And then he is so glad to find this dream staying by him when so many others have slipped away, that he stretches out his hands, and beckons with a cry of welcome.
"My Perdita, I feared I had lost you! Where did you go?"
"I have never left your side."
"I could not find you, and I have been wandering, wandering everywhere.
How was it you got away from my hand?"
She, bending her ear to catch these feeble accents, glows with a look of wonder and joy; all the lines of weariness pa.s.s away from her face; for the moment she is quite beautiful.
"Dear one, was it really _me_ you were trying to hold in your sleep?"
she asks, softly. "I saw your brow gather, and your lips move, and an anxious expression come over you in every little slumber: but when I held your groping hand you clasped mine tightly, and became happy in your dreams. Was it Perdita whom you wished so much to keep by you?"
"Yes, yes; that was it. You express my thoughts so smoothly for me that I wish you would try again. Something has got away from me after all.
Let me hold you while I try to remember."
She gives him her hand, and she gives him also her faithful bosom.
Gladly she lifts him in her frail arms, and clasps him close, close, and she presses her lips upon his sunken eyelids with kisses as soft and healing as the flowers of Paradise.
"It is coming back, I kept it so long, in spite of the whirling goblins and demons who tried to s.n.a.t.c.h it from me, but when I came to you just now I found that it was gone. Did you take it from me, and give it back to me now when you laid my head upon your bosom?"
"What was it, my darling?"
"Your promise, Perdita."
"What promise, dear love?"
"That you would never leave me. Don"t you remember saying that?"
"What would you care for me when you were strong and well?" falters the nurse, with quivering lips.
The sick man tries to set his poor paralyzed brain in thinking order at this contingency, but the effort is far beyond him, and he relapses with an anxious sigh.
"I do not want to drift away and be pushed back into the cruel world I have left," he murmurs, earnestly, "and it lies with you to keep me in this pure place. I lost you ages ago, you know--ages ago, when I was pure and loving as yourself; and see what I am now for want of you, Perdita?"
"You will soon enough be glad to part from me again," answers the nurse, turning aside her swimming eyes.
"Must you go, Perdita, after your promise?"
"I must go when I have ceased to make one moment lighter for you. I promised that I would stay until then."
"Promise it again--you will stay until you cease to be desired by me."
"Until I cease to be required by you," she amends, straining him to her yearning and foreboding heart.
"I shall always require you," said the sick man, with exultation; "I could not take one step in this pure atmosphere without you. Oh, you don"t know how I shall hold to you, my lost Perdita."
So wandering on--dreaming on, he fancies she is his lost good, which was dropped out of life long ago; that she personates the faith, the hope, the innocence of his early years, ere sin set the searing mark of death upon his heart, and bitter wrongs stole from him his primal purity, and fused in the alembic of his burning hatred, all n.o.ble tendencies into bitter infidelity.
And wandering on--dreaming on, day by day, drifting on from riotous fancy to feeble reason, he comes to know that there is a puzzle in the kindness of this woman, who morning, noon, and night cares for him as woman never cared for him before; and, grasping the puzzle at last, he looks at it with comprehending eyes.
He will ask this tender, holy-faced watcher by his bedside why this heavenly care for him. Perchance she is repaying some former service of his, done in the days of health; for St. Udo Brand has done his deeds of generous kindness to the widows and orphans of his brave Vermont boys, and forgotten the acts by scores.
"Lady, why have you been so kind to me?"
"Not kind--only just."
"The service which you thus repay must have been a great one. You have risked your life nursing me through this infectious plague; what have I ever done to you that could merit such repayment?"
She has been fearing these questions for some days, and she has been clinging all the more fondly and pa.s.sionately to the sweet dream which she has never once in all her pa.s.sion of unselfish devotion dreamed could last. Again and again she has put aside the cruel end; for, oh!
she cannot give him up yet--her king!
By the couch of deadly peril and pain, when his manhood is low beneath the scowl of death--when the divinity of his intellect is swallowed up in frenzy--in his weakness and despondency--the most royal days of Margaret"s life have come to her, gold-tinged, and crowned with joy--the days of her love.
"You are not strong enough for this," she answers, wistfully. "Wait until you are a great deal stronger before you ask questions."
"But"--a bewildered line is knotting the sick man"s brow like the faint ripple on the gla.s.sy waters of a stream--"I have seen you before in such different circ.u.mstances, and I would like to know where."
"I am Perdita, you know," with an anxious smile. "You met me in your delirium often enough, don"t you remember?"
"Yes, yes--was that it? When did you find me?"
"Three weeks ago. You were in the first stages of yellow fever. You would have died if G.o.d had not providentially sent me here in time."
"So strange that you should risk your life for me--a tender lady."
"It was a pleasure to me, sir. I was not afraid of the risk."
"The very physicians fled from the smitten wretches by scores, for fear of sharing their fate. We had but few doctors in the city for a fortnight who were brave enough to stay, and we had to take turns and do what we could for each other. The very negroes could not be bought with money to stay with us, but fled, panic-stricken, and left us to die unattended. Nineteen bodies were carried out of this house in one day, and the last I can remember before I crawled into this room away from the groans to die, were the ghastly bodies of poor Major Hilton and the commandant of the forces lying waiting for removal. I held out longest, but had to succ.u.mb at last. It is so strange to wake up from death, and to find a lovely lady at my bedside, breathing my poisoned breath, and wooing me from my companions" fate with such devotion."
"A lovely lady!" How she glows over with surprised blushes and smiles!
How she stoops again to catch the feeble accents and to read the upraised orbs.
"Lovely! Yes, yes; more than lovely--better than beautiful. When I looked up from my dream of death I thought yours the face of an angel. I think so still."
"Hush! hush! If you talk so wildly, dear, I shall think you are wandering again."
"I am not wandering, my Perdita. If ever I do, your beloved hand has but to touch mine and I will come back. Sometimes I have thought of late----"
"Go on, darling. You have thought of late----"
"That you were getting weary of your invalid, and regretting your promise."
"How could you ever think that of me?"
"There. I love to see those gray eyes deepen and flash through generous tears. I will take that back, for I see it is not true."
"Have I ever been forgetful of you?"