Alice felt as people feel in dreams, when pursuit is urgent and some little obstruction entangles flight and threatens to deliver the fugitive into the hands of an implacable pursuer. A frantic pull, and a twist or two of the key in vain, and the hand of the pursuer was all but upon her. Again she sprang and scrambled across the bed, and it seemed enraged by the delay, and with a face sharpening and darkening with insanity, the murderess, guided by the sound, flung herself after her; and now, through the room and lobbies pealed shrieks of murder, as Alice flew before the outstretched hand of the beldame, who, balked of her prey, followed with reckless fury, careless now against what she struck or rushed, and clawing the air, as it seemed, within an inch of Alice’s shoulder.
Unequal as it appeared, in this small pen, the struggle to escape could not have lasted very long. The old closet door, thinly covered with paper, through which the sharp knife had glided almost without noise, was locked, and escape through it as hopeless as through the other door. Through the window she would have thrown herself, but it was fastened, and one moment’s delay would have been death. Had a weapon been in her hand, had she thought of it in this extremity of terror, her softer instincts might have been reversed, and she might have turned on her pursuer and fought, as timid creatures have done, with the ferocity of despair, for her life. But the chance that might have so transformed her did not come. Flight was her one thought, and that ended suddenly, for tripping in the upturned carpet she fell helplessly to the floor. In a moment, with a gasp, her pursuer was kneeling by her side, with her hand in her dishevelled hair, and drawing herself close for those sure strokes of the knife with which she meant to mangle her.
As the eyes of the white owl glare through the leaves on the awaking bird, and its brain swims, and its little heart bounces into a gallop, seeing its most dreadful dream accomplished, escape impossible, its last hour come—then the talons of the spectre clutch its throat, and its short harmless life is out, so might it have been with pretty Alice.
In that dreadful second of time all things that her eyes beheld looked strange, in a new reality—the room contracted, and familiar things were unlike themselves, and the certainty and nearness of that which she now knew—all her life before was but a dream to her—what an infidel, what a fool she had been—here it was, and now—death.
The helpless yell that burst from her lips, as this dreadful woman shuffled nearer on her knees, was answered by a crash from the door burst in, and a cry from a manly voice—the door flew wide, and Alice saw her husband pale as death; with a single savage blow he stretched her assailant on the floor—in another moment Alice, wild with terror, half-fainting, was in his arms.
And—did he strike her? Good God!—had he struck her! How did she lie there bleeding? For a moment a dreadful remorse was bursting at his heart—he would have kneeled—he could have killed himself. Oh, manhood! Gratitude! Charity! Could he, even in a moment of frenzy, have struck down any creature so—that had ever stood to him in the relation of that love? What a rush of remembrances, and hell of compunction was there!—and for a rival! She the reckless, forlorn, guilty old love cast off, blasted with deformity and privation, and now this last fell atrocity! Alice was clinging to him, the words “darling, darling, my Ry, my saviour, my Ry,” were in his ears, and he felt as if he hated Alice—hated her worse even than himself. He froze with horror and agony as he beheld the ineffaceable image of that white, bloodstained twitching face, with sightless eyes, and on the floor those straggling locks of changed, grizzled hair, that once were as black as a raven’s wing to which he used to compare them. Oh maddening picture of degradation and cruelty! To what had they both come at last?
But an iron necessity was upon him, and with an energy of hypocrisy, he said—“Alice, my treasure, my darling, you’re safe, aren’t you?”
“Oh, darling, yes,” she gasped.
“Not here—you mustn’t stay here—run down—she’s mad—she’s a mad woman—not here a moment.”
Half stunned and dreamy with horror, Alice glided down the stairs, passing honest Tom who was stumbling up, half awake, but quite dressed excepting his coat.
“Run, Tom, help your master, for God’s sake—there’s something dreadful,” she said as she passed him with her trembling hands raised.
“Where, ma’am, may’t be?” said Tom, pausing with a coolness that was dreadful, she thought.
“There, there, in his room, my room; go, for heaven’s sake!”
Up ran Tom, making a glorious clatter with his hobnails, and down ran Alice, and just at the foot of the stair she met Mildred Tarnley’s tall slim figure. The old woman drew to the banister, and stood still, looking darkly and shrewdly at her.
“Oh! good Mildred—oh, Mrs. Tarnley, for God’s sake don’t leave me.”
“And what’s the row, ma’am, what is it?” asked Mrs. Tarnley, with her lean arm supporting the poor trembling young lady who clung to her.
“Oh, Mrs. Tarnley, take me with you—take me out—I can’t stay in the house; take me away—into the woods—anywhere out of the house.”
“Well, well, come down, come along,” she said, more tenderly than was her wont, and watching her face hard from the corners of her eyes. She was convinced that the “old soldier” was the cause of these horrors.
“Put your arm over my shouther, ma’am; there—that’s it—an’ I’ll put mine round you, if you don’t think I’m making too bold. There now, you’re more easy, I think.”
And as they got on through the passage she asked—
“ ’Twas you that skritched, hey?”
“I? I dare say—did I?”
“Ay did ye, with a will, whoever skritched. Ye
