No man sees
Beyond the gods and fate.
It is night, and in the sick-room all is hushed and still.
Lauraine, in her soft grey dress is sitting beside the bed. She is
alone; the first three hours are her watch. She thinks her husband
is asleep--he lies so still, and his eyes are closed. She looks
white and frail as a broken lily. Her head leans on her hands; the
whole expression of her face is one so sad, so heart-crushed, that it
might have made any one who loved her weep to read it.
Suddenly she looks at the quiet figure. His eyes are fixed on her
face. He has been watching her.
"Will you ever forgive me, Lauraine?" he says faintly. "I have been
such a brute, and you--I always said you were too good a woman. It
must have needed an angel's heart to do what you have done."
"It was nothing--nothing," she says hurriedly. "Sick-nursing was
always my _forte_, you know. Besides, I only did my duty."
"Your duty!" he echoes, with something of the old bitterness. "It is
well for you that you have so strong a sense of it. I have forgotten
what the word means."
She is silent. There is a long pause. After a while he speaks again.
"I have ruined your life, I know, and now it is too late--too late to
make amends. Still, the best amends I could make would be to free
you from myself--and that will soon be the case, Lauraine. Hush! Do
you suppose I believe what those fools said to-day--that a man cannot
tell when his end is near? I shall not plague you any longer--and
you may be happy--yet."
"Don't say that," entreats Lauraine, kneeling beside him, and taking
the hand he extends so feebly. "There is every hope now; the worst
is over. You are only weak, and that makes you dispirited about
yourself."
He shakes his head. "I know; I know. Promise me one thing. You
will not leave me; you will stay with me to the end. Last night I
had a dream. I thought I was alone--all alone, and it was all black
and dark, and you had left me; and look where I would there were
fiends grinning at me, and all my past sins seemed a burning fire
upon my soul. It was horrible. Bad as I am, and have been, say you
won't forsake me till the end, Lauraine; it is some comfort to have a
good woman's prayers. I can feel that at last."
"I will not leave you, do not fear," Lauraine assures him earnestly.
"But promise, child," he says restlessly, "promise."
And with a great wonder, but most gentle earnestness, she promises.
Another hour.
She kneels there still. He has fallen into a fitful doze, from which
he starts from time to time, to be reassured only by the pressure of
her hand--murmur from her lips.
Another hour.
The darkness of the night creeps on, slowly, wearily enough. The
prayers her lips have framed are hushed now. He sleeps more calmly,
more tranquilly, than he has done yet.
Another hour.
The Sister who relieves her comes softly in. She holds something in
her hand, which she gives to Lauraine.
For a second's space, as her eyes rest on the little yellow paper,
Lauraine grows faint with a great and unaccountable dread. Then she
opens the envelope and reads the message within.
"They say there is no hope. If you can by any means leave Sir
Francis, do come here. His one prayer is for a sight of you before
he dies."
The paper flutters from her hand. She does not speak or move, only
stands there as if frozen to stone.
"I must go, I must go!" she says in her heart. "Dying! Oh, my love,
my love! Are you leaving me thus? Will God not have pity on you?"
Mechanically, like one in a dream, she moves away; she scarcely knows
whither she is going. Only that one impulse is in her mind--to fly
to Keith's side at last; to bid him farewell on earth as never had
she thought to bid it; to kiss for the last time those eyes that she
seemed to see before her even now--tender, triumphant, agonized,
beseeching, as had been his words!
As her hand is on the door a faint sound reaches her ears, and
pierces through the mists that cloud her brain as though its feeble
utterance were a trumpet's blast. It is her husband's voice.
"Lauraine," he sighs, and moves restlessly in his sleep. She stands
there like one stunned. "Oh, God!" she murmurs within herself, "_my
promise!_"
Alone in her own room Lauraine sits in a sort of stupor, merciful in
its dull pain, since it renders all thought powerless for the time
being.
Her husband has need of her. She has promised to stay with him, and
she must keep her word. No past sins or errors of his should be the
measure of her duty, so she had felt; and now her word is given, and
Keith's dying eyes seem to summon her across the weary distance that
separates them, and she dares not go.
It is but a few moments since she has left her husband's side, but
the Sister comes to her now to entreat her to return. Sir Francis is
asking for her. She rises mechanically, and goes back to the
sick-room. The gaunt face, the eager eyes are turned towards the
door.
"You promised not to leave me," he whispers, faintly, and Lauraine
cannot find it in her heart to tell him that she needs rest, that she
is worn and spent with long hours of anxiety and suspense.
"Come here--sit down--so--close to me," he continues brokenly. "Tell
her to go. I must speak to you alone." Lauraine turns and makes a
sign to the Sister. She leaves the room at once.
Then Sir Francis turns and holds out in his hand the little paper
that had held for her a message of eternal woe. "Is--is it true?"
She bows her head. Words will not come.
"You dropped it. I asked the woman to give it me," says her husband.
"Lauraine, don't stay here for--for my sake; if it will comfort you
or--him--go."
A flush comes over the white, sad face, then fades and dies away.
"My place is by you," she answers.
"By me?" he echoes bitterly. "By the wretch whose selfishness and
brutality have ruined your life? My God!"
There is a long silence. He takes her hands and looks at her. "Even
my death cannot atone now. I thought it might. It is true, is it
not? You do--love--him?"
"Yes," she answers simply. "But why speak of that now? The past is
over and done with. You told me once I was only strong because I had
been untempted. Ah! how little you knew!"
"That he should die," mutters Sir Francis. "Young--brave--hopeful.
For me--it is no matter. How is it, Lauraine? Tell me all!"
"He was shot," she says, marvelling how she can speak so calmly--how
dull and far away seems everything in and out of her life. "In
Paris. Some dispute arose between him and--and a friend of Lady Jean
Salomans'. They met in the Bois, and Keith was dangerously wounded.
They say now there is--no hope."
Oh, the weariness of the voice, the anguish of the white, sad face.
"She," mutters Sir Francis. "Was this her vengeance?" Then he is
silent again.
"Lauraine, go to Keith Athelstone; I command you. If there is
time--if you see him alive tell him I bade you go--tell him I ask his
pardon for the wrong I have done him. Go, child; why do you linger
here--every moment is precious. Do you think I am so altogether
selfish that I cannot see how you suffer--cannot feel all you have
done--for me? Go."
"But you," she says hesitatingly; "you need me; you wished me to
stay."
"I am better. I feel stronger," he says, with brave effort. "And
the worst is over; you need not fear for me. I have wronged you
enough. Let me feel I have tried to do one unselfish action--even at
the last."
She looks at his face--at the drawn, sharpened features, the sunken
eyes, the hollow cheeks. A sudden fear and reproach smite her.
"I cannot leave you," she says, with a burst of tears. "We have been
most unhappy, I know, but you are my husband--my child's father."
"And the man for whom you have no love. Child! do not waste time in
folly. At a moment like this we see things as they are--naked, bare,
undisguised. Take my message to him, and comfort him with your
presence. It is the one thing I can do for you both; and I do it
with all my heart. Spare no expense--gold will speed your journey,
and I--I shall wait here till I know--he has forgiven."
Still she hesitates. Still she feels as if she were in some way
wronging the man to whom duty binds her, for sake of the man she
loves. He grows impatient.
"For me the worst is past. I shall do very well now. Are you
scrupulous as to that?--know no fear. You have been obedient in all
things that caused you suffering. Can you not be it for one thing
that you desire? Must I storm--insist?"
"Oh, hush," she says passionately; "it is so hard--if only I knew--
"You do know. I bid you go, and that without an evil thought--you
have but to obey."
Then she leaves him. He listens to the hurried preparations. A
strange, feverish strength seems to have come to him. As he has
said, it is the one really unselfish action he has ever performed in
his life. For though he has bidden her leave him, he is longing for
her presence. He knows his own hours are numbered, despite the hopes
held out. He knows that to have her with him during the dreadful
ordeal through which he has to pass would be the only comfort that
life holds. He shudders as he lies there face to face with death, as
the cold waters of the great river seem to flow on--on--up to his
very feet; and in that awful passage there will be no voice to
whisper comfort, no prayers from that low, sweet woman's voice to
tell of peace, of hope, of the gates of mercy standing open yet, even
to the greatest of sinners. He shudders, and the cold dews of
anguish stand upon his brow. But he is strong still, strong enough
to hide the truth from her. She comes to bid him farewell, and he
looks long and sorrowfully at the fair, sad face. How changed she
is, how changed!
"You will kiss me--just once, bad as I am," he whispers, and with the
tears standing thick in her eyes she bends down and for the first
time in all their married life kisses him of her own free will.
"God bless you," she murmurs fervently.
"Say you forgive," he entreats, laying his hand on hers.
"I have forgiven--long ago," she answers, and with murmured words of
hopefulness and trust, they part; part to meet on this side of the
grave never, never more.