"You think, then," stammers Lilian, making one last faint effort at escape from the dreaded ordeal,--"you think----"
"I don"t think," smiling good-naturedly, "I _know_ you must not stay with him longer than five minutes."
"Good doctor, make it three," is on the point of Lilian"s tongue, but, ashamed to refuse this small request of poor wounded Archibald, she follows Dr. Bland into his room.
On the bed, lying pale and exhausted, is Archibald, his lips white, his eyes supernaturally large and dark. They grow even larger and much brighter as they rest on Lilian, who slowly, but--now that she again sees him so weak and prostrate--full of pity, approaches his side.
"You have come, Lilian," he says, faintly: "it is very good of you,--more than I deserve. I vexed you terribly this morning, did I not?
But you will forgive me now I have come to grief," with a wan smile.
"I have nothing to forgive," says Lilian, tremulously, gazing down upon him pityingly through two big violet eyes so overcharged with tears as makes one wonder how they can keep the kindly drops from running down her cheeks. "But you have. Oh, Archie, let me tell you how deeply I deplore having spoken so harshly to you to-day. If"--with a shudder--"you had indeed been killed, I should never have been happy again."
"I was unmanly," says Chesney, holding out his hand feebly for hers, which is instantly given. "I am afraid I almost threatened you. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself."
"Oh, hush! I am sure you are speaking too much; and Dr. Bland says you must not excite yourself. Are you suffering much pain?" very tenderly.
"Not much;" but the drawn expression of his face belies his a.s.sertion.
"To look at you"--softly--"gives me ease."
"I wonder you don"t hate me," says Lilian, in a distressed tone, fighting hard to suppress the nervous sob that is rising so rebelliously in her throat. Almost at this moment--so sorry is she for his hopeless infatuation for her--she wishes he did hate her. "Yet I am not altogether to blame, and I have suffered more than I can tell you since you got that terrible fall!" This a.s.surance is very sweet to him. "When I saw you lying motionless,--when I laid your head upon my knees and tried to call you back to life, and you never answered me, I thought--"
"You!" interrupts he, hastily; "did your hands succor me?"
"Yes," coloring warmly; "though it was very little good I could do you, I was so frightened. You looked so cold,--so still. I thought then, "suppose it was my cross words had induced him to take that fence?"
But"--nervously--"it wasn"t: that was a foolish, a conceited thought, with no truth in it."
"Some little truth, I think," sadly. "When you told me "never to speak to you again,"--you recollect?--there came a strange hard look into your usually kind eyes--" pressing her hand gently to take somewhat from the sting of his words--"that cut me to the heart. Your indifference seemed in that one moment to have turned to hatred, and I think I lost my head a little. Forgive me, sweetheart, if I could not then help thinking that death could not be much worse than life."
"Archie,"--gravely,--"promise me you will never think that again."
"I promise."
There is a short pause. It is growing almost dark. The wintry day, sad and weakly from its birth, is dying fast. All the house is silent, hushed, full of expectancy; only a little irrepressible clock in the next room ticks its loudest, as though defying pain or sorrow to affect it in any way.
"Is it your arm?" asks Lilian, gently, his other hand being hidden beneath the sheet, "or----"
"No; two of my ribs, I believe, and my head aches a good deal."
"I am tormenting you with my foolish chatter," rising remorsefully, as though to quit the room.
"No, no," eagerly; "I tell you it makes me easier to see you; it dulls the pain." Slowly, painfully he draws her hand upward to his lips, and kisses it softly. "We are friends again?" he whispers.
"Yes,--always friends," tightening her fingers sympathetically over his.
"If"--very earnestly--"you would only try to make up your mind never to speak to me again as you did--last night, I believe another unpleasant word would never pa.s.s between us."
"Do not fear," he says, slowly: "I have quite made up my mind. Rather than risk bringing again into your eyes the look I saw there to-day, I would keep silence forever."
Here Dr. Bland puts his head inside the door, and beckons Lilian to withdraw.
"The five minutes are up," he says, warningly, consulting the golden turnip he usually keeps concealed somewhere about his person, though where, so large is it, has been for years a matter of speculation with his numerous patients.
"I must go," says Lilian, rising: the door is open, and all that goes on within the chamber can be distinctly heard in the corridor outside. "Now try to sleep, will you not? and don"t worry, and don"t even think if you can help it."
"Must you go?" wistfully.
"I fear I must."
"You will come again to-morrow, very early?"
"I will come to-morrow, certainly, as early as I can. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Closing the door softly behind her, she advances into the corridor, where she still finds Guy and Dr. Bland conversing earnestly. Perhaps they have been waiting for her coming.
"So you have persuaded him to go to sleep?" asks the doctor, beaming kindly upon "pretty Miss Chesney," that being the t.i.tle given to her long ago by the country generally.
"Yes. I think he will sleep now," Lilian answers. "He looks very white, poor, poor fellow, but not so badly as I expected."
"I suppose your presence did him good. Well, I will take a last look at him before leaving," moving toward the closed door.
"Can I do anything for you?" asks Guy, following him, glad of any excuse that makes him quit Lilian"s side.
"Yes,"--smiling,--"you can, indeed. Take your ward down-stairs and give her a gla.s.s of wine. She is too pale for my fancy. I shall be having her on my hands next if you don"t take care." So saying, he disappears.
Guy turns coldly to Lilian.
"Will you come down, or shall I send something up to you?" he asks, icily.
Lilian"s fears have subsided; consequently her spirits have risen to such a degree that they threaten to overflow every instant. A desire for mischief makes her heart glow.
"I shall go with you," she says, with a charming grimace. "I might blame myself in after years if I ever willingly failed to cultivate every second spent in your agreeable society."
So saying, she trips down-stairs gayly beside him, a lovely, though rather naughty, smile upon her lips.
CHAPTER XXVII.
"_Claud._--In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on."--_Much Ado About Nothing._
Because of Archibald"s accident, and because of much hara.s.sing secret thought, Christmas is a failure this year at Chetwoode. Tom Steyne and his wife and their adorable baby come to them for a week, it is true, and try by every means in their power to lighten the gloom that hangs over the house, but in vain.
Guy is obstinately _distrait_, not to say ill-tempered; Lilian is fitful,--now full of the wildest spirits, and anon capricious and overflowing with little imperious whims; Archibald, though rapidly mending, is of course invisible, and a complete dead letter; while Cyril, usually the most genial fellow in the world and devoid of moods, is at this particular time consumed with anxiety, having at last made up his mind to reveal to his mother his engagement to Cecilia and ask her consent to their speedy marriage. Yet another full month elapses, and already the first glad thought of spring is filling every breast, before he really brings himself to speak upon the dreaded subject.
His disclosure he knows by instinct will be received ungraciously and with disapprobation, not only by Lady Chetwoode, but by Sir Guy, who has all through proved himself an enemy to the cause. His determined opposition will undoubtedly increase the difficulties of the situation, as Lady Chetwoode is in all matters entirely ruled by her eldest son.