The Dead Secret, Wilkie Collins [best historical biographies .TXT] 📗

she now led him up the west staircase. The library door happening to stand open, they passed through it on their way to the drawing-room, which was the larger and cooler apartment of the two. Having guided Leonard to a seat, Rosamond returned to the library, and took from the table a tray containing a bottle of water and a tumbler, which she had noticed when she passed through.

“I may feel faint as well as frightened,” she said quickly to herself, turning round with the tray in her hand to return to the drawing-room.

After she had put the water down on a table in a corner, she noiselessly locked the door leading into the library, then the door leading into the passage. Leonard, hearing her moving about, advised her to keep quiet on the sofa. She patted him gently on the cheek, and was about to make some suitable answer, when she accidentally beheld her face reflected in the looking-glass under which he was sitting. The sight of her own white cheeks and startled eyes suspended the words on her lips. She hastened away to the window, to catch any breath of air that might be wafted toward her from the sea.

The heat-mist still hid the horizon. Nearer, the oily, colorless surface of the water was just visible, heaving slowly, from time to time, in one vast monotonous wave that rolled itself out smoothly and endlessly till it was lost in the white obscurity of the mist. Close on the shore the noisy surf was hushed. No sound came from the beach except at long, wearily long intervals, when a quick thump, and a still splash, just audible and no more, announced the fall of one tiny, mimic wave upon the parching sand. On the terrace in front of the house, the changeless hum of summer insects was all that told of life and movement. Not a human figure was to be seen anywhere on the shore; no sign of a sail loomed shadowy through the heat at sea; no breath of air waved the light tendrils of the creepers that twined up the house-wall, or refreshed the drooping flowers ranged in the windows. Rosamond turned away from the outer prospect, after a moment’s weary contemplation of it. As she looked into the room again, her husband spoke to her.

“What precious thing lies hidden in this paper?” he asked, producing the letter, and smiling as he opened it. “Surely there must be something besides writing⁠—some inestimable powder, or some banknote of fabulous value⁠—wrapped up in all these folds?”

Rosamond’s heart sank within her as he opened the letter and passed his finger over the writing inside, with a mock expression of anxiety, and a light jest about sharing all treasures discovered at Porthgenna with his wife.

“I will read it to you directly, Lenny,” she said, dropping into the nearest seat, and languidly pushing her hair back from her temples. “But put it away for a few minutes now, and let us talk of anything else you like that does not remind us of the Myrtle Room. I am very capricious, am I not, to be so suddenly weary of the very subject that I have been fondest of talking about for so many weeks past? Tell me, love,” she added, rising abruptly and going to the back of his chair; “do I get worse with my whims and fancies and faults?⁠—or am I improved, since the time when we were first married?”

He tossed the letter aside carelessly on a table which was always placed by the arm of his chair, and shook his forefinger at her with a frown of comic reproof. “Oh, fie, Rosamond! are you trying to entrap me into paying you compliments?”

The light tone that he persisted in adopting seemed absolutely to terrify her. She shrank away from his chair, and sat down again at a little distance from him.

“I remember I used to offend you,” she continued, quickly and confusedly. “No, no, not to offend⁠—only to vex you a little⁠—by talking too familiarly to the servants. You might almost have fancied, at first, if you had not known me so well, that it was a habit with me because I had once been a servant myself. Suppose I had been a servant⁠—the servant who had helped to nurse you in your illnesses, the servant who led you about in your blindness more carefully than anyone else⁠—would you have thought much, then, of the difference between us? would you⁠—”

She stopped. The smile had vanished from Leonard’s face, and he had turned a little away from her. “What is the use, Rosamond, of supposing events that never could have happened?” he asked rather impatiently.

She went to the side-table, poured out some of the water she had brought from the library, and drank it eagerly; then walked to the window and plucked a few of the flowers that were placed there. She threw some of them away again the next moment; but kept the rest in her hand, thoughtfully arranging them so as to contrast their colors with the best effect. When this was done, she put them into her bosom, looked down absently at them, took them out again, and, returning to her husband, placed the little nosegay in the buttonhole of his coat.

“Something to make you look gay and bright, love⁠—as I always wish to see you,” she said, seating herself in her favorite attitude at his feet, and looking up at him sadly, with her arms resting on his knees.

“What are you thinking about, Rosamond?” he asked, after an interval of silence.

“I was wondering, Lenny, whether any woman in the world could be as fond of you as I am. I feel almost afraid that there are others who would ask nothing better than to live and die for you, as well as me. There is something in your face, in your voice, in all your ways⁠—something besides the interest of your sad, sad affliction⁠—that would draw