She put her foot on the first tread and started to descend noiselessly. Then she was arrested in mid-air by the sound of a yawn and a scraping noise. She looked down through the banisters. Curled up in the shadow on the last step was Sancho. He was scratching himself under the arm with a peculiarly persistent motion. His head with the curious, dark grey tufts behind his ears was now and then projected into the light and she caught a green glint from his eyes. No mouse ever crept back more stealthily into the shadow than Maria. So that was why Lucia did not come! There could be no doubt about it. The man was watching. She must get back to her room instantly.
But it was not so easy to find. There were many doors down the long corridor. She started trying the handles. In her desperate haste she must have passed her own. Somehow she was too far down toward the main hall. She must go back, be methodical, and miss none. She listened for an instant. Someone was coming up the big stairs. She turned, scarcely able to stifle a scream. She saw a candle-glow through the keyhole of the next room. She opened her own door, and darted in. For one second only she stood in the faint light before she closed the door softly. She even remembered not to let the latch click.
For a few instants excitement sustained her and cleared her mind. For the first time in her life her movements became precise and of lightning rapidity. She tore the cloak off, wrapped the statue in it, thrust the bundle into the open bag, and the bag under the bed. Gathering three candlesticks from her stand and dresser she placed them in the window. She lit them from the one already kindled and threw that into the fireplace. Then she turned facing the door with her back to the wall against a long yellow curtain. Her hands were clasped behind her. For an entire minute no one came. It was that delay which at last shattered her.
Don Luis had turned into the corridor just as Maria was closing the door. Against the opposite wall he had seen a dim square of light and a shadow there like that of a cloaked woman carrying a child. It vanished like a spectre. Don Luis was carrying a candle himself. The hall beyond was dark, silent. He could not be certain. It was a very old house. He was not superstitious. But he was sufficiently startled to stop where he was for a full minute. Then he too saw the ray of light from the keyhole of his wife's room. A solution of the spectre dawned upon him. He strode forward angrily and flung open the door. . . .
While the marquis had for a moment been stayed by a shadow, Denis three leagues away at Le Crest was knocking persistently and hallooing at the door of a blacksmith who presently stuck a frowsy head through an upstairs window and inquired with sleepy insolence what was wanted. A short interchange of views on the subject of shoeing horses at night decided the point of whether the smith should come down or wait for the gentleman to come up and fetch him at the point of a pistol. Under the double impetus of threats and promised rewards the man made what he considered to be haste. Monsieur meant business, there was no doubt about it! But it was almost an hour before the fellow could blow up his fire, take the shoe off the foot which had gone lame, and fit a new one. Denis watched the man working over the cherry-coloured iron while the time passed mercilessly. In his terrible anxiety the dark shed seemed like a prison chamber and the smith some black-browed jailer who was about to put him to the question. Would he, when the iron was thrust into him, be able to remain firm? He was half dead with fatigue as it was. The smith passed close to him with the sizzling metal and he felt the heat through his sleeve and flinched. "How much pain could a man stand before he would tell?" he wondered. Tired and nervous as he was, he felt how weak he might be. He roused himself. He had almost gone to sleep. Solange had gone lame early that afternoon. He was hours late. Tossing the man a full day's wage, he spurred out of the town striking sparks from the cobbles. . . .
Don Luis stepped through the door and looked at his wife standing with her back to the wall. Her attitude was so tragic, her background of the yellow curtain with the three candles burning in the window so theatrical, that he thought for a moment she was staging a scene. He drew a chair up between his knees with the back before him and sat regarding her.
"The illumination I take it is in honour of the event?" Her lips moved but no words followed. "I cannot say I ever heard so ringing a line," he sneered. "Come, come, don't you think this is rather a cold welcome for your husband? The Muse of Tragedy, the three lamps, curtain and all. Magnificent! But—considering the scene to follow—aren't you perhaps a little over-costumed ? I expected to find you in bed."
Her eyes rested on him for an instant like those of an accused person seeing the state tormentor approach for the first time. He became aware that there was no art in this. He was looking at the face of terror in nature. Why was it?
"Come here!" he said softly.
She flattened herself against the wall as if waiting for him to spring. It was provocative. A gust of fury lifted him from the chair. With one stroke he ripped her gown from neck to heel. She clung desperately to the curtain. It came away, falling over both of them. The candles wavered. He had not expected her to fight him. She cried out once bitterly. He wrapped her head and arms in the curtain, and stripped her like an Indian husking maize. Then he carried her to the bed and threw her down there. She had ceased struggling now. She did not know anyone could be so strong. She felt and looked like a bird blown on to a ship by a hurricane. Her breast rose and fell quickly, but at intervals. Between breaths she lay as if dead. Only her eyelids quivered.
The last vestige of pity had vanished from the breast of Don Luis. His wig had been torn off and he had happened to see himself in the glass while he was struggling with Maria, So this was the dignified approach to the marriage bed he had so fondly planned! Marriage bed? He looked at her lying under the shadow of the canopy. It was quite dark in that end of the room. He crossed to the window and taking one of the candles came back and stood beside her. Holding it above his head so that the yellow light washed over the pale body of the girl, he studied her carefully for some time. Then with a terrific imprecation he dashed the light to the floor. The two candles remaining on the sill continued to burn softly.
Presently she became aware that he was sitting on the bed beside her. She opened her eyes slightly and saw that her own hands were completely lost in his. His huge fingers curved around her arm again reminded her of the paw of some monumental lion. He was holding her hands so gently though that she almost felt sorry for him. A little harder now. She opened her eyes as the clasp became firmer and found herself looking into his very close to her face. She felt him breathe,
"His name?" said Don Luis whose grasp now began to hurt her. She looked at him again and bit her lip. Her fingers began to ache intolerably,
"His name?" repeated her husband.
She closed her eyes and braced herself. Her hands now seemed on fire. She lost all sense of anything except the intolerable pain that began to shoot up her arms to her shoulders. Had the pain been less she might have answered, but her whole mind was now preoccupied with it. The reiterated demand of the insistent voice became only a senseless buzz. Then she fainted.
Don Luis had not meant to carry it quite as far as that. He dashed water in her face. It startled him to see the print of his own fingers on hers, which she kept contracting spasmodically. Finally he bathed them in a bowl of cold water. At that she came to, but remained in a kind of daze. She was now lying as if not only her hands but her entire body had been crushed in his grasp. Indeed, from that moment on he never saw her in any other attitude. Those masterful hands had done their work more thoroughly than he intended.