CHAPTER XXIII
"How is she?"
Mrs. Colwood shook her head sadly.
"Not well--and not happy."
The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge. The young soldier had walked up toBeechcote immediately after luncheon, finding it impossible to restrainhis impatience longer. Diana had not expected him so soon, and hadslipped out for her daily half-hour with Betty Dyson, who had had aslight stroke, and was failing fast. So that Mrs. Colwood was atRoughsedge's discretion. But he was not taking all the advantage of itthat he might have done. The questions with which his mind was evidentlyteeming came out but slowly.
Little Mrs. Colwood surveyed him from time to time with sympathy andpleasure. Her round child-like eyes under their long lashes told hereverything that as a woman she wanted to know. What an improvement inlooks and manner--what indefinable gains in significance andself-possession! Danger, command, responsibility, those great tutors ofmen, had come in upon the solid yet malleable stuff of which thecharacter was made, moulding and polishing, striking away defects,disengaging and accenting qualities. Who could ever have foreseen thatHugh might some day be described as "a man of the world"? Yet if thatvague phrase were to be taken in its best sense, as describing apersonality both tempered and refined by the play of the world's forcesupon it, it might certainly be now used of the man before her.
He was handsomer than ever; bronzed by Nigerian sun, all the superfluousflesh marched off him; every muscle in his frame taut and vigorous. Andat the same time a new self-confidence--apparently quite unconscious,and the inevitable result of a strong and testing experience--wasenabling him to bring his powers to bear and into play, as he hadnever yet done.
She recalled, with some confusion, that she--and Diana?--had tacitlythought of him as good, but stupid. On the contrary, was she, perhaps,in the presence of some one destined to do great things for his country?to lay hold--without intending it, as it were, and by the left hand--ohhigh distinction? Were women, on the whole, bad judges of young men? Sherecalled a saying of Dr. Roughsedge, that "mothers never know how clevertheir sons are." Perhaps the blindness extends to other eyesthan mothers?
Meanwhile, she got from him all the news she could. He had been, itseemed, concerned in the vast operation of bringing a new African Empireinto being. She listened, dazzled, while in the very simplest, baldestphrases he described the curbing of slave-raiders, the winning ofpopulations, the grappling with the desert, the opening out of riverhighways, whereof in his seven months he had been the fascinatedbeholder. As to his own exploits, he was ingeniously silent; but sheknew them already. A military expedition against two revolted andslave-raiding emirs, holding strong positions on the great river; a fewofficers borrowed from home to stiffen a local militia; hot fightingagainst great odds; half a million of men released from a reign ofhell; tyranny broken, and the British _pax_ extended over regions athird as large as India--smiling prosperity within its pale, bestialdevastation and cruelty without--these things she knew, or had been ableto imagine from the newspapers. According to him, it had been all thedoing of other men. She knew better; but soon found it of no use tointerrupt him.
Meanwhile she dared not ask him why he had come home. The campaign,indeed, was over; but he had been offered, it appeared, anadministrative appointment.
"And you mean to go back?"
"Perhaps." He colored and looked restlessly out of the window.
Mrs. Colwood understood the look, and felt it was, indeed, hard uponhim that he must put up with her so long. In reality, he too wasconscious of new pleasure in an old acquaintance. He had forgottenwhat a dear little thing she was: how prettily round-faced, yetdelicate--ethereal--in all her proportions, with the kindest eyes. Shetoo had grown--by the mere contact with Diana's fate. Within her tinyframe the soul of her had risen to maternal heights, embracing andsustaining Diana.
He would have given the world to question her. But after her firstanswer to his first inquiry he had fallen tongue-tied on the subject ofDiana, and Nigeria had absorbed conversation. She, on her side, wishedhim to know many things, but did not see how to begin upon them.
At last she attempted it.
"You have heard of our election? And what happened?"
He nodded. His mother had kept him informed. He understood Marsham hadbeen badly hurt. Was it really so desperate?
In a cautious voice, watching the window, Muriel told what she knew. Therecital was pitiful; but Hugh Roughsedge sat impassive, making nocomments. She felt that in this quarter the young man was adamant.
"I suppose"--he turned his face from her--"Miss Mallory does not now goto Tallyn."
"No." She hesitated, looking at her companion, a score of feelingsmingling in her mind. Then she broke out: "But she would like to!"
His startled look met hers; she was dismayed at what she had done. Yet,how not to give him warning?--this loyal young fellow, feeding himselfon futile hopes!
"You mean--she still thinks--of Marsham?"
"Of nothing else," she said, impetuously--"of nothing else!"
He frowned and winced.
She resumed: "It is like her--so like her!--isn't it?"
Her soft pitiful eyes, into which the tears had sprung, pressed thequestion on him.
"I thought there was a cousin--Miss Drake?" he said, roughly.
Mrs. Colwood hesitated.
"It is said that all that is broken off."
He was silent. But his watch was on the garden. And suddenly, on thelong grass path, Diana appeared, side by side with the Vicar. Roughsedgesprang up. Muriel was arrested by Diana's face, and by something rigidin the carriage of the head. What had the Vicar been saying to her?--sheasked herself, angrily. Never was there anything less discreet than theVicar's handling of human nature!--female human nature, in particular.
Hugh Roughsedge opened the glass door, and went to meet them. Diana, atsight of him, gave a bewildered look, as though she scarcely knewhim--then a perfunctory hand.
"Captain Roughsedge! They didn't tell me--"
"I want to speak to you," said the Vicar, peremptorily, to Mrs. Colwood;and he carried her off round the corner of the house.
Diana gazed after them, and Roughsedge thought he saw her totter.
"You look so ill!" he said, stooping over her. "Come and sit down."
His boyish nervousness and timidity left him. The strong man emerged andtook command. He guided her to a garden seat, under a drooping lime. Shesank upon the seat, quite unable to stand, beckoning him to stay by her.So he stood near, reluctantly waiting, his heart contracting at thesight of her.
At last she recovered herself and sat up.
"It was some bad news," she said, looking at him piteously, and holdingout her hand again. "It is too bad of me to greet you like this."
He took her hand, and his own self-control broke down. He raised it tohis lips with a stifled cry.
"Don't!--don't!" said Diana, helplessly. "Indeed--there is nothing thematter--I am only foolish. It is so--so good of you to care." She drewher hand from his, raised it to her brow, and, drawing a long breath,pushed back the hair from her face. She was like a person strugglingagainst some torturing restraint, not knowing where to turn for help.
"ROUGHSEDGE STOOD NEAR, RELUCTANTLY WAITING"]
But at the word "care" he pulled himself together. He sat down besideher, and plunged straight into his declaration. He went at it with thesame resolute simplicity that he was accustomed to throw into hismilitary duty, nor could she stop him in the least. His unalterableaffection; his changed and improved prospects; a staff appointment athome if she accepted him; the Nigerian post if she refused him--thesethings he put before her in the natural manly speech of a youngEnglishman sorely in love, yet quite incapable of "high flights," It wasvery evident that he had pondered what he was to say through the daysand nights of his exile; that he was doing precisely what he had alwaysplanned to do, and with his whole heart in the business. She tried onceor twice to interrupt him, but he did not mean to be inter
rupted, andshe was forced to hear it out.
At the end she gave a little gasp.
"Oh, Hugh!" His name, given him for the first time, fell soforlornly--it was such a breathing out of trouble and pity anddespair--that his heart took another and a final plunge downward. He hadknown all through that there was no hope for him; this tone, this aspectsettled it. But she stretched out her hands to him, tenderly--appealing."Hugh--I shall have to tell you--but I am ashamed."
He looked at her in silence a moment, then asked her why. The tears rosebrimming in her eyes--her hands still in his.
"Hugh--I--I--have always loved Oliver Marsham--and I--cannot think ofany one else. You know what has happened?"
He saw the sob swelling in her white throat.
"Yes!" he said, passionately. "It is horrible. But you cannot go tohim--you cannot marry him. He was a coward when he should have stood byyou. He cannot claim you now."
She withdrew her hands.
"No!" The passion in her voice matched his own. "But I would give theworld if he could--and would!"
There was a pause. Steadily the woman gained upon her own weakness andbeat it down. She resumed:
"I must tell you--because--it is the only way--for us two--to be realfriends again--and I want a friend so much. The news of Oliver is--isterrible. The Vicar had just seen Mr. Lankester--who is staying there.He is nearly blind--and the pain!" Her hand clinched--she threw her headback. "Oh! I can't speak of it! And it may go on for years. The doctorsseem to be all at sea. They say he _ought_ to recover--but they doubtwhether he will. He has lost all heart--and hope--he can't help himself.He lies there like a log all day--despairing. And, please--what am _I_doing here?" She turned upon him impetuously, her cheeks flaming. "Theywant help--there is no one. Mrs. Fotheringham hardly ever comes. Theythink Lady Lucy is in a critical state of health too. She won't admitit--she does everything as usual. But she is very frail and ill, and itdepresses Oliver. And I am here!--useless--and helpless. Oh, why can't Igo?--why can't I go?" She laid her face upon her arms, on the bench,hiding it from him; but he saw the convulsion of her whole frame.
Beside a passion so absolute and so piteous he felt, his own claimshrink into nothingness--impossible, even, to give it voice again. Hestraightened himself in silence; with an effort of the whole man, thelover put on the friend.
"But you can go," he said, a little hoarsely, "if you feel like that."
She raised herself suddenly.
"How do I know that he wants me?--how do I know that he would even seeme?"
Once more her cheeks were crimson. She had shown him her love unveiled;now he was to see her doubt--the shame that tormented her. He felt thatit was to heal him she had spoken, and he could do nothing to repay her.He could neither chide her for a quixotic self-sacrifice, which mightnever be admitted or allowed; nor protest, on Marsham's behalf, againstit, for he knew, in truth, nothing of the man; least of all could heplead for himself. He could only sit, staring like a fool, tongue-tied;till Diana, mastering, for his sake, the emotion to which, partly alsofor his sake, she had given rein, gradually led the conversation back tosafer and cooler ground. All the little involuntary arts came in bywhich a woman regains command of herself, and thereby of her companion.Her hat tired her head; she removed it, and the beautiful hairunderneath, falling into confusion, must be put in its place by skilledinstinctive fingers, every movement answering to a similarself-restraining effort in the mind within. She dried her tears; shedrew closer the black scarf round the shoulders of her white dress; shestraightened the violets at her belt--Muriel's mid-day gift--till hebeheld her, white and suffering indeed, but lovely and composed--queenof herself.
She made him talk of his adventures, and he obeyed her, partly to helpher in the struggle he perceived, partly because in theposition--beneath and beyond all hope--to which she had reduced him, itwas the only way by which he could save anything out of the wreck. Andshe bravely responded. She could and did lend him enough of her mind tomake it worth his while. A friend should not come home to her fromperils of land and sea, and find her ungrateful--a niggard of sympathyand praise.
So that when Dr. and Mrs. Roughsedge appeared, and Muriel returned withthem, Mrs. Roughsedge, all on edge with anxiety, could make very littleof what had--what must have--occurred. Diana, carved in white wax, butfor the sensitive involuntary movements of lip and eyebrow, waslistening to a description of an English embassy sent through the lengthand breadth of the most recently conquered province of Nigeria. Theembassy took the news of peace and Imperial rule to a country devastatedthe year before by the most hideous of slave-raids. The road it marchedby was strewn with the skeletons of slaves--had been so strewn probablyfor thousands of years. "One night my horse trod unawares on twoskeletons--women--locked in each other's arms," said Hugh; "scores ofothers round them. In the evening we camped at a village where everyable-bodied male had been killed the year before."
"Shot?" asked the doctor.
"Oh, dear, no! That would have been to waste ammunition. A limb washacked off, and they bled to death."
His mother was looking at the speaker with all her eyes, but she did nothear a word he said. Was he pale or not?
Diana shuddered.
"And that is _stopped_--forever?" Her eyes were on the speaker.
"As long as our flag flies there," said the soldier, simply.
Her look kindled. For a moment she was the shadow, the beautiful shadow,of her old Imperialist self--the proud, disinterested lover ofher country.
The doctor shook his head.
"Don't forget the gin, and the gin-traders on the other side, MasterHugh."
"They don't show their noses in the new provinces," said the young man,quietly; "we shall straighten that out too, in the longrun--you'll see."
But Diana had ceased to listen. Mrs. Roughsedge, turning toward her, andwith increasing foreboding, saw, as it were, the cloud of an inwardagony, suddenly recalled, creep upon the fleeting brightness of herlook, as the evening shade mounts upon and captures a sunlit hill-side.The mother, in spite of her native optimism, had never cherished anyreal hope of her son's success. But neither had she expected, on theother side, a certainty so immediate and so unqualified. She saw beforeher no settled or resigned grief. The Tallyn tragedy had transformedwhat had been almost a recovered serenity, a restored and patientequilibrium, into something violent, tumultuous, unstable--prophesyingaction. But what--poor child!--could the action be?
* * * * *
"Poor Hugh!" said Mrs. Roughsedge to her husband on their return, as shestood beside him, in his study. Her voice was low, for Hugh had onlyjust gone up-stairs, and the little house was thinly built.
The doctor rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and then looked round him for acigarette.
"Yes," he said, slowly; "but he enjoyed his walk home."
"Henry!"
Hugh had walked back to the village with Mrs. Colwood, who had an errandthere, and it was true that he had talked much to her out of earshot ofhis parents, and had taken a warm farewell of her at the end.
"Why am I to be 'Henry'-ed?"--inquired the doctor, beginning on hiscigarette.
"Because you must know," said his wife, in an energetic whisper, "thatHugh had almost certainly proposed to Miss Mallory before we arrived,and she had refused him!"
The doctor meditated.
"I still say that Hugh enjoyed his walk," he repeated; "I trust he willhave others of the same kind--with the same person."
"Henry, you are really incorrigible!" cried his wife. "How can you makejokes--on such a thing--with that girl's face before you!"
"Not at all," said the doctor, protesting. "I am not making jokes,Patricia. But what you women never will understand is, that it was not awoman but a man that wrote--
"'If she be not fair for me-- What care I--'"
"Henry!" and his wife, beside herself, tried to stop his mouth with herhand.
"All right, I won't finish," said the doctor, placidl
y, disengaginghimself. "But let me assure you, Patricia, whether you like it or not,that that is a male sentiment. I quite agree that no nice woman couldhave written it. But, then, Hugh is not a nice woman--nor am I."
"I thought you were so fond of her!" said his wife, reproachfully.
"Miss Mallory? I adore her. But, to tell the truth, Patricia, I want adaughter-in-law--and--and grand-children," added the doctor,deliberately, stretching out his long limbs to the fire. "I admit thatmy remarks may be quite irrelevant and ridiculous--but I repeat that--inspite of everything--Hugh enjoyed his walk."
* * * * *
One October evening, a week later, Lady Lucy sat waiting for Sir JamesChide at Tallyn Hall. Sir James had invited himself to dine and sleep,and Lady Lucy was expecting him in the up-stairs sitting-room, a medleyof French clocks and china figures, where she generally sat now, inorder to be within quick and easy reach of Oliver.
She was reading, or pretending to read, by the fire, listening all thetime for the sound of the carriage outside. Meanwhile, the silence ofthe immense house oppressed her. It was broken only by the chiming of acarillon clock in the hall below. The little tune it played, fatuouslygay, teased her more insistently each time she heard it. It must reallybe removed. She wondered Oliver had not already complained of it.
A number of household and estate worries oppressed her thoughts. How wasshe to cope with them? Capable as she was, "John" had always been thereto advise her, in emergency--or Oliver. She suspected the house-stewardof dishonesty. And the agent of the estate had brought her that morningcomplaints of the head gamekeeper that were most disquieting. What didthey want with gamekeepers now? Who would ever shoot at Tallyn again?With impatience she felt herself entangled in the endless machinery ofwealth and the pleasures of wealth, so easy to set in motion, and sodifficult to stop, even when all the savor has gone out of it. She wasa tired, broken woman, with an invalid son; and the management of hergreat property, in which her capacities and abilities had taken for solong an imperious and instinctive delight, had become a mere burden. Shelonged to creep into some quiet place, alone with Oliver, out of reachof this army of servants and dependents, these impassive andunresponsive faces.
The crunching of the carriage wheels on the gravel outside gave her astart of something like pleasure. Among the old friends there was no onenow she cared so much to see as Sir James Chide. Sir James had latelyleft Parliament and politics, and had taken a judgeship. She understoodthat he had lost interest in politics after and in consequence of JohnFerrier's death; and she knew, of course, that he had refused theAttorney-Generalship, on the ground of the treatment meted out to hisold friend and chief. During the month of Oliver's second election,moreover, she had been very conscious of Sir James's hostility to herson. Intercourse between him and Tallyn had practically ceased.
Since the accident, however, he had been kind--very kind.
The door opened, and Sir James was announced. She greeted him with atremulous and fluttering warmth that for a moment embarrassed hervisitor, accustomed to the old excess of manner and dignity, wherewithshe kept her little world in awe. He saw, too, that the havoc wrought byage and grief had gone forward rapidly since he had seen her last.
"I am afraid there is no better news of Oliver?" he said, gravely, as hesat down beside her.
She shook her head.
"We are in despair, Nothing touches the pain but morphia. And he haslost heart himself so much during the last fortnight."
"You have had any fresh opinion?"
"Yes. The last man told me he still believed the injury was curable, butthat Oliver must do a great deal for himself. And that he seemsincapable of doing. It is, of course, the shock to the nerves, and--thegeneral--disappointment--"
Her voice shook. She stared into the fire.
"You mean--about politics?" said Sir James, after a pause.
"Yes. Whenever I speak cheerfully to him, he asks me what there is tolive for. He has been driven out of politics--by a conspiracy--"
Sir James moved impatiently.
"With health he would soon recover everything," he said, rather shortly.
She made no reply, and her shrunken faded look--as of one with no energyfor hope--again roused his pity.
"Tell me," he said, bending toward her--"I don't ask from idlecuriosity--but--has there been any truth in the rumor of Oliver'sengagement to Miss Drake?"
Lady Lucy raised her head sharply. The light came back to her eyes.
"She was engaged to him, and three weeks after his accident she threwhim over."
Sir James made a sound of amazement. Lady Lucy went on:
"She left him and me, barely a fortnight afterward, to go to a bigcountry-house party in the north. That will show you--what she's madeof. Then she wrote--a hypocritical letter--putting it on _him_. _He_must not be agitated, nor feel her any burden upon him; so, for _his_sake, she broke it off. Of course, they were to be cousins and friendsagain just as before. She had arranged it all to her ownsatisfaction--and was meanwhile flirting desperately, as we heard fromvarious people in the north, with Lord Philip Darcy. Oliver showed meher letter, and at last told me the whole story. I persuaded him not toanswer it. A fortnight ago, she wrote again, proposing to come backhere--to 'look after' us--poor things! This time, _I_ replied. She wouldlike Tallyn, no doubt, as a place of retreat, should other plans fail;but it will not be open to her!"
It was not energy now--vindictive energy--that was lacking to thepersonality before him!
"An odious young woman" exclaimed Sir James, lifting hands and eyebrows."I am afraid I always thought so, saving your presence, Lady Lucy.However, she will want a retreat; for her plans--in the quarter youname--have not a chance of success."
"I am delighted to hear it!" said Lady Lucy, still erect and flushed."What do you know?"
"Simply that Lord Philip is not in the least likely to marry her,having, I imagine, views in quite other quarters--so I am told. But heis the least scrupulous of men--and no doubt if, at Eastham, she threwherself into his arms--'what mother's son,' et cetera. Only, if sheimagined herself to have caught him--such an old and hardenedstager!--in a week--her abilities are less than I supposed."
"Alicia's self-conceit was always her weak point."
But as she spoke the force imparted by resentment died away. Lady Lucysank back in her chair.
"And Oliver felt it very much?" asked Sir James, after a pause, hisshrewd eyes upon her.
"He was wounded, of course--he has been more depressed since; but I havenever believed that he was in love with her."
Sir James did not pursue the subject, but the vivacity of the glancebent now on the fire, now on his companion, betrayed the marchingthoughts behind.
"Will Oliver see me this evening?" he inquired, presently.
"I hope so. He promised me to make the effort."
A servant knocked at the door. It was Oliver's valet.
"Please, my lady, Mr. Marsham wished me to say he was afraid he wouldnot be strong enough to see Sir James Chide to-night. He is verysorry--and would Sir James be kind enough to come and see him afterbreakfast to-morrow?"
Lady Lucy threw up her hands in a little gesture of despair, Then sherose, and went to speak to the servant in the doorway.
When she returned she looked whiter and more shrivelled than before.
"Is he worse to-night?" asked Sir James, gently.
"It is the pain," she said, in a muffled voice; "and we can't touchit--yet. He mustn't have any more morphia--yet."
She sat down once more. Sir James, the best of gossips, glided off intotalk of London, and of old common friends, trying to amuse and distracther. But he realized that she scarcely listened to him, and that he wastalking to a woman whose life was being ground away between a lastaffection and the torment it had power to cause her. A new Lady Lucy,indeed! Had any one ever dared to pity her before?
Meanwhile, five miles off, a girl whom he loved as a daughter was eatingher heart out f
or sorrow over this mother and son--consumed, as heguessed, with the wild desire to offer them, in any sacrificial modethey pleased, her youth and her sweet self. In one way or another he hadfound out that Hugh Roughsedge had been sent about his business--ofcourse, with all the usual softening formulae.
And now there was a kind of mute conflict going on between himself andMrs. Colwood on the one side, and Diana on the other side.
No, she should not spend and waste her youth in the vain attempt to mendthis house of tragedy!--it was not to be tolerated--not to be thoughtof. She would suffer, but she would get over it; and Oliver wouldprobably die. Sooner or later she would begin life afresh, if only hewas able to stand between her and the madness in her heart.
But as he sat there, looking at Lady Lucy, he realized that it mighthave been better for his powers and efficacy as a counsellor if he, too,had held aloof from this house of pain.
CHAPTER XXIV
It was about ten o'clock at night. Lankester, who had arrived fromLondon an hour before, had said good-night to Lady Lucy and Sir James,and had slipped into Marsham's room. Marsham had barred his door thatevening against both his mother and Sir James. But Lankester wasnot excluded.
Off and on and in the intervals of his parliamentary work he had beenstaying at Tallyn for some days. A letter from Lady Lucy, in reply to aninquiry, had brought him down. Oliver had received him with fewwords--indeed, with an evident distaste for words; but at the end of thefirst day's visit had asked him abruptly, peremptorily even, tocome again.
When he entered Marsham's room he found the invalid asleep under theinfluence of morphia. The valet, a young fellow, was noiselessly puttingthings straight. Lankester noticed that he looked pale.
"A bad time?" he said, in a whisper, standing beside the carefullyregulated spinal couch on which Marsham was sleeping.
"Awful, sir. He was fair beside himself till we gave him the morphia."
"Is there anybody sitting up?"
"No. He'll be quiet now for six or seven hours. I shall be in the nextroom."
The young man spoke wearily. It was clear that the moral strain of whathe had just seen had weighed upon him as much as the fatigue of theday's attendance.
"Come!" said Lankester, looking at him. "You want a good night. Go to myroom. I'll lie down there." He pointed to Marsham's bedroom, nowappropriated to the valet, while the master, for the sake of space andcheerfulness, had been moved into the sitting-room. The servanthesitated, protested, and was at last persuaded, being well aware ofMarsham's liking for this queer, serviceable being.
Lankester took various directions from him, and packed him off. Then,instead of going to the adjoining room, he chose a chair beside a shadedlamp, and said to himself that he would sleep by the fire.
Presently the huge house sank into a silence even more profound thanthat in which it was now steeped by day. A cold autumn wind blew roundabout it. After midnight the wind dropped, and the temperature with it.The first severe frost laid its grip on forest and down and garden.Silently the dahlias and the roses died, the leaves shrivelled andblackened, and a cold and glorious moon rose upon the ruins ofthe summer.
Lankester dozed and woke, keeping up the fire, and wrapping himself inan eider-down, with which the valet had provided him. In the small hourshe walked across the room to look at Marsham. He was lying still andbreathing heavily. His thick fair hair, always slightly gray from thetime he was thirty, had become much grayer of late; the thin handsomeface was drawn and damp, the eyes cavernous, the lips bloodless. Even insleep his aspect showed what he had suffered.
Poor, poor old fellow!
Lankester's whole being softened into pity. Yet he had no illusions asto the man before him--a man of inferior _morale_ and weak will,incapable, indeed, of the clever brutalities by which the wickedflourish; incapable also of virtues that must, after all, be tolerablycommon, or the world would run much more lamely than it does. Straight,honorable, unselfish fellows--Lankester knew scores of them, rich andpoor, clever and slow, who could and did pass the tests of life withoutflinching; who could produce in any society--as politicians orgreen-grocers--an impression of uprightness and power, an effect ofcharacter, that Marsham, for all his ability, had never produced, or, inthe long run, and as he came to be known, had never sustained.
Well, what then? In the man looking down on Marsham not a tinge ofpharisaic condemnation mingled with the strange clearness of hisjudgment. What are we all--the best of us? Lankester had not parted,like the majority of his contemporaries, with the "sense of sin." Avivid, spiritual imagination, trained for years on prayer and reverie,showed him the world and human nature--his own first andforemost--everywhere flecked and stained with evil. For the man ofreligion the difference between saint and sinner has never been as sharpas for the man of the world; it is for the difference between holinessand sin that he reserves his passion. And the stricken or repentantsinner is at all times nearer to his heart than the men "who need norepentance."
Moreover, it is in men like Lankester that the ascetic temper common toall ages and faiths is perpetually reproduced, the temper which makes ofsuffering itself a divine and sacred thing--the symbol of a mystery. Inhis own pity for this emaciated arrested youth he read the pledge of adivine sympathy, the secret voice of a God suffering for and with man,which, in its myriad forms, is the primeval faith of the race. Where athinker of another type would have seen mere aimless waste andmutilation, this evangelical optimist bared the head and bent the knee.The spot whereon he stood was holy ground, and above this piteoussleeper heavenly dominations, princedoms, powers, hung in watch.
He sank, indeed, upon his knees beside the sleeper. In the intense andmystical concentration, which the habit of his life had taught him, theprayer to which he committed himself took a marvellous range withoutever losing its detail, its poignancy. The pain, moral and physical, ofman--pain of the savage, the slave, the child; the miseries ofinnumerable persons he had known, whose stories had been confided tohim, whose fates he had shared; the anguish of irreparable failure, ofmissed, untasted joy; agonies brutal or obscure, of nerve andbrain!--his mind and soul surrendered themselves to these impressions,shook under the storm and scourge of them. His prayer was not his own;it seemed to be the Spirit wrestling with Itself, and rending his ownweak life.
He drew nearer to Marsham, resting his forehead on the bed. Thefirelight threw the shadow of his gaunt kneeling figure on the whitewalls. And at last, after the struggle, there seemed to be aneffluence--a descending, invading love--overflowing his ownbeing--enwrapping the sufferer before him--silencing the clamor of aweeping world. And the dual mind of the modern, even in Lankester,wavered between the two explanations: "It is myself," said the criticalintellect, "the intensification and projection of myself." "_It isGod!_" replied the soul.
Marsham, meanwhile, as the morning drew on, and as the veil of morphiabetween him and reality grew thinner, was aware of a dream slowlydrifting into consciousness--of an experience that grew more vivid as itprogressed. Some one was in the room; he moved uneasily, lifted hishead, and saw indistinctly a figure in the shadows standing near thesmouldering fire. It was not his servant; and suddenly his dream mingledwith what he saw, and his heart began to throb.
"Ferrier!" he called, under his breath. The figure turned, but in hisblindness and semi-consciousness he did not recognize it.
"I want to speak to you," he said, in the same guarded, half-whisperedvoice. "Of course, I had no right to do it, but--"
His voice dropped and his eyelids closed.
Lankester advanced from the fire. He saw Marsham was not really awake,and he dreaded to rouse him completely, lest it should only be to theconsciousness of pain. He stooped over him gently, and spoke his name.
"Yes," said Marsham, murmuring, without opening his eyes. "There's noneed for you to rub it in. I behaved like a beast, and Barrington--"
The voice became inarticulate again. The prostration and pallor of thespeaker, the feebleness of the tone--nothing could ha
ve been morepitiful. An idea rushed upon Lankester. He again bent over the bed.
"Don't think of it any more," he said. "It's forgotten!"
A slight and ghastly smile showed on Marsham's lip as he lay with closedeyes. "Forgotten! No, by Jove!" Then, after an uneasy movement, he said,in a stronger and irritable voice, which seemed to come from anotherregion of consciousness:
"It would have been better to have burned the paper. One can't get awayfrom the thing. It--it disturbs me--"
"What paper?" said Lankester, close to the dreamer's ear.
"The _Herald_," said Marsham, impatiently.
"Where is it?"
"In that cabinet by the fire."
"Shall I burn it?"
"Yes--don't bother me!" Evidently he now thought he was speaking to hisvalet, and a moan of pain escaped him. Lankester walked over to thecabinet and opened the top drawer. He saw a folded newspaper lyingwithin it. After a moment's hesitation he lifted it, and perceived bythe light of the night-lamp that it was the _Herald_ of August 2--thefamous number issued on the morning of Ferrier's death. All the story ofthe communicated article and the "Barrington letter" ran through hismind. He stood debating with himself, shaken by emotion. Then hedeliberately took the paper to the fire, stirred the coals, and, tearingup the paper, burned it piece by piece.
After it was done he walked back to Marsham's side. "I have burned thepaper," he said, kneeling down by him.
Marsham, who was breathing lightly with occasional twitchings of thebrow, took no notice. But after a minute he said, in a steady yetthrilling voice:
"Ferrier!"
Silence.
"Ferrier!" The tone of the repeated word brought the moisture toLankester's eyes. He took the dreamer's hand in his, pressing it.Marsham returned the pressure, first strongly, again more feebly. Then awave of narcotic sleep returned upon him, and he seemed to sink into itprofoundly.
* * * * *
Next morning, as Marsham, after his dressing, was lying moody andexhausted on his pillows, he suddenly said to his servant:
"I want something out of that cabinet by the fire."
"Yes, sir." The man moved toward it obediently.
"Find a newspaper in the top drawer, folded up small--on the right-handside."
Richard looked.
"I am sorry, sir, but there is nothing in the drawer at all."
"Nonsense!" said Marsham, angrily. "You've got the wrong drawer!"
The whole cabinet was searched to no purpose. Marsham grew very pale. Hemust, of course, have destroyed the paper himself, and his illness hadeffaced his memory of the act, as of other things. Yet he could notshake off an impression of mystery. Twice now, weeks after Ferrier'sdeath, he seemed to have been in Ferrier's living presence, underconditions very unlike those of an ordinary dream. He could only remindhimself how easily the brain plays tricks upon a man in his state.
* * * * *
After breakfast, Sir James Chide was admitted. But Oliver was now in thestate of obsession, when the whole being, already conscious of a certaindegree of pain, dreads the approach of a much intenser form--hears itas the footfall of a beast of prey, drawing nearer room by room, andcan think of nothing else but the suffering it foresees, and thenarcotic which those about him deal out to him so grudgingly, rousing inhim, the while, a secret and silent fury. He answered Sir James inmonosyllables, lying, dressed, upon his sofa, the neuralgic portion ofthe spine packed and cushioned from any possible friction, his foreheaddrawn and frowning.
Sir James shrank from asking him about himself. But it was useless totalk of politics; Oliver made no response, and was evidently no longerabreast even of the newspapers.
"Does your man read you the _Times_?" asked Sir James, noticing that itlay unopened beside him.
Oliver nodded. "There was a dreadful being my mother found a fortnightago. I got rid of him."
He had evidently not strength to be more explicit. But Sir James hadheard from Lady Lucy of the failure of her secretarial attempt.
"I hear they talk of moving you for the winter."
"They talk of it. I shall oppose it."
"I hope not!--for Lady Lucy's sake. She is so hopeful about it, and sheis not fit herself to spend the winter in England."
"My mother must go," said Oliver, closing his eyes.
"She will never leave you."
Marsham made no reply; then, without closing his eyes again, he said,between his teeth: "What is the use of going from one hell to anotherhell--through a third--which is the worst of all?"
"You dread the journey?" said Sir James, gently. "But there are ways andmeans."
"No!" Oliver's voice was sudden and loud. "There are none!--that makeany difference."
Sir James was left perplexed, cudgelling his brains as to what toattempt next. It was Marsham, however, who broke the silence. With hisdimmed sight he looked, at last, intently, at his companion.
"Is--is Miss Mallory still at Beechcote?"
Sir James moved involuntarily.
"Yes, certainly."
"You see a great deal of her?"
"I do--I--" Sir James cleared his throat a little--I look upon her as myadopted daughter."
"I should like to be remembered to her."
"You shall be," said Sir James, rising. "I will give her your message.Meanwhile, may I tell Lady Lucy that you feel a little easierthis morning?"
Oliver slowly and sombrely shook his head. Then, however, he made avisible effort.
"But I want to see her. Will you tell her?"
Lady Lucy, however, was already in the room. Probably she had heard themessage from the open doorway where she often hovered. Oliver held outhis hand to her, and she stooped and kissed him. She asked him a fewlow-voiced questions, to which he mostly answered by a shake of thehead. Then she attempted some ordinary conversation, during which it wasvery evident that the sick man wished to be left alone.
She and Sir James retreated to her sitting-room, and there Lady Lucy,sitting helplessly by the fire, brushed away some tears of which she wasonly half conscious. Sir James walked up and down, coming at last to astop beside her.
"It seems to me this is as much a moral as a physical breakdown. Cannothing be done to take him out of himself?--give him fresh heart?"
"We have tried everything--suggested everything. But it seems impossibleto rouse him to make an effort."
Sir James resumed his walk--only to come to another stop.
"Do you know--that he just now--sent a message by me to Miss Mallory?"
Lady Lucy started.
"Did he?" she said, faintly, her eyes on the blaze. He came up to her.
"_There_ is a woman who would never have deserted you!--or him!" hesaid, in a burst of irrepressible feeling, which would out.
Lady Lucy's glance met his--silently, a little proudly. She said nothingand presently he took his leave.
* * * * *
The day wore on. A misty sunshine enwrapped the beech woods. The greattrees stood marked here and there by the first fiery summons of thefrost. Their supreme moment was approaching which would strike them,head to foot, into gold and amber, in a purple air. Lady Lucy took herdrive among them as a duty, but between her and the enchanted woodlandthere was a gulf fixed.
She paid a visit to Oliver, trembling, as she always did, lest someobscure catastrophe, of which she was ever vaguely in dread, should havedeveloped. But she found him in a rather easier phase, with Lankester,who had just returned from town, reading aloud to him. She gave themtea, thinking, as she did so, of the noisy parties gathered so recently,during the election weeks, round the tea-tables in the hall. And thenshe returned to her own room to write some letters.
She looked once more with distaste and weariness at the pile of lettersand notes awaiting her. All the business of the house, the estate, thevillage--she was getting an old woman; she was weary of it. And withsudden bitterness she remembered that she had
a daughter, and thatIsabel had never been a real day's help to her in her life. Where wasshe now? Campaigning in the north--speaking at a bye-election--lecturingfor the suffrage. Since the accident she had paid two flying visits toher mother and brother. Oliver had got no help from her--nor her mother;she was the Mrs. Jellyby of a more hypocritical day. Yet Lady Lucy inher youth had been a very motherly mother; she could still recall in thedepths of her being the thrill of baby palms pressed "against the circleof the breast."
She sat down to her task, when the door opened behind her. A footmancame in, saying something which she did not catch. "My letters are notready yet"--she threw over her shoulder, irritably, without looking athim. The door closed. But some one was still in the room. She turnedsharply in astonishment.
"May I disturb you, Lady Lucy?" said a tremulous voice.
She saw a tall and slender woman, in black, bending toward her, with awillowy appealing grace, and eyes that beseeched. Diana Mallory stoodbefore her. There was a pause. Then Lady Lucy rose slowly, laid down herspectacles, and held out her hand.
"It is very kind of you to come and see me," she said, mechanically."Will you sit down?"
Diana gazed at her, with the childish short-sighted pucker of the browthat Lady Lucy remembered well. Then she came closer, still holding LadyLucy's hand.
"Sir James thought I might come," she said, breathlessly. "Isn'tthere--isn't there anything I might do? I wanted you to let me helpyou--like a secretary--won't you? Sir James thought you looked sotired--and this big place!--I am sure there are things I might do--andoh! it would make me so happy!"
Now she had her two hands clasping, fondling Lady Lucy's. Her eyes shonewith tears, her mouth trembled.
"Oh, you must--you must!" she cried, suddenly; "don't let's rememberanything but that we were friends--that you were so kind to me--you andMr. Oliver--in the spring. I can't bear sitting there at Beechcote doingnothing--amusing myself--when you--and Mr. Oliver--"
She stopped, forcing back the tears that would drive their way up,studying in dismay the lined and dwindled face before her. Lady Lucycolored deeply. During the months which had elapsed since the brokenengagement, she, even in her remote and hostile distance, had becomefully aware of the singular prestige, the homage of a whole district'sadmiration and tenderness, which had gathered round Diana. She hadresented the prestige and the homage, as telling against Oliver,unfairly. Yet as she looked at her visitor she felt the breath of theirascendency. Tender courage and self-control--the woman, where the girlhad been--a nature steadied and ennobled--these facts and victoriesspoke from Diana's face, her touch; they gave even something ofmaternity to her maiden youth.
"You come to a sad house," said Lady Lucy, holding her away a little.
"I know." The voice was quivering and sweet. "But he will recover--ofcourse he'll recover!"
Lady Lucy shook her head.
"He seems to have no will to recover."
Then her limbs failed her. She sank into a chair by the fire, and therewas Diana on a stool at her feet--timidly daring--dropping soft caresseson the hand she held, drawing out the tragic history of the precedingweeks, bringing, indeed, to this sad and failing mother what she hadperforce done without till now--that electric sympathy of women witheach other which is the natural relief and sustenance of the sex.
Lady Lucy forgot her letters--forgot, in her mind-weariness, all theagitating facts about this girl that she had once so vividly remembered.She had not the strength to battle and hold aloof. Who now could talk ofmarrying or giving in marriage? They met under a shadow of death; thesituation between them reduced to bare elemental things.
"You'll stay and dine with me?" she said at last, feebly. "We'll sendyou home. The carriages have nothing to do. And"--she straightenedherself--"you must see Oliver. He will know that you are here."
Diana said nothing. Lady Lucy rose and left the room. Diana leaned herhead against the chair in which the older lady had been sitting, andcovered her eyes. Her whole being was gathered into the momentof waiting.
Lady Lucy returned and beckoned. Once more Diana found herself hurryingalong the ugly, interminable corridors with which she had been sofamiliar in the spring. The house had never seemed to her so forlorn.They paused at an open door, guarded by a screen.
"Go in, please," said Lady Lucy, making room for her to pass.
Diana entered, shaken with inward fear. She passed the screen, and therebeyond it was an invalid couch--a man lying on it--and a hand heldout to her.
That shrunken and wasted being the Oliver Marsham of two months before!Her heart beat against her breast. Surely she was looking at theirreparable! Her high courage wavered and sank.
* * * * *
But Marsham did not perceive it. He saw, as in a cloud, the lovely ovalof the face, the fringed eyes, the bending form.
"Will you sit down?" he said, hoarsely.
She took a chair beside him, still holding his hand. It seemed as thoughshe were struck dumb by what she saw. He inquired if she was atBeechcote.
"Yes." Her head drooped. "But I want Lady Lucy to let me come and stayhere--a little."
"No one ought to stay here," he said, abruptly, two spots of feverishcolor appearing on his cheeks. "Sir James would advise you not. Sodo I."
She looked up softly.
"Your mother is so tired; she wants help. Won't you let me?"
Their eyes met. His hand trembled violently in hers.
"Why did you come?" he said, suddenly, breathing fast.
She found no words, only tears. She had relinquished his hand, but hestretched it out again and touched her bent head.
"There's no time left," he said, impatiently, "to--to fence in. Lookhere! I can't stand this pain many minutes more." He moved with astifled groan. "They'll give me morphia--it's the only thing. But I wantyou to know. I was engaged to Alicia Drake--after--we broke it off. AndI never loved her--not for a moment--and she knew it. Then, as soon asthis happened she left us. There was poetic justice, wasn't it? Who canblame her? I don't. I want you to know--what sort of a fellow I am."
Diana had recovered her strength. She raised his hand, and leaned herface upon it.
"Let me stay," she repeated--"let me stay!"
"No!" he said, with emphasis. "You should only stay if I might tellyou--I am a miserable creature--but I love you! And I may be a miserablecreature--in Chide's opinion--everybody's. But I am not quite such acur as that."
"Oliver!" She slipped to her knees. "Oliver! don't send me away!" Allher being spoke in the words. Her dark head sank upon his shoulder, hefelt her fresh cheek against his. With a cry he pressed her to him.
"I am dying--and--I--I am weak," he said, incoherently. He raised herhand as it lay across his breast and kissed it. Then he dropped itdespairingly.
"The awful thing is that when the pain comes I care about nothing--noteven you--_nothing_. And it's coming now. Go!--dearest. Good-night.To-morrow!--Call my servant." And as she fled she heard a sound ofanguish that was like a sword in her own heart.
His servant hurried to him; in the passage outside Diana found LadyLucy. They went back to the sitting-room together.
"The morphia will ease him," said Lady Lucy, with painful composure,putting her arm round the girl's shoulders. "Did he tell you hewas dying?"
Diana nodded, unable to speak.
"It may be so. But the doctors don't agree." Then with a manner thatrecalled old days: "May I ask--I don't know that I have the right--whathe said to you?"
She had withdrawn her arm, and the two confronted each other.
"Perhaps you won't allow it," said Diana, piteously. "He said I mightonly stay, if--if he might tell me--he loved me."
"Allow it?" said Lady Lucy, vaguely--"allow it?"
She fell into her chair, and Diana looked down upon her, hanging on thenext word.
Lady Lucy made various movements as though to speak, which came tonothing.
"I have no one--but him," she said at last, with
pathetic irrelevance."No one. Isabel--"
Her voice failed her. Diana held out her hands, the tears running downher cheeks. "Dear Lady Lucy, let me! I am yours--and Oliver's."
"It will, perhaps, be only a few weeks--or months--and then he will betaken from us."
"But give me the right to those weeks. You wouldn't--you wouldn'tseparate us now!"
Lady Lucy suddenly broke down. Diana clung to her with tears, and inthat hour she became as a daughter to the woman who had sentenced heryouth. Lady Lucy asked no pardon in words, to Diana's infinite relief;but the surrender of weakness and sorrow was complete. "Sir James willforbid it," she said at last, when she had recovered her calm.
"No one shall forbid it!" said Diana, rising with a smile. "Now, may Ianswer some of those letters for you?"
* * * * *
For some weeks after this Diana went backward and forward daily, oralmost daily, between Beechcote and Tallyn. Then she migrated to Tallynaltogether, and Muriel Colwood with her. Before and after that migrationwisdom had been justified of her children in the person of the doctor.Hugh Roughsedge's leave had been prolonged, owing to a slight buttroublesome wound in the arm, of which he had made nothing on cominghome. No wound could have been more opportune--more friendly to thedoctor's craving for a daughter-in-law. It kept the Captain atBeechcote, but it did not prevent him from coming over every Sunday toTallyn to bring flowers or letters, or news from the village; and it waspositively benefited by such mild exercise as a man may take, in companywith a little round-eyed woman, feather-light and active, yet inrelation to Diana, like a tethered dove, that can only take shortflights. Only here it was a tether self-imposed and of the heart.
There was no direct wooing, however, and for weeks their talk was all ofDiana. Then the Captain's arm got well, and Nigeria called. But Murielwould not have allowed him to say a word before departure had it notbeen for Diana--and the doctor--who were suddenly found to have entered,in regard to this matter, upon a league and covenant not to be resisted.Whether the doctor opened Diana's eyes need not be inquired; it iscertain that if, all the while, in Oliver's room, she and Lady Lucy hadnot been wrestling hour by hour with death--or worse--Diana would havewanted no one to open them. When she did understand, there was noopposing her. She pleaded--not without tears--to be given the happinessof knowing they were pledged, and her Muriel safe in harbor. SoRoughsedge had his say; a quiet engagement began its course in theworld; Brookshire as yet knew nothing; and the doctor triumphedover Patricia.
During this time Sir James Chide watched the development of a situationhe had not been able to change with a strange mixture of revolt andsympathy. Sometimes he looked beyond the tragedy which he thoughtinevitable to a recovered and normal life for Diana; sometimes he felt adismal certainty that when Oliver had left her, that recovered lifecould only shape itself to ascetic and self-renouncing ends. Had shebelonged to his own church, she would no doubt have become a"religious"; and he would have felt it the natural solution. Outside theCatholic Church, the same need takes shape--he thought--in forms lesssuited to a woman's weakness, less conducive to her dignity.
All through he resented the sacrifice of a being so noble, true, andtender to a love, in his eyes, so unfitting and derogatory. Not all thepathos of suffering could blunt his sense of Marsham's inferiority, ormake him think it "worth while."
Then, looking deeper, he saw the mother in the child; and in Diana'sdevotion, mysterious influences, flowing from her mother's fate--fromthe agony, the sin, the last tremulous hope, and piteous submission ofJuliet Sparling. He perceived that in this broken, tortured happiness towhich Diana had given herself there was some sustaining or consolingelement that nothing more normal or more earthly would have brought her;he guessed at spiritual currents and forces linking the dead with theliving, and at a soul heroically calm among them, sending forth raysinto the darkness. His religion, which was sincere, enabled him tounderstand her; his affection, his infinite delicacy of feeling,helped her.
Meanwhile, Diana and Lankester became the sustaining angels of astricken house. But not all their tenderness and their pity could, inthe end, do much for the two sufferers they tried to comfort. InOliver's case the spinal pain and disorganization increased, theblindness also; Lady Lucy became steadily feebler and more decrepit. Atlast all life was centred on one hope--the coming of a great Frenchspecialist, a disciple of Charcot's, recommended by the EnglishAmbassador in Paris, who was an old friend and kinsman of Lady Lucy.
But before he arrived Diana took a resolution. She went very early onemorning to see Sir James Chide. He was afterward closeted with LadyLucy, and he went up to town the following day on Diana's business. Theupshot of it all was that on the morning of New Year's Eve a marriagewas celebrated in Oliver Marsham's room by the Rector of Tallyn and Mr.Lavery. It was a wedding which, to all who witnessed it, was among themost heart-rending experiences of life. Oliver, practically blind, couldnot see his bride, and only morphia enabled him to go through it. Mrs.Fotheringham was to have been present; but there was a feminist congressin Paris, and she was detained at the last moment. The French specialistcame. He made a careful examination, but would give no decided opinion.He was to stay a week at Tallyn in order to watch the case, and hereserved his judgment. Meanwhile he gave certain directions as to localtreatment, and he asked that a new drug might be tried during the nightinstead of the second dose of morphia usually given. The hearts of allin charge of the invalid sank as they foresaw the inevitable struggle.
In the evening the new doctor paid a second visit to his patient. Dianasaw him afterward alone. He was evidently touched by the situation inthe house, and, cautious as he was, allowed himself a few guardedsentences throwing light on the doubt--which was in effect a hope--inhis own mind.
"Madame, it is a very difficult case. The emaciation, the weakness, thenerve depression--even if there were no organic disease--are aloneenough to threaten life. The morphia is, of course, a contributingcause. The question before us is: Have we here a case of irreparabledisease caused by the blow, or a case of nervous shock producing all thesymptoms of disease--pain, blindness, emaciation--but ultimatelycurable? That is what we have to solve."
Diana's eyes implored him.
"Give him hope," she said, with intensity. "For weeks--months--he hasnever allowed himself a moment's hope."
The doctor reflected.
"We will do what we can," he said, slowly. "Meanwhile,cheerfulness!--all the cheerfulness possible."
Diana's faint, obedient smile, as she rose to leave the room, touchedhim afresh. Just married, he understood. These are the things thatwomen do!
As he opened the door for her he said, with some hesitation: "You have,perhaps, heard of some of the curious effects that a railway collisionproduces. A man who has been in a collision and received a blow suffersafterward great pain, loss of walking power, impairment of vision, andso forth. The man's suffering is real--the man himself perfectlysincere--his doctor diagnoses incurable injury--the jury awards himdamages. Yet, in a certain number of instances, the man recovers. Havewe here an aggravated form of the same thing? _Ah, madame, courage!_"
For in the doorway he saw her fall back against the lintel for support.The hope that he infused tested her physically more severely than theagonies of the preceding weeks. But almost immediately she controlledherself, smiled at him again, and went.
That night various changes were made at Tallyn. Diana's maid unpacked,in the room communicating with Marsham's; and Diana, pale and composed,made a new arrangement with Oliver's male nurse. She was to take thenursing of the first part of the night, and he was to relieve her atthree in the morning. To her would fall the administration of thenew medicine.
* * * * *
At eleven o'clock all was still in the house. Diana opened the door ofOliver's room with a beating heart. She wore a dressing-gown of somewhite stuff; her black hair, released from the combs of the day, wasloosely rolled up, and cu
rled round her neck and temples. She came inwith a gentle deliberate step; it was but a few hours since the ceremonyof the morning, but the tranformation in her was instinctive andcomplete. To-night she was the wife--alone with her husband.
She saw that he was not asleep, and she went and knelt down beside him.
"Oliver, darling!"
He passed his hand over her hair.
"I have been waiting for you--it is our wedding night."
She hid her face against him.
"Oh! you angel!" he murmured to her--"angel of consolation! When I amgone, say to yourself: 'I drew him out of the pit, and helped him todie'; say 'he suffered, and I forgave him everything'; say 'he was myhusband, and I carried him on my heart--so.'" He moved toward her. Sheput her arms under his head and drew him to her breast, stooping overhim and kissing him.
So the first part of the night went by, he very much under the influenceof morphia and not in pain; murmured words passing at intervals betweenthem, the outward signs of an inward and ineffable bond. Often, as shesat motionless beside him, the thought of her mother stirred in herheart--father, mother, husband--close, close all of them--"closer thanhands and feet"--one with her and one with God.
About two o'clock she gave him the new drug, he piteously consenting forher sake. Then in a mortal terror she resumed her place beside him. In afew minutes surely the pain, the leaping hungry pain would be upon him,and she must see him wrestle with it defenceless. She sat holding herbreath, all existence gathered into fear.
But the minutes passed. She felt the tension of his hand relax. He wentto sleep so gently that in her infinite relief she too dropped intosleep, her head beside his, the black hair mingling with the gray on thesame pillow.
The servant coming in, as he had been told, looked at them inastonishment, and stole away again.
An hour or so later Oliver woke.
"I have had no morphia, and I am not in pain. My God! what does itmean?"
Trembling, he put out his hand. Yes!--Diana was there--asleep in herchair. His _wife_!
His touch roused her, and as she bent over him he saw her dimly in thedim light--her black hair, her white dress.
"You can bring that old French fellow here whenever you like," he said,holding her. Then, faintly, his eyes closed: "This is New Year's Day."
Once more Diana's kisses fell "on the tired heart like rain"; and whenshe left him he lay still, wrapped in a tangle of thought which hisweakness could not unravel. Presently he dropped again into sleep.
Diana too slept, the sleep of a young exhaustion; and when she woke up,it was to find her being flooded with an upholding, enkindling joy, sheknew not how or whence. She threw open the window to the frosty dawn,thinking of the year before and her first arrival at Beechcote. Andthere, in the eastern sky--no radiant planet--but a twinkling star, inan ethereal blue; and from the valley below, dim joyous sounds of bells.
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