Part 27 (1/2)

”I must go in alone.”

He pa.s.sed on into the chamber, and closed the door. On the bed, laid out in her white night-dress, lay what remained of Ethel Grame. Pale, still, pure, her face was wonderfully like what it had been in life, and a calm smile rested upon it.--But Thomas G.o.dolphin wished to be alone.

Lady Sarah stood outside, leaning against the opposite wall, and weeping silently, the glimmer from the hall-lamp below faintly lighting the corridor. Once she fancied that a sound, as of choking sobs, struck upon her ears, and she caught up a small black shawl that she wore, for grief had chilled her, flung it over her shoulders, and wept the faster.

He came out by-and-by, calm and quiet as he ever was. He did not perceive Lady Sarah standing there in the shade, and went straight down, the wax-light in his hand. Lady Sarah caught him up at the door of Sarah Anne's room, and took the light from him.

”She looks very peaceful, does she not?” was her whisper.

”She could not look otherwise.”

He went on down alone, wis.h.i.+ng to let himself out. But Elizabeth had heard his steps, and was already at the door. ”Good night, Elizabeth,”

he said, as he pa.s.sed her.

The girl did not answer. She slipped out into the garden after him. ”Oh, sir! and didn't you know of it?” she whispered.

”No.”

”If anybody was ever gone away to be an angel, sir, it's that sweet young lady,” continued Elizabeth, letting her tears and sobs come forth as they would. ”She was just one here! and she's gone to her own fit place above.”

”Ay. It is so.”

”You should have been in this house throughout the whole of the illness, to have see the difference between them, sir! n.o.body would believe it.

Miss Grame, angry and snappish, and not caring who suffered, or who was ill, or who toiled, so that she was served: Miss Ethel, lying like a tender lamb, patient and meek, thankful for all that was done for her.

It does seem hard, sir, that we should lose her for ever.”

”Not for ever, Elizabeth,” he answered.

”And that's true, too! But, sir, the worst is, one can't think of that sort of consolation just when one's troubles are fresh. Good night to you, sir.”

”No, no,” he murmured to himself; ”not for ever.”

CHAPTER XIV.

GONE ON BEFORE.

Thomas G.o.dolphin walked on, leaving the high-road for a less-frequented path, the one by which he had come. About midway between this and the railway station, a path, branching to the right, would take him into Prior's Ash. He went along, musing. In the depth of his great grief, there was no repining. He was one to trace the finger of G.o.d in all things. If Mrs. G.o.dolphin had imbued him with superst.i.tious feelings, she had also implanted within him something better: and a more entire trust in G.o.d it was perhaps impossible for any one to feel, than was felt by Thomas G.o.dolphin. It was what he lived under. He could not see why Ethel should have been taken; why this great sorrow should fall upon him: but that it must be for the best, he implicitly believed. The best: for G.o.d had done it. How he was to live on without her, he knew not. How he could support the lively anguish of the immediate future, he did not care to think about. All his hope in this life gone! all his plans, his projects, uprooted by a single blow! never, any of them, to return. He might still look for the bliss of a hereafter--ay! that remains even for the most heavy-laden, thank G.o.d!--but his sun of happiness in this world had set for ever.

Thomas G.o.dolphin might have been all the better for a little sun then--not speaking figuratively. I mean the good sun that illumines our daily world; that would be illumining my pen and paper at this moment, but for an envious fog, which obscures everything but itself. The moon was not s.h.i.+ning as it had shone the last night he left Lady Sarah's, when he had left his farewell kiss--oh that he could have known it was the last!--on the gentle lips of Ethel. There was no moon yet; the stars were not showing themselves, for a black cloud enveloped the skies like a pall, fitting accompaniment to his blasted hopes; and his path altogether was dark. Little wonder then, that Thomas G.o.dolphin all but fell over some dark object, crouching in his way: he could only save himself by springing back. By dint of peering, he discovered it to be a woman. She was seated on the bare earth; her hands clasped under her knees, which were raised almost level with her chin which rested on them, and was swaying herself backwards and forwards as one does in grief; as Lady Sarah Grame had done not long before.

”Why do you sit here?” cried Thomas G.o.dolphin. ”I nearly fell over you.”

”Little matter if ye'd fell over me and killed me,” was the woman's response, given without raising her head, or making any change in her position. ”'Twould only have been one less in an awful cold world, as seems made for nothing but trouble. If the one half of us was out of it, there'd be room perhaps for them as was left.”

”Is it Mrs. Bond?” asked Thomas G.o.dolphin, as he caught a glimpse of her features.

”Didn't you know me, sir? I know'd you by the voice as soon as you spoke. You have got trouble too, I hear. The world's full of nothing else. Why does it come?”