第132章

But to stand here, with that creature behind me, listening, waiting for the warm horror of its breath to touch my neck! Ah! I cannot.

I will look.I will see it face to face.Better any agony than this one.

Slowly, with held breath, and eyes aching in their stretched fixity, I turn.There it is! Clear in the moonlight I see the monstrous form within the bed,--the dark coverlet rises and falls with its heaving breath....Ah! heaven have mercy! Is there none to help, none to save me from this awful presence?...

And the knife-hilt draws my fingers round it, while my flesh quivers, and my soul grows sick with loathing.The wind howls, the shadows chase through the room, hunting with fearful darkness more fearful light; and I stand looking,...listening....

......

I must not stand here for ever; I must be up and doing.What a noise the wind makes, and the rattling of the windows and the doors.If he sleeps through this he will sleep through all.

Noiselessly my bare feet tread the carpet as I approach the bed;noiselessly my left arm raises the heavy curtain.What does it hide? Do I not know? The bestial features, half-hidden in coarse, black growth; the muddy, blotched skin, oozing foulness at every pore.Oh, I know them too well! What a monster it is! How the rank breath gurgles through his throat in his drunken sleep.The eyes are closed now, but I know them too; their odious leer, and the venomous hatred with which they can glare at me from their bloodshot setting.But the time has come at last.Never again shall their passion insult me, or their fury degrade me in slavish terror.There he lies; there at my mercy, the man who for fifteen years has made God's light a shame to me, and His darkness a terror.The end has come at last,--the only end possible, the only end left me.On his head be the blood and the crime! God almighty, I am not guilty! The end has come; I can bear my burden no farther.

"Beareth all things, endureth all things."Where have I heard those words? They are in the Bible; the precept of charity.What has that to do with me? Nothing.I heard the words in my dreams somewhere.A white-faced man said them, a white-faced man with pure eyes.To me?--no, no, not to me; to a girl it was--an ignorant, innocent girl, and she accepted them as an eternal, unqualified law.Let her bear but half that I have borne, let her endure but one-tenth of what I have endured, and then if she dare let her speak in judgment against me.

Softly now; I must draw the heavy coverings away, and bare his breast to the stroke,--the stroke that shall free me.I know well where to plant it; I have learned that from the old lady's Italian.

Did he guess why I questioned him so closely of the surest, straightest road to a man's heart? No matter, he cannot hinder me now.Gently! Ah! I have disturbed him.He moves, mutters in his sleep, throws out his arm.Down; down; crouching behind the curtain.Heavens! if he wakes and sees me, he will kill me.No!

alas! if only he would.I would kiss the hand that he struck me with; but he is too cruel for that.He will imagine some new and more hellish torture to punish me with.But the knife! I have got that; he shall never touch me living again....He is quieter now.I hear his breath, hoarse and heavy as a wild beast's panting.He draws it more evenly, more deeply.The danger is past.Thank God!

God! What have I to do with Him? A God of Judgment.Ha, ha!

Hell cannot frighten me; it will not be worse than earth.Only he will be there too.Not with him, not with him,--send me to the lowest circle of torment, but not with him.There, his breast is bare now.Is the knife sharp? Yes; and the blade is strong enough.Now let me strike--myself afterwards if need be, but him first.Is it the devil that prompts me? Then the devil is my friend, and the friend of the world.No.God is a God of love.

He cannot wish such a man to live.He made him, but the devil spoilt him; and let the devil have his handiwork back again.It has served him long enough here; and its last service shall be to make me a murderess.

How the moonlight gleams from the blade as my arm swings up and back: with how close a grasp the rough hilt draws my fingers round it.Now.

A murderess?

Wait a moment.A moment may make me free; a moment may make me--that!

Wait.

Hand and dagger droop again.His life has dragged its slime over my soul; shall his death poison it with a fouler corruption still?

"My own soul's warden."

What was that? Dream memories again.

"Resist, strive, endure."

Easy words.What do they mean for me? To creep back now to bed by his side, and to begin living again to-morrow the life which I have lived to-day? No, no; I cannot do it.Heaven cannot ask it of me.

And there is no other way.That or this; this or that.Which shall it be? Ah! I have striven, God knows.I have endured so long that I hoped even to do so to the end.But to-day! Oh! the torment and the outrage: body and soul still bear the stain of it.

I thought that my heart and my pride were dead together, but he has stung them again into aching, shameful life.Yesterday I might have spared him, to save my own cold soul from sin; but now it is cold no longer.It burns, it burns and the fire must be slaked.

Ay, I will kill him, and have done with it.Why should I pause any longer? The knife drags my hand back for the stroke.Only the dream surrounds me; the pure man's face is there, white, beseeching, and God's voice rings in my heart--"To him that overcometh."

But I cannot overcome.Evil has governed my life, and evil is stronger than I am.What shall I do? what shall I do? God, if Thou art stronger than evil, fight for me.

"The victory of the Cross is ours."

Yes, I know it.It is true, it is true.But the knife? I cannot loose the knife if I would.How to wrench it from my own hold?

Thou God of Victory be with me! Christ help me!

I seize the blade with my left hand; the two-edged steel slides through my grasp; a sharp pain in fingers and palm; and then--nothing....

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VI