Part 31 (1/2)

Silently they drove to Adriana's house, and then Antony kissed her, and said with some difficulty, ”I can never thank you enough, Yanna,”

and Yanna, smiling sadly in reply, turned to Rose and said, ”Good-bye, Rose. I shall see you at Woodsome, I hope, soon.”

Rose did not respond in any way. Her eyes were cast down, she seemed to be lost to sense and feeling, except for a perceptible drawing away from her husband when he took the seat which Yanna had vacated.

Furtively she glanced into his face, and she was aware of, though she was not sorry for, its utter wretchedness. Indeed, in no way did she evince the slightest contrition for her offence. Antony, however, doubted whether she was in a condition to fully realize it. With soulless eyes, she gazed on the panorama of the streets, and if she had any just knowledge of sin committed, it lay in some corner of her conscience, far below the threshold of her present intelligence.

It seemed a never-ending ride to Antony. The familiar streets were strange to him, and his own house was like a house in a dream. He fancied the coachman looked curious and evilly intelligent. It was not that his body burned, his very soul burned with shame and pity and just anger. He gave Rose his arm, however, up the flight of steps, but she withdrew herself with a motion of impatience as soon as they entered the hall, and she was not at all aware of a feeling, an atmosphere, a sense of something sorrowful and unusual, which struck Antony as quickly as he pa.s.sed the threshold. The next moment a door opened, and the family physician came forward.

Antony looked at him and divined what he was going to say. ”She is worse, doctor?” he whispered.

”She is well, sir. Well, forever!”

Then, with such a cry as could only come from a wounded soul, Antony fled upstairs. Rose sank into the nearest chair. She had not yet any clear conception of her misery. But in a moment or two, Antony returned with his little dead daughter in his arms. He was weeping like a woman; nay, he was sobbing as men sob who have lost hope.

”Oh, my darling!” he cried. ”My little comforter! My lost angel!” and with every exclamation he kissed the lovely image of Death. Straight to the trembling, dazed mother he took the clay-cold form, which had already been dressed for its burial. And when Rose understood the fact, she was like one awakening from a dream--there was a moment's stupor, a moment's recollection, a moment's pa.s.sionate realization of her loss; and then shriek after shriek, from a mind that suddenly lost its balance and fell from earth to h.e.l.l.

Fortunately, the physician was at hand, and for once Antony left Rose to his care. His sympathy seemed dead. He had borne until his capacity for suffering was exhausted. He lay down on the nursery couch, close to his dead child, and G.o.d sent him the sleep He gives to His beloved when the sorrow is too great for them. On awakening he found Mrs.

Filmer at his side. She was weeping, and her tears made Antony blind also. He drew his hands across his eyes, and stood up, feeling weak and shattered, and ill from head to feet.

”Antony,” said Mrs. Filmer, ”you have behaved n.o.bly this day. I cannot thank you as I would like to.”

”Emma is dead!” he answered. ”Dear mother, that is all I can bear to-night. Such a sad, little, suffering life! If I could only have suffered for her! If I could only have been with her at _the hour_. I watched for that favor. I grudged to leave her, even to eat or sleep--and I missed it after all! For I hoped at the moment of parting to have some vision or a.s.surance that her tender little soul would not have to pa.s.s alone through the great outer s.p.a.ce and darkness. Where is she now? Who is her Helper? Will Christ indeed carry her in his bosom until her small feet reach the fields of Paradise? Mother!

mother! I am broken-hearted this night. Who was with her when she died?”

”It seems that she died alone. The nurse thought she was asleep, and she went downstairs to make herself a cup of tea. When she came back Emma was dead. The doctor says she had a fit and died in it.”

”No one to help her! No one to kiss her! It is too cruel! My dear one would open her eyes at last and find no father--no mother--no one at all to say 'good-bye' to her!”

”Come, come, Antony! The doctor thinks she never recovered consciousness.

He says she did not suffer. You have saved Rose. Go and say a word to her. She is in despair.”

”I will speak to her as soon as I can. I cannot see her until--until the child has been taken away from me.”

Mrs. Filmer pressed him no further. She thought it best to leave him much alone. His thin, worn cheeks, and sunken eyes--showing pain, anxiety, and sleepless nights--were touchingly human. They said plainer than any words could, ”Trouble me no more until I am stronger; until my soul can reach that serene depth where it can say, 'Thy will be done,' until, indeed, I can turn to Romans, the eighth chapter and the twenty-eighth verse, and stand firmly with its grand charter of G.o.d's deliverance in my hand.”

When the child was buried, Antony made an effort to speak to his wife.

But she would not speak to him. She had a.s.sumed an att.i.tude quite unexpected--that of an injured woman. She complained to her mother that an infamous advantage had been taken of a trifling escapade. ”I simply went to see an old friend off to Cuba; and Yanna--because of a conversation I had with her a few days previously--is sure I am going to desert my husband and child. She races down to the steamer, and makes a scene there; and Antony follows to bring on a grand climax!

No! I will not forgive either Yanna or Antony.”

”What had you said to Yanna?”

”Just a little serious conversation--such as I wanted to be good, and so on--and I asked her if anything happened to me to look after baby.

Feeling always makes a fool of me. I won't feel any more. I won't want to be good any more.”

”You had no necessity to ask that woman to look after baby. Was not I sufficient?”

”I was in one of my good moods. I wanted Yanna to think I was lovely.

I do not care now what any one thinks.”

And she acted out this programme to its last letter. She was either despondently or mockingly indifferent to all that was proposed. After some delay, her father and mother went to Europe. Yanna and Harry went to stay with Miss Alida; and Antony made what preparations were necessary, and removed his household to the Filmer place at Woodsome.