Possessed Part 24

He took her hand strongly in his and with all a lover's ardor and tenderness tried to comfort her. Then, rather clumsily, he showed her the automatic writing, not quite sure whether to present this as a thing that he believed in or not.

Penelope studied the large, scrawled words.

"How wonderful!" she murmured. "I remember vaguely writing something, but I had no idea what it was. My mother! It must be true! It's her handwriting. She was watching over us, dear--she is watching over us still. That ought to give us courage, oughtn't it?"

She glanced nervously at the little gilt clock that was ticking quietly over the fireplace. Ten minutes to twelve!

"What is this danger, that she speaks of, Chris? What is it--that you are carrying?"

The captain's answer was partly an evasion. He really did not know what danger was referred to, unless it could be a small flask from the laboratory with a gas specimen for Dr. Owen that he had left in the other room in his coat, but this was in a little steel container and could do no harm.

"It may mean some spiritual danger, Pen, from selfishness or want of faith or--or something like that," he suggested. "I guess I am selfish and impatient--don't you think so?"

"Impatient, Chris?"

"I mean impatient for you to get well, impatient to take you far away from all these doctors and dreams, and just have you to myself. That isn't very wicked, is it, sweetheart?"

He stroked her hand fondly and looked deep into her wonderful eyes.

Penelope sighed.

"I--I suppose it will all be over soon--I mean we shall know what's going to happen, won't we?"

It was her first open reference to the peril hanging over them, and again, involuntarily, she glanced at the clock. Five minutes to twelve!

It was really twenty-five minutes past twelve!--but she did not know that.

"Darling, I don't believe anything is going to happen. Our troubles are over. You are guarded by this beautiful love--all these prayers. I've been saying prayers, myself, Pen--for both of us."

"Dear boy!"

"I want you to promise me one thing--you love me, don't you? No matter what happens, you love me?"

Her eyes glowed on him.

"Oh yes, with all my heart."

"You're going to be my wife."

"Ye--es, if--if--"

"All right, we'll put down the _ifs_. I want you to promise that if this foolish spell, or whatever it is, is broken tonight--if nothing happens at half-past twelve, and you don't have this bad dream, then you'll forget the whole miserable business and marry me tomorrow. There! Will you?"

"Oh, Chris! Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow! I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, but I believe I can cure you myself. Will you promise, Pen?"

Her eyes brimmed with tears of grat.i.tude and fondness.

"You want me--anyway?"

"Anyway."

"Then I say--yes! I will! I will! Oh my love!" She drew him slowly down to her and kissed his eyes gently, her face radiant with sweetness and purity. A moment later the chimes rang out twelve.

As the minutes pa.s.sed Christopher watched her in breathless but confident expectation. The crisis had come and she was pa.s.sing it--she had pa.s.sed it safely. They talked on fondly--five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and still there were no untoward developments, no sign of anything evil or irrational. Penelope was her own adorable self. The spell was broken. Nothing had happened.

"You see, it's all right?" he laughed. "You needn't be afraid any more."

"Wait!" she looked at the clock. "Ten minutes yet!"

He longed to tell her that they had already pa.s.sed the fatal moment, pa.s.sed it by twenty minutes, but he restrained his ardor.

"Chris, my love, if we are really to be married tomorrow--how wonderful that seems!--I must have no secrets from you. What my mother said is true--a woman must cleanse her soul. I want to tell you something--for my sake, not for yours--then we will never refer to it again."

"But, Penelope--"

"For my sake, Chris."

"It isn't about that steamboat?"

"It is, darling. I must tell it. Fix the pillows behind me. There! Sit close to me--that's right. Now listen! This dream is a repet.i.tion of what happened on the boat. It would have been much better if I had told you all about it long ago."

"Why?"

She hesitated.

"Because--it is not so much the memory of what I did that worries me, as the fear that--you will be ashamed of me or--or hate me--when you know."

Herrick saw that her cheeks were flushed, but at least her mind was occupied, he reflected, and the minutes were pa.s.sing.

"I could never be ashamed of you, Penelope."

"If I were only sure of that," she sighed, then with a great effort, and speaking low, sometimes scarcely lifting her eyes, she told her lover the story of the Fall River steamboat.

The main point was that her husband, a coa.r.s.e sensualist, whom she despised, had, during the year preceding his death, accepted a _chambre apart_ arrangement, that being the only condition on which Penelope would continue to live with him, but, on the occasion of this journey down from Newport, he had broken his promise and entered her stateroom.

"It was an oppressive night, like this," she said, "and I had left the deck door ajar, held on a hook. I was trying to sleep, when suddenly I saw a man's arm pushed in through the opening. I shall never forget my fright, as I saw that black sleeve. Do you understand what I mean?

Look!"

Gathering her draperies about her, Penelope sprang lightly out of bed and moved swiftly to the bedroom door, while Christopher, startled, followed the beauty of her sinuous form.

"His arm came through--like this," she stepped outside the bedroom, and, reaching around the edge of the door showed her exquisite bare arm within. "See? Then my husband entered slowly and--as soon as I saw his eyes," her agitation was increasing, "I knew what to expect. His face was flushed. He had been drinking. He looked at me and--then he locked the door--like this. I crouched away from him, I was frozen with terror, but--but--" she twined her hands in distress. "Oh, you'll hate me! I know you'll hate me!"

"No!"

"I tried so hard to resist him. I pleaded, I wept. I begged on my knees--like this."

"Please--please don't," murmured Christopher, as he felt the softness of her supplicating body.