IN the morning of one of the hot days in June, Mollie, standing at the window of Phil's studio, turned suddenly toward the inmates of the room with an exclamation.
“Phil!” she said, “Toinette! There is a carriage drawing up before the door.”
“Lady Augusta?” said Toinette, making a dart at Tod.
“Confound Lady Augusta!” ejaculated Phil, devoutly. “That woman has a genius for presenting herself at inopportune times.”
“But it is n't Lady Augusta,” Mollie objected. “It is n't the Bilberry carriage at all. Do you think I don't know 'the ark'?”
“You ought to by this time,” returned Phil. “I do, to my own deep grief.”
“It is the Brabazon Lodge carriage!” cried Mollie, all at once. “Miss MacDowlas is getting out, and—yes, here is Dolly!”
“And Tod just washed and dressed!” said Mrs. Phil, picking up her offspring with an air of self-congratulation. “Miracle of miracles! The Fates begin to smile upon us. Phil, how is my back hair?”
“All right,” returned Phil. “I suppose I shall have to present myself, too.”
It was necessary that they should all present themselves, they found. Miss MacDowlas wished to form the acquaintance of the whole family, it appeared, and apart from this her visit had rather an important object.
“It is a sort of farewell visit,” she explained, “though, of course, the farewell is only to be a temporary one. We find London too hot for us, and we are going to try Switzerland. The medical man thinks a change will be beneficial to your sister.”
They all looked at Dolly then,—at Dolly in her delicate, crisp summer bravery and her pretty summer hat; but it was neither hat nor dress that drew their eyes upon her all at once in that new questioning way. But Dolly only laughed,—a soft, nervous laugh, however,—and played with her much-frilled parasol.
“Miss MacDowlas,” she said, “is good enough to fancy I am not so well as I ought to be, Tod,” bending her face low over the pretty little fellow, who had trotted to her knee. “What do you think of Aunt Dolly's appearing in the character of invalid? It sounds like the best of jokes, does n't it, Tod?”
They tried to smile responsively, all of them, but the effort was not a success. Despite all her pretence of brightness and coquettish attire, there was not one of them who had not been startled when their first greeting was over. Under the triumph of a hat, her face showed almost sharply cut, her skin far too transparently colorless, her eyes much too large and bright. The elaborately coiled braids of hair seemed almost too heavy for the slender throat to bear, and no profusion of trimming could hide that the little figure was worn. The flush and glow and spirit had died away from her. It was not the Dolly who had been wont to pride herself upon ruling supreme in Vagabondia, who sat there before them making them wonder; it was a new creature, who seemed quite a stranger to them.
They were glad to see how fond of her Miss MacDowlas appeared to be. They had naturally not had a very excellent opinion of Miss MacDowlas in the past days; but the fact that Dolly had managed to so win upon her as to bring out her best side, quite softened their hearts. She was not so grim, after all. Her antipathy to Grif had evidently been her most unpleasant peculiarity, and now, seeing her care for this new Dolly, who needed care so much, they were rather touched.
When the farewells had been said, the carriage had driven away, and they had returned to the studio, a silence seemed to fall upon them, one and all. 'Toinette sat in her chair, holding Tod, without speaking; Mollie stood near her with a wondering, downcast air; Phil went to the window, and, neglecting his picture wholly for the time being, looked out into the street, whistling softly.
At length he turned round to Aimée.
“Aimée,” he said, abruptly, “how long has this been going on?”
“You mean this change?” said Aimée, in a low voice.
“Yes.”
“For three months,” she answered. “I did not like to tell you because I knewshewould not like it; but it dates from the time Grif went away.”
Mrs. Phil burst into an impetuous gush of tears, hiding her handsome, girlish face on Tod's neck.
“It is a shame!” she cried out. “It is a cruel, burning shame! Who would ever have thought of Grif's treating her like this?”
“Yes,” said Phil; “and who would ever have thought that Dolly would have broken down? Dolly! By George! I can't believe it. If I am able to judge, it seems time that she should try Switzerland or somewhere else. Aimée, has she heard nothing of him?”
“Nothing.”
The young man flushed hotly.
“Confound it!” he burst forth. “It looks as if the fellow was a dishonorable scamp. And yet he is the last man I should ever have fancied would prove a scamp.”
“But he has not proved himself a scamp yet,” said Aimée, in a troubled tone. “And Dolly would not like to hear you say so. And if you knew the whole truth youwouldn'tsay so. He has been tried too far, and he has been impetuous and rash, but it was his love for Dolly that made him so. And wherever he may be, Phil, I know he is as wretched and hopeless as Dolly herself could be at the worst. It has all been misunderstanding and mischance.”
“He has broken Dolly's heart, nevertheless,” cried Mrs. Phil. “And if she dies—”
“Dies!” cried out Mollie, opening her great eyes and turning pale all at once. “Dies! Dolly?”
“Hush!” said Aimée, trembling and losing color herself. “Oh, hush!—don't say such things. It sounds so dreadful,—it is too dreadful to think of!”
And so it came about that on another of these hot June days there appeared at thetable à hôteof a certain well-conducted and already well-filled inn at Lake Geneva two new arrivals,—a tall, thin, elderly lady of excessively English exterior, and a young person who attracted some attention,—a girl who wore a long black dress, and had a picturesque Elizabethan frill about her too slender throat, and who, in spite of her manner and the clearness of her bright voice, was too whitely transparent of complexion and too finely cut of face to look as strong as a girl of one or two and twenty ought to be.
The people who took stock of them, after the manner of all unoccupied hotel sojourners on the lookout for sensations, noticed this. One or two of them even observed that, on entering the room after the slight exertion of descending the staircase, the girl was slightly out of breath and seemed glad to sit down, and that, her companion evidently making some remark upon the fact, she half laughed, as if wishing to make light of it; and they noticed, too, that her naturally small hands were so very slender that her one simple little ring of amethyst and pearls slipped loosely up and down her finger.
They were not ordinary tourists, these new arrivals, it was clear. Their attire told that at once. They had removed their travelling dresses, and looked as if they had quite made up their minds to enjoy their customary mode of life as if they had been at home. They had no courier, the wiseacres had ascertained, and they had brought a neat English serving-woman, who seemed to know her business marvellously well and be by no means unaccustomed to travelling.
“Aunt and niece!” commented one gentleman, surveying Dolly over his soup. “A nice little creature,—the niece.” And he mentally resolved to cultivate her acquaintance. But it was not such an easy matter. The new arrivals were unlike ordinary tourists in other respects than in their settled mode of life. They did not seem to care to form chance acquaintance with their fellow guests. They lived quietly and, unless when driving out together or taking short, unfatiguing strolls, remained much in their own apartments. They appeared at thetable d'hôteoccasionally; but though they were pleasant in manner they were not communicative, and so, after a week or so, people tired of asking questions about them and lapsed into merely exchanging greetings, and looking on with some interest at any changes they observed in the pretty, transparent, though always bright face, and the pliant, soft young figure.
Thus Miss MacDowlas and her companion “tried Switzerland.”
“It will do you good, my dear, and brace you up,” the elder lady had said; and from the bottom of her heart she had hoped it would.
And did it?
Well, the last time Dolly had “tried Switzerland,” she had tried it in the capacity of Lady Augusta's governess, and she had held in charge a host of rampant young Bilberrys, who secretly loathed their daily duties, and were not remarkable in the matter of filial piety, and were only reconciled to existence by the presence of their maternal parent's greatest trial, that highly objectionable Dorothea Crewe. So, taking Lady Augusta in conjunction with her young charges, the girl had often felt her lot by no means the easiest in the world; but youth and spirit, and those oft-arriving letters, had helped her to bear a great deal, and so there was still something sweet about the memory. Oh, those old letters—those foolish, passionate, tender letters—written in the dusty, hot London office, read with such happiness, and answered on such closely penned sheets of foreign paper! How she had used to watch for them, and carry them to her small bedroom and read them again and again, kneeling on the floor by the open window, the fresh, soft summer breezes from the blue lake far below stirring her hair and kissing her forehead! How doubly and trebly fair she had been wont to fancy everything looked on that “letter day” of hers,—that red-letter day,—that golden-letter day!
The very letters she had written then lay in her trunk now, tied together in a bundle, just as Grif had brought them and laid them down upon the table when he gave her up forever. Her “dead letter” lay with them,—that last, last appeal, which had never reached his heart, and never would. She had written her last letter to him, and he his last to her.
And now she had been brought to “try Switzerland” and Lake Geneva as a Lethe.
But she had determined to be practical and courageous, and bear it as best she might. It would not have been like her to give way at once without a struggle. She did not believe in lovelorn damsels, who pined away and died of broken hearts, and made all their friends uncomfortable by so doing. She made a struggle, and refused to give up. She grew shadowy and fair; but it was under protest, and she battled against the change she felt creeping upon her so slowly but so surely. She showed a brave face to people, and tried to be as bright and ready-witted as ever; and if she failed it was not her own fault. She fought hard against her sleepless nights and weary days; and when she lay awake hour after hour hearing the clock strike, it was not because she made no effort to compose herself, it was only because the delicate wheels of thoughtwouldwork against her helpless will, and it was worse than useless to close her eyes when she could see so plainly her lost lover's desperate, anguished face, and hear so distinctly his strained, strangely altered voice: “No, it is too late for that now,—that is all over!” And he had once loved her better than his life!
So it was that, try as she might, she could not make Switzerland a success. When she went down to the table d'hôte, people saw that instead of growing stronger she was growing more frail, and the exertion of coming down the long flight of stairs tried her more than it had seemed to do that first day. Sometimes she had a soft, lovely, dangerous color on her cheeks, and her eyes looked almost translucent; and then again the color was gone, her skin was white and transparent, and her eyes were shadowy and languid. When the hot July days came in, the ring of pearls and amethyst would stay on the small worn hand no longer, and so was taken off and hung with the little bunch of coquettish “charms” upon her chain. But she was not conquered yet, and the guests and servants often heard her laughing, and making Miss MacDowlas laugh as they sat together in their private parlor.
The two were sitting thus together one Saturday early in July,—Dolly in a loose white wrapper, resting in a low basket chair by the open window, and fanning herself languidly,—when a visitor was announced, and the moment after the announcement a tall young lady rushed into the room and clasped Dolly unceremoniously in her arms, either not observing or totally ignoring Miss MacDowlas's presence.
“Dolly!” she cried, kneeling down by the basket chair and speaking so fast that her words tumbled over each other, and her sentences were curiously mingled. “Oh! if you please, dear, I know it was n't polite, and I never meant to do it in such an unexpected, awfully rude way; and what mamma would say, I am sure I cannot tell, unless go into dignified convulsions, and shudder herself stiff; but how could I help it, when I came expecting to see you as bright and lovely as ever, and caught a glimpse of you through the door, as the servant spoke, sitting here so white and thin and tired-looking! Oh, dear! oh, dear! how ever can it be!”
“My dear Phemie!” said Dolly, laughing and crying both at once, through weakness and sympathy,—for of course poor, easily moved Phemie had burst into a flood of affectionate tears. “My dear child, how excited you are, and how pleasant it is to see you! How did you manage to come?”
“The professor with the lumpy face—poor, pale darling—I mean you, not him,” explained the eldest Miss Bilberry, clinging to her ex-governess as if she was afraid of seeing her float through the open window. “The professor with the lumpy face, Dolly; which shows he is not so horrid as I always thought him, and I am very sorry for being so inconsiderate, I am sure—you know he cannot help his lumps any more than I can help my dreadful red hands and my dresses not fitting.”
Dolly stopped her here to introduce her to Miss MacDowlas; and that lady having welcomed her good-naturedly, and received her incoherent apologies for her impetuous lack of decorum, the explanation proceeded.
“How could the professor send you here?” asked Dolly.
“He did not exactly send me, but he helped me,” replied the luckless Euphemia, becoming a trifle more coherent. “I saw you at the little church, though you did not see me, because, of course, we sit in the most disagreeable part, just where we can't see or be seen at all. And though I only saw you at a distance, and through your veil, and half behind a pillar, I knew you, and knew Miss MacDowlas. I think I knew Miss MacDowlas most because shewasn'tbehind the pillar. And it nearly drove me crazy to think you were so near, and I gave one of the servants some money to find out where you were staying, and she brought me word that you were staying here, and meant to stay. And then I asked the lady principal to let me come and see you, and of course she refused; and I never should have been able to come at all, only it chanced that was my music-lesson day, and I went in to the professor with red eyes,—I had cried so,—and when he asked me what I had been crying for, I remembered that he used to be fond of you, and I told him. And he was sorry for me, and promised to ask leave for me. He is a cousin of the lady principal, and a great favorite with her. And the end of it was that they let me come. And I have almost flown. I had to wait until to-day, you know, because it was Saturday.”
It was quite touching to see how, when she stopped speaking, she clung to Dolly's hands, and looked at her with wonder and grief in her face.
“What is it that has changed you so?” she said. “You are not like yourself at all. Oh, my dear, how ill you are!”
A wistful shadow showed itself in the girl's eyes.
“AmI so much changed?” she asked.
“You do not look like our Dolly at all,” protested Phemie. “You are thin,—oh, so thin! Whatisthe matter?”
“Thin!” said Dolly. “Am I? Then I must be growing ugly enough. Perhaps it is to punish me for being so vain about my figure. Don't you remember what a dread I always had of growing thin? Just to think thatIshould grow thin, after all! Do my bones stick out like the Honorable Cecilia Howland's, Phemie?” And she ended with a little laugh.
Phemie kissed her, in affectionate protest against such an idea.
“Oh, dear, no!” she said. “They could n't, you know. They are not the kind of bones to do it. Just think of her dreadful elbows and her fearful shoulder-blades! You couldn't look like her. I don't mean that sort of thinness at all. But you seem so light and so little. And look here,” and she held up the painfully small hand, the poor little hand without the ring. “There are no dimples here now, Dolly,” she said, sorrowfully.
“No,” answered Dolly, simply; and the next minute, as she drew her hand away, there fluttered from her lips a sigh.
She managed to change the turn of conversation after this. Miss MacDowlas had good-naturedly left them alone, and so she began to ask Phemie questions,—questions about school and lessons and companions, about the lady principal and the under-teachers and about the professor with the lumpy face; and, despite appearances being against her, there was still the old ring in her girl's jests.
“Has madame got a new bonnet yet,” she asked, “or does she still wear the old one with those aggressive-looking spikes of wheat in it? The lean ears ought to have eaten up the fat ones by this time.”
“But they have n't,” returned Phemie. “They are there yet, Dolly. Just the same spikes in the same bonnet, only she has had new saffron-colored ribbon put on it, just the shade of her skin.”
Dolly shuddered,—Lady Augusta's own semi-tragic shudder, if Phemie had only recognized it.
“Phemie,” she said, with a touch of pardonable anxiety, “ill as I look, I am not that color, am I? To lose one's figure and grow thin is bad enough, but to become like Madame Pillet—dear me!” shaking her head. “I scarcely think I could reconcile myself to existence.”
Phemie laughed. “You are not changed in one respect, Dolly,” she said. “When I hear you talk it makes me feel quite—quite safe.”
“Safe!” Dolly echoed. “You mean to say that so long as I preserve my constitutional vanity, your anxiety won't overpower you. But—but,” looking at her curiously, “did you think at first that I was not safe, as you call it?”
“You looked so ill,” faltered Phemie. “And—I was so startled.”
“Were you?” asked Dolly. “Did I shock you?”
“A little—only just a little, dear,” deprecatingly.
Then strangely enough fell upon them a silence. Dolly turned toward the window, and her eyes seemed to fix themselves upon some far-away point, as if she was pondering over a new train of thought. And when at last she spoke, her voice was touched with the tremulous unsteadiness of tears.
“Do you think,” she said, slowly,—"do you think thatany onewho had loved me would be shocked to see me now? Am I so much altered as that? One scarcely sees these things one's self,—they come to pass so gradually.”
All poor Phemie's smiles died away.
“Don't let us talk about it,” she pleaded. “I cannot bear to hear you speak so. Don't, dear—if you please, don't!”
Her pain was so evident that it roused Dolly at once.
“I won't, if it troubles you,” she said, almost in her natural manner. “It does not matter,—why should it? There is no one here to be shocked. I was only wondering.”
But the shadow did not quite leave her face, and even when, an hour later, Euphemia bade her good-by and left her, promising to return again as soon as possible, it was there still.
She was very, very quiet for a few minutes after she found herself alone. She clasped her hands behind her head, and lay back in the light chair, looking out of the window. She was thinking so deeply that she did not even stir for a while; but in the end she got up, as though moved by some impulse, and crossed the room.
Against the wall hung a long, narrow mirror, and she went to this mirror and stood before it, looking at herself from head to foot,—at her piteously sharpened face, with its large, wondering eyes, eyes that wondered at themselves,—at the small, light figure so painfully etherealized, and about which the white wrapper hung so loosely. She even held up, at last, the slender hand and arm; but when she saw these uplifted, appealing, as it were, for this sad, new face which did not seem her own, she broke into a little cry of pain and grief.
“If you could see me now,” she said, “if you should come here by chance and see me now, my dear, I think you would not wait to ask whether I had been true or false. I never laid this white cheek on your shoulder, did I? Oh, what a changed face it is! I know I was never very pretty, though you thought so and were proud of me in your tender way, but I was not like this in those dear old days. Grif, Grif, would you know me,—would youknowme?” And, turning to her chair again, she dropped upon her knees before it, and knelt there sobbing.
THE postman paid frequent visits to Bloomsbury Place during these summer weeks. At first Dolly wrote often herself, but later it seemed to fall to Miss MacDowlas to answer Aimée's weekly letters and Mollie's fortnightly ones. And that lady was a faithful correspondent, and did her duty as readily as was possible, giving all the news, and recording all Dolly's messages, and issuing regular bulletins on the subject of her health. “Your sister,” she sometimes wrote, “is not so well, and I have persuaded her to allow me to be her amanuensis.” Or, “Your sister is tired after a rather long drive, and I have persuaded her to rest while I write at her dictation.” Or sometimes, “Dolly is rather stronger, and is in excellent spirits, but I do not wish her to exert herself at present.” But at length a new element crept into these letters. The cheerful tone gave way to a more dubious one; Dolly's whimsical messages were fewer and farther between, and sometimes Miss MacDowlas seemed to be on the verge of hinting that her condition was a weaker and more precarious one than even she herself had at first feared.
Ralph Gowan, on making his friendly calls, and hearing this, was both anxious and puzzled. In a very short time after his return he had awakened to a recognition of some mysterious shadow upon the household. Vagabondia had lost its spirits. Mrs. Phil and her husband were almost thoughtful; Tod disported himself unregarded and unadmired, comparatively speaking; Mollie seemed half frightened by the aspect affairs were wearing; and Aimee's wise, round face had an older look. And then these letters! Dolly “trying Switzerland” for her health, Dolly mysteriously ill and far away from home,—too weak sometimes to write. Dolly, who had never seemed to have a weakness; who had entered the lists against even Lady Augusta, and had come off victorious; who had been mock-worldly, and coquettish, and daring; who had made open onslaught upon eligible Philistines; who had angled prettily and with sinful success for ineligible Bohemians! What did it mean? And where was Donne? Certainly he was never to be seen at Bloomsbury Place or in its vicinity in these days.
But, deeply interested as he was, Gowan was not the man to ask questions; so he could only wait until chance brought the truth to light.
He came to the house upon one occasion and found Aimée crying quietly over one of Miss MacDowlas's letters in the parlor, and in his sympathy he felt compelled to speak openly to her.
Then Aimée, heavy of heart and full of despairing grief, handed him the letter to read.
“I have known it would be so—from the first,” she sobbed. “We are going to lose her. Perhaps she will not live to come home again.”
“You mean Dolly?” he said.
“Yes,” hysterically. “Miss MacDowlas says—” But she could get no further.
This was what Miss MacDowlas said:—
“I cannot think it would be right to hide from you that your sister is very ill, though she does not complain, and persists in treating her increasing weakness lightly. Indeed, I am sure that she herself does not comprehend her danger. I am inclined to believe that it has not yet occurred to her that she is in danger at all. She protests that she cannot be ill so long as she does not suffer; but I, who have watched her day by day, can see only too plainly where the danger lies. And so I think it best to warn you to be prepared to come to us at once if at any time I should send for you hurriedly.”
“Prepared to go to them!” commented Aimée. “What does that mean? What can it mean but that our own Dolly is dying, and may slip out of the world away from us at any moment? Oh, Grif! Grif! what have you done?”
Gowan closed the letter.
“Miss Aimée,” he said, “whereisDonne?”
Aimée fairly wrung her hands.
“I don't know,” she quite wailed. “If I only did—if I only knew where I could find him!”
“You don't know!” exclaimed Gowan. “And Dolly dying in Switzerland!”
“That is it,” she returned. “That is what it all means. If any of us knew—or if Dolly knew, she would not be dying in Switzerland. It is because she does not know, that she is dying. She has never seen him since the night you brought Mollie home. And—and she cannot live without him.”
The whole story was told in very few words after this; and Gowan, listening, began to understand what the cloud upon the house had meant. He suffered some sharp enough pangs through the discovery, too. The last frail cords that had bound him to hope snapped as Aimée poured out her sorrows. He had never been very sanguine of success, but even after hoping against hope, his tender fancy for Dolly Crewe had died a very lingering death; indeed, it was not quite dead yet, but he was beginning to comprehend this old love story more fully, and he had found himself forced to do his rival greater justice. He could not see his virtues as the rest saw them, of course, but he was generous enough to pity him, and see that his lot had been a terribly hard one.
“There is only one thing to be done,” he said, when Aimée had finished speaking. “We must find him.”
“Find him! We cannot find him.”
“That remains to be proved,” he answered. “Have you been to his lodgings?”
“Yes,” mournfully. “And even to the office! He left his lodgings that very night, paid his bills, and drove away in a cab with his trunk. Poor Grif! It was n't a very big trunk. He went to the office the next morning, and told Mr. Flynn he was going to leave London, and one of the clerks told Phil there was a 'row' between them. Mr. Flynn was angry because he had not given due notice of his intention. That is all we know.”
“And you have not the slightest clew beyond this?”
“Not the slightest. He spent all his spare time with Dolly, you know; so there is not even any place of resort, or club, or anything, where we might go to make inquiries about him.”
Gowan's countenance fell. He felt the girl's distress keenly, apart from his own pain.
“The whole affair seems very much against us,” he said; “but he may—I say hemaybe in London still. I am inclined to believe he is myself. When the first passion of excitement was over, he would find himself weaker than he fancied he was. It would not be so easy to cut himself off from the old life altogether. He would long so inexpressibly to see Dolly again that he could not tear himself away. I think we may be assured that even if he is not in London, at least he has not left England.”
“That was what I have been afraid of,” said Aimée, “that he might have left England altogether.”
“I cannot think he has,” Gowan returned.
They were both silent for a moment. Aimée sat twisting Miss MacDowlas's letter in her fingers, fresh tears gathering in her eyes.
“It is all the harder to bear,” she said next, “because Dolly has always seemed so much of arealityto us. If she had been a pale, ethereal sort of girl, it might not seem such a shock; but she never was. She even used to say she could not bear those frail, ethereal people in books, who were always dying and saying touching things just at the proper time, and who knew exactly when to call up their agonized friends to their bedside to see how pathetically and decorously they made their exit. Oh, my poor darling! To think that she should be fading away and dying just in the same way! I cannot make it seem real. I cannot think of her without her color, and her jokes, and her bits of acting, and her little vanities. She will not be our Dolly at all if they have left her. There is a dress of hers up-stairs now,—a dress she couldn't bear. And I remember so well how she lost her temper when she was making it, because it would n't fit. And when I went into the parlor she was crying over it, and Grif was trying so hard to console her that at last she laughed. I can see her now, with the tears in her eyes, looking half-vexed and half-comforted. And Tod, too,—how fond she was of Tod, and how proud of him! Ah, Tod,” in a fresh burst, “when you grow up, the daisies may have been growing for many a year over poor little Aunt Dolly, and you will have forgotten her quite.”
“You must not look at the matter in that desponding way,” said Gowan, quite unsteadily. “We must hope for the best, and do what we can. You may rely upon me to exert myself to the utmost. If we succeed in finding Donne I am sure that he will do the rest. Perhaps, next summer Vagabondia will be as bright as ever,—nay, even brighter than it has been before.”
All his sympathies were enlisted, and, hopeless as the task seemed, he had determined to make strenuous efforts to trace this lost lover. Men had concealed themselves from their friends, in the world of London, often before, and this, he felt sure, Griffith Donne was doing; and since this poor little impassioned, much-tried Dolly was dying in spite of herself for Griffith Donne's sake, and seemed only to be saved by his presence, he must even set himself the task of bringing him to light and clearing up this miserable misunderstanding. Having been Dolly Crewe's lover, he was still generous enough to wish to prove himself her friend; yes, and even her luckier lover's friend, though he winced a trifle at the thought. Accordingly, he left the house that night with his mind full of half-formed plans, both feasible and otherwise.
During the remainder of that week he did not call at Bloomsbury Place again, but at the beginning of the next he made his appearance, bringing with him a piece of news which excited Aimee terribly.
“I know I shall startle you,” he said, the moment they were alone together, “but you can scarcely be more startled than I was myself. I have been on the lookout constantly, but I did not expect to be rewarded by success so soon. Indeed, as it is, it has been entirely a matter of chance. It is as I felt sure it would be. Donne is in London still. I know that much, though that is all I have learned as yet. Late last night I caught a glimpse—only a glimpse—of him hurrying through a by-street. I almost fancied he had seen me and was determined to get out of the way.”
“The pretty English girl,” said the guests at the inn, “comes down no longer to thetable d'hôte!” “The pretty English girl,” remarked the wiseacres, “does not even drive out on these days, and the doctor calls every morning to see her.”
“And sometimes,” added one of the wisest, “again in the evening.”
“Consumption,” observed another.
“Plainly consumption,” nodding significantly. “These English frauleins are so often consumptive,” commented a third. “It is astonishing to remark how many come to 'try Switzerland,' as they say.”
“And die?”
“And die,—as this one will.”
“Poor little thing!” with a sigh and a pitying shrug of the shoulders.
And in the meantime up-stairs the basket chair had been taken away from the window, and a large-cushioned, chintz-covered couch had been pushed into its place, and Dolly lay upon it. But luxurious as her couch was, and balmy as the air was, coming through the widely opened window, she did not find much rest. The fact was, she was past rest by this time, she was too weak to rest. The hot days tried her, and her sleepless nights undermined even her last feeble relic of strength. Sometimes during the day she felt that she could not lie propped up on the pillows a moment longer; but when she tried to stand or sit up she was glad to drop back again into the old place. She lost her breath fearfully soon,—the least exertion left her panting.
“If I had a cough,” she said once to Miss MacDowlas, “I could understand that I was ill—or if I suffered any actual pain, but I don't, and even the doctor admits that my lungs are safe enough. What is it that he says about me? Let me see. Ah, this is it: that I am 'below par—fearfully below par,' as if I was gold, or notes, or bonds, or something. My ideas on the subject of the money market are indefinite, you see. Ah, well; I wonder when I shall be 'above par'!”
She never spoke of her ailments in any other strain. Even as she lay on her couch, too prostrate to either read or work, she made audacious satirical speeches, and told Miss MacDowlas stories of Vagabondia, just as she used to tell them to Grif himself, only that in these days she could not get up to flourish illustratively; and often after lying for an hour or so in a dead, heavy, exhausting day-sleep, she opened her eyes at last, to jest about her faithful discharge of her duties as companion. Only she herself knew of the fierce battles she so often fought in secret, when her sore, aching heart cried out so loud for Grif and would not—wouldnot be comforted.
She saw Phemie frequently. The much-abused professor had proved himself a faithful friend to them. He had never been quite able to forget the little English governess, who had so won upon him in the past, even though this same young lady, in her anxiety to set Lady Augusta at defiance, had treated him somewhat cavalierly. Indeed, hearing that she was ill, he was so touched as to be quite overwhelmed with grief. He gained Euphemia frequent leaves of absence, and sent messages of condolence and bouquets,—huge bunches of flowers which made Dolly laugh even while they pleased her. There was always a bouquet, stiff in form and gigantic in proportions, when Phemie came.
At first Phemie caught the contagion of Dolly's own spirit and hopefulness, and was sustained by it in spite of appearances; but its influence died out at the end of a few weeks, and even she was not to be deceived. An awful fear began to force itself upon her,—a fear doubly awful to poor, susceptible Phemie. Dolly was getting no better; she was even getting worse every day; she could not sit up; she was thinner and larger-eyed than ever. Was something going to happen? And at the mere thought of that possible something she would lose her breath and sit looking at Dolly, silent, wondering, and awe-stricken. She began to ponder over this something, as she tried to learn her lessons; she thought of it as she went to bed and she dreamed of it in the night. Sometimes when she came in unexpectedly and found Dolly in one of those prostrate sleeps, she was so frightened that she could have cried out aloud.
She came in so one evening at twilight,—the professor had brought her himself and had promised to escort her home,—and she found Dolly in one of these sleeps. So, treading lightly, she put the bouquet in water, and then drew a low chair to the girl's side and sat down to watch and wait until she should awaken. Miss MacDowlas was in her own room writing to Aimée; so the place seemed very quiet, and it was its quietness, perhaps, which so stirred Phemie to sorrowful thoughts and fear.
Upon her brightly flowered chintz cushions Dolly lay like the shadow of her former self. The once soft, round outlines of her face had grown clear and sharp-cut, the delicate chin had lost its dimple, the transparent skin upon the temples showed a tracery of blue veins, the closed eyelids had a strange whiteness and lay upon her eyes heavily. She did not move,—she seemed scarcely to breathe. Phemie caught her own breath and held it, lest it should break from her in a sob of grief and terror.
This something awfulwasgoing to happen! She could not recover herself even when Dolly wakened and began to talk to her. She could not think of anything but her own anguish and pity for her friend. She could not talk and was so silent, indeed, that Dolly became silent too; and so, as the dusk fell upon them, they sat together in a novel quiet, listening to a band of strolling musicians, who were playing somewhere in the distance, and the sound of whose instruments floated to them, softened and made plaintive by the evening air.
At last Dolly broke the silence.
“You are very quiet, Phemie,” she said. “Are you going to sleep?”
“No,” faltered Phemie, drawing closer to her. “I am thinking.”
“Thinking. What about?”
“About you. Dolly, do you—are you very ill—worse than you were?”
“Very ill!” repeated Dolly, slowly, as if in wonder. “Worse than I was! Why do you ask?”
Then Phemie lost self-control altogether. She left her seat and fell down by the couch, bursting into tears.
“You are so altered,” she said; “and you alter so much every week. I cried over your poor, thin little hands when first I came to see you, but now your wrist looks as if it would snap in two. Oh, Dolly, darling, if—if you should die!”
Was it quite a new thought, or was it because it had never come home to her in such a form before, this thought of Death? She started as if she had been stung.
“If I should die!” she echoed. “Die!”
“Phemie, my dear,” said Miss MacDowlas, opening the door, “the professor is waiting down-stairs.”
And so, having let her sorrow get the better of her, Phemie had no time to stay to see if her indiscretion had done harm. If she did not go now, she might not be allowed fresh grace; and so she was fain to tear herself away.
“I ought n't to have said it!” she bewailed, as she kissed Dolly again and again. “Please forget it; oh, do, please, forget it! I did not mean it, indeed! And now I shall be so frightened and unhappy!”
“Phemie,” said Dolly, quietly, “you have not frightenedme; so you haven't the least need to trouble yourself, my dear.”
But she was not exactly sorry to be left alone, and when she was alone her thoughts wandered back to that first evening Phemie had called,—the evening she had gone to the glass to look at her changed face. She had sat in the basket-chair then,—she lay back upon her cushions now, and a crowd of new thoughts came trooping through her mind. The soft air was scented and balmy; the twilight sky was a dome of purple, jewel-hung; people's voices came murmuring from the gardens below; the far-off music floated to her through the window.
“If I shoulddie!” she said, in a wondering whisper,—"I, Dolly Crewe! How strange it sounds! Have I never thought that I could die before, or is it strange because now it is so real and near? When I used to talk about death to Grif, it always seemed so far away from both of us; it seemed to me as if I was not good enough or unreal enough to be near to Death,—great, solemn Death itself. Why, I could look at myself, and wonder at the thought of how much I shall see and know if I should die. Grif, how much I should have to tell you, dear,—only that people are always afraid of spirits, and perhaps you would be afraid, too,—even of me! What would they say at home? Dear, old, broken-hearted fellow, what wouldyousay, if I should die?”
She could not help thinking about those at home; about Aimée and Mollie and Phil and Toinette, sitting together in the dear old littered room at Bloomsbury Place,—the dear old untidy room, where she had sat with Grif so often! How would they all bear it when the letter came to tell them she was gone, and would never be with them and share their pleasures and troubles again! And then, strangely enough, she began to picture herself as she would look; perhaps, laid out in this very room, a dimly outlined figure, under a white sheet,—not her old self, but a solemn, wondrous marble form, before whose motionless, mysterious presence they would feel awed.
“And they would turn down the white covering and look at me,” she found herself saying. “And they would wonder at me, and feel that I was far away. Oh, how they would wonder at me! And, at the very last, before they hid my face forever under the coffin-lid, they would all kiss me in that tender, solemn way,—all but Grif, who loved me best; and Grif would not be there!”
And the piteous rain of heavy tears that rolled down her cheeks, and fell upon her pillow, was not for herself,—not for her own pain and weariness and anguish,—not' for the white, worn face, that would be shut beneath the coffin-lid, but for Grif,—for Grif,—for Grif, who, coming back some day to learn the truth, might hear that she had died!