Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 5).djvu/111



WILL have you! I will have you! I will! I will! I will!!" I can see his see his dark face now as he looked when he spoke those words. I remember noticing how pale his lips were as he hissed out through his clenched teeth: "Though I had to fight with a hundred men for you—though I had to do murder for your sake, you should be mine. In spite of your love for him, in spite of your hate for me, in spite of all your struggles, your tears, your prayers, you shall be mine, mine, only mine!"

I had known Kenneth Moore ever since I was a little child. He had made love to me nearly as long. People spoke of us as sweethearts, and Kenneth was so confident and persevering that when my mother died and I found myself without a relative, without a single friend that I really cared for, I did promise him that I would one day be his wife. But that had scarcely happened, when Phillip Rutley came to the village and—and everybody knows I fell in love with him.

It seemed like Providence that brought Phillip to me just as I had given a half-consent to marry a man I had no love for, and with whom I could never have been happy.

I had parted from Kenneth at the front gate, and he had gone off to his home crazy with delight because at last I had given way.

It was Sunday evening late in November, very dark, very cold, and very foggy. He had brought me home from church, and he kept me there at the gate pierced through and through by the frost, and half choked by the stifling river mist, holding my hand in his own and refusing to leave me until I promised to marry him.

Home was very lonely since mother died. The farm had gone quite wrong since we lost father. My near friends advised me to wed with Kenneth Moore, and all the village people looked upon it as a settled thing. It was horribly cold, too, out there at the gate—and—and that was how it came about that I consented.

I went into the house as miserable as Kenneth had gone away happy. I hated myself for having been so weak, and I hated Kenneth because I could not love him. The door was on the latch; I went in and flung it to behind me, with a petulant violence that made old Hagar, who was rheumatic and had stayed at home that evening on account of the fog, come out of the kitchen to see what was the matter.

"It's settled at last," I cried, tearing off my bonnet and shawl; "I'm to be Mrs. Kenneth Moore. Now are you satisfied?"

"It's best so—I'm sure it's much best so," exclaimed the old woman; "but, deary-dear!" she added as I burst into a fit of sobbing, "how can I be satisfied if you don't be?"

I wouldn't talk to her about it. What was the good? She'd forgotten long ago how the heart of a girl like me hungers for its true mate, and how frightful is the thought of giving oneself to a man one does not love!