He seemed to understand her every need, and from his sympathy gave her all the comfort he could. But he little realized all that it meant to her--how deeply it stirred her grat.i.tude and her liking for him. During the day she would find herself counting the hours until the time he had named; and when the expected knock would come, and his tall figure appear at the door, her heart would give a sudden jump and send the blood rushing to her head. Her lips would tremble slightly as she held out her hand to him; and as he sat and looked at her, she would become uncomfortably conscious of the beating of her heart; in fact at times it would almost suffocate her, and her cheeks would become as fire.
She wondered if he noticed it. But he seemed concerned only for her welfare, and anxiously inquired how she felt. She was not doing well, it seemed, and the doctor was greatly troubled; her temperature had not become normal since the operation, and they could not account for it, as she was suffering no more than the usual amount of pain. To Corydon this was a matter of no importance; she was willing to lie there all day, if only the hour of Mr. Harding"s visit would come more quickly. She was beginning to be alarmed because she had such difficulty in controlling her excitement.
The magic hour would strike, and the door of hope open, and there upon the threshold he would appear, in all his superb manhood. Corydon thought she had never before met a man who gave her such an impression of vitality. He was splendid; he was like a young Viking, who brought into the room with him the pure air of the Northern mountains. When he looked at her, his eyes a.s.sumed a wonderful expression, a "golden"
expression, as Corydon described it to herself. And day after day she clothed this Viking in more l.u.s.trous garments, woven from the threads of her imagination, her innermost desires and her dreams. And always at sight of him, her heart beat faster, her head became hotter; until the bed she lay upon became a bed of burning coals. She realized at last what had happened to her, that she loved--yes, that she loved! But she must not let her Viking see it; that would be unpardonable, it would d.a.m.n her forever in his sight. And so she struggled with her secret. At night she slept in fitful starts, and in the morning she lay pale and sombre. But when he came she was all brilliancy and animation.
Section 6. Each night the doctor would look anxiously at his thermometer; it was a source of great worry to him and to Corydon"s parents that the fever did not abate. Also, needless to say, the news worried Thyrsis; all the more, because it meant a long stay in the hospital, and more of their money gone. At last he came up to town to see about it; and Corydon thought to herself, "This is very wrong of me.
It is Thyrsis I ought to be interested in, it is his sympathy I ought to be craving."
She brought the image of Thyrsis before her; it seemed vague and unreal.
She found that she remembered mostly the unattractive aspects of him. And this brought a pang to her. "He is good and n.o.ble," she told herself; she forced herself to think of generous things that he had done.
He came; and then she felt still more ashamed. He had been working very hard, and was pale and haggard; it was becoming to him to be that way.
Recollections came back to her in floods; yes, he was truly good and n.o.ble!
He sat by her bedside, and she told him about the operation, and poured out the hunger of her soul to him. He stayed all the morning with her, and he came again and spent the afternoon with her. He read to her and kissed her and soothed her--his influence was very calming, she found.
After he had gone for the night, Corydon lay thinking, "I still love him!"
How strange it was that she could love two men at once! It was surely very wrong! She would never have dreamed that she, Corydon, could do such a thing. She thought of Harry Stuart, and of the unacknowledged thrill of excitement which his presence had brought to her. "And now here it is again," she mused--"only this time it is worse! What _can_--be the matter with me?"
Then she wondered, "Do I really love Mr. Harding? Haven"t I got over it now?" But the least thinking of him sufficed to set her heart to thumping again; and so she shrunk from that train of thought. She wanted to love her husband.
He came again the next morning, and Corydon found that she was very happy in his presence. Her fever was slightly lower, and she thought, "I will get well quickly now."
But alas, she had reckoned in this without Thyrsis! To sit in the hospital all day was a cruel strain upon him; the more so as he had been entirely unprepared for it. Corydon had a.s.sured him that the operation would be nothing, and that she would not need him; and so he had just finished a harrowing piece of labor on the book. Now to stay all day and witness her struggle, to satisfy her craving for sympathy and to meet and wrestle with her despair--it was like having the last drops of his soul-energy squeezed out of him. He did not know what was troubling Corydon, but the _rapport_ between them was so close, that he knew she was in some distress of mind.
He stood the ordeal as long as he could, and then he had to beg for respite. Cedric was down on the farm, with no one but the servants to care for him; so he would go back, and see that everything was all right, and after he had rested up for two or three days, he would come again. Corydon smiled faintly and a.s.sented--for that morning she had received a note from Mr. Harding, saying that he would be in town the next day, and would call.
So Thyrsis went away, and Corydon lay and thought the problem over again. "Yes, I love my husband; but it"s such an effort for him to love me! And why should that be? I don"t believe it would be such an effort for Mr. Harding to love me!"
So again she was seized by the thought of the young clergyman. And she was astonished at the difference in her feelings--the flood of emotion that swept over her. Her heart began to beat fast and her cheeks once more to burn. He was coming up to the city on purpose, this time; it must be that he wanted to see her very much!
That night was an especially hard one for her; she felt as though the frail sh.e.l.l that held her were breaking, as though her endurance were failing altogether. The fever had risen, and her bed had seemed like the burning arms of Moloch. Once she imagined that the room was stifling her, and in a sudden frenzy of impatience she struggled upon one elbow and flung her pillow across the room. In that instant she had noticed a new and sharp pain in her side; it did not leave her, though at the time she thought little about it.
She was all absorbed in the coming of Mr. Harding; by the time morning had come she had made up her mind that her one hope of deliverance was in confession. She must tell him, she must make known to him her love; and he would forgive her, and then her heart would not beat so violently at sight of him, her fever would abate and she might rest.
But when he sat there, talking to her, and looking so beautiful and so strange, she trembled, and made half a dozen vain efforts to begin.
Finally she asked, "Have you ever read that poem of Heine"s--"Ein Jungling liebt ein Madchen, Die hat einen Andern erwahlt?""
"Oh, yes," he answered; then they were silent again. Finally Corydon nerved herself to yet another effort. "Mr. Harding," she said, "will you come a little nearer, please. I have something very important to say to you." And then, waveringly and brokenly, now in agonized abashment, now rushing ahead as she felt his encouragement and sympathy, she gave him the whole story of her suffering and its cause. When she came to the words "because I love you", she closed her eyes and her spirit sank back with a great gasp of relief.
When she opened them again, his head was bowed in his hands and he did not move. "Mr. Harding," she whispered, "Mr. Harding, you forgive me, do you not? You do not hate me?"
He roused himself with an effort. "Dear child," said he, and as he looked at her she thought she had never seen a face so sad, so exquisite--"it is I who ask forgiveness."
He rose and came to her bedside, and took her hand in both of his. "It would not be right for me to say to you what you have said to me. We must not speak of this any more. You will promise me this, and then you will rest, and to-morrow you will be better. Soon you will be well; and how glad your husband will be--and all of us."
With that he pressed her hand firmly, and left the room; and Corydon turned her face to the wall, and whispered happily to herself, "Yes, he loves me, he loves me! And now I shall rest!"
Section 7. For a while she slept the sleep of exhaustion, nor did there fall across her dreams the shadow of the angel of fate who was even then placing his mark upon her forehead. Toward morning she was awakened suddenly with the sharp pain in her side; but it abated presently, and Corydon thought blissfully of the afternoon before. He would come again to her, she would see him that very day; and so what did pain matter?
She was really happy at last. But as the day advanced, she became uneasy; her fever had not diminished, and the pain was becoming more persistent.
The nurse was anxious, too. Her mother came and regarded her in alarm.
But she was thinking of Mr. Harding. He was coming; he might arrive at any moment.
There was a knock upon the door. Corydon"s pulse fluttered, and she whispered, "Here he is!" She could scarcely speak the words, "Come in".
But when the door opened, she saw that it was the doctor. Her heart sank, and she closed her eyes with a moan of pain. Could it be that he was not coming? Could it be that she had been mistaken--that he did not love her after all? She must see him--she must! She could not endure this suspense; she could not endure these interruptions by other people.
The doctor came and sat by her. "I must see what is the matter here," he said. "Why do you not get well, Corydon?"
He questioned her carefully and looked grave. "I must have a consultation at once," he said.
Corydon"s hand caught at his sleeve. "No, no!" she whispered.
"Don"t be afraid," said the doctor. "It won"t hurt."
"It isn"t that," said Corydon. She all but added, "I must see Mr.
Harding!"
She was wheeled into the operating-room, but this time there was no interest in her eyes as she regarded the smooth table and the shining instruments. As they lifted her upon it, she shuddered. "Oh I cannot, I cannot!" she wailed.
"There, there," said the doctor. "Be brave. We wish simply to see what the matter is. It won"t take long."
And they put the cone to her mouth. Corydon struggled and gasped, but it was no use, she was in the clutches of the fiend again; only this time there was no ecstasy, and no vision of Mr. Harding. Instead there was instant and sickening suffocation. Again she descended into the uttermost depths of the inferno; and it seemed as though this time the brave will was not equal to the battle before it.
The surgeons made their examination, and they discovered more diseased tissue, and a slowly spreading infection. So there was nothing for it but to operate again--they held a quick consultation, and then went ahead. And afterwards they labored and sweated, and by dint of persistent effort, and every device at their command, they fanned into life once more the faint spark in the ashen-grey form that lay before them. But it was a feeble flame they got; as Corydon"s eyelids fluttered, the only sign of recognition that came from her lips was a moan, and from her eyes a look of dazed stupidity. But there was hope for her life, the doctors said; and they sent a telegram which Thyrsis got three days later, when he had fought his way to the town through five miles of heavy snow-drifts.
Meantime the grim fight for life was going on. In the morning Corydon opened her eyes to a burning torture, the racked and twisted nerves quivering in rebellion. It did not come in twinges of pain, it was a slow, deadening, persistent agony, that pervaded every inch of her body. She wondered how she could bear it, how she could live. And yet, strangely, inexplicably, she wanted to live. She did not know why--she had been outraged, she had been deserted by all, she was but a feeble atom of determination in the centre of a hostile universe. And yet she would pit her will against them all, G.o.d, man, and devil; they should not conquer her, she would win out.
So she would clench her teeth together and fight. For hours she would stare at the wall, the blank, unresponsive, formless wall before her; and then, when the shadows of the evening fell, and they saw she was fainting from exhaustion, they would come with the needle of oblivion, and the dauntless soul would die for the night, and return in the morning to its pitiless task.
Section 8. Thyrsis received a couple of letters at the same time as the telegram, and he took the next train for the city. It is said that a drowning man sees before him in a few moments the panorama of his whole life; but to Thyrsis were given three hours in which to recall the events of his love for Corydon. He had every reason to believe that he would find her dying; and such pangs of suffering as came to him he had never known before. He was in a crowded car, and he would not shed a tear; but he sat, crouched in a heap and staring before him, fairly quivering with pent-up and concentrated grief. G.o.d, how he loved her!
What a spirit of pure flame she was--what a creature from another sky!
What martyrdom she had dared for him, and how cruelly she had been punished for her daring! And now, this was the end; she was dying--perhaps dead! How was he to live without her--in the bare and barren future that he saw stretching out before him?
Flashes of memory would come to him, waves of torment roll over him.
He would recall her gestures, the curves of her face, the tones of her voice, the songs that she had sung; and then would come a choking in his throat, and he would clench his hands, as a runner in the last moments of a desperate race. He thought of her as he had seen her last. He had gone away, careless and unthinking--how blind he had been! The things that he had not said to her, and that he might have said so easily! The love he had not uttered, the pardons he had not procured! The yearnings and consecrations that had remained unspoken all through their lives--ah G.o.d, what a tragedy of impotence and failure their lives had been!
Then before his soul came troops of memories, each one a fiend with a whip of fire; the words of anger that he had spoken, the acts of cruelty that he had done! The times when he had made her weep, and had not comforted her! Oh, what a fool he had been--what a blind and wanton fool! And now--if he were to find her dead, and never be able to tell her of his shame and sorrow--he knew that he would carry the memories with him all his days, they would be like blazing scars upon his soul.
She was still alive, however; and so he took a deep breath, and went at his task. There was no question now of what he could bear to do, but of what he must do; she must be saved, and who could do it but himself?
Who else could take her hands and whisper to her, and fill her with new courage and hope; who else could bid her to live--to live; could rouse the fainting spirit, and bid it rise up and set forth upon the agonizing journey?
So out of the very abyss they came together. But when at last the fight was won, when the doctors an-nounced that she was out of danger, Thyrsis was fairly reeling with exhaustion. When he left her in the afternoon, he would go to his hotel-room and lie down, utterly prostrated; he would lie awake the whole night through, wrestling with the demons of horror that he had brought with him from her bedside.
So he realized that he was on the verge of collapse, and that cost what it would, he must get away. Corydon"s mother was with her, and when she was strong enough to be moved, she would be taken back to the farm. He mentioned this to Corydon, and she replied that she would be satisfied.
There would be Mr. Harding also, she said; Mr. Harding wrote that he would come up to the city, and do what he could to help her in her dire distress.