Chapter Eighteen.Bergen Again.A telegram from Sir Michael, thanking him for his promptitude, was put into Wareham’s hands as he stepped on board the boat. It told him no more than he knew before, that no other person was available for poor Hugh, but it gave his conscience an imperative excuse for his present action. Undoubtedly some one had to go, and as undoubtedly that some one was himself.Two days and nights of forced quietude give ample time for reflection. Wareham tried to attach his thoughts exclusively to Hugh. So sudden an illness was strange. He remembered now, and with compunction, that during their short meeting at Balholm he had once or twice thought him looking ill, but there had seemed reason for it, in the hasty, anxious journey he had made, and Hugh himself had uttered no complaint of physical suffering. Wareham wondered whether any accident had happened.It was again theEldoradoon which he found himself, and theEldoradoinevitably carried back his thoughts to Anne standing on the deck. He remembered the repulsion with which he had first seen her, and yet, as he knew now, the involuntary admiration against which he had battled. One short month ago! It appeared a lifetime. How inexplicable she had been, but how enchanting! Memory went lovingly over the days, the hours, made dear by her presence, and he awoke with a start. This was not thinking of Hugh.He tried to extract assistance from his fellow-passengers, but they were not many. It was late for people to betake themselves to short-summered lands, and it was the homeward vessels which were crowded. He found a few Norwegians his pleasantest companions, but spent a good many hours alone, looking at the long green sweep of the waves, and growing increasingly impatient. At Stavanger he went on shore, avoiding the Grand.The low islands and rocky coast were singularly familiar, so was Bergen, its hills grey, its red roofs insistent. Among the crowd on the landing-place Wareham quickly recognised Colonel Martyn’s thin length, and perceived that he was expected.The greeting was unemotional.“Had a good passage? But I needn’t ask. You are only half-an-hour behind time.”“You have not spent it in waiting, I hope?”“Not I. That long fellow, Smeby, sees to all that, and sent word when your boat was in sight.”“How is Hugh?”Colonel Martyns face took an added gloom.“Bad, I fear.”Wareham glanced quickly at him.“Danger?”“Afraid so.”Silence. The grey stones at Wareham’s feet grew for a moment indistinct, then he put a question in an unchanged voice.“I’m in the dark, remember. What is it, illness or accident?”“Oh, illness—in fact, typhoid. They say the seeds were in him when he came, then everything aggravated the attack. I felt doubtful about him from the day after you left, but one couldn’t get him to knock off. At last he collapsed at Molde, and the only possible thing was to put him on the steamer and come down to Bergen, where he could be better seen to. We got here on Monday.”At the end of a few steps, Wareham remarked—“I wish I had brought a doctor.”“Well—for your own satisfaction. But on that point we’ve been lucky. An English doctor turned up at Molde, and came along with us. He keeps an eye on the Norwegian fellow, and is satisfied.”As to nurses, too, they had been fortunate. Not only had one been found who spoke English, but an English nurse, going home in attendance on a lady, had been captured, and installed.By the time all this was told, they had reached the door of the hotel. Colonel Martyn looked into a room.“Blanche and Anne are out,” he said. “What will you do? Go up?”“At once, if I can.”But Wareham had to curb his impatience for half-an-hour. Colonel Martyn left him, and at the end of that time a nurse, who astonished him by her youth, came to tell him that he might see Mr Forbes.“You will be careful not to excite him, sir,” she said warningly.“Does he expect me?”“Yes. He was certain you would come.” He asked no more questions. To see and judge for himself was his thought. The dark room gave him his first pang, it was so unlike Hugh’s love of light and life. Then he began to distinguish eyes gazing at him from hollow depths, and his heart sank. A weak voice—not Hugh’s surely—said,—“Here you are, old fellow!”“Come to look after you,” said Wareham guardedly. “You’ve been tumbling into mischief.”“Is Ella with you?”“She’s playing about in Germany somewhere, and there was no getting at her in time. So Sir Michael approved of my coming instead.”“Poor old dad!”“I’m going to telegraph to him presently.”“Lie to follow by post,” quoted Hugh, with a weak smile.“No. I expect to tell him that the sight of me has given you a start.”No answer came. Wareham perceived with a pang that Hugh’s boyish jollity had left him, and found himself wondering for the hundredth time whether disappointment had—not caused, but fed the fever. He dared put no questions, each one that suggested itself seeming to threaten excitement. At last he remarked that, considering the stones of Bergen, the room was fairly quiet. The nurse answered that this bedroom had been specially chosen on that account. She came and stood at the bottom of the bed, looking at her patient; and Wareham inquired in a low voice whether there were anything he could get?She thought nothing. Colonel Martyn and Miss Dalrymple were careful to carry out all that could be suggested.“He dozes a good deal.”To the uninstructed mind, that seemed the most hopeful thing yet extracted; yet something in Hugh’s face, dimly seen, and even in his attitude, gave his friend a sharp pang of uneasiness. The nurse went back to her place, her patient’s eyes were closed, and Wareham’s presence seemed to be unnoticed. All was silent except for the sound of breathing, the buzzing of a fly, and the occasional drip of melting ice through flannel. Wareham sat like a statue. His thoughts fastened themselves upon Anne Dalrymple’s name, and wondered impatiently how he was to learn the relations in which she and Hugh stood to each other. Except from herself, it seemed unlikely that he would learn anything. And how much did Hugh know? Had the letter overtaken him?Restlessness came at intervals, and Wareham would have been sent away, but that the name of “Dick” was audible more than once in the wandering, and the nurse fancied that his presence had a quieting influence. It was quite an hour and a half before he stole out of the room and down to that which had been got ready for him.After a bath, he had an interview with the doctor, a fair-haired young Norwegian, sensible, and, Wareham thought, clever. It was not reassuring. The disease had laid hold with great force, and there were grave fears as to the strength holding out. Still youth was on the side of hope. The doctor thought he had battled too long at first, when he dragged himself about, though feeling ill. Now, all was being done that could be thought of. If Mr Wareham wished for a third opinion, he could call in the head of the hospital; perhaps before doing so he would like to have a conversation with his compatriot? To this Wareham agreed, and after sending as favourable a telegram to the old father as conscience allowed, crept up to Hugh’s room again to learn that there was no change, and went down to wait for Dr Scott to return to the hotel.The small salon had little to offer beyond a piano and some loose pieces of music. Wareham drew a chair to the window and sat there, watching the passers-by in the street. He had waited for half-an-hour before the English doctor came in, a sallow keen-eyed man, with spectacles.“Mr Wareham?”“And you are Dr Scott? Mr Forbes’ friends are greatly indebted to you.”The other wasted no time in disclaiming. “I am glad you are come. Mr Forbes is very ill.”“So I gather.” He had meant to have pushed the question of hope home to this doctor, but something within him revolted. Why insist upon a form of words?“Of course,” the other went on, “you feel that he is at a disadvantage among strangers. But there are clever medical men here, and from what I have seen, you may have perfect confidence in young Sivertsen.” He spoke quickly. “Were I you, I would make no change.”“I don’t dream of it, and what you say is very satisfactory. The utmost I thought of was the advisability of another opinion in consultation. If the case is so grave, it might be desirable for his father’s sake.”“Certainly. I agree with you. Sivertsen thought this would be your wish.”“I hope you are not leaving?”“Not necessarily at once. My holiday is longer than usual, owing to its being a recruiting after illness, and I can remain another week.”Wareham expressed his pleasure. The doctor took up an old illustrated paper.“If it had been practicable for him to have gone straight to England from Molde,” he went on, “it would doubtless have been better for his family, but it is unlikely that it would have made any difference in the disease.”“I suppose no steamer was available?”“No. Though Lord Milborough’s Yacht arrived just after we had got him on board, and followed us here.”“Lord Milborough! Is he in Bergen?”“You may see his yacht if you go round to the harbour. I rather think that Mrs Martyn and Miss Dalrymple may be on board.”This struck strangely on Wareham’s ears, though, after all, there was nothing very strange about it. He asked if he might go up to Hugh, and was advised not. Quiet was, of all things, necessary, for the temperature rose as the day went on, and with increase of fever came delirium.“I’m not a bad nurse,” he pleaded. “Can’t I relieve guard?”“Oh, you will be useful, but not in that way,” said the doctor inexorably. “Will you come out for a turn? I have been over the leper hospital, and shall not be sorry for a whiff of fresh air.”The day was grey and colourless; the water had grown leaden. Wareham found himself longing to look at the yacht, but too much ashamed of the wish to express it. It was, however, in the doctors mind, and they found themselves gazing down from the Frederiksberg. There in the broad harbour lay two or three yachts. Wareham inquired which was Lord Milborough’s.“She lies behind. TheCamilla. White.”“Oh, the schooner.”“Beautifully fitted up, they say.”Wareham kept his eyes fixed upon the yacht, where fancy planted Anne, dispensing smiles. He did not listen while his companion talked of novel inventions introduced into hisCamillaby Lord Milborough. He heard, however, that he daily sent the ice wanted for Hugh. By way of saying something, Wareham at last remarked that he had never met Lord Milborough.“You have seen many others of his pattern. He is emphatically the young man of the age; kind-hearted, indifferent, self-pleasing. His inclination is towards refined pleasures.”The description sounded too tolerant to Wareham, who had adopted a rapid distrust of Lord Milborough, for which he would have found it difficult to account. He believed that his companion was merely quoting stock phrases, which had done duty until they had lost the freshness of a sketch from life. He painted his own picture of the subject, working out that word, self-pleasing, until the likeness was chiefly shadow. An intuitive sense of unfairness, however, enabled him to keep the portrait to himself.Dr Scott’s energy soon began to fidget for exercise. He wanted to walk a mile or two. Wareham would have chosen rather to wait and see whether Anne put off in one of the boats buzzing round the yacht; to see her especially from his vantage height. But he became aware that folly was fighting for the upper hand, and walked away discontentedly.He was taken briskly through the town, along streets of white-painted, red-tiled houses. Lofoden boats were in the harbour, laden withklipfisk, or oil. The greyness turned to drizzling rain, and the view from the Floien, which was the object of their walk, had vanished into mist. Dr Scott advised his companion to come early one morning.On the way back, Wareham put a question. Had Hugh seen either Mrs Martyn or Miss Dalrymple since they reached Bergen? Dr Scott’s answer came after a momentary hesitation.“Once. To say the truth, we have not encouraged their visits. Mrs Martyn—well, Mrs Martyn was not intended by nature for a sick-room, and though Miss Dalrymple showed extreme tact and kindness, the sight of her sent up his temperature.” He added dryly—“I imagine she not infrequently has a disturbing effect upon heads and hearts?” and without waiting for an answer, went on—“So farwehave succeeded in warding it off; it is, however, highly probable that he will insist, in which case—”“He is to see her?”“Certainly. The irritation of refusal would be more harmful than the other sort of excitement.”“One question. When do you expect a crisis?”He was answered that this was difficult to say, owing to their not knowing the time that he was attacked. Things pointed, however, to a day early in next week. Dr Scott hoped not longer, then turned the conversation.They were met at the door of the hotel by Colonel Martyn.“Just back from the yacht,” he announced. “Milborough wanted us to dine on board. As we wouldn’t, he’s coming here. I’ve been up, doctor, and seen one of your dragons. No change.”The doctor nodded and began to mount the stairs. He turned to say to Wareham—“What’s your number? I’ll send for you if I think it desirable.”Wareham told him, adding, “I’ll be there or in the salon.”“You’d better look in, and see my wife and Miss Dalrymple,” suggested Colonel Martyn, flinging open the door. “Any one here? No—I suppose they’ve gone to rest, women always make out they’re tired with doing nothing. Well, we shall meet by and by.”Wareham acquiesced, and went off to solitude. Before long a nurse tapped at his door. Mr Forbes had called for him so often, the doctor thought he should come, under strict injunctions of quiet. He found him restless and wandering, and as his presence seemed to give a certain ease, remained there until late, when he went down for a solitary meal. The diningsaalwas deserted, but he was provided with a small table by the window, and with what could hastily be heated again. He had drunk his coffee, and was thinking of returning to Hugh, when there was a rustle of silk in the doorway, and there stood Anne Dalrymple.
A telegram from Sir Michael, thanking him for his promptitude, was put into Wareham’s hands as he stepped on board the boat. It told him no more than he knew before, that no other person was available for poor Hugh, but it gave his conscience an imperative excuse for his present action. Undoubtedly some one had to go, and as undoubtedly that some one was himself.
Two days and nights of forced quietude give ample time for reflection. Wareham tried to attach his thoughts exclusively to Hugh. So sudden an illness was strange. He remembered now, and with compunction, that during their short meeting at Balholm he had once or twice thought him looking ill, but there had seemed reason for it, in the hasty, anxious journey he had made, and Hugh himself had uttered no complaint of physical suffering. Wareham wondered whether any accident had happened.
It was again theEldoradoon which he found himself, and theEldoradoinevitably carried back his thoughts to Anne standing on the deck. He remembered the repulsion with which he had first seen her, and yet, as he knew now, the involuntary admiration against which he had battled. One short month ago! It appeared a lifetime. How inexplicable she had been, but how enchanting! Memory went lovingly over the days, the hours, made dear by her presence, and he awoke with a start. This was not thinking of Hugh.
He tried to extract assistance from his fellow-passengers, but they were not many. It was late for people to betake themselves to short-summered lands, and it was the homeward vessels which were crowded. He found a few Norwegians his pleasantest companions, but spent a good many hours alone, looking at the long green sweep of the waves, and growing increasingly impatient. At Stavanger he went on shore, avoiding the Grand.
The low islands and rocky coast were singularly familiar, so was Bergen, its hills grey, its red roofs insistent. Among the crowd on the landing-place Wareham quickly recognised Colonel Martyn’s thin length, and perceived that he was expected.
The greeting was unemotional.
“Had a good passage? But I needn’t ask. You are only half-an-hour behind time.”
“You have not spent it in waiting, I hope?”
“Not I. That long fellow, Smeby, sees to all that, and sent word when your boat was in sight.”
“How is Hugh?”
Colonel Martyns face took an added gloom.
“Bad, I fear.”
Wareham glanced quickly at him.
“Danger?”
“Afraid so.”
Silence. The grey stones at Wareham’s feet grew for a moment indistinct, then he put a question in an unchanged voice.
“I’m in the dark, remember. What is it, illness or accident?”
“Oh, illness—in fact, typhoid. They say the seeds were in him when he came, then everything aggravated the attack. I felt doubtful about him from the day after you left, but one couldn’t get him to knock off. At last he collapsed at Molde, and the only possible thing was to put him on the steamer and come down to Bergen, where he could be better seen to. We got here on Monday.”
At the end of a few steps, Wareham remarked—
“I wish I had brought a doctor.”
“Well—for your own satisfaction. But on that point we’ve been lucky. An English doctor turned up at Molde, and came along with us. He keeps an eye on the Norwegian fellow, and is satisfied.”
As to nurses, too, they had been fortunate. Not only had one been found who spoke English, but an English nurse, going home in attendance on a lady, had been captured, and installed.
By the time all this was told, they had reached the door of the hotel. Colonel Martyn looked into a room.
“Blanche and Anne are out,” he said. “What will you do? Go up?”
“At once, if I can.”
But Wareham had to curb his impatience for half-an-hour. Colonel Martyn left him, and at the end of that time a nurse, who astonished him by her youth, came to tell him that he might see Mr Forbes.
“You will be careful not to excite him, sir,” she said warningly.
“Does he expect me?”
“Yes. He was certain you would come.” He asked no more questions. To see and judge for himself was his thought. The dark room gave him his first pang, it was so unlike Hugh’s love of light and life. Then he began to distinguish eyes gazing at him from hollow depths, and his heart sank. A weak voice—not Hugh’s surely—said,—
“Here you are, old fellow!”
“Come to look after you,” said Wareham guardedly. “You’ve been tumbling into mischief.”
“Is Ella with you?”
“She’s playing about in Germany somewhere, and there was no getting at her in time. So Sir Michael approved of my coming instead.”
“Poor old dad!”
“I’m going to telegraph to him presently.”
“Lie to follow by post,” quoted Hugh, with a weak smile.
“No. I expect to tell him that the sight of me has given you a start.”
No answer came. Wareham perceived with a pang that Hugh’s boyish jollity had left him, and found himself wondering for the hundredth time whether disappointment had—not caused, but fed the fever. He dared put no questions, each one that suggested itself seeming to threaten excitement. At last he remarked that, considering the stones of Bergen, the room was fairly quiet. The nurse answered that this bedroom had been specially chosen on that account. She came and stood at the bottom of the bed, looking at her patient; and Wareham inquired in a low voice whether there were anything he could get?
She thought nothing. Colonel Martyn and Miss Dalrymple were careful to carry out all that could be suggested.
“He dozes a good deal.”
To the uninstructed mind, that seemed the most hopeful thing yet extracted; yet something in Hugh’s face, dimly seen, and even in his attitude, gave his friend a sharp pang of uneasiness. The nurse went back to her place, her patient’s eyes were closed, and Wareham’s presence seemed to be unnoticed. All was silent except for the sound of breathing, the buzzing of a fly, and the occasional drip of melting ice through flannel. Wareham sat like a statue. His thoughts fastened themselves upon Anne Dalrymple’s name, and wondered impatiently how he was to learn the relations in which she and Hugh stood to each other. Except from herself, it seemed unlikely that he would learn anything. And how much did Hugh know? Had the letter overtaken him?
Restlessness came at intervals, and Wareham would have been sent away, but that the name of “Dick” was audible more than once in the wandering, and the nurse fancied that his presence had a quieting influence. It was quite an hour and a half before he stole out of the room and down to that which had been got ready for him.
After a bath, he had an interview with the doctor, a fair-haired young Norwegian, sensible, and, Wareham thought, clever. It was not reassuring. The disease had laid hold with great force, and there were grave fears as to the strength holding out. Still youth was on the side of hope. The doctor thought he had battled too long at first, when he dragged himself about, though feeling ill. Now, all was being done that could be thought of. If Mr Wareham wished for a third opinion, he could call in the head of the hospital; perhaps before doing so he would like to have a conversation with his compatriot? To this Wareham agreed, and after sending as favourable a telegram to the old father as conscience allowed, crept up to Hugh’s room again to learn that there was no change, and went down to wait for Dr Scott to return to the hotel.
The small salon had little to offer beyond a piano and some loose pieces of music. Wareham drew a chair to the window and sat there, watching the passers-by in the street. He had waited for half-an-hour before the English doctor came in, a sallow keen-eyed man, with spectacles.
“Mr Wareham?”
“And you are Dr Scott? Mr Forbes’ friends are greatly indebted to you.”
The other wasted no time in disclaiming. “I am glad you are come. Mr Forbes is very ill.”
“So I gather.” He had meant to have pushed the question of hope home to this doctor, but something within him revolted. Why insist upon a form of words?
“Of course,” the other went on, “you feel that he is at a disadvantage among strangers. But there are clever medical men here, and from what I have seen, you may have perfect confidence in young Sivertsen.” He spoke quickly. “Were I you, I would make no change.”
“I don’t dream of it, and what you say is very satisfactory. The utmost I thought of was the advisability of another opinion in consultation. If the case is so grave, it might be desirable for his father’s sake.”
“Certainly. I agree with you. Sivertsen thought this would be your wish.”
“I hope you are not leaving?”
“Not necessarily at once. My holiday is longer than usual, owing to its being a recruiting after illness, and I can remain another week.”
Wareham expressed his pleasure. The doctor took up an old illustrated paper.
“If it had been practicable for him to have gone straight to England from Molde,” he went on, “it would doubtless have been better for his family, but it is unlikely that it would have made any difference in the disease.”
“I suppose no steamer was available?”
“No. Though Lord Milborough’s Yacht arrived just after we had got him on board, and followed us here.”
“Lord Milborough! Is he in Bergen?”
“You may see his yacht if you go round to the harbour. I rather think that Mrs Martyn and Miss Dalrymple may be on board.”
This struck strangely on Wareham’s ears, though, after all, there was nothing very strange about it. He asked if he might go up to Hugh, and was advised not. Quiet was, of all things, necessary, for the temperature rose as the day went on, and with increase of fever came delirium.
“I’m not a bad nurse,” he pleaded. “Can’t I relieve guard?”
“Oh, you will be useful, but not in that way,” said the doctor inexorably. “Will you come out for a turn? I have been over the leper hospital, and shall not be sorry for a whiff of fresh air.”
The day was grey and colourless; the water had grown leaden. Wareham found himself longing to look at the yacht, but too much ashamed of the wish to express it. It was, however, in the doctors mind, and they found themselves gazing down from the Frederiksberg. There in the broad harbour lay two or three yachts. Wareham inquired which was Lord Milborough’s.
“She lies behind. TheCamilla. White.”
“Oh, the schooner.”
“Beautifully fitted up, they say.”
Wareham kept his eyes fixed upon the yacht, where fancy planted Anne, dispensing smiles. He did not listen while his companion talked of novel inventions introduced into hisCamillaby Lord Milborough. He heard, however, that he daily sent the ice wanted for Hugh. By way of saying something, Wareham at last remarked that he had never met Lord Milborough.
“You have seen many others of his pattern. He is emphatically the young man of the age; kind-hearted, indifferent, self-pleasing. His inclination is towards refined pleasures.”
The description sounded too tolerant to Wareham, who had adopted a rapid distrust of Lord Milborough, for which he would have found it difficult to account. He believed that his companion was merely quoting stock phrases, which had done duty until they had lost the freshness of a sketch from life. He painted his own picture of the subject, working out that word, self-pleasing, until the likeness was chiefly shadow. An intuitive sense of unfairness, however, enabled him to keep the portrait to himself.
Dr Scott’s energy soon began to fidget for exercise. He wanted to walk a mile or two. Wareham would have chosen rather to wait and see whether Anne put off in one of the boats buzzing round the yacht; to see her especially from his vantage height. But he became aware that folly was fighting for the upper hand, and walked away discontentedly.
He was taken briskly through the town, along streets of white-painted, red-tiled houses. Lofoden boats were in the harbour, laden withklipfisk, or oil. The greyness turned to drizzling rain, and the view from the Floien, which was the object of their walk, had vanished into mist. Dr Scott advised his companion to come early one morning.
On the way back, Wareham put a question. Had Hugh seen either Mrs Martyn or Miss Dalrymple since they reached Bergen? Dr Scott’s answer came after a momentary hesitation.
“Once. To say the truth, we have not encouraged their visits. Mrs Martyn—well, Mrs Martyn was not intended by nature for a sick-room, and though Miss Dalrymple showed extreme tact and kindness, the sight of her sent up his temperature.” He added dryly—“I imagine she not infrequently has a disturbing effect upon heads and hearts?” and without waiting for an answer, went on—“So farwehave succeeded in warding it off; it is, however, highly probable that he will insist, in which case—”
“He is to see her?”
“Certainly. The irritation of refusal would be more harmful than the other sort of excitement.”
“One question. When do you expect a crisis?”
He was answered that this was difficult to say, owing to their not knowing the time that he was attacked. Things pointed, however, to a day early in next week. Dr Scott hoped not longer, then turned the conversation.
They were met at the door of the hotel by Colonel Martyn.
“Just back from the yacht,” he announced. “Milborough wanted us to dine on board. As we wouldn’t, he’s coming here. I’ve been up, doctor, and seen one of your dragons. No change.”
The doctor nodded and began to mount the stairs. He turned to say to Wareham—“What’s your number? I’ll send for you if I think it desirable.”
Wareham told him, adding, “I’ll be there or in the salon.”
“You’d better look in, and see my wife and Miss Dalrymple,” suggested Colonel Martyn, flinging open the door. “Any one here? No—I suppose they’ve gone to rest, women always make out they’re tired with doing nothing. Well, we shall meet by and by.”
Wareham acquiesced, and went off to solitude. Before long a nurse tapped at his door. Mr Forbes had called for him so often, the doctor thought he should come, under strict injunctions of quiet. He found him restless and wandering, and as his presence seemed to give a certain ease, remained there until late, when he went down for a solitary meal. The diningsaalwas deserted, but he was provided with a small table by the window, and with what could hastily be heated again. He had drunk his coffee, and was thinking of returning to Hugh, when there was a rustle of silk in the doorway, and there stood Anne Dalrymple.
Chapter Nineteen.Will She Leave Him?“Have you finished? Am I disturbing you?”Wareham sprang up.“I believed I was never to see you.”His voice said more than he intended, more than he had known he felt, for he had imagined himself cool as a frosty morning. But in the moment of her entering his glance had devoured her, he saw her grave, not a smile curving her lips, and her dark eyes weighted with what looked like sorrow. He told himself that to see her otherwise would have killed his love; the pictures of her which he had summoned up, amusing herself on board Lord Milborough’s yacht, he had made perhaps purposely repugnant, calling on them as part of his defences. After all, he perceived that he had wronged her, his accusation of want of sympathy was cruelly unjust, and he flung shame on himself for having encouraged it. Under whatever circumstances they were to meet, down with pretences! She sat throned in his heart.She hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “Why did you leave us, Mr Wareham?”“It seemed best. Besides, my leaving could have had no ill effect on poor Hugh. You did all that was possible for him.”Would she sit down? He did not venture to ask her, but she drew a chair into the corner, and for the first time smiled, perhaps at a flickering idea that she was shocking the traditions of Mrs Grundy. She said, alluding to this—“They are all up-stairs, and chattering so hard that there would be no getting in a word. I wanted to speak to you in quiet. You have been with him?”“As long as they would let me.”“Well?”“He is very ill.”“Oh, poor fellow, poor fellow, I know it! I believe I could soothe him, but those nurses are mechanically scrupulous in carrying out whatever idea has been worked into their heads, and they will not let me go near him. If at any time you think it would be well, promise to send for me.”Her eyes pleaded. Wareham promised, remembering that a condition guarded the pledge.“Tell me, if you can, how soon he complained of illness,” he said.“After you left? He never actually complained, but he looked ill, and allowed that he had headache the next day—the day we left Vadheim. At Sande he seemed better. Then came—let me think—yes, it was from Sande that we found the heat rather tremendous. After that he flagged, I am sure. What should we have done?”He read real trouble in her eyes.“I can think of nothing. I know Hugh. He would not give up.”“Give up? No. He knows how to hold on.”There might have been a double meaning in his words, but at such a time Wareham could not so much as glance at it. He said only—“The time must have been difficult for you all.”“Hardly. There was so little choice. The only question lay between remaining at Molde or coming on here, and then we had Dr Scott on whose shoulders to slip our responsibility. I bless him for his decision. What should we have done without nurses!”She stopped and looked out of the window, her mouth half open, and the breath coming lightly and quickly between her parted lips.“From what I have seen he is being admirably cared for,” said Wareham, “and I should think the risk of taking him to England would have been too great.”“To England?” She turned and looked at him. “Oh, in Lord Milborough’s yacht! Did Colonel Martyn tell you that was discussed?”The name of Lord Milborough pricked him. He replied that his information came from Dr Scott, and went on to say that he had lately seen Lord Milborough’s sister.“Lady Fanny? Is she like her brother?”“To know that, you must describe him. I have not the honour of his acquaintance.”She smiled.“I never describe friends, only generalise. I am in love with his yacht. We were on board this afternoon. To-morrow you must come for a little sail.”“Thanks. I mean to stick pretty close to this house.”Anne seemed not to have heard this rejection of her offer. She leaned back, her eyes fixed on her hands, clasped lightly on her lap. Wareham’s look followed hers, to see whether her rings told a story, and read none. Presently she said reflectively—“It would be difficult to get sufficiently fast hold of Lord Milborough to describe him. Where did you meet his sister?”For some reason the question was not welcome. He answered, however, without hesitation—“At Mrs Ravenhill’s.”“Ah, the Ravenhills! We live in a kaleidoscope ball. A shake, and the colours change, and quickly! After seeing so much, it is heartless not to have thought more of them. But they and you were fast friends.”She gave the effect of a question to this assertion. He parried it with—“You liked them too, I fancy.”She paused, and repeated softly—“They were your friends.”Wareham made a movement. He caught at another subject as a drowning man at a rope.“I have written to poor old Sir Michael, and shall telegraph every day, for everything may have changed before my letter reaches him.”Anne stood up, her tall figure dark against the window.“Freedom from letters has been a boon, absolutely I had had none until two or three followed us to Molde. And, by the way,”—she turned to him smiling—“I gave Mr Forbes his, and one of them, which had been much re-directed, he greeted as coming from you.”Wareham felt himself redden. He said, shortly—“Yes. I wrote.”She glanced at him, and moved towards the door.“If you have a few minutes to spare, do come and see the others.”He had not intended going into the salon, but she drew him irresistibly, and he followed.The small room seemed full, but no one was there except the Martyns, Lord Milborough, and a couple of other gentlemen. The windows were wide open, and the gas turned down. Anne went quickly in.“Blanche, I have brought Mr Wareham.”Mrs Martyn gave him a hand without heartiness.“We did not expect to meet again so soon, Mr Wareham. It has been a most anxious time.”He bowed. “I have come, I hope, to relieve you.”She motioned him to sit by her on the sofa, but Anne stopped him.“First, let me make you and Lord Milborough acquainted. I believe you already know Mr Burnby? But not Sir Walter Paxton?”Each man looked at the other with disfavour, as is the habit of men. To avoid speaking to them, Wareham dropped into the seat Mrs Martyn had indicated, and she immediately bubbled into whispered confidence.“Yes, it really has been terrible, having that poor young man so entirely on one’s hands, and so awkward, too, after what had happened! You remember I told you how very foolish I thought his coming?”“I remember. But this could hardly have been in your thoughts.”“No, of course not. Not this in particular, but I felt sure some unpleasant complications would arise, and Anne is absolutely enigmatical. You never know where to find her. I dare say you want to know in what position the two stand. Well, I can’t tell you. I know no more than yourself.”Wareham repudiated curiosity, and felt himself disbelieved. Mrs Martyn waved a white hand and smiled.“Oh, I don’t suspect you of such a weakness. It is one that man cherishes in secret, and you might be obliged to me for answering questions without forcing you to put them. I own frankly myself that I wish to find out, and cannot. But, poor fellow, however it was, this—”She stopped and sighed expressively. Wareham felt a grip of fear.“I have known men pull through far worse illnesses,” he said doggedly.“Oh, of course! So have I.”“But you think in this case—” The words seemed forced from him against his will.“Oh, I don’t forecast. I have no reason for my opinion beyond what all know, but I hear the doctors daily report, and it—well, no one can call it encouraging. Oh, most sad! Extremely sad! The only son, I think?” Satisfied on this point, she went on—“Now that you are come, I have been telling my husband that as we can leave him in good hands we must see about getting home. Of course, on no account would I have gone when there was no one here to take charge, but poor Tom is hard to hold, Mr Wareham, now that we are in the middle of August.”He implied understanding, and asked whether they thought of leaving by the Saturday steamer.“Not a berth to be had. No, Lord Milborough is most kind. He will engage some woman here as a sort of stewardess, and will take us all. I do think it a delightful arrangement, and so would you if you had seen the yacht.”Wareham thought his approval so unnecessary that he remained silent, and let her talk on, while he, half unconsciously, watched Lord Milborough and Anne. The doctor’s description rose in his mind, but of indifference none was apparent with Anne near. She had gone to the other end of the room, and sunk into a chair, Lord Milborough and young Sir Walter attaching themselves conversationally to it. Colonel Martyn and Mr Burnby, who was older than the other men, discussed salmon-fishing at the table. Wareham caught words which implied that Anne was being reproached with having left them.“Why on earth you should stop in this awfully stuffy hole at all, I can’t for the life of me conceive!” urged the owner of theCamilla. “You might as well come and live on board at once, and if you’re anxious, I’ll keep a service of messengers running between the inn and the harbour. Come, consent!”Anne shook her head, smiling.“I’ve a weakness for feeling the ground firm under my feet.”Lord Milborough flung an inimical glance at Wareham.“You needn’t be tied, now that fellow’s come.”“That fellow! You deserve to be gibbeted by him for the mockery of generations! Show a little respect, please, for wits, even if you don’t appreciate them.”Sir Walter came to his friend’s rescue with a request to know what Wareham had written, and one or two names having been quoted under Anne’s breath, acknowledged that he had seen them lying on his club table.“Fame indeed!” cried Anne, with mock enthusiasm. “Mr Wareham will be cheered.” In spite of her adoption of his cause, she made no movement when Wareham rose and left the room. He ran up the stairs, telling himself that he was glad to get out of her presence, and opened the door of the sick-room softly. The door was out of sight of the bed, and the nurse made him a hasty sign to remain unseen. After standing for some time, he sat down, burying his face in the cup of his hands. Hugh was talking rapidly and incoherently, every now and then Anne’s name broke out with a sort of cry; then his voice sank again into the same quick senseless murmur. Pity swelled within his friend; he reflected harshly on Anne, lightly laughing down-stairs, while here a young heart was beating out its life, with thoughts of her uppermost. That she could leave him in this state, he told himself, was inconceivable.When he came out, an hour later, he retracted, for Anne met him on the first landing.“I thought you were never coming,” she exclaimed impatiently; “how is he?”“You are on his lips,” said Wareham.“He does not know what he says?”“No. The fever runs high.”“Oh, poor fellow, poor fellow!” she murmured, a line of pain cutting her forehead. “If he really wants me, remember your promise.”He could not refrain from saying—“Mrs Martyn gave me to understand that you were leaving at once!”Anne flashed round upon him.“Mrs Martyn talks, but you might know better! Pray how are we going?”“In Lord Milborough’s yacht, she said.”“Thank you.” Her tone was contemptuous. “Wait till we are gone!”His heart grew soft once more under renewed faith in her.“I hardly thought you would desert him,” he said, in a low voice. “Mrs Martyn, however, spoke as if all were settled.”“If she goes, I stay,” was Anne’s answer, and he could have wished for nothing more resolute. It was the last word he got, for she vanished.Before her, he believed in her implicitly; once out of sight, doubted. He was ready to admit that she would go unwillingly, but with pressure put upon her by all the others, it seemed to him that she would scarcely hold out. The following morning, however, when he went down to breakfast, he found Mrs Martyn engaged in cracking an egg. She presented him with a few perfunctory questions as to Hugh’s welfare, only to turn eagerly to her own grievances.“I must say that this suspense is intolerable, for Anne has got it into her head that we ought not to leave until we know one way or the other, and I really can’t see why. If one could do the smallest good to the poor fellow, it would be quite a different matter. I would sacrifice anything, anything! But you are here, and he has everything that can be thought of, and, of course, his coming out was really a most wilful act on his part. Anne should never have allowed him to join us. I foresaw nothing but difficulty. And I must say it is a little hard on poor Tom, who has his moor waiting, and is naturally longing to get there. For myself, of course I should not care, but I think of him, and am seriously annoyed. Besides—the yacht! Such an opportunity!”Wareham did not feel himself called upon to answer. It appeared that she only required a listener, until she turned to him and said—“Pray assist me.”Upon that he inquired how he was to do so?“Persuade Anne. When I talk to her, all that I extract is that I can go, and that she will remain behind. Of course, that is not to be thought of.”“Hardly.”“No, but she is capable of carrying it out. And it really is absurd! After throwing him over as she did, she cannot pretend to have very strong feelings.”He perceived that Mrs Martyn was seriously annoyed, thus to give rein to her speech. It drew him the closer to Anne.“If Miss Dalrymple is resolved, she has probably thought the matter out thoroughly,” he replied, ignoring Mrs Martyn’s last remarks. “And nothing that I could say, even were I disposed to say it, would influence her.”“What good can we do! I suppose Anne does not propose to nurse him?” she said sharply.“I imagine not.”She stood up.“I might have known there was no use in asking you. Take care, Mr Wareham. Anne is inscrutable.” This was a parting shot as she whisked out of the room.Whether inscrutable or not, he cared not a rap, for the caution set his blood tingling until he forced himself to turn aside from weighing it. Up-stairs he was not wanted; he sat in solitude for some time, and the young Norwegian doctor was his first visitor. He brought information of a consultation later in the day, said he thought Hugh was holding his own, and spoke hopefully; there was a telegram to be sent, a letter to be written, then a visit to the sick-room, where Hugh knew him, and smiled satisfaction.That day and the next passed without his having a word with Anne. Once or twice he fell in with Colonel Martyn, who gained in his regard, and whatever his feelings might have been as to the waiting moor, kept them heroically out of sight. Wareham perceived that it would have gone against his instincts to have left Bergen, while poor Hugh’s fate was in the balance; further than this, that he took pains to find advantages in Norway, where before he had only grumbled. Of Lord Milborough he spoke with respect, as the owner of first-rate shootings and one of the best yachts afloat. And more he did not touch upon.
“Have you finished? Am I disturbing you?”
Wareham sprang up.
“I believed I was never to see you.”
His voice said more than he intended, more than he had known he felt, for he had imagined himself cool as a frosty morning. But in the moment of her entering his glance had devoured her, he saw her grave, not a smile curving her lips, and her dark eyes weighted with what looked like sorrow. He told himself that to see her otherwise would have killed his love; the pictures of her which he had summoned up, amusing herself on board Lord Milborough’s yacht, he had made perhaps purposely repugnant, calling on them as part of his defences. After all, he perceived that he had wronged her, his accusation of want of sympathy was cruelly unjust, and he flung shame on himself for having encouraged it. Under whatever circumstances they were to meet, down with pretences! She sat throned in his heart.
She hesitated for a moment before she spoke. “Why did you leave us, Mr Wareham?”
“It seemed best. Besides, my leaving could have had no ill effect on poor Hugh. You did all that was possible for him.”
Would she sit down? He did not venture to ask her, but she drew a chair into the corner, and for the first time smiled, perhaps at a flickering idea that she was shocking the traditions of Mrs Grundy. She said, alluding to this—
“They are all up-stairs, and chattering so hard that there would be no getting in a word. I wanted to speak to you in quiet. You have been with him?”
“As long as they would let me.”
“Well?”
“He is very ill.”
“Oh, poor fellow, poor fellow, I know it! I believe I could soothe him, but those nurses are mechanically scrupulous in carrying out whatever idea has been worked into their heads, and they will not let me go near him. If at any time you think it would be well, promise to send for me.”
Her eyes pleaded. Wareham promised, remembering that a condition guarded the pledge.
“Tell me, if you can, how soon he complained of illness,” he said.
“After you left? He never actually complained, but he looked ill, and allowed that he had headache the next day—the day we left Vadheim. At Sande he seemed better. Then came—let me think—yes, it was from Sande that we found the heat rather tremendous. After that he flagged, I am sure. What should we have done?”
He read real trouble in her eyes.
“I can think of nothing. I know Hugh. He would not give up.”
“Give up? No. He knows how to hold on.”
There might have been a double meaning in his words, but at such a time Wareham could not so much as glance at it. He said only—
“The time must have been difficult for you all.”
“Hardly. There was so little choice. The only question lay between remaining at Molde or coming on here, and then we had Dr Scott on whose shoulders to slip our responsibility. I bless him for his decision. What should we have done without nurses!”
She stopped and looked out of the window, her mouth half open, and the breath coming lightly and quickly between her parted lips.
“From what I have seen he is being admirably cared for,” said Wareham, “and I should think the risk of taking him to England would have been too great.”
“To England?” She turned and looked at him. “Oh, in Lord Milborough’s yacht! Did Colonel Martyn tell you that was discussed?”
The name of Lord Milborough pricked him. He replied that his information came from Dr Scott, and went on to say that he had lately seen Lord Milborough’s sister.
“Lady Fanny? Is she like her brother?”
“To know that, you must describe him. I have not the honour of his acquaintance.”
She smiled.
“I never describe friends, only generalise. I am in love with his yacht. We were on board this afternoon. To-morrow you must come for a little sail.”
“Thanks. I mean to stick pretty close to this house.”
Anne seemed not to have heard this rejection of her offer. She leaned back, her eyes fixed on her hands, clasped lightly on her lap. Wareham’s look followed hers, to see whether her rings told a story, and read none. Presently she said reflectively—
“It would be difficult to get sufficiently fast hold of Lord Milborough to describe him. Where did you meet his sister?”
For some reason the question was not welcome. He answered, however, without hesitation—
“At Mrs Ravenhill’s.”
“Ah, the Ravenhills! We live in a kaleidoscope ball. A shake, and the colours change, and quickly! After seeing so much, it is heartless not to have thought more of them. But they and you were fast friends.”
She gave the effect of a question to this assertion. He parried it with—
“You liked them too, I fancy.”
She paused, and repeated softly—
“They were your friends.”
Wareham made a movement. He caught at another subject as a drowning man at a rope.
“I have written to poor old Sir Michael, and shall telegraph every day, for everything may have changed before my letter reaches him.”
Anne stood up, her tall figure dark against the window.
“Freedom from letters has been a boon, absolutely I had had none until two or three followed us to Molde. And, by the way,”—she turned to him smiling—“I gave Mr Forbes his, and one of them, which had been much re-directed, he greeted as coming from you.”
Wareham felt himself redden. He said, shortly—
“Yes. I wrote.”
She glanced at him, and moved towards the door.
“If you have a few minutes to spare, do come and see the others.”
He had not intended going into the salon, but she drew him irresistibly, and he followed.
The small room seemed full, but no one was there except the Martyns, Lord Milborough, and a couple of other gentlemen. The windows were wide open, and the gas turned down. Anne went quickly in.
“Blanche, I have brought Mr Wareham.”
Mrs Martyn gave him a hand without heartiness.
“We did not expect to meet again so soon, Mr Wareham. It has been a most anxious time.”
He bowed. “I have come, I hope, to relieve you.”
She motioned him to sit by her on the sofa, but Anne stopped him.
“First, let me make you and Lord Milborough acquainted. I believe you already know Mr Burnby? But not Sir Walter Paxton?”
Each man looked at the other with disfavour, as is the habit of men. To avoid speaking to them, Wareham dropped into the seat Mrs Martyn had indicated, and she immediately bubbled into whispered confidence.
“Yes, it really has been terrible, having that poor young man so entirely on one’s hands, and so awkward, too, after what had happened! You remember I told you how very foolish I thought his coming?”
“I remember. But this could hardly have been in your thoughts.”
“No, of course not. Not this in particular, but I felt sure some unpleasant complications would arise, and Anne is absolutely enigmatical. You never know where to find her. I dare say you want to know in what position the two stand. Well, I can’t tell you. I know no more than yourself.”
Wareham repudiated curiosity, and felt himself disbelieved. Mrs Martyn waved a white hand and smiled.
“Oh, I don’t suspect you of such a weakness. It is one that man cherishes in secret, and you might be obliged to me for answering questions without forcing you to put them. I own frankly myself that I wish to find out, and cannot. But, poor fellow, however it was, this—”
She stopped and sighed expressively. Wareham felt a grip of fear.
“I have known men pull through far worse illnesses,” he said doggedly.
“Oh, of course! So have I.”
“But you think in this case—” The words seemed forced from him against his will.
“Oh, I don’t forecast. I have no reason for my opinion beyond what all know, but I hear the doctors daily report, and it—well, no one can call it encouraging. Oh, most sad! Extremely sad! The only son, I think?” Satisfied on this point, she went on—“Now that you are come, I have been telling my husband that as we can leave him in good hands we must see about getting home. Of course, on no account would I have gone when there was no one here to take charge, but poor Tom is hard to hold, Mr Wareham, now that we are in the middle of August.”
He implied understanding, and asked whether they thought of leaving by the Saturday steamer.
“Not a berth to be had. No, Lord Milborough is most kind. He will engage some woman here as a sort of stewardess, and will take us all. I do think it a delightful arrangement, and so would you if you had seen the yacht.”
Wareham thought his approval so unnecessary that he remained silent, and let her talk on, while he, half unconsciously, watched Lord Milborough and Anne. The doctor’s description rose in his mind, but of indifference none was apparent with Anne near. She had gone to the other end of the room, and sunk into a chair, Lord Milborough and young Sir Walter attaching themselves conversationally to it. Colonel Martyn and Mr Burnby, who was older than the other men, discussed salmon-fishing at the table. Wareham caught words which implied that Anne was being reproached with having left them.
“Why on earth you should stop in this awfully stuffy hole at all, I can’t for the life of me conceive!” urged the owner of theCamilla. “You might as well come and live on board at once, and if you’re anxious, I’ll keep a service of messengers running between the inn and the harbour. Come, consent!”
Anne shook her head, smiling.
“I’ve a weakness for feeling the ground firm under my feet.”
Lord Milborough flung an inimical glance at Wareham.
“You needn’t be tied, now that fellow’s come.”
“That fellow! You deserve to be gibbeted by him for the mockery of generations! Show a little respect, please, for wits, even if you don’t appreciate them.”
Sir Walter came to his friend’s rescue with a request to know what Wareham had written, and one or two names having been quoted under Anne’s breath, acknowledged that he had seen them lying on his club table.
“Fame indeed!” cried Anne, with mock enthusiasm. “Mr Wareham will be cheered.” In spite of her adoption of his cause, she made no movement when Wareham rose and left the room. He ran up the stairs, telling himself that he was glad to get out of her presence, and opened the door of the sick-room softly. The door was out of sight of the bed, and the nurse made him a hasty sign to remain unseen. After standing for some time, he sat down, burying his face in the cup of his hands. Hugh was talking rapidly and incoherently, every now and then Anne’s name broke out with a sort of cry; then his voice sank again into the same quick senseless murmur. Pity swelled within his friend; he reflected harshly on Anne, lightly laughing down-stairs, while here a young heart was beating out its life, with thoughts of her uppermost. That she could leave him in this state, he told himself, was inconceivable.
When he came out, an hour later, he retracted, for Anne met him on the first landing.
“I thought you were never coming,” she exclaimed impatiently; “how is he?”
“You are on his lips,” said Wareham.
“He does not know what he says?”
“No. The fever runs high.”
“Oh, poor fellow, poor fellow!” she murmured, a line of pain cutting her forehead. “If he really wants me, remember your promise.”
He could not refrain from saying—
“Mrs Martyn gave me to understand that you were leaving at once!”
Anne flashed round upon him.
“Mrs Martyn talks, but you might know better! Pray how are we going?”
“In Lord Milborough’s yacht, she said.”
“Thank you.” Her tone was contemptuous. “Wait till we are gone!”
His heart grew soft once more under renewed faith in her.
“I hardly thought you would desert him,” he said, in a low voice. “Mrs Martyn, however, spoke as if all were settled.”
“If she goes, I stay,” was Anne’s answer, and he could have wished for nothing more resolute. It was the last word he got, for she vanished.
Before her, he believed in her implicitly; once out of sight, doubted. He was ready to admit that she would go unwillingly, but with pressure put upon her by all the others, it seemed to him that she would scarcely hold out. The following morning, however, when he went down to breakfast, he found Mrs Martyn engaged in cracking an egg. She presented him with a few perfunctory questions as to Hugh’s welfare, only to turn eagerly to her own grievances.
“I must say that this suspense is intolerable, for Anne has got it into her head that we ought not to leave until we know one way or the other, and I really can’t see why. If one could do the smallest good to the poor fellow, it would be quite a different matter. I would sacrifice anything, anything! But you are here, and he has everything that can be thought of, and, of course, his coming out was really a most wilful act on his part. Anne should never have allowed him to join us. I foresaw nothing but difficulty. And I must say it is a little hard on poor Tom, who has his moor waiting, and is naturally longing to get there. For myself, of course I should not care, but I think of him, and am seriously annoyed. Besides—the yacht! Such an opportunity!”
Wareham did not feel himself called upon to answer. It appeared that she only required a listener, until she turned to him and said—
“Pray assist me.”
Upon that he inquired how he was to do so?
“Persuade Anne. When I talk to her, all that I extract is that I can go, and that she will remain behind. Of course, that is not to be thought of.”
“Hardly.”
“No, but she is capable of carrying it out. And it really is absurd! After throwing him over as she did, she cannot pretend to have very strong feelings.”
He perceived that Mrs Martyn was seriously annoyed, thus to give rein to her speech. It drew him the closer to Anne.
“If Miss Dalrymple is resolved, she has probably thought the matter out thoroughly,” he replied, ignoring Mrs Martyn’s last remarks. “And nothing that I could say, even were I disposed to say it, would influence her.”
“What good can we do! I suppose Anne does not propose to nurse him?” she said sharply.
“I imagine not.”
She stood up.
“I might have known there was no use in asking you. Take care, Mr Wareham. Anne is inscrutable.” This was a parting shot as she whisked out of the room.
Whether inscrutable or not, he cared not a rap, for the caution set his blood tingling until he forced himself to turn aside from weighing it. Up-stairs he was not wanted; he sat in solitude for some time, and the young Norwegian doctor was his first visitor. He brought information of a consultation later in the day, said he thought Hugh was holding his own, and spoke hopefully; there was a telegram to be sent, a letter to be written, then a visit to the sick-room, where Hugh knew him, and smiled satisfaction.
That day and the next passed without his having a word with Anne. Once or twice he fell in with Colonel Martyn, who gained in his regard, and whatever his feelings might have been as to the waiting moor, kept them heroically out of sight. Wareham perceived that it would have gone against his instincts to have left Bergen, while poor Hugh’s fate was in the balance; further than this, that he took pains to find advantages in Norway, where before he had only grumbled. Of Lord Milborough he spoke with respect, as the owner of first-rate shootings and one of the best yachts afloat. And more he did not touch upon.
Chapter Twenty.Not for Two Months.Beyond the hotel the street is intersected by a wide space, at once a convenience and a provision against the fiery power which threatens Norse towns. The houses are irregular, an atmosphere of shipping hangs about, vessels are moored alongside the pier, seafaring men stroll. When Wareham wanted a breath of fresh air, he went there.Monday was an anxious day; the fever showed no signs of abatement, and Wareham would not leave the house until late. It had rained all the previous night, pools lay in the broken ground, overhead white shreds of clouds sailed gaily across sweet depths of blue. All was ruffled movement in the harbour, dance of water against the bigger vessels, and a toss from right to left of the smaller boats. Splashes of scarlet, of emerald green, struck out boldly against the black sheds which rose sharp from the waters edge. Red-roofed houses curved round the wood of masts, and the dominating mountain rose in a grand sweep behind.Here Wareham carried his unquiet spirit. He feared for Hugh, he hated himself for the penetrating dreams of Anne which haunted him. Honestly, he had tried to avoid her, had chosen Dr Scott for his companion, and declined invitations to the yacht, of which Colonel Martyn was the bearer, with scant civility. But she was in the air. He heard the rustle of her dress on the stairs, Hugh babbled her name, he was in the house with her, and the effort to shut her out of his thoughts made him the more conscious of her influence, and kept her always before him.He strolled along a short pier, where a steamer was unloading, sat down on a coil of rope, and faced the water. Only a few minutes had passed before he caught the sound of voices, and a group bore down upon him, Mrs Martyn and Sir Walter in front, Anne and Lord Milborough behind.“You have gained a nickname. We call you the Invisible,” Mrs Martyn began, and rained reproach upon him for his love of solitude.He made no effort to excuse himself.“Will you come with us now? We are only to be out two or three hours, and I assure you, Anne keeps Lord Milborough to time.”Anne spoke gravely.“Why tease Mr Wareham? I admire him for his friendship. If I were allowed to be of use, I should leave you all to amuse yourselves by yourselves, but my offers are invariably rejected.”“I’ll fall ill at once, Miss Dalrymple, if only you’ll nurse me,” said Sir Walter. He had a small languid face, and an unwholesome skin. Wareham wondered how Anne could tolerate his company and smile upon him as she did.“Don’t flatter yourself you’d be permitted the choice. Now-a-days a sick man lives under an iron despotism. It is not what he likes, but what he is allowed.”“Luckily for us,” Lord Milborough remarked, in a low voice.“I detest those nurses,” broke in Mrs Martyn. “One must submit to them, and all that. Still, I shall always believe that they delight in exaggeration. I’m sure one hears enough of such an illness as Mr Forbes’, and of course it must run its course. But I do not see why one should be alarmed as to the result.”Wareham looked without answering. Anne shot him a glance which meant, “Do not mind her.” She chattered on—“And you won’t be tempted? It really is a pity. Well, come in to-night and hear our adventures.”Anne lingered a moment behind the others. “Let me hear from yourself. Such garbled reports reach me! I am so sorry for him!”“He shall be told that.”“And for you. But that I dare say you don’t believe.”He was too ready. She sighed.“All this going about does not look like it, but what can I do? We live in a world in which poor women can’t speak or act without remark fluttering about them like harpies. If one could only be oneself!”With that she was gone. Wareham paced up and down his stones. What did it all suggest? If her words were for Hugh, vanity was scarcely answerable for the conviction that something was meant for him. He hastily pushed away the thought, which at such a time seemed brutal, and looked round him in search of assistance for casting off meditation. The energy of movement presented itself invitingly; he saw a boat near, and signing to its owner, rowed for half-an-hour with purposeless vigour about the harbour, coming in stiff, but braced. As he reached the hotel, Dr Scott met him, and answered his unspoken question. “Very ill.”“Worse?”“With the fever so high he must be worse. It saps the life of a man. Poor fellow! I suppose no one can come?”“No one. I gather you have little hope?” Silence answered the question. All the hours seemed to have been leading up to this moment, yet Wareham was unprepared for its shock. He turned white. Dr Scott went on to soften his unpronounced doom.“I may be mistaken. One is never absolutely without hope in these cases, where youth is on our side, and I think Sivertsen is more sanguine than I am.”Wareham went slowly up the stairs, heaviness in his heart. The turmoil about Anne which had filled his mind was suddenly swept into nothingness. Until this moment, it appeared to him he had never realised what hung over them, and all tender recollection of past years surged up like an overwhelming wave. Opening the door, he heard the babble of words rushing incessantly, not loud, but unintermitting. Hugh had grown so accustomed to his presence, that there was no longer a dread of added excitement, and he was admitted at all hours. Sometimes he sat by his bedside, openly in view; sometimes, when the fever ran high, placed himself behind the bed, an unseen watcher. He dropped there now, on a sign from the nurse.Eyeing the floor, remembrances flitted across it. Hugh the school-boy, as he first recollected him, a fair curly-headed young giant, blue-eyed and open-faced, fighting an older and bigger fellow with indomitable pluck, and at another time taking a punishment which should not have been his. Once on the track, a dozen such memories of acts which had first drawn the two together, upstarted. Times down at Sir Michael’s, where Wareham, a lonely boy, was always welcome. Older life, when Wareham’s intellect had taken him to the front, and Hugh’s idleness hobbled him. Then the days he did not care to think about even now rose up; no words could have made them clearer; he recollected his misery and the young man’s patience, and the recollection thrilled him, striking, as it did, across the mutter of delirium. In natural sequence followed Hugh’s own trouble, which Wareham looked at now through cloudy remorse, impatient with himself that at first sight of the syren he did not fly, that he had been so dull in reading signs, that he had not waited, repressing the hateful letter. Imagination conjured up reproof in Hugh’s hollow eyes; at times, when he caught them fastened on his face, mute reproach, a hundred times more pathetic than words. His ear was constantly on the alert to catch something bearing on it in delirious sentences, he had an insane notion that then he might have quieted him with assurances. Every now and then something struck on his heart with a sound like a knell.He spent the greater part of the night in the sick-room. Anne’s request that he would himself bring her news of the patient, he ignored. The morning showed a change, but one enemy retired only to make room for another, for which indeed it had been working, and doctors and nurses gathered all their resources to meet deadly weakness. That morning came a request for which Wareham was prepared. Could he see Anne? The doctor had to decide, and gave unwilling permission, fencing it about with limitations of time. In answer to Wareham’s questioning eyes, he said—“We have not the right to refuse.”What passed, his friend never learned. He absented himself, and took care not to go up till all fear of meeting with Anne was over. He knew only that the interview had not lasted more than a few minutes, and that the nurse was cross, admitting no right to human nature in a patient. Love, of all disturbing forces, should be shut out of a sick-room. Not venturing to snub the doctor, she snubbed Wareham, while nursing her charge devotedly. But in the course of the day, Hugh looked at him and said “To-morrow,” and he understood that something was to be said to himself. It relieved him, for he had the longing of a woman for a word out of the silence of darkness which he foresaw.“He wants to speak to you alone,” Dr Scott said the next morning. “The interview won’t be so disturbing, I imagine, as that of yesterday?”Wareham had to intimate that it was not unlikely it would.“Bad,” said the other. “However, as I said, I couldn’t consent to prevent a man from saying what he wished at this stage of his illness. You must do your best to keep him quiet.”“And when?”“In ten minutes.”Ten minutes passed, and Wareham was at Hugh’s side. His heart sank at the alteration, and his voice, when he tried to speak cheerily, had a false ring which he fancied audible to all. Hugh looked at the nurse, who retired reluctantly, showing Wareham as she went out that a restorative was on the table.“I waited,” said Hugh.Wareham forced his face into a smile.“Wait longer, old fellow, if you’re not up to talk. I’m here, night and day.”“I know. You’ve been awfully good.”His friend did not answer, except by laying his hand on an arm which shocked him by its thinness, and for a little while there was silence which Wareham did not dare to break. What lay beyond it? Hugh’s next words touched the sore.“The letter.”The answer was in a shaken voice.“I would give my right hand never to have written it!”Fun once more gleamed in Hugh’s eyes.“Poor old Dick! Odd, wasn’t it? I couldn’t help laughing to find you’d been so bowled over!”His voice was little more than a slow whisper, broken by pauses, sometimes sinking so low as to be almost inaudible. Wareham felt that the time had come for him to speak.“Don’t try to say anything, but just listen. On my honour, the thing was on me before I knew where I was, and, while I flattered myself—like a fool—that I detested her for the way she treated you, I never thought that all the time she was slipping into my very heart. At last, one day, I saw myself and her. Hugh, that very day I wrote that letter. And, look here—though I said just now that I would have given my right hand not to have written it, I don’t know how I could be facing you now if I hadn’t.” He reined himself back into slow speech. “I never spoke a word to her. The secret rests between you and me. She hasn’t an idea. Get well, Hugh, and God knows whether I will not stand aside and be thankful that you have her!”Silence, and the ticking of the clock. The nurse looked in at the door, but retreated at a sign from Wareham. Hugh said at last—“I urged you to stay.”“And now you know why I refused?”“Yes. Poor Dick!”His look made the question superfluous, yet Wareham said—“There never will be bad blood between us?”Hugh’s hand sought his in pledge.“Never. I want to make it all right.”“Wait for that, Hugh.”“For what? For my ghost?” He breathed the words. “When you saw me that morning—what a sell!”“Nothing had been said,” repeated Wareham doggedly.“I know.Icouldn’t have been so straight—with Anne before me. But you can’t laugh now at my madness.”“Not I.”Silence again, and another spoonful at his dry lips. He whispered. “I’m glad I came.”His friend had no words for this.“Yes—glad. I know her better.” His voice gained strength, and his eyes turned again to Wareham. “I could have made her love me.”“I have seen all along that you were the only man she liked,” the other said, with confidence.“I don’t know.” His feeble hands beat up and down, as if he were indicating balance. “She’s not easy. If I’d lived, I couldn’t have given her up. Now,”—a sign stopped Wareham’s protest. “Yes, but I’m dog in the manger still.”Wareham felt a cold clutch at his heart for which he loathed himself.“Be what you like, Hugh,” he said quickly. “No one has so much right to speak as you,” and whatever his heart might say, his will would have bound itself irrevocably to his friend’s bidding.“I want—you to have her,” Hugh sighed, turning away his face.Once more the nurse looked in at the door, signifying disapproval. Wareham hastily nodded, and she withdrew her head. He had to put down his ear to catch Hugh’s next words—“Don’t let us pretend—I’m dying—win her, Dick.”It was impossible for Wareham to speak. He pressed Hugh’s hand, and he was thinking more of Hugh than Anne.“Only—”A pause.“I told you I was a dog in the manger.”“Tell me what you wish, old fellow.”“I want to be remembered—just for a little. I don’t want you to speak just yet.”“I couldn’t.”The dull eyes brightened.“You promise?”“Sacredly. And, Hugh, I’ve no right to think she ever will consent.”“Ask her in—” He paused. “Is two months too long? Remember, I held her mine once. I can’t set that on one side. You promise? Not a word till two months have passed?”“You have my promise,” said Wareham quickly, the more quickly for shame at the murmurings of a greedy heart.“When you’ve got her—you won’t mind having waited. I’ve said my say, Dick. Yesterday—”“Yes?”“I asked her to kiss me, and—she did.” His voice grew stronger, and he smiled feebly. “That other lean-souled woman wanted to come, but I wouldn’t have her.”“Mrs Martyn?”“Yes. She’s curious. Say nothing to her, Dick.”“Nothing. Old boy, you’ve talked enough.”“Well—” Hugh acknowledged.A silent pressure, and Wareham went. He wanted to be by himself, and though there were only half-a-dozen people he knew in Bergen, the place seemed full of them; there was not a corner round which they might not appear. He might have walked off out of the town, and been safe, but he would not leave the house for more than half-an-hour. For that time the museum struck him as a safe refuge, and he made for it.Turning up a broad street to his right, a sailor crossed the road and touched his hat.“Beg pardon, sir, but ain’t you Mr Wareham?”He signified his right to the name.“I’ve a message for you, sir, from the young lady on board the yacht. I was to say as we ain’t going out of harbour to-day, sir, and that if she was wanted, you’d only got to send a boat for her.”He was told to carry back the answer that Mr Wareham would take care to act upon her wishes.“You’ve a fine yacht out there,” he added, in order to gratify the man.“If you saw her sail, sir, you’d say so. But she hasn’t done nothing here, and it seems as if we were going to be too late for the regattas. Never knew that happen afore.”He departed, and Wareham walked on quickly to the museum, ran up the broad staircase, and wandered into a world of arctic creatures, where he was secure from interruption.For the last three or four days his hopes of Hugh’s recovery had been low, now some conviction told him it was all but hopeless. “Hugh, old Hugh!” he kept repeating to himself, as the past years of their friendship trooped up again. Always he had been, in thought as well as fact, the elder, the supporter; now in the shadowy twilight of the Great Unseen, Hugh had passed to strange heights of experience; the careless words he used to rattle off, dropped now, changed, as coming from one whose feet were near the eternal shore.The special thing which Hugh had to say had scarcely presented itself since. It seemed a matter of no moment; something perhaps to be considered in the far future, but not yet. Dying, Anne belonged to Hugh; Wareham’s only dread was lest she should disappoint him, a vague uneasiness about Lord Milborough was in his mind, and he did not think Hugh had any consciousness of this new disturbing element. He asked few questions about her, and it was impossible to say what had passed between them in their last interview, except that he had appeared satisfied. But Anne herself? She had refused to leave the place, had, but half-an-hour ago, sent a message that she was at hand, yet Wareham had his doubts. Did she feel? Did she care? Her own words came back, when she had called herself heartless, and under the intoxication of her presence he had indignantly refuted the accusation. Admitting it even, how was he to blame her? since a vessel can pour out no more than is in it. But with those eyes! Was it possible that no heart reigned behind them? If it were so, Wareham, suddenly stern judge, acknowledged that it was well Hugh should go while yet he loved her, and clung to the dream that she might yet love him.
Beyond the hotel the street is intersected by a wide space, at once a convenience and a provision against the fiery power which threatens Norse towns. The houses are irregular, an atmosphere of shipping hangs about, vessels are moored alongside the pier, seafaring men stroll. When Wareham wanted a breath of fresh air, he went there.
Monday was an anxious day; the fever showed no signs of abatement, and Wareham would not leave the house until late. It had rained all the previous night, pools lay in the broken ground, overhead white shreds of clouds sailed gaily across sweet depths of blue. All was ruffled movement in the harbour, dance of water against the bigger vessels, and a toss from right to left of the smaller boats. Splashes of scarlet, of emerald green, struck out boldly against the black sheds which rose sharp from the waters edge. Red-roofed houses curved round the wood of masts, and the dominating mountain rose in a grand sweep behind.
Here Wareham carried his unquiet spirit. He feared for Hugh, he hated himself for the penetrating dreams of Anne which haunted him. Honestly, he had tried to avoid her, had chosen Dr Scott for his companion, and declined invitations to the yacht, of which Colonel Martyn was the bearer, with scant civility. But she was in the air. He heard the rustle of her dress on the stairs, Hugh babbled her name, he was in the house with her, and the effort to shut her out of his thoughts made him the more conscious of her influence, and kept her always before him.
He strolled along a short pier, where a steamer was unloading, sat down on a coil of rope, and faced the water. Only a few minutes had passed before he caught the sound of voices, and a group bore down upon him, Mrs Martyn and Sir Walter in front, Anne and Lord Milborough behind.
“You have gained a nickname. We call you the Invisible,” Mrs Martyn began, and rained reproach upon him for his love of solitude.
He made no effort to excuse himself.
“Will you come with us now? We are only to be out two or three hours, and I assure you, Anne keeps Lord Milborough to time.”
Anne spoke gravely.
“Why tease Mr Wareham? I admire him for his friendship. If I were allowed to be of use, I should leave you all to amuse yourselves by yourselves, but my offers are invariably rejected.”
“I’ll fall ill at once, Miss Dalrymple, if only you’ll nurse me,” said Sir Walter. He had a small languid face, and an unwholesome skin. Wareham wondered how Anne could tolerate his company and smile upon him as she did.
“Don’t flatter yourself you’d be permitted the choice. Now-a-days a sick man lives under an iron despotism. It is not what he likes, but what he is allowed.”
“Luckily for us,” Lord Milborough remarked, in a low voice.
“I detest those nurses,” broke in Mrs Martyn. “One must submit to them, and all that. Still, I shall always believe that they delight in exaggeration. I’m sure one hears enough of such an illness as Mr Forbes’, and of course it must run its course. But I do not see why one should be alarmed as to the result.”
Wareham looked without answering. Anne shot him a glance which meant, “Do not mind her.” She chattered on—
“And you won’t be tempted? It really is a pity. Well, come in to-night and hear our adventures.”
Anne lingered a moment behind the others. “Let me hear from yourself. Such garbled reports reach me! I am so sorry for him!”
“He shall be told that.”
“And for you. But that I dare say you don’t believe.”
He was too ready. She sighed.
“All this going about does not look like it, but what can I do? We live in a world in which poor women can’t speak or act without remark fluttering about them like harpies. If one could only be oneself!”
With that she was gone. Wareham paced up and down his stones. What did it all suggest? If her words were for Hugh, vanity was scarcely answerable for the conviction that something was meant for him. He hastily pushed away the thought, which at such a time seemed brutal, and looked round him in search of assistance for casting off meditation. The energy of movement presented itself invitingly; he saw a boat near, and signing to its owner, rowed for half-an-hour with purposeless vigour about the harbour, coming in stiff, but braced. As he reached the hotel, Dr Scott met him, and answered his unspoken question. “Very ill.”
“Worse?”
“With the fever so high he must be worse. It saps the life of a man. Poor fellow! I suppose no one can come?”
“No one. I gather you have little hope?” Silence answered the question. All the hours seemed to have been leading up to this moment, yet Wareham was unprepared for its shock. He turned white. Dr Scott went on to soften his unpronounced doom.
“I may be mistaken. One is never absolutely without hope in these cases, where youth is on our side, and I think Sivertsen is more sanguine than I am.”
Wareham went slowly up the stairs, heaviness in his heart. The turmoil about Anne which had filled his mind was suddenly swept into nothingness. Until this moment, it appeared to him he had never realised what hung over them, and all tender recollection of past years surged up like an overwhelming wave. Opening the door, he heard the babble of words rushing incessantly, not loud, but unintermitting. Hugh had grown so accustomed to his presence, that there was no longer a dread of added excitement, and he was admitted at all hours. Sometimes he sat by his bedside, openly in view; sometimes, when the fever ran high, placed himself behind the bed, an unseen watcher. He dropped there now, on a sign from the nurse.
Eyeing the floor, remembrances flitted across it. Hugh the school-boy, as he first recollected him, a fair curly-headed young giant, blue-eyed and open-faced, fighting an older and bigger fellow with indomitable pluck, and at another time taking a punishment which should not have been his. Once on the track, a dozen such memories of acts which had first drawn the two together, upstarted. Times down at Sir Michael’s, where Wareham, a lonely boy, was always welcome. Older life, when Wareham’s intellect had taken him to the front, and Hugh’s idleness hobbled him. Then the days he did not care to think about even now rose up; no words could have made them clearer; he recollected his misery and the young man’s patience, and the recollection thrilled him, striking, as it did, across the mutter of delirium. In natural sequence followed Hugh’s own trouble, which Wareham looked at now through cloudy remorse, impatient with himself that at first sight of the syren he did not fly, that he had been so dull in reading signs, that he had not waited, repressing the hateful letter. Imagination conjured up reproof in Hugh’s hollow eyes; at times, when he caught them fastened on his face, mute reproach, a hundred times more pathetic than words. His ear was constantly on the alert to catch something bearing on it in delirious sentences, he had an insane notion that then he might have quieted him with assurances. Every now and then something struck on his heart with a sound like a knell.
He spent the greater part of the night in the sick-room. Anne’s request that he would himself bring her news of the patient, he ignored. The morning showed a change, but one enemy retired only to make room for another, for which indeed it had been working, and doctors and nurses gathered all their resources to meet deadly weakness. That morning came a request for which Wareham was prepared. Could he see Anne? The doctor had to decide, and gave unwilling permission, fencing it about with limitations of time. In answer to Wareham’s questioning eyes, he said—
“We have not the right to refuse.”
What passed, his friend never learned. He absented himself, and took care not to go up till all fear of meeting with Anne was over. He knew only that the interview had not lasted more than a few minutes, and that the nurse was cross, admitting no right to human nature in a patient. Love, of all disturbing forces, should be shut out of a sick-room. Not venturing to snub the doctor, she snubbed Wareham, while nursing her charge devotedly. But in the course of the day, Hugh looked at him and said “To-morrow,” and he understood that something was to be said to himself. It relieved him, for he had the longing of a woman for a word out of the silence of darkness which he foresaw.
“He wants to speak to you alone,” Dr Scott said the next morning. “The interview won’t be so disturbing, I imagine, as that of yesterday?”
Wareham had to intimate that it was not unlikely it would.
“Bad,” said the other. “However, as I said, I couldn’t consent to prevent a man from saying what he wished at this stage of his illness. You must do your best to keep him quiet.”
“And when?”
“In ten minutes.”
Ten minutes passed, and Wareham was at Hugh’s side. His heart sank at the alteration, and his voice, when he tried to speak cheerily, had a false ring which he fancied audible to all. Hugh looked at the nurse, who retired reluctantly, showing Wareham as she went out that a restorative was on the table.
“I waited,” said Hugh.
Wareham forced his face into a smile.
“Wait longer, old fellow, if you’re not up to talk. I’m here, night and day.”
“I know. You’ve been awfully good.”
His friend did not answer, except by laying his hand on an arm which shocked him by its thinness, and for a little while there was silence which Wareham did not dare to break. What lay beyond it? Hugh’s next words touched the sore.
“The letter.”
The answer was in a shaken voice.
“I would give my right hand never to have written it!”
Fun once more gleamed in Hugh’s eyes.
“Poor old Dick! Odd, wasn’t it? I couldn’t help laughing to find you’d been so bowled over!”
His voice was little more than a slow whisper, broken by pauses, sometimes sinking so low as to be almost inaudible. Wareham felt that the time had come for him to speak.
“Don’t try to say anything, but just listen. On my honour, the thing was on me before I knew where I was, and, while I flattered myself—like a fool—that I detested her for the way she treated you, I never thought that all the time she was slipping into my very heart. At last, one day, I saw myself and her. Hugh, that very day I wrote that letter. And, look here—though I said just now that I would have given my right hand not to have written it, I don’t know how I could be facing you now if I hadn’t.” He reined himself back into slow speech. “I never spoke a word to her. The secret rests between you and me. She hasn’t an idea. Get well, Hugh, and God knows whether I will not stand aside and be thankful that you have her!”
Silence, and the ticking of the clock. The nurse looked in at the door, but retreated at a sign from Wareham. Hugh said at last—
“I urged you to stay.”
“And now you know why I refused?”
“Yes. Poor Dick!”
His look made the question superfluous, yet Wareham said—
“There never will be bad blood between us?”
Hugh’s hand sought his in pledge.
“Never. I want to make it all right.”
“Wait for that, Hugh.”
“For what? For my ghost?” He breathed the words. “When you saw me that morning—what a sell!”
“Nothing had been said,” repeated Wareham doggedly.
“I know.Icouldn’t have been so straight—with Anne before me. But you can’t laugh now at my madness.”
“Not I.”
Silence again, and another spoonful at his dry lips. He whispered. “I’m glad I came.”
His friend had no words for this.
“Yes—glad. I know her better.” His voice gained strength, and his eyes turned again to Wareham. “I could have made her love me.”
“I have seen all along that you were the only man she liked,” the other said, with confidence.
“I don’t know.” His feeble hands beat up and down, as if he were indicating balance. “She’s not easy. If I’d lived, I couldn’t have given her up. Now,”—a sign stopped Wareham’s protest. “Yes, but I’m dog in the manger still.”
Wareham felt a cold clutch at his heart for which he loathed himself.
“Be what you like, Hugh,” he said quickly. “No one has so much right to speak as you,” and whatever his heart might say, his will would have bound itself irrevocably to his friend’s bidding.
“I want—you to have her,” Hugh sighed, turning away his face.
Once more the nurse looked in at the door, signifying disapproval. Wareham hastily nodded, and she withdrew her head. He had to put down his ear to catch Hugh’s next words—
“Don’t let us pretend—I’m dying—win her, Dick.”
It was impossible for Wareham to speak. He pressed Hugh’s hand, and he was thinking more of Hugh than Anne.
“Only—”
A pause.
“I told you I was a dog in the manger.”
“Tell me what you wish, old fellow.”
“I want to be remembered—just for a little. I don’t want you to speak just yet.”
“I couldn’t.”
The dull eyes brightened.
“You promise?”
“Sacredly. And, Hugh, I’ve no right to think she ever will consent.”
“Ask her in—” He paused. “Is two months too long? Remember, I held her mine once. I can’t set that on one side. You promise? Not a word till two months have passed?”
“You have my promise,” said Wareham quickly, the more quickly for shame at the murmurings of a greedy heart.
“When you’ve got her—you won’t mind having waited. I’ve said my say, Dick. Yesterday—”
“Yes?”
“I asked her to kiss me, and—she did.” His voice grew stronger, and he smiled feebly. “That other lean-souled woman wanted to come, but I wouldn’t have her.”
“Mrs Martyn?”
“Yes. She’s curious. Say nothing to her, Dick.”
“Nothing. Old boy, you’ve talked enough.”
“Well—” Hugh acknowledged.
A silent pressure, and Wareham went. He wanted to be by himself, and though there were only half-a-dozen people he knew in Bergen, the place seemed full of them; there was not a corner round which they might not appear. He might have walked off out of the town, and been safe, but he would not leave the house for more than half-an-hour. For that time the museum struck him as a safe refuge, and he made for it.
Turning up a broad street to his right, a sailor crossed the road and touched his hat.
“Beg pardon, sir, but ain’t you Mr Wareham?”
He signified his right to the name.
“I’ve a message for you, sir, from the young lady on board the yacht. I was to say as we ain’t going out of harbour to-day, sir, and that if she was wanted, you’d only got to send a boat for her.”
He was told to carry back the answer that Mr Wareham would take care to act upon her wishes.
“You’ve a fine yacht out there,” he added, in order to gratify the man.
“If you saw her sail, sir, you’d say so. But she hasn’t done nothing here, and it seems as if we were going to be too late for the regattas. Never knew that happen afore.”
He departed, and Wareham walked on quickly to the museum, ran up the broad staircase, and wandered into a world of arctic creatures, where he was secure from interruption.
For the last three or four days his hopes of Hugh’s recovery had been low, now some conviction told him it was all but hopeless. “Hugh, old Hugh!” he kept repeating to himself, as the past years of their friendship trooped up again. Always he had been, in thought as well as fact, the elder, the supporter; now in the shadowy twilight of the Great Unseen, Hugh had passed to strange heights of experience; the careless words he used to rattle off, dropped now, changed, as coming from one whose feet were near the eternal shore.
The special thing which Hugh had to say had scarcely presented itself since. It seemed a matter of no moment; something perhaps to be considered in the far future, but not yet. Dying, Anne belonged to Hugh; Wareham’s only dread was lest she should disappoint him, a vague uneasiness about Lord Milborough was in his mind, and he did not think Hugh had any consciousness of this new disturbing element. He asked few questions about her, and it was impossible to say what had passed between them in their last interview, except that he had appeared satisfied. But Anne herself? She had refused to leave the place, had, but half-an-hour ago, sent a message that she was at hand, yet Wareham had his doubts. Did she feel? Did she care? Her own words came back, when she had called herself heartless, and under the intoxication of her presence he had indignantly refuted the accusation. Admitting it even, how was he to blame her? since a vessel can pour out no more than is in it. But with those eyes! Was it possible that no heart reigned behind them? If it were so, Wareham, suddenly stern judge, acknowledged that it was well Hugh should go while yet he loved her, and clung to the dream that she might yet love him.