Miracle Gold: A Novel (Vol. 1 of 3)

Suddenly she heard a sound that made her heart stand still, her breath cease to come. She grew rigid with terror.

She heard a something soft sliding over the outside of that door. A hand! It touched and rattled the handle. The handle turned, and with a low, dull sound the door opened! She could not see the door. The light which had illumed the fan sash in the porch had evidently been extinguished, for there was no gleam through the open door. That part of the room was so intensely dark, even the masses in it were invisible. But she knew by the dull, puffing sound the door had been opened, and by the surge of the heavy, damp, warm air.

She could not move or cry out if she would. She was completely paralysed, frozen. She was aware of possessing only two senses, hearing and seeing. She was not conscious of her own identity beyond what was presented to her sensations through her ears or her eyes. She did not even ask herself how he had come there, how he had opened from the hall the door she had left locked upon the inside.

He entered the room with slow, deliberate, limping steps. She could hear the footfall of his left foot and the slight, brushing touch of his right foot as he drew it after the left.

On slowly he came until he touched the bed. She could dimly make out the white of his face and shirt-front against the gleam from the window as he advanced. It was plain he could not see as well as she, for he walked up against the bed. His eyes had not become accustomed to the darkness.

He turned to his left, towards where she sat, and came on, feeling his way by the bed. She heard him feeling his way. As soon as he reached the foot-post he turned right, round where she sat in the deepest gloom of the room and then walked to the window.

When he reached the window he stood full in front of it and muttered: "Rain, rain still." He thrust his arms out of the window and drawing them back in a moment, rubbed his face with his hands. "That is refreshing," he muttered. "Hah! They say rainwater is the best lotion for preserving the beauty of the skin. Hah! They do. They say Ninon de L'Enclos kept her beauty up to past seventy by rain-water. Hah! They do. They say she did. Hah! I wonder how long would it preserve my beauty. Ha-ha-ha! More than a century, I suppose. I wonder would rain-water preserve the beauty of my hump. I believe my hump is one of the most beautiful ever man wore. But it doesn't seem to count for much among a man's attractions. People don't appear to care much for humps, whether they are really beauties of this kind or not. Hah! They don't. People don't. Hah! They are not educated up to humps. Hah!"

At each exclamation "Hah!" he made a powerful expiration of breath. Before each exclamation he rubbed his forehead with one hand drawn in wet from the rain falling outside the window.

"She, for instance," he went on, "doesn't care much for humps. She prefers straight-backed men with straight strong legs. And yet straight-backed men with straight strong legs are common enough in all conscience. Most of the beggars even are straight-backed and strong-legged. I am not. Hah! How cool and refreshing this rain-water is. I am a novelty and yet people don't care for such a novelty as I am. No; they prefer men cut to pattern. She would rather have a straight-backed beggar than me, and yet I am more interesting, more uncommon. I am more remarkable to look at, and then I have genius. Yes; I have a form of body far out of the common, and a form of mind far out of the common, too. I have a hump and genius. Hah! But no one cares for a hump or genius. She doesn't, for instance. Hah! But I mean that she shall like me. I mean to make love to her. I mean to woo her, and to win her. Hah! She doesn't know me now as well as she will know me later. I have never been in love before. I can't say I like the feeling. I used to be very valiant and self-sufficing, and at my ease in my mind. Hah! I looked on women as the mere dross of humanity-not worthy to associate with cripples. Hah! Of course, I except my mother, who is the best and dearest soul God ever sent to earth. But now I am in love, and this girl, this young girl, seems precious to me. Hah! Certainly I shall win her. I have not yet learned to fail, and I don't mean to learn how to fail now. Hah! How cool and refreshing the rain is. What is it I came into this room for? Stay. Let me think. Oh, yes! my mother asked me to put the window down before I went upstairs. Hah! Yes. I will. There!"

He let the window down without any regard to the noise. It smote harshly upon the sill. Edith did not move, did not make a sound. She was glad at the moment, though she did not realize that she was glad, because he had let down the window. The diminished light would reduce the chance of his seeing her even now that his eyes had grown used to the darkness. She did not realize that she was glad until afterwards. All her consciousness was still concentrated on hearing and seeing.

Leigh turned away from the window, and began slowly retracing his steps to the door, muttering as he went along the side of the bed opposite the window:

"Yes, she has run away. Run away from this house a few hours after entering it. Run away, frightened, terrified by my ugliness."

He had reached the foot of the bed by this time, and, crossing between where she sat, turned in the darkness at the foot-board. Only his head rose above the high foot-board. His hand moved in dim relief against the background of the white head part of the bed discernible over the foot-board.

As he spoke these words her first thought beyond a desire to hear and see entered her mind. It gave her instant and enormous relief, although as before she was not at the moment attentive to the relief. The feeling, however, took in her mind the form of words. "He knows I left the house. He does not know I have come back."

He paused directly in front of her, and seemed to rest against the foot-board. He muttered in a voice more deep and faint than the one in which he had hitherto spoken:

"She ran away, this Edith Grace, she ran away from my ugliness. Ha-ha-ha! We shall see, Edith Grace. We shall see. I did not tell my mother the name of the girl I mean to marry. She shall know it soon enough, and not all the wiles or force of man shall keep me from my purpose, keep Edith Grace from me!"

He thrust his arms out to their full length in front of him and drew them back swiftly towards him. The air from the motion of his long thin hands touched her cheek.

She drew her head back a hand's breadth. Otherwise she did not stir. She sat motionless. She had no power over the actions of her body. She could not cry out or move further.

Oscar Leigh turned, crept slowly along the foot and right side of the bed, fumbled for the door handle, and, having found it, went out of the room, closing and latching the door quietly after him.

Then she heard him toilfully, ponderously, going up stairs. Presently a door above was closed and complete silence fell upon the house.

The spell lifted from the girl, and covering her face with her hands she sank back in the chair with a tremulous, heavy sigh of relief.

CHAPTER IV

ON THE WING

Edith lay in the large easy-chair for a long time without stirring. She did not even think. It was enough that she had been delivered from the danger of discovery, and that she was free to take wing and fly away at the streak of earliest dawn.

She did not know how long she sat with her face covered with her hands. She had resolved not to move for a long time, and for a long time she remained motionless. There was no fear of her sleeping. Although her mind was not actively employed about anything it was sharply awake. The first thing to challenge her attention was a sound. No boding or terrible sound, but the faint, weak shrill chirp of a bird. She scarcely realized what it was at first, for she was unfamiliar with the country and unused to the early notes of field and wood.

She took her hands from before her face and looked at the window. The light was still very grey and blue. But it was light, and, moreover, light that would grow stronger every minute, every second. When the day is breaking for joy or deliverance, the light fills the veins with an ethereal intoxication. Thoughts which during darkness can be met only with pallid terror can, when the shadow of night has passed away, be faced with vital courage and endurance.

She rose with care, but there was firmness and decision in her movements. She was fully dressed for walking. The rain had stopped and the sky above the trees spread clear and stainless, a vast plain of open blue.

Oscar Leigh had lowered the window. She caught the sash and raised it very gently but with no trepidation. If the door had that moment opened, she would have simply sprung through the window, without a word. The want of sleep dulls the apprehensions of fear as well as the other faculties of the mind. It sobers the judgment and reduces the susceptibility to extravagance of emotion.

When she had got the sash up to its full height, she stepped resolutely out on the gravelled carriage-sweep. She felt almost at ease. She paused a moment, looked back into the room, and under the shadow of her hand saw that the note she had placed on the table was gone. She turned away from the window and began walking along the gravelled drive towards the gate.

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