"Our readers will learn with deep sympathy and regret that the health of the futurechâtelaineof Parham Castle is causing her husband and many friends grave anxiety."Mark sprang to his feet with an exclamation. Betty—ill! In an instant he felt his blood circulating violently, stinging him to wild and over-powering excitement. The bishop-designate of Parham remained an attenuated shade; his wife was clothed with palpable flesh and blood. Ill? She? Incredible!He despatched a telegram to Dibdin, the butler, and waited for the answer, pacing up and down the Finchley Road, regardless of a shower which wetted him to the skin. While he waited, one of the telegraph boys who knew him came up with a despatch. Mark tore open the envelope. The telegram was from Sybil Perowne. She had reached Paris and was going to Fontainebleau. Mark stared stupidly at the message. Then he murmured between his teeth: "I wish she was going to Jericho."The actress had become as remote as Betty had been a few hours before. Between Sybil Perowne and him stretched the long years of youth and childhood, never to be forgotten—the years which belonged to Betty. He went back to meet Betty in a thousand familiar places; she ran to meet him, her eyes radiant with pleasure, her lips parted in joyous acclamation.An hour later Dibdin's answer came—"Very ill indeed. Typhoid."Mark went to Chelsea in the first hansom he saw. At his brother's house carriages were coming and going upon the straw which had been laid down. Dibdin gave details. His mistress had complained of headache and generalmalaisefor some ten days, but had refused persistently to see her doctor. Finally, she had taken to her bed, ravaged by fever. She had eaten some oysters sent as a present to the preacher by an ardent admirer. Archibald also had eaten the oysters, but with impunity."Lady Randolph is upstairs, and master is in the library," said Dibdin. "Won't you see him, Mr. Mark?"Mark hesitated."Yes," he said nervously, "I will. Show me in, Dibdin."Archibald, who was writing at his desk, rose to receive him. As the door closed behind Dibdin, the eyes of the brothers met."If she asks for me, you will send?" said Mark, moving a step nearer."Go," Archibald replied, trembling and turning aside his eyes."Not till I have your promise. She may not ask, but if she does, by Heaven! you must, you shall send. Swear it!""Go, go!"But Mark advanced, omnipotent by virtue of the passion within him.Archibald retreated. Did he fear violence? Or did he read in his brother's eyes a power of will against which he was helpless. Pale, shaken as by a palsy, he stammered out: "I w-w-will s-s-send.""Swear it!""I swear it."Mark went back into the hall. Dibdin mentioned, with a pride which at any other time would have tickled Mark's humour, that everybody in London wanted the latest news. He and George, the footman, were almost worn out answering inquiries. Princes of the blood, the House of Peers, the House of Commons, Royal Academicians, county families, had learned with infinite regret of Mrs. Samphire s dangerous illness. Mark listened with eager ears. And what did Dibdin himself think? Dibdin, like all of his class, was lamentably pessimistic. "In the hall, we entertain no hope, no hope," Dibdin murmured. "And to think of that beautiful castle at Parham without the mistress is breaking our hearts in two, sir."A terrible ten days passed. At the beginning of the first week Mark received a letter from Mrs. Perowne. Between the lines of it an even more distracted vision than Mark's might have caught a glimpse of the Fury. Mark read it, wondering what charm he had perceived in her, and thankful that no links stronger than words bound him to the witch. He had asked no questions concerning Mrs. Perowne's past; and she had asked none concerning his. The postscript to her letter was very imperative: "Come to the woman you love, if you are alive." He replied simply: "The woman I loved as a boy and a man, the woman I love still, is dying. Think what you please of me, and forget me as soon as possible." By return of post came his play with a brutal line across the title page: "Take this to her; I have no use for it." Mark tossed the typescript into a drawer with a laugh.Fenella, the graven image of success which he had set up and worshipped, had become a thing of absolutely no importance. But he remembered the Chow and the spirits of ammonia. His dear love, who lay dying, had saved him from—what?Meantime, his friends sought him out, but he sent away David, and Tommy Greatorex and Pynsent. Jim Corrance, however, refused to leave him, although Mark ignored his presence for twenty-four hours. Then, very gradually, he thawed into speech with his old friend. Together they awaited the bulletins. The disease was running its slow, tortuous course. One telegram spelt hope in capital letters; another—despair: each rose and fell with Betty's temperature. Mark's self-control distressed poor Jim unspeakably. His face, which had lost the expression of youth, always so captivating, wore an iron mask of impassivity. And yet Jim knew that the intermittences of Betty's fever imposed themselves on Mark.We are told that Chinese malefactors condemned to die by the abominable torment ofLing—the death from a thousand cuts—only suffer up to a certain point. Then insensibility dulls the knives of the executioners.Jim was asking himself the question: "Will Mark cease to feel?" when a telegram from Archibald reached Hampstead, containing one word, "Come."CHAPTER XLITHE POWER BEHIND THE THRONELady Randolph was awaiting Mark in the pretty drawing-room overlooking the river."Nothing can save her," she whispered. "She is alive because she could not die without seeing you. What is left is yours. You understand. Archibald has been generous.""Archibald has his son," Mark said hoarsely."She was not herself till last night, when the fever burnt itself out. But, Mark, always, always she raved of you. Husband and child were never mentioned. It was terrible for him—poor fellow—terrible!"Mark followed her upstairs.Betty lay in bed, the light from the windows, which were opened wide, streaming upon her emaciated face. A clean, sweet perfume of violets filled the air, and whatever might have indicated a long and terrible illness had been removed.She met his glance with a strange smile, as he stumbled forward, falling on his knees at the bedside, saying nothing, but kissing the hand lying limp upon the coverlet. Betty spoke first:"Mark, Mark, Archie has forgiven you."Mark said nothing. His brother's forgiveness came upon him at this moment as a meaningless blow on the cheek. What did he care for Archie's forgiveness? But he understood instantly what it meant to Betty. It explained the smile with which she greeted him. The question in her eyes slowly burnt its way to his heart."And he has been so good to me, so—good," she faltered."Yes, yes," he said hastily. Should he lie to her as she lay dying? Should he swear, if need be, that he, too, was purged of hate and envy? Why not, if such empty words had any virtue in them for her? But the lie could not leave his lips. A minute or two passed in silence. Then she whispered: "You will not leave me, Mark?"Again he kissed her fingers."I shall not leave you, dear, dear Betty.""Ah, but I must leave you. And I'm afraid.""If I could go too——Shall I? Would it make it easier?"The life raging in him communicated itself to her. A faint colour flowed into her cheeks, her eyes sparkled."You would do that?""Gladly.""I knew you would say it. But I am not afraid for myself. I am—afraid—for—you. And if—if you went with me, we should part on the other side."The words dropped one by one from her pallid lips, slowly, faintly, yet with indescribable emphasis."You must—wait," she whispered. "Promise me that you will wait. Quick!"He obeyed, awestruck, for she had closed her eyes, and he feared she was gone. After a pause she spoke of his sermon: "It is here—under—my—pillow. Will you read the last two pages to me?"He consented reluctantly, obedient to some spiritual authority. At the sound of his broken, troubled voice, harsh, but vibrant with that strange arresting quality which always had thrilled her, she smiled and sighed. Mark read the manuscript, unable to recognise it as his own. But reading on, he leaped the years which had passed. The sermon closed with a passage of great beauty and power. When he finished, he said wonderingly: "Did I write that?"Betty whispered: "You know now why I couldn't come."Mark remembered his own aphorism: that the best work of men is greater than themselves. And, if so, the conclusion followed inevitably: this sermon, infinitely greater than himself, must have been inspired not from within, but from without—by the Infinite!"It is getting very dark," said Betty."Yes," he replied.The sun had not reached its zenith, but it was dark indeed for the speaker. Betty's breath came and went with difficulty, as the heart and lungs slowly failed. Mark raised her head. Her fingers felt for his hand. He perceived that she was making a sign on the back of it. At first he thought it was a caress, but the fingers traced the same sign again and again—a cross.He wished to speak of love, but the dreadful lump filled his throat—strangling him. She was dying, slipping from his grasp. If he could have believed that a meeting was possible elsewhere, still the doleful certainty possessed him that the flesh-and-blood woman was departing for ever. Revolt raged within him, while her finger traced the symbol of the faith he had abjured, the symbol of the love which vanquishes hate and death.Suddenly the finger stopped.As suddenly, something seemed to break in Mark's heart."Betty," he cried, "Betty—do you hear me? I am glad you didn't come. I shall live to thank God you didn't come."She opened her eyes, and for the last time he noted that curious intensity of interrogation by which the full orb of the irid was revealed. He saw that she could not speak; he knew with conviction that no speech was necessary. Her lips parted in a faint smile, as if the last flickering doubt were escaping. Then, with a little shiver, with a sigh of contentment, her lids fell....Outside the nurse and Lady Randolph waited, listening. In the library below sat Archibald Samphire and David Ross. Presently Lady Randolph went downstairs."The doors are locked," she faltered. "And there isn't a sound. I fear—I fear——"The others understood instantly."Oh, my God—not that!" exclaimed Archibald.He ran upstairs. At Betty's door he paused, inclining his ear. The silence within the room chilled him to the marrow. He called Mark by name, at first in a whisper, then louder, at the last his voice rang through the house."We must break in," he said.At the first glance it seemed certain that both Mark and Betty lay dead on the bed. Even the trained eye of the nurse was deceived. But after a stimulant had been administered, Mark recovered semi-consciousness. When he opened his eyes he began to speak in his natural voice; then he laughed—gaily, youthfully."That's it, Betty—capital! Pop it over his head! Good! Ha—ha! old Archie, that did you. I say, I am thirsty...."He imagined that he was at Pitt Hall playing lawn tennis.Brain fever set in within twenty-four hours. During his delirium he called impatiently for his brother, who came trembling. Mark saw only the boy."Why have you stayed away so long?" he asked. "You're not going to leave me, old chap?""No, no," stammered Archibald."I say, it is jolly seeing you again."He stretched out his lean, shrunken hand, which Archibald took. Presently Mark's vagabond wits wandered to Lord's Cricket Ground."Well played!" he screamed. "A boundary hit, by Jove! That's my brother, you know, old Archie. Isn't he splendid? Isn't he a slogger? There he goes again. What a smite! Well played, Samphire major! Well played, sir—well played!"The tears fell down Archibald's cheeks."He's been going on like that all night," whispered the nurse; then she added gently, "He seems to have a wonderful love for you, sir." She was another nurse, just called in, still ignorant of such gossip as circulated in the servants' quarters. Constrained to listen to hideous raving, to heartrending revelations, this delirium of love touched her to the core. She knew that the famous preacher's wife lay dead in the next room, and being a tender-hearted woman, strove to comfort him."I hear so much that is so shocking," she whispered. "Only the other day I was nursing a gentleman who cursed his brother, who—died cursing him! And after that,this—— It must be a comfort to you...."For a fortnight the fever raged. During long hours each day the brothers were together, united by the mocking fiend of delirium. And during those hours Mark lived again his youth. Nothing seemed to be forgotten. But delirium achieved more than reproduction—revelation. Mark, like all healthy boys, had concealed his love for his brother. Of the nature and extent of that love the elder had formed no conception—till now, when its steady stream poured down in flood.After the first shock of seeing his brother's senseless body, Archibald told himself (and had said as much to David Ross) that it would be well if Mark departed in peace out of a world wherein he had suffered cruelly. But David Ross shook his head."He will not die," he said, with conviction, albeit the two doctors in attendance held the contrary opinion.And then, gradually, Archibald came to regard his brother's ravings as the shadows of an inestimable substance. Computing his gains, he discovered with poignant consternation, that his losses far outweighed them. His name was in men's mouths; he held power, wealth, health in the hollow of his hand. But was there one fellow-creature who truly loved him? Day after day, Mark's innumerable friends came to the door: Pynsent, confessing that he was unable to work from anxiety; Jim Corrance, haggard with sleeplessness; Greatorex, who seemed to spend his time on the doormat; Albert and Mary Batley. And besides these, humbler friends: waifs and strays, reclaimed drunkards, factory girls, who had read in the papers that the man who had been kind to them lay dying.Always Archibald had obtained what he desired; but it never occurred to him that he desired mean things, or rather that the things so desired were mean in comparison with other things which he had ignored. None the less, the habit of seeking strenuously what he coveted remained. He realised, inexorably, that he coveted his brother's love. And if Mark died, that love once given so freely, then changed into hate, and at last given back in awful mockery, would perish with him.It is possible, of course, that David Ross cleared his vision. He told David the little which David did not know. In a moment of profound humiliation he professed himself willing to resign his see. David indicated other penance, not alien to Christian sense. In and around Parham, he pointed out, a transgressor might bow the neck beneath the yoke of a labour harder than any to be found even in convict establishments. That Archibald should question his fitness for the task assigned him convinced David of the magnitude of the change within him.Upon the day, however, when the doctors agreed that the crisis of the disease was approaching, Archibald's misery reached its culminating point. Returning life meant sanity. Mark would awake from a sleep which had lasted forty-eight hours to the realisation of the past, or he would sink into the coma and collapse which precede dissolution.After some discussion it was agreed that Mark's eyes, when they opened, should rest on a face dear and familiar to him, yet dissociated from the events which had succeeded Betty's marriage. Mrs. Corrance had come to town; she had helped to nurse Mark; she was staying in the house and could be summoned at any moment. Accordingly, when at length Mark Samphire returned from his wanderings, the first person he saw was his old friend, as she sat sewing at the foot of his bed. She smiled serenely, waiting for him to speak. None the less, he kept silence so long that her hand began to tremble. She was sure that he was conscious and that he must be thinking of Betty."Have I been ill?" he asked gravely.She rose at once, bent over him, touched his hand, and murmured: "Very ill. Brain fever. Keep quiet."She laid the tips of her fingers upon his eyelids, gently pressing them down. He let them fall, and asked no more questions. But later, after he had taken some food, he said with a smile: "Betty told me that I must wait."Within twenty-four hours word went forth from those in authority that he would live; but to Archibald's recurrent question, one answer alone was possible. Mark had not spoken his brother's name. Archibald's anxiety became hourly more poignant. If a glimpse of love had been vouchsafed him, in order that he might realise that it lay for ever beyond his reach, then of all men he would reckon himself the most unhappy.Mark did not break silence, when he learned that he was in his brother's house. David was allowed to visit him, but the bishop spoke only of the waifs from the slums around the mission, who had not forgotten an old friend."But Bagshot killed his wife," said Mark.David changed the subject. When he said good-bye, Mark said curtly: "I've been a beast to you, Davie. Is it all right?"Ross repeated Mark's words to Archibald, who was waiting in the passage: "I think it is all right," said he. Then he added, pressing the other's hand: "He is asking for pardon."That night the nurse who had come to him first, and who had tended him so skilfully, sat alone with him. Her perceptions had warned her that she was in a house where tragedy had been enacted. She knew that her patient had been found, stricken down upon the death-bed of his brother's wife, that the husband had held aloof at that most solemn hour.Presently, as she was giving Mark some broth, he asked if he had raved in his delirium. Other questions followed. He learned of Archibald's presence at his bedside, of his ministrations. Incredulity melted into astonishment and then into an expression which the nurse could not define."You were never easy for a moment," she concluded, "unless your brother was with you.""And he——?""It gave him real comfort to wait on you, poor gentleman!""Thank you," said Mark. "Good night, nurse!"Next morning he asked for a mirror, exclaiming, when he saw his face: "What a scarecrow!" Later, he begged the doctor to allow him to send for a barber. For some years he had worn a beard, which, however closely clipped, had greatly altered him. When the man came, Mark ordered him to shave all hair from his face. This done, he called again for the mirror."Do you see much change?" he asked the nurse."I hardly recognise you.""Others will r-recognise me," he said.With his back to the light he looked the Mark who had ascended the pulpit at King's Charteris. His face was thin, pale, and hollow-cheeked. The fever had taken from him the flesh and colour which life in the open air had given him. Presently David Ross called and was admitted."Mark!"He stood upon the threshold, staring. Mark smiled."Will you do me a favour?" he said, as the nurse slipped from the room. "I have not seen," he paused for a moment, nervously, "m-m-my b-b-brother yet. Will you ask him to c-c-come to me?"A year later Pynsent wrote to Jim Corrance from Parham Castle."Parham has gained far more than Literature has lost. Here, Mark is the power behind the throne.À propos, I have painted Archibald on his throne in the sanctuary of Parham Cathedral. Everything, however, is subordinated to the face, upon which a ray of light falls obliquely. The expression you will hardly recognise, till you come here. When it was done, Archibald stared at it for many minutes. Then he said in his rather heavy way: 'It's a portrait; you have looked beneath these.' He indicated the robes.The man looks years older. But Mark has got back his youthful appearance, his high spirits, his keenness, his power of getting enjoyment out of what most of us would consider tedious and disagreeable. As his brother's secretary and confidential adviser, he knows that he has found himself. Archibald reaps all the honour and glory: and the sheaves are heavy. If praise, as Keble says, be our penance here, the Bishop of Parham will wear a hair shirt till he dies. He tells everybody, with pathetic earnestness, that his brother is the senior partner in the firm—and, of course, nobody believes him. Mark sticks to his red tie, and hunts once a week with Kirtling's hounds. He stammers worse than ever when he gets excited. It may seem amazing to you—it is certainly amazing to me—but Mark has the look of a happy, healthy man; and his nephew, so curiously like Betty, adores him."Jim showed this letter to his mother."All the same," he remarked; "Mark ought to have married Betty. I am sure of that."Mrs. Corrance laid down her embroidery. She and Jim were keeping house together: it being agreed that the winter should be spent in town and the summer in the country."I am not sure," she answered slowly. "I used to pray that Betty would marry you, but how many have profited by my 'losing of my prayers'? David Ross might make a guess."Jim flushed. Only his mother knew that he had contributed large sums of money and much time to the Bishop of Poplar's East End enterprises."My dear son," Mrs. Corrance touched his hand with her delicate fingers, "try to believe that Betty died in order that the three men who loved her might live."THE ENDPLYMOUTHWILLIAM BRENDON AND SONPRINTERS*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBROTHERS***
"Our readers will learn with deep sympathy and regret that the health of the futurechâtelaineof Parham Castle is causing her husband and many friends grave anxiety."
Mark sprang to his feet with an exclamation. Betty—ill! In an instant he felt his blood circulating violently, stinging him to wild and over-powering excitement. The bishop-designate of Parham remained an attenuated shade; his wife was clothed with palpable flesh and blood. Ill? She? Incredible!
He despatched a telegram to Dibdin, the butler, and waited for the answer, pacing up and down the Finchley Road, regardless of a shower which wetted him to the skin. While he waited, one of the telegraph boys who knew him came up with a despatch. Mark tore open the envelope. The telegram was from Sybil Perowne. She had reached Paris and was going to Fontainebleau. Mark stared stupidly at the message. Then he murmured between his teeth: "I wish she was going to Jericho."
The actress had become as remote as Betty had been a few hours before. Between Sybil Perowne and him stretched the long years of youth and childhood, never to be forgotten—the years which belonged to Betty. He went back to meet Betty in a thousand familiar places; she ran to meet him, her eyes radiant with pleasure, her lips parted in joyous acclamation.
An hour later Dibdin's answer came—
"Very ill indeed. Typhoid."
Mark went to Chelsea in the first hansom he saw. At his brother's house carriages were coming and going upon the straw which had been laid down. Dibdin gave details. His mistress had complained of headache and generalmalaisefor some ten days, but had refused persistently to see her doctor. Finally, she had taken to her bed, ravaged by fever. She had eaten some oysters sent as a present to the preacher by an ardent admirer. Archibald also had eaten the oysters, but with impunity.
"Lady Randolph is upstairs, and master is in the library," said Dibdin. "Won't you see him, Mr. Mark?"
Mark hesitated.
"Yes," he said nervously, "I will. Show me in, Dibdin."
Archibald, who was writing at his desk, rose to receive him. As the door closed behind Dibdin, the eyes of the brothers met.
"If she asks for me, you will send?" said Mark, moving a step nearer.
"Go," Archibald replied, trembling and turning aside his eyes.
"Not till I have your promise. She may not ask, but if she does, by Heaven! you must, you shall send. Swear it!"
"Go, go!"
But Mark advanced, omnipotent by virtue of the passion within him.
Archibald retreated. Did he fear violence? Or did he read in his brother's eyes a power of will against which he was helpless. Pale, shaken as by a palsy, he stammered out: "I w-w-will s-s-send."
"Swear it!"
"I swear it."
Mark went back into the hall. Dibdin mentioned, with a pride which at any other time would have tickled Mark's humour, that everybody in London wanted the latest news. He and George, the footman, were almost worn out answering inquiries. Princes of the blood, the House of Peers, the House of Commons, Royal Academicians, county families, had learned with infinite regret of Mrs. Samphire s dangerous illness. Mark listened with eager ears. And what did Dibdin himself think? Dibdin, like all of his class, was lamentably pessimistic. "In the hall, we entertain no hope, no hope," Dibdin murmured. "And to think of that beautiful castle at Parham without the mistress is breaking our hearts in two, sir."
A terrible ten days passed. At the beginning of the first week Mark received a letter from Mrs. Perowne. Between the lines of it an even more distracted vision than Mark's might have caught a glimpse of the Fury. Mark read it, wondering what charm he had perceived in her, and thankful that no links stronger than words bound him to the witch. He had asked no questions concerning Mrs. Perowne's past; and she had asked none concerning his. The postscript to her letter was very imperative: "Come to the woman you love, if you are alive." He replied simply: "The woman I loved as a boy and a man, the woman I love still, is dying. Think what you please of me, and forget me as soon as possible." By return of post came his play with a brutal line across the title page: "Take this to her; I have no use for it." Mark tossed the typescript into a drawer with a laugh.Fenella, the graven image of success which he had set up and worshipped, had become a thing of absolutely no importance. But he remembered the Chow and the spirits of ammonia. His dear love, who lay dying, had saved him from—what?
Meantime, his friends sought him out, but he sent away David, and Tommy Greatorex and Pynsent. Jim Corrance, however, refused to leave him, although Mark ignored his presence for twenty-four hours. Then, very gradually, he thawed into speech with his old friend. Together they awaited the bulletins. The disease was running its slow, tortuous course. One telegram spelt hope in capital letters; another—despair: each rose and fell with Betty's temperature. Mark's self-control distressed poor Jim unspeakably. His face, which had lost the expression of youth, always so captivating, wore an iron mask of impassivity. And yet Jim knew that the intermittences of Betty's fever imposed themselves on Mark.
We are told that Chinese malefactors condemned to die by the abominable torment ofLing—the death from a thousand cuts—only suffer up to a certain point. Then insensibility dulls the knives of the executioners.
Jim was asking himself the question: "Will Mark cease to feel?" when a telegram from Archibald reached Hampstead, containing one word, "Come."
CHAPTER XLI
THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE
Lady Randolph was awaiting Mark in the pretty drawing-room overlooking the river.
"Nothing can save her," she whispered. "She is alive because she could not die without seeing you. What is left is yours. You understand. Archibald has been generous."
"Archibald has his son," Mark said hoarsely.
"She was not herself till last night, when the fever burnt itself out. But, Mark, always, always she raved of you. Husband and child were never mentioned. It was terrible for him—poor fellow—terrible!"
Mark followed her upstairs.
Betty lay in bed, the light from the windows, which were opened wide, streaming upon her emaciated face. A clean, sweet perfume of violets filled the air, and whatever might have indicated a long and terrible illness had been removed.
She met his glance with a strange smile, as he stumbled forward, falling on his knees at the bedside, saying nothing, but kissing the hand lying limp upon the coverlet. Betty spoke first:
"Mark, Mark, Archie has forgiven you."
Mark said nothing. His brother's forgiveness came upon him at this moment as a meaningless blow on the cheek. What did he care for Archie's forgiveness? But he understood instantly what it meant to Betty. It explained the smile with which she greeted him. The question in her eyes slowly burnt its way to his heart.
"And he has been so good to me, so—good," she faltered.
"Yes, yes," he said hastily. Should he lie to her as she lay dying? Should he swear, if need be, that he, too, was purged of hate and envy? Why not, if such empty words had any virtue in them for her? But the lie could not leave his lips. A minute or two passed in silence. Then she whispered: "You will not leave me, Mark?"
Again he kissed her fingers.
"I shall not leave you, dear, dear Betty."
"Ah, but I must leave you. And I'm afraid."
"If I could go too——Shall I? Would it make it easier?"
The life raging in him communicated itself to her. A faint colour flowed into her cheeks, her eyes sparkled.
"You would do that?"
"Gladly."
"I knew you would say it. But I am not afraid for myself. I am—afraid—for—you. And if—if you went with me, we should part on the other side."
The words dropped one by one from her pallid lips, slowly, faintly, yet with indescribable emphasis.
"You must—wait," she whispered. "Promise me that you will wait. Quick!"
He obeyed, awestruck, for she had closed her eyes, and he feared she was gone. After a pause she spoke of his sermon: "It is here—under—my—pillow. Will you read the last two pages to me?"
He consented reluctantly, obedient to some spiritual authority. At the sound of his broken, troubled voice, harsh, but vibrant with that strange arresting quality which always had thrilled her, she smiled and sighed. Mark read the manuscript, unable to recognise it as his own. But reading on, he leaped the years which had passed. The sermon closed with a passage of great beauty and power. When he finished, he said wonderingly: "Did I write that?"
Betty whispered: "You know now why I couldn't come."
Mark remembered his own aphorism: that the best work of men is greater than themselves. And, if so, the conclusion followed inevitably: this sermon, infinitely greater than himself, must have been inspired not from within, but from without—by the Infinite!
"It is getting very dark," said Betty.
"Yes," he replied.
The sun had not reached its zenith, but it was dark indeed for the speaker. Betty's breath came and went with difficulty, as the heart and lungs slowly failed. Mark raised her head. Her fingers felt for his hand. He perceived that she was making a sign on the back of it. At first he thought it was a caress, but the fingers traced the same sign again and again—a cross.
He wished to speak of love, but the dreadful lump filled his throat—strangling him. She was dying, slipping from his grasp. If he could have believed that a meeting was possible elsewhere, still the doleful certainty possessed him that the flesh-and-blood woman was departing for ever. Revolt raged within him, while her finger traced the symbol of the faith he had abjured, the symbol of the love which vanquishes hate and death.
Suddenly the finger stopped.
As suddenly, something seemed to break in Mark's heart.
"Betty," he cried, "Betty—do you hear me? I am glad you didn't come. I shall live to thank God you didn't come."
She opened her eyes, and for the last time he noted that curious intensity of interrogation by which the full orb of the irid was revealed. He saw that she could not speak; he knew with conviction that no speech was necessary. Her lips parted in a faint smile, as if the last flickering doubt were escaping. Then, with a little shiver, with a sigh of contentment, her lids fell....
Outside the nurse and Lady Randolph waited, listening. In the library below sat Archibald Samphire and David Ross. Presently Lady Randolph went downstairs.
"The doors are locked," she faltered. "And there isn't a sound. I fear—I fear——"
The others understood instantly.
"Oh, my God—not that!" exclaimed Archibald.
He ran upstairs. At Betty's door he paused, inclining his ear. The silence within the room chilled him to the marrow. He called Mark by name, at first in a whisper, then louder, at the last his voice rang through the house.
"We must break in," he said.
At the first glance it seemed certain that both Mark and Betty lay dead on the bed. Even the trained eye of the nurse was deceived. But after a stimulant had been administered, Mark recovered semi-consciousness. When he opened his eyes he began to speak in his natural voice; then he laughed—gaily, youthfully.
"That's it, Betty—capital! Pop it over his head! Good! Ha—ha! old Archie, that did you. I say, I am thirsty...."
He imagined that he was at Pitt Hall playing lawn tennis.
Brain fever set in within twenty-four hours. During his delirium he called impatiently for his brother, who came trembling. Mark saw only the boy.
"Why have you stayed away so long?" he asked. "You're not going to leave me, old chap?"
"No, no," stammered Archibald.
"I say, it is jolly seeing you again."
He stretched out his lean, shrunken hand, which Archibald took. Presently Mark's vagabond wits wandered to Lord's Cricket Ground.
"Well played!" he screamed. "A boundary hit, by Jove! That's my brother, you know, old Archie. Isn't he splendid? Isn't he a slogger? There he goes again. What a smite! Well played, Samphire major! Well played, sir—well played!"
The tears fell down Archibald's cheeks.
"He's been going on like that all night," whispered the nurse; then she added gently, "He seems to have a wonderful love for you, sir." She was another nurse, just called in, still ignorant of such gossip as circulated in the servants' quarters. Constrained to listen to hideous raving, to heartrending revelations, this delirium of love touched her to the core. She knew that the famous preacher's wife lay dead in the next room, and being a tender-hearted woman, strove to comfort him.
"I hear so much that is so shocking," she whispered. "Only the other day I was nursing a gentleman who cursed his brother, who—died cursing him! And after that,this—— It must be a comfort to you...."
For a fortnight the fever raged. During long hours each day the brothers were together, united by the mocking fiend of delirium. And during those hours Mark lived again his youth. Nothing seemed to be forgotten. But delirium achieved more than reproduction—revelation. Mark, like all healthy boys, had concealed his love for his brother. Of the nature and extent of that love the elder had formed no conception—till now, when its steady stream poured down in flood.
After the first shock of seeing his brother's senseless body, Archibald told himself (and had said as much to David Ross) that it would be well if Mark departed in peace out of a world wherein he had suffered cruelly. But David Ross shook his head.
"He will not die," he said, with conviction, albeit the two doctors in attendance held the contrary opinion.
And then, gradually, Archibald came to regard his brother's ravings as the shadows of an inestimable substance. Computing his gains, he discovered with poignant consternation, that his losses far outweighed them. His name was in men's mouths; he held power, wealth, health in the hollow of his hand. But was there one fellow-creature who truly loved him? Day after day, Mark's innumerable friends came to the door: Pynsent, confessing that he was unable to work from anxiety; Jim Corrance, haggard with sleeplessness; Greatorex, who seemed to spend his time on the doormat; Albert and Mary Batley. And besides these, humbler friends: waifs and strays, reclaimed drunkards, factory girls, who had read in the papers that the man who had been kind to them lay dying.
Always Archibald had obtained what he desired; but it never occurred to him that he desired mean things, or rather that the things so desired were mean in comparison with other things which he had ignored. None the less, the habit of seeking strenuously what he coveted remained. He realised, inexorably, that he coveted his brother's love. And if Mark died, that love once given so freely, then changed into hate, and at last given back in awful mockery, would perish with him.
It is possible, of course, that David Ross cleared his vision. He told David the little which David did not know. In a moment of profound humiliation he professed himself willing to resign his see. David indicated other penance, not alien to Christian sense. In and around Parham, he pointed out, a transgressor might bow the neck beneath the yoke of a labour harder than any to be found even in convict establishments. That Archibald should question his fitness for the task assigned him convinced David of the magnitude of the change within him.
Upon the day, however, when the doctors agreed that the crisis of the disease was approaching, Archibald's misery reached its culminating point. Returning life meant sanity. Mark would awake from a sleep which had lasted forty-eight hours to the realisation of the past, or he would sink into the coma and collapse which precede dissolution.
After some discussion it was agreed that Mark's eyes, when they opened, should rest on a face dear and familiar to him, yet dissociated from the events which had succeeded Betty's marriage. Mrs. Corrance had come to town; she had helped to nurse Mark; she was staying in the house and could be summoned at any moment. Accordingly, when at length Mark Samphire returned from his wanderings, the first person he saw was his old friend, as she sat sewing at the foot of his bed. She smiled serenely, waiting for him to speak. None the less, he kept silence so long that her hand began to tremble. She was sure that he was conscious and that he must be thinking of Betty.
"Have I been ill?" he asked gravely.
She rose at once, bent over him, touched his hand, and murmured: "Very ill. Brain fever. Keep quiet."
She laid the tips of her fingers upon his eyelids, gently pressing them down. He let them fall, and asked no more questions. But later, after he had taken some food, he said with a smile: "Betty told me that I must wait."
Within twenty-four hours word went forth from those in authority that he would live; but to Archibald's recurrent question, one answer alone was possible. Mark had not spoken his brother's name. Archibald's anxiety became hourly more poignant. If a glimpse of love had been vouchsafed him, in order that he might realise that it lay for ever beyond his reach, then of all men he would reckon himself the most unhappy.
Mark did not break silence, when he learned that he was in his brother's house. David was allowed to visit him, but the bishop spoke only of the waifs from the slums around the mission, who had not forgotten an old friend.
"But Bagshot killed his wife," said Mark.
David changed the subject. When he said good-bye, Mark said curtly: "I've been a beast to you, Davie. Is it all right?"
Ross repeated Mark's words to Archibald, who was waiting in the passage: "I think it is all right," said he. Then he added, pressing the other's hand: "He is asking for pardon."
That night the nurse who had come to him first, and who had tended him so skilfully, sat alone with him. Her perceptions had warned her that she was in a house where tragedy had been enacted. She knew that her patient had been found, stricken down upon the death-bed of his brother's wife, that the husband had held aloof at that most solemn hour.
Presently, as she was giving Mark some broth, he asked if he had raved in his delirium. Other questions followed. He learned of Archibald's presence at his bedside, of his ministrations. Incredulity melted into astonishment and then into an expression which the nurse could not define.
"You were never easy for a moment," she concluded, "unless your brother was with you."
"And he——?"
"It gave him real comfort to wait on you, poor gentleman!"
"Thank you," said Mark. "Good night, nurse!"
Next morning he asked for a mirror, exclaiming, when he saw his face: "What a scarecrow!" Later, he begged the doctor to allow him to send for a barber. For some years he had worn a beard, which, however closely clipped, had greatly altered him. When the man came, Mark ordered him to shave all hair from his face. This done, he called again for the mirror.
"Do you see much change?" he asked the nurse.
"I hardly recognise you."
"Others will r-recognise me," he said.
With his back to the light he looked the Mark who had ascended the pulpit at King's Charteris. His face was thin, pale, and hollow-cheeked. The fever had taken from him the flesh and colour which life in the open air had given him. Presently David Ross called and was admitted.
"Mark!"
He stood upon the threshold, staring. Mark smiled.
"Will you do me a favour?" he said, as the nurse slipped from the room. "I have not seen," he paused for a moment, nervously, "m-m-my b-b-brother yet. Will you ask him to c-c-come to me?"
A year later Pynsent wrote to Jim Corrance from Parham Castle.
"Parham has gained far more than Literature has lost. Here, Mark is the power behind the throne.À propos, I have painted Archibald on his throne in the sanctuary of Parham Cathedral. Everything, however, is subordinated to the face, upon which a ray of light falls obliquely. The expression you will hardly recognise, till you come here. When it was done, Archibald stared at it for many minutes. Then he said in his rather heavy way: 'It's a portrait; you have looked beneath these.' He indicated the robes.The man looks years older. But Mark has got back his youthful appearance, his high spirits, his keenness, his power of getting enjoyment out of what most of us would consider tedious and disagreeable. As his brother's secretary and confidential adviser, he knows that he has found himself. Archibald reaps all the honour and glory: and the sheaves are heavy. If praise, as Keble says, be our penance here, the Bishop of Parham will wear a hair shirt till he dies. He tells everybody, with pathetic earnestness, that his brother is the senior partner in the firm—and, of course, nobody believes him. Mark sticks to his red tie, and hunts once a week with Kirtling's hounds. He stammers worse than ever when he gets excited. It may seem amazing to you—it is certainly amazing to me—but Mark has the look of a happy, healthy man; and his nephew, so curiously like Betty, adores him."
Jim showed this letter to his mother.
"All the same," he remarked; "Mark ought to have married Betty. I am sure of that."
Mrs. Corrance laid down her embroidery. She and Jim were keeping house together: it being agreed that the winter should be spent in town and the summer in the country.
"I am not sure," she answered slowly. "I used to pray that Betty would marry you, but how many have profited by my 'losing of my prayers'? David Ross might make a guess."
Jim flushed. Only his mother knew that he had contributed large sums of money and much time to the Bishop of Poplar's East End enterprises.
"My dear son," Mrs. Corrance touched his hand with her delicate fingers, "try to believe that Betty died in order that the three men who loved her might live."
THE END
PLYMOUTHWILLIAM BRENDON AND SONPRINTERS
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBROTHERS***