Part 117 (1/2)

”Aw, no Caesar, we're on the road now. It's dry enough here, anyway.”

”'Many bulls have compa.s.sed me; great bulls of Bashan have beset me round. Save me from the lion's mouth; for Thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorn.'”

”Never mind the lion and the unicorn, father, but come and we'll change thy wet trousers.”

”'Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.'”

”Aw, yes, we'll wash thee enough when we get to Ramsey. Come, then, bogh.”

He had dropped his ram's horn somewhere, and she took him by the hand.

Then he suffered himself to be led away, and the two old children went off into the darkness.

XVII.

There was a letter waiting for Philip at home. It was from the Clerk of the Rolls. Only a few lines scribbled on the back of a draft deposition, telling him the pet.i.tion for divorce had been heard that day within closed doors. The application had been granted, and all was settled and comfortable.

”I don't want to hurt your already much wounded feelings, Christian,”

wrote the Clerk of the Rolls, ”or to add anything to your responsibility when you come to make provision for the woman, but I must say she has given up for your sake a deuced good honest fellow.”

”I know it,” said Philip aloud.

”When I told him that all was over, and that his erring wife would trouble him no more, I thought he was going to burst out crying.”

But Philip had no time yet to think of Pete. All his heart was with Kate. She would receive the official intimation of the divorce, and it would fall on her in her prison like a blow. She would think of herself, with all the world against her, and of him with all the world at his feet. He wanted to run to her, to pluck her up in his arms, to kiss her on the lips, and say, ”Mine, mine at last!” His wife--her husband--all forgiven--all forgotten!

Philip spent the rest of the night in writing a letter to Kate. He told her he could not live without her; that now for the first time she was his, and he was hers, and they were one; that their love was re-born, and that he would spend the future in atoning for the wrongs he had inflicted upon her in the past. Then he dropped to the sheer babble of affection and poured out his heart to her--all the babydom of love, the foolish prattle, the tender nonsense. What matter that he was Governor now, and the first man in the island? He forgot all about it. What matter that he was writing to a fallen woman in prison? He only remembered it to forget himself the more.

”Just a little longer, my love, just a little longer. I am coming to you, I am coming. Older, perhaps, perhaps sadder, and a boy no more, but hopeful still, and ready to face whatever fate befall, with her I love beside me.”

Next day Jem-y-Lord took this letter to Castle Rushen and brought back an answer. It was one line only--”My darling! At last! At last! Oh, Philip! Philip! _But what about our child?_”

XVIII.

The proclamation of Philip's appointment as Governor of the Isle of Man had been read in the churches, and nailed up on the doors of the Court-houses, and the Clerk of the Rolls was pus.h.i.+ng on the arrangements for the installation.

”Let it be on the Tuesday of Easter week,” he wrote, ”and of course at Castle Rushen. The retiring Governor is ready to return for that day to deliver up his seals of office and to receive your commission.”

”P. S.--Private. And if you think that soft-voiced girl has been long enough 'At Her Majesty's pleasure,' I will release her. Not that she is taking any harm at all, but we had better get these little accounts squared off before your great day comes. Meantime you may wish to provide for her future. Be liberal, Christian; you can afford to treat her liberally. But what am I saying? Don't I know that you will be ridiculously over-generous?”

Philip answered this letter promptly. ”The Tuesday of Easter week will do as well as any other day. As to the lady, let her stay where she is until the morning of the ceremony, when I will myself settle everything.”

Philip's correspondence was now plentiful, and he had enough work to cope with it The four towns of the island vied with each other in efforts to show him honour. Douglas, as the scene of his career, wished to entertain him at a banquet; Ramsey, as his birthplace, wanted to follow him in procession. He declined all invitations.

”I am in mourning,” he wrote. ”And besides, I am not well.”

”Ah! no,” he thought, ”n.o.body shall reproach me when the times comes.”

There was no pause, no pity, no relenting rest in the world's kindness.