Mark Cray sat in his wife's sick-room. Mark Cray found it (between ourselves) rather tiresome to sit in his wife's sick-room: and Mark was very apt to doze asleep at his post. Mark was asleep now. He was dreaming a charming dream of greatness--in which some grand scheme of Barker's had succeeded, and he and that gentleman were sailing about the atmosphere in a triumphal car of gold, looking down with complacency on the poor toiling mortals in the world below--when Dorcas came in with a whisper, and aroused him. Mr. Oswald Cray was in the dining-parlour waiting to see him, she said: and Mark, after a stare at the girl, descended, pushing back his clustering hair, which had disarranged itself in his sleep.
Oswald was standing near the fire. He turned to Mark and spoke in a quiet tone.
"I have a question to ask you, Mark. It relates to the past. Who----"
"Oh, never mind the past," interrupted Mark, with a half-testy, half-careless sort of manner. "I'm sure there's enough worry in the present without going back to that of the past. I wish that horrid mine had been sunk a thousand fathoms deep before I had had anything to do with it. I daresay I shall pay you back some time!"
"It is not about the mine I wish to speak to you, or of payment either," calmly rejoined Oswald. "But, Mark, I want the truth from you--the truth, mind--upon another subject. It was you, was it not, who gave the chloroform to Lady Oswald?"
Mark made no reply, either truthful or otherwise. The question was so exceedingly unlike any he had expected that he only stared.
"It was supposed, I know, at the time to have been administered by Dr. Davenal. But I have reason to believe that it was administered by yourself during his temporary absence from the chamber, and against his sanction. Was it so, Mark?"
"I suppose you heard this from the doctor himself at the time?" was Mark Cray's remark. "I remember you were worriting over it."
"I beg you to answer my question, Mark. What you say shall go no further."
"Well, yes, it was so," said Mark; "though I'm sure I can't think why you want to bring up the thing now. I did give her the chloroform, but I gave it for the best. As I was to perform the operation I thought I had a right to exercise my own judgment, which was opposed to the doctor's. I was very sorry for the result, but I did it for the best."
"I wish you had told me the truth at the time, Mark. You suffered me to believe that the chloroform was given by Dr. Davenal."
"And what difference did it make to you which of us gave it?" was Mark Cray's reply, not an unnatural one. "You may guess that it was a thing I did not care to speak of. So long as it was assumed we gave the chloroform conjointly, in accordance with ordinary practice and our best judgment, nobody could say a word; but if it had been disclosed that I gave it by myself, on my own responsibility and against the doctor's opinion, I should have had the whole town carping at me."
Oswald had nothing further to say. He could not tell the bitter truth--that this miserable misapprehension had wrecked his hopes of happiness, had been making an ice-bolt of his heart in the intervening years.
Mark escaped, and returned to his wife's room, there to endeavour to drop into his golden dreams again, from which he seemed to have been aroused for no earthly use whatever. And Oswald stayed on in the hope of seeing Sara.
Not only in the dining-parlour of Miss Davenal's house was there a conference being held at that hour, but also in the drawing-room above: and but for the all-absorbing nature of his own thoughts Oswald Cray had not failed to hear the sounds. Captain Davenal had got Neal there, before his aunt. And Mr. Neal was slipping out of all accusations as smoothly as an eel.
The group was noticeable. Miss Davenal in her chair, upright and angry, only partially understanding the cause of the commotion; Captain Davenal standing, open and impetuous, talking very fast; Neal full of repose and self-possession, all his wits in full play; and Sara sitting apart in silence, her cheek bent upon her hand. Captain Davenal charged Neal with treachery, general and particular. Neal had his plausible answer ready to meet it all.
The interview was drawing to an end, and little satisfaction had been derived from it. Poor Miss Davenal's ears were in a mazed condition: desks, letters, inventions to Sara touching a Mrs. Wentworth, and a hundred other charges, jumbling hopelessly upon them, nothing being clear. Neal denied everything.
"You did tell Miss Sara Davenal that the young woman was my wife," cried Captain Davenal, indignantly.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said Neal, respectfully. "I said I felt quite sure she was not; that there must be some mistake. Miss Sara perhaps will remember that such was my opinion."
"At any rate, you said the young woman made the charge," persisted Captain Davenal, irritated at the assured coolness.
"I did, sir. I understood the young woman to make it. She----"
"But she never did make it," interrupted Captain Davenal.
Neal shrugged his shoulders in submissive superciliousness, meant for Mrs. Wentworth. "It may suit the young woman's purpose to say so now, sir. I fear she is not very strict in her adherence to truth; but she certainly did make it at the time. However, sir, I am quite willing to take the blame upon myself, to allow that I misunderstood her."
"Why, you have not the face to tell me that you have gone on believing it?"
"O dear no, sir. I was very soon afterwards convinced that the thing was a mistake altogether."
"And pray, why had you not the honesty to say so to Miss Sara Davenal?"
"I'm sure I should have been happy to say so, sir, had I possessed the least idea that it would have been welcome. But after the first blush, the matter appeared to be so very absurd that I never supposed Miss Sara would give to it a second thought. If my silence has caused any uneasiness, I can only say how deeply I regret it."
"Whoisthe young woman?" helplessly cried Miss Bettina. "And pray, Neal, how came it, if you had anything of the sort to say, that you did not say it to me? I am the proper person to hear these things; a young lady is not."
Neal advanced a step to his mistress and spoke in his low clear tone. "It was not my intention to speak to Miss Sara Davenal at all, ma'am, or to you either; I should not have thought of doing such a thing; but I could not help myself when Miss Sara questioned me upon the point."
All that was reasonable and feasible, and Miss Davenal nodded her head in approbation; but her nephew the captain got in a passion, and insisted that he should be discharged there and then.
Neal was quite ready to go, he said, civilly courteous, if his mistress saw fit to inflict upon him so severe a step. He was unconscious of having done anything to merit it. Perhaps she would be pleased to particularise his offence.
"He is a villain, aunt," broke forth the captain intemperately, before Miss Bettina could speak. "I believe he has been one ever since my father took him into the house. He has opened letters and unlocked desks, and altogether played the part of deceit. Heshallgo."
Neal interrupted, humbly begging the captain's pardon. He could most truthfully assure his mistress that he had done nothing of the sort; he had never opened a letter in the house, except his own; had never touched a desk, but to dust it. If Captain Davenal could mention any other distinct charge, he should be glad, as it would allow him an opportunity of refutation. No. His conscience acquitted him. He should quit the house, if he did have to quit it, with a clear character, and he thought his mistress would acknowledge that he deserved one. In the one little point concerning Mrs. Wentworth he might have been in error: first, in too readily giving ear to what she said; next, in not having spoken to Miss Sara to set the doubt at rest in her mind. They were mistakes certainly, and he greatly regretted them.
"Neal," said the captain, too hot-headed to maintain his dignity, "I'd a hundred times rather be an open villain than a sneak. Why, you know you have been nothing but a spy from the very moment you entered the house. Aunt Bettina, listen! Before the regiment went away I got into a little trouble, upon which I found it necessary to consult my father, and I went----"
"A little what?" asked Miss Bettina.
"Trouble. A little difficulty."
"Oh, ah, yes," said Miss Bettina. "You were always getting into it."
"Not such as that," thought the captain. "Well, I had to go down to Hallingham," he continued aloud, as he bent to her. "I did not care that any of you should know it, and I got down one night unexpected by my father. I was with him in his study for some time, and went back so as to be at duty the next morning. Would you believe"--pointing his finger at Neal--"that yon honest fellow was a spy upon the interview?"
Mr. Neal was a little taken by surprise, and Sara looked up astonished. But the man was not one to lose his impassability.
"He was at the window, looking and listening: not, I believe, that he could see and hear very much. And he afterwards went abroad and told of the interview: told that his master had a secret visitor at night. You little thought, Mr. Neal, that the visitor was myself, or that I should ever bring it home to you."
Neal, all unconscious innocence, gazed straight forward into Captain Davenal's face. "I have not the least idea what it is that you are speaking of, sir. My recollection does not serve me upon the point."
"O yes, it does," said Captain Davenal. "A subtle nature such as yours cannot forget so easily. Happily he to whom you carried the tale of the evening was a trustworthy man: he kept his own counsel, and told you Dr. Davenal's visitors were no business of his or of yours. I speak of Mr. Oswald Cray."
"Mr. Oswald Cray!" repeated Neal, plunging into reflection. "On my honour, sir, I have not the least idea of what it is you mean. A visitor at night to my late master in his study? Stay, I do remember something of it. I--yes--I was outside, taking a mouthful of fresh air preparatory to retiring to rest, and I saw some one--a stranger I took him to be--come stealthily in at the gate, and he was afterwards shut in with my master. I'm sure sir, I beg your pardon, even at this distance of time, if I was mistaken. I feared he might be a suspicious character, and I think I did go to the window, anxious for my master's personal safety. I could not have supposed it was you, sir."
Was it possible to take Neal at a disadvantage? It did not seem so.
"And it was anxiety for your master's personal safety that caused you afterwards to recount this to Mr. Oswald Cray? Eh?"
"Does Mr. Oswald Cray say I recounted it to him, sir?" inquired Neal, probably not feeling sure of his ground just here.
"That's my business," said Captain Davenal, while Sara looked round at Neal. "Youdidrecount it to him."
"All I can say, sir, is, that if I did, I must have had some good motive in it. I cannot charge my memory after this lapse of time. Were I in any anxiety touching my master, Mr. Oswald Cray was probably the gentleman I should carry it to, seeing he was a friend of the family. I have--I think--some faint remembrance that I did speak to Mr. Oswald Cray of that mysterious visitor," slowly added Neal, looking fixedly up in the air, as if he were tying to descry the sun through a fog. "It's very likely that I did, sir, not being at ease myself upon the point."
Captain Davenal was losing patience. It seemed impossible to bring anything home to Neal with any sort of satisfaction. At the close of the captain's interview with Oswald Cray, the latter had mentioned-- but not in any ill-feeling to Neal--that that functionary had spoken to him of the night interview at Dr. Davenal's; had said he was outside the window at the time. Oswald had not said more; he deemed it well not to do so; but Captain Davenal had become at once convinced that it was but one of Neal's prying tricks. He turned to Miss Davenal.
"Aunt Bettina, this is waste of time. In nearly the last interview I ever had with my father he told me he had doubts of Neal. He feared the man was carrying on a game of deceit. Iknowhe has been doing it all along. Will you discharge him?"
"I can't understand it at all," returned Miss Bettina.
"I'll enlighten you one of these days, when you are not very deaf, and we can have a quiet half-hour together. Sara, what do you say?"
Sara rose from her seat, her cheek flushing, her voice firm. "Neal must leave, Aunt Bettina," she said, bending down to the deaf ear. "Edward is quite right."
Miss Bettina looked at them all in succession. Had she believed the accusations she would have discharged Neal on the spot, but she doubted them. She had thought there was not so faithful a servant in the world. And he looked so immaculate as he stood there!
"I don't go out of the house this night until he has left it, Aunt Bettina," resumed the captain.
"This night!" echoed Miss Bettina, catching the words. "I can't let Neal go without warning, leaving us without a servant. Who is to wait upon us?"
"You shall have my servant, aunt; one I have brought home with me----"
"No," said Miss Bettina, resolute in the cause of justice. "Neal, I will not part with you in that hasty manner. I cannot judge yet between you and Captain Davenal. That you must leave is obvious; but you shall have the proper month's warning."
Neal stepped up, all suavity. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; you are very kind, but I could not think of remaining a day to cause unpleasantness in the family. I had better go at once. I have my feelings, ma'am, although I am but a dependant. My conscience tells me that I have served you faithfully."
"I think you have, Neal."
"I have indeed, ma'am, and I hope it will be remembered in my character."
"Don't send to me for one," impetuously broke out Captain Davenal. "And now, Neal, the sooner you are out of the house the better. I shall keep my word: to see you away from it ere I quit it myself."
Neal bowed; he could but be ever the respectful servant: and retired. Miss Davenal was bewildered. What with parting with Neal, what with being left with nobody to replace him, she could not gather her senses. Captain Davenal sat down. First of all promising her that the servant he spoke of should be in the house before night, to remain with her until she was suited with one, he next began to enlarge upon Neal's delinquencies, and try to make her comprehend them.
Sara silently left the room. It was altogether a painful subject, and she did not care to hear more of it now. She went down into the dining-parlour, her movements slow and quiet; since Mrs. Cray's increased danger noise had been avoided in the house as much as possible. Some one was standing up by the mantelpiece, his back towards her; in the dusk of the room--for evening was drawing on--Sara took it to be Mark; and yet she thought she had heard Mark's step in his wife's chamber now, as she came downstairs. This gentleman was taller, too! He turned suddenly round, and the fire threw its light on the face of Oswald Cray.
She stood a moment in surprise, and then went up to him, holding out her hand as to any ordinary visitor, and saying a word of apology that he should have been left there unannounced. A strange expression, an expression of deprecation, almost of humility, sat on his features, and he did not touch the offered hand.
"I waited to see you," he said. "I came here to see Mark, who has been with me."
He stopped suddenly. His manner, his looks, were altogether strange. Sara thought something must have happened.
"What is the matter?" she asked. "You look as if you had some great care upon you."
"And so I have. That care that arises from shame and repentance; from finding that we have been upon the mistaken road of wrong; been treading it for years."
She sat down, quietly, timidly, looking to him for an elucidation, half-frightened at his emotion.
"I wish to have an explanation with you, Sara. I want--if it be possible--forgiveness. And I don't know how to enter upon the one or to sue for the other."
She had rarely seen him otherwise than calmly self-possessed. Generally, especially of late years, he was cold almost to a fault. And now he was as one blazing with an inward fire: his lips were scarlet, his brow was flushed, his voice quite hoarse with emotion.
"In the years gone by, I--I--threw you up, Sara. While I loved you better than anything on earth, knowing that you were the only one upon it who could ever awaken the passion within me, did I live to centuries, I voluntarily resigned you. That night in the Abbey graveyard at Hallingham, when we accidentally met--you have not forgotten it--I told you that I could not marry you; that you were not fit to be my wife----Hush! it was equivalent to it Sara, how can I stand now before you and confess that I was altogether under an error; that in my pride, my blindness, I had taken up a false view of things, and was acting upon it? Can you see my shame, my repentance, as I say it to you?"
"I don't understand you," she gasped, utterly bewildered.
"Will you so far pardon me--will you so far trust me after all that has occurred--as to give me this one single word of explanation? To whom did you attribute the cause of my acting in the way I did? Whose ill-conduct was it, as you supposed, that had raised the barrier between us?"
She hesitated, not perhaps caring to reply.
"I have had an interview today with Captain Davenal," he resumed, in a low tone. "He has given me the details of the unhappy business he was drawn into--the forged bills: I am, so far, in his entire confidence. Will that help you to answer me?"
"It was that," she said.
"That alone?"
"That alone. There was nothing else."
"Well, Sara, can you believe me when I tell you that I never heard of that business until today?--That Captain Davenal had nothing whatever to do with my course of action?"
Indeed she looked as though she could not believe him. What else then? she asked. Who had? Under what impression had he acted?
"Ah, there lies my shame! Sara, I dared--I dared to attribute ill-conduct to another," he cried with emotion. "In my pride and folly, in my mind's delusion, I presumed to set myself up for a judge over one who in goodness might have crushed me to nothing. I shallneverget over the remorse during life."
"You--did not--attribute ill-conduct of any sort to me?" she said with white lips.
"Toyou!To you whom I have ever believed to be one of the best and truest women upon earth!--whom I have regarded through it all with an amount of respect unutterable! No, no. But the question serves me right."
She laid her hands one over the other as she sat, striving to keep her feelings under control. Praise from him was all too sweet yet.
"O do me justice so far, Sara! While I gave you up I knew that to my heart and judgment none were like unto you for goodness: I knew that if my obstinate pride, my spirit of self-sufficiency, did but allow me to marry you, you would be the greatest treasure man ever took to himself. Can you tolerate me while I dare openly to say these things?--can you believe that I am pouring them forth in my humiliation? I have loved you deeply and fervently; I shall love you always; but even that love has scarcely equalled my admiration and my respect."
"But who else, then, could have had any counteracting influence?" she returned, after a while.
"I dare not tell you."
"There was only Edward. I had no other brother. No one else could have done anything to bring shame upon----oh, surely you cannot mean papa!" she broke off, the improbable idea flashing over her.
"Don't ask me, Sara! In mercy to myself."
"Papa who was so good?" she reiterated, paying no heed to his words in her wonder. "He was so just, so kind, so honourable! I think if ever there was a good man on earth who tried to do as God would have him, it was papa. It is impossible you could suspect anything wrong in him!"
"My object in waiting to see you this evening was, first, to make my confession; secondly, to ask you to be more just, more merciful than I have been, and to forgive me," he rejoined in a low tone. "I must add another petition yet, Sara; that you would generously allow this one point to remain as it is between us."
"But I think you ought to tell me," she urged. "Did you indeed suspect papa?"
"Yes."
"But of what?"
"Ah, don't press me further, Sara, for I cannot tell you. A singular accident led me to doubt Dr. Davenal's conduct--honour--I hardly know what to call it--and there followed on this a chain of circumstances so apparently corroborative of the doubt that I thought I had no resource but to believe. I believed, and I acted upon the belief: I judged him harshly; I treated him coldly; I gave up you, my dearest hope and object in life; and this day only have my eyes been opened, and to my shame I learn that the whole thing, as regarded him, was a delusion.Willyou--will you generously let my confession rest here?"
"Papa would not have done as Edward did," she whispered.
"No, no, it was not anything of that nature. Money and money matters had nothing to do with it. It was an entirely different thing. I am so ashamed of myself that I cannotbearto speak of this further. Surely I have said enough. It was a mistake, a misapprehension altogether: and the greatest act of kindness you can do me now is to let it rest here."
She sat gazing at him with questioning eyes, nearly lost in wonder.
"Yes, the impression under which I acted was a false one. There existed no cause whatever for my estranging myself from you. But for my own unpardonable credulity I need never have given you up: and the past years of anguish--and I know they have been full of anguish to both of us--ought not to have had place. I was misled by an unfortunate chain of events: and nothing remains to me but shame and repentance."
There ensued a silence. Sara was standing on the hearth-rug now, and he took his elbow from the mantelpiece, where it had been resting, and moved a step towards her.
"Can I ever hope for your forgiveness?"
"It seems to me that I have nothing to forgive," she answered, in a low voice. "If circumstances misled you, you could not be blamed for acting upon them, according to your belief."
"Sara!"--he laid his hand upon her shoulder, and his voice shook with the intensity of its emotion--"may I dare to hope that you will let me in my future life strive to atone for this?"
"How atone for it?" she faltered.
"Will you generously look over the past folly?--will you suffer it to be between us as it used to be?--will you be my wife at last?"
She trembled as she stood, the conscious light of love mantling in her cheek and in her drooping eye. Mr. Oswald Cray held her before him, waiting and watching for the answer, his lips parted with suspense.
"My brother's crime remains still," she whispered. "A memento of the past."
"Your brother's crime! Should you be punished for that?--for him? And what ofmybrother?" he continued, the revelation of the day imparting to his tone a whole world of remorse, of self-condemning repentance. "What disgrace has not my brother brought to me? O Sara; should the ill wrought by these ties part us? It never ought to have done so. Let us stand alone, henceforth, you and I, independent of the world! Don't try me too greatly! don't punish me, as in justice you might!"
For a moment her eyes looked straight into his with a loving, earnest glance, and then dropped again. "I will be your wife, Oswald," she simply said. "I have never tried to forget you, for I knew I could not."
And as if relief from the tension of suspense were too great for entire silence, a faint sound of emotion broke from Oswald Cray. And he bent to take from her lips that kiss, left upon them so long ago in the garden-parlour of the old house at Hallingham.
An afternoon in March. The sun was drawing towards its setting amidst gorgeous clouds, and the red light, illumining the western sky, threw its rays into an invalid's chamber, and lighted it up with a warm hue.
Something else was drawing towards its setting; and that was the feeble life of the chamber's chief occupant. It was a good-sized pleasant room: the bed at the end farthest from the window; the middle space devoted to the comfort of the invalid, a table with some books upon its handsome cover, a sofa, easy chairs, velvet footstools, and a few pretty ornaments to amuse the eye.
On the sofa, by the side of the fire, a coverlid of the lightest and softest texture thrown gently over her, lay the invalid, her hands white and attenuated, her face drawn and wan. But there was a strange beauty in the face yet; in the eyes with their violet depths, in the exquisite features shaded by the mass of silky hair. You do not fail to recognise Mrs. Cray. Just now the eyes were closed, and she was dozing peacefully.
At the opposite end of the hearth-rug, sitting restlessly in an easy chair, was Mark. Of late Mark had been rather prone to be as still and idle as his wife: the inert life wearied him, it chafed its spirit; but there was no escape from it at present, and Mark Cray had perforce resigned himself to it, as an imprisoned bird resigns itself in time to its cage. Mark's future prospects were uncommonly vague: in fact they were as yet bounded by the old expectation-anchor, the "something" that was to "turn up." Any time in the past few weeks his wife's death might have been expected, and Mark had yielded to the idleness of the circumstances, and been tranquil. Mr. Barker was away in Paris, and did not write; the Wheal Bang affairs were going on to a comfortable conclusion, and Mark was letting the future take care of itself. Strolling out for short walks; giving a quarter of an hour to the "Times;" wandering for a few minutes into the sitting-rooms and the presence of Miss Bettina, and lounging back in the easy chairs by the side of his wife--thus had Mark's recent days been passed.
But on this afternoon all was changed, and Mark's forced quiescence had given place to a fidgety restlessness, very characteristic of the old times. The post had just brought a letter from Mr. Barker--some accident or contrary weather having delayed the arrival of the French mail--and Mark Cray upon reading it felt exalted into the seventh heaven.
Barker had succeeded! He had brought out a company in Paris connected with finance; the great work he had been striving for so long. In three weeks' time from that date it would all be in full operation, and if Mrs. Cray were sufficiently well to be left, and Mark came over to Paris, he could instantly step into a post in the Company at a salary of eight hundred a-year to begin with. In about six months' time, according to moderate computation, the thing would be in full swing, and the profits inaugurated certainly at not less than six thousand per annum; the half of which splendid income should be Mark's. Such was Mr. Barker's news.
Can you wonder at Mark's restlessness? At his brightened eye, his flushed face, as he sits there in the chair, bolt upright, his hand raised incessantly to push back his hair? He glances across at Caroline--whom he really loves very much still--and thinks what a pity it is that all this good fortune should have delayed itself until now. Had it come too late for her? Mark Cray in his sanguine fashion actually asks himself the question, medical man though he is. For the last two or three days Caroline had seemed so much better! only on this very morning she had told Mark she felt as if she were getting well again.
Mark moved his restless legs and contrived to knock down the fire-shovel. The noise awoke Caroline. She stirred, and turned her opening eyes on her husband.
"What was that? Did anybody come in, Mark?"
"I threw over one of the fire-irons. I am sorry it disturbed you. They are always sticking out, tiresome things! It's not a proper fender for a bedroom. Caroline, I have had a letter from Barker," he continued, rising in excitement and standing before her on the hearth-rug. "It's the most glorious news! The thing's realised at last."
"What thing?" asked Caroline, feebly, after a pause of bewilderment.
"The thing he has had on hand so long, the great scheme he has been working for. O Carine, I wish you could get better! There's eight hundred a year waiting for me in Paris; and there'll be an income of at least three thousand before six months are over. Three thousand for my share, you know. I'm sure you would like living in Paris."
She did not answer. Nothing was heard save the quick gasps of the panting breath, the result of excessive weakness, or--of--something else coming very near. Mark was struck with some change in her aspect, and bent down to her.
"Don't you feel so well, Carine?"
"I--feel--weary," was all she answered, her voice ominously low.
"Where's Sara, I wonder?" said Mark. "I'll go and send her to you. You want some beef-tea, or something, I daresay."
Mark went down the stairs, meeting Sara on them. In the drawing-room, with Miss Bettina, was Oswald Cray, who had just come in. He was a frequent visitor now.
The half-brothers shook hands, coldly enough. They were civil to each other always, but there could never be cordiality between them. Not because of the past; but because they were so essentially different in mind, in judgment, and in conduct.
"My luck has turned at last, Oswald," exclaimed Mark impulsively.
"In what way?" asked Oswald, who was leaning over the back of a chair while he talked to Miss Bettina.
"I have just had a letter from Barker," answered Mark, running his hand through his hair with his restless fingers. "I told you what a great scheme he had got on hand in Paris, but you turned the cold shoulder on it. Well, it's bearing fruit at last."
"Oh," said Oswald, evincing a desire, if his tone and manner might be judged by, to turn the cold shoulder on it still, metaphorically speaking. "How is your wife this afternoon?" he continued, passing to a different subject.
"She has been so much better the last few days that one might almost be tempted to hope she'd get well again," rejoined Mark, volubly. "She seems tired now--low, I thought. Sara's just gone up to her. What a shame it is that things turn out so cross-grained and contrary!"
The concluding sentence, delivered with marked acumen, reached the ear of Miss Bettina. She looked up from her knitting to scan Mark.
"If Barker's luck had only been realised six months ago, what a thing it would have been!" he went on. "Caroline might have got better, instead of worse. In the enjoyment of luxuries in a home of her own, renewed wealth and position in prospective, with the pure air of the balmy French capital, there's no knowing what benefit she might not have derived. And now it comes too late! I shall ever regret it for her sake."
"Regret what?" sharply interposed Miss Bettina.
Mark replied by giving a summary of Barker's luck. Miss Bettina paused, knitting-needles in hand, her keen grey eyes fixed on Mark, as she tried to understand him.
"Barker in luck!" she repeated, catching some of the words and the general sense. "Has he come into an estate in the moon? Don't be a simpleton, Mark Cray."
Mark Cray felt exasperated. Nothing angered him so much as for people to pretend to see these enchanting prospects with different eyes from his own. He had always been convinced it was done only to vex him. Poor Mark! He turned to Oswald, and began expatiating upon the good fortune that was drawing so near; and Oswald saw that it was of no use to try to stop him. The fever-mania had again taken hold of Mark.
"What is the scheme, do you say?" asked Oswald, just as he would have asked anything of a child; and perhaps it was not altogether his fault that a sound of mockery was discernible in his tone.
"It's connected with finance."
"Oh!" said Oswald.
"It is the grandest thing that has been brought before the public for many a year," continued Mark, his voice impressive, his light eyes sparkling. "The very greatest--"
"Grander than the Great Wheal Bang?" inopportunely interposed Miss Bettina, Mark's earnest tones having enabled her to hear better than usual.
"A hundred times grander," returned Mark, his mind too completely absorbed in the contemplation of the grandeur to detect the irony. "That is, better, you know, Miss Bettina. The mine was very good; but of course therewasa risk attending that, from water or other causes, and the result unfortunately realised it. This is different. Once the company is formed, and the shares are taken, it can't fail. Barker and I went through the thing together over and over again when he was in London; we had it all down before us in black and white. We allowed for every possible risk and contingency, and we provedthat the thing could not fail, if once organised."
Oswald listened quietly. Miss Bettina had lost the thread again.
"The job was to organise the thing," resumed Mark. "It could not be done without money, and Barker--to speak the truth--found a difficulty in getting that. The money market was tight here, and men don't care to speculate when money's not plentiful. He also required the co-operation of some French capitalist, who would put his name to it--some good man on the Bourse, andthatwas hard to get. Those Frenchmen are all so narrow-minded, fight so shy. He knows two or three good Englishmen in Paris who were willing to go into it, and who helped Barker immensely with advice and introductions, and that; but they had no funds at command. However, it's all accomplished now. Barker has fought his way through impediments, and surmounted them. The company's formed, the preliminary arrangements are successfully carried out, and fortune is at hand."
"What's at hand?" asked Miss Bettina.
"Fortune," repeated Mark. "I shall take one of those nice little boxes in the Champs Elysées. Some of them are charming. Or perhaps only part of one if--if Carine--O dear! it is hard for her that this luck did not fall in a year ago! I wonder," broke off Mark, passing to another phase of his future visions, "I wonder whether, if it were possible to get Caroline over to Paris now, the change might benefit her?"
"You think of residing in Paris?" said Oswald.
"Of course I do. Paris will be the centre of operations. Barker wants me over there at once; and the minute I join him I begin to draw at the rate of eight hundred a-year. Just to go on with, you know, until the money falls in."
"Mark," said Oswald, after a pause, "will it be ofanyuse my saying a word of warning to you?"
"On what subject?" returned Mark, looking up with surprise.
"On this subject. It seems to me that you are falling into another delusion; that the--"
"No, it will not be of any use," burst forth Mark in strange excitement "I might have known beforehand that you'd turn out my enemy upon the point. If gold and diamonds were dropping down in a shower from the skies you'd not stretch forth your hand to catch them. There's a mist before your eyes, Oswald, that prevents you seeing these things in their proper aspect."
He began to pace the room as he spoke, chafing considerablyWhywas it that these little hints of warning awoke the irritation of Mark's spirit? Could there be an undercurrent of doubt in his mind whether Oswald was right and he wrong? However it might be, one thing was certain--that no warning, let it come from whom it would, could do any good with Mark.
As he turned to face them again, Sara entered. An expression of alarm was on her face, and she closed the door before speaking. She had come to say that Caroline appeared worse; altogether different from usual.
Mark ran up the stairs; Miss Bettina put down her knitting to follow. Sara turned to Oswald Cray.
"She knows you are here, Oswald, and would like to see you. She wants to bid you goodbye. I think her saying that alarmed me more than anything."
Caroline was on the sofa as before. Very quiet, save for her panting breath. Her white hands lay listless, her face, dreadfully worn though it was, was calm, tranquil. She looked at them one by one, and slightly raised her hand as Oswald entered. He bent down to her, taking it in his.
"Thank you for all," she whispered.
The change in her countenance struck them. It so far frightened Mark as to take from him his self-possession. He pushed Oswald away.
"O Carine, what is it? You cannot be going to die! You must not die, now that all this good luck is coming upon me!"
She glanced up at him, her eyes wide open, as if she scarcely understood.
"There's the most beautiful home getting ready for you in Paris Carine," he resumed, his voice sounding as if he were on the verge of tears. "We'll live in the Champ Elysées; it is the loveliest spot, and you can't fail to grow better there, if we can only get your disease to turn. O Carine! don't leave me just when I am able to surround you with wealth and luxury again! This will be a greater and a surer thing than the Great Wheal Bang."
"Don't, Mark! I am going to a better home."
"But I can't let you go until I have atoned for the past! I----"
"Hush, hush!" she interrupted. "O Mark! if you only knew how welcome it is to me! I am going to be at peace after all the turmoil. I am going to rest."
"Do youwantto go?" pursued Mark, half-resentfully. "Don't youcareto get well?"
"I have not cared to get well since I came to England. That is, I have not thought I should," she returned between the gasps of her laboured breath. "When I heard the bell toll out for Prince Albert, I asked who was I that I should be spared when he was taken? The next world has seemed very near to me since then. As if the doors of it had been brought down to earth, and stood always open."
That the death of the Prince, brought so palpably, as may be said, before her, had taken a great hold on the mind of Mrs. Cray there was no doubt. Several times during her later weeks of illness she had alluded to it. Her principal feeling in relation to it appeared to be that ofgratitude. Not gratitude for his death; there was only sorrow for that; but for the strange impression it had left upon her own mind, the vista of the Hereafter. For the good and great prince to be taken suddenly from the earthly duties so much needing him was only an earnest, had one been wanting, that he had entered upon a better and higher sphere. It seemed that he had but been removed a step; a step on the road towards heaven; and it most certainly in a measure had the effect of reconciling her to her own removal, of tranquillising her weary heart, of bringing her thoughts and feelings into that state most fitting to prepare for it. Often and often had she awoke from a deep sleep, starting suddenly up and calling out, "I thought I heard St. Paul's bell again?"
"I wish the Great Wheal Bang had been in the sea!" gloomily exclaimed Mark Cray, who was no more calculated for a scene such as this than a child, and had little more control over his tongue. "But for that mine turning out as it did your illness might never have come on."
"Don't regret it, Mark," she feebly said. "God's hand was in it all. I look back and trace it. But for the trouble brought to me then, I might never have been reconciled to go. It is so merciful! God has weaned me from the world before removing me from it."
Mark Cray drew a little back and stood gazing at his wife a gloomy helpless sort of expression on his countenance as his right hand nervously pushed back his hair. Oswald was at the head of the sofa, Sara near to him, and Miss Bettina was at the far end of the room, looking after some comforting medicine drops. Thus there was a clear space before the sofa, and the red light from the fire played on Caroline's wasted features. That she was dying--dying suddenly, as may be said--there could be no doubt.
"If things had not turned out so crossly!" began Mark again. "I knew I should redeem the misfortunes of that Wheal Bang. I always told you I should extricate myself, Caroline."
"We shall all be extricated from our misfortunes here," came from her dying lips. "A few years more or less of toil, and strife, and daily care, and then redemption comes. Not the redemption thatwework. O Mark, if you could see things as I now see them! When we are on the threshold of the next world our eyes are opened to the poor value of this. Its worst cares have been but petty trials, its greatest heartache was not worth the pang. They were but hillocks that we had to pass in our journey upwards, and God was always leading us. If we could but trust to Him! If we did but learn to resign our hands implicitly to his and be led as little children!"
Mark Cray felt somewhat awed. He began to doubt whether it were exactly the time and place to pour forth regrets after the misfortunes of the Great Wheal Bang, or enlarge on the future glories opening to him in the French capital.
"It is so much better for me to be at rest! God is taking me to the place where change and sickness cannot enter. I shall see Uncle Richard: I shall see poor Richard who went before him: I shall see papa and mamma, whom I have nearly forgotten. We all go, some sooner, some later. This world lasts but a little minute; that one is the home, the gathering-place. Mark, dear Mark! the troubles here are of so little moment; they are only trifling hindrances through which we must bear on to Eternity. Oh, trust God! They are all sent by him."
There occurred an interruption. Mr. Welch, who had not been able to call before that day, came in, and the solemn feeling that had been stealing over those in the chamber gave place to the ordinary routine of everyday event.
"Before the morning," the surgeon said when he left, in answer to a grave question put to him by Miss Bettina.