The Man Part 35

'Lady de Lannoy. The Countess de Lannoy; they tell me she is a Countess in her own right.'

'It is very good of her to have me here. Is she an old lady?'

'No! A young one. Young and very beautiful.' After a pause before his query:

'What's she like? Describe her to me!'

'She is young, a little over twenty. Tall and of a very fine figure. She has eyes like black diamonds, and hair like a flame!' For a long time Harold remained still. Then he said:

'Tell me all you know or have learned of this whole affair. How was I rescued, and by whom?' So the Doctor proceeded to give him every detail he knew of. When he was quite through, the other again lay still for a long time. The silence was broken by a gentle tap at the door. The Doctor lit a candle. He turned the key softly, so that no one would notice that the door was locked. Something was said in a low whisper.

Then the door was gently closed, and the Doctor returning said:

'Lady Lannoy wants, if it will not disturb you, to ask how you are.

Ordinarily I should not let anyone see you. But she is not only your hostess, but, as I have just told you, it was her ride to the headland, where she burned the house to give you light, which was the beginning of your rescue. Still if you think it better not ... !'

'I hardly like anybody to see me like this!' said Harold, feebly seeking an excuse.

'My dear man,' said the other, 'you may be easy in your mind, she won't see much of you. You are all bandages and beard. She'll have to wait a while before she sees you.'

'Didn't she see me last night?'

'Not she! Whilst we were trying to restore you she was rus.h.i.+ng back to the Castle to see that all was ready for you, and for the others from the wreck.' This vaguely soothed Harold.

If his surmise was correct, and if she had not seen him then, it was well that he was bandaged now. He felt that it would not do to refuse to let her see him; it might look suspicious. So after pausing a short while he said in a low voice:

'I suppose she had better come now. We must not keep her waiting!' When the Doctor brought her to his bedside Stephen felt in a measure awed. His bandaged face and head and his great beard, singed in patches, looked to her in the dim light rather awesome. In a very gentle voice she said kind things to the sick man, who acknowledged them in a feeble whisper.

The Doctor, a keen observer, noticed the change in his voice, and determined to understand more. Stephen spoke of his bravery, and of how it was due to him that all on the s.h.i.+p were saved; and as she spoke her emotion moved her so much that her sweet voice shook and quivered. To the ears of the man who had now only sound to guide him, it was music of the sweetest he had ever heard. Fearing lest his voice should betray him, he whispered his own thanks feebly and in few words.

When Stephen went away the Doctor went with her; it was more than an hour before he returned. He found his patient in what he considered a state of suppressed excitement; for, though his thoughts were manifestly collected and his words were calm, he was restless and excited in other ways. He had evidently been thinking of his own condition; for shortly after the Doctor came in he said:

'Are we alone?'

'Quite!'

'I want you to arrange that there shall not be any nurse with me.'

'My dear sir! Don't handicap me, and yourself, with such a restriction.

It is for your own good that you should have regular and constant attention.'

'But I don't wish it. Not for the present at all events. I am not accustomed to a nurse, and shall not feel comfortable. In a few days perhaps ... ' The decided tone of his voice struck the other. Keeping his own thoughts and intentions in abeyance, even to himself, he answered heartily:

'All right! I shall not have any nurse, at present.'

'Thanks!' There was relief in the tone which seemed undue, and Mr.

Hilton again took mental note. Presently he asked a question, but in such a tone that the Doctor p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. There was a premeditated self-suppression, a gravity of restraint, which implied some falsity; some intention other than the words conveyed:

'It must have been a job to carry me up those stairs.' The Doctor was doubting everything, but as the safest att.i.tude he stuck to literal truth so far as his words conveyed it:

'Yes. You are no light weight!' To himself he mused:

'How did he know there were stairs? He cannot know it; he was senseless!

Therefore he must be guessing or inquiring!' Harold went on:

'I suppose the Castle is on high ground. Can you see far from the windows? I suppose we are up a good height?'

'From the windows you can see all round the promontory. But we are not high up; that is, the room is not high from the ground, though the Castle is from the sea.' Harold asked again, his voice vibrating in the note of gladness:

'Are we on the ground floor then?'

'Yes.'

'And I suppose the gardens are below us?'

'Yes.' The answer was given quickly, for a thought was floating through him: Why did this strong brave man, suddenly stricken blind, wish to know whether his windows were at a height? He was not surprised when his patient reaching out a hand rested it on his arm and said in an imploring tone:

'It should be moonlight; full moon two nights ago. Won't you pull up the blind and describe to me all you see? ... Tell me fully ... Remember, I am blind!'

This somehow fixed the Doctor's thought:

'Suicide! But I must convey the inutility of such effort by inference, not falsity.'

Accordingly he began to describe the scene, from the very base of the wall, where below the balcony the great border was glorious with a ma.s.s of foliage plants, away to the distant sea, now bathed in the flood of moonlight. Harold asked question after question; the Doctor replying accurately till he felt that the patient was building up a concrete idea of his surroundings near and far. Then he left him. He stood for a long time out in the pa.s.sage thinking. He said to himself as he moved away:

'The poor fellow has some grim intention in his mind. I must not let him know that I suspect; but to-night I will watch without his knowing it!'

CHAPTER x.x.xIV--WAITING

Mr. Hilton telegraphed at once countermanding, for the present, the nurse for whom he had sent.

That night, when the household had all retired, he came quietly to his patient's room, and entering noiselessly, sat silent in a far corner.

There was no artificial right; the patient had to be kept in darkness.

There was, however, a bright moonlight; sufficient light stole in through the edges of the blinds to allow him, when his eyes grew accustomed, to see what might happen.

Harold lay quite still till the house was quiet. He had been thinking, ever since he had ascertained the ident.i.ty of Stephen. In his weakness and the paralysing despair of his blindness all his former grief and apprehension had come bank upon him in a great wave; veritably the tide of circ.u.mstances seemed to run hard against him. He had had no idea of forcing himself upon Stephen; and yet here he was a guest in her house, without her knowledge or his own. She had saved his life by her energy and resource. Fortunately she did not as yet know him; the bandages, and his act in suppressing his voice, had so far protected him. But such could not last for long. He could not see to protect himself, and take precautions as need arose. And he knew well that Stephen's nature would not allow her to be satisfied without doing all that was possible to help one who had under her eyes made a great effort on behalf of others, and to whom there was the added bond that his life was due to her. In but a little time she must find out to whom she ministered.

What then would happen? Her kindness was such that when she realised the blindness of her old friend she might so pity him that out of the depths of her pity she would forgive. She would take back all the past; and now that she knew of his old love for her, would perhaps be willing to marry him. Back flooded the old memory of her independence and her theory of s.e.xual equality. If out of any selfish or mistaken idea she did not hesitate to ask a man to marry her, would it be likely that when the n.o.bler and more heroic side of her nature spoke she would hesitate to a similar act in pursuance of her self-sacrifice?

So it might be that she would either find herself once again flouted, or else married to a man she did not love.

Such a catastrophe should not happen, whatever the cost to him. He would, blind as he was, steal away in the night and take himself out of her life; this time for ever. Better the ingrat.i.tude of an unknown man, the saving of whose life was due to her, than the long dull routine of a spoiled life, which would otherwise be her unhappy lot.

When once this idea had taken root in his mind he had taken such steps as had been open to him without endangering the secrecy of his motive.

Thanks to his subtle questioning of the Doctor, he now knew that his room was close to the ground, so that he would easily drop from the window and steal away with out immediate danger of any restraining accident. If he could once get away he would be all right. There was a large sum to his credit in each of two London banks. He would manage somehow to find his way to London; even if he had to walk and beg his way.