Witness to the Deed Part 50

He tried to take her hand again, but she recoiled from him so suddenly that her little hood fell back, and, dim though the staircase landing was, he could see the bright little face before him convulsed with anger, and that her eyes literally flashed.

"Edie!" he whispered, "how can you be so foolish! I tell you I will answer for Myra's safety there with my life if you like."

"Myra!" she said in an angry whisper; "do you think I was considering her? I--oh, it is too much. How could I be so mad and stupid as to--as to--come!"

Guest gazed at her wonderingly. At first he merely attributed her actions to her anxiety on her cousin's behalf, but her words contradicted that; and, utterly astounded, he stammered out:

"Edie--speak to me--have I offended you? What have I done?"

"Oh, nothing. It is I who have been foolish," she said hysterically.

"Girls are so silly sometimes."

"Then there is something," he said eagerly. "I have offended you.

Edie, dear, pray tell me."

He took hold of her unwilling hand and, in spite of her effort, drew it through his arm, and led her toward the short pa.s.sage in which Brettison's door was placed.

"You don't answer me," he whispered as they reached the spot where she and her cousin had waited only a short time before, and his love for her speaking now warmly in the tone of his voice. "Edie, dearest, I would suffer anything sooner than give you pain. Forgive me if I have done anything; forgive me, too, for speaking out so plainly at a time like this, but I do love you, darling, indeed--indeed."

As he spoke he raised her hand pa.s.sionately, and yet reverently, to his lips, and the next moment he would have pressed it warmly, but the kiss was upon vacancy, for the hand was sharply s.n.a.t.c.hed away.

"It is all false!" cried Edie in a low, angry voice. "I do not believe a word."

"Edie!" he whispered reproachfully.

"Do you think I am blind? Do you think because I am so young that I am a child?"

"I--I don't know what you mean," he faltered, utterly taken aback by the silent vehemence of the pa.s.sion displayed by the quivering little lady before him.

"It is not true. You are deceiving me. You, too, whom I did think honest and true. But you are all alike, and I _was_ mad to come--no, I was not, for I'm very glad I did, if it was only to learn that you are as full of duplicity as your friend."

"Am I? Well, I suppose so, Edie, if you think so," he said dismally.

"But we came here to try and get out of a fog--I've got farther in. I didn't know I was such a bad one, though, and you might be fair to me and explain. Come," he cried, changing his manner, and speaking out in a frank, manly way, "this is not like you, little woman. If it's to tease me and keep me at a distance because we are alone here in the dark it is not needed, Edie, for G.o.d knows that if a man ever loved a woman, I do you."

"What!" she cried; "and act toward Myra as I saw just now?"

"Toward Myra?"

"Yes; I know she's a hundred times nicer than I am, but I did think--I did think--O Percy, how could you kiss her hand like that?"

He caught her to his breast as she broke down into a fit of sobbing, and held her there.

"O Edie," he said, "you silly, blind little thing! Why, I never even thought--oh, but go on--go on," he whispered; "I am so glad--jealous of me like that! Then you do love me dearly, and you can't deny it now."

Edie made little effort to escape from the close encircling arms which held her tightly, fluttering like a bird; none to deny Guest's charge.

It was very lonely and dark upon that staircase, and in another moment she would have been shrinking from her companion's kisses; but, moved by the same impulse, they sprang apart, for from Stratton's room a wild, appealing cry broke the silence of the echoing stairs.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

A WOMAN WOOS--IN VAIN.

"No, no, don't come with me," whispered Guest as he sprang toward Stratton's room, but Edie paid no heed to his words, and was close behind him as he pa.s.sed through first one and then the other door, drawing back, though, the next moment to close them both.

A few minutes before when Myra had performed the same action she had stood gazing before her at the figure seated at the table; and the att.i.tude of dejection, the abject misery and despair it conveyed to her mind, swept away all compunction. Every thought of her visit being unmaidenly, and opposed to her duty toward herself and those who loved her, was forgotten. Her hands were involuntarily raised toward him, and she stood there with her lips apart, her head thrown back, and her eyes half-closed and swimming with tenderness as her very being seemed to breathe out the one word--"Come!"

But Stratton might have been dead for all the change that took place by that dimly lit table. He did not stir; and at last, seeing that he must be suffering terribly, and, taking the thought closely to her breast that it was for her sake, she moved forward slowly, almost gliding to the back of his chair, to stand there looking down yearningly upon him till her bosom heaved with a long, deep sigh, and raising her hands toward him once more she laid them tenderly upon his head.

"Malcolm!"

The effect of that touch was electric. With one bound Stratton leapt from his chair toward the fireplace, and there stood at bay, as it were, before the door of the closet, gazing at her wildly for a few moments, as if at some unreal thing. Then his hands went to his brow, and the intensity of his gaze increased till, as she took one step toward him with extended arms, the wild look in his haggard face changed to one of intense joy.

"Myra!" he cried, and the next moment he had clasped her in his arms.

For the moment it was a different man from the wretched being who had crept back to his rooms heartsick and despairing, while, after shrinking from him with the reserve begotten of the doubt and misery which had been her portion for so long past, the warm clasp of his arms, the tender, pa.s.sionate words he uttered, and the loving caresses of his hands as he drew her face closer and closer to his swept away all memories of his lapse, and of the world and its ways. He had held her to his throbbing breast--he, the man to whom her heart had first expanded two years before--and she knew no more, thought no more of anything but the supreme joy that he loved her dearly still.

Brief pleasure. She saw his eyes gazing pa.s.sionately into hers, full of the newly found delight, and then they contracted, his brow grew rugged, and, with a hoa.r.s.e sigh, he shrank from her embrace, looked wildly round, and then, with a shudder, whispered:

"You here--here! Here? It is you?--it is no dream; but why--why have you come? It is too horrible."

"Malcolm!" she cried piteously.

"Don't--don't speak to me--don't look at me with those appealing eyes.

I cannot bear it. Pray--pray go."

"Go?" she said, raising her hand to his arm, "when I have at all costs come to you like this!"

"Yes, yes, go--at once," he cried, and he shrank from her as if in horror.

"Malcolm--dearest!" she moaned; "you shrink from me. What have I done?"

He was silent in the terrible struggle going on within his breast.

"You do not speak," she whispered, as if in dread that her words should reach the ears of those without. "You cannot be so cruel as to cast me off for the past. I did not know then, dear--I was a mere girl--I accepted him heart-whole. It was my father's and his wish; do not blame me for that."

He turned from her as if to avoid her eyes, and her voice grew more piteous as she crept close to him and stood with her hand raised to lay it upon his arm, but dreading to touch him again after his cold rebuff.

"I tell you, dear, I did not know then--I believed you cared for Edie."

"I? Never!" he cried, turning to her for the moment. "Why do you revive all that?"

"Because you are so cruel to me--so cold, Malcolm, I must speak now.

You have made me reckless--ready to brave the whole world's contempt, my father's anger, for the sake of him who first taught me what it was to love. I tell you I must speak now, and I come to you humble and suppliant--the woman you would have made your wife. It was too cruel, but I forgive you, dear. Let all that be as if it had never happened."

He groaned, and covered his face with his hands.

"Speak to me, dearest," she murmured; and, emboldened by his sorrowful manner, she clasped one of his arms with both her hands, and laid her cheek against it as she spoke. "Speak to me and tell me, too, that you forgive me all that sad time of my life. I tell you again I never loved him. Our marriage was the merest form, and I came back from the church wishing that my last hour had come. I know now; you need not tell me, dear--you shrank from me at the last; but you did not know my heart, Malcolm--you could not see how its every pulsation was for you. I lay it bare before you now, Malcolm--husband. I claim you, dear. I cannot live on like this, my own, my own."