Part 53 (1/2)

There he sat, silent, with his hand to his head, still struggling to marshal his wandering thoughts, still trying to see light through the darkness that was closing round him.

”Master!” cried Ariel, piteously. ”What's become of the story?”

He started as if she had awakened him out of a sleep; he shook his head impatiently, as though he wanted to throw off some oppression that weighed upon it.

”Patience, patience,” he said. ”The story is going on again.”

He dashed at it desperately; he picked up the first lost thread that fell in his way, reckless whether it were the right thread or the wrong one:

”Damoride fell on her knees. She burst into tears. She said--”

He stopped, and looked about him with vacant eyes.

”What name did I give the other woman?” he asked, not putting the question to me, or to either of my companions: asking it of himself, or asking it of the empty air.

”You called the other woman Cunegonda,” I said.

At the sound of my voice his eyes turned slowly--turned on me, and yet failed to look at me. Dull and absent, still and changeless, they were eyes that seemed to be fixed on something far away. Even his voice was altered when he spoke next. It had dropped to a quiet, vacant, monotonous tone. I had heard something like it while I was watching by my husband's bedside, at the time of his delirium--when Eustace's mind appeared to be too weary to follow his speech. Was the end so near as this?

”I called her Cunegonda,” he repeated. ”And I called the other--”

He stopped once more.

”And you called the other Damoride,” I said.

Ariel looked up at him with a broad stare of bewilderment. She pulled impatiently at the sleeve of his jacket to attract his notice.

”Is this the story, Master?” she asked.

He answered without looking at her, his changeless eyes still fixed, as it seemed, on something far away.

”This is the story,” he said, absently. ”But why Cunegonda? why Damoride? Why not Mistress and Maid? It's easier to remember Mistress and Maid--”

He hesitated; he s.h.i.+vered as he tried to raise himself in his chair.

Then he seemed to rally ”What did the Maid say to the Mistress?” he muttered. ”What? what? what?” He hesitated again. Then something seemed to dawn upon him unexpectedly. Was it some new thought that had struck him? or some lost thought that he had recovered? Impossible to say.

He went on, suddenly and rapidly went on, in these strange words:

”'The letter,' the Maid said; 'the letter. Oh my heart. Every word a dagger. A dagger in my heart. Oh, you letter. Horrible, horrible, horrible letter.'”

What, in G.o.d's name, was he talking about? What did those words mean?

Was he unconsciously pursuing his faint and fragmentary recollections of a past time at Gleninch, under the delusion that he was going on with the story? In the wreck of the other faculties, was memory the last to sink? Was the truth, the dreadful truth, glimmering on me dimly through the awful shadow cast before it by the advancing, eclipse of the brain?

My breath failed me; a nameless horror crept through my whole being.

Benjamin, with his pencil in his hand, cast one warning look at me.

Ariel was quiet and satisfied. ”Go on, Master,” was all she said. ”I like it! I like it! Go on with the story.”

He went on--like a man sleeping with his eyes open, and talking in his sleep.

”The Maid said to the Mistress. No--the Mistress said to the Maid. The Mistress said, 'Show him the letter. Must, must, must do it.' The Maid said, 'No. Mustn't do it. Shan't show it. Stuff. Nonsense. Let him suffer. We can get him off. Show it? No. Let the worst come to the worst. Show it, then.' The Mistress said--” He paused, and waved his hand rapidly to and fro before his eyes, as if he were brus.h.i.+ng away some visionary confusion or entanglement. ”Which was it last?” he said--”Mistress or Maid? Mistress? No. Maid speaks, of course. Loud.

Positive. 'You scoundrels. Keep away from that table. The Diary's there.