Part 23 (1/2)

”Love her!” returned Heliet. ”My dear husband, thou dost not know that man. He owes his life to her generosity, and he will never forgive her for it.”

Note 1. Rot. Pat., 22 Edward the First.

Note 2. The language of this sentence is remarkable:--”Jeo ou nul autre en moun noun purchace absolucion _ou de Apostoile ou de autre souerein_.” (Rot. Pat., 22 Edward the First.)

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE SUN BREAKS OUT.

”If from Thine ordeal's heated bars, Our feet are seamed with crimson scars, Thy will be done!”--Whittier.

Heliet's penetration had not deceived her. The mean, narrow, withered article which Vivian Barkeworth called his soul, was unable to pardon Clarice for having shown herself morally so much his superior. That his wife should be better than himself was in his eyes an inversion of the proper order of things. And as of course it was impossible that he should be to blame, why, it must be her fault Clarice found herself most cruelly snubbed for days after her interference in behalf of her graceless husband. Not in public; for except in the one instance of this examination, where his sense of shame and guilt had overcome him for a moment, Vivian's company manners were faultless, and a surface observer would have p.r.o.nounced him a model husband. Poor Clarice had learned by experience that any restraint which Vivian put upon himself when inwardly vexed, was sure to rebound on her devoted head in the form of after suffering in private.

To Clarice herself the reaction came soon and severely. On the evening before Rosie's funeral, Heliet found her seated by the little bier in the hall, gazing dreamily on the face of her lost darling, with dry eyes and strained expression. She sat down beside her. Clarice took no notice. Heliet scarcely knew how to deal with her. If something could be said which would set the tears flowing it might save her great suffering; yet to say the wrong thing might do more harm than good. The supper-bell rang before she had made up her mind. As they rose Clarice slipped her hand into Heliet's arm, and, to the surprise of the latter, thanked her.

”For what?” said Heliet.

”For the only thing any one can do for me--for feeling with me.”

After supper Clarice went up to her own rooms; but Heliet returned to the hall where Rosie lay. To her astonishment, she found a sudden and touching change in the surroundings of the dead child. Rosie lay now wreathed round in white rosebuds, tastefully disposed, as by a hand which had grudged neither love nor labour.

”Who has done this?” Heliet spoke aloud in he surprise.

”I have,” said a voice beside her. It was no voice which Heliet knew.

She looked up into the face of a tall man, with dark hair and beard, and eyes which were at once sad and compa.s.sionate.

”You! Who are you?” asked Heliet in the same tone.

”You may not know my name. I am--Piers Ingham.”

”Then I do know,” replied Heliet, gravely. ”But, Sir Piers, _she_ must not know.”

”Certainly not,” he said, quietly. ”Tell her nothing; let her think, if she will, that the angels did it. And--tell me nothing. Farewell.”

He stooped down and kissed the cold white brow of the dead child.

”That can hurt no one,” said Piers, in a low voice. ”And she may be glad to hear it--when she meets the child again.”

He glided out of the hall so softly that Heliet did not hear him go, and only looked up and found herself alone. She knelt for a few minutes by the bier and then went quietly to her own room.

The next morning there were abundance of conjectures as to who could have paid this tender and graceful tribute. The Earl was generally suspected, but he at once said that it was no doing of his. Everybody was asked, and all denied it. Father Bevis was appealed to, as being better acquainted with the saints than the rest of the company, to state whether he thought it probable that one of them had been the agent. But Father Bevis's strong common sense declined to credit any but human hands with the deed.

Clarice was one of the last to appear. And when the sweet, fair tribute to her darling broke suddenly upon her sight, the result was attained for which all had been more or less hoping. That touch of nature set the floodgates open, and dropping on her knees beside the bier, Clarice poured forth a rain of pa.s.sionate tears.

When all was over, and Rosie had been hidden away from sight until the angel-trump should call her, Clarice and Heliet went out together on the Castle green. They sat down on one of the seats in an embrasure. The Earl, with his thoughtful kindness, seeing them, sent word to the commandant to keep the soldiers within so long as the ladies chose to stay there. So they were left undisturbed.

Heliet was longing intensely to comfort Clarice, but she felt entirely at a loss what line to take. Clarice relieved her perplexity by being the first to speak.