Part 29 (1/2)

”No, not alone, dear Francis.”

He thought for a while. ”But, have I not seen Bill? Who lives here now? And Goodie?--surely Goodie is real----”

”Yes; Goodie and Robert Gale have been with you all through, but it is Bill's son who lives here, now.”

And so with long pauses, that his shocked mind might grasp it, he told him the whole sad truth.

And still Philippa neither moved nor spoke. Almost as if in a trance she watched these two, who seemed to belong to a world in which she had no part--grey-haired man and grey-haired woman clasping hands across a gulf of years.

”I sent for you,” he said presently, ”because I knew you would not lie to me, and that if I saw you--and I was not mad--that you would be older. If all those years had pa.s.sed Phil could not be still almost a child. I tried to reason it out while I was waiting for you to come.

So that was why Phil never came. My little Phil! I cannot think of her as dead,” he whispered brokenly, ”and all our joy in being together again was nothing but a mistake--a dream. She is not here!” He repeated the words as though he could hardly grasp their meaning; then his voice changed as he cried, ”Why did they not tell me the truth?

Why did they let me believe that it was Phil?”

”You were not strong enough.”

”Not strong enough to know the truth, but only to be deceived,” he said bitterly. ”And I did not know! I thought--blind fool!--that it was Phil! Oh, I was easily duped.”

”Don't say that,” said Isabella quickly. ”I know it must seem like deception; but, Francis--don't you see--you had waited so long for Phil--you had never ceased to look for her coming--you could not understand that she was dead; and when you saw Philippa it was you who accepted her as Phil. And you were so content, so happy, that it was impossible to tell you the truth. It would have killed you.”

”There are worse things than death,” he answered slowly. ”It would have been better to die--to go to her--than live to know that all one's joy was false, and all one's hopes a delusion. They are all gone, Isabella--Phil, mother, Jim--all gone; and only you and I are left, and we--are old, Isabella--you and I.”

”Not old,” she replied, with a touch of her whimsical humour, ”not old; but getting on that way, Francis.”

A little wintry smile flickered for an instant across his wan face.

”You have not changed--your voice is just the same. Oh, how it makes me remember! We were good comrades, Isabella, you and I.”

”We were, and are still,” she answered huskily, ”and shall be to the end.”

He nodded. ”To the end.”

Hand in hand they sat as the daylight faded in the quiet room, seemingly oblivious of the presence of the watcher, who stood immovable, as if turned to stone, beside the door. Now and again Francis would ask a question and Isabella would answer, but for the most part they were silent. Words were of no avail to help him--they could not reconstruct his shattered world or bring back those he had loved and lost. And it was too soon for her to urge him to take courage, or to tell him that perhaps his happiness of the last few weeks might prove to have been something more than a dream.

When at last she rose to leave him he said slowly, ”I cannot understand it yet--I must have time--but it comforts me to know that while so much is lost, you are still here, and you are still the same.”

She fought back the tears that were blinding her. ”I am always the same--remember that--and I am here when you want me. Good-night, dear Francis.”

”Good-night, dear friend.”

CHAPTER XXIII

CONTENT

”The dead are glad in heaven, the living 'tis who weep.”--K. Y. HINKSON.

Philippa followed Isabella down-stairs like one walking in her sleep, without feeling, without consciousness, save of a dreadful numbness which seemed to envelop her, body and heart alike.

She walked to the door and opened it, and then she became aware that her companion was speaking. The words came as if from a great distance through a mighty void.