Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to see Constance Brandon--thought so haughty and cold--overcoming her terror at his pa.s.sionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the convulsion pa.s.sed away, and calm self-government returned.
Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,
"Yet I have killed you!"
"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have been strong enough to bear my part in it well."
Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering.
"If you could only stay with me--if I could only keep you!" he cried out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold her back one step on the road along which the messengers of G.o.d had been beckoning her for many days past.
"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think that you will not forget me soon. Now listen--" and she held up her finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?"
He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went on.
"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between you and Cyril. He is so pa.s.sionate and willful, he will not listen to me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you not? Only think how it would grieve me if--"
The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back _would_ break in here.
"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter cause? Ask me something harder, my own!"
Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly.
"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy--I _am_ jealous--does not make me unjust; but I don"t think she will make you better, or even happier in the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not--"
Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to excuse herself.
"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face."
O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely since those who stood fast by their King in the _dies irae_ of the great battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down.
If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance"s frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her?
Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him.
She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that, because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant--and she was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when so near its translation as was hers.
As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness yet.
There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion:
"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not help it."
The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came upon Livingstone"s miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days.
"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in G.o.d you are."
"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her, and her voice almost failed her. "I don"t believe you ever could be what is called a very religious character. I am so weak--strong-minded as you thought me--that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long."
The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows of the dim future were pa.s.sing before them.
Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went straight to her hearer"s heart, with a stronger power of conversion than could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.
Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try."
Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a long-drawn breath of intense relief.
"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do."
What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what lavish, tender caresses pa.s.sed between those two, over whom the shadow of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could, would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings bitterer to bear than a father"s from his child, and sorrows worthier of the veil than those of Agamemnon.
Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed, falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the sharp sense of antic.i.p.ated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by comparison--you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she heard them for the first time from the same lips.
Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that they never noted how the narrow s.p.a.ce of time allotted to them was vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn, sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro.
Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it, in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy"s fingers as she lay nestling in the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too frightened to be gentle or considerate.
"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone"s arm.
"Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you promised."
"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will keep it."
Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words--"Not forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover and the angels.
But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from hers that were closed.
"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will recover her. But pray, pray go!"
He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they never felt it, though the pa.s.sion of that lengthened caress might almost have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again--upon earth never any more.
The next time woman"s lips touched Guy Livingstone"s they were his mother"s, and he had been a corpse an hour.
He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both eyes and voice cursed him as he pa.s.sed; and afterward, recalling these things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on that the next morning held him in its clutches fast.
CHAPTER XXIX.
"Quanto minus est c.u.m reliquis versari, quam tui meminisse."
The tidings of her son"s illness reached Lady Catharine quickly at Kerton Manor. I did not hear of it till a day later, and when I arrived I found her nearly exhausted by sleeplessness and anxiety, though she had not been Guy"s nurse for more than thirty-six hours.
The sick-bed of delirium taxes the energies of the watcher very differently from any other. There is a sort of fascination in the roll of the restless head, tossing from side to side, as if trying to escape from the pressure of a heavy hot hand; in the glare of the eager eyes, that follow you every where, with a question in them that they never wait to have answered; in the incoherent words, just trembling on the verge of a revelation, but always leaving the tale half told, that creates a perpetual strain on the attention, enough to wear out a strong man.
There have been men, they say, who, sensible of the approach of delirium, chose the one person who should attend them, and ordered their doors to be closed against all others, preferring to die almost alone to the risk of what their ravings might betray; but I have heard, also, that there are secrets--secrets shared, too, by many confederates--to which neither fever or intoxication ever gave a clew. The hot blood grew chill for an instant, and the babbling tongue was tied when the dreamer came near the frontier ground, where the oath reared itself distinct and threatening as ever, while all else was fantastic and vague.
There was something of this in Guy"s case. We could hear distinctly many of his broken sentences, relating sometimes to the hunting-field, sometimes to the orgies of wine or play. There were names, too, occurring now and then, which to his mother were meaningless, but to me had an evil significance. Once or twice--not oftener--he was talking to Flora Bellasys. But when the name of Constance Brandon came, the harsh loud voice sank into a whisper so low that if you had laid your ear to his lips you would not have caught one syllable. Very, very often I had occasion to remark this, and to wonder how the heart could guard its treasure so rigidly when the brain was driving on, aimless as a ship before the hurricane with her rudder gone.
On the fifth day after Guy"s illness began, an angel might have interceded for him in the stead of a pure true-hearted woman, for Constance was dead.