Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/328

 offer you: and this is a house of ill-omen. You do well not to stop in it.'

'Good-bye, then,' said Jill. 'I'm sorry—I wish—'

She paused. She did not know what she wished; nothing that she could say to Madame de Lamouderie.—That she and Dick had gone away when they came to the Manoir a bare month ago, perhaps. He had been afraid. He had wanted to go. Poor Dick. She looked about the dusky room where Dick had first seen his fear, and when her eyes came back to Madame de Lamouderie's they found hers fixed upon her. The pity with which she had first seen her this afternoon smote upon her once again.

'How dark it is in here,' she said. 'Can I do anything for you? Light anything before I go?'

'No,' said Madame de Lamouderie. 'You can do nothing. I prefer to sit in darkness. Only—give me your hand.'

Jill, mastering the repulsion that mingled horribly with her pity, stretched out her hand to her, and the old lady, putting both of hers upon it, held it closely, looking up at her with a devouring gaze. 'It is you I have loved,' she said in a hoarse whisper. 'You only. Not your husband. That was an old woman's caprice. A trick, such as our wretched senses may still play on us at eighty. You are worth ten of him. It is you I love. Do you understand?'

Jill, sickening, tried to draw away her hand, but, holding it fiercely now, Madame de Lamouderie staggered to her feet. 'It was all for you. All! All!