Triumph at any price is sweet to men and women--especially the latter.
It was her first and last opportunity of repaying him for the cruel
contumely which she had borne at his hands so docilely.
"Yes," she answered; and there was that in her subtly compounded nature
which made her feel a thrill of pride as she did so.
Yet the moment after she had so mightily belied her character she half
repented. Her husband had turned as white as the wall behind him. It
seemed as if all that remained to him of life and spirit had been
abstracted at a stroke. Yet he did not move, and in his efforts at
self-control closed his mouth together as a vice. His determination
was fairly successful, though she saw how very much greater than she
had expected her triumph had been. Presently he looked across at
Winterborne.
"Would it startle you to hear," he said, as if he hardly had breath to
utter the words, "that she who was to me what he was to you is dead
also?"
"Dead--SHE dead?" exclaimed Grace.
"Yes. Felice Charmond is where this young man is."
"Never!" said Grace, vehemently.
He went on without heeding the insinuation: "And I came back to try to
make it up with you--but--"
Fitzpiers rose, and moved across the room to go away, looking downward
with the droop of a man whose hope was turned to apathy, if not
despair. In going round the door his eye fell upon her once more. She
was still bending over the body of Winterborne, her face close to the
young man's.
"Have you been kissing him during his illness?" asked her husband.
"Yes."
"Since his fevered state set in?"
"Yes."
"On his lips?"
"Yes."
"Then you will do well to take a few drops of this in water as soon as
possible." He drew a small phial from his pocket and returned to offer
it to her.
Grace shook her head.
"If you don't do as I tell you you may soon be like him."
"I don't care. I wish to die."
"I'll put it here," said Fitzpiers, placing the bottle on a ledge
beside him. "The sin of not having warned you will not be upon my head
at any rate, among my other sins. I am now going, and I will send
somebody to you. Your father does not know that you are here, so I
suppose I shall be bound to tell him?"