XXV
"MY WIFE MUST!"
As I drove away, I was proud of myself. I had listened to my death sentence
with a face so smiling that he must almost have believed me unconscious;
and also, it had not even entered my head, as I listened, to beg for mercy.
Not that there would have been the least use in begging; as well try to
pray a statue into life, as try to soften that set will and purpose. Still,
many a man would have weakened--and I had not weakened. But when I was
once more in my apartment--in our apartment--perhaps I did show that there
was a weak streak through me. I fought against the impulse to see her
once more that night; but I fought in vain. I knocked at the door of her
sitting-room--a timid knock, for me. No answer. I knocked again, more
loudly--then a third time, still more loudly. The door opened and she stood
there, like one of the angels that guarded the gates of Eden after the
fall. Only, instead of a flaming sword, hers was of ice. She was in a
dressing-gown or tea-gown, white and clinging and full of intoxicating
hints and glimpses of all the beauties of her figure. Her face softened as
she continued to look at me, and I entered.
"No--please don't turn on any more lights," I said, as she moved toward the
electric buttons.
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