And now, too, Gilbert"s voice had become smooth and level. The quick and pleasant vibration of it at its best, the uneasy rise and fall of it at its worst, had alike given place to a suave, creamy monotone which didn"t seem natural.
The face, also, enlarged and puffed by recent excesses, had further changed. The redness had gone from the skin. Even the eyes were bloodshot no longer. They looked fish-like, though. They had a steady introspective glare about them. The lips were red and moist, in this new and rather horrible face. The clear contour and moulding were preserved, but a quiet dreamy smile lurked about and never left them.
..."Gilbert, have you come to say goodnight?"
"Yes, dear,"--it _was_ an odd purring sort of voice--"How do you feel?"
"Not very well, dear. I am going to try very hard to sleep to-night.
You"re rather early in coming, are you not?"
"Yes, dear, I am. But the moon and the tides are right to-night and the wild duck are flighting. I am going out after widgeon to-night. I ought to do well."
"Oh, I see. I hope you"ll have good luck, dear."
"I hope so. Oh, and I forgot, Mary, I thought of going off for three days to-morrow, down towards the Ess.e.x coast. I should take Tumpany.
I"ve had a letter from the Wild Fowlers" a.s.sociation man there to say that the geese are already beginning to come over. Would you mind?"
Mary saw that he had already made up his mind to go--for some reason or other.
"Yes, go by all means, dear," she said, "the change and the sport will do you good."
"You will be all right?"--how soapy and mechanical that voice was... .
"Oh, of course I shall. Don"t think a _bit_ about me. Perhaps--" she hesitated for a moment and then continued with the most winning sweetness--"perhaps, Gillie darling, it will buck you up so that you won"t want to ..."
The strange voice that was coming from him dried the longing, loving words in her throat.
"Well, then, dear, I shall say good-bye, now. You see I shall be out most of this night, and if Tumpany and I are to catch the early train from Wordingham and have all the guns ready, we must leave here before you will be awake. I mean, you sleep into the morning a little now, don"t you?"
He seemed anxious as he asked.
"Generally, Gillie. Then if it is to be good-bye for two days, good-bye my dear, dear husband. Come----"
She held out her arms, lying there, and he had to bend into her embrace.
"I shall pray for you all the time you are away," she whispered. "I shall think of my boy every minute. G.o.d bless you and preserve you, my dear husband."
She was doubtless about to say more, to murmur other words of sacred wifely love, when her arms slid slowly away from him and lay motionless upon the counterpane.
Immediately they did so, the man"s figure straightened itself and stood upright by the side of the bed.
"Well, I"ll go now," he said. "Good-night, dear."
He turned his full, palish face upon her, the yellow point of flame, coming through the top of the candle shade, showed it in every detail.
Fixed, introspective eyes, dreamy painted smile, a suave, uninterested farewell.
The door closed gently behind him. It was closed as a bland doctor closes a door.
Mary lay still as death.
The room was perfectly silent, save for the fall of a red coal in the fire or the tiny hiss and spurt of escaping gas in thin pencils of old gold and amethyst.
Then there came a loud sound into the room.
It was a steady rhythmic sound, m.u.f.fled but alarming. It seemed to fill the room.
In a second or two more Mary knew that it was only her heart beating.
"But I am frightened," she said to herself. "I am really frightened.
This is FEAR!"
And Fear it was, such as this clear soul had not known. This daughter of good descent, with serene, temperate mind and body, had ever been high poised above gross and elemental fear.
To her, as to the royal nature of her friend Julia Daly, G.o.d had early given a soul-guard of angels.
Now, for the first time in her life, Mary knew Fear. And she knew an unnameable disgust also. Her heart drummed. The back of her throat grew hot--hotter than her fever made it. And, worse, a thousand times more chilling and dreadful, she felt as if she had just been holding something cold and evil in her arms.
... The voice was unreal and almost incredible. The waxen mask with its set eyes and the small, fine mouth caught into a fixed smile--oh!
this was not her husband!
She had been speaking with some _Thing_. Some _Thing_, dressed in Gilbert"s flesh had come smirking into her quiet room. She had held it in her arms and prayed for it.
Drum, drum!--She put her left hand, the hand with the wedding ring upon it, over the madly throbbing heart.
And then, in her mind, she asked for relief, comfort, help.
The response was instant.
Her life had always been so fragrant and pure, her aims so single-hearted, her delight in goodness and her love of Jesus so transparently immanent, that she was far nearer the Veil than most of us can ever get.
She asked, and the amorphous elemental things of darkness dissolved and fled before heavenly radiance. The Couriers of the Wind of the Holy-Ghost came to her with the ozone of Paradise beating from their wings.
Doubtless it was now that some Priest-Angel gave Mary Lothian that last Viatic.u.m which was to be denied to her from the hands of any earthly Priest.
It was a week ago that Mr. Medley had brought the Blessed Sacrament to Mary. It was seven days since she had thus met her Lord.
But He was with her now. Already of the Saints, although she knew it not, a Cloud of Witnesses surrounded her.
Angels and Archangels and all the Company of Heaven were loving her, waiting for her.
Lothian went along the corridor to the library, which was on the first floor of the house. His footsteps made no noise upon the thick carpet.
He walked softly, resolutely, as a man that had much to do.
The library was not a large room but it was a very charming one. A bright fire burned upon the hearth. Two comfortable saddle-back chairs of olive-coloured leather stood on either side of it, and there was a real old "gate-table" of dark oak set by one of the chairs with a silver spirit-stand upon it.
Along all one side, books rose to the ceiling, his beloved friends of the past, in court-dress of gold and damson colour, in bravery of delicate greens; in leather which had been stained bright orange, some of them; while others showed like crimson aldermen and red Lord Mayors.