒大幕后,演绎着幽暗曲折的传奇。是年1月,俄国发生以“流血星期日”为序幕的革命,黑海舰队战列舰“波将金”号哗变。在远东的冰天雪地中,驻守旅顺的俄军在付出上万人的伤亡代价后向日方投降。落入亚欧两个强国夹缝间的老大帝国,既要防虎,又要防狼,发愤图强当成朝野共识。
  • 天运轮回

    天运轮回

    是谁?在主导杀戮规则?是谁?在掌控这片天地?没有前世,唯有今生。一路披荆斩棘,昂首挺胸,破除一切阻碍。万丈红尘,仙、魔、妖、神,生在天地规则之下,唯有心中信念永存。够不够肆意妄为?够不够目空一切?够不够不可一世?我就是我,我就是沐天辰!
  • 人死魂还在

    人死魂还在

    年幼时,因为一次偶遇,搞的终身处于濒临死亡的状态,只要摘下那块神秘的玉佩便可以灵魂出窍。一次旅行却遇到恶鬼,让我灵魂穿越到抗日时期变成一只无用的黄鼬精,期间遇旱魃,学茅山术。回到现代因为自己茅山传人的身份,恐怖灵异的事情不断发生......只要有人就会有怨气,有怨气就会有复仇恶鬼。
  • 爱恨千年劫

    爱恨千年劫

    寻寻觅觅千百年,当来到身边时,他确逃婚了,为了解释清楚自己就是他一生寻觅的爱人,女主走遍了千山万水,经历了生死劫难,当有一天可以自由的告诉他时,他已有了新欢!男主掐着她的脖子恶狠狠的说:“你敢再对她无礼,我就废了你!”女主睁大眼睛看着自己深爱的男人,咬着自己的下唇:“我会让你付出代价的!”--情节虚构,请勿模仿
  • 极品道仙

    极品道仙

    何为仙?何为神?何又为道?仙是人,神也是人,唯有道,亘古不变……天地不仁,当由我来改命正道!一部清心经,一套太极拳,开启了穿越男精彩绝伦的七界之旅。且看他如何冲破重重艰难险阻,灭仙弑神,收获友情,守护爱情,最终成道,打造出一个波澜壮阔、辉煌灿烂的人生!