December came in with a drizzling rain, which lasted a day or two. A cold, bleak, windy rain, rendering outdoor life miserable. As Sara Davenal sat at her chamber window, looking into the street, the shivering and uncomfortable appearance presented by the few passers-by might have excited her compassion.
But it did not. Truth to say, Sara Davenal had too much need of compassion herself just now to waste it upon street passengers. The greatest blight that can possibly fall upon the inward life of a woman had fallen upon hers. Oswald Cray was faithless. She knew not how, she knew not why; she only judged by his conduct that it must be so. He had been two or three times to Hallingham, and had shunned her; had shunned them altogether. There could be no better proof. One of the visits he had remained three days; therefore he had not want of time to plead as his excuse. He had called at the door, inquired for Miss Davenal, and upon Neal's answering that Miss Davenal was out, he had handed in cards. For Sara he had not asked at all, and he had not been near the house since.
Sara could do nothing. She could only accept this change in him and bear it in silence. Had she been asked to pin her faith on the truth and honour of any living man, she would have pinned it on Oswald Cray's. Not because she loved him, not because it was to her his allegiance was certainly due, but because she believed him to be, of all others, the very soul of chivalrous integrity. But that he had changed to her there could not be a shadow of doubt: his conduct proved it. He had silently broken off all relations with her, and given no token of what his motive could be.
That some cause, just or unjust, had led to it, she yet did him the justice to believe; he was the last man so to act from caprice, or from a totally unworthy motive. And she knew he had loved her. In vain she asked herself what this cause could be; but there were moments when a doubt of whether the terrible secret, which had been imparted that past night to Dr. Davenal, could have become known to Oswald Cray. If so--why, then, in his high honour, his sensitive pride, he had perhaps decided that she was no fit wife for him. And Sara could not say that he had so decided unjustifiably. Whatever the cause, they were separated.
They were separated. And the sunshine of her life was over. Oh, the bitter anguish that it cost! There is no pain, no anguish, that this world and its many troubles can bring, like unto it--the finding one false, upon whom love, in all the freshness of its first feeling, has been lavished. The bright green of life's verdure is gone; the rich blue has faded from the wintry sky.
Sara said nothing, but the doctor spoke openly of the strange conduct of Mr. Oswald Cray.
"I know nothing that can have offended him," he observed; "unless he has chosen to take umbrage at the money's having been left to me."
"Nonsense," said Miss Davenal; "it's not that. Mr. Oswald Cray did not want the money for himself; would not, it is said, have accepted it. It is not that."
And "It is not that," echoed Sarah Davenal's heart.
"What else is it, then?" said the doctor. "Nobody in this house has done anything to offend him.Youhave not, I suppose, Sara,"--suddenly turning upon her, as a faint doubt flashed into his mind, never before admitted to it.
The question brought to her she knew not what of emotion. She answered it with an outward appearance of calmness, save for the burning red that dyed her face.
"Nothing, papa. The last time I spoke to Mr. Oswald Cray was the night of the accident. We parted quite good friends--as we always had parted."
And the sweet words whispered by Oswald rose up before her as she spoke. What a contrast! that time and this!
"Just so," replied the doctor. "There has been nothing whatever to cause this coolness on his part, except the business of the money. Well, as I give it back to the family, perhaps my gentleman will come round. Rely upon it, that pride of his has been touched in some manner or other?"
But the weeks had gone on, and December was in, and the gentleman had not "come round" yet. Sara Davenal sat at her bedroom window, all her shivering misery only too palpably present to her, as she watched the cold rain falling on the wet streets, in the gloomy twilight of the afternoon.
She saw Roger bring the carriage round. She saw her father go out from the house and step into it. It was the open carriage, but the head was up, and Roger and his master were sheltered from the rain. It was not the usual hour of Dr. Davenal's going out, but the bad day had kept patients from calling on him, and a message had just been delivered saying that a lady whom he attended, Mrs. Scott, was worse.
Sara heard the house clock strike four, and the lamps were already lighted in the streets. Night was coming on earlier than usual. The gleaming of the pools of water in the rays of the gas lamps did not tend to add to the cheerfulness of the scene; and Sara, with a shiver that she could not suppress, quitted her room and went downstairs.
The blaze and warmth of the dining-room, as seen through the open door, was a welcome sight. She went in, and knelt down before the fire on the hearth-rug, and laid her aching head for shelter against the side of the marble mantlepiece, and stayed there until disturbed by the entrance of Miss Davenal.
"Neal's come home," announced Miss Davenal.
"Is he?" apathetically answered Sara.
"I saw him go by with his portmanteau. What are you down there for, Sara, roasting your face? Have you no regard for your complexion?"
"I am not roasting it, aunt. My face is quite in the shade."
"But you are roasting it. What's the use of telling me that? Had I allowed the fire to burn my face at your age, do you suppose I should have retained any delicacy of akin? Get up from the fire."
Sara rose wearily. She sat down in a chair opposite to the one her aunt had taken, and let her hands fall listlessly in her lap.
"Have any patients been here this afternoon?"
"I think not, Aunt Bettina. I suppose it was too wet for them to come out."
"Have you been drawing?"
"Not this gloomy day. I like a good light for it."
"It strikes me you have become very idle lately, Miss Sara Davenal! Do you think that time was bestowed upon us to be wasted?"
A faint blush rose to Sara's cheek. In these, the early days of her bitter sorrow, she feared she had been idle. What with the shock brought upon her by that ominous secret, and the cruel pain caused by the falsity of Oswald Cray, her tribulation had been well-nigh greater than she could bear.
"Ring the bell," said Miss Davenal.
Sara rose from her chair and rang it. It was answered by Jessy.
"Tell Neal I shall be glad to see him."
Neal appeared in answer to the summons. His London journey had been prolonged by the permission of the doctor, and he had but now returned. In he came, just the same as usual, his white necktie spotless, his black clothes without a crease.
"So you are back, Neal?" said Miss Davenal. "I am very glad to see you. And pray have you arranged all your business satisfactorily?--secured your share of the money?"
"Entirely so, thank you, ma'am," replied Neal, advancing nearer to his mistress that he might be heard. "I am pleased to find all well at home, ma'am."
"You have been away longer than you intended to be, Neal."
"Yes, ma'am. I wrote to my master stating why it was necessary that I should, if possible, prolong my stay, and he kindly permitted it. I saw Mr. Oswald Cray, ma'am, while I was in London," Neal added as a gratuitous piece of information.
"You did what?" asked Miss Davenal, while Sara turned and stood with her back to them, looking at the fire.
"I saw Mr. Oswald Cray, ma'am."
"Oh, indeed. And where did you see him?"
"I met him one night in London, ma'am. He was walking with a young lady."
"Saw him walking at night with a young lady?" repeated Miss Bettina, in rather a snappish tone; for as a general rule she did not approve of young ladies and gentlemen walking together, especially at night.
"She seemed a very nice young lady, ma'am, young and pretty," continued Neal, who was getting a little exasperated at the face at Miss Sara Davenal being hidden from his view. "I believe it was Miss Allister, the sister of a gentleman with whom Mr. Oswald Cray is very intimate."
"Well, I am glad you are back, Neal," concluded Miss Davenal. "Things have gone all at sixes and sevens without you."
Neal retired. And Sara, in her still attitude before the fire, repeated the words over and over again to her beating heart. A lady young and pretty! walking with him in the evening hours--the sister of the friend with whom he was so intimate! She laid her hand upon her bosom, if that might still the tumult within, in all the sickness of incipient jealousy. Until that moment Sara Davenal had never known how she had clung to hope in her heart of hearts. While saying to herself, He is lost to me for ever, this undercurrent of hope had been ever ready to breathe a whisper that the cloud might some time be cleared up, that he might return. Now the scales were rudely torn from her eyes, and reason suggested that his slighting treatment of her might proceed from a different cause than any she had ever glanced at.
"What was it Neal said, Sara? That the pretty lady walking with Oswald Cray was somebody's sister?"
Sara turned in her pain to answer her aunt. "Mr. Allister's sister, he said."
"Who's Mr. Allister?"
"A sick gentleman who used to be at Bracknell and Street's. I remember that night of the railway accident Mr. Oswald Cray was obliged to return to town because he had promised to spend--to spend the Sunday with him."
An idea darting into her brain had caused her to hesitate. Had Oswald Cray's anxiety to return to town been prompted by the wish to be with the sister as well as the brother? Sara felt her brow turn moist and cold.
"Young and pretty!" repeated Miss Davenal. "Who knows but they may be engaged? Ah! it's Caroline who should have had Oswald Cray."
Meanwhile Dr. Davenal had been driven to the house of Mrs. Scott. It was not very far from his own home, about two streets only. Time had been, and not so far back, when Dr. Davenal would not have thought of ordering his carriage for so short a distance, would have braved the inclemencies of the weather, the drifting rain, the cutting wind, and walked it. But the doctor had been growing ill both in body and mind; since the night of that fatal revelation, whatever it may have been, he seemed to have become in feelings like an old man, needing all the care and help of one. As he had looked from his window that afternoon, a sort of shudder at the outdoor weather came over him; a feeling as if he could not and ought not to venture out in it. And he told Roger to bring round the carriage.
He stepped out of the carriage and entered Mrs. Scott's, leaving Roger snugly ensconced under the shelter of the head and the horses steaming in the rain. But when the doctor reached his patient's bed, he found her so considerably and alarmingly worse that he could not yet think of leaving her. She was a great and real sufferer; not as poor Lady Oswald had been, an imaginary one; and in the last week or two her symptoms had assumed a dangerous character. The doctor thought of Roger and his horses, and went down.
"I shall not be ready to come home this hour, Roger. Better go back and put the horses up. You can come for me at five." So Roger, nothing loth, turned his horses round and went home. And Dr. Davenal, with another shudder, and a very perceptible one, hastened indoors from the beating rain.
"What's the matter with me this afternoon?" he asked, half angry that any such sort of sensation should come over him.
Is the body at times more sensitive to outward influences than it is at others, rendering it susceptible to take any ill that may be abroad? Is it more liable to cold, to fever, to other ailments? Or can it be that the mind has so great an influence over the body that the very fact of dreading these ills predisposes us to take them? If ever Dr. Davenal sensibly shrank from an encounter with the outdoor weather, it was on that afternoon. He could not remember so to have shrunk from it in all his life.
Mrs. Scott's room was hot. The fire was large, every breath of air excluded, and two large gas-burners flamed away, adding to the heat. As Dr. Davenal sat there he became first at ease in the genial warmth, then hot, and subsequently as moist as though he were breathing the atmosphere of a baker's oven. He had had many a battle with this same Mrs. Scott over the heated rooms she loved to indulge in, but he had not conquered yet.
It was not much above half-past four when the doctor was beckoned out of the room. He was wanted downstairs. There stood Julius Wild, and Mr. Julius Wild was in as white a heat with running as Dr. Davenal was with that pernicious atmosphere above.
"I have been about everywhere, sir, trying to find you," he began out of breath. "At last I bethought myself of asking your coachman at the stables if he knew, and he said you were at Mrs. Scott's. You are wanted in the accident-ward, sir, as quick as you can get there."
"What has come in?" inquired Dr. Davenal.
"A young man fell on his head from the very top of that scaffolding in High Street, sir. It is a dreadful case, and the house-surgeon does not think he can be saved, even with the operation. The top of the head is crushed in. Mr. Berry and Dr. Ford and some more are there, but they wish for you." Dr. Davenal did not delay a moment. In a case of real necessity he threw aside all thought of precaution for himself. If human skill could save the life of this poor young man, he knew that his could, and he knew that perhaps his was the only hand in Hallingham which could successfully carry through the critical and delicate operation he suspected must be performed.
He had no greatcoat with him, and he started off at once with Julius Wild, heated as he was. The rain beat against him in a torrent, for it poured now; the wind whirled itself in eddies about his person. No umbrella could live in it; one which the doctor had borrowed from the hall of Mrs. Scott was turned inside out ere he had taken many steps.
"A rough night, sir," remarked the young embryo surgeon, as he kept by his side.
"It is that," said Dr. Davenal.
Away they splashed through the muddy pools in the streets. It was quite dark now, with the unusually gloomy evening, and the gas lamps only served to mislead their eyesight in the haste they had to make. There could be no waiting to pick the way. The Infirmary was at a considerable distance from Mrs. Scott's, and ere they reached it the cold had struck to one of them. The one was not Julius Wild.
When they came in view of the Infirmary, Julius Wild ran forward to give notice that the doctor was approaching. Two or three of the medical men were in the great hall looking out for him; Mark Cray was one of them. The news of the accident had travelled in the town, and the surgeons attached to the Infirmary were collecting there.
"We began to despair of you," cried Dr. Ford, "and there's no time to be lost. I was just recommending Mr. Cray to be the one to officiate." Dr. Davenal turned his eye with an eagle glance on Mark Cray ere the words had well left Dr. Ford's lips. The look, the warning conveyed in it, was involuntary. Had Mark actually acceded to the recommendation, the look could scarcely have been sterner. Mark coloured under it, and his thoughts went back to Lady Oswald. Never, in Dr. Davenal's presence, must he attempt to try his skill again.
The night's work told on Dr. Davenal. The soaking rain, the chilling wind, had struck inward the perspiration which Mrs. Scott's heated room had induced. On the next day he was visibly ill. Sara noticed it, and begged him not to go out.
"Not go out, child? I must go out."
"But you are not in a state for it. I am sure you are very ill."
"I caught cold last night; that's what it is. It will go off in a day or two."
"Yes if you will lie by and nurse yourself. Not if you go out to make it worse."
"I have never lain by in all my life, Sara. A doctor has no time for it. What would become of my patients?"
He went out to his carriage, then waiting for him. The close carriage. Bright as the day was--for the weather had changed--it was the close carriage that had been ordered round by the doctor.
"Is master ill, I wonder?" thought Roger, when he found it was only to pay the daily round of near visits.
As the doctor went out at the gate it happened that Oswald Cray was passing. And Mr. Oswald Cray quite started when he saw Dr. Davenal, the change in him was so great.
It was impossible for either of them to pass the other, had they so wished it, without being guilty of absolute rudeness, and they stopped simultaneously.
"You are ill, Dr. Davenal?" exclaimed Oswald, speaking impulsively.
"Middling. I have got a cold hanging about me. We have had some bad weather here."
It cannot be denied that Dr. Davenal's tone and manner betrayed a coldness never yet offered to Oswald Cray. Generous man though he was by nature, as little prone to take offence as most people, he did think that Oswald Cray's slighting conduct had been unjustifiable, and he could not help showing his sense of it.
They stood a moment in silence, Oswald marking the ravages illness or something else had made on the doctor's face and form. His figure was drooping now, his face was careworn; but the sickness looked to be of mind more than of body. Unfortunately those miserable suspicions instilled into Oswald Cray's brain arose now with redoubled force, and a question suggested itself--could anything save remorse change a man as he had changed, in the short space of time?
"You are a stranger now, Mr. Oswald Cray. What has kept you from us?"
"The last time I called you were all out," he answered, somewhat evasively.
"And you could not call again! As you please, of course," continued the doctor, as Oswald's feet, took a somewhat repellant turn, and the Oswald pride became rather too conspicuous. "I had wished to say a word or two to you with regard to the will made by Lady Oswald; but perhaps you do not care to hear it."
"Anything that you, or I, or any one else can say, will not alter the will, Dr. Davenal. And it does not in the least concern me."
"But I think you are resenting it in your heart, for all that."
Ah, what cross-purposes they were at! Oswald had not resented that; and all his fiery pride rose up to boiling heat at being accused of it. He had deemed that to make Dr. Davenal the inheritor was unjust to the nephews of Lady Oswald, and he had felt for them; but he had notresentedit, even at heart. He spoke the literal truth when he said it was a matter that did not concern him. If the heavy cloud of misapprehension between them could but have cleared itself away!
"Will you be kind enough to understand me once for all, Dr. Davenal?" he haughtily said. "Lady Oswald's money, either before her death or after it, never was, nor could be, any concern of mine. I do not claim a right to give so much as an opinion upon her acts in regard to it; in fact I have no such right. Had she chosen to fling the money into the sea, to benefit nobody, she might have done so, for any wish of mine upon the point. I felt a passing sorrow for the Stephensons when I saw their disappointment, but I did not permit myself to judge so far as to say that Lady Oswald had done wrong. It was no affair of mine," he emphatically added, "and I did not make it one."
In spite of his impressive denial, Dr. Davenal did not believe him. Whence, else, the haughty resentment that shone forth from every line of his features? Whence, else, his studied absence from the house, his altogether slighting conduct? Dr. Davenal made one more effort at concession, at subduing his unfounded prejudices.
"I can assure you I resented the will--if I may so say it. I resented it for the Stephensons' sake, and felt myself a pitiful usurper. Nothing would have induced me to accept that money, Mr. Oswald Cray; and steps are being taken to refund it, every shilling, to the Stephensons."
"Ah," remarked Oswald, "I heard something of that. Had it been willed to me I should have done the same."
He held himself rigidly erect as he said it. There was no unbending of the hard brow, there was no faint smile to break the haughty curve of the lip. That poisonous hint dropped by Neal--that the money was about to be restored throughfear--was uncomfortably present to Oswald then. Dr. Davenal saw that the resentment, whatever its cause, was immovable, and he stepped into his carriage without shaking hands.
"Good-morning to you, Mr. Oswald Cray."
And then the reaction set in in Oswald Cray's mind, and he began to blush for his discourtesy. The careworn face, the feeble form, haunted him throughout the day, and he began to ask himself, what if all his premises were wrong--if appearances and Neal's tale had been deceitful--if he had done the doctor grievous ill in his heart I It was but the reaction, I say, the repentance arising from his own haughty discourtesy, which he felt had been more offensively palpable than it need have been; but it clung to him for hours, haunting him in all the business that he had to transact.
It was somewhat strange that just when this new feeling was upon him he should encounter Sara Davenal. They met in a lonely place--the once-famed graveyard at the back of the Abbey.
His business for the day over, Oswald Cray was going to pay a visit to Mark and his wife. He was nearer the back of the Abbey than the front, and, ignoring ceremony, intended to enter by the small grated door, a relic of the old Abbey, which divided the graveyard from one of the long Abbey passages. In passing the tombstone already mentioned, Oswald turned his eyes down upon it: in the bright moonlight---for never had the moon been brighter--he could almost trace the letters: the next moment a noise in front attracted his attention--the closing of the grated door. There stood Sara Davenal. She had stayed with Mrs. Cray later than she intended, and was hastening home to dinner: in leaving the Abbey by this back entrance a few minutes of the road were saved.
They met face to face. Sara's heart stood still, and her countenance changed from white to red with emotion. And Oswald?--all the love that he had been endeavouring to suppress returned in its deepest force.
Ah, it is of no use! Try as we may, we cannot evade the laws of nature; we cannot bend them to our own will. In spite of the previous resolutions of weeks to forget her, Oswald Cray stood there knowing that he loved her above everything on earth.
"How are you, Sara?"
He put out his hand to her in all calm self-possession; he spoke the salutation with quiet equanimity; but as Sara looked in his face she knew that his agitation was not in reality less than hers. She said a few confused words in explanation of her being there at that hour, and alone. On calling that afternoon she had found Caroline not well, and had stayed with her to the last moment, as Mark was in the country.
Then for a whole minute there was a silence. Perhaps neither could speak. Sara put an end to it by turning towards the gate.
"You will let me see you home, as you are alone?"
"No, thank you," she answered. "There is nothing to hurt me. It is as light as day."
He did not press it. He seemed half-paralysed with indecision. Sara wished him good night, and he responded to it, and once more shook hands, all mechanically.
But as she was going through the gate, she turned to speak, a question having occurred to her. One moment longer, and he had arrested her progress.
"There are two or three books at our house belonging to you," she said. "What is to be done with them? Shall they be sent to the Apple Tree?"
He caught her hands; he drew her from the gate into the bright moonlight. He could not let her go without a word of explanation; the cruelty of visiting upon her her father's sin was very present to him then.
"Are we to part thus for ever, Sara?"
Surely that question was cruel! It was not she who had instituted the parting; it was himself. She did not so much as know its cause.
"May we not meet once in a way, as friends?" he continued. "I dare not ask for more now."
That he loved her still was all too evident. And Sara took courage to gasp forth a question. In these moments of agitation the cold conventionalities of the world are sometimes set aside.
"What has been the matter? How have we offended you?"
"Youhave not offended me," he answered, his agitation almost irrepressible. "I love you more than I ever did; this one moment of meeting has proved it to me. I could lay down my life for you, Sara; I could sacrifice all, save honour, for you. And you? You have not changed?--you love me still?"
"Yes," she gasped, unable to deny the truth, too miserable to care to suppress it.
"And yet we must part! we must go forth on our separate paths, striving to forget. But when our lives shall end, Sara, we shall neither of us have loved another as we love now."
Her very heart seemed to shiver; the fiat was all too plainly expressed. But she stood there quietly, waiting for more, her hand in his.
"I would have forfeited half my future life, I would have given all its benefits to be able to call you mine. The blow upon me has been very bitter."
"What blow?" she murmured.
"I cannot tell it you," he cried, after a struggle. "Not to you can I speak of it."
"But you must," she rejoined, the words breaking from her in her agony. "You have said too much, or too little."
"I have--Heaven help me! Can you not guess what it is that has caused this?"
"N--o," she faltered. But even as the word left her lips there rose up before her the secret of that dreadful night--with the suspicion that Oswald had in some unaccountable manner become cognisant of it.
"I loved you as I believe man never yet loved, Sara; I looked forward to years of happiness with you; I expected you to be my wife. And--and--I cannot go on!" he broke off. "I cannot speak of this to you."
The tears were rolling down her pale face. "You must not leave me in suspense, Oswald. It may be better for us both that you should speak out freely."
Yes, it might be better for them both; at any rate he felt that no choice was left to him now. He drew nearer to her and lowered his voice to a whisper.
"Is there no--Heaven pardon me for speaking the word to you, Sara!--disgraceful secret attaching now to--to your family? One which would render it impossible for a man of honour to----"
He would not say more; he had said enough; and he felt the words to his heart's core. Whatever pain they may have brought to her, they inflicted tenfold more upon him. With a low cry, she flung her hands before her face.
"Is it so, Sara?"
"It is. How did you hear of it?"
"The whisper came to me. Some people might--might--call it murder."
"No, no!" she broke forth in her pain. "It surely was not so bad as that. They kept the details from me, Oswald; but it could not have been so bad as that."
The words fell on his heart like an ice-bolt. Unconsciously to himself he had been hoping that she might disprove the tale. For that purpose he had whispered to her of the worst: but it seemed that she could not deny it. It was quite enough, and he quitted the subject abruptly.
"God bless you, my darling, for ever and for ever," he said, taking her hands in his. "I do not respect or love you less; but I cannot--I cannot--you know what I would say. It is a cruel fate upon me, as upon you; and for the present, for both our sakes, it may be better that our paths in life should lie apart. After awhile we may meet again, as friends, and continue to be such throughout life."
The tears had dried on her face, as it was lifted in the moonlight, its expression one living agony. But there was no resentment in it; on the contrary, she fully justified him. Her hands lingered in his with a farewell pressure, and she strove to re-echo the blessing he had given.
They parted, each going a different way. Oswald Cray, in no mood for the Abbey now, struck off towards the "Apple Tree;" Sara, drawing her veil over her face, went on to her home.
And so the dream was over. The dream which she had long been unconsciously cherishing of what a meeting between them might bring about, was over; and Sara Davenal had been rudely awakened to stern reality.
The whole night subsequent to the meeting in the Abbey graveyard with Oswald Cray, did Sara lie awake, striving to battle with her pain. It was very sore to bear. She knew now the cause of his absenting himself; and she knew that they were lost to each other for ever. It is the worst pain that a woman can be called upon to endure; no subsequent tribulation in life can equal its keen anguish.
Ten times in the night she prayed for help--for strength to support, and live, through her mind's trouble. She did not pray that it might be taken from her; that was hopeless; she knew that weeks and months must elapse before even the first brunt would lose its force; that years must roll on before tranquillity could come.
She did not blame Oswald Cray. She believed that that unhappy secret, of the precise nature of which she was yet in ignorance, had become known to him: how, she could not conjecture. Perhaps he knew it in all its terrible details--and that these were terrible, she doubted less now than ever. Were they not--ay, she fully believed it?--shortening her father's life? What had been that awful word spoken by Oswald Cray?--though she could not believe it to be so bad as that. But she knew that it was something to bring disgrace and danger in its train; and she fully justified Oswald Cray in the step he had taken. Still she thought that he should have come to her in the first onset and plainly said, "Such and such a thing has come to my knowledge, and therefore we must part." He had not done this; he had left her for weeks to the slow torture of suspense--and yet that very suspense was more tolerable than the certainty now arrived at. Oh, the dull dead pain that lay on her heart!--never for a long, long while to be lifted from it.
She strove to reason calmly with herself; she essayed to mark out what her future course should be. She knew that there was nothing at present but to bear her burden and hide it from the world's eye; but she would do her duty all the same, Heaven helping her, in all the relations of life; she would strive nobly to take her full part in life's battle, whatever the inward struggle.
There is no doubt that in that night of tribulation she looked at the future in its very darkest aspect. It was well perhaps, that it should be so, for the horizon might clear a little as she went on. That Mr. Oswald Cray would in time marry, she had no right to doubt--a word or two of his had almost seemed to hint at it: man forgets more easily than woman.
Towards morning she dropped into a heavy sleep, and had slept longer than usual. This caused her to be late in dressing, and brought upon her the reproof of punctual Miss Bettina. She looked at herself in the glass ere she went down; at her pale face, her heavy eyelids; hoping, trusting they would escape observation. What a happy thing it is that others cannot read our faces as we read them! Miss Bettina was at the head of the breakfast-table. She was suffering from a cold; but, ill or well, she was sure to be at her post and Dr. Davenal stood at the fire, his elbow on the mantelpiece, his forehead leaning on his hand.
Sara went up to him, and he seemed to rouse himself from a reverie as he kissed her. She noticed how ill he looked.
"Papa, I am sure you are worse!"
"I don't feel very well, child."
"If you would but stay at home for a day or two and nurse yourself!"
"Ah! I have not time. There's a great deal of sickness about, and my patients must not be neglected."
"Mark Cray can attend to them."
"To the light cases he could. Not the serious ones; I wouldn't trust them to him."
"Not trust them to him?" echoed Sara.
The surprised tone of the question aroused Dr. Davenal; he had spoken out too heedlessly his real thoughts. "People dangerously ill have naturally more confidence in me than in a young man," he said, by way of doing away with the impression his avowal might make.
They took their places at the breakfast-table, neither of then able to eat; the doctor from sickness of body, for he was really ill, Sara from sickness of mind.
"Aunt Bettina, I tell papa he ought not to go out today."
"Not going out today?" repeated Miss Bettina. "Why not? What's he going to do, then?"
"I say he ought not to go out. He is not well enough."
Miss Bettina heard this time. She raised her eyes and gazed at the doctor. It was impossible not to see that he did look ill.
"What's the matter with you, Richard?"
"It is only my cold," said the doctor. "It has settled here," touching his chest.
"That's just where mine is settling," grimly returned Aunt Bettina.
"Papa's eating nothing," said Sara.
"As if I could eat, with the skin off my throat and chest!" retorted Miss Bettina, mistaking the words, as usual. "It seems that nobody's eating this morning; you are not: we might as well not have had the breakfast laid. Toast was made to be eaten, Miss Sara Davenal, not to be wastefully crumbled into bits on the plate. I supposeyouhave not got a cold?"
Sara began to pick up the crumbs and the pieces, and to swallow them as she best could. Anything to escape particular observation.
"I wonder how Mrs. Cray is this morning?" she presently observed, having ransacked her brains for a subject to speak upon. Miss Bettina heard all awry.
"Oswald Cray! Why should you wonder how he is? Is he ill?"
"I said Mrs. Cray, aunt;" and she would have given much to hide the sharp bright blush that the other name brought to her face. "I told you last evening Caroline was not well. I think you always mistake what I say."
"No, I don't mistake. But you have got into a habit of speaking most indistinctly. My belief is, you did say Oswald Cray. He is in town," fiercely added Miss Bettina, as if the fact strengthened her proposition.
"Yes, he is in town," assented Sara, for her aunt was staring so very fixedly at her that she felt herself obliged to say something. "At least he was in town yesterday."
"Where did you see him, Sara?" asked the doctor.
"I met him as I was leaving the Abbey last evening, papa," she replied, not daring to look up as she said it.
"I met him yesterday also," observed Dr. Davenal. "He was passing the gate here just its I was about to step into the carriage. He is a puzzle to me."
Miss Bettina bent her ear. "What's a puzzle to you, doctor?"
"Oswald Cray is. I had the very highest opinion of that man. I could have answered for his being the soul of honour, one entirely above the petty prejudices of the world in ordinary. But he has lost caste in my eyes: has gone down nearly cent per cent."
"It's his pride that's in fault," cried Miss Bettina. "He's the proudest man living, old Sir Philip of Thorndyke excepted."
"What has his pride to do with it?" returned the doctor. "I should say rather his selfishness. He has chosen to take umbrage at Lady Oswald's having left her money to me; and very foolish it was of her, poor thing, to do it! But why he should visit his displeasure----"
"He has not taken umbrage at that, papa," interrupted Sara.
"Yes, he has," said Dr. Davenal. "I spoke to him yesterday of the will, and he declined in the most abrupt manner to hear anything of the matter. His tone in its haughty coldness was half-insulting. Why he should have taken it up so cavalierly, I cannot conceive."
Sara remained silent. She did not again dare to dissent, lest Dr. Davenal should question her more closely. Better let it rest at that; far better let it be thought that Mr. Oswald Cray had taken umbrage at the disposal of the property, than that the real truth should be known.
"I suppose Oswald Cray felt hurt at not being left executor to the will," sagely remarked Miss Bettina. "As to the money, I never will believe that he, with his independent spirit, wanted that."
"He wants his independent spirit shaken out of him, if it is to show itself in this offensive manner," was the doctor's severe remark. "What did he say to you, Sara?"
"Say----?" she stammered, the remembrance of what had really been said between them occurring startlingly to her.
Dr. Davenal noted the hesitating words, he noted the crimsoned cheeks; and a doubt which had once before risen up within him, rose again now. But he let it pass in silence.
"Does he intend to come here again, Sara?" asked Miss Bettina.
"I don't know, aunt," was poor Sara's answer. "I suppose he will come again some time."
And in good truth she did suppose he would come again "some time," when the pain of their separation should have worn away.
Sara quitted her seat as she spoke, throwing down a fork with the movement, and hastened to the window.
"What's the matter?" exclaimed Miss Bettina.
"It is the postman, aunt."
"The postman!" echoed Miss Bettina, sharply, wondering what possessed her niece that morning. "If it is the postman, you need not fly from the breakfast-table in that way, upsetting the things. Do you call that manners?"
"O papa," cried Sara, turning round, unmindful of the reproof in her flush of excitement, "I do think here are letters from Edward! Some foreign mail must be in, for the man has an unusual number of letters in his hand, and some of them look like foreign ones."
She turned from the window, and stood gazing at the room door. But no letters appeared. The postman went out again with his quick step, and Sara, feeling grievously disappointed, returned slowly to her seat.
"Is he gone?" presently asked the doctor.
"O yes, papa. He is half-way down the street by this time. He came, I suppose, for one of the servants."
"He didn't ring."
"No. He seemed to go straight to your consulting-room window. Perhaps Neal is there, putting the room to rights."
But Dr. Davenal did not rest so easily satisfied. He opened the door and called down the passage in an imperative voice.
"Neal! Are there no letters?"
Neal came gliding into the room from his pantry, two letters in his hand.
"Why did you not bring them in at once?" somewhat sternly asked the doctor as he took them, certain past suspicions regarding Neal and such missives arising forcibly to his mind.
"I was looking for my waiter, sir: I have mislaid it somewhere. Oh, I left it here, I see."
The silver waiter was on a side-table; not at all where it ought to be; as if it had been put down heedlessly and forgotten. Neal caught it up and retired. It might have been as he said--that the delay was caused by looking for it, and by that only; and Dr. Davenal, more inclined to be charitable than suspicious, thought no more of the matter.
In the keen disappointment which had come over him, he nearly lost sight of other things. Neither of the two letters was from his son; and he had so fully expected to hear from him by the present mail.
Sara's heart was beating. "Are they not from Edward, papa?"
The doctor shook his head as he laid the letters down. "They are both from Dick, I expect His holiday letters." The two letters were respectively addressed to Miss Davenal, and Miss Sara Davenal. The address to Miss Davenal bore evident marks of care in the writing; it was a clear, regular hand, though easily recognisable as a schoolboy's. The address to Sara was a scrawl scarcely legible. Upon opening the letter, hers, Sara found it beautifully written. Until she came to its close she had no suspicion but that it was really written to herself; she supposed it to be a sort of general holiday letter.
"My dear and respected Aunt and Relatives--
As the joyful epoch of Christmas approaches, marking the close of another half-year, we feel how valuable is that time which the best of us are only inclined to regard too lightly. Yet I hope it will be found that I have not wholly wasted the share of it bestowed on me, but have used it to the best of my power and abilities. When you witness the progress made in each branch of my various studies, to which I have earnestly and assiduously devoted my days and hours, I trust that you will find cause to deem I have been no thoughtless pupil, but have done my best to merit your favour and the approbation of my masters. In Greek especially--which Dr. Keen saw fit to promote me to at Midsummer--I flatter myself you will be satisfied with my advancement: it is a delightful study.
"Deeply sensible of the inestimable value of the talents entrusted to me, anxious that not one of them should lie fallow through fault of mine, it has been my constant and earnest endeavour to improve them, so that they may be turned to profitable use in the after-business of life. By industry, by perseverance, and by unflagging attention I have striven to progress, and I may say that it is with regret I part with my beloved studies, even for a temporary period.
"I am desired to present Dr. Keen's compliments to you and my uncle, and to convey to you the intelligence that our winter recess will commence on the 16th of this month, on which day I and Leopold shall hope to return to Hallingham, and to meet you in good health. Leopold regrets sensibly that he will not be able this year to write you his vacation letter: it is a great disappointment to him. He has had a fester on the thumb of his right hand; it is getting better, but still painful. He begs to offer his affectionate duty to yourself, my uncle, Sara, and Mrs. Cray. And trusting you will accept the same from me,
"I am, my dear Aunt,
"Your most sincere and respectful Nephew,
"Richard John Davenal.
"Miss Davenal."