"No, you are not going, you must remain." There was an occasional
nature in him, that of the vicious dog, and now it snarled. "If you
did not love me, you should not have come here," he said interposing,
getting between her and the door.
Then she entreated him to let her go. He laughed at her; then
suddenly her face flamed with a passion he was unprepared for, and
her eyes danced with strange lights. Few words were spoken, only a
few ejaculatory phrases such as "How dare you?" "Let me go!" she
said, as she strove to wrench her arms from his grasp. She caught up
one of the glasses; but before she could throw it Mike seized her
hand; he could not take it from her, and unconscious of danger (for
if the glass broke both would be cut to the bone), she clenched it
with a force that seemed impossible in one so frail. Her rage was
like wildfire. Mike grew afraid, and preferring that the glass should
be thrown than it should break in his hand, he loosed his fingers. It
smashed against the opposite wall. He hoped that Frank had not heard;
that he had left the chambers. He seized the second glass. When she
raised her arm, Mike saw and heard the shattered window falling into
the court below. He anticipated the porter's steps on the staircase
and his knock at the door, and it was with an intense relief and
triumph that he saw the bottle strike the curtain and fall harmless.
He would win yet. Lily screamed piercingly.
"No one will hear," he said, laughing hoarsely.
She escaped him and she screamed three times. And now quite like a
mad woman, she snatched a light chair and rushed to the window. Her
frail frame shook, her thin face was swollen, and she seemed to have
lost control over her eyes. If she should die! If she should go mad!
Now really terrified, Mike prayed for forgiveness. She did not
answer; she stood clenching her hands, choking.
"Sit down," he said, "drink something. You need not be afraid of me
now--do as you like, I am your servant. I will ask only one thing of
you--forgiveness. If you only knew!"
"Don't speak to me!" she gasped, "don't!"
"Forgive me, I beseech you; I love you better than all the world."
"Don't touch me! How dare you? Oh! how dare you?"
Mike watched her quivering. He saw she was sublime in her rage, and
torn with desire and regret he continued his pleadings. It was some
time before she spoke.
"And it was for this," she said, "I left my convent, and it was of
him I used to dream! Oh! how bitter is my awakening!"
She grasped one of the thin columns of the bed and her attitude
bespoke the revulsion of feeling that was passing in her soul;
beneath the heavy curtains she stood pale all over, thrown by the
shock of too coarse a reality. His perception of her innocence was a
goad to his appetite, and his despair augmented at losing her. Now,
as died the fulgurant rage that had supported her, and her normal
strength being exhausted, a sudden weakness intervened, and she
couldn't but allow Mike to lead her to a seat.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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