Читать книгу On the Brink of a Chasm: A record of plot and passion онлайн

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“And——?” said the woman.

Tarbot went forward and began to whisper in her ear. Nurse Ives had a dead-white complexion. As the doctor spoke, her face turned ghastly.

“You want me to connive at a crime?” she said.

Tarbot winced, then he said “Yes.”

“Is this matter very important to you?”

“It is life or death to me—life or death.”

The surgeon rubbed his hands slowly one inside the other; his eyes were fixed on the eyes of the nurse. She looked back at him. Then she spoke.

“I will do what you require, on a condition.”

“What is that?”

“That you make me your wife.”

“That I marry you?” said Tarbot. He started up. “That I marry you?”

An ugly line, where she had been cut long ago, came out across the woman’s temple. It showed fiery red; the rest of her face was dead-white. She laid one of her hands on Tarbot’s; her hand was icy cold. He shivered.

“That you marry me,” she repeated; “that you own me before all the world as your lawful wedded wife. Only on that condition will I do what you want.”

Tarbot did not reply for a minute. He turned away from the eager eyes of the nurse, and closed his own. As he did so he saw another vision—a vision of a girl in white. He was carried away from his present surroundings as he listened to a girl’s voice. The girl’s face was a lovely one, and her voice like music. She was saying solemnly, “I promise never to marry any man in this wide world but you, Richard Pelham.”