Death the Knight and the Lady/Chapter 5

the next day I spent in the house, most of the time in the room with Wilder. How that man depressed me. A great fire was lit in the library, and he sat over it with his hands on his knees and his eyes fixed on the burning coals; the decanter of opium was standing on the mantelpiece, a wine glass beside it, and every now and then he would pour himself out a thimbleful and sip it.

That was a pleasant sight to have to sit and watch, but I didn't much care. I sat in an armchair looking at my rings and the tips of my beautiful new shoes; it was so delightful to have all these things again; and sometimes I would look at Wilder's rounded back and his shiny old coat, thinking how funny it was that he had given me all these things.

Sometimes I spoke to him and he always answered, speaking in a dreamy sort of voice. I found out that he was a spiritualist, and all the pictures about the room were "spirit faces,"—that is what he called them, all except the picture with "Swedenborg" written on it.

Then, after dinner, at about nine o'clock, he said that he must take leave of me. He took me by the hand, and the whole time he was speaking he held it, wringing it now and then till I could almost have cried out with pain. This is what he said as well as I can remember—

"I must take leave of you now. I want you to start early in the morning for Yorkshire; you will go to my country house at Ashworth,"—a long pause, and I saw the drops of sweat stand out on his forehead. "‘The Gables,' that is the name of my house. You will change at Leeds and get on a branch line; it's only an hour's journey from Leeds."

He spoke with difficulty, and caught at his breath.

"I have telegraphed for the carriage to meet you at the station."

Another pause, then speaking like a maniac, he seized both my hands.

"I am putting in your grasp the only thing I love, I am stealing a march on Fate, boldly and desperately I commit this act, if the end is mutual love all will be right. I shall pray without ceasing till we meet again, good-bye, good-bye."

He was devouring my hands with kisses; then he rushed from the room. I was almost sure now that he was mad, those spirit faces and that opium—oh, there could scarcely be a doubt. The thought pleased me somehow, it made me less afraid of something—something, I don't exactly know what, a kind of horror had been haunting me all day, a foreboding of strange and terrible things to come. We old families have these powers of second sight, at least the north country families have. "We old families," perhaps you are laughing at those words from my mouth; well—laugh.

I went up to my bedroom, and there I found the dressing bag and the portmanteaux all standing open and waiting to be packed. I felt just like a robber as I put my silks and satins, bonnets and hats, boots and shoes, in their proper places. Then I undressed and sprang into bed. I was almost tired already of my new life, my old dreams came back to me, would I meet someone nice to-morrow? Then I thought of Wilder and his spirit faces, and his round back, and his opium decanter, and I laughed till the bed shook.

And yet I liked him, this Wilder, with his strange, weary-looking face, and his cheques and carriages and horses.

I fell asleep.