Part 112 (2/2)

”Yes, send up Cottier,” said Philip.

”My darling,” said the old soul, looking down as she tied her bonnet strings. ”You'll lie quiet now? You're sure you'll lie quiet? Well, good bye! good-bye!”

As Philip lay alone the soar and swell of the psalm filled the room.

Oh, the irony of it all! The frantic, hideous, awful irony! He was lying there, he, the guilty one, with the whole island watching at his bedside, pitying him, sorrowing for him, holding its breath until he should breathe, and she, his partner, his victim, his innocent victim, was in jail, in disgrace, in a degradation more deep than death. Still the psalm soared and swelled. He tried to bury his head in the pillows that he might not hear.

Jem-y-Lord came in hurriedly and Philip beckoned him close. ”Where is she?” he whispered.

”They removed her to Castle Rushen late last night, your Honour,” said Jemmy softly.

”Write immediately to the Clerk of the Bolls,” said Philip. ”Say she must be lodged on the debtors' side and have patients' diet and every comfort. My Kate! my Kate!” he kept saying, ”it shall not be for long, not for long, my love, not for long!”

The convalescence was slow and Philip was impatient. ”I feel better to-day, doctor,” he would say, ”don't you think I may get out of bed?”

”_Traa dy liooar_ (time enough), Deemster,” the doctor would answer.

”Let us see what a few more days will do.”

”I have a great task before me, doctor,” he would say again. ”I must begin immediately.”

”You have a life's work before you, Deemster, and you must begin soon, but not just yet.”

”I have something particular to do, doctor,” he said at last. ”I must lose no time.”

”You must lose no time indeed, that's why you must stay where you are a little longer.”

One morning his impatience overcame him, and he got out of bed. But, being on his feet, his head reeled, his limbs trembled, he clutched at the bed-post, and had to clamber back. ”Oh G.o.d, bear me witness, this delay is not my fault,” he murmured.

Throughout the day he longed for the night, that he might close his eyes in the darkness and think of Kate. He tried to think of her as she used to be--bright, happy, winsome, full of joy, of love, of pa.s.sion, dangling her feet from the apple-tree, or tripping along the tree-trunk in the glen, teasing him? tempting him. It was impossible. He could only think of her in, the gloom of the prison. That filled his mind with terrors. Sometimes in the dark hours his enfeebled body beset his brain with fantastic hallucinations. Calling for paper and pens, he would make show of writing a letter, producing no words or intelligible signs, but only a ma.s.s of scrawls and blotches. This he would fold and refold with great elaboration, and give to Jem y-Lord with an air of gravity and mystery, saying in a whisper, ”For her!” Thus night brought no solace, and the dawn found him waiting for the day, that he might open his eyes in the sunlight and think, ”She is better where she is; G.o.d will comfort her.”

A fortnight went by and he saw nothing of Pete. At length he made a call on his courage and said, ”Auntie, why does Pete never come?”

”He does, dearest. Only when you're asleep, though. He stands there in the doorway in his stockings. I nod to him and he comes in and looks down at you. Then he goes away without a word.”

”What is he doing now?”

”Going to Douglas a good deal seemingly. Indeed, they're saying--but then people are so fond of talking.”

”What are people saying, Auntie?”

”It's about a divorce, dearest!”

Philip groaned and turned away his face.

He opened his eyes one day from a doze, and saw the plain face of Nancy Joe, framed in a red print handkerchief. The simple creature was talking with Auntie Nan, holding council, and making common cause with the dainty old lady as unmarried women and old maids both of them.

”'Why don't you keep your word true?' says I. 'Wasn't you saying you'd take her back,' says I, 'whatever she'd done and whatever she was, so help you G.o.d?' says I. 'Isn't she shamed enough already, poor thing, without you going shaming her more? Have you no bowels at all? Are you only another of the gutted herrings on a stick?' says I. 'Why don't you keep your word true?' 'Because,' says he, 'I want to be even with the other one,' says he, and then away he went wandering down by the tide.”

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