CHAPTER XL.A LATE REPENTANCE.
Doctor Deane feared that all that excitement must hurt his patient very much, so he cleared the room as soon as possible, letting no one stay but Mrs. Flint and himself.
She, poor old lady, was terribly shocked at hearing the full story of her brother’s life, having only known a few hazy details before.
But she pulled herself together the best she could, and hung tenderly over the bedside, chafing her brother’s cold hands, and murmuring:
“Poor Everard! how cruelly you have been wronged, and how sad your life has been! If I had known all the truth, I could never have blamed you for neglecting Cinthy, though it is a pity, for a sweeter girl never lived, I am sure. She can not have inherited her disposition from her wicked mother.”
He looked at her kindly, but he was too exhausted by all he had endured to answer, but lay, pale and gasping, among the pillows, while the doctor busied himself with restoratives.
“All this excitement has been very bad for him, and he must have quiet and sleep the rest of the day,” he said uneasily, before he went out to see after his other patients.
They had carried Cinthia to her own room, where Madame Ray hung over her with tearful devotion excluding every one else, even her anxious betrothed, who hung about in most disconsolate fashion.
Janetta returned to her watch by Rachel Dane, and Arthur accompanied his mother to her own apartments, mastering his own agitation in his tenderness for her trouble.
“You will lie down and rest, dear mother, or you will be ill after this fatiguing ordeal,” he pleaded.
She was pacing restlessly up and down the floor, a picture of nervous suffering painful to gaze upon. Pausing in the center of the room, her white, jeweled fingers locked together as if in pain, she looked at him with burning eyes, crying wildly:
“Oh, Arthur, how can I rest, how can I sleep?Heis dying, and I—I am full of doubt and terror! Awakened conscience daunts me. Have I wronged him or not? Is he innocent, or is he guilty?”
“Mother you heard him swear to his innocence by all his hopes of heaven!”
“He swore to it before, Arthur, on the day when I sued him for divorce. He came to me swearing his innocence, pleading for mercy. I turned from him in anger, refusing to believe him, scorning all his prayers.”
“How could you be so hard, mother?”
“I was mad with wounded love and jealousy. I had let that fiendish girl destroy, with cunning arts, all myfaith in him. Besides, my father was against him. He feared he had married me for my wealth alone.”
“Poor mother, how you were tortured! No wonder you made such a fatal mistake.”
“Arthur, Arthur,” her voice rang out wildly, “you believe that it was a mistake?”
He came up to her, put his hands on her shoulders, and looked at her earnestly, tenderly.
“Mother, must I tell you frankly what I believe, what I have believed in my soul ever since my first interview with my father, that day in Washington?”
“Yes; speak the whole truth, though it crushes me!” sighed the unhappy woman; and he answered:
“I do not mean to be cruel to you, dear mother, I pity you, and I understand your terrible provocation for all you did, but I believe in my father’s innocence and his perfect nobility. He told me his full story in Washington, and I have believed in him, loved him, revered him ever since, and his death will be a blow to me only second to your own.”
“Then, Arthur, I am a miserable sinner. I have wrecked his life!” contritely.
“Then you must acknowledge your fault, and beg his forgiveness.”
“He has sworn that he will never forgive me as long as I live. Oh, my heart, what a cruel wretch I have been to him! And I loved him so! I do not merit his forgiveness.”
“But he shall grant it, mother. I will add my prayers to yours.”
“Oh, Arthur, shall we go to him now, my poor, wronged love?” weeping.
“Not now, dear mother, because he is exhausted, and needs rest. We must wait.”
“Oh, if he could know my shame and repentance! And how I have loved him always in spite of myself! Might it not comfort him, Arthur?”
“I will find out when he can see you, and tell you himself, mother, if you will be very patient, and let him rest awhile first, mother.”
“I will wait as long as you wish me, Arthur, my poor boy, for I need your forgiveness, too. I have wronged you also, depriving you these long and weary years of a father’s love. Besides, there was all your bitter trouble over Cinthia. But thank Heaven, it is all over now, that sorrow.”
“Yes, it is all over now,” he said, calmly, but with white lips.
And then he went away to his father’s room, where Mrs. Flint was sitting alone, wishing he were not so restless, fearing it was a bad sign.
Arthur bent over him caressingly, and whispered:
“My poor mother, after years of sorrow, divided between doubt and anger, is at last convinced of your innocence, and her poor heart is breaking with remorse for her sin and love that she could never conquer.”
He saw a strange gleam in the deep blue eyes, and the pale lips twitched with emotion.
He continued, almost pleadingly:
“Her pride is humbled in the dust, and her dearest wish is to express her penitence and pray for forgiveness. Her sin was great, but, dear father, you have a noble heart. Is it shut against her forever?”
What a light came over the pallid face, what strange new fire to the dim eyes, what deep emotion quivered in the voice that answered:
“When your mother first entered into my heart Arthur, she locked the door and threw away the key forever. How could I bar her out after lifelong possession?”
“Oh, father, what a constant heart! Yet she fears that you can never forgive her.”
“In the passion of wounded love and anger, I swore that I would not, Arthur; but that was long ago, and in the face of death, how puerile these worldy resentments seem! Then, too, I believed she had wearied of me, believed me a fortune-hunter. Her wealth and her pride raised a wall between us. I could not dream that lips like hers could ever stoop to that word ‘forgive.’”
“Would you like to hear her say it now, my father?”
“No, Arthur, for it is needless. If she could come to me with another word—the dear word love—it would pay for all. How sweet to die with her hand in mine, her lips on my brow!”
Ah, what a love was here!—so patient under cruel wrong, so faithful, so forgiving! Arthur’s nature bowed in reverence to its holiness.
“She will come when you wish,” he said gently.
“Let it be now, Arthur.”
“But Doctor Deane said——” began his sister, uneasily.
“I can not permit any one to dictate in this. Every moment of suspense counts against my life,” the patient answered, firmly, and Arthur went.
It was but a little while before he returned with a drooping figure on his arm.
Mrs. Flint safely withdrew to a window, with her back to the bed.
Arthur led his mother to the bedside, and placed her in a chair. Then he took her cold and trembling hand, and placed it in that of his father.
She thrilled with a passion of joy at the feeble pressure, and bent forward, pressing her quivering lips to his pale brow, whispering in a tempest of restrained emotion:
“Oh, Everard, I wronged you—but I never ceased to love you!”
And there was deep silence and rare happiness—even though the shadow of death hovered over the room. And presently she whispered, entreatingly:
“Oh, Everard, do not die and leave me now! I can not let you go again! I will nurse you and tend you so faithfully that surely Heaven will give you back to me! And some day, when I have somewhat atoned by penitenceand devotion, perhaps you will let me be your wife again.”
“Ah, Paulina, if it might benow, for the doctor does not hold out any hope of life. But at least I should die happy, knowing you were mine again.”
“You shall have your wish!” cried Arthur, hastening from the room.
Then Everard Dawn called his sister to make friends with Paulina.
“I should like for you to love each other when I am gone,” he said gently.
“Oh, brother, we can not let you go now, when happiness has come to you again! I am praying for you every moment!” cried the kind old lady, clasping hands with the beautiful woman whom she would be proud to call sister.