'See what you've brought me to--wretch, wretch, wretch!'
And she shook him with violence as she spoke. It was wonderful how that fair young face could look so terrible.
'There, Radie, there,' said Lake, disengaging her fingers. 'You're a little hysterical, that's all. It will be over in a minute; but don't make a row. You're a good girl, Radie. For Heaven's sake, don't spoil all by folly now.'
'A slave! only think--a slave! Oh frightful, frightful! Is it a dream? Oh frightful, frightful! Stanley, Stanley, it would be _mercy_ to kill me,' she broke out again.
'Now, Radie, listen to reason, and don't make a noise; you know we agreed, _you_ must go, and _I can't_ go with you.'
Lake was cooler by this time, and his sister more excited than before they went out.
'I used to be brave; my courage I think is gone; but who'd have imagined what's before me?'
Stanley walked to the window and opened the shutter a little. He forgot how dark it was. The moon had gone down. He looked at his watch and then at Rachel. She was sitting, and in no calmer state; serene enough in attitude, but the terribly wild look was unchanged. He looked at his watch again, and held it to his ear, and consulted it once more before he placed the tiny gold disk again in his pocket.
With one of the candles in his hand he went out and made a hurried, peeping exploration, and soon, for the rooms were quickly counted in Redman's Farm, he found her chamber small, neat, _simplex munditiis_. Bright and natty were the chintz curtains, and the little toilet set out, not inelegantly, and her pet piping-goldfinch asleep on his perch, with his bit of sugar between the wires of his cage; her pillow so white and unpressed, with its little edging of lace. Were slumbers sweet as of old ever to know it more? What dreams were henceforward to haunt it? Shadows were standing about that lonely bed already. I don't know whether Stanley Lake felt anything of this, being very decidedly of the earth earthy. But there are times when men are translated from their natures, and forced to be romantic and superstitious.
When he came back to the drawing-room, a toilet bottle of _eau de cologne_ in his hand, with her lace handkerchief he bathed her temples and forehead. There was nothing very brotherly in his look as he peered into her pale, sharp features, during the process. It was the dark and pallid scrutiny of a familiar of the Holy Office, bringing a victim back to consciousness.