"Rosa!" I repeated.
"Go back to London," she went on. "You have ambitions. Fulfil them.
Work at your profession. Above all, don't think of me. And always
remember that though I am very grateful to you, I cannot love
you--never!"
"That isn't true, Rosa!" I said quietly. "You have invited me into
this carriage simply to lie to me. But you are an indifferent liar--it
is not your forte. My dear child, do you imagine that I cannot see
through your poor little plan? Mrs. Sullivan Smith has been talking to
you, and it has occurred to you that if you cast me off, the anger of
that--that thing may be appeased, and I may be saved from the fate
that overtook Alresca. You were calling on Emmeline to ask her advice
finally, as she appears to be mixed up in this affair. Then, on seeing
me, you decided all of a sudden to take your courage in both hands,
and dismiss me at once. It was heroic of you, Rosa; it was a splendid
sacrifice of your self-respect. But it can't be. Nothing is going to
disturb my love. If I die under some mysterious influence, then I die;
but I shall die loving you, and I shall die absolutely certain that
you love me."
Her breast heaved, and under the carriage rug her hand found mine and
clasped it. We did not look at each other. In a thick voice I called
to the coachman to stop. I got out, and the vehicle passed on. If I
had stayed with her, I should have wept in sight of the whole street.
I ate no dinner that evening, but spent the hours in wandering up and
down the long verdurous alleys in the neighborhood of the Arc de
Triomphe. I was sure of Rosa's love, and that thought gave me a
certain invigoration. But to be sure of a woman's love when that love
means torture and death to you is not a complete and perfect
happiness. No, my heart was full of bitterness and despair, and my
mind invaded by a miserable weakness. I pitied myself, and at the
same time I scorned myself. After all, the ghost had no actual power
over me; a ghost cannot stab, cannot throttle, cannot shoot. A ghost
can only act upon the mind, and if the mind is feeble enough to allow
itself to be influenced by an intangible illusion, then-But how futile were such arguments! Whatever the power might be, the
fact that the ghost had indeed a power over me was indisputable. All
day I had felt the spectral sword of it suspended above my head. My
timid footsteps lingering on the way to the hotel sufficiently proved
its power. The experiences of the previous night might be merely
subjective--conceptions of the imagination--but they were no less
real, no less fatal to me on that account.