He opened his eyes and looked her full in the face.
"Valentine!"
"Hush, you are too weak to talk. Stay quiet, I am with you. I will nurse you back to strength. Oh, my darling, you didn"t die."
"Your darling, Valentine? Did you call me your darling?"
"I said it. I say it. You are all the world to me; without you the world is empty. Oh, how I love you--how I have loved you for years."
"Then it was good I didn"t die," said Wyndham, he raised his eyes, looked up and smiled. His smile was one of ecstasy.
"Of course it was good that you didn"t die, and now you are going to get well. Lie still. Do you like my hand under your head?"
"Like it?"
"Yes; you need not tell me. Let me talk to you; don"t answer me.
Gerald, my father told me. He told me what he had done; he told me what you had done. He wants me to forgive him, but I"m not going to forgive him. I"ll never forgive him, Gerald. I have ceased to love him, and I"ll never forgive him; all my love is for you."
"Not all, wife--not quite all. Give him back a little, and--forgive."
"How weak you are, Gerald, and your voice sounds miles away."
"Forgive him, Valentine."
"Yes, if you wish it. Lie still, darling."
"Valentine--that money."
"I know about it--that blood-money. The price of your precious life. It shall be paid back at once."
"Then G.o.d will forgive me. I thank Him, unspeakably."
"Gerald, you are very weak. I can scarcely hear your words. Does it tire you dreadfully to talk? See, I will hold your hand; when you are too tired to speak your fingers can press mine. Gerald, you were outside our house on Tuesday night. Yes, I feel the pressure of your hand; you were there. Gerald, you were very unhappy that night."
"But not now, darling," replied Wyndham. He had found his voice; his words came out with sudden strength and joy. "I made a mistake that night, wife. I won"t tell it to you. I made a mistake."
"And you are really quite, quite happy now."
"Happy! Sorrow is put behind me--the former things are done away."
"You will be happier still when you come home to baby and me."
"You"ll come to me, Val; you and the boy."
"What do you say? I can"t hear you."
"You"ll come to me."
"I am with you."
"You"ll come--_up_--to me."
Then she began to understand.
Half-an-hour later the nurse and Esther drew the screen aside and came in. Valentine"s face was nearly as white as Wyndham"s. She did not see the two as they came in. Her eyes were fixed on her husband"s, her hand still held his.
"He wants a stimulant," said the nurse.
She poured something out of a bottle and put it between the dying man"s lips. He opened his eyes when she did this, and looked at Valentine.
"Are you still there? Hold my hand."
"Do you think I would let it go? I have been wanting this hand to clasp mine for _so_ long, oh, for _so_ long."
The nurse again put some stimulant between Gerald"s lips.
"You must not tire his strength, madam," she said. "Even emotion, even joyful emotion is more than he can bear just now."
"Is it, nurse? Then I will sit quiet, and not speak. I don"t mind how long I stay, nor how quiet I keep, if only I can save him. Nurse, I know he is very ill, but, but----"
Her lips quivered, and her eyes, dry and bright and hungry, were fixed on the nurse. Wyndham, too, was looking at the nurse with a question written on his face. She bent down low, and caught his faint whisper.
"Your husband bids you hope," she said then, turning to Valentine. "He bids you take courage; he bids you to have the best hope of all--the hope eternal. Madam, when you clasp hands up there you need not part."
"Did you tell her to say that to me, Gerald?" asked the wife. "Oh, no, you couldn"t have told her to say those words. Oh, no, you love me too well to go away."
"G.o.d loves you, Valentine," suddenly said Gerald. "G.o.d loves _you_, and He loves me, and His eternal love will surround us. I up there, you here. In that love we shall be one."
Only the nurse knew with what difficulty Wyndham uttered these words, but Valentine saw the light in his eyes. She bowed her head on his thin hand, her lips kissed it--she did not speak.
To the surprise of the sister who had charge of the ward. Wyndham lingered on for hours--during the greater part of the night. Valentine and Esther never left him. Esther sat a little in the shadow where her pale face could scarcely be seen. If she felt personal grief she kept it under. The chief actors in the tragedy, the cruelly-wronged husband and wife, absorbed all her thoughts. No, she had no time, no room, to think of herself.
Wyndham was going--Brother Jerome would no longer be known in the streets of East London; the poor, the sorrowful, would grieve at not seeing his face again. The touch of his hand could no longer comfort--the light in his eyes could no longer bless. The Mission would have to do without Brother Jerome--this missioner was about to render up his account to the Judge of all.
The little attic in Acacia Villas would also be empty; the tired man would not need the few comforts that Esther had collected round him--the tiresome cough, the weary restless step would cease to disturb Cherry"s rest, and Esther"s chief object in life would be withdrawn.
He who for so long was supposed to be dead would be dead in earnest.
Valentine would be a real widow, little Gerald truly an orphan.
All these thoughts thronged through Esther"s mind as she sat in the shadow behind the screen and listened to the chimes outside as they proclaimed the pa.s.sing time, and the pa.s.sing away also of a life.
Every moment lives of men go away--souls enter the unknown country.
Some go with regret, some with rejoicing. In some cases there are many left behind to sorrow--in other cases no one mourns.
Wyndham had sinned, he had yielded to temptation; he had been weak--a victim it is true--still a victim who with his eyes open had done a great wrong. Yet Esther felt that for some at least it was a good thing that Wyndham was born.
"I, for one, thank G.o.d that I knew him," she murmured. "He has caused me suffering, but he has raised me. I thank G.o.d that I was permitted to know such a man. The world would, I suppose, speak of him as a sinner, but to my way of thinking, if ever there was a saint he is one."