Part 2 (2/2)
”I got there I doubt if she knew it It was only twenty roan like that, man nobody is to blaely, as he did when he was moved beyond endurance
”Oh, I take it all!” cried Avery He stooped as if he bent his broad shoulders to receive sohty burden ”I shall carry it allforever Men have gone ot to face”
”If you find yourself strong enough,” said the physician, ”I shall try to put you in possession of the facts” Again, as before, Avery thought he noticed an expression of aversion on the countenance of his old friend Cowering, he bowed before it It was part of his punish but a consciousness of punisho up and see her first?” asked Dr Thorne, as if to gain ti lip
But the rooency, and old before his tiuish--had never heard
It softened Dr Thorne a little, and he tried to be ether Iron and fire were in the doctor's nature, and the an quietly, with a marked reserve Mrs Avery, he said, had been very ill on thethat her husband started He had hurried to the house, as requested; her condition was so alar what he could to relieve her, he had driven rapidly to the river-wall back of the club, hoping to signal the yacht before it was out of reach; he had even dispatched so to overtake the Dreaht; and being subject to such attacks-- ”I had warned you,” said the physician coldly ”I explained to you the true nature of her condition I have done my best for a year to prevent just this catastrophe No I don't mean to be a brute I don't want to dwell on that view of it You don't need my reproaches Of course you kno she took that trip of yours When the storriot into the papers We did our best to keep the woiven us any address to telegraph to When she began to sink, we could not notify you I should have sent a tug after you if it had n't been for the gale-- What do you take me for? Of course I provided a nurse And my ould have been here, but she was out of town She only returned last night Helen did n't get here in time, either It was most unfortunate I sent the best woular staff were all on duty somewhere That was the infernal part of it I had to take this stranger I gave her every order But Mrs Avery see She deceived us all She deceived me; I admit it The woman ot hold of the paper That's the worst of it She read the account of the wreck all through You see, the reporters gave the party up She was unconscious when I got here Once she seemed to know me But I cannot honestly say that I believe she did I don't think I have anything more to say Not just now, anyhow” Esain, tapping on the sill with his fingers--scornfully one eraphed And the interment”-- ”Oh, have some mercy, Thorne! I have borne all I can--from you”
”Esmerald?” As if a spirit had stirred it, the library door opened inwards slowly A womanly voice embodied in a fair and stately presence melted into the room
”Oh, my dear! my dear!” said Helen Thorne ”Leave him to me”
As the stricken man lifted his face from the lash of his fellow-athered his, as if he had been a broken child
”Oh,” she said, ”don't take it so! Don't think of it that way It would break Jean's heart She loved you so!And she knew you did n't kno sick she was Any ould know that--if her husband loved her, and if she loved him And you did love her And she knew you did She used to tell me how sure she was of your true love--and how precious it was to her, and how much shecared for you”
Helen's voice faltered on these last three words; she pronounced them with infinite tenderness; it was the pathos of wo love
”And she would n't want you to be tortured so--now Oh, she would be the first of us all to forgive you for anyyou did She would understand just how it all came about, better than any of us can--better than you do yourself Jean always understood She wanted nothing, nothing in this world, but for you to be happy She was so grieved because she was sick, and could not go about with you, and make it as cheerful for you at home as she used to do She used to tell s about how she felt, and every feeling she ever had was purer and tenderer and truer than the feeling of any other woman that I ever knew! She was the noblest woman--the loveliest,and she loved you Why, she could n't bear it--she could n't bear it, dead up there as she is, if we let you suffer like this, and did not tryif I did not try to co words But the heart-break of the man's sobs came now at last; and they had such a sound that the doctor covered his eyes, and stood with bowed head, as if he had been the culprit, not the judge, before the awful courts of human error, remorse, and love, in which no man may doom his fellow, since God's verdict awaits
”Come, Mr Avery,” said Helen She stooped and picked up the tea-roses, which had fallen and were scattered on the floor, put them into his cold hand--and then dreay ”She 'd rather you would go up alone,” said Helen Thorne
He passed out through the open door His two friends fell back The children could be heard in the dining-roo to keep theh hot-house flowers, the air was so thick with their repugnant scent He crawled upstairs, steadying himself by the banister The hall below looked small and dark, like a pit His head swareat depth He clung to the wretched tea-roses that he had brought her He re he could ever do for her
Outside the door of her roo the old, corief was young in the story of the world:-- ”It is all over This is the end”
”No,” said a distinct voice near hi, he stared about him The hall was quite empty, above and below The nursery door was closed The children and Molly could be heard in the dining-room No person ithin the radius of speech with him The door of Jean's chamber was shut
The roses shook in his hand
PART III
Avery stood irresolute ”It is one of those hallucinations,” he thought ”This shock--following the wreck--has confused me” The voice was not repeated; and after a few moments' hesitation he opened the door of his wife's rooht in the chaht filled the room, which, unlike the house, was not heavy with the excessive perfu, and like Jean) was all that had been admitted; these stood on a table beside her Bible and prayer-book, her little portfolio, and her pen and inkstand
In his wretchedness Marshall duly perceived the delicate thought which had ordered that his should be the first flowers to touch her dear body
He came up with his poor roses in his hand Jean seemed to have waited for theh when she saw him cross the room Impossible to believe that she did not see him! She lay so easily, so vitally, that the conviction forced itself upon him that there was some hideous ht, ”and this is one of the visions that co people”
”I may be dead, myself,” he added ”Who knows? But Jean is not dead” He thrust up the shade, and let the Noveht hair and her most lovely face He called her by her naht be said that he expected her to stir and stretch out her hands to hiued ”You know I did n't, Jean Why, you told irl! they 've blundered somehow You could n't die, you would n't die, Jean, while I was on that cruel trip I was sorry I went I was asha you I hurried back--and I was shi+pwrecked--I was al! I 'll never leave you again as long as I live!”
These words ached through his mind He could hardly have said whether he spoke thee of the bed beside her By sohastly circumstance of death was spared Jean She lay quite naturally and happily in her own bed, in her lace-frilled night-dress, with her bright hair braided as she used to braid it for the night Except for her pallor--and she had been a little pale so long that this was not oppressive--she wore one of her char looks The conviction that she was not dead persisted in the husband alnacity It occurred to hi to hiainst his heart
”Coive ive myself”
Then he stooped to kiss her; and then he slid to his knees, and hid his face in his shaking hands, and uttered no cry, nor any word or sound
He was so still, and he was still so long, that his friends took alarm for him, and Helen Thorne quietly opened the door When she saw him, she retreated as quietly, went downstairs, and called his little girl
Pink trotted up noisily as Pink always did, hurried to her mother's room, and hesitated on the threshold When she said ”Hullo, Papa!” her father turned and saw her standing there He made an instinctive ht her, and kissed her little hands and hair, and Pink said: ”Crying, Papa? Have you got 'e toofache?Come to Mummer Dee She 'll comfort you”
Into the Church of the Happy Saints, where Jean was used to worshi+p (for she was a religious woman, in her quiet, unobtrusive way), they carried her for her last prayer and chant And it was noticed how entle lady to whootten by every one except themselves, or, more likely, not known to any one else; obscure people, those who had not many friends, and especially sick people, the not helpless, but not curable, whom life and death alike pass by In her short, invalid life Jean had remembered everybody within her reach who bore this fate; and it would never be knohat sweet fashi+on she had contrived to make over to these poor souls a precious portion of her abounding courage, or the gift of Jean's own sy quite peculiar to herself It was finer than the shading of words in a poe in a prayer, and always as womanly as Jean
He who followed her to her burial in such a trance of anguish as few men knoho love a wife and cherish her (as so many do, that women may well thank Heaven for their manly number),--he who had loved, but had not cherished, looked into Jean's open grave, and believed that in all the world he stoodafflicted rasped Pink's little hand till he hurt the child, and she wrenched it away He did not even notice this, and his eers had left it ”I went on a gunning trip And she asked y sacred words smote upon and did not soothe this comfortless man
”He that believeth on Me”
”Jean believed on me And I failed her And she is dead”
Pink crept up to his side again, and put her fingers back into his still outstretched hand Perhaps it was the child's touch; perhaps--God knew--it was some effluence from the unseen life within whose mystery the deathless love of the dead wife had ceased fro at that instant poured vigor into the abjectly miserable man His first consciousness that Jean was not dead rushed back upon hirave, but a couch cut in a catafalque of autuht, as he had thought before He lifted his bared head to the November sky in a kind of exaltation
This did not fail hi at the swept and garnished house The disarray of the funeral was quite removed His wife's room was ordered as usual; its s stood open Some of the dreadful floere still left about the house He pulled theely fro in the hall; and the strange professional nurse, who had remained with the baby, came up and offered hiht He took the little thing into his aran to cry, and hit him in the eyes with both fists
”It's after her he do be cryin',” said Molly
Avery handed her the child in silence As he turned to go upstairs, Pink ran after him
”Papa,” said Pink, ”do you expect Mu visit in heaven? I should fink it was time for her to come home, by supper, shouldn't you, Papa?”
In their own rooms Marshall Avery sat him down alone He bolted all the doors, and walked from limit to limit of the narrow space--his room and hers, with the door open between that he used to close because the baby bothered him It stood wide open now In his roo about; Jean used to attend to his things herself, even after she was ill--too ill, perhaps; he re her rather positively if any of these trifles were neglected; once she had said, ”I 'h to-day”
On his bureau stood her photograph, fraoith lace about the throat It had Jean's own eyes; but nothing ever gave the expression of herat her picture
Presently he put it down, and came back into his wife's room He shut the s, for he shi+vered with cold, and stared about The eht and stark The violets were drooping on the table beside her Bible, her basket, and her portfolio He picked these things up, and laid theain He went mechanically to the bureau and opened the upper drawer All her little dainty belongings were folded in their places,--her gloves, her handkerchiefs, the laces that she fancied, and the blond ribbons that she wore--the blue, the rose, the lavender, and the corn
In this drawer a long narrow piece of white tissue-paper lay folded carefully across the glove box He opened it idly Soers, and cling as if it would not leave theht hair
He caught it to his breast, his cheek, his lips He cherished it wildly, as he would now have cherished her The forgotten tenderness, the oentleness of life, lavished itself on death, as remorse will lavish what love passed by The touch of her hair on his hands s form of his illusion out of hier
”Jean is dead,” he said distinctly
He threw hie and tried to collect hiht meet it ot to live without her,and those childrenno mother I must arouse myself I must bear it, as other men do”