d silk where she has muslin: I'm a finer girl than she is,
and I'll be better dressed. Tell _him_ anything, indeed! What have I
ever let out? It's not so easy always to make believe I'm in love with
him, after what you have told me. Suppose he found us out?--Rash? I'm
no more rash than you are! Why didn't you come back from France in time,
and stop it all? Why did you let me marry him? A nice wife I've been to
him, and a nice husband he has been to me--a husband who waits a year!
Ha! ha! he calls himself a man, doesn't he? A husband who waits a year!"

I approached nearer to the bedside, and spoke to her again, in the
hope to win her tenderly towards dreaming of better things. I know not
whether she heard me, but her wild thoughts changed--changed darkly to
later events.

"Beds! beds!" she cried, "beds everywhere, with dying men on them! And
one bed the most terrible of all--look at it! The deformed face, with
the white of the pillow all round it! _His_ face? _his_ face, that
hadn't a fault in it? Never! It's the face of a devil; the finger-nails
of the devil are on it! Take me away! drag me out! I can't move for that
face: it's always before me: it's walling me up among the beds: it's
burning me all over. Water! water! drown me in the sea; drown me deep,
away from the burning face!"

"Hush, Margaret! hush! drink this, and you will be cool again." I gave
her some lemonade, which stood by the bedside.

"Yes, yes; hush, as you say. Where's Robert? Robert Mannion? Not here!
then I've got a secret for you. When you go home to-night, Basil, and
say your prayers, pray for a storm of thunder and lightning; and pray
that I may be struck dead in it, and Robert too. It's a fortnight to my
aunt's party; and in a fortnight you'll wish us both dead, so you had
better pray for what I tell you in time. We shall make handsome corpses.
Put roses into my coffin--scarlet roses, if you can find any, because
that stands for Scarlet Woman--in the Bible, you know. Scarlet? What do
I care! It's the boldest colour in the world. Robert will tell you, and
all your family, how many women are as scarlet as I am--virtue wears it
at home, in secret; and vice wears it abroad, in public: that's the only
difference, he says. Scarlet roses! scarlet roses! throw them into the
coffin by hundreds; smother me up in them; bury me down deep; in the
dark, quiet street--where there's a broad door-step in front of a house,
and a white, wild face, something lik