Part 33 (1/2)

”Poor old man!” she murmured--”I'm so glad I found him before it was too late! He would have died out there on the hills, I'm sure! He's very ill--and so worn out and feeble!”

Involuntarily her glance wandered to a framed photograph which stood on the mantelshelf, showing the likeness of a white-haired man standing among a group of full-flowering roses, with a smile upon his wrinkled face,--a smile expressing the quaintest and most complete satisfaction, as though he sought to ill.u.s.trate the fact that though he was old, he was still a part of the youthful blossoming of the earth in summer-time.

”What would you have done, father dear, if you had been here to-night?”--she queried, addressing the portrait--”Ah, I need not ask! I know! You would have brought your suffering brother home, to share all you had;--you would have said to him 'Rest, and be thankful!' For you never turned the needy from your door, my dear old dad!--never!--no matter how much you were in need yourself!”

She wafted a kiss to the venerable face among the roses,--and then turning, extinguished the lamp on the table. The dying glow of the fire shone upon her for a moment, setting a red sparkle in her hair, and a silvery one on the silky head of the little dog she carried, and outlining her fine profile so that it gleamed with a pure soft pallor against the surrounding darkness,--and with one final look round to see that all was clear for the night, she went away noiselessly like a lovely ghost and disappeared, her step making no sound on the short wooden stairs that led to the upper room which she had hastily arranged for her own accommodation, in place of the one now occupied by the homeless wayfarer she had rescued.

There was no return of the storm. The heavens, with their mighty burden of stars, remained clear and tranquil,--the raging voice of ocean was gradually sinking into a gentle crooning song of sweet content,--and within the little cottage complete silence reigned, unbroken save for the dash of the stream outside, rus.h.i.+ng down through the ”coombe” to the sea.

CHAPTER XIII

The next morning Helmsley was too ill to move from his bed, or to be conscious of his surroundings. And there followed a long period which to him was well-nigh a blank. For weeks he lay helpless in the grasp of a fever which over and over again threatened to cut the last frail thread of his life asunder. Pain tortured every nerve and sinew in his body, and there were times of terrible collapse,--when he was conscious of nothing save an intense longing to sink into the grave and have done with all the sharp and cruel torment which kept him on the rack of existence. In a semi-delirious condition he tossed and moaned the hours away, hardly aware of his own ident.i.ty. In certain brief pauses of the nights and days, when pain was momentarily dulled by stupor, he saw, or fancied he saw a woman always near him, with anxiety in her eyes and words of soothing consolation on her lips;--and then he found himself muttering, ”Mary! Mary! G.o.d bless you!” over and over again. Once or twice he dimly realised that a small dark man came to his bedside and felt his pulse and looked at him very doubtfully, and that she, Mary, called this personage ”doctor,” and asked him questions in a whisper.

But all within his own being was pain and bewilderment,--sometimes he felt as though he were one drop in a burning whirlpool of madness--and sometimes he seemed to himself to be spinning round and round in a haze of blinding rain, of which the drops were scalding hot, and heavy as lead,--and occasionally he found that he was trying to get out of bed, uttering cries of inexplicable anguish, while at such moments, something cool was placed on his forehead, and a gentle arm was pa.s.sed round him till the paroxysm abated, and he fell down again among his pillows exhausted. Slowly, and as it were grudgingly, after many days, the crisis of the illness pa.s.sed and ebbed away in dull throbs of agony,--and he sank into a weak lethargy that was almost like the comatose condition preceding death. He lay staring at the ceiling for hours, heedless as to whether he ever moved or spoke again. Some-one came and put spoonfuls of liquid nourishment between his lips, and he swallowed it mechanically without any sign of conscious appreciation.

White as white marble, and aged by many years, he remained stretched in his rigid corpse-like att.i.tude, his eyes always fixedly upturned, till one day he was roused from his deepening torpor by the sound of sobbing.

With a violent effort he brought his gaze down from the ceiling, and saw a figure kneeling by his bed, and a ma.s.s of bronze brown hair falling over a face concealed by two shapely white hands through which the tears were falling. Feebly astonished, he stretched out his thin, trembling fingers to touch that wonderful bright mesh of waving tresses, and asked--

”What is this? Who--who is crying?”

The hidden face was uplifted, and two soft eyes, wet with weeping, looked up hopefully.

”It's Mary!” said a trembling voice--”You know me, don't you? Oh, dearie, if you would but try to rouse yourself, you'd get well even now!”

He gazed at her in a kind of childish admiration.

”It's Mary!” he echoed, faintly--”And who is Mary?”

”Don't you remember?” And rising from her knees, she dashed away her tears and smiled at him--”Or is it too hard for you to think at all about it just now? Didn't I find you out on the hills in the storm, and bring you home here?--and didn't I tell you that my name was Mary?”

He kept his eyes upon her wistful face,--and presently a wan smile crossed his lips.

”Yes!--so you did!” he answered--”I know you now, Mary! I've been ill, haven't I?”

She nodded at him--the tears were still wet on her lashes.

”Very ill!”

”Ill all night, I suppose?”

She nodded again.

”It's morning now?”

”Yes, it's morning!”

”I shall get up presently,”--he said, in his old gentle courteous way--”I am sorry to have given you so much trouble! I must not burden your hospitality--your kindness----”

His voice trailed away into silence,--his eyelids drooped--and fell into a sound slumber,--the first refres.h.i.+ng sleep he had enjoyed for many weary nights and days.