Far away down the valley the little convent clock struck the hour, and at its sound she looked up at him.
"You go at nine o"clock, Bernard?"
"At nine o"clock, mother, unless you wish me to stay."
She shook her head.
"No, I shall be better alone. This thing will crush me into the grave, but death will be very welcome. Oh, my son, my son, that the sin of one weak woman should have given birth to all this misery!"
He stooped over her, and held her thin fingers in his strong man"s hand.
"Do not trouble about it, mother," he said. "I can bear my share. Try and forget it."
Her eyes flashed strangely, and her lips parted in a smile which was no smile.
"Forget it! That is a strange speech, Bernard. Have I the power to beckon to those hills yonder, and bid them bow their everlasting heads?
Can I put back the hand of time, and live my life over again? Even so futile is my power over memory. It is my penance, and I pray day and night for strength to bear it."
Her voice died away with a little break, and there was silence. Soon she spoke again.
"Tell me--something about her, Bernard."
His face changed, but it was only a pa.s.sing glow, almost as though one of those long level rays of sunlight had glanced for a moment across his features.
"She is good and beautiful, and all that a woman should be," he whispered.
"Does she know?"
He shook his head.
"She trusts me."
"Then you will be happy?" she asked eagerly. "Happy even if the worst come! Time will wipe out the memory."
He turned away with a dull sickening pain at his heart. The worst he had not told her. How could he? How could he add another to her sorrows by telling her of the peril in which he stood? How could he tell her what he suspected to be true--that in that quiet little Italian town English detectives were watching his every movement, and that at any moment he might be arrested? With her joyless life, and with this new misery closing around her, would it not be well for her to die?
"It is farewell between us now, Bernard, then?" she said softly. "G.o.d grant that you may be going back to a new and happier life. May I, who have failed so utterly, give you just one word of advice?"
He bowed his head, for just then he could not have spoken. She raised herself a little upon her couch, and felt for his hand.
"Bernard, you are not as your father was," she said; "yet you, too, have something of the student in you. Don"t think that I am going to say anything against learning and culture. It is a grand thing for a man to devote himself to; but, like everything else, in excess it has its dangers. Sometimes it makes a man gloomy and reserved, and averse to all change and society, and intolerant toward others. Bernard, it is bad for his wife then. A woman sets so much store by little things--her happiness is bound up in them. She is very, very human, and she wants to be loved, and considered, and feel herself a great part in her husband"s life and thoughts. And if it is all denied to her, what is she to do? Of necessity she must be miserable. A man should never let his wife feel that she is shut out from any one of his great interests. He should never let those little mutual ties which once held them together grow weak, and fancy because he is living amongst the ghosts of great thoughts that little human responsibilities have no claim upon him.
Bernard, you will remember all this!"
"Every word, mother," he answered. "Helen would thank you if she had been here."
A horn sounded from outside, and he drew out his watch hastily.
"The diligence, mother!" he exclaimed; "I must go."
He took her frail form up into his arms, and kissed her.
"If all goes well," he said in a low tone, "I will bring her to you."
"If she will come, I shall die happy," she murmured. "But not against her will or without knowing all. Farewell!"
That night three men were racing home to England as fast as express train and steamer could bear them. One was Bernard Maddison, another Mr.
Benjamin Levy, and the third his artist friend.
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
VISITORS FOR MR. BERNARD MADDISON
In an ordinary case, with three men starting from a given point in North Italy at the same time, the odds seem in favor of their all reaching their destination at the same time. As it happened, however, there was another factor to be considered, which had its due result. Bernard Maddison was rather more at home on Continental railroads than he was on English ones, whereas neither of the other two had ever before left their own country save under the wing of "Cook." The consequence was that by the aid of sundry little man[oe]uvres, which completely puzzled his would-be companions, Bernard Maddison stood on the platform of Waterloo while they were still in the throes of seasickness. As a further consequence two telegrams were dispatched from Ostend, and were duly delivered in England. The first was from Benjamin Levy to his father.
"Meet all boat trains at Waterloo, and try to recognize B. M. King will do to shadow. Ascertain Miss Thurwell"s address. Home early to-morrow."
The second was from his acquaintance, the artist, to Scotland Yard.
"Bernard Maddison ahead of us. Meet all trains. Tall, dark, thin, pale, brown check traveling ulster. Photograph for sale in Regent Street if can get to shop."
Both telegrams were conscientiously attended to, and when Bernard Maddison drove out of the station his hansom was followed by two others.
There was nothing very suspicious about his movements. First of all he was set down at his club, which meant a wait of an hour and a half for his watchers. At the end of that time he reappeared with all the traces of his journey effaced, and in a fresh suit of clothes, carrying now a smaller portmanteau. He lit a cigarette, and sent for a hansom. This time he was set down at King"s Cross, and took a ticket for a small town on the Yorkshire coast. Hereupon the employee of Messrs. Levy & Son retired, having ascertained all that he was required to ascertain. The other myrmidon, however, having dispatched his subordinate to headquarters with particulars of his destination, took up the chase.
It was late in the afternoon before they reached their journey"s end, but Bernard Maddison was quite unconscious of any fatigue, and marching straight out of the station, turned toward Mallory. The man who was following him, however, hired a carriage, and drove down to the hotel.
He knew quite well where the other was going to, and as nothing could be done that night, he determined to enjoy as much as he could of his seaside trip, and, after making up for his day"s fasting by a satisfactory tea, he spent the evening on the jetty listening to the town bra.s.s band.
That was a strange walk for Bernard Maddison. Two sensations were struggling within him for the mastery, fear and despair at the terrible crisis which seemed to yawn before his feet, and that sweet revolution of feeling, that intense, yearning love, which had suddenly thrown a golden halo over his cold barren life. But as he left the road and took the moorland path along the cliff, the battle suddenly came to an end.
Before him stretched the open moor, brilliant with coloring, with dark flushes of purple, and bright streaks of yellow gorse, and the sunlight glancing upon the hills. There was the pleasant murmuring of the sea in his ears, a glistening, dancing, silver sea, the blue sky above, and the fresh strong breeze full of vigorous, bracing life. Something of a glad recklessness stole over him and lightened his heart. This was no scene, no hour for sad thoughts. Where was the philosophy of nursing such, of giving them a home even for a moment? Joy and sorrow, what were they but abstract states of the mind? Let him wait until the ashes were between his teeth. The future and the past no man could command, but the present was his own. He would claim it. He would drink deep of the joy which lay before him.
And as he walked on over the soft springy turf, with the tall chimneys of Thurwell Court in the valley before him, life leaped madly through his veins, and a deep joy held memory in a torpor, and filled his heart with gladness. The whole pa.s.sionate side of his nature had been suddenly quickened into life by his surroundings, and by the thought that down yonder the woman whom he loved was waiting for him. Once again, come what may, he would hold her in his arms and hear her voice tremble with joy at his return. Once more he would hold her face up to his, and look into her dim, soft eyes, full of that glowing lovelight which none can fail to read. Once again he would drink deep of this delicious happiness, a long sweet draught, and if life ended after that moment he would at least have touched the limits of all earthly joys.
And suddenly he stood face to face with her. He had pa.s.sed Falcon"s Nest, dismantled and desolate, with scarcely a careless glance, and had entered the long pine grove which fringed the cliff side. Already he was close to the spot where they had stood once before, and with all the subtle sweetness of those memories stealing in upon him he had turned aside to look through the tree tops down into the sea, as they had done together. Thus he was standing when he heard light firm footsteps close at hand, and a little surprised cry which rang in his ears like music, for it was her voice.
They stood face to face, their hands clasped. In that first moment of tremulous joy neither of them spoke. Each was struggling for realization, for even an inward expression of the ecstasy of this meeting. For them there was a new glory in the sunny heavens, a new beauty in the glistening sea and the softly waving pine trees, even in the air they breathed. The intensity of this joy filled their hearts, their fancy, their imagination. Everything was crowned with a soft golden light; new springs of feeling leaped up within them, bringing glowing revelations of such delight as mocked expression. For them only at that moment the sun shone, and the summer winds whispered in the trees, and the birds sang. The world was theirs, or rather a new one of their own creation. The past and the future emptied their joys into the overflowing bowl of the present. Life stood still for them. There was no horizon, no background. Oh, it is a great thing, the greatest thing upon this earth, to love and be loved!
Each dreaded speech. It seemed as though a single word must drag them down from a new heaven to an old earth. Yet those murmured pa.s.sionate words of his, as he drew her softly into his arms, and her head sank upon his shoulder--they were scarcely words. And then again there was silence.
It lasted long. It seemed to him that it might have lasted forever. But the sun went down behind the hills, and a dusky twilight stole down upon the earth. Then she spoke.
"My love, my love! you must listen to me. I have a confession to make."
"A confession? You!" he echoed.