Another thought occurred to him. If he could reach the next room he might obtain his weapons. Armed, he would be not only a brave man, but a formidable foe. But Menotah still guarded the threshold, the deadly instrument in her hand, her eyes following his every movement.
'You cannot escape,' she murmured with low, fearful accent. There was a new expression upon her face which Marie wondered at. 'You are captured by a weak woman. You did not think to set eyes on me again. You thought I should crawl away to some quiet spot, there to sob away my life as the wounded deer. Yet I have followed your footsteps to repay you for the wounds you have inflicted upon me. The time is here now--the hour for vengeance.'
The last words fell from her lips in a frightened whisper. For the first time since that fatal night of desertion, emotion awoke in her colourless face, while a strange moisture started into her eyes.
But where was the plan for vengeance, and why did she not follow it out? For this meeting she had waited and planned. Now it had arrived. Why did she not make use of opportunity and act quickly? The deadly drug still lay unused in her bosom. Why did she not make use of it? _Because she had then forgotten its very existence._
Again came the sounds On this occasion Lamont fancied he could detect a creaking of the storm door outside.
'They are coming,' said Marie, in a hushed tone.
Menotah looked upon her wildly. She repeated the words as though doubtful of their full significance. Then in a tremulous half whisper, 'Perhaps they are all round the door. He might escape by the window.'
Menotah's face had broken and changed, like the sky after a storm. The cruelty had melted and gone. A look of fear crept into her pain-filled and lustrous eyes. Suddenly, after a short and mighty struggle with herself, she turned and loudly cried at Lamont,--
The guilty man started at the change in that voice. Again he saw Menotah in the full sunshine, flitting along by the high cliff of the Saskatchewan, with bright song and laughter.
Lamont could not move. He was divided between paralysing dread and suspicious perplexity. But she came towards him. He shrank from the knife with the brown stained point. Fearlessly she took him by the arm, then compelled him across the room.