Furthermore, this threatening shame so far from arousing a new distrust and a desire to escape further connection with her, swept him into a profounder desire to serve and shield her. His heart filled with pity and love, and into his eyes a stern light--the light of battle--came. "She shall not be tortured so, if I can defend her or lead the way to escape. Lambert must leave the city at once and take them both with him."
He rose and walked about the room in order to recover command of his face and voice. "Truly the miserable fanatic has wrought well. He has promised himself that his spirit, freed from the body, will be able to possess and control his victim. The mother will understand and accept this. Will Viola?" The thought of her, dominated by this new and revolting delusion, filled him with dismay and horror. "She, too, will be smitten with remorse, and the scale may be turned against me and my influence." This was indeed the most disturbing consideration of all.
Realizing at length that every additional minute of absence made his explanation more difficult, he returned to his guests with impassive face and resolute determination to control his thought even from Viola's mind-reading power.
Kate saw at once that some dark thing shadowed him, "What is it, Morton?"
"One of my acquaintances has met with trouble--financial trouble--and wants my help. I'll tell you about it later," he curtly replied, attacking the salad again. She was silenced though not satisfied, and dinner was resumed in almost painful silence and in general depression.
Viola was especially troubled by the change in Morton's face, and with a desire to be of some comfort to him softly said: "Perhaps you would rather not go to the theatre to-night. Please don't do so on our account."
Her glance and her tone, both more intimately sympathetic than she had hitherto permitted them to be, touched him deeply, and with an effect of throwing off his gloom he cheerily responded: "We will not let any outside matter interfere with our happiness. There is nothing to be gained by staying at home. Please forget all about this interruption."
As he spoke she sat with hands before her, gazing straight at him with eyes that slowly lost their outward look. Her eyelids fell, she began to whiten and to droop, and her hands twitched and trembled.
Seized for an instant with an unreasoning fear--a belief that she had been able, after all, to penetrate his mind and read its dreadful secret, Morton sat irresolute, in the grasp of a blind despair, a palsy of the will. Clarke's dead hand seemed at the instant more powerful than the living man had been. This stupefaction lasted but a single second, for back to the young scientist's heart, like a swelling wave, came the red blood of his anger, his love, his mastering will. Rising swiftly but calmly, he caught her hands in his saying, gently: "You are forgetting your promise to me. Look at me. I want to see if you are really going to disobey my commands."