FullReads

My feet rooted themselves to the ground.

“Who’s there?” I asked.

There came no answer.

I listened for a moment, but did not hear the minutest sound. The desire for light was overpowering. I generally did my writing in this room, and knew the exact whereabouts of everything in it. I knew that on the writing-table there was a silver box containing wax matches. It lay on the left of my desk. I moved another step forward.

There was the sound of a slight rustle, as if someone shrank back as I advanced.

I laid my hand quickly on the box, opened it, and struck a light. The room was vaguely illuminated. I saw something white at the far end, against the wall. I put the match to a candle.

The white thing was Margot. She was in her dressing-gown, and was crouched up in an angle of the wall as far away from where I stood as possible. Her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed upon me with an expression of such intense and hideous fear in them that I almost cried out.

“Margot, what is the matter?” I said. “Are you ill?”

She made no reply. Her face terrified me.

“What is it, Margot?” I cried in a loud, almost harsh voice, determined to rouse her from this horrible, unnatural silence. “What are you doing here?”

I moved towards her. I stretched out my hands and seized her. As I did so, a sort of sob burst from her. Her hands were cold and trembling.

“What is it? What has frightened you?” I reiterated.

At last she spoke in a low voice.

“You–you looked so strange, so–so cruel as you came in,” she said.

“Strange! Cruel! But you could not see me. It was dark,” I answered.

“Dark!” she said.

“Yes, until I lit the candle. And you cried out when I was only in the doorway. You could not see me there.”

“Why not? What has that got to do with it?” she murmured, still trembling violently.

“You can see me in the dark?”

“Of course,” she said. “I don’t understand what you mean. Of course I can see you when you are there before my eyes.”

“But—-” I began; and then her obvious and complete surprise at my questions stopped them. I still held her hands in mine, and their extreme coldness roused me to the remembrance that she was unclothed.

“You will be ill if you stay here,” I said. “Come back to your room.”

She said nothing, and I led her back, waited while she got into bed, and then, placing the candle on the dressing-table, sat down in a chair by her side.

The strong determination to take prompt action, to come to an explanation, to end these dreary mysteries of mind and conduct, was still upon me.

I did not think of the strange hour; I did not care that the night was gliding on towards dawn. I was self-absorbed. I was beyond ordinary considerations.

Yet I did not speak immediately. I was trying to be quite calm, trying to think of the best line for me to take. So much might depend upon our mere words now. At length I said, laying my hand upon hers, which was outside the coverlet:

“Margot, what were you doing in that room at such a strange hour? Why were you there?”

She hesitated obviously. Then she answered, not looking at me:

“I missed you. I thought you might be there–writing.”

“But you were in the dark.”

“I thought you would have a light.”

I knew by her manner that she was not telling me the truth, but I went on quietly:

“If you expected me, why did you cry out when I came to the door?”

She tried to draw her hand away, but I held it fast, closing, my fingers upon it with even brutal strength.

“Why did you cry out?”

“You–you looked so strange, so cruel.”

“So cruel!”

“Yes. You frightened me–you frightened me horribly.”

She began suddenly to sob, like one completely overstrained. I lifted her up in the bed, put my arms round her, and made her lean against me. I was strangely moved.