And so on Sunday the great man came down.
It was over in half an hour. That half-hour Keith spent in pacing up and down the library, the place of so many dear and tender and triumphant memories. They sharpened his vision of Lucy doomed, of her sweet body delivered over to the torture.
He did not hear Kitty come in till she laid her hand upon his arm. He turned as if at the touch of destiny.
"Don"t Keith, for Goodness" sake. It"s all right. Only--he wants to see you."
Sir Wilfrid Spence stood in the morning-room alone. He looked very grave and grim. He had a manner, a celebrated manner that had accomplished miracles by its tremendous moral effect. It had helped to set him on his eminence and he was not going to sacrifice it now. He fixed his gaze on the poet as he entered and held him under it for the s.p.a.ce of half a minute without speaking. He seemed, this master of the secrets of the body, to be invading despotically the province of the soul. It struck Rickman that the great specialist was pa.s.sing judgement on him, to see whether in all things he were worthy of his destiny. The gaze thus prolonged became more than he could bear.
"Do you mind telling me at once what"s wrong with her?"
"There isn"t anything wrong with her. What fool ever told you that there was? She has been made ill with grief."
Lucia herself came to him there and led him back into the library.
They sat together in the window-seat, held silent for a little while by the pa.s.sing of that shadow of their fear.
"Keith," she said at last. "Is it true that you loved me when you were with me, here, ever so long ago?"
He answered her.
"And when you came to me and I was horrid to you, and when I sent you away? And when I never wrote to you, and Horace made you think I"d forgotten you? Did you love me then?"
"Yes, more than I did before, Lucy."
"But--Keith--you didn"t love me when you were loving somebody else?"
"I did, more than ever then. That happened because I loved you."
"I can understand all the rest; but I can"t understand that."
"I think I"d rather you didn"t understand it, darling."
She sighed, puzzled over it and gave it up. "But you didn"t love me when you--when I--when you wouldn"t have me?"
He answered her; but not with words.
"And now," said she, "you"re going to Paris to-morrow."
"Perhaps."
"You must. Perhaps they"ll be calling for you."
"And perhaps I shan"t be there. Do you know, Lucy, you"ve got violets growing among the roots of your hair?"
"I know you"re going to Paris, to-morrow, to please me."
"Perhaps. And after that we"re going to Ala.s.sio, and after that to Florence and Rome; all the places where your private secretary--"
"And when," said she, "is my private secretary going to take me home?"
"If his play succeeds, dear, he won"t have to take you to that horrid house of his."
"Won"t he? But I like it best of all."
"Why, Lucy?"
"Oh, for such a foolish reason. Because he"s been in it."
"I"m afraid, darling, some of the houses he"s been in--"
At that she fell to a sudden breathless sobbing, as if the life that had come back to her had spent itself again.
In his happiness he had forgotten Howland Street; or if he thought of it at all he thought of it as an enchanted spot, the stage that had brought him nearest to the place of his delight.
"Lucy, Lucy, how did you know? I never meant you to."
"Some one told me. And I--I went to see it."
"Good G.o.d!"
"I saw your room, the room they carried you out of. If I"d only known!
My darling, why didn"t you come to me then? Why didn"t you? I had plenty. Why didn"t you send for me?"
"How could I?"
"You could, you could--"
"But sweetest, I didn"t even know where you were."
"Wherever I was I would have come to you. I would have taken you away."
"It was worth it, Lucy. If it hadn"t been for that, I shouldn"t be here now. Looking back it seems positively glorious. And whatever it was I"d go through years of it, for one hour with you here. One of those hours even when you didn"t love me."
"I"ve always loved you, all my life long. Only I didn"t know it was you. Do you remember my telling you that your dream was divorced from reality? It wasn"t true. That was what was wrong with me."
"I"m afraid I wasn"t always very faithful to my dream."
"Because your dream wasn"t always faithful to you. And yet it _was_ faithful."
"Lucy, do you remember the things I told you? Can you forgive me for being what I was?"
"It was before I knew you."
"Yes, but after? That was worse; it was the worst thing I ever did, because I _had_ known you."
She wondered why he asked forgiveness of her now, of all moments; and as she wondered the light dawned on her.
"I forgive you everything. It was my fault. I should have been there, and I wasn"t."