But the force of the habit abated a little. Now and then it seemed to return as strong as ever, but the fit went off again. His sufferings plainly decreased.
The doctor, having little yet of a practice, was able to be with him several hours every day, so that Donal could lie down. As he grew better, Davie, or mistress Brookes, or lady Arctura would sit with him.
But Donal was never farther off than the next room. The earl"s madness was the worst of any, a moral madness: it could not fail to affect the brain, but had not yet put him beyond his own control. Repeatedly had Donal been on the verge of using force to restrain him, but had not yet found himself absolutely compelled to do so: fearless of him, he postponed it always to the very last, and the last had not yet arrived.
The gentle ministrations of his niece by and by seemed to touch him. He was growing to love her a little, He would smile when she came into the room, and ask her how she did. Once he sat looking at her for some time--then said,
"I hope I did not hurt you much."
"When?" she asked.
"Then," he answered.
"Oh, no; you did not hurt me--much!"
"Another time, I was very cruel to your aunt: do you think she will forgive me!"
"Yes, I do."
"Then you have forgiven me?"
"Of course I have."
"Then of course G.o.d will forgive me too!"
"He will--if you leave off, you know, uncle."
"That"s more than I can promise."
"If you try, he will help you."
"How can he? It is a second nature now!"
"He is your first nature. He can help you too by taking away the body and its nature together."
"You"re a fine comforter! G.o.d will help me to be good by taking away my life! A nice encouragement to try! Hadn"t I better kill myself and save him the trouble!"
"It"s not the dying, uncle! no amount of dying would ever make one good. It might only make it less difficult to be good."
"But I might after all refuse to be good! I feel sure I should! He had better let me alone!"
"G.o.d can do more than that to compel us to be good--a great deal more than that! Indeed, uncle, we must repent."
He said no more for some minutes; then suddenly spoke again.
"I suppose you mean to marry that rascal of a tutor!" he said.
She started up, and called Donal. But to her relief he did not answer: he was fast asleep.
"He would not thank you for the suggestion, I fear," she said, sitting down again. "He is far above me!"
"Is there no chance for Forgue then?"
"Not the smallest. I would rather have died where you left me than--"
"If you love me, don"t mention that!" he cried. "I was not myself--indeed I was not! I don"t know now--that is, I can"t believe sometimes I ever did it."
"Uncle, have you asked G.o.d to forgive you!"
"I have--a thousand times."
"Then I will never speak of it again."
In general, however, he was sullen, cantankerous, abusive. They were all compa.s.sionate to him, treating him like a spoiled, but not the less in reality a sickly child. Arctura thought her grandmother could not have brought him up well; more might surely have been made of him. But Arctura had him after a lifetime fertile in cause of self-reproach, had him in the net of sore sickness, at the mercy of the spirit of G.o.d. He was a bad old child--this much only the wiser for being old, that he had found the ways of transgressors hard.
One night Donal, hearing him restless, got up from the chair where he watched by him most nights, and saw him staring, but not seeing: his eyes showed that they regarded nothing material. After a moment he gave a great sigh, and his jaw fell. Donal thought he was dead. But presently he came to himself like one escaping from torture: a terrible dream was behind him, pulling at the skirts of his consciousness.
"I"ve seen her!" he said. "She"s waiting for me to take me--but where I do not know. She did not look angry, but then she seldom looked angry when I was worst to her!--Grant, I beg of you, don"t lose sight of Davie. Make a man of him, and his mother will thank you. She was a good woman, his mother, though I did what I could to spoil her! It was no use! I never could!--and that was how she kept her hold of me. If I had succeeded, there would have been an end of her power, and a genuine heir to the earldom! What a d.a.m.ned fool I was to let it out! Who would have been the worse!"
"He"s a heartless, unnatural rascal, though," he resumed, "and has made of me the fool I deserved to be made! His mother must see it was not my fault! I would have set things right if I could! But it was too late!
And you tell me she has had a hand in letting the truth out--leaving her letters about!--That"s some comfort! She was always fair, and will be the less hard on me. If I could see a chance of G.o.d being half as good to me as my poor wife. She was my wife! I will say it in spite of all the priests in the stupid universe! She was my wife, and deserved to be my wife; and if I had her now, I would marry her, because she would be foolish enough to like it, though I would not do it all the time she was alive, let her beg ever so! Where was the use of giving in, when I kept her in hand so easily that way? That was it! It was not that I wanted to do her any wrong. But you should keep the lead. A man mustn"t play out his last trump and lose the lead. But then you never know about dying! If I had known my poor wife was going to die, I would have done whatever she wanted. We had merry times together! It was those cursed drugs that wiled the soul out of me, and then the devil went in and took its place!--There was curara in that last medicine, I"ll swear!--Look you here now, Grant:--if there were any way of persuading G.o.d to give me a fresh lease of life! You say he hears prayer: why shouldn"t you ask him? I would make you any promise you pleased--give you any security you wanted, hereafter to live a G.o.dly, righteous, and sober life."
"But," said Donal, "suppose G.o.d, reading your heart, saw that you would go on as bad as ever, and that to leave you any longer would only be to make it the more difficult for him to do anything with you afterwards?"
"He might give me a chance! It is hard to expect a poor fellow to be as good as he is himself!"
"The poor fellow was made in his image!" suggested Donal.
"Very poorly made then!" said the earl with a sneer. "We might as well have been made in some other body"s image!"
Donal thought with himself.
"Did you ever know a good woman, my lord?" he asked.
"Know a good woman?--Hundreds of them!--The other sort was more to my taste! but there was my own mother! She was rather hard on my father now and then, but she was a good woman."
"Suppose you had been in her image, what then?"
"You would have had some respect for me!"
"Then she was nearer the image of G.o.d than you?"
"Thousands of miles!"
"Did you ever know a bad woman?"
"Know a bad woman? Hundreds that would take your heart"s blood as you slept to make a philtre with!"
"Then you saw a difference between such a woman and your mother?"