The Star-Gazers Part 82

Sir John nodded and went straight back to Brackley to find Glynne dressed and impatiently pacing the drawing-room, pale even to ghastliness, and with eyes dilated and looking large and wild.

"How long you have been!" she panted, catching his hand. "Tell me quickly--how is he? Tell me the worst."

"The worst is that he is very bad. It is a serious seizure, my dear, but the doctors give hope."

"Father, this long waiting has been more than I could bear," she cried hysterically. "I felt as if I should go mad. Now take me there--at once."

"Take you--to The Firs?"

"Yes; now. The carriage is ready. I told them to have it waiting."

"But, Glynne--my darling, is it--is it quite right that you should go?

Well, perhaps as Lucy's friend."

"I am not going as Lucy's friend, father," cried Glynne; "this is no time for paltry subterfuge. I am going to him who is stricken down. I must go; I cannot stay away."

Sir John looked serious, but beyond knitting his brows, he said nothing, only rang for the carriage, and then hurried away to fortify himself with a tumbler of claret and some biscuits.

In a few minutes they were being rapidly driven to The Firs, Glynne remaining perfectly silent till they were near the gates, when she laid her hand upon her father's.

"Don't think me strange," she said in a low voice. "I feel as if I must go to him now. I may never hear his voice again."

They were shown into the drawing-room, where, at Oldroyd's wish, Mrs Alleyne had been taken by Lucy to partake of some refreshment, and, as Glynne advanced into the dimly-lighted room, their neighbour rose from her seat and stood confronting her.

"Well?" she said bitterly; "have you come to see your work?"

Glynne did not speak, but catching at Mrs Alleyne's hand, sank upon her knees, while Sir John drew back with Lucy.

"Why do you come here?" said Mrs Alleyne, after a pause, painful in its silence to all.

The door closed softly just then, and Glynne started and glanced round to see that she was alone with Mrs Alleyne. Then she uttered a low, weary cry.

"You do not know--you do not know how I have suffered, or you would not speak to me like this," she whispered.

"Suffered!" retorted Mrs Alleyne, bitterly; "what have your sufferings been to his? Woman, you came upon this house like a curse, to play with his true, n.o.ble heart; and when you had, with your vile coquetry, won it, you tossed it from you with insult, leaving him to suffer patiently, till nature could bear no more; and now you have come to look upon the wreck you have made. But you were not to go unpunished. Do you hear me, woman--he, my brave, true son, is stricken to his death."

"No, no, no," cried Glynne, flinging her arms round Mrs Alleyne; "it is not true--he is not dying--he shall not die, for I love him; I love him with all my weary heart."

"You?" cried Mrs Alleyne, striving to free herself from the frantic grasp that was about her.

"Yes; I--even now," cried Glynne, rising and clinging to her firmly; "it is true that I loved him from the first. How could I help loving one so wise and true?"

"And yet you trifled with him," cried Mrs Alleyne fiercely.

"No; it was with my own heart," sobbed Glynne, "I did not know. What could I do? You know all. I seemed to wake at last standing upon the brink of an abyss;" and then, "Mrs Alleyne, is there to be no pardon for such as I? Was my act such a crime in the sight of Heaven that the rest of my life was to be blasted, for he loved me--he loved me with all his heart."

Mrs Alleyne shuddered and shrank away. "Are you, too, pitiless?" cried Glynne. "You must know all--how he loved me, and loves me still. Has he told you all?"

"Told me--all? What do you mean?"

"Must I speak to you?" whispered Glynne hoa.r.s.ely, as she sank upon her knees and clung to Mrs Alleyne's dress, "I would have given the world to go back upon my promise, for I knew how he loved me, but in my blindness I said it was too late."

"Yes; it was too late," said Mrs Alleyne coldly. "But you will let me see him. Let me go to him. I ask no more. Let me be at his side, for it may be that I can save his life. Then--send me away, and let me have but one thought--that I have given life to him I loved. Mrs Alleyne, have I not suffered enough? Have some pity on me. Have pity on your son."

Mrs Alleyne caught her by the shoulder and drew her nearer, so that she could gaze into the thin, white face; and, as she studied its lines of care, her fierce look softened, and she caught Glynne tightly to her breast, sobbing over her wildly, and crying from time to time, "My child!--my poor child!"

Some time had pa.s.sed before they went in softly, hand in hand, to where Oldroyd sat by his patient's head.

The doctor did not look in the least surprised, but nodded his head as if it was exactly what he had expected, and, after bending down over Alleyne for a moment, he left the room.

And so it was, that when reason began to resume its seat in Moray Alleyne's mind, his eyes rested upon the pale, careworn face of Glynne.

For she had stayed. There was no question of her leaving The Firs while the patient was in danger, and when the peril seemed past she still stayed, to glide large-eyed, pale and patient about the quiet chamber, Mrs Alleyne giving up to her, as her hand smoothed the pillow and lent support, when, feeble as an infant, Moray lay breathing the summer breeze which came perfumed through the pines.

It was when speech had returned that Glynne sat near him one evening, watching his white face with its grey silken hair, and the heavy beard which had been spared by the doctor when his patient was at the worst.

Neither had spoken for some time, but gazed, each with a strange yearning, in the other's eyes. For it had been coming for days, and instinctively they knew that it must come that night--the end, and with it a long farewell, perhaps only to meet again upon the further sh.o.r.e.

Glynne was the first to speak, and it was in a whisper.

"Moray, when I knew that you were stricken down, I prayed that I might come to you, and struggle with the deadly shade to save your life."

He looked at her with a wistful gaze, and his lips trembled as he closed his eyes.

"My work is done now. Forgive me for coming. I cannot touch your hand again."

"No," he said sadly; and his voice was so low and deep that she bent forward to hear his words, and lowered her face into her hands that she might not let him see the agony and despair working, as she bent to her unhappy fate.

For there had been some vague, undefined idea floating through her brain, that he might have said one gentle, sorrowing, pitying sentence before she went--he, the man whom she knew now to have loved her tenderly and well. But he had acquiesced so readily. That simple little "no" had gone to her heart like a stiletto thrust. She, degraded as she was, could not take him by the hand again.

Then she started up to gaze at him wildly and reproachfully, for he repeated the negative, and added,--

"Better, may be, dear, that I had died, as perhaps I shall before long.

But, before you go, take with you the knowledge that I loved you dearly from the first. Ah, Glynne, what might have been!"

"Yes, what might have been!" she said sadly. "Better too that I had died, as I have often prayed that I might; but I was mad to offer such a prayer, for my work in life was not at an end. I did not know then. I know now, and my task is done."

He was silent then, and she rose to go.

"Good-bye," she whispered. "We shall never meet again."

She had glided to the door, and her hand was raised to the fastening, when he cried faintly,--

"Stop!"

A low sigh escaped her lips.

Was he, then, going to speak one loving word to soften the bitterness of the last farewell? Her eyes brightened at the thought, and she turned and took a step or two towards him, with outstretched hands, which fell to her sides as she uttered a groan full of the despair at her heart.

"No, no: don't touch me," he cried wildly. "You--innocent and sinned against--cannot take me by the hand again. Listen, Glynne, I must tell you before you go. It will be our secret, dear, for the confession to another, and my punishment, would mean fresh suffering and agony to you."