Pausing in her rapid walk, as if
arrested by the change that seemed to strike her suddenly, she recalled
her thoughts from the dominant idea of her life and, remembering the
youth she was robbing of its innocent delights, answered the wistful
look which betrayed the hunger of a heart she had never truly fed, as
she knelt beside her husband and, laying her soft cheek to his,
whispered in her tenderest accents, "I am not wholly selfish or
ungrateful, Manuel. You shall rest now while I sing to you, and tomorrow
we will go away among the hills and leave behind us for a time the dark
temptation which harms you through me."
"No! Finish what you have begun. I will have all or nothing, for if we
pause now you will bring me a divided mind, and I shall possess only the
shadow of a wife. Take Gilbert and Babie with us, and end this devil's
work without delay. Hark! What is that?"
Steps came flying down the long hall, a hand tried the lock, then beat
impetuously upon the door, and a low voice whispered with shrill
importunity, "Let me in! Oh, let me in!"
Manuel obeyed the urgent summons, and Mrs. Redmond, half dressed, with
streaming hair and terror-stricken face, fled into Pauline's arms,
crying incoherently, "Save me! Keep me! I never can go back to him; he
said I was a burden and a curse, and wished I never had been born!"
"What has happened, Babie? We are your friends.
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