"Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,
If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;
And to give thanks is good, and to forgive."
Is she dead or still living? Dysart, calmed now, indeed, gazes at her
with a heart contracted. Great heaven! how like death she looks, and
yet--he knows she is still in the flesh. How strangely her eyes gleam. A
dull gleam and so passionless. Her brown hair--not altogether fallen
down her back, but loosened from its hairpins, and hanging in a soft
heavy knot behind her head--gives an additional pallor to her already
too white face. The open eyes are looking straight before them,
unseeing. Her step is slow, mechanical, unearthly. It is only indeed
when she lays the candle she holds upon the edge of the table, the
extreme edge, that he knows she is asleep, and walking in a dreamland
that to waking mortals is inaccessible.
Silently, and always with that methodical step, she moves toward the
fireplace, and still a little further, until she stands on that eventful
spot where he had given up all claim to her, and thrown her back upon
herself. There is the very square on the carpet where she stood some
hours ago. There she stands now. To her right is the chair on which she
had leaned in great bitterness of spirit, trying to evoke help and
strength from the dead oak. Now, in her dreams, as if remembering that
past scene, she puts out her hands a little vaguely, a little blindly,
and, the chair not being where in her vision she believes it to be, she
gropes vaguely for it in a troubled fashion, the little trembling hands
moving nervously from side to side. It is a very, sad sight, the sadder
for, the mournful change that crosses the face of the sleeping girl. The
lips take a melancholy curve: the long lashes droop over the sightless
eyes, a long, sad sigh escapes her.
Dysart, his heart beating wildly, makes a movement toward her. Whether
the sound of his impetuous footstep disturbs her dream, or whether the
coming of her fingers in sudden contact with the edge of the table does
it, who can tell; she starts and wakens.
At first she stands as if not understanding, and then, with a terrified
expression in her now sentient eyes, looks hurriedly around her. Her
eyes meet Dysart's.
"Don't be frightened," begins he quickly.
"How did I come here?" interrupts she, in a voice panic-stricken. "I was
upstairs; I remember nothing. It was only a moment since that I----Was I
asleep?"
She gives a hasty furtive glance at the pretty loose white garment that
enfolds her.
"I suppose so," says Dysart. "You must have had some disturbing dream,
and it drove you down here. It is nothing. Many people walk in their
sleep."
"But I never. Oh! what is it?" says she, as if appealing to him to
explain herself to herself. "Was," faintly flushing, "any one else here?
Did any one see me?"
"No one. They are in bed; all asleep."
"And you?" doubtfully.
"I couldn't sleep," returns he slowly, gazing fixedly at her.
"I must go," says she feverishly. She moves rapidly toward the door; her
one thought seems to be to get back to her own room. She looks ill,
unstrung, frightened. This new phase in her has alarmed her. What if,
for the future, she cannot even depend upon herself?--cannot know where
her mind will carry her when deadly sleep has fallen upon her? It is a
hateful thought. And to bring her here. Where he was. What power has he
over her? Oh! the sense of relief in thinking that she will be at home
to-morrow--safe with Barbara.
Her hand is on the door. She is going.
"Joyce," says Dysart suddenly, sharply. All his soul is in his voice. So
keenly it rings, that involuntarily she turns to him. Great agony must
make itself felt, and to Dysart, seeing her on the point of leaving him
forever, it seems as though his life is being torn from him. In truth
she is his life, the entire happiness of it--if she goes through that
door unforgiving, she will carry with her all that makes it bearable.
She is looking at him. Her eyes are brilliant with nervous excitement;
her face pale. Her very lips have lost their color.
"Yes?" says she interrogatively, impatiently.
"I am going away to-morrow--I shall not----"
"Yes, yes--I know. I am going, too."
"I shall not see you again?"
"I hope not--I think not."
She makes another step forward. Opening the door with a little light
touch, she places one hand before the candle and peers timidly into the
dark hall outside.
"Don't let that be your last word to me," says the young man,
passionately. "Joyce, hear me! There must be some excuse for me."
"Excuse?" says she, looking back at him over her shoulder, her lovely
face full of curious wonder.
"Yes--yes! I was mad! I didn't mean a word I said--I swear it!
I----Joyce, forgive me!"
The words, though whispered, burst from him with a despairing vehemence.
He would have caught her hand but that she lifts her eyes to his--such
eyes!
There is a little pause, and then:
"Oh, no! Never--never!" says she.
Her tone is very low and clear--not angry, not even hasty or
reproachful. Only very sad and certain. It kills all hope.
She goes quickly through the open doorway, closing it behind her. The
faint, ghostly sound of her footfalls can be heard as she crosses the
hall. After a moment even this light sound ceases. She is indeed gone!
It is all over!
* * * * *
With a kind of desire to hide herself, Joyce has crept into her bed,
sore at heart, angry, miserable. No hope that sleep will again visit her
has led her to this step, and, indeed, would sleep be desirable? What a
treacherous part it had played when last it fell on her!
How grieved he looked--how white! He was evidently most honestly sorry
for all the unkind things he had said to her. Not that he had said many,
indeed, only--he had looked them. And she, she had been very hard--oh!
too hard. However, there was an end to it. To-morrow would place more
miles between them, in every way, than would ever be recrossed. He would
not come here again until he had forgotten her--married, probably. They
would not meet. There should have been comfort in that certainty, but,
alas! when she sought for it, it eluded her--it was not there.
In spite of the trick Somnus had just played her, she would now gladly
have courted him again, if only to escape from ever growing regret. But
though she turns from side to side in a vain endeavor to secure him,
that cruel god persistently denies her, and with mournful memories and
tired eyes, she lies, watching, waiting for the tender breaking of the
dawn upon the purple hills.
Slowly, slowly comes up the sun. Coldly, and with a tremulous lingering,
the light shines on land and sea. Then sounds the bursting chants of
birds, the rush of streams, the gentle sighings of the winds through
herb and foliage.
Joyce, thankful for the blessed daylight, flings the clothes aside, and
with languid step, and eyes, sad always, but grown weary, too, with
sleeplessness and thoughts unkind, moves lightly to the window.
Throwing wide the casement, she lets the cool morning air flow in.
A new day has arisen. What will it bring her? What can it bring, save
disappointment only and a vain regret? Oh! why must she, of all people,
be thus unblessed upon this blessed morn? Never has the sun seemed
brighter--the whole earth a greater glow of glory.
"Welcome, the lord of light and lamp of day:
Welcome, fosterer of tender herbis green;
Welcome, quickener of flourish'd flowers' sheen.
Welcome depainter of the bloomit meads;
Welcome, the life of everything that spreads!"
Yet to Joyce welcome to the rising sun seems impossible. What is the
good of day when hope is dead? In another hour or two she must rise, go
downstairs, talk, laugh, and appear interested in all that is being
said--and with a heart at variance with joy--a poor heart, heavy as
lead.
A kind of despairing rage against her crooked fortune moves her. Why has
she been thus unlucky? Why at first should a foolish, vagrant feeling
have led her to think so strongly of one unworthy and now hateful to her
as to prejudice her in the mind of the one really worthy. What madness
possessed her? Surely she is the most unfortunate girl alive? A sense of
injustice bring the tears into her eyes, and blots out the slowly
widening landscape from her view.
"How happy some o'er other some can be!"
Her thoughts run to Barbara and Monkton. They are happy in spite of many
frowns from fortune. They are poor--as society counts poverty--but the
want of money is not a cardinal evil. They love each other; and the
children are things to be loved as well--darling children! well grown,
and strong, and healthy, though terrible little Turks at times--God
bless them! Oh! that she could count herself as blessed as Barbara,
whose greatest trouble is to deny herself this and that, to be able to
pay for the other thing. No! to be poor is not to be unhappy. "Our
happiness in this world," says a writer, "depends on the affections we
are able to inspire." Truly she--Joyce--has not been successful in her
quest. For if he had loved her, would he ever have doubted her? "Perfect
love," says the oldest, grandest testimony of all, "casteth out fear."
And he had feared. Sitting here in the dawning daylight, the tears ran
softly down her cheeks.
It is a strange thing, but true, that never once during this whole
night's dreary vigil do her thoughts once turn to Beauclerk.