Sir Arthur glanced round the bleak little wayside station with disapproval. The December day was grey and raw; the December wind blustered along the exposed platform, in chilling tempestuous gusts; and the upland country that stretched to right and left of the line, wore a highly uninviting aspect.
"Now, what is Margaret doing in this desolate part of the world?" he reflected irritably; "and why does she send me such a ridiculously mysterious telegram? Women have no sense of proportion; they must always indulge in subtleties and mysteries." These irascible meditations brought him to the station exit, before which stood a closed brougham, the only conveyance of any sort within sight. Beyond the tiny station, a white road wound away over the moors, but, excepting for two cottages on the brow of the first hill, there was no sign to be seen of any human habitation.
"Has that carriage been sent to meet Sir Arthur Congreve?" the old gentleman enquired of the one porter lounging by the gate, and the man nodded before replying with bucolic slowness:—
"That carriage be come from t' 'White Horse' up to Graystone, to fetch Sir Arthur Congreve. Driver he told me so hisself."
"Very well, very well," Sir Arthur said impatiently, making his way to the carriage door, and opening it, before the porter, now engaged in thoughtfully scratching his head, had collected his wits sufficiently to perform this act of courtesy for the traveller. "I conclude you know where I am to be driven," he added, speaking to the man on the box.
"Yes, sir; to the house in the valley; the house where the gentleman——"
"That will do, as long as you know where you are to go," Sir Arthur said, cutting short the coachman's volubility, and entering the brougham, glad to sit back amongst the cushions, and shut the window against the sweeping blast.
The uplands looked their very greyest and worst on that December day. A low grey sky stooped to meet the hill-sides, on which brown heather and brown bracken made a depressing tone of colour, to mingle with the greyness of the clouds, and of the mists that crept up from the valleys. The bareness of the wide stretch of moor was broken here and there by a clump of fir-trees, which showed dark and sombre against the grey background, and the fogginess of the atmosphere obscured the great view, which was usually the chief charm of the uplands. Sir Arthur was at no time an admirer of scenery, and to-day he turned his gaze shudderingly from the barren landscape; and, drawing a paper from his pocket, proceeded to bury himself in its contents, and to thrust the outer world as far as possible away from his consciousness. By nature an unimaginative man, he had ruthlessly stamped out any germ of imagination or poetry, which might have been latent within him, setting himself with grim resolution to thrust away the beautiful as a snare, and to regard everything about him as merely temporal and destructible. He forgot, or perhaps he deliberately chose not to recognise, that the eternal is set around the temporal, not as a thing apart, but encompassing it, permeating it, so that temporal and eternal are one. He had sternly set his face against all the softer aspects of life, doing his duty grimly, and with stiff back, disinclined at any time to any relaxation in discipline either for himself or his fellow-sinners—more ready to rule by fear than by love, a man who would have made an equally excellent Ironside or Grand Inquisitor, according to the peculiar turn of his religious convictions.
As he drove now along the lonely white road, his thoughts chiefly centred themselves upon Margaret, his beautiful sister Margaret, who, in spite of her sins and follies, as he considered them to be, had always held a place in her brother's heart. He gave her the place grudgingly; he would have gone to the stake rather than confess that her beauty made, or ever had made, any appeal to him. And yet, as he was driven quickly onwards under the lowering skies, it was his sister's beautiful face that rose persistently before him, her face, as he had last seen it, when she was a radiant girl, in the glory of her happy girlhood. It was odd; it was even annoying to him that just this particular vision out of the past should fill his mind now, but for once in his grim and well-disciplined life, he was unable to drive away the haunting vision.
The garden of the old house made the setting of the picture—the garden that was now his own, and the sunk lawn, with the sun-dial amongst the rose-trees, that had been his father's pride. Margaret had stood beside the sun-dial, on that far-off June day, her fingers lightly tracing the motto that ran round the dial's face, her laughing eyes lifted to her brother.
"Ah! but you don't believe in the motto, you see." The words came echoing back to him across the years, until he almost felt as though he could actually hear the low voice again, and Margaret's voice had always had such unspeakable charm.
"You think a motto like this just silly and sentimental, don't you, Arthur?" And once more her fingers had traced the faint lettering, whilst she slowly read the words aloud.
"Per incertas, certa amor." (Through uncertainty, certain is love.)
"I mean that to be my motto, as well as the motto of the sun-dial"; just a tiny ring of defiance seemed to creep into her voice with the last words; Sir Arthur remembered it even now, and he had answered her gravely, out of the depths of his convictions. He had spoken with solemnity, of duty, as higher than love; and she had laughed again, her deep soft laugh, though the look in her eyes had belied her laughter.
"Love is the greatest thing in the world," she had said, very slowly, very quietly, but the words rang with the sureness of a great certainty. "Love is the only thing that matters in all the world, because to love properly is to be perfect. Duty, right, goodness, they all follow upon love—real love. Love is the greatest thing in the world. Through all uncertainty—love is—sure."
Well, she had acted up to her creed. She had loved and suffered for a man who was not worthy to touch the hem of her garment, in his, Sir Arthur's, opinion;—but women, as he had before reflected, women had no sense of proportion; they were incomprehensible; Margaret no less incomprehensible than all the rest of her sex. He had reached this point in his reflections when he observed that the carriage was no longer bowling along the smooth high road, but had turned into a steep, and rather rough lane, which wound downwards between high hedges, that presently merged themselves into dense woods, ending abruptly at last in a small clearing, upon which stood a house surrounded by a wall. Before the green gate in this wall, the carriage stopped. Sir Arthur's keen eyes noted with approval, the quietly respectful manner of the old servant who admitted him; he had been more than half expecting to find himself in some kind of dread and unwonted Bohemia, the very thought of which sickened his soul; and Elizabeth, with that air of the old-fashioned maid, who has only lived in the right sort of house, impressed him favourably.
"My mistress wished me to take you straight to her room, sir," she said; "and the doctor asked me to say, that any great agitation would be very bad for her."
"Is she ill, then?" The question came with sharpness.
"Yes, sir, very ill. The doctor is anxious to keep her as quiet as possible; but he thought it best she should see you, her heart is so set upon it."
Those words made Sir Arthur's own heart contract a little, and before his mental vision there flashed again the beautiful radiant face of the girl in the white gown, the girl who had stood beside the sun-dial, saying in her deep sweet voice—
"Love is the greatest thing in the world."
The words still rang in his brain as Elizabeth ushered him into a big bedroom, and his eyes fell upon the woman propped up with pillows, her face turned towards the door.
The radiant face of the girl beside the sun-dial seemed to fade slowly from his mind, whilst he stood silently looking at the woman in the bed, the woman who put out her hand to him with a faint smile, and said softly—
"It was good of you to come, Arthur. You will let us meet now as friends after all these years?"
The words were a question rather than an assertion, but he did not answer the question. He stood as though rooted to the floor, staring at her, in an astonishment too great at first for words. Then he said slowly—
"But I shouldn't have known you—I shouldn't have known you, Margaret. I can't believe——" He broke off abruptly, a tremor in his voice, and Margaret said gently—
"I daresay I am very much changed since you last saw me. In those days I was only a girl; now I am a woman, who has known so much of life—so very much of life. It seems as though my irresponsible girlhood belongs to another existence, and life has set its marks upon my face."
"Yes," he answered vaguely, still staring at her. "I am afraid—your life——"
"There has been very much sorrow—and very much joy," she interrupted, as gently as she had spoken before; "and now—I am within sight of the end, and—I am glad."
He came close to her, and for the first time touched her hand.
"Why do you say that?" he asked, his usually grim voice curiously softened. "You are ill now, but I hope with care—in time——"
She interrupted him again, a smile on her face.
"No, it is not a question of care, or time. I am glad it is not. It is only a question of how long my strength will hold out. You know—Max—is—dead?" She said the words as simply as though she were merely saying that somebody had gone into the next room, and her brother started.
"Dead?" he exclaimed. "No; I did not know. I heard he was in England, heard it vaguely and undecidedly, and I have been trying to find you both. I wanted to prevent any—any talk—any scandal."
"There need never be any talk now. He came to England—only a few weeks before he died. He—had been—wandering about Europe—and then he came—to England—to die." She spoke quietly, but the pauses in her sentence, seemed to show what a mental strain she was enduring. "Marion helped him to get here. I was too ill to do it, and—I did not dare to do too much, lest through me any clue to his whereabouts should be given. I do not think he was ever safe—not safe for a single instant. But—he is out of their reach now—safe at last."
Sir Arthur's mouth set tightly, there was a gleam of indignation in his eyes, but he remembered the doctor's orders, and refrained from uttering the biting speech upon his lips.
"Marion—who is Marion?" he said.
"She was English maid to Max's mother—a faithful soul, such a faithful soul. All our letters to one another passed through her hands. She took this house; she brought Max here; she sent for me; and then—the long strain told. She had borne so much; she could bear no more. It—was all very dreadful; she lost her reason; she went suddenly mad; and the doctors do not think she can ever be well again. She is quite happy now, quite peaceful, they tell me, like a little child, but her mind has gone."
"And you, Margaret, surely now you must regret," Sir Arthur began impetuously, the natural man asserting itself, in spite of all the doctor's warnings. But again his sister's low voice broke the thread of his speech.
"Regret?" she said. "Oh! no. It hurts me to think that I hurt our father and mother, but for myself—I cannot be sorry. I love him so, and for all our lives together, I had his love—he was always mine."
"But"—do what he would, Sir Arthur felt impelled to give voice to the flood of thought within him—"he was not worthy of you, Margaret. You can't pretend that he was worthy of your love?" A great rush of colour poured over her white face, her thin hands trembled.
"Worthiness or unworthiness do not seem to come into it at all," she answered, her voice all shaken and low. "When one loves, one loves in spite of everything—in spite of everything."
Something in her tone, and in the strange illumination of her eyes, momentarily silenced Sir Arthur; he dimly felt himself to be in the presence of a force infinitely greater than anything that had ever come into his own experience. He would not have owned that he had limitations—to a man of his type, the difficulty of owning to limitations is almost insuperable—but far down in the depths of his mind, he vaguely realised that Margaret had reached a height to which he had never attained.
"And—after all, Arthur—whatever you may feel," Margaret went on, more quietly, the colour ebbing from her face, "doesn't it still seem fairer to say—De mortuis——"
Sir Arthur bent his head; and before his mind rose the half-defaced letters of that other Latin proverb, which Margaret had traced with her finger on the sun-dial, out amongst the roses in the sunshine of June.
"Per incertas, certa amor."
And she was still certain of her love—in spite of—everything! Silence fell between them after those last words of hers; and it was she who presently broke it, speaking with an effort, and in more ordinary and matter-of-fact tones.
"But I did not telegraph to you to come here, in order to worry you with any of my own affairs. I thought I ought to ask you to come, because a strange thing has happened—a most curious coincidence. Bring that chair nearer to the bed, and sit down. You look so judicial standing over me."
Sir Arthur meekly obeyed, feeling within himself a faint wonder, at his own unquestioning obedience, yet compelled to do what that low voice commanded. There was a certain queenliness about this woman, a dignified aloofness, which had a curiously compelling effect upon those about her. The man who so obediently drew up a chair, and seated himself, felt it hard to realise that this was his own sister, his younger sister Margaret, whom in the days of their unregenerate youth, some people had called "Peg." It had been almost impossible to see in her changed face, the features of the beautiful girl who had laughed amongst the roses by the sun-dial, and yet, in spite of the change wrought by sorrow, and suffering, and the ploughshares of life, she was regally beautiful, even more beautiful than in the days of her girlhood.
"I understood from your telegram that you wanted to see me about Ellen's pendant, though I cannot conceive why you should know anything about its whereabouts."
"I am afraid I don't know anything aboutEllen'spendant," was the answer. "But I do know something about the pendant you mistook for Ellen's, on Christmas Day. The ornament Christina Moore was wearing, was not Ellen's, but her own."
"Nonsense, my dear Margaret," Sir Arthur answered testily. "The jewel is unique, and I know every detail of it. I hope you have not brought me here to try to persuade me not to prosecute that wretched nurse of Cicely's. Cicely herself is also trying to make me act against my better judgment, and refrain from calling in the police."
"I think you won't want to prosecute, when you hear why I sent for you," was the gentle rejoinder. "It was a very weighty reason that made me ask you to come, Arthur."
"Why did you telegraph to me?" he asked. "Tell me those weighty reasons——"
"A very strange coincidence has happened, one of those coincidences which are more common in real life, than people think. I—have discovered—beyond all possibilities of doubt, that Christina Moore—is our own niece. She is Helen's daughter."
For a long moment Sir Arthur said no single word; he only looked at his sister blankly, with a stare of incredulous astonishment. Then he said slowly:—
"Our—our—niece? Helen's daughter? Impossible—quite, quite impossible. My dear Margaret—you have been taken in by an impostor. Such an idea is incredible. And—what proofs have you?"
"There is no question of being deceived. The discovery was not forced upon my attention; I made it for myself. Christina had no idea that there was any relationship between us. She was taken completely by surprise, when I told her she was my sister's child."
"You have let your imagination run away with you, Margaret. How can you be sure of what you say? Where are your proofs? I don't believe for a moment, that Miss Moore had any connection with Helen. I don't believe it at all."
And as Sir Arthur's lips went into a determined line, Margaret smiled faintly, remembering the days of their youth, when her brother had set his mouth in just such obstinate curves, if he were in disagreement with any of his family.
Very quietly, but very firmly, Margaret made herself heard, dominating the man by that strength of personality, of which he had already become strangely aware; forcing him, against his own inclinations, to hear her story, from beginning to end.
"At present I have, as you say, no proofs," she said. "No legal proofs. But those should be the least difficult to find. We must get Helen's marriage certificate, and Christina's birth and baptismal certificates. I have been thinking it all out, when I lay awake at night. And we must make all necessary enquiries at Staveley—the village where Christina lived with her father and mother. Unfortunately, the clergyman she knew there, is dead; and the solicitor, who seems to have done Helen's business for her, is in Africa, and Christina does not know his address. But—the pendant, the emerald pendant, was certainly sent to Helen by our mother; and before Helen died, she tried to send you a message. She sank into unconsciousness with your name on her lips—'Tell Arthur'—those were the very last words she spoke."
Sir Arthur's severe face softened; some of the hardness in his eyes died away; it was in a shaken and softened voice that he said:
"It is difficult even now to believe that all this can be true; and yet—there is a certain ring of truth about it. I should like to see this Miss Moore. I cannot understand why, if she was innocent of theft, she ran away from Bramwell."
"She is very young; she was very frightened. She knew she could produce no proof of her innocence. And you must remember, Arthur, that I am the only person living, who knows there was a replica of Ellen's pendant. Christina's coming to me was providential. I—think she was sent into my care."
Sir Arthur was silent; indeed, he spoke no more until Christina, summoned by Margaret's bell, came into the room, her face flushing and paling by turns, when she saw the upright figure seated beside the bed.
"I wished to see you," Sir Arthur said, in the magisterial tones which were wont to strike terror into the hearts of guilty offenders. "My sister tells me a very remarkable story; and although, pending much more absolute proof, I suspend judgment, I should like to hear your own view of this strange thing."
"I don't know what to think about it all," the girl answered, a little shrinking fear in her eyes, as they met those piercing blue ones. "I have told—everything I know—to—to—her," she faltered, glancing at Margaret. "I can only say it all over again to you. It is all true. I have never in all my life said anything that wasn't true," she added proudly.
"Your mother never mentioned any of her relations to you, by name? Never spoke of her old home?"
"She spoke of her home, and always as if she had loved it dearly, as if it had broken her heart to leave it. But she never told me where it was; she never said any name, until the day she died; until she gave me the——and said 'Tell Arthur'—I think perhaps she could not bear to speak of her people, because she loved them all so much, that it hurt her to talk about them."
"The whole matter must be carefully investigated. I can accept nothing without proof, but, naturally, if it can be proved that you are our sister's child, suitable care will be taken of you. And for the present," he still spoke in the judicial tones, to which the Bench was accustomed, "for the present I shall waive the matter of the pendant. Meanwhile——"
"Meanwhile, my own strong feeling is that Christina should go back to Bramwell," Margaret put in; "it is not fair to put Lady Cicely to inconvenience, and Christina feels, with me, that she had no right to run away, and leave such a kind and considerate employer in the lurch. If Lady Cicely would like to have her back, Christina is sure she ought to go."
"Yes, indeed," Christina said eagerly, a little shamed look in her eyes. "I know I ought never to have come away, but I was so frightened, so dreadfully frightened," and she clasped her hands together, with an unconsciously childlike gesture, that stirred the latent humanity in Sir Arthur. Beneath his crust of frigidity, there was a certain kindliness of heart, and Christina's appealing eyes, and suddenly clasped hands, moved him to say, not ungently—
"Well, well, there is no occasion to be frightened now. I will look into the whole of this strange business, and nothing more shall be said about the pendant, until I have found out whatever there is to be found."
"I shall leave the pendant here," Christina said quickly, her eyes meeting those of the old man with a flash of pride, that seemed to give man and girl a sudden curious likeness to one another. "I will fetch it now and give it to her, and then you will know that I am honest—that I shall not run away with it. I will fetch it directly, and give it—to—Aunt Margaret!"
"There was never another man in my world but Max. There never could have been another. Some women are made that way. They can only give their best once."
"But—I would take—the second best. I would be thankful even for the crumbs from the rich man's table. Only let me have the right to take care of you, to give you——"
"To give me everything, and to receive nothing in return? No, Rupert, I could not let you do that, even if——"
"Even if?" he repeated after her, his eyes fastened hungrily on her face, his voice deep and appealing. "Can't you understand that I don't want to worry you for anything in return. I only want to be near you, to do all that man can do for you."
"And I am grateful, more grateful than I can ever express in words. Sometimes I am sorry you ever chanced to meet me, on that oasis in the desert. I think I have been a hindrance in your life, not the help I should like to have been. No—wait—don't contradict me for a minute," and Margaret held up her hand with a smile, as the man on the low chair beside her couch, bent forward in eager disclaimer. "Because of me, you have never married, when you ought to have had a wife, and a home, and children of your own."
"Do you think I could look at another woman, after I had once seen you?" he exclaimed vehemently, and she answered gently—
"Some day, I hope you will have a woman in your life, a woman who will bring you all the happiness you have missed, who——"
"I want no woman but you," he cried, a note of sullen passion in his voice. "Margaret—you say—he—was the only man in your world. Can't I make you understand that you are—what you have been ever since I first saw you—the only woman in mine?"
She put out her hand to him, the transparent hand, whose only ornament was its heavy wedding ring, and he stooped down and kissed it, with a curiously reverent gesture that made her eyes misty.
"You have been such a good friend," she said; "but believe me, there cannot ever be anything but friendship between us two and—there is such a little time now left for anything."
"What do you mean?" he asked, with a sudden catch in his breath, his eyes fixed on her thin face, which seemed all at once to have become so ethereal in its whiteness; "why do you speak as if——"
"As if—an end were coming? Because—the end is very near." His eyes did not leave her face, but a look of pain leapt into them, a look of such intolerable pain, that Margaret exclaimed quickly—
"I cannot bear to hurt you, but it is better to tell you just the plain truth, even if it hurts you. The end is going to be very soon. Dr. Fergusson thinks it can't be far off now, and I am glad, Rupert. I don't think I can tell you how glad."
He made some inarticulate sound, dropping his head into his hands, and her soft voice went on, with soothing monotony—
"There was a great deal of hardship and trouble in my early married life, and I never managed to get over it all. I have been ill almost ever since you knew me, and—in the last few months—I have come to the end of my tether. When Max—went away,"—her voice broke—"all that was left of my life and vitality seemed to go, too. I have tried to live, and I wanted to live, but the disease has got the better of me, and—I am glad the end is in sight."
"Did you send for me because"—he lifted his head and looked at her.
"I sent for you because I wanted to make everything clear to you, and because I did not want to go right away for ever, without seeing my friend again. And—I wanted to help you—about your own future, if I could."
"My own future," Rupert laughed drearily. "Do you think my own future, and anything about me, matters two straws, when you—when you"—his voice trailed away into silence. He sat very still, his face turned towards the window, through which the trees in the wood beyond the house, were already showing a veil of delicate green.
"My friendship will have been a very poor thing if it spoils your life," Margaret said gently, her gaze following his to the April trees, and the dappled April sky.
"A poor thing?" He turned back to her, a great light in his eyes. "Do you think I regret loving you? Do you think I regret for a single second, having known and loved you? When I first met you, I had the sort of contemptuous tolerance for women, which I had found in other men. It was you who taught me what a good woman can be to a man. Even now, I am not fit to touch the hem of your gown, but since I knew you, I have at least lived straight. I can look you in the face, and say that my hands and heart are clean."
"I am glad," she said simply, her deep eyes shining. "You don't know how glad I am, if I have helped you ever so little. And, some day—I am speaking very plainly because I am a dying woman, and dying people can speak the direct truth—some day I want you to give a woman your heart; I want you to take her hands in your hands; I want you to find the happiness, which, for my sake, you have missed in all these years."
"Impossible," he said passionately. "You are asking too much. How could I ever think of another woman, when I have been your friend?"
"Some day," she answered, her wonderful smile flashing over her face; "and—I am developing into a matchmaker, Rupert," she added lightly. "I have even chosen the woman. You did not credit me with gifts as a matchmaker, did you?"
"Don't talk of such things in such a way," he exclaimed almost roughly. "How can you laugh and talk lightly, when——"
"When I ought to be thinking only of 'graves and epitaphs'?" she quoted whimsically. "No, don't look so hurt and sorry. Let me still be whimsical, even if I am going to die. Leave me my sense of humour to the end. And—let me match-make for you. It pleases me to picture you—happy—with—a wife I have chosen for you."
"Don't," he said, actual anger in his voice, but once again her hand touched his hand, and the touch quieted him.
"You must not be hurt or angry with me," she said. "I asked you to come to see me, because I wanted to thank you for your loyal friendship and a sort of instinct made me long to tell you—of someone—who some day I think will comfort you."
"Comfort me?" he exclaimed bitterly.
"Yes, comfort you," eyes and voice were very steady. "Rupert, you know—of course you know—all about my little niece, my dear little niece Christina? You know by what a strange coincidence I discovered who she was, and you know how Arthur found all the proofs of identity, and showed beyond the possibility of doubt, that she is the daughter of my own sister Helen? You know all that?"
"Yes, I know all that. I have often seen Miss Moore; she is a very charming girl, and I liked her for insisting on staying with Baba for the present, so that Cicely should not be left stranded. It seemed to show grit, and a fine character."
"She has grit, and a fine character. She has more; she has a most lovable character; and, Rupert, she would make a man who cared for her, a most tender and loving wife."
"A man who cared for her," Rupert repeated with emphasis; "not a man whose whole heart was given to another woman."
"Some day—when the other woman—has gone—right away—remember what I said. That is all. It is not a thing to be discussed, even between two friends. Only—remember that my little Christina is worthy to be loved. She has a sweet and a strong soul."
More than once on that April afternoon, Rupert tried to take Margaret's conversation back to his own deep love for her; but, just as her brother Arthur had found, four months earlier, so he found now, that some dominating force in her personality kept him at bay—mastered him, in spite of himself. It was she who finally gave him a gentle word of dismissal, so gentle, that he could not be hurt, even though the parting from her seemed to him to tear his heart in two.
"I may come again?" he said, his speech sounding terse and abrupt, because of his very excess of feeling; and she smiled into his face, a strange smile, which he could not understand.
"Yes," she answered; "you may—come again; and, Rupert, forgive me if by being your friend I have only hurt you. I have done nothing for you, excepting give you pain. I think——"—she paused, and her eyes turned to the soft sky behind the delicate April leaves—"I think I have done so little, so terribly little with my life."
"But you havebeenso much," he answered, his hand holding hers closely, in a long warm clasp; "and it is what you are that matters, and that influences your fellow beings—what you are, so much more than what you do. And what you are lives for ever," he added, in a burst of inspiration very rare in the man, who so seldom gave expression to his thoughts. "There is no end to a good influence; it never dies; it could not ever die. What you are has helped everyone who knows—and loves you."
"But this is not good-bye," he said a moment later, before he left the room. "You say I may come again; this is onlyau revoir."
"Au revoir, then," she answered, that inexplicable smile breaking over her face again. "But," she whispered under her breath, as the door closed behind him, "it will beau revoirin a land where there will not be any more heart-breaks or good-byes—the land—that is not—very far off—but—near—so very near."
She had known the truth when she told Rupert he might come again, knowing that her days were actually numbered, that the end of which she had told him, was very close at hand.
And so it was, that when Rupert Mernside next journeyed down to the lonely house in the valley, where the touch of spring lay on woodland and copse, where primroses lifted starry eyes under the hazels, and wind flowers swung in the April breeze, he came to follow Margaret to the quiet churchyard on the hill-side.
Christina had chosen the place where her grave should be—Christina, who had been with her at the end, who had seen the amazing radiance of her face, when the end came. All night she had lain in a state of profound unconsciousness, from which they had not thought she would ever rally. But as morning broke, as the sunlight shone in through the uncurtained window, Margaret's eyes opened, and that amazing radiance flashed into them, the smile on her face making the girl who watched her, draw a swift breath of wonder. It was evident that the dying woman knew nothing of what passed in the room about her; her eyes looked, not at surrounding objects, but at something beyond, and away from them all—something that was coming towards her, or towards which she was going.
"Max," she said, her voice grown suddenly strong. "Ah! Max—I knew—you would wait for me. I—knew—you would be there," and with that wonderful radiance in her eyes, that wonderful smile upon her face, she had passed out into the Rest, that lies about our restless world.
"I think she would like to lie just here," Christina said, when, walking round the churchyard with Sir Arthur and Dr. Fergusson, they came to a halt under a low wall, from which the ground sloped abruptly away, in a series of terraces. In that sunny corner, violets nestled against the grey stones, their fragrance drifting out upon the April breeze, and on the wall itself, a robin sat and sang, of spring-time, of resurrection, of life.
"She would like this place," the girl repeated softly. "It is so still and sunny, and the great view is so beautiful—like herself, so beautiful and restful," she added under her breath, so that only Fergusson heard the words.
Sir Arthur, a more quiet and subdued Sir Arthur, looked across the sloping churchyard to the great sweep of country, whose horizon was bounded by far blue hills, and perhaps some faint perception of Christina's meaning filtered into his narrow soul, although he only said:—
"I wonder why she wished to be buried here. I should have thought she would have liked to be near her husband."
"I don't think she felt she was ever far away from him," Christina answered, carried out of herself for the moment, and forgetting her usual awe of her grim uncle. "She knew that wherever their bodies might be, she and he would be together. She knew they could not ever be really apart—he and she."
Sir Arthur looked at her without replying. His silence was a strange testimony to Margaret's power, for he was kept silent by the unaccustomed feeling (a feeling experienced for the first time in his self-sufficient existence)—that in his sister, and in the new niece who looked at him with such certainty in her eyes, he had come face to face with forces of which he was ignorant. Perhaps he could not, or would not, have put this feeling into words, nevertheless, it was there, far down in his heart, a new factor to be reckoned with, if ever he chose to reckon with it. The day of Margaret's funeral was one of those perfect spring days, which come to us sometimes as a foretaste of summer. Beyond the little churchyard, the wide expanse of moorland lay flooded with sunshine, spikes of young bracken showing vividly green amongst the brown of the heather, clumps of gorse shining golden in the sunlight, a soft mist of green upon the hazel copses at the moorland's foot. Larks sprang singing to the April sky, and upon the stone wall close against the open grave, a robin sat once more, and sang his song, of resurrection, of life, of love.
The group that gathered in that sunny corner, fragrant with the sweetness of violets, was a very small one. Sir Arthur and Christina, Rupert Mernside, Lady Cicely, Dr. Fergusson, and Elizabeth—these were the six mourners who followed Margaret to her last resting-place, and as Christina's eyes wandered round the little group, she felt that she knew upon which of the six the beautiful woman's death had fallen as the most heavy blow.
Her heart contracted when her fleeting glance rested for a second on Rupert's stricken face; and she glanced away again quickly, feeling that to look into his face, meant also to look into his stricken soul, and that she had no right to read so much of the inmost being of another human creature. Cicely had insisted upon coming to Graystone for the funeral.
"Although I never knew your sister," she said to Sir Arthur, "I want to do this one small thing, to show how much I reverenced her. Christina has told me of her, and I know how beautiful she was, body and soul."
Thus it came about that Cicely sat next to Denis Fergusson in the tiny village church, where the first part of the funeral service was said, stood next to Fergusson beside the grave by the sunny wall, and, when all was over, moved away down the steep churchyard path, by Fergusson's side.
He looked down at her tiny form with a delicious sense of having a right at least, in this moment, to protect and watch over her, and, as they went out of the lych-gate, she turned to him with a grateful look in her eyes.
"Thank you for taking care of me," she said, with that pretty impulsiveness that constituted one of her greatest charms. "I am glad I came to-day—even though—it has made me remember——" she hesitated, and Fergusson saw that her eyes swam with tears.
They were walking slowly along the upland road, in the wake of the rest of the party, and Fergusson slackened his pace a little, to give her time to recover her composure, whilst he said gently:—
"I understand. I quite understand."
"I think you are a very understanding person," she answered, the falter in her voice making his heart contract with an almost unbearable longing to comfort her. "I—have not heard—that service we have just heard, since it was said—over—John—my husband. It has made me remember—that day—and all it meant to me."
Fergusson looked away from her sweet face, aquiver with emotion, out across the wide moorland, where the larks sang in the sunshine, to the far line of blue hills, then he said slowly—
"The words hold wonderful comfort. The triumphant sense of a sure and certain hope, always seems to me to be the keynote of the whole."
"Those were the words that stayed in my mind, penetrating through everything else," she said softly, "and though—John had gone away into what seemed unbreakable silence, I knew—that—he had not really gone. I had the sure and certain hope—oh! and more than hope—that he was—very safe, and very near me all the time."
The naïve expression, the simplicity of the words, spoken from the depths of a simple and sincere heart, flooded Fergusson's heart again with a sense of reverent love, that almost amounted to adoration; but no opportunity to answer her was given him, for Sir Arthur turned back to join Cicely, and a few minutes' further walk brought them to the inn at Graystone, where they were to lunch, before their drive to the railway station. Rupert parted from the rest at the door of the inn. Perhaps Christina was the only member of the party, who realised that he had come to the end of his tether, that an imperative necessity for solitude was upon him, that his power of endurance was nearly at an end. She was standing behind Sir Arthur, when Rupert bade them all good-bye; it was with her that he shook hands last of all, and as she looked up into his face, her eyes held some strange comfort for him. He did not put it into words; he could not have explained even to himself, had he tried to do so, why it was that the glance of those sweet eyes sent a little restful feeling into his troubled heart; but as he went away, some of the tension of misery seemed to relax, the numbness of his pain grew less; in some dim way his hurt had been salved.
"Your cousin seems to have been a most devoted friend to my poor sister," Sir Arthur said, after lunch, when he and the two ladies and Fergusson were seated in the small sitting-room of the inn awaiting their carriage. "I cannot conceive why, in the world she could not have married a man like that, instead of the poor miserable fellow who made her life and his own, a burden to them both."
"She loved her husband very much," Christina put in gently.
"Oh! she loved him—she loved him far too much," Sir Arthur answered testily. "I cannot understand, I never shall be able to understand, how a woman can throw away all her heart and life, on a man who is totally unworthy of her."
Back into Christina's mind flashed the remembrance of words Margaret had spoken long before: "You don't know what it is to care so much for a man, that no matter what he is or does, he is your world, your whole world," but it was Cicely, not she who answered sagely—
"I don't believe a man can ever really understand the way a woman loves. A woman's love is made up of so many ingredients, she herself can hardly analyse it, and no man could ever begin to get near its true analysis."
Sir Arthur looked at her with the kindly smile of one who listens to the prattling of a child, then resumed his own train of thought and words, as if she had not spoken at all.
"My brother-in-law was a perpetual source of anxiety to me," he said; "not that I knew him. I only saw him once, and I was not favourably impressed on that occasion; but I can honestly say that until I heard he was in his grave, I had no really quiet moments."
"I know nothing of the story," Cicely said; "I have only heard you speak of your brother-in-law, as if the subject was a painful one. I do not even know his name."
"He was a Russian by birth—no, don't go, there need be no secret about the matter, certainly not from you, who were so good to my poor sister," Sir Arthur said, as Fergusson showed signs of leaving the room. "Max Petrovitch was his real name, and my sister originally met him at the house of friends in town. He was then closely connected with the Young Russia movement—or rather, to call things by their true names, he was a red-hot Nihilist. Margaret—went with him to Siberia, you know."
Cicely uttered an exclamation, but Sir Arthur went on without pause.
"Yes, she went to Siberia with him. I don't know on what precise count he was exiled, but he was always on the side of revolutionary methods, as against those of law and order, and although I believe—I do firmly believe—that he never had a hand in any scheme of assassination, still, he was tarred with the pitch-black brush of anarchy. There is no doubt that the time in Siberia sowed the seeds of Margaret's ill-health; it sapped her strength and vitality; it was—the beginning of the end. Her maid Elizabeth has told me the truth about it all." He was silent for a few seconds before resuming.
"Then Max—escaped, and for a long time, I understand, Margaret knew nothing of his whereabouts; but she herself, by his wish, left Siberia, and went to Paris, and there—after what vicissitudes God only knows—he joined her, for a time. But—here the inherent weakness of the man appeared. God forbid that I should be unfair to the dead—but, he was a coward; and because he was afraid, because he was afraid of being recaptured, and sent back to Siberia, he gave up the party to which he belonged—he sold himself to the Secret Police. And from the moment that was known, he must have led a life of horror. His footsteps were dogged; he was tracked down from place to place; he was a doomed man, and he knew it. Certainly he was guarded to an extent by the Secret Police, but, those who wanted his life cared very little for that. I believe he wandered over Europe, seeking a place of safety in vain, and at last—ill, worn-out, and despairing—he came to England, to die in that lonely house in the valley, where Margaret has also died. Her illness sent her back to her own land; she could not travel about with him, but when they got him there, they sent for her, and she was with him to the last."
"Poor soul! oh, poor soul!" Cicely said softly. "And she loved him through it all?"
"She loved him with a most amazing love," Fergusson put in, speaking for the first time. "I was there during his last illness, and at his death; and, as I said before, I say it again: 'God grant to every man when death comes, to have such a woman, and such a woman's love, with him at the last!'"
He spoke gravely, and as his words ended, he looked at Cicely, and their eyes met in a long involuntary glance, which, as Christina caught it, seemed to her full of some strange meaning, that set her own heart athrob.