XVI

MUST GIVE YOU UP


Over on the Winslow side of the way, Isabel, having tarried in the
cottage to explain to her frightened mother how perfectly natural it was
that Arthur, after his tramp across the meadows, should have made a
circuit to the upper side of the old mill pool, went pensively home.
Presently, holding a lamp, she stood in the door between her room and
Arthur's, lifted the light above her head, and, shading her brows,
called his name. Hidden in the gloom, silent and motionless, he stared
for a moment on the beautiful apparition, and then moved without a sound
into the beams of the lamp, a picture of misery and desperation.

"Why in the dark?" amiably inquired the wife.

With widening eyes and spectral motions he drew near.

"In the dark?" he asked. "Why in the dark? The darkness is in me, and
all the lamps that light the world's ships into harbor could not dispel
it."

All at once he went to his knees. "Oh, my wife, my wife! save me, save
me! Hell is in my soul!"

She drew back, and with low vehemence urged him to his feet. "Up! up! My
husband shall not kneel to me!"