Her secret observer moaned as he stood erect. The fury of his soul seemed to enhance his stature. He did not speak again, but, "Oh, Isabel!
harder to strive against than all the world beside!" was the unuttered cry that wrote itself upon his tortured brow. "If your unfair winner would only hold you by fair means! Yet I too was to blame! I too was to blame, and you alone were blameless!"
Opposite his window Isabel ceased her light talk with the maid, halted, bent, and scanned something just off the firm path, in the clean wet sand.
The maid turned and flooded her with the light of the lantern just as she impulsively lifted an alarmed glance to Leonard"s window and as quickly averted it. "Go on," said the mistress. "I can walk faster if you can."
The girl quickened her steps, but had not taken a dozen when Isabel stopped again. "Wait, Minnie. Now you can run back, thank you." She reached for the lantern.
"I--I thought I was to go all the way, and--and bring the lantern back."
"No, I"ll keep the lantern; but I"ll stay here and throw the light after you till you get in. Run along."
Minnie tripped away. As she came where they had first halted, a purposely belated good-night softly overtook her; and when she looked back, Isabel, as if by inadvertency, sent the lantern"s beam into her eyes. So too much light sent the maid by the spot unenlightened.
Leonard drew aside lest the beam swing next into his window. But the precaution was wasted; the glare followed Minnie.
Isabel also followed, slowly, a few paces, and then moved obliquely into the roadway and toward the window. Only for a moment the ray swept near her unseen observer, and, lighting up the rain-packed sand close before herself, revealed a line of footprints slanting toward her from Leonard"s own gate.
As the cottage door shut Minnie in, Isabel, rea.s.sured by the brightness of the Byingtons" lower windows, stopped for a furtive instant, and holding in her hand the fellow of the slipper so lately in Ruth"s fingers, exactly fitted it to one of these footprints. Then, with the lantern on her farther side, and every vein surging with fright and shame, she made haste toward the open gateway of the Winslow house.
A short s.p.a.ce from it she recoiled with a gesture of dismay and self-repression, and her light shone full upon a man. He stepped from the garden, his form tensely lifted, his face aflame with anger.
But her small figure straightened also, and swiftly m.u.f.fling the lantern in a fold of her skirt, she exclaimed, audibly only to him, though in words clear-cut as musical notes, "Oh, Arthur Winslow, has it come to this?"
She arrested his resentful answer by the uplift of a hand, which left the lantern again uncovered. "Inside! In the house!" she softly cried, starting on. "Not here! Look!--those upper windows!--we"re in full view of them!"
Quickly she rem.u.f.fled the lantern, but not in time to hide his motion as he threw out an arm and pushed her rudely back, while he exclaimed, "In full view of them answer me one question!"
It was then that Leonard went hurriedly downstairs.
XII
THE LANTERN QUENCHED
"I will answer you nothing!" murmured Isabel, still facing her husband as she moved round into the garden driveway. "Arthur Winslow, it is you who are on trial, not I!"
"I on trial! G.o.d, listen to that!"
He sprang after her, gripped her shoulders, and hung over her, snarling, "You two-faced runaway! what have I done but suffer?"
She kept the lantern hid. "What have you done? Oh, my husband, will you hear if I tell you? You have hung the fates of all of us, living or yet to live, on one thread,--please, dear, don"t bear so heavily on me,--on one poor thread which the jar of another misstep will surely break. Oh, let us not make it! Come, Arthur,--my husband,--into the house; maybe we can yet save ourselves and our dear ones! Arthur, you"re hurting me dreadfully. If you press me down that way, you"ll force me to my knees."
Still she spoke in undertone, and still she m.u.f.fled the light, while steadily the weight of his arms increased. Suddenly he crowded her to the earth. "Arthur," she murmured, "Arthur, what are you going to do?
Don"t kill me here and now, Arthur; wait till to-morrow. I have that to pa.s.s through to-night which may end my life peaceably in bed; and if it should, then there will be no infamy on any of us,--on you or our child, living, or on me, dead; and G.o.dfrey, and Ruth, and mother, and all can be"--
"Give me that lantern!" He held her with one hand, s.n.a.t.c.hed the light from cover, and thrust it into her face. "So this is what you signal him with, is it?"
"Oh no, no! Arthur, dear, no! Before G.o.d"s throne, no!"
He lifted it as high as his arm would go, and with all his force swung it down, crashing and quenched, upon her head.
She gave a gentle sigh and rolled at his feet. Groaning with horror and fright, he lifted her in his arms and bore her to her room and bed.
There she presently opened her eyes to find him laving her face and head, moaning, covering them with kisses, and imploring her forgiveness in a thousand hysterical repet.i.tions.
"Hush, dear," she whispered. "I see how it all happened. Does anybody know? Oh, G.o.d be thanked! don"t let any one find out! It was all a misunderstanding. So many things crowded together to mislead you!"
"Oh yes, so many, many things at once, my treasure! Oh yes, yes!"
"Call Sarah, will you, dear?"
"Oh, beloved, why should I? You don"t need Sarah for anything."
"Yes, I need her. I must send her for mother--and Ruth--I promised Ruth; and you must send Giles for the doctor; my hour is come."
In the Byington house Ruth and her brother met at the foot of the stairs.
"Leonard," she whispered, "what is it? Is father ill? Leonard! Oh, what have you seen?"
"Let me pa.s.s! quick!" He would have pressed her aside, but she laid hands on him.
"What has Arthur done?" she asked. "What is he doing?"
"Ruth! Ruth! he is putting her out of his own gate!" The brother extended both hands to turn the sister from his path, but she twined her arms on his.
"Leonard! Leonard! for the love of heaven, let him do it! She has only to go to her mother; let her go! It"s the last hope. But she"d better be dead, and she"d a hundred times rather be dead, than that Leonard Byington should be her rescuer! Come in here a minute."
Slipping both hands into his she drew him into the lighted room, adding as they went, "In a few minutes I can make some errand to her and find how matters stand"--
They stumbled over a disordered rug. She fell into a chair; he sank to his knees, and with his face in her hands he moaned, "Oh, Ruth! Oh, Ruth! it"s my fault after all! I should have gone away at the beginning!"
Ruth and Arthur met face to face in the Winslow garden. "I was just coming for you," he said, excitedly.
"For Isabel?"
"Yes, her mother is with her, and"--a sound of wheels--"here"s Giles, now, off for the doctor."
The servant pa.s.sed. "Yes, I got here by the sunset express. I couldn"t stay away--with this impending."
"I didn"t see you come."
"No, of course you didn"t see me, for I didn"t go to the station, and so I didn"t pa.s.s anywhere near your house. I got off at the tank and came up the hill path."