Mr. Lee required no entreaties from his daughter, for his kind and humane feelings were immediately excited by the idea of a lonely and perhaps dying stranger, in the midst of a heartless crowd. Mary gave the lamp into her father's hand, and stood in the passage while he entered. A sudden exclamation, echoed by a faint low voice, made her heart palpitate with vague apprehensions. Who could this lonely stranger be whom her father evidently recognised? She stood holding her breath painfully, fearing to lose the sound of that faint voice which awakened strange emotions within her, when her father suddenly came to the door and beckoned her to him. "I do believe he is dying," said he, in an agitated tone. "It is Fitzroy himself! You must come to him, while I call a physician."
Mary almost mechanically obeyed the summons, and stood the next moment, pale and trembling, by the bedside of the man she had once loved. Could that, indeed, be the elegant Fitzroy?—with disordered hair, half-closed eyes, parched and trembling lips, which now vainly endeavoured to articulate a sound?—the pillows tossed here and there, as if in wrestling with pain; the white counterpane twisted and tumbled—were these the accompaniments of this fastidious exquisite? These thoughts darted through Mary's mind, as the vision of her soiled handkerchief came ghost-like before her. But she was no longer the weak girl who wept tears of bitter agony at the discovery that she was made of mortal mould; she was a woman awakened to the best energies and virtues of her sex. She found herself alone with the sick man, for her father had flown for the assistance he required, and left her to watch till his return. She saturated her handkerchief with cologne, and bathed his burning temples and feverish hands. Her heart softened over the invalid in his prostrate and dependent state. "Ah, proud Fitzroy," thought she, "this handkerchief is now more soiled and defaced than the one which alienated your fancy from me, and yet you shrink not from its contact. No pride or scorn now flashes from those dim eyes, or curls those pallid lips. Alas! he is very, very ill—I fear even unto death." The tears gathered into her eyes at this appallingidea, and even mingled with the odorous waters with which she embalmed his forehead.
Her father soon came in with the physician, and Mary resigned her watch by his bedside. She withdrew to her own apartment, and waited with intense anxiety the tidings which he promised to bring her. She was surprised at her own emotions. She thought Fitzroy perfectly indifferent to her—nay, more, that she disliked him; but now, when she saw him in suffering and danger, she remembered the charm with which her imagination had once invested him, and accused herself of harsh and vindictive feelings.
"Yes," said Mr. Lee, in answer to her earnest inquiries, "he is very ill—dangerously ill. Imprudent exposure to the burning mid-day sun has brought on a sudden and violent fever, the consequences of which are more to be dreaded, as he has never been sick before. Could he have commanded immediate attention, perhaps the disease might have been arrested. But in this scene of gayety and confusion—though got up for the express accommodation of invalids—Heaven save the sick and the dying."
"Who will take care of him, father? He has no mother or sister near. Oh, surely we must not let him die for want of these!"
"I know what you are thinking of, Mary," said Mr. Lee, shaking his head; "but I cannot consent to it. The fever may be contagious, and you are too young and too delicate for such a task. Besides, there might be remarks made upon it. No; I will remain with him to-night, and to-morrow we will see what can be done for him."
"But to-night may be the crisis of his fate," pleaded Mary; "to-morrow it may be too late. You are very kind, father, but you are not a woman, and you know there are a thousand gentle cares which only a woman's hand can tender. I am a stranger here; I don't care if they do censure me. Let me act a true woman's, a kind sister's part. You know, by your own experience, what a skilful nurse I am."
Mary pleaded earnestly, and wound her arms caressingly around her father's neck, and looked up into his face with such irresistible eyes, that he could not refuse her. The pallid face of Fitzroy seemed to be leaning beside her own, clothed with that authority which sickness and approaching death impart. So Mary twisted up her shining ringlets, and took the rings from her jeweled fingers, and donned a loose, flowing robe.Behold her, one of the loveliest nurses that ever brought the blessings of Hygea to the chamber of disease. There is a great deal said in romances of the interesting appearance of invalids, of a languor more lovely than the bloom of health, of a debility more graceful than the fullness of strength; but this is all romance. It has been said by one of the greatest moralists of the age, that the slow consuming of beauty is one of the greatest judgments of the Almighty against man for sin. Certainly a sick chamber is not the place for romantic beings tofall in love, but it is the place where love, once awakened, can exert its holiest influences, and manifest its death-controlling power; it is the place where religion erects its purest altar, and faith brings its divinest offerings. Yea, verily, it is hallowed ground. Thus Mary thought through the vigils of that long night. She had never been dangerously sick herself, but she felt the entire dependence of one human being upon another, and of all upon God. She felt, too, a kind of generous triumph, if such an expression may be used, in the conviction that this proud and over-sensitive being was so completely abandoned to her cares. Fitzroy lay in the deep lethargy of a burning fever, unconscious whose soft footsteps fell "like snow on snow" around his bed. "He never shall know it," said Mary, to herself. "He would probably feel disgust, instead of gratitude. If he saw this handkerchief, all impregnated with camphor, and stained with medicine, he might well think it unfit for a lady's hand. Shame on me, for cherishing so much malice against him—he so sick and pale!"
For more than a week Fitzroy languished in that almost unconscious condition, and during that interval Mary continued to lavish upon him every attention a kind and gentle sister could bestow. At length he was declared out of danger, and she gradually withdrew from her station in the sick chamber. Her mission was fulfilled, and an angelic one it had been. The physician, her father, and a youthful, unimpaired constitution accomplished the rest.
"What do I not owe you?" said Fitzroy, when, liberated from confinement, he was slowly walking with her through one of the green, shady paths of the enclosure. Now he, indeed, looked interesting. The contrast between his dark brown hair and pale cheek was truly romantic. That dark hair once more exhaled the odours of sweet-scented waters, and his black dress and spotless linen were as distinguished for their eleganceas in former days. "What do I not owe you?" repeated he, with more fervour.
Mary smiled. "You were sick, and I ministered unto you. I only obeyed a divine command. A simple act of obedience deserves no reward."
"Then it was only from a sense of duty that you watched over me so kindly?" repeated he, in a mortified tone. "You would have done the same for any stranger?"
"Most certainly I would," replied Mary; "for any stranger as helpless and neglected as you appeared to be."
"Pardon me," said he, evidently disconcerted, "but I thought—I dared to think—that——"
Mary laughed, andherrosy lip began to curl with a slight expression of scorn. She was a woman, and her feelings had once been chafed, humiliated through him, if not by him. Her eyes sparkled, not vindictively, but triumphantly. "You dared to think that I was in love with you! Oh, no; that is all passed—long, long ago."
"Passed? Then you acknowledge that youhaveloved?"
"Yes," replied she, in the same laughing tone, though she blushed deeply all the while; "I did love you, Fitzroy, and I could have loved you with a life-long passion. To win your affection I tried to pass myself off as an angel, to whose garments the dust of mortality never adhered. You discovered my folly, and turned from me in contempt. It was a bitter lesson at first, but I thank you for it now. I am not the foolish girl that I was when I first knew you, Fitzroy. You must not think that I am——"
"AndIam not the fool I was then," interrupted he. "I know now what constitutes the perfection of a woman's character. You only captivated my fancy then, now you have won my whole heart."
"Better lost than won," cried Mary, in the same careless accents. "I could not keep the treasure, and I cannot take it. You think you love me now, but I might fall sick, you know, and people do not look so pretty when they are sick, and you might not like the scent of camphor and medicine, and then one's handkerchiefs get so terribly soiled!"
She stopped, and looked archly at Fitzroy's clouded countenance.
"I understand it all," cried he, bitterly; "you pitied me in sickness, and watched over me. But I must have lookedshockingly ugly and slovenly, and you became disgusted. I cannot blame you, for I deserve such a punishment."
"No, no—not ugly, Fitzroy, but helpless, weak, and dependent, proud man that you are. But, oh! you ought to know that this very helplessness and dependence endear the sufferer ten thousand times more to a fond woman's heart than all the pride of beauty and the bloom of health. I have had my revenge; but believe me, Fitzroy, the hours passed in your chamber of sickness will be remembered as the happiest of my life."
The tone of playful mockery which she had assumed, subsided into one of deep feeling, and tears gathered in her downcast eyes. Fitzroy—but it is no matter what Fitzroy said—certainly something that pleased Mary, for when they returned, more than an hour afterwards, her cheeks were glowing with the roses of Eden.
It was about six months after this that Cousin Kate visited Mary—but notMary Lee—once more. Fitzroy, who now often complained of a headache, was leaning back in an easy chair, and Mary was bathing his temples, which she occasionally pressed with her linen handkerchief.
"Oh, shocking!" exclaimed Kate; "how can you bear to see Mary touch anything so rumpled and used, about your elegant person?"
"The hand of affection," replied Fitzroy, pressing Mary's gently on his brow, "can shed a beautifying influence over every object. Mary is a true alchemist, and has separated the gold of my heart from the worthless dross that obscured its lustre. She put me in the crucible, and I have been purified by the fires through which I passed."
THE END