He lifted on an elbow and repeated in a voice which
must have sounded strange enough to the listener beyond the door. "Yes!"
he said. "Yes!"
"Go away!" he cried of a sudden, making a wide, dim, imperious gesture
in the dark.
"No, no," the imploring whisper crept in. "You're making yourself
sick--Christopher--all over nothing--nothing in the world. It's so
foolish--so foolish--foolish! Oh, if I could only tell you,
Christopher--if I could tell you--"
"Tell me _what_?" He shuddered with the ecstasy of his own irony. "Who
that man is? That 'caretaker'? What he's doing here? What _you're_ doing
here?--" He began to scream in a high, brittle voice: "_Go away from
that door! Go away!_"
This time she obeyed. He heard her retreating, soft-footed and
frightened, along the hall. She was abandoning him--without so much as
trying the door, just once again, to see if it were still bolted against
her.
She did not care. She was sneaking off--down the stairs--Oh, yes, he
knew where.
His lips began to twitch again and his finger nails scratched on the
bedclothes. If only he had something, some weapon, an axe, a broad,
keen, glittering axe! He would show them! He was strong, incredibly
strong! Five men could not have turned him back from what he was going
to do--if only he had something.
His hand, creeping, groping, closed on the neck of the 'cello leaning by
the bed. He laughed.
Oh, yes, he would stop her from going down there; he would hold her,
just where she was on the dark stair nerveless, breathless, as long as
he liked, if he liked he would bring her back, cringing, begging.
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