Part 24 (1/2)

”Everything seems to make me weep to-night. You may not be back until--until the worst is over. Oh! if she might but be saved!”

He held her face close to him, gazing down at it in the moonlight. And then he took from it his farewell kiss. ”G.o.d bless you, my darling, for ever and for ever!”

”May He bless you, Thomas!” she answered, with streaming eyes: and, for the first time in her life, his kiss was returned. Then they parted. He watched Ethel indoors, and went back to Prior's Ash.

CHAPTER XII.

DEAD.

”Thomas, my son, I must go home. I don't want to die away from Ashlydyat!”

A dull pain shot across Thomas G.o.dolphin's heart at the words. Did he think of the old superst.i.tious tradition--that evil was to fall upon the G.o.dolphins when their chief should die, and not at Ashlydyat? At Ashlydyat his father could not die; he had put that out of his power when he let it to strangers: in its neighbourhood, he might.

”The better plan, sir, will be for you to return to the Folly, as you seem to wish it,” said Thomas. ”You will soon be strong enough to undertake the journey.”

The decaying knight was sitting on a sofa in his bedroom. His second fainting-fit had lasted some hours--if that, indeed, was the right name to give to it--and he had recovered, only to be more and more weak. He had grown pretty well after the first attack--when Margery had found him in his chamber on the floor, the day Lady G.o.dolphin had gone to pay her visit to Selina. The next time, he was on the lawn before the house, talking to Charlotte Pain, when he suddenly fell to the ground. He did not recover his consciousness until evening; and nearly the first wish he expressed was a desire to see his son Thomas. ”Telegraph for him,” he said to Lady G.o.dolphin.

”But you are not seriously ill, Sir George,” she had answered.

”No; but I should like him here. Telegraph to him to start by first train.”

And Lady G.o.dolphin did so, accordingly, sending the message that angered Miss G.o.dolphin. But, in this case, Lady G.o.dolphin did not deserve so much blame as Janet cast on her: for she did debate the point with herself whether she should say Sir George was ill, or not. Believing that these two fainting-fits had proceeded from want of strength only, that they were but the effect of his long previous illness, and would lead to no bad result, she determined not to speak of it. Hence the imperfect message.

Neither did Thomas G.o.dolphin see much cause for fear when he arrived at Broomhead. Sir George did not look better than when he had left Prior's Ash, but neither did he look much worse. On this, the second day, he had been well enough to converse with Thomas upon business affairs: and, that over, he suddenly broke out with the above wish. Thomas mentioned it when he joined Lady G.o.dolphin afterwards. It did not meet with her approbation.

”You should have opposed it,” said she to him in a firm, hard tone.

”But why so, madam?” asked Thomas. ”If my father's wish is to return to Prior's Ash, he should return.”

”Not while the fever lingers there. Were he to take it--and die--you would never forgive yourself.”

Thomas had no fear of the fever on his own score, and did not fear it for his father. He intimated as much. ”It is not the fever that will hurt him, Lady G.o.dolphin.”

”You have no right to say that. Lady Sarah Grame, a month ago, might have said she did not fear it for Sarah Anne. And now Sarah Anne is dying!”

”Or dead,” put in Charlotte Pain, who was leaning listlessly against the window frame devoured with ennui.

”Shall you be afraid to go back to Prior's Ash?” he asked of Maria Hastings.

”Not at all,” replied Maria. ”I should not mind if I were going to-day, as far as the fever is concerned.”

”That is well,” he said. ”Because I have orders to convey you back with me.”

Charlotte Pain lifted her head with a start. The news aroused her.

Maria, on the contrary, thought he was speaking in jest.

”No, indeed I am not,” said Thomas G.o.dolphin. ”Mr. Hastings made a request to me, madam, that I should take charge of his daughter when I returned,” continued he to Lady G.o.dolphin. ”He wants her at home, he says.”

”Mr. Hastings is very polite!” ironically replied my lady. ”Maria will go back when I choose to spare her.”