He stopped, thinking she would have replied; but she was silent. Her silence seemed to grow over him like a cloud. When the lights came in, he looked the same proud, impa.s.sive Harold Gwynne, as in the old time.
Already his clasp had melted from Olive"s hand. Before she could guess the reason why, she found him speaking, and she answering coldly, indifferently. All the sweetness of that sweet hour had with it pa.s.sed away.
This sudden change so pained her, that very soon she began to talk of returning home. Harold rose to accompany her, but he did so with the formal speech of necessary courtesy--"Allow me the pleasure, Miss Rothesay." It stung her to the heart.
"Indeed, you need not, when you are already tired. It is still early. I had much rather go home alone."
Harold sat down again at once.
She prepared to depart. She shook hands with his mother, and then with himself, saying in a voice that, lest it should tremble, she made very low, quiet, and cold, how glad she was that he had come home safe.
However, before she reached the garden gate, Harold followed her.
"Excuse me, but my mother is not easy for you to set off thus; and we may as well return to our old custom of walking home together--just once more."
What could he mean? Olive would have asked him, but she dared not. Even yet there was a veil between their hearts. Would it ever be drawn aside?
There were few words spoken on the way to Farnwood, and those few were of ordinary things. Once Olive talked of Michael Vanbrugh and his misfortunes.
"You call him unfortunate; how know you that?" said Harold, quickly. "He needed no human affection, and so, on its loss, suffered no pain; he had no desire save for fame; his pride was never humbled to find himself dependent on mere love. The old painter was a great and a happy man."
"Great he was, but not happy. I think I had rather be the poor little sister who spent her life for him."
"Ay, in a foolish affection which was all in vain."
"Affection is never in vain. I have thought sometimes that as to give is better than to receive, they who love are happier than they who are loved."
Harold was silent. He remained so until they stood at Miss Rothesay"s door. Then bidding her good-bye, he took her two hands, saying, as if inquiringly, "Olive?"
"Yes," she answered, trembling a little--but not much--for her dream of happiness was fading slowly away, and she was sinking back into her old patient, hopeless self. That olden self alone spoke as she added, "Is there anything you would say to me?"
"No, no--nothing--only good night." And he hastily walked away.
An hour after, Olive closed her heavy eyes, that burned with long weeping, and lay down to sleep, thinking there was no blessing like the oblivion of night, after every weary day! She lay down, little knowing what mystery of fate that quiet night was bearing in its bosom.
From her first sleep she started in the vague terror of one who has been suddenly awakened. There was a great noise--knocking--crashing--a sound of mingled voices--and, above all, her name called. Anywhere, waking or sleeping, she would have known _that_ voice, for it was Harold Gwynne"s.
At first, she thought she must still be dreaming some horrible dream; but consciousness came quick, as it often does at such a time. Before the next outcry was raised she had guessed its meaning. Upon her had come that most awful waking--the waking in a house on fire.
There are some women who in moments of danger gain an almost miraculous composure and presence of mind. Olive was one of these. Calmly she answered Harold"s half-frenzied call to her from without her door.
"I am awake and safe; the fire is not in my room. Tell me, what must I do?"
"Dress quickly--there is time. Think of all you can save, and come," she heard Harold reply. His pa.s.sionate cry of "Olive!" had ceased; he was now as self-possessed as she.
Her room was light as day, with the reflection of the flames that were consuming the other end of the long straggling house. She dressed herself, her hands never trembling--her thoughts quick, vivid, and painfully minute. There came into her mind everything she would lose--her household mementos--the unfinished picture--her well-beloved books. She saw herself penniless--homeless--escaping only with life.
But that life she owed to Harold Gwynne. How everything had chanced she never paused to consider. There was a sweetness, even a wild gladness, in the thought of peril from which Harold had come to save her.
She heard his voice eager with anxiety. "Miss Rothesay! hasten. The fire is gaining on us fast!" And added to his was the cry of her faithful old servant, Hannah, whom he had rescued too. He seemed to stand firm amidst the confusion and terror, ruling every one with the very sound of his voice--that knew no fear, except when it trembled with Olive"s name.
"Quick--quick! I cannot rest till I have you safe. Olive! for G.o.d"s sake, come! Bring with you anything you value, only come!"
She had but two chief treasures, always kept near her--her mother"s portrait, and Harold"s letters; the letters she hid in her bosom, the picture she carried in her arms. Thus laden, she quitted the burning house.
It was an awful scene. The utter loneliness of the place precluded any hope of battling with the fire; but, the night being still and windless, it advanced slowly. Sometimes, mockingly, it almost seemed to die away, and then rose up again in a hurricane of flame.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Page 401, Olive and Harold]
Olive and Harold stood on the lawn, she clinging to his hand like a child. "Is there no hope of saving it--my pretty cottage--my dear home, where my mother died!"
"Since you are safe, let the house burn--I care not," muttered Harold.
He seemed strangely jealous even of her thoughts--her tears. "Be content," he said--"you see, much has been done." He pointed to the lawn strewn with furniture. "All is there--your picture--your mother"s little chair--everything I thought you cared for I have saved."
"And my life, too. Oh! it is so sweet to owe you all!"
He quitted her for a moment to speak to some of the men whom he had brought with him from Harbury, then he came back, and stood beside Olive on the lawn--she watching the doomed house--he only watching her.
"The night is cold--you shiver. I am glad I thought to bring this." He took off his plaid and wrapped her in it, holding his arm round her the while. But she scarcely felt it then. Through the yawning, blazing windows, she saw the fire within, lighting up in its laughing destruction the little parlour where her mother used to sit, twining round the white-curtained bed whereon her mother"s last breath had been sighed away peacefully in her arms. She stood speechless, gazing upon this piteous household ruin, wherein were engulfed so many memories. But very soon there came the crash of the sinking roof, and then a cloud of dense smoke and flame arose, sweeping over where she and Harold stood, falling in showers of sparks around their feet.
Instinctively, Olive clung to Harold, hiding her blinded eyes upon his arm. She felt him press her to him, for an instant only, but with the strong true impulse, taught by one only feeling.
"You must not stay here," he said. "Come with me home!"
"Home!" and she looked wistfully at the ruins of her own. 2 D
"Yes--to my home--my mother"s. You know for the present it must indeed be yours. Come!"
He gave her his arm to lean on. She tried to walk, but, quite overpowered, staggered, fainted, and fell. When she awoke, she felt herself borne like a child in Harold"s arms. No power had she to move or speak--all was a dizzy dream. Through it, she faintly heard him whisper as though to himself; "I have saved her--I hold her fast--little Olive--little Olive!"
When they reached the Parsonage door, he stood still a moment, pa.s.sionately looking down upon her face. One minute he strained her closer to his heart, and then placed her in his mother"s arms.
"She is safe--oh thank G.o.d!" cried Mrs. Gwynne. "And you, too, my dear son--my brave Harold!" And she turned to him as he stood, leaning breathless against the wall.
He tried to speak, but in vain. There was one gasp; the blood poured in a torrent from his mouth, and he fell down at his mother"s feet.
CHAPTER XLVII.
"He has given his life in saving mine. Oh, would that I had died for thee--my Harold--my Harold!"
This was evermore Olive"s cry during the days of awful suspense, when they knew not but that every hour might be Harold"s last. He had broken a bloodvessel in the lungs; through some violent mental emotion, the physician said. Nothing else could have produced such results in his usually strong and manly frame.
"And it was for me--for me!" moaned Olive. "Yet I doubted him--I almost called him cruel. Oh, that I should never have known his heart until now!"
Every feeling of womanly shame vanished before the threatening shadow of death. Night and day, Olive hovered about the door of Harold"s room, listening for any sound. But there was always silence. No one pa.s.sed in and out except his mother,--his mother, on whom Olive hardly dared to look, lest--innocent though she was--she might read reproach in Mrs.
Gwynne"s sorrowful eye. Once, she even ventured to hint this.
"I angry, because it was in saving you that this happened to my son? No, Olive, no! Whatever G.o.d sends, we will bear together."
Mrs. Gwynne said this kindly, but her heart seemed frozen to every thought except one. She rarely quitted Harold"s chamber, and scarcely noticed any person--not even Olive.