Part 51 (1/2)

They carried her up to her room--restoratives were applied, and presently the great dark eyes opened, and looked up into her lover's face.

She covered her own with her hands, and turned away from him, as though the sight was distasteful to her. He bent above her, almost agonized that anything should ail his idol.

”My darling,” he said tremulously. ”What was it? What can I do for you?

Tell me.”

”Go away,” was the dull answer; ”only that--go away everybody, and leave me alone.”

They strove to reason with her--some one sought to stay with her. Lady Helena, Sir Victor--either would give up their place at dinner and remain at the bedside.

”No, no, no!” was her answering cry, ”they must not. She was better again--she needed no one, she wanted nothing, _only_ to be left alone.”

They left her alone--she was trembling with nervous excitement, a little more and hysterics would set in--they dared not disobey. They left her alone, with a watchful attendant on the alert in the dressing-room.

She lay upon the dainty French bed, her dark hair, from which the flowers had been taken, tossed over the white pillows, her hands clasped above her head, her dark, large eyes fixed on the opposite wall. So she lay motionless, neither, speaking nor stirring for hours, with a sort of dull, numb aching at her heart. They stole in softly to her bedside many times through the night, always to find her like that, lying with blank, wide-open eyes, never noticing nor speaking to them.

When morning broke she awoke from a dull sort of sleep, her head burning, her lips parched, her eyes glittering with fever.

They sent for the doctor. He felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, asked questions, and shook his head. Overwrought nerves the whole of it. Her mind must have been over-excited for some time, and this was the result. No danger was to be apprehended; careful nursing would restore her in a week or two, combined with perfect quiet. Then a change of air and scene would be beneficial--say a trip to Scarborough or Torquay now. They would give her this saline draught just at present and not worry about her. The young lady would be all right, on his word and honor, my dear Sir Victor, in a week or two.

Sir Victor listened very gloomily. He had heard from the hall porter of Mr. Stuart's flying visit, and of his brief interview with Miss Darrell. It was very strange--his hasty coming, his hasty going, without seeing any of them, his interview with Edith, and her fainting-fit immediately after. Why had he come? What had transpired at that interview? The green-eyed monster took the baronet's heart between his finger and thumb, and gave it a most terrible twinge.

He watched over her when they let him into that darkened chamber, as a mother may over an only and darling child. If he lost her!

”O Heaven!” he cried pa.s.sionately, rebelliously, ”rather let me die than that!”

He asked her no questions--he was afraid. His heart sank within him, she lay so cold, so white, so utterly indifferent whether he came or went. He was nothing to her--nothing. Would he ever be?

Lady Helena, less in love, and consequently less a coward, asked the question her nephew dared not ask: ”What had brought Mr. Charles Stuart to Powyss Place? What had made her, Edith, faint?”

The dark sombre eyes turned from the twilight prospect, seen through the open window, and met her ladys.h.i.+p's suspicious eyes steadily. ”Mr.

Stuart had come down to tell her some very bad news. His father had failed--they were ruined. They had to leave England in two days for home--he had only come to bid her a last farewell.”

Then the sombre brown eyes went back to the blue-gray sky, the crystal July moon, the velvet, green gra.s.s, the dark murmuring trees, the birds twittering in the leafy branches, and she was still again.

Lady Helena was shocked, surprised, grieved. But--why had Edith fainted?

”I don't know,” Edith answered. ”I never fainted before in my life. I think I have not been very strong lately. I felt well enough when I returned to the drawing-room--a minute after I grew giddy and fell. I remember no more.”

”We will take you away, my dear,” her ladys.h.i.+p said cheerfully. ”We will take you to Torquay. Changes of air and scene, as the doctor says, are the tonics you need to brace your nerves. Ah! old or young, all we poor women are martyrs to nerves.”

They took her to Torquay in the second week of July. A pretty little villa near Hesketh Crescent had been hired; four servants from Powyss Place preceded them; Sir Victor escorted them, and saw them duly installed. He returned again--partly because the work going on at Catheron Royals needed his presence, partly because Lady Helena gravely and earnestly urged it.

”My dear Victor,” she said, ”don't force too much of your society upon Edith. I know girls. Even if she were in love with you”--the young man winced--”she would grow tired of a lover who never left her sight. All women do. If you want her to grow fond of you, go away, write to her every day--not _too_ lover-like love-letters; one may have a surfeit of sweets; just cheerful, pleasant, sensible letters--as a young man in love _can_ write. Come down this day three weeks, and, if we are ready, take us home.”

The young man made a wry face--much as he used to do when his good aunt urged him to swallow a dose of nauseous medicine.

”In three weeks! My dear Lady Helena, what are you thinking of? We are to be married the first week of September.”