The clergyman told her. And then all three stood looking down the corridor to the door at the end of it: a shut door marked in white letters: DR. VIVIAN.... But nothing could hurt her now.
"We thought that was right," said Mr. Dayne.... "Will you go in for a moment?"
Briefly the girl"s veiled eyes met his. He was aware that a little tremor went through her; perhaps he then understood a little further.
And he thought he had never seen anybody so beautiful and white.
He added in his comforting way: "There"s no one at all with him except the little girl here, Corinne, that he was kind to...."
Surely there was never a loneliness like this loneliness.
"I will go, if I may," said Cally.
Chas was eyeing her, unbelievably grave, turning his hat between his hands. And then she remembered Hen, left alone, who would not be comforted.
She whispered: "Don"t wait for me.... I"ll come in a minute."
The young man hesitated; they spoke a moment; it was so arranged. Chas was tipping away from her down the well of the stairs.
And she and the clergyman were walking up the corridor, his hand at her elbow, to the door with the white letters on it.
As Mr. Dayne"s hand touched the k.n.o.b, she spoke again, very low.
"Is he.... Is he--much ...?"
"No," said Mr. Dayne, "the injuries were internal. There"s hardly a mark...."
So, opening the door softly, he left her.
And she was within, the door a step or two behind her, in front a long s.p.a.ce, drawn blinds, and the indistinguishable twilight. Somewhere before her was the mortal man who had pledged her one day that he would prove his friendship with his life.
And how came she here; by what right?
She had perceived remotely that she was not alone. Out of the dim great stretches there emerged advancing a little figure, black-clad; advancing silent, with lowered head. Drawing near, she did not look up, did not speak: she was merely fading from the room.
The figure was vaguely apprehended, as one upon another planet. But Cally, stirring slightly as she slipped past, made a movement with her hand and said, just audibly:
"Don"t go."
The girl must have paused. There came a tiny voice:
"Yes, ma"am. I"ll ... just step out." And then, yet fainter: "I was wishin" you"d come, ma"am."
It was the stillness of the world"s last Sabbath. Gathering dusk was here, and mortal fear. Her limbs ran to marble. There came again the lifeless whisper.
"Don"t be afraid, ma"am.... He looks so beautiful."
The understanding speech, the voice, seemed to penetrate her consciousness. Her eyes drew out of the dusk, turned upon the small figure at her side: the little girl he had been fond of, her father"s three years" buncher. And then she heard herself breathing suddenly, faintly:
"Ah!... You poor, poor child!..."
And her heart, which had been quite dead, was suddenly alive and twisting within her....
She had been engulfed in her own abyss. Tragedy was on every side, horrors pouring in, swamping her being. Feeling had drowned in the icy void. Not Hen"s tears had touched her, not her father"s stricken grief.
But when her eyes came upon this small face, something written there pierced her through and through. Such a shocking little face it was, so pinched with no hope of tears....
In the darkness of the shuttered office, two stood near who were worlds apart. And, for the first time since she had looked down from her window at home, Cally was lifted out of herself....
"I--you must let me see you--in a day or two, won"t you?" she said hurriedly, below her breath. "I should like so much ... to help you, if I could...."
A quiver went over the little mask; but the girl spoke in the same stony way:
"Oh, ma"am ... it"s so kind.... I"ll go now."
But the hollowness of Cally"s speech had mocked the sudden sympathy upwelling within her. Her arm was upon the work-girl"s frail shoulder; her indistinct voice suddenly tremulous.
"Don"t think I imagine that any one can ever replace.... You must know I understand ... what your loss is."
Kern shrunk against the wall by the door. No moment this, to speak of what had so long been hid.
"He was like a father to me, ma"am, an" more...."
And then, as if to prove that she claimed no right at all in this room, as if all depended on her establishing finally the humble and spiritual nature of her regard, she breathed what in happier days had been close to her heart:
"He was teaching me to be a lady...."
Who shall say how marvels befall, and the dearest dream comes true? Was it the pitifulness of the little hope laid bare? Or the secret shrinking behind that, but surprised at last? Or was it the knowledge of a beautiful delicacy shown by this little girl before to-day?
Miss Heth"s arm was about her neck, and her voice, which was so pretty even when you could hardly hear it, said, true as true:
"I think you"ve been a lady all along, Co-rinne."
And then the bands about Kern"s heart snapped, and she could cry....
The storm came suddenly, like the bursting of a dam. A bad time certainly; it was hard to be torn so, yet to make no cry or sound; in any case, distressing to others. And surely salt water couldn"t be good for this lovely cloth, where her face lay....
Yet one doesn"t think overmuch of things like that, when the barriers on the great common go toppling down. And there was Sisterhood there all the time....
And above the stillness and the racking, Kern heard his beautiful lady"s voice once more, speaking to her own heart now, so low, oh, so broken:
"_Ah, but he was teaching me_...."
And then Kern must go quickly, lest she disgrace herself forever; screaming aloud as she had heard women who were not ladies....
The girl was gone, her head between her hands. And Cally Heth stood alone in the more than churchly stillness.
She was breaking up within. The drowned being stirred to life, with multiplying pains. And yet, in giving comfort, she had mysteriously taken it. There came to her a fort.i.tude that was not of death.