The Dead Secret. Wilkie Collins Collins

suddenly letting it go again the moment Mrs. Treverton looked at her.

      The pen went on; and more slowly, more feebly, formed words enough to fill a line—then stopped. The letters of the last syllable were all blotted together.

      "Don't!" reiterated Sarah, dropping on her knees at the bedside. "Don't write it to him if you can't tell it to him. Let me go on bearing what I have borne so long already. Let the Secret die with you and die with me, and be never known in this world—never, never, never!"

      "The Secret must be told," answered Mrs. Treverton. "My husband ought to know it, and must know it. I tried to tell him, and my courage failed me. I can not trust you to tell him, after I am gone. It must be written. Take you the pen; my sight is failing, my touch is dull. Take the pen, and write what I tell you."

      Sarah, instead of obeying, hid her face in the bed-cover, and wept bitterly.

      "You have been with me ever since my marriage," Mrs. Treverton went on. "You have been my friend more than my servant. Do you refuse my last request? You do! Fool! look up and listen to me. On your peril, refuse to take the pen. Write, or I shall not rest in my grave. Write, or as true as there is a Heaven above us, I will come to you from the other world!"

      Sarah started to her feet with a faint scream.

      "You make my flesh creep!" she whispered, fixing her eyes on her mistress's face with a stare of superstitious horror.

      At the same instant, the overdose of the stimulating medicine began to affect Mrs. Treverton's brain. She rolled her head restlessly from side to side of the pillow—repeated vacantly a few lines from one of the old play-books which had been removed from her bed—and suddenly held out the pen to the servant, with a theatrical wave of the hand, and a glance upward at an imaginary gallery of spectators.

      "Write!" she cried, with an awful mimicry of her old stage voice. "Write!" And the weak hand was waved again with a forlorn, feeble imitation of the old stage gesture.

      Closing her fingers mechanically on the pen that was thrust between them, Sarah, with her eyes still expressing the superstitious terror which her mistress's words had aroused, waited for the next command. Some minutes elapsed before Mrs. Treverton spoke again. She still retained her senses sufficiently to be vaguely conscious of the effect which the medicine was producing on her, and to be desirous of combating its further progress before it succeeded in utterly confusing her ideas. She asked first for the smelling-bottle, next for some Eau de Cologne.

      This last, poured onto her handkerchief and applied to her forehead, seemed to prove successful in partially clearing her faculties. Her eyes recovered their steady look of intelligence; and, when she again addressed her maid, reiterating the word "Write," she was able to enforce the direction by beginning immediately to dictate in quiet, deliberate, determined tones. Sarah's tears fell fast; her lips murmured fragments of sentences in which entreaties, expressions of penitence, and exclamations of fear were all strangely mingled together; but she wrote on submissively, in wavering lines, until she had nearly filled the first two sides of the note-paper. Then Mrs. Treverton paused, looked the writing over, and, taking the pen, signed her name at the end of it. With this effort, her powers of resistance to the exciting effect of the medicine seemed to fail her again. The deep flush began to tinge her cheeks once more, and she spoke hurriedly and unsteadily when she handed the pen back to her maid.

      "Sign!" she cried, beating her hand feebly on the bed-clothes. "Sign 'Sarah Leeson, witness.' No!—write 'Accomplice.' Take your share of it; I won't have it shifted on me. Sign, I insist on it! Sign as I tell you."

      Sarah obeyed; and Mrs. Treverton taking the paper from her, pointed to it solemnly, with a return of the stage gesture which had escaped her a little while back.

      "You will give this to your master," she said, "when I am dead; and you will answer any questions he puts to you as truly as if you were before the judgment-seat."

      Clasping her hands fast together, Sarah regarded her mistress, for the first time, with steady eyes, and spoke to her for the first time in steady tones.

      "If I only knew that I was fit to die," she said, "oh, how gladly I would change places with you!"

      "Promise me that you will give the paper to your master," repeated Mrs. Treverton. "Promise—no! I won't trust your promise—I'll have your oath. Get the Bible—the Bible the clergyman used when he was here this morning. Get it, or I shall not rest in my grave. Get it, or I will come to you from the other world."

      The mistress laughed as she reiterated that threat. The maid shuddered, as she obeyed the command which it was designed to impress on her.

      "Yes, yes—the Bible the clergyman used," continued Mrs. Treverton, vacantly, after the book had been produced. "The clergyman—a poor weak man—I frightened him, Sarah. He said, 'Are you at peace with all the world?' and I said, 'All but one.' You know who."

      "The Captain's brother? Oh, don't die at enmity with any body. Don't die at enmity even with him," pleaded Sarah.

      "The clergyman said so too," murmured Mrs. Treverton, her eyes beginning to wander childishly round the room, her tones growing suddenly lower and more confused. "'You must forgive him,' the clergyman said. And I said, 'No, I forgive all the world, but not my husband's brother.' The clergyman got up from the bedside, frightened, Sarah. He talked about praying for me, and coming back. Will he come back?"

      "Yes, yes," answered Sarah. "He is a good man—he will come back—and oh! tell him that you forgive the Captain's brother! Those vile words he spoke of you when you were married will come home to him some day. Forgive him—forgive him before you die!"

      Saying those words, she attempted to remove the Bible softly out of her mistress's sight. The action attracted Mrs. Treverton's attention, and roused her sinking faculties into observation of present things.

      "Stop!" she cried, with a gleam of the old resolution flashing once more over the dying dimness of her eyes. She caught at Sarah's hand with a great effort, placed it on the Bible, and held it there. Her other hand wandered a little over the bed-clothes, until it encountered the written paper addressed to her husband. Her fingers closed on it, and a sigh of relief escaped her lips.

      "Ah!" she said, "I know what I wanted the Bible for. I'm dying with all my senses about me, Sarah; you can't deceive me even yet." She stopped again, smiled a little, whispered to herself rapidly, "Wait, wait, wait!" then added aloud, with the old stage voice and the old stage gesture: "No! I won't trust you on your promise. I'll have your oath. Kneel down. These are my last words in this world—disobey them if you dare!"

      Sarah dropped on her knees by the bed. The breeze outside, strengthening just then with the slow advance of the morning, parted the window-curtains a little, and wafted a breath of its sweet fragrance joyously into the sick-room. The heavy beating hum of the distant surf came in at the same time, and poured out its unresting music in louder strains. Then the window-curtains fell to again heavily, the wavering flame of the candle grew steady once more, and the awful silence in the room sank deeper than ever.

      "Swear!" said Mrs. Treverton. Her voice failed her when she had pronounced that one word. She struggled a little, recovered the power of utterance, and went on: "Swear that you will not destroy this paper after I am dead."

      Even while she pronounced these solemn words, even at that last struggle for life and strength, the ineradicable theatrical instinct showed, with a fearful inappropriateness, how firmly it kept its place in her mind. Sarah felt the cold hand that was still laid on hers lifted for a moment—saw it waving gracefully toward her—felt it descend again, and clasp her own hand with a trembling, impatient pressure. At that final appeal, she answered faintly,

      "I swear it."

      "Swear that you will not take this paper away with you, if you leave the house, after I am dead."

      Again Sarah paused before she answered—again the trembling pressure made itself felt on her hand, but more weakly this time—again the words dropped affrightedly from her lips—

      "I