Part 32 (1/2)

'Do not touch me! leave me--leave me--alone! I--I have not yet said what--what I had to say to you. That--that was not what I had to say to you! I--I--must say what I--sent for you--to say.'

She pauses, gasping. It seems as if the task she had set herself was beyond her present strength.

'Do not tell me,' he says most gently; 'if it is anything that hurts you, do not tell me now; wait and tell me by and by.'

He has withdrawn at her bidding his hand from her shoulder, but has knelt down in his deep pity beside her, and tried to take in his her cold and clammy fingers. But she draws them sharply away.

'Did not I tell you to leave me alone!' she cries in a thin voice. 'Let me--let me say what I have to say to you, and have done with it. I will say it now! I _must_ say it now! What business have you,' turning with a pitiful fierceness upon him, 'to try and hinder me?'

'I do not--I do not!' speaking in the tenderest tone. 'Tell it me of course, whatever it is, if it will give you the least relief.'

'I sent for you to tell you that it is all over--all over between us,'

she says, having now mastered her sobs, and speaking with great rapidity and distinctness; 'that is what I sent for you to tell you. I wanted you to come at once, that I might tell you. Why did not you come at once? I have been a very wicked woman----'

'No, dear, no! indeed you have not!' he interrupts with an accent of excessive pain and protest.

But she goes on without heeding him:

'Or if I have not, it has been no thanks to me; it has been thanks to you, who have saved me from myself! But whatever there has been between us, it is over now. That is what I sent for you to tell you. _Over_! do you understand? _Gone! done with!_ Do you understand? Why do not you say something? Do you hear? Do you understand?'

'I hear,' he answers in a mazed voice; 'but I--I do not understand! I do not understand why, if you want to tell me this, you should tell it me _now_ of all times.'

'It is _now_ of all times that I want to tell you--that I must tell you!' cries she wildly. 'Cannot you see that it is on account of _him_?

Oh, cannot you think what it has been kneeling beside him with his little hot hand in mine! You do not know how fiery hot his hand is! Last night his pulse was so quick that the doctor could scarcely count the beats--it was up to 120; and while I was kneeling beside him the thought came to me that perhaps this had happened to him on--on--account of--_us_! that it was a judgment on me!'

She pauses for a minute, and he tries to put in some soothing suggestion, but she goes on without heeding him.

'You may call it superst.i.tion if you please, but it came to me--oh, it seems years ago now!--it must have been the night before last!--and as the night went on, it kept getting worse and worse, as he got worse and worse; and in the morning I could not bear it any longer, and I sent for you! I thought that you would have been here in a couple of hours.'

'So I would! So I would! Heaven knows so I would, if it had been possible!'

'And all yesterday he went on growing worse--I did not think that he could have been worse than he was in the night, and live--but he was.

All day and all last night again he was struggling for breath!--think of having to sit by and see a little child struggling for his breath!'

She stops, convulsed anew by that terrible dry sobbing, that is so much more full of anguish than any tears.

'Poor little chap! poor Betty!'

'I have been listening all night for you! I could not have believed that you would have been so long in coming; it is such a little way off! I knew--I had a feeling that he would never get better until you had come--until I had told you that it was all over between us; but I have told you now, have not I? I have done all that I could! One cannot recall the past; no one can, not even G.o.d! He cannot expect that of me; but I have done what I could--all that is left me to do, have not I?'

There is such a growing wildness in both her eye and voice that he does not know in what terms to answer her; and can only still kneel beside her, in silent, pitying distress.

'I see that you think I am out of my wits!' she says, looking distrustfully at him; 'that I must be out of my wits to talk of sending you away--you who have been everything to me. Cannot you see that it is because I love you that I am sending you away? if I did not love you it would be nothing--no sacrifice!--it would be no use! But perhaps if I give up everything--everything I have in the world except him'

(stretching out her hands, with a despairing gesture of pus.h.i.+ng from herself every earthly good)--'perhaps then--_then_--G.o.d will spare him to me! perhaps He will not take him from me! It may be no good! He may take him all the same; but there is just the chance! say that you think it _is_ a chance!'

But he cannot say so. There are very few words that he would not try to compel his lips to utter; but he dares not buoy her up with the hope that she can buy back her child by a frantic compact with the Most High.

Her eyes drop despairingly from his face, not gaining the a.s.sent they have so agonisedly asked for; and she struggles dizzily to her feet.

'That is all--I had--to--tell you!' she says fiercely. 'I have nothing more to say!--nothing that need--need detain you here any longer. I must go back to him; he may be asking for me!--asking for me, and I not there! But you understand--you are sure that you understand? I have often sent you away before in joke, but I am not joking now' (poor soul!