I did go a little nearer. I was moving as he commanded, as if I had been mesmerised.
"You lost," he continued, "shortly before your illness, the only photograph you possessed of your sister Helen? But why are you so put out by it? Why should you tremble so violently? It is only I, you know; you need not mind. You dropped that on the floor of a jeweller"s shop one night, when I and Droqville happened to be there together, and I picked it up; it represents you both together. I want to restore it; here it is."
I extended my hand to take it. I don"t know whether I spoke, but the portrait faded suddenly from my sight, and darkness covered everything.
I heard his voice, like that of a person talking in excitement, a long way off, at the other side of a wall in another room--it was no more than a hum, and even that was growing fainter. I forgot everything, in utter unconsciousness, for some seconds. When I opened my eyes, water was trickling down my face and forehead, and the window was open. I sighed deeply. I saw him looking over me with a countenance of gloom and anxiety. In happy forgetfulness of all that had pa.s.sed, I smiled and said:
"Oh, Richard! Thank G.o.d!" and stretched my arms to him.
"That"s right--quite right," he said; "you may have every confidence in me."
The dreadful recollection began to return.
"Don"t get up yet," he said, earnestly, and even tenderly; "you"re not equal to it. Don"t think of leaving me--you must have confidence in me.
Why didn"t you trust me long ago?--trust me altogether? Fear nothing while I am near you."
So he continued speaking, until my recollection had quite returned.
"Why, darling, will you not trust me? Can you be surprised at my being wounded by your reserve? How have I deserved it? Forget the pain of this discovery, and remember only that against all the world, to the last hour of my life, with my last thought, the last drop of my blood, I am your defender."
He kissed my hands pa.s.sionately; he drew me towards him, and kissed my lips. He murmured caresses and vows of unalterable love--nothing could be more tender and impa.s.sioned. I was relieved by a pa.s.sionate burst of tears.
"It"s over now," he said--"it"s all over; you"ll forgive me, won"t you?
I have more to forgive, darling, than you--the hardest of all things to forgive in one whom we idolise--a want of confidence in us. You ought to have told me all this before."
I told him, as well as I could between my sobs, that there was no need to tell any one of a madness which had nothing to do with waking thoughts or wishes, and was simply the extravagance of delirium--that I was then actually in fever, had been at the point of death, and that Mr.
Carmel knew everything about it.
"Well, darling," he said, "you must trouble your mind no more. Of course you are not accountable for it. If people in brain fever were not carefully watched and restrained, a day would not pa.s.s without some tragedy. But what care I, Ethel, if it had been a real crime of pa.s.sion?
Nothing. Do you fancy it would or could, for an instant, have shaken my desperate love for you? Don"t you remember Moore"s lines:
"I ask not, I care not, if guilt"s in thy heart; I but know that thou lov"st me, whatever thou art."
"That is my feeling, fixed as adamant; never suspect me. I can"t I never can, tell you how I felt your suspicion of my love; how cruel I thought it. What had I done to deserve it? There, darling, take this--it is yours." He kissed the little photograph, he placed it in my hand, he kissed me again fervently. "Look here, Ethel, I came all this way, ever so much out of my way, to see you. I made an excuse of paying the vicar a visit on business--my real business was to see you. I must be this evening at Wrexham, but I shall be here again to-morrow, as early as possible. I am a mere slave at present, and business hurries me from point to point; but cost what it may, I shall be with you some time in the afternoon to-morrow."
"To stay?" I asked.
He smiled, and shook his head.
"I can"t say that, darling," he said; he was going towards the door.
"But you"ll be here early to-morrow; do you think before two?"
"No, not before two, I am afraid. I may be delayed, and it is a long way; but you may look out for me early in the evening."
Then came a leave-taking. He would not let me come with him to the hall-door--there were servants there, and I looked so ill. I stood at the window and saw him drive away. You may suppose I did feel miserable.
I think I was near fainting again when he was gone.
In a little time I was sufficiently recovered to get up to my room, and then I rang for Rebecca Torkill.
I don"t know how that long evening went by. The night came, and a miserable nervous night I pa.s.sed, starting in frightful dreams from the short dozes I was able to s.n.a.t.c.h.
CHAPTER LXII.
SIR HARRY WITHDRAWS.
Next morning, when the grey light came, I was neither glad nor sorry.
The shock of my yesterday"s interview with the only man on earth I loved, remained. It was a shock, I think, never to be quite recovered from. I got up and dressed early. How ill and strange I looked out of the gla.s.s in my own face!
I did not go down. I remained in my room, loitering over the hours that were to pa.s.s before the arrival of Richard. I was haunted by his changed face. I tried to fix in my recollection the earnest look of love on which my eyes had opened from my swoon. But the other would take its place and remain; and I could not get rid of the startled pain of my heart. I was haunted now, as I had been ever since that scene had taken place, with a vague misgiving of something dreadful going to happen.
I think it was between four and five in the evening that Rebecca Torkill came in, looking pale and excited.
"Oh, Miss Ethel, dear, what do you think has happened?" she said, lifting up both hands and eyes as soon as she was in at the door.
"Good Heaven, Rebecca!" I said, starting up; "is it anything bad?"
I was on the point of saying "anything about Mr. Marston?"
"Oh, miss! what do you think? Poor Sir Harry Rokestone is dead."
"Sir Harry dead!" I exclaimed.
"Dead, indeed, miss," said Rebecca. "Thomas Byres is just come up from the vicar"s, and he"s had a letter from Mr. Blount this morning, and the vicar"s bin down at the church with d.i.c.k Mattox, the s.e.xton, giving him directions about the vault. Little thought I, when I saw him going away--a fine man he was, six feet two, Adam Bell says, in his boots--little thought I, when I saw him walk down the steps, so tall and hearty, he"d be coming back so soon in his coffin, poor gentleman. But, miss, they say dead folk"s past feeling, and what does it all matter now? One man"s breath is another man"s death. And so the world goes on, and all forgot before long.
"To the grave with the dead, And the quick to the bread."
"A rough gentleman he was, but kind--the tenants will be all sorry.
They"re all talking, the servants, downstairs. He was one that liked to see his tenants and his poor comfortable."
All this and a great deal more Rebecca discoursed. I could hardly believe her news. A letter, I thought, would have been sure to reach Dorracleugh, as soon as the vicar"s house, at least.
Possibly this dismaying news would turn out to be mere rumour, I thought, and end in nothing worse than a sharp attack of gout in London.
Surely we should have heard of his illness before it came to this catastrophe. Nevertheless I had to tear up my first note to the vicar--I was so flurried, and it was full of blunders--and I was obliged to write another. It was simply to entreat information in this horrible uncertainty, which had for the time superseded all my other troubles.
A mounted messenger was despatched forthwith to the vicar"s house. But we soon found that the rumour was everywhere, for people were arriving from all quarters to inquire at the house. It was, it is true, so far as we could learn, mere report; but its being in so many places was worse than ominous.
The messenger had not been gone ten minutes, when Richard Marston arrived. From my room I saw the chaise come to the hall-door, and I ran down at once to the drawing-room. Richard had arrived half an hour before his time. He entered the room from the other door as I came in, and met me eagerly, looking tired and anxious, but very loving. Not a trace of the Richard whose smile had horrified me the day before.
Almost my first question to him was whether he had heard any such rumour. He was holding my hand in his as I asked the question--he laid his other on it, and looked sadly in my eyes as he answered, "It is only too true. I have lost the best friend that man ever had."
I was too much startled to speak for some seconds, then I burst into tears.
"No, no," he said, in answer to something I had said. "It is only too certain--there can be no doubt; look at this."