Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/289

 "He was my enemy," he croaked in a voice I could not recognise.

"Oh, that I should have loved him!" I cried out wildly. "Why did you not put a bullet through this heart of mine?"

And then without further heed of him I continued to embrace the dead man's hand, and knelt there with it in my desperate grasp, oblivious of everything but the dreadful still passionate agony of sorrow that held me. I was conscious of nothing, not even of the slow passing of the hours, not even of the cruel biting of the cold—nay, not even that the murderer had slunk from me away into the night, that friend of murder, and that I and my lover were alone.

How long I was the victim of this impotence I cannot tell, but at last I grew aware that the dawn had touched my eyes, and that with it light and sanity had returned. Truly day is the source of reason. Had the pitch of night continued for ever, for ever I must have stayed by the couch of my cold lover. But broad day was too bright and bold and fearless to countenance for an instant the madness of grief my bereaved heart was craving to wreak upon itself. Therefore I rose, stiff and numb with my perishing wintry vigil, and turned my face towards the house. But with daylight to incite it, it was most strange how instantly my sleeping blood woke, and how soon my mind was restored to its fullest faculty. Once more could I think—yea act; whilst presently my eyes forgot the moonlight and