University of Virginia Library

23. CHAPTER XXIII.
A PARTING.

“Your hands were like ice, when you touched
my arm,” said Emma Denman. “You have
taken cold. Come in. I will play Hebe, and
make you a goblet of hot nectar.”

“No, I must go. Good night.”

“Mr. Byng, Robert! What has happened?”

“Do not ask me?”

“You appall me with your voice of a Rhadamanthus.
Have I offended you? Is it fatal?”

The light of a large globe in the hall fell full
upon her face as she spoke. All the eager, triumphal
look of the early evening had departed.
All the languid acquiescence was gone. Gone
was even the faintest shadow of the expression
that had turned my blood to ice. Pale horror
— yes, no less than horror — seemed suddenly
to have mastered her. Was she too now first
learning the sin and misery of sin?

She stood in the grand hall of the stately
house, a slight, elegant figure in mourning, with
the abundant drapery of her cloak falling about

her. There were no other lights except the
tempered brilliancy of the globe overhead. It
was after midnight. We were quite alone, except
that a white statue, severely robed from
head to foot, and just withdrawn in a niche,
watched our interview, as it might be the ghostly
presence of Clara Denman dead.

As Emma stood awaiting my answer, her look
of horror quieted. She seemed to me like one
who has heard her death-sentence, and is resigned.

I could not force myself to answer, and she
spoke again.

“Robert, if you have fault to find with me, do
not tell me so to-night. To-morrow, — come to-morrow!
Perhaps we may still be friends. Good
night.”

She gave me her hand. It was burning hot.
I held it in mine.

There we stood, — the chaste and ghostly statue
watching.

We could not separate. I trusted her again.
I cursed myself for my doubts.

Should I, for the chance of one brief, passing
look, sacrifice the woman whom I had maturely
concluded that I loved, who loved me, — for so
I was persuaded?

Should I stain a maiden's image in my heart
with this foul suspicion, — a suspicion I dared
not state to myself in terms?

Could I there erase from my mind all those
pleasant memories of childhood, so sweetly anew
revived, and all the riper confidences of our
friendship, and believe that this brilliant creature's
life was one monstrous lie, which she must
daily, hourly, momently, harden herself to repeat?

Could I convince myself that her fascination
was utter treachery, — that she, a grisly witch
at heart, had carefully, with fairest-seeming spell,
and lulling daily all my doubts away, entranced
me until she deemed me wholly hers?

Had I not been for the moment under the
sickly influence of that enervating music?

Had not my mind gained a permanent taint in
the debasing society I had refused to resolutely
shun? Was I not doing her foul injustice, and
visiting it unfairly and cruelly upon her, that I
had let myself be the comrade of ignoble and
sensual people, — of Densdeth, to whom no
purity was sacred?

Could she, my only intimate among women,
be responsible for the lowering of my moral tone,
so that I did not abhor, and had not been for
these late months loathing, all contact with vice?
It must be that a man who loves a pure and elevating
woman will no more palter with evil. He
is abashed by her whiteness of soul. He will not
carry into her presence the recent taint of staining
associates. He will strive to breathe no other

but that sweet serenity of atmosphere where she
dwells, and so refresh and recreate his holier
being.

Ah, these bitter doubts! They did in my sinking
heart justify themselves.

And so, as I could not speak the tender, trustful,
joyful lover words, nor any words but sad
reproaches and questions of distrust, I stood
there, silent, holding fast her hand.

Then, in the silence, the terrible thought overcame
me, that if by any syllable or gesture, or
even by the dismay of an involuntary look, I
should convey my suspicions to Emma Denman,
there would be another tragedy in that ill-omened
house, another despair, another mystery, — no
mystery to me, — and all the sickening horror of
a death.

“Good-night,” said Emma again.

But still she did not withdraw her hand.

We did not hold each other with the close
grasp of earnest, confident friendship, nor with
that strong pressure of love which seems to strive
to make the two beings one life. It was a nerveless,
lifeless clutch. Her burning hand had
grown icy cold in mine. She held me feebly, as
a drowning woman might wearily, and every
weary moment still more wearily, cling to the
fainting shoulder of a drowning man, as the great
solemn waves fell on him, one by one.

A dreary moment.

It tore something from my earthly life that
never can return. My youth faded away from
me, as we stood there miserably. My youth
shrank and withered, never to revive again and
be the same bright youth, whatever warmth of
after sunshine came. The blight of sin was upon
me. The sense of an unknown horror of sin
grew about me, and I became a coward for the
moment, — a coward, smitten down by the dread
that for me, forever, faith was utterly dead, and
so my heart would be imbittered into a vague
and fiendish vengeance for its loss.

“Robert,” said she, at last, “you will not
speak. You are murdering me with this ominous
silence. How have you learned all at once
to hate me?”

“Hate you?”

“Worse then! Do you distrust me?”

“Why should I? We will not speak of this
now. That music has taken all the manliness
out of me, — that, or some power as subtle. I
will see you to-morrow. By broad daylight, all
the ugly fancies that beset me now will vanish.”

“Yes,” she said, more drearily than ever;
“fancies fade with sunshine; facts grow more
fatally prominent. Good night.”

She withdrew her hand.

She moved wearily and sadly away, — a slight,

graceful figure in mourning, draped with the
heavy folds of a cloak.

Half-way up the stairs she paused and turned,
grasping the massive dark rail with both her
white hands. Light from the floor above threw
her face and form into magical relief, hardly less
a statue than that marble figure watching us.

“Good-bye,” she said, in a tone mournful as a
last adieu.

“Good night,” I answered; and so we parted.

I walked hastily home to Chrysalis. It was a
raw March night, with a cold storm threatening,
and uttering its threats in melancholy blasts and
dashes of sleet.

How chilly, lonely, ghostly it looked in the
marble-paved corridors of Chrysalis! I opened
the great door in front with my pass-key. The
wind banged it after me with a loud clap. But
no closed door could repel the urgent chase of
that night's cruel thoughts.

I was wretchedly timorous and superstitious
after these excitements. As I passed the padlocked
door of Densdeth's dark room, next to
mine, I fancied him lurking within, and leering
triumphantly at me through the key-hole. And
then in the sound of the storm, sighing along
the halls and staircases, and shaking the narrow
windows, I seemed to hear that mocking laugh
of Densdeth's, — that hard, exulting laugh of

his, — that expressive laugh, — saying, with all
the cruelty of scorn, and proclaiming to the scoffing
legions who love the fall of noble souls, —
“Here, at last! here is another who trusted
and is deceived. Now his illusions are over.
He will join us frankly, and share our jolly joys.
Welcome, Robert Byng, to a new experiment
of life! Come; you shall have revenge! You
shall spoil the happiness of others, as your own
is spoilt. We offer you the delicious honey of
revenge. Sweet it is! ah, yes! the sweetest
thing! You shall be one of us, — a tempter.
Come!”

Such sounds seemed to me to issue from that
dark room of Densdeth's, to clothe themselves
with those tones of his, which I had heard to-night
echoed by the lips of the woman I longed
to love, and to pervade the building, like a batwinged
flight of fiendish presences, claiming me
as their comrade, whether I would or no.

I entered my great, dusky chamber. The fire
had gone out; it was chilly and dark within. In
the faint light from the street lamp, streaming
through the narrow mullioned windows, the ancient
furniture, carved with odd devices of griffins,
looked grotesque and weird. All the pictures,
statues, reliefs, and casts in the room
stared at me strangely. Was I suddenly another
man than the undejected person who had lived

so many weeks under their inspection? The
portrait of Stillfleet's mother, a large, dignified
woman, gazed kindly and pityingly upon me, with
a mother's look, as I lighted the gas.

On the table Locksley had deposited a parcel
addressed to me. I unwrapped it. It was the
frame I had ordered for my present, Cecil
Dreeme's sketch.

I put it in the frame, and examined it again.
Only a sketch; but very masterly, full of color,
full of expression, full of sweet refinement not
diminishing its power.

“If it were not for Dreeme,” I said aloud, “I
should despair. Him I trust. Him I love with
a love passing the love of women. If I should
lose him, if he should abandon me, I might be
ready to take the world as Densdeth wishes.
What can a soul do without one near and comrade
soul to love and trust?”

Then the mocking wind through the corridors,
and all along the wintry streets without, answered
me with new scoffs of the same derisive laughter.

I lifted my eyes from the picture. That ancient
tapestry caught my eye, where Raleigh had found
Densdeth in the demon. That malignant face
— Densdeth's, and no other — was looking at me
with a meaning smile.

I tore down the tapestry, and slunk to bed.
The blessing sleep, foreshadower of that larger

blessing death, fell upon me. Sleep, the death
after the brief cycle of a day, received me tenderly,
and restored me, that I might be man
enough to bear the keener pangs and sterner
griefs of the morrow.