第24章 BARBARA OF THE HOUSE OF GREBE(7)

'Do you think you can get used to this?'he said.'Yes or no!Can you bear such a thing of the charnel-house near you?Judge for yourself;Barbara.Your Adonis,your matchless man,has come to this!'

The poor lady stood beside him motionless,save for the restlessness of her eyes.All her natural sentiments of affection and pity were driven clean out of her by a sort of panic;she had just the same sense of dismay and fearfulness that she would have had in the presence of an apparition.She could nohow fancy this to be her chosen one--the man she had loved;he was metamorphosed to a specimen of another species.'I do not loathe you,'she said with trembling.'But I am so horrified--so overcome!Let me recover myself.Will you sup now?And while you do so may I go to my room to--regain my old feeling for you?I will try,if I may leave you awhile?Yes,I will try!'

Without waiting for an answer from him,and keeping her gaze carefully averted,the frightened woman crept to the door and out of the room.She heard him sit down to the table,as if to begin supper though,Heaven knows,his appetite was slight enough after a reception which had confirmed his worst surmises.When Barbara had ascended the stairs and arrived in her chamber she sank down,and buried her face in the coverlet of the bed.

Thus she remained for some time.The bed-chamber was over the dining-room,and presently as she knelt Barbara heard Willowes thrust back his chair,and rise to go into the hall.In five minutes that figure would probably come up the stairs and confront her again;it,--this new and terrible form,that was not her husband's.In the loneliness of this night,with neither maid nor friend beside her,she lost all self-control,and at the first sound of his footstep on the stairs,without so much as flinging a cloak round her,she flew from the room,ran along the gallery to the back staircase,which she descended,and,unlocking the back door,let herself out.She scarcely was aware what she had done till she found herself in the greenhouse,crouching on a flower-stand.

Here she remained,her great timid eyes strained through the glass upon the garden without,and her skirts gathered up,in fear of the field-mice which sometimes came there.Every moment she dreaded to hear footsteps which she ought by law to have longed for,and a voice that should have been as music to her soul.But Edmond Willowes came not that way.The nights were getting short at this season,and soon the dawn appeared,and the first rays of the sun.

By daylight she had less fear than in the dark.She thought she could meet him,and accustom herself to the spectacle.

So the much-tried young woman unfastened the door of the hot-house,and went back by the way she had emerged a few hours ago.Her poor husband was probably in bed and asleep,his journey having been long;and she made as little noise as possible in her entry.The house was just as she had left it,and she looked about in the hall for his cloak and hat,but she could not see them;nor did she perceive the small trunk which had been all that he brought with him,his heavier baggage having been left at Southampton for the road-waggon.She summoned courage to mount the stairs;the bedroom-door was open as she had left it.She fearfully peeped round;the bed had not been pressed.Perhaps he had lain down on the dining-room sofa.She descended and entered;he was not there.On the table beside his unsoiled plate lay a note,hastily written on the leaf of a pocket-book.It was something like this:

'MY EVER-BELOVED WIFE--The effect that my forbidding appearance has produced upon you was one which I foresaw as quite possible.Ihoped against it,but foolishly so.I was aware that no HUMAN love could survive such a catastrophe.I confess I thought yours DIVINE;but,after so long an absence,there could not be left sufficient warmth to overcome the too natural first aversion.It was an experiment,and it has failed.I do not blame you;perhaps,even,it is better so.Good-bye.I leave England for one year.You will see me again at the expiration of that time,if I live.Then I will ascertain your true feeling;and,if it be against me,go away for ever.E.W.'

On recovering from her surprise,Barbara's remorse was such that she felt herself absolutely unforgiveable.She should have regarded him as an afflicted being,and not have been this slave to mere eyesight,like a child.To follow him and entreat him to return was her first thought.But on making inquiries she found that nobody had seen him:he had silently disappeared.

More than this,to undo the scene of last night was impossible.Her terror had been too plain,and he was a man unlikely to be coaxed back by her efforts to do her duty.She went and confessed to her parents all that had occurred;which,indeed,soon became known to more persons than those of her own family.