The Purple Cloud

by M. P. Shiel

led mankind quite wrong--'

  'Or _seemed_ to,' says she--'for a time: as when a stleam flows north alittle, and the sea is to the south: but it is bound for the sea all thetime, and will turn again. Destiny never could, and cannot yet, bejudged, for it is not finished: and our lace should follow blindlywhither it points, sure that thlough many curves it leads the world toour God.'

  'Our God indeed!' I cried, getting very excited: 'girl! you talkspeciously, but falsely! whence have you these thoughts in that head ofyours? Girl! you talk of "our race"! But there are only two of us left?Are you talking _at_ me, Leda? Do not _I_ follow Destiny?'

  'You?' she sighed, with down-bent face: 'ah, poor me!'

  'What should I do if I followed it?' said I, with a crazy curiosity.

  Her face hung lower, paler, in trouble: and she said:

  'You would come now and sit near me here. You would not be there whereyou are. You would be always and for ever near me....'

  My good God! I felt my face redden.

  'Oh, I could not _tell_ you...!' I cried: 'you talk the most disastrous...!you lack all responsibility...! Never, never...!'

  Her face now was covered with her left hand, her right on the tiller:and bitingly she said, with a touch of venom:

  'I could _make_ you come--_now_, if I chose: but I will not: I will waitupon my God....'

  '_Make_ me!' I cried: 'Leda! How make me?'

  'I could cly before you, as I cly often and often ... in seclet ... formy childlen....'

  '_You_ cry in secret? This is news--'

  'Yes, yes, I cly. Is not the burden of the world heavy upon me, too? andthe work I have to do _vely, vely_ gleat? And often and often I cly inseclet, thinking of it: and I could cly now if I chose, for you loveyour little girl so much, that you could not lesist me one minute....'

  Now I saw the push and tortion and trembling of her poor littleunder-lip, boding tears: and at once a flame was in me which wasaltogether beyond control; and crying out: 'why, my poor dear,' I foundmyself in the act of rushing through the staggering boat to take her tome.

  Mid-way, however, I was saved: a whisper, intense as lightning, arrestedme: 'Forward is no escape, nor backward, but _sideward_ there may be away!' And at a sudden impulse, before I knew what I was doing, I was inthe water swimming.

  The smaller of the islands was two hundred yards away, and thither Iswam, rested some minutes, and thence to the Castle. I did not once lookbehind me.

  * * * * *

  Well, from 11 A.M. till five in the afternoon, I thought it all out,lying in the damp flannels on my face on the sofa in the recess besidemy bed, where it was quite dark behind the tattered piece of arras: andwhat things I suffered that day, and what deeps I sounded, and whatprayers I prayed, God knows. What infinitely complicated the awfulproblem was this thought in my head: that to kill her would be far moremerciful to her than to leave her alone, having killed myself: and,Heaven knows, it was for her alone that I thought, not at all caring formyself. To kill her was better: but to kill her with my own hands--thatwas too hard to expect of a poor devil like me, a poor common son ofAdam, after all, and never any sublime self-immolator, as two or threeof them were. And hours I lay there with brows convulsed in an agony,groaning only those words: 'To kill her! to kill her!' thinkingsometimes that I should be merciful to myself too, and die, and let herlive, and not care, since, after my death, I would not see her suffer,for the dead know not anything: and to expect me to kill her with my ownhand was a little too much. Yet that one or other of us must die wasperfectly certain, for I knew that I was just on the brink of failing inmy oath, and matters here had reached an obvious crisis: unless we couldmake up our minds to part...? putting the width of the earth betweenus? That conception occurred to me: and in the turmoil of my thoughts itseemed a possibility. Finally, about 5 P.M., I resolved upon something:and first I leapt up, went down and across the house into the arsenal,chose a small revolver, fitted it with cartridge, took it up-stairs,lubricated it with lamp-oil, went down and out across the drawbridge,walked two miles beyond the village, shot the revolver at a tree, foundits action accurate, and started back. When I came to the Castle, Iwalked along the island to the outer end, and looked up: there were herpretty cream Valenciennes, put up by herself, waving inward before thelight lake-breeze at one open oriel; and I knew that she was in theCastle, for I felt it: and always, always, when she was within, I knew,for I felt her with me; and always when she was away, I knew, I felt,for the air had a dreadful drought, and a barrenness, in it. And Ilooked up for a time to see if she would come to the window, and then Icalled, and she appeared. And I said to her: 'Come down here.'

  * * * * *

  Just here there is a little rock-path to the south, going down to thewater between rocks mixed with shrub-like little trees, three yardslong: a path, or a lane, one might call it, for at the lower end therocks and trees reach well over a tall man's head. There she had tied myboat to a slender linden-trunk: and sadder now than Gethsemane thatfamiliar boat seemed to my eyes, for I knew very well that I shouldnever enter it more. I walked up and down the path, awaiting her: andfrom the jacket-pocket in which lay the revolver I drew a box of Swedishmatches, from it took two matches, and broke off a bit from the plainend of one; and the two I held between my left thumb and forefingerjoint, the phosphorus ends level and visible, the other ends invisible:and I awaited her, pacing fast, and my brow was as stern as Azrael andRhadamanthus.

  She came, very pale, poor thing, and flurried, breathing fast. And'Leda,' I said, meeting her in the middle of the lane, and goingstraight to the point, 'we are to part, as you guess--for ever, as youguess--for I see very well by your face that you guess. I, too, am verysorry, my little child, and heavy is my heart. To leave you ... alone... in the world ... is--death for me. But it must, ah it must, bedone.'

  Her face suddenly turned as sallow as the dead were, when the shroud wasalready on, and the coffin had become a stale added piece ofroom-furniture by the bed-side; but in recording that fact, I recordalso this other: that, accompanying this mortal sallowness, whichpainfully shewed up her poor freckles, was a steady smile, a littleturned-down: a smile of steady, of slightly disdainful--Confidence.

  She did not say anything: so I went on.

  'I have thought long,' said I, 'and I have made a plan--a plan whichcannot be effective without _your_ consent and co-operation: and theplan is this: we go from this place together--this same night--to someunknown spot, some town, say a hundred miles hence--by train. There Iget two motors, and I in one, and you in the other, we separate, goingdifferent ways. We shall thus never be able, however much we may wantto, to rediscover each other in all this wide world. That is my plan.'

  She looked me in the face, smiling her smile: and the answer was notlong in coming.

  'I will go in the tlain with you,' says she with slow decisiveness: 'butwhere you leave me, there I will stay, till I die; and I will patientlywait till my God convert you, and send you back to me.'

  'That means that you refuse to do what I say?'

  'Yes,' said she, bowing the head with great dignity.

  'Well, you speak, not like a girl, Leda,' said I, 'but like a full womannow. But still, reflect a minute.... O reflect! If you stayed where Ileft you, I _should_ go back to you, and pretty soon, too: I know that Ishould. Tell me, then--reflect well, and tell me--do you definitelyrefuse to part with me?'

  The answer was pretty prompt, cool, and firm:

  'Yes; I lefuse.'

  I left her then, took a turn down the path, and came back.

  'Then,' said I, 'here are two matches in my grasp: be good enough todraw one.'

  _Now_ she was hit to the heart: I saw her eyes widen to the width ofhorror, with a glassy stare: she had read of the drawing of lots in theBible: she knew that it meant death for me, or for her.

  But she obeyed without a word, after one backward start and then a briefhovering in decision of thumb and forefinger over my h
eld-out hand. Ihad fixed it in my mind that if she drew the shorter of the matches,then she should die; if the longer, then I should die.

  She drew the shorter....

  * * * * *

  This was only what I should have expected: for I knew that God lovedher, and hated me.

  But instantly upon the first shock of the enormity that I should be herexecutioner, I made my resolve: to drop shot, too, at the moment aftershe dropped shot, so disposing my body, that it would fall half uponher, and half by her, so that we might be close always: and that wouldnot be so bad, after all.

  With a sudden movement I snatched the revolver from my pocket: she didnot move, except her white lips, which, I think, whispered:

  '_Not yet_....'

  I stood with hanging