I went to Ormsby, and took his cold, pa.s.sive hand. "I do forgive him, Marjory," I said.
She smiled brightly at us both. "And you won"t forget, either of you?"
she said. "And, Douglas, you will be brave, and take your own part now.
Good-bye, good-bye."
I tried to reach her. "Don"t leave me; take me with you, Marjory--dear, dear Marjory, don"t go!" But there was only firelit s.p.a.ce where she had stood, though the sound of her pleading, pathetic voice was still in the air.
Ormsby remained for a few minutes leaning against a desk, with his face buried in his arms, and I heard him struggling with his sobs. At last he rose, and left the room without a word.
But I stayed there where I had last seen Marjory, till the fire died down, and the hour was late, for I was glad to be alone with the new and solemn joy that had come to me. For she had not forgotten me where she was; I had been allowed to see her once more, and it might even be that I should see her again. And I resolved then that when she came she should find me more worthy of her.
From that night my character seemed to enter upon a new phase, and when I returned to school it was to begin my second term under better auspices.
My cousins had welcomed me cordially among them, and as I mastered the lesson of give and take, of respecting one"s self in respecting others, which I needed to learn, my early difficulties vanished with the weakness that had produced them.
By Ormsby I was never again molested; in word and deed, he was true to the promise exacted from him during that last strange scene. At first, he avoided me as being too painfully connected with the past; but by degrees, as he recognised that his secret was safe in my keeping, we grew to understand one another better, although it would be too much to say that we ever became intimate.
After he went to Sandhurst I lost sight of him, and only a few months since the news of his death in the Soudan, where he fell gallantly, made me sorrowfully aware that we should never meet again.
I had a lingering fancy that Marjory might appear to me once more, but I have long since given up all hope of that in this life, and for what may come after I am content to wait.
But the charge my child-friend had undertaken was completed on the night she was allowed to return to earth and determine the crisis of two lives; there is nothing now to call the bright and gracious little spirit back, for her influence will remain always.