Part 31 (1/2)

Beyond the arches, netted to keep the crows away, it made pictures with the tops of the trees. There was the small iron bed with the confused outline under the bedclothes, very quiet, and the Sister--the whitewashed wall rose sharp behind her black draperies--sitting with a book in her hands. Some sc.r.a.ps of lint on the floor beside the bed, and hardly anything else except the silence which had almost a presence, and a faint smell of carbolic acid, and a certain feeling of impotence and abandonment and waiting which seemed to be in the air. Arnold moved on the pillow and saw her standing in the door. The bars of the bed's foot were in the way, he tried to lift his head to surmount the obstruction, and the Sister perceived her too.

”I think absolutely still was our order, wasn't it, Mr. Arnold?” she said, with her little pink smile. ”And I'm afraid Miss Howe isn't in time to be of much use to us, is she?” It was the bedside pleasantry that expected no reply, that indeed forbade one.

”I'm sorry,” Hilda said. As she moved into the room she detached her eyes from Arnold's, feeling as she did so that it was like tearing something.

”There was so little to do,” Sister Margaret said; ”Surgeon-Major Wills saw at once where the mischief lay. Nothing disagreeable was necessary, was it, Mr. Arnold? Perfect quiet, perfect rest--that's an easy prescription to take.” She had rather prominent very blue eyes, and an aquiline nose, and a small firm mouth, and her pink cheeks were beginning to be a little pendulous with age. Hilda gazed at her silently, noting about her authority and her flowing draperies something cla.s.sical. Was she like one of the Fates? She approached the bed to do something to the pillow--Hilda had an impulse to push her away with the cry, ”It is not time yet--Atropos!”

”I must go now for an hour or so,” the Sister went on. ”That poor creature in Number Six needs me; they daren't give her any more morphia.

You don't need it--happy boy!” she said to Stephen, and at the look he sent her for answer she turned rather quickly to the door. Dear Sister, she was none of the Fates, she was obliged to give directions to Hilda standing in the door with her back turned. Happily for a deserved reputation for self-command they were few. It was chief and absolute that no one should be admitted. A bulletin had been put up at the hospital door for the information of inquiries; later on when the doctor came again there would be another.

She went away and they were left alone. The sun on the floor had vanished; a yellowness stood in its place with a grey background, the background gaining, coming on. Always his eyes were upon her, she had given hers back to him and he seemed satisfied. She moved closer to the bed and stood beside him. Since there was nothing to do there was nothing to say. Stephen put out his hand and touched a fold of her dress.

The room filled itself with something that had not been there before, his impotent love. Hilda knelt down beside the bed and pressed her forehead against the hand upon the covering, the hand that had so little more to do. Then Arnold spoke.

”You dear woman!” he said. ”You dear woman!” She kept her head bowed like that and did not answer. It was his happiest moment. One might say he had lived for this. Her tears fell upon his hand, a kind of baptism for his heart. He spoke again.

”We must bear this,” he panted. ”It is--less cruel--than it seems. You don't know how much it is for the best.”

She lifted her wet face. ”You mustn't talk,” she faltered.

”What difference--” he did not finish the sentence. His words were too few to waste. He paused and made another effort.

”If this had not happened I would have been--counted--among the unfaithful,” he said. ”I know now. I would have abandoned--my post. And gladly--without a regret--for you.”

”Ah!” Hilda cried, with a vivid note of pain. ”Would you? I am sorry for that! I am sorry!”

She gazed with a face of real tragedy at the form of her captive delivered to her in the bonds of death. A fresh pang visited her with the thought that in the mystery of the ordering of things she might have had to do with the forging of those shackles--the price of the year that had been very valuable.

”My G.o.d is a jealous G.o.d,” Arnold said. ”He has delivered me--into His own hands--for the honour of His name. I acknowledge--I am content.”

”No, indeed no! It was a wicked, horrible chance! Don't charge your G.o.d with it.”

His smile was very sweet, but it paid the least possible attention. ”You did love me,” he said. He spoke as if he were already dead.

”I did indeed,” Hilda replied, and bent her shamed head upon her hands again in the confession. It is not strange that he heard only the affirmation in it.

He stroked her hair. ”It is good to know that,” he said, ”very, good. I should have married you.” He went on with sudden boldness and a new note of strength in his voice, ”Think of that! You would have been mine--to protect and work for. We should have gone together to England--where I could easily have got a curacy--easily.”

Hilda looked up. ”Would you like to marry me now?” she asked eagerly, but he shook his head.

”You don't understand,” he said. ”It is the dear sin G.o.d has turned my back upon.”

Then it came to her that he had asked for no caress. He was going una.s.soiled to his G.o.d, with the divine indifference of the dying. Only his imagination looked backward and forward. And she thought, ”It is a little light flame that I have lit with my own taper that has gone out--that has gone out--and presently the grave will extinguish that.”

She sat quiet and sombre in the growing darkness, and presently Arnold slept.

He slept through the bringing of a lamp, the arrival of flowers, subdued knocks of inquirers who would not be stayed by the bulletin--the visit of Surgeon-Major Wills, who felt his pulse without wakening him.

”Holding out wonderfully,” the doctor said. ”Don't rouse him for the soup. He'll go out in about six hours without any pain. May not wake at all.”