Part 41 (1/2)

And Mr. Trevenen had looked up and smiled.

”Not very. I have been unusually cheered as I walked by thoughts of the Divine Love!”

The words had been so simply said; and a minute afterwards the old pale-faced parson had disappeared into the dark.

What did the words mean? Had they really any meaning?

”The Divine Love.” Arthur Falloden did not know then, and did not know now. But he had often thought of the incident.

He leaned over, musing, to gather a bunch of hare-bells growing on the edge of the stream. As he did so, he was conscious again of a sharp pain in the chest. In a few more seconds, he was stretched on the moorland gra.s.s, wrestling with a torturing anguish that was crus.h.i.+ng his life out. It seemed to last an eternity. Then it relaxed, and he was able to breathe and think again.

”What is it?”

Confused recollections of the death of his old grandfather, when he himself was a child, rose in his mind. ”He was out hunting--horrible pain--two hours. Is this the same? If it is--I shall die--here--alone.”

He tried to move after a little, but found himself helpless. A brief intermission, and the pain rushed on him again, like a violent and ruthless hand, grinding the very centres of life. When he recovered consciousness, it was with the double sense of blissful relief from agony and of ebbing strength. What had happened to him? How long had he been there?

”Could you drink this?” said a voice behind him. He opened his eyes and saw a young man, with a halo of red-gold hair, and a tremulous, pitying face, quite strange to him, bending over him.

There was some brandy at his lips. He drank with difficulty. What had happened to the light? How dark it was!

”Where am I?” he said, looking up blindly into the face above him.

”I found you here--on the moor--lying on the gra.s.s. Are you better?

Shall I run down now--and fetch some one?”

”Don't go--”

The agony returned. When Sir Arthur spoke again, it was very feebly.

”I can't live--through--much more of that. I'm dying. Don't leave me.

Where's my son? Where's my son--Douglas? Who are you?”

The glazing eyes tried to make out the features of the stranger. They were too dim to notice the sudden s.h.i.+ver that pa.s.sed through them as he named his son.

”I can't get at any one. I've been calling for a long time. My name is Radowitz. I'm staying at Penfold Rectory. If I could only carry you! I tried to lift you--but I couldn't. I've only one hand.” He pointed despairingly to the sling he was wearing.

”Tell my son--tell Douglas--”

But the faint voice ceased abruptly, and the eyes closed. Only there was a slight movement of the lips, which Radowitz, bending his ear to the mouth of the dying man, tried to interpret. He thought it said ”pray,”

but he could not be sure.

Radowitz looked round him in an anguish. No one on the purple side of the moor, no one on the gra.s.sy tracks leading downwards to the park; only the wide gold of the evening--the rising of a light wind--the rustling of the fern--and the loud, laboured breathing below him.

He bent again over the helpless form, murmuring words in haste.

Meanwhile after Sir Arthur left the house, Douglas had been urgently summoned by his mother. He found her at tea with Trix in her own sitting-room. Roger was away, staying with a school friend, to the general relief of the household; Nelly, the girl of seventeen, was with relations in Scotland, but Trix had become her mother's little shadow and constant companion. The child was very conscious of the weight on her parents' minds. Her high spirits had all dropped. She had a wistful, shrinking look, which suited ill with her round face and her childishly parted lips over her small white teeth. The little face was made for laughter; but in these days only Douglas could bring back her smiles, because mamma was so unhappy and cried so much; and that mamma should cry seemed to bring her whole world tumbling about the child's ears.

Only Douglas, for sheer impatience with the general gloom of the house, would sometimes tease her or chase her; and then the child's laugh would ring out--a ghostly echo from the days before Lady Laura ”knew.”