"Leo, my child, think what you are saying," cried North.
"I do think. I have lain here and thought for hours. I am not ashamed
to confess it. Why should I be?"
She looked up at him inquiringly; while he for the moment felt giddy
with emotion, but recovered himself directly.
"She is delirious, poor child," he said to himself; and he tried to
remove the enlacing arms from his neck.
"No, no; don't leave me," she said softly. "Don't be angry with me for
saying this."
"I am not angry, but you are weak. You have been very ill, and you must
not be excited now."
"No, I am not excited. I only feel happy--so happy. You are not
angry?"
"Angry? No," he said tenderly. "There, let me lay you back upon your
pillow. Try and sleep."
"No. I do not wish to sleep. Only tell me once again that you are not
cross, and then sit down by me, and let me hold your hand."
"Poor girl!" muttered North, as he felt the hands which had clasped his
neck steal down his arm softly and lingeringly, as if they delighted in
its strength and muscularity, resting for a few moments upon his wrist,
and then grasping his hand tightly, while their owner uttered a low sigh
of satisfaction.
He seated himself by the bedside, and Leo said softly, as she lay gazing
into his eyes:
"I feel so happy and restful now."
"And as if you can sleep?"
"Sleep? No. Let me lie and look at you. Don't speak. I want to
think. Shall I die?"
"Die? No; you must get better now, and grow strong, for Mary's sake and
for Hartley's."
"And for yours," said Leo softly, as she smiled lovingly in his face.
"I shall be your wife if I live."
"You shall live, and grow to be happy with all who love you."
"Yes," she said softly, "with all who love me;" and she closed her eyes.
"It _is_ delirium, poor child," said North to himself. "Good heavens!
am I such a scoundrel as to think otherwise?"
He sat back in his chair startled by the thoughts which had surged up to
his brain. He was horrified. For, in spite of medical teaching, of his
thorough command over himself, and of the fact that he had always been
one whose love was his profession, he had found that he was strongly
moved by the words and acts of the beautiful girl who had seemed to be
laying bare the secrets of her heart.
"Delirium--delirium! the workings of a distempered brain," he said to
himself fiercely. "Good heavens! am I going to be delirious too?"
At that moment Leo opened her eyes again, with a calm, soft light
seeming to burn therein, as she smiled in his face and drew his hand
more to her pillow so that she could rest her cheek upon it, and once
more her eyes half closed; but he knew that she was gazing at him still
with the same soft, loving look which, in spite of his self-control,
made his heart beat with a dull, heavy throb.
"I have so longed to tell you all this," she whispered; "but I never
dared till now. It has made me bitter, and distant, and strange to you.
I was angry with myself for loving you; and yet I could not help it.
You made me love you. I always did--I always shall."
"It is delirium," panted North. "I will not listen to her. Pah! it is
absurd. Where is my manliness--where are all my honourable feelings? I
can master such folly, and I will."
He set his teeth, and his face grew hard and cold; but all the same his
pulses quickened, and as he sat prisoned there, with those soft,
lustrous eyes gazing into his, he found that he was dreaming of another
life in which his scientific researches would be forgotten in the sweet,
dreamy, sensuous existence which would be his--enlaced in that loving
embrace, while those eyes gazed in his as they were gazing now, and
those curved lips returned his kisses or murmured tenderly as once more
they whispered the secrets of her breast.
"It has been so long. I have been so ill: but I do not complain, for it
has made me free to speak to you as I speak now. No, no; don't take
away your hand. Let me rest like that."
He was softly stealing away his hand, but she clung to it the more
tightly, and her white teeth glistened between her ruby lips in a smile
that was half mocking.
He heaved a deep sigh, and resigned himself to his position, while the
new thoughts which came surging on in a flood began to sweep everything
before them. She had been delirious, but there was no delirium here.
She loved him. This young and beautiful girl, to whom for years he had
given no thought save as the sister of his old friend, loved him
passionately, and he knew now the meaning of the ideas which had
troubled him for days--he must--he did love her in return.
But he was not beaten yet. A flush rose to his forehead and he set his
teeth hard, as he recalled his position--the confidence reposed in him
as a medical man--a confidence which he seemed to be abusing; and
drawing his breath deeply, he resolved that he would be man enough to
resist this temptation now Leo was weak and excited. She was yielding
to her impulse as she would not have yielded had she been strong and
well; hence he would be taking an unmanly advantage if he trespassed
upon her weakness now.
His course was open; his mind clear. He would be tender and kind to her
now. After she was well he could listen to her confessions of love as a
lover should; and as the thought expanded in his brain that he would
call this loving girl wife, he wondered how it was that he could have
been so dull and cold before--how it was that love should have been shut
from his mental vision as by a veil? And he sat gazing at his patient,
almost dazzled by the bright light which seemed to be shed upon his
future, till Hartley softly entered the room.
"Any change?" he whispered.
North glanced at the bed, and his heart beat fast. Leo was again
sleeping uneasily, and muttering in a low whisper. To an ordinary
observer there seemed to be none, but to Horace North there was an
enormous change, and he asked himself whether he should speak now or
wait.
He could not speak then of the subject nearest to his heart. He and
Salis had always been the most intimate of friends--almost brothers--and
they would be quite brothers in the future; but he could not tell him
then.
"She seems calmer," he whispered. "She was awake and talking a little
while ago."
"What--lucidly--sensibly?"
In spite of himself North could not help a start as he turned and met
his friend's eye, while his words were slow and constrained as he said,
in a hesitating manner:
"Yes; I think so. But she is very weak." And the mental question
insisted upon being heard--Was she speaking sensibly, and as one in the
full possession of her senses?
"North, old fellow, this is great news," cried the curate. "Heaven be
thanked! I must go and tell Mary."
He was hurrying from the room, but his friend caught his arm.
"No, no; not yet," he said hurriedly. "I would not raise her hopes too
much."
"Not when she is starving for the merest crumb of comfort? I must tell
her."
"Then be content to say I think she is a trifle better," whispered
North.
"But the climax must have come and gone?"
"I--I am not sure. The case is peculiar. Do as I say, and give her the
crumb of comfort of which you spoke. To-morrow, perhaps, I can speak
more definitely."
Hartley Salis left the room, and North once more bent over the bed. His
heart beat, his pulses throbbed, and the nerves in his temples seemed to
tingle, as he laid his hand upon the burning brow, placed a finger upon
the wrist, where the pulse beat so hard and pitifully, while, when he
softly raised one of the blue-veined eyelids and gazed at the pupil, he
drew back slowly, and shaded the sick girl's face from the light.
It was growing late, the wind howled mournfully about the house, and
from time to time there was a soft, patting noise at the window, as of
some one tapping the panes with finger-tips. So high was the wind
without that the candle flames were at times wafted to and fro.
Horace North had left the bedside, and was standing with his foot upon
the fender, gazing down into the tiny glowing caverns in the fire, where
the cinders fell together from time to time with a peculiar musical
sound--the sound that strikes a watcher's ear so strangely in the long
hours of the night.
His thoughts were wild, and a tempest was raging in his breast as
furious as that without. Love had made its first attack upon a strong
man, and the wound was rankling. His brain was confused. He was almost
giddy with his new sensations, astonished at the position in which he
found himself.
He had been keen enough man of the world to understand Mrs Berens'
tender, shrinking advances, and they had been to him by turns a cause of
annoyance and of mirth. But this was a novel and an intense delight.
He could not have believed that he could be so moved.
It was a hard fight, but the man of honour won.
"I am her brother's friend; I am her medical attendant," he mused; "and
neither by word nor look will I betray what passes in my heart till she
is well. Then I, too, will lay bare the secret I shall hide."
"And if she speaks to you again as she spoke a while ago--what then?"
It was as if a soft voice had whispered those words in his ear, and he
shivered as he asked himself, "What shall I say?"
"It is all madness," he cried fiercely--"utter madness. They were the
outpourings of her diseased brain. Am I growing into an idiot? Has
much study of the occult wonders of our life half turned my brain?"
He walked quickly to the bed, took up the candle, and let its light fall
upon the flushed face for a few moments, a face looking so beautifully
attractive with its wealth of rich hair tossed away over the white
pillow.
He set down the candle, and pressed his hand softly once more upon her
burning brow, listening the while to the dull throbbings of his heart.
"Yes, Horace North," he said at last, "you, the much-praised would-be
_savant_, are as weak as the weakest of your sex, ready to be flattered
into a passion by the first sweet words which fall from a woman's lips.
You are strong in knowledge, you have mastered endless difficulties, but
you have not mastered Horace North."
"Fool--fool--fool!" he whispered to himself, after a pause; "with all
your study to be so ready to rush to such a belief--ready to forget the
trust reposed in you by a true man, by his sweet-minded sister, and, as
it were, by you, my poor helpless girl. Spoken in your wild delirium,
my child--the emanations of a young girl's brain, of one whose waking
thoughts must, Nature taught, be almost always of who is to be your mate
through life. You opened the secret casket of your heart, my child,
when helpless and without control, and I have gazed therein with prying
eyes. But sleep in peace; they shall be secrets still. Yes," he added,
once more, as he drew steadily back--"delirium: she knows not what she
says."
A sigh from the sleeper made him pause, and then a low, musical laugh
rang out, followed by a quick muttering.
Then once more the low laugh was heard, and the muttering became
louder--then plainly heard, as if the speaker were in a merry protesting
mood.
"You ask so much. Again? Well, I will confess. Yes, I do love you--
with all my poor weak heart!"