I have begged him, begged him upon my knees, to allow
me to end it then and there; to forget his dream of revenge, to die
without this last stain upon his soul. But he, expecting at any hour,
at any minute, to know again the agony which cannot be described, which
is unlike any other suffered by the flesh--refused, refused! And I"--
she raised her eyes ecstatically--"I have worshipped this courage of
his, although it was evil--bad.
"The full moon gives the best light, and so he planned it for the night
of the full moon. But on the night before, because of some scene which
he had with you, M. Harley, nearly I thought his plans would come to
nothing. Nearly I thought the last act of love which he asked of me
would never be performed. He sat there, up in the little room which he
liked best, the coldness upon him which always came before the pang,
waiting, waiting, a deathly dew on his forehead, for the end; and I, I
who loved him better than life, watched him. And, so Fate willed it,
the pang never came."
"You watched him?" I whispered.
Harley turned to me slowly.
"Don't you understand, Knox?" he said, in a voice curiously unlike his
own.
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