The Destroying Angel

"But I'm not distressed. It isn't altogether pleasant, but it can't be helped and might easily have been worse."

"And still I can't help feeling, somehow, the wretched injustice of it to you. I want to protest – to do something to mend matters."

"But since you can't" – she laughed in light mockery, innocent of malice – "since we're doing our best, let's be philosophical and sit down over there and watch to see if there's any answer to our signal."

"There won't be."

"You are a difficult body. Never mind. Come along!" she insisted with pretty imperiousness.

They seated themselves with their backs to the fire and at a respectful distance from it, where they could watch the jetting blades of light that ringed the far-off headland. Whitaker reclined on an elbow, relapsing into moody contemplation. The girl drew up her knees, clasped her arms about them, and stared thoughtfully into the night.

Behind them the fire flamed and roared, volcanic. All round it in a radius of many yards the earth glowed red, while, to one side, the grim, homely façade of the farm-house edged blushing out of the ambient night, all its staring windows bloodshot and sinister.

The girl stirred uneasily, turning her head to look at Whitaker.

"You know," she said with a confused attempt to laugh: "this is really no canny, this place. Or else I'm balmy. I'm seeing things – shapes that stir against the blackness, off there beyond the light, moving, halting, staring, hating us for butchering their age-old peace and quiet. Maybe I'll forget to see them, if you'll talk to me a little."

"I can't talk to you," he said, ungracious in his distress.

"You can't? It's the first time it's been noticeable, then. What's responsible for this all-of-a-sudden change of heart?"

"That's what's responsible." The words spoke themselves almost against his will.

"What – change of heart?"

"Yes," he said sullenly.

"You're very obscure. Am I to understand that you've taken a sudden dislike to me, so that you can't treat me with decent civility?"

"You know that isn't so."

"Surely" – she caught her breath sharply, paused for an instant, then went on – "surely you don't mean the converse!"

"I've always understood women knew what men meant before the men did, themselves." His voice broke a little. "Oh, can't you see how it is with me? Can't you see?" he cried. "God forgive me! I never meant to inflict this on you, at such a time! I don't know why I have…"

"You mean," she stammered in a voice of amaze – "you mean – love?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"No … not after what's happened, I presume. You wouldn't have followed – you wouldn't have fought so to save me from drowning – I suppose– if you hadn't – cared… But I didn't know."

She sighed, a sigh plaintive and perturbed, then resumed: "A woman never knows, really. She may suspect; in fact, she almost always does; she is obliged to be so continually on guard that suspicion is ingrained in her nature; but…"

"Then you're not – offended?" he asked, sitting up.

"Why should I be?" The firelight momentarily outlined the smiling, half wistful countenance she turned to him.

"But" – he exploded with righteous wrath, self-centred – "only a scoundrel would force his attentions upon a woman, in such circumstances! You can't get away from me – I may be utterly hateful to you – "

"Oh, you're not." She laughed quietly. "You're not; nor am I distressed – because of the circumstances that distress you, at least. What woman would be who received as great and honourable a compliment – from you, Hugh? Only" – again the whimsical little laugh that merged into a smothered sigh – "I wish I knew!"

"Wish you knew what?"

"What's going on inside that extraordinary head of yours: what's in the mind behind the eyes that I so often find staring at me so curiously."

He bowed that head between hands that compressed cruelly his temples. "I wish I knew!" he groaned in protest. "It's a mystery to me, the spell you've laid upon my thoughts. Ever since we met you've haunted me with a weird suggestion of some elusive relationship, some entanglement – intimacy – gone, perished, forgotten… But since you called me to supper, a while ago, by name – I don't know why – your voice, as you used it then, has run through my head and through, teasing my memory like a strain of music from some half-remembered song. It half-maddens me; I feel so strongly that everything would be so straight and plain and clear between us, if I could only fasten upon that fugitive, indefinable something that's always fluttering just beyond my grasp!"

"You mean all that – honestly?" she demanded in an oddly startled voice.

"Most honestly." He looked up in excitement. "You don't mean you've felt anything of the sort?"

"No, I" – her voice broke as if with weariness – "I don't mean that, precisely. I mean… Probably I don't know what I do mean. I'm really very tired, too tired to go on, just now – to sit here with you, badgering our poor wits with esoteric subtleties. I think – do you mind? – I'd better go in."

She rose quickly, without waiting for his hand. Whitaker straightened out his long body with more deliberation, standing finally at full height, his grave and moody countenance strongly relieved in the ruddy glow, while her face was all in shadow.

"One moment," he begged humbly – "before we go in. I … I've something else to say to you, if I may."

She waited, seriously attentive.

"I haven't played fair, I'm afraid," he said, lowering his head to escape her steadfast gaze. "I've just told you that I love you, but…"

"Well?" she demanded in an odd, ringing voice. "Isn't it true?"

"True?" He laughed unnaturally. "It's so true I – wish I had died before I told you!"

"Why?"

"Because … because you didn't resent my telling you…"

It seemed impossible for him to speak connectedly or at any length, impossible to overcome his distaste for the hateful confession he must make. And she was intolerably patient with him; he resented her quiet, contained patience; while he feared, yet he was relieved when she at length insisted: "Well?"

"Since you didn't resent that confession, I am led to believe you don't – exactly – dislike me. That makes it just so much the harder to forfeit your regard."

"But must you?"

"Yes."

"Please explain," she urged, a trace wearily.

"I who love you with all my heart and mind and soul – I am not free to love you."

"You aren't free – !"

"I… No."

After several moments, during which he fought vainly with his inability to go on, she resumed her examination with a manner aloof and yet determined:

"You've told me so much, I think you can hardly refuse to tell more."