'Oh, Meg, I do wish daddy had come. Why does Aunt Constance go and get
the 'flu again, just when I wanted her to be here to look after you.'
'I don't know, but I shall be all right, Ross.'
'Why, Jonathan, you're like the old woman that used to amuse you in the
village, there's 'Only the Almighty' left to do it.'
And I smiled, but my lips quivered, too, and I clenched my hands. So
then he sat down on my bed and said,--
'You needn't be ashamed to if you want to. I know you've got "views"
about it, and didn't when you said good-bye to Michael, but a person
that has had a bug is not considered to be eternally disgraced if she
does.'
So I did, and clung to him a little while, and then he remarked that it
was an awful thing to have a sister who had got a bug, so that no one
would come and stay with her. Then he kissed me and whispered,--
'I'm not perfectly positive that you aren't safest of all with Him,
darling.'
*PART III*
'Acquainted with grief.'
*CHAPTER I*
'I fled Him, down the nights and down the days:
I fled Him, down the arches of the years:
I fled Him down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind: and in a mist of tears
I hid from Him.'
_Hound of Heaven._
Another fortnight has slipped away. I have had one little note from
Ross in which he sent me 'all his love,' and now, how can I write the
news I have to tell?
Three days ago (ah, what an eternity it seems) I was ordering the
dinner, for I am stronger now, and able to do the usual things.
Uncle Jasper and Aunt Constance were due to arrive in time for lunch.
Captain Everard was to dine that night, and I had just said to cook,
'Extra good to-night, please, Dulcie, because he is a very special
friend of my brother's' when the S.P. came into the kitchen with rather
a startled look, and said, 'Captain Everard has arrived already, ma'am.'
When I saw his face, I knew.
'It's Ross,' I said. 'So soon?'
Yes, directly he got over. He must have been rushed straight up to the
trenches. How can I tell you, Mrs Ellsley?'
'See, I am quite calm,' I said, 'please, tell me just the truth.'
So he told me the little that he knew, how very early in the morning he
had received a telegram, (as Ross in his dear thoughtfulness had wished
any such news to go first to him and not to me.) He said that Ross was
wounded very desperately, and he had come himself to take me to the
coast.
'Can you leave here in half an hour?' he asked. 'If that is possible you
may see him.'
'Yes,' I answered.
Nannie packed for me, while I got ready. She was very quiet and good,
only said, 'My lamb, my lamb, tell him----'
'I will tell him all your eyes say, darling,' and I got into the car.
I do not remember what happened then. I felt nothing. I was numb. I
only knew that kind hands passed me on from car to boat, and then from
boat to train, and car again, till I stood at midnight in a little room
opposite a sister with a tired face, waiting for her to speak.
'Ah,' she said, 'you have been very quick; we hardly hoped to be in time
to reach you.' Then she told me that he had been brought in the day
before, hopelessly wounded in the body.
'It is a miracle that he has lasted with such appalling wounds; he is
only living on his willpower, waiting for you.'
'Is he in pain?' I asked.
'At first, yes, agony all the time, but now there are intervals between
the bouts of pain, and at the end I think he will not suffer.'
'But you can keep it down with morphia,' I said quiveringly.
'We did at first, but he dislikes it so, and now the pain is lessening
he has refused to have any more because it clouds his mind. He asked
for the chaplain a little while ago,' she continued. 'Just before he had
the Blessed Sacrament he had a bout of pain and I begged him to let me
give him morphia. "No, don't ask me again, sister," he said, and I felt
rebuked. But it is not safe to linger--come. I am afraid he may be
very exhausted,' she added as I followed her upstairs.
She opened the door of a small, quiet room, and signed to the orderly to
go away. Ross was little altered, but his face had lost its colour, and
there was a drawn look round his mouth, and his eyes were very tired.
He stirred as the door closed on the orderly.
'It's Meg,' he said faintly and smiled. 'How sweet of you to come, how
quick you've been, darling.'
The sister gave him a little brandy, which revived him.
'She's been so beautifully kind,' he said, as she prepared to go, then
as she went she whispered,--
'Sponge his face and hands after the pain, and give him a little brandy
when he is exhausted. I can do no more for him than you can, and he will
love to have you to himself. Ring if you want me, I am close at hand.'