Sir John nodded and went straight back to Brackley to find Glynne
dressed and impatiently pacing the drawing-room, pale even to
ghastliness, and with eyes dilated and looking large and wild.
"How long you have been!" she panted, catching his hand. "Tell me
quickly--how is he? Tell me the worst."
"The worst is that he is very bad. It is a serious seizure, my dear,
but the doctors give hope."
"Father, this long waiting has been more than I could bear," she cried
hysterically. "I felt as if I should go mad. Now take me there--at
once."
"Take you--to The Firs?"
"Yes; now. The carriage is ready. I told them to have it waiting."
"But, Glynne--my darling, is it--is it quite right that you should go?
Well, perhaps as Lucy's friend."
"I am not going as Lucy's friend, father," cried Glynne; "this is no
time for paltry subterfuge. I am going to him who is stricken down. I
must go; I cannot stay away."
Sir John looked serious, but beyond knitting his brows, he said nothing,
only rang for the carriage, and then hurried away to fortify himself
with a tumbler of claret and some biscuits.
In a few minutes they were being rapidly driven to The Firs, Glynne
remaining perfectly silent till they were near the gates, when she laid
her hand upon her father's.
"Don't think me strange," she said in a low voice. "I feel as if I must
go to him now. I may never hear his voice again."
They were shown into the drawing-room, where, at Oldroyd's wish, Mrs
Alleyne had been taken by Lucy to partake of some refreshment, and, as
Glynne advanced into the dimly-lighted room, their neighbour rose from
her seat and stood confronting her.
"Well?" she said bitterly; "have you come to see your work?"
Glynne did not speak, but catching at Mrs Alleyne's hand, sank upon her
knees, while Sir John drew back with Lucy.
"Why do you come here?" said Mrs Alleyne, after a pause, painful in its
silence to all.
The door closed softly just then, and Glynne started and glanced round
to see that she was alone with Mrs Alleyne. Then she uttered a low,
weary cry.
"You do not know--you do not know how I have suffered, or you would not
speak to me like this," she whispered.
"Suffered!" retorted Mrs Alleyne, bitterly; "what have your sufferings
been to his? Woman, you came upon this house like a curse, to play with
his true, noble heart; and when you had, with your vile coquetry, won
it, you tossed it from you with insult, leaving him to suffer patiently,
till nature could bear no more; and now you have come to look upon the
wreck you have made. But you were not to go unpunished. Do you hear
me, woman--he, my brave, true son, is stricken to his death."
"No, no, no," cried Glynne, flinging her arms round Mrs Alleyne; "it is
not true--he is not dying--he shall not die, for I love him; I love him
with all my weary heart."
"You?" cried Mrs Alleyne, striving to free herself from the frantic
grasp that was about her.
"Yes; I--even now," cried Glynne, rising and clinging to her firmly; "it
is true that I loved him from the first. How could I help loving one so
wise and true?"
"And yet you trifled with him," cried Mrs Alleyne fiercely.
"No; it was with my own heart," sobbed Glynne, "I did not know. What
could I do? You know all. I seemed to wake at last standing upon the
brink of an abyss;" and then, "Mrs Alleyne, is there to be no pardon for
such as I? Was my act such a crime in the sight of Heaven that the rest
of my life was to be blasted, for he loved me--he loved me with all his
heart."
Mrs Alleyne shuddered and shrank away. "Are you, too, pitiless?" cried
Glynne. "You must know all--how he loved me, and loves me still. Has
he told you all?"
"Told me--all? What do you mean?"
"Must I speak to you?" whispered Glynne hoarsely, as she sank upon her
knees and clung to Mrs Alleyne's dress, "I would have given the world to
go back upon my promise, for I knew how he loved me, but in my blindness
I said it was too late."
"Yes; it was too late," said Mrs Alleyne coldly. "But you will let me
see him. Let me go to him. I ask no more. Let me be at his side, for
it may be that I can save his life. Then--send me away, and let me have
but one thought--that I have given life to him I loved. Mrs Alleyne,
have I not suffered enough? Have some pity on me. Have pity on your
son."
Mrs Alleyne caught her by the shoulder and drew her nearer, so that she
could gaze into the thin, white face; and, as she studied its lines of
care, her fierce look softened, and she caught Glynne tightly to her
breast, sobbing over her wildly, and crying from time to time, "My
child!--my poor child!"
Some time had passed before they went in softly, hand in hand, to where
Oldroyd sat by his patient's head.
The doctor did not look in the least surprised, but nodded his head as
if it was exactly what he had expected, and, after bending down over
Alleyne for a moment, he left the room.
And so it was, that when reason began to resume its seat in Moray
Alleyne's mind, his eyes rested upon the pale, careworn face of Glynne.
For she had stayed. There was no question of her leaving The Firs while
the patient was in danger, and when the peril seemed past she still
stayed, to glide large-eyed, pale and patient about the quiet chamber,
Mrs Alleyne giving up to her, as her hand smoothed the pillow and lent
support, when, feeble as an infant, Moray lay breathing the summer
breeze which came perfumed through the pines.
It was when speech had returned that Glynne sat near him one evening,
watching his white face with its grey silken hair, and the heavy beard
which had been spared by the doctor when his patient was at the worst.
Neither had spoken for some time, but gazed, each with a strange
yearning, in the other's eyes. For it had been coming for days, and
instinctively they knew that it must come that night--the end, and with
it a long farewell, perhaps only to meet again upon the further shore.
Glynne was the first to speak, and it was in a whisper.
"Moray, when I knew that you were stricken down, I prayed that I might
come to you, and struggle with the deadly shade to save your life."
He looked at her with a wistful gaze, and his lips trembled as he closed
his eyes.
"My work is done now. Forgive me for coming. I cannot touch your hand
again."
"No," he said sadly; and his voice was so low and deep that she bent
forward to hear his words, and lowered her face into her hands that she
might not let him see the agony and despair working, as she bent to her
unhappy fate.
For there had been some vague, undefined idea floating through her
brain, that he might have said one gentle, sorrowing, pitying sentence
before she went--he, the man whom she knew now to have loved her
tenderly and well. But he had acquiesced so readily. That simple
little "no" had gone to her heart like a stiletto thrust. She, degraded
as she was, could not take him by the hand again.
Then she started up to gaze at him wildly and reproachfully, for he
repeated the negative, and added,--
"Better, may be, dear, that I had died, as perhaps I shall before long.
But, before you go, take with you the knowledge that I loved you dearly
from the first. Ah, Glynne, what might have been!"
"Yes, what might have been!" she said sadly. "Better too that I had
died, as I have often prayed that I might; but I was mad to offer such a
prayer, for my work in life was not at an end. I did not know then. I
know now, and my task is done."
He was silent then, and she rose to go.
"Good-bye," she whispered. "We shall never meet again."
She had glided to the door, and her hand was raised to the fastening,
when he cried faintly,--
"Stop!"
A low sigh escaped her lips.
Was he, then, going to speak one loving word to soften the bitterness of
the last farewell? Her eyes brightened at the thought, and she turned
and took a step or two towards him, with outstretched hands, which fell
to her sides as she uttered a groan full of the despair at her heart.
"No, no: don't touch me," he cried wildly. "You--innocent and sinned
against--cannot take me by the hand again. Listen, Glynne, I must tell
you before you go. It will be our secret, dear, for the confession to
another, and my punishment, would mean fresh suffering and agony to
you."
"I--I do not understand you," she faltered, as she looked at him wildly.
"No; it has been my secret until now. Glynne, dear, in my mad despair,
I had gone to watch your window from the fir wood, as I had watched it
scores of times before, and I said. `It is for the last time.
To-morrow she belongs to him, and I will not degrade the idol of my love
by thoughts that are not true.' I reached the place sacred to me for my
sorrow, but that night I could not rest there. It was as if something
impelled me, against which I fought for hours before it mastered me, and
as if by a strange magnetism--an evil planet attracted to a good--I was
drawn nearer and nearer to the spot which contained all I held dear in
life."
A faint ejaculation, half wonder, half horror, escaped Glynne's lips,
and, with one quick movement she was close to his side, bending over him
and gazing with wildly dilated eyes at the dimly-seen face upon the
pillow, the faint smile upon his lips, as he referred to her in his
astronomical simile, seeming almost repellent at such a time.
"I felt guilty, dear," he went on, and she shivered while he turned his
face a little toward the faint light of the window, and was silent for a
few moments, while a fit of trembling came upon Glynne, and she had to
catch at the bed and support herself.
"I was not master of myself, dear. I loved you, and in my madness, weak
from my bitter struggle with the power which led me on, I stole like
some guilty wretch across the park till I reached the garden, and there
I once more paused to renew the fight--to master the desire to be near
you for the last time and then go back."
"Oh, Moray, Moray," she cried, with a piteous moan, and she sank upon
her knees, uttering low, hysterical sobs.
"My poor lost love!" he whispered faintly; and his hand was laid feebly
upon her bent head, which sank lower at his touch. "It was in vain. I
can hardly recall it dear, for I tell you I must have been mad, but I
crept closer and closer till I was beneath your window, and could touch
the long, rope-like stems that reached from where I stood praying for
your happiness, and a wild and guilty joy thrilled me, for I touched the
tendrils which clung around the chamber which held you, my love--my
love!"
"Moray!" she cried wildly; and in ecstasy of horror, wonder, and
confused thought mingled, she clasped her arms about his neck, and
buried her burning face in his breast.
"Ah!" he sighed; and his trembling hands rose to press her head closer
and closer to his fluttering heart.
A few moments only, and then she started from him.
"No, no," she cried wildly, as she cast back the thought which, for a
moment, she had gladly harboured. "Impossible! It could not be."
"I speak the truth," he said gently. "I must tell you now--while there
is time."
She clasped her hands, and her fingers seemed to grow into her flesh
with the agonised pressure as she crouched there, trembling, by his bed,
her lips apart, her throat dry, and her breath coming and going with a
harsh laboured sound, while his came feebly, and his words were harder
to hear in the darkness which now shrouded them.
"Yes," he sighed; "I must tell you before it is too late."
He was silent for a moment or two, and then went on, with every word
sending a pang of agony and shame through his listener's ears.
"Glynne, dearest, since that night I have often prayed that I might die,
but death is long in coming to those who ask its help. I had raised my
hand to steal one leaf from the creeper, when it fell to my side. Yes,"
he said, with a hurried intensity now taking the place of his feeble
whisper, "I remember--I see all clearly now. I had raised my hand, but
it fell to my side, and a pang of horror shot through me, for there was
the noise of struggling overhead, faint, half-stifled cries, and then
the baying of a dog. For a moment I was dazed, then I turned to run to
the door and raise an alarm, when a cry rang out again, and, for the
first time, I knew that it came from your window above my head."
He stopped, panting heavily, and Glynne, trembling violently now, drew
nearer and nearer to him, with the darkness closing in, and Alleyne's
face dimly seen on the grey pillow.
"Listen," he went on; "it was dark--so dark that I could hardly see that
your window was thrown wide; but it was as if a horrible scene were
being flashed into my brain, as I ran back over the short grass to stand
beneath and begin to climb up by the thick rope-like stems that ran
above. Then, as I grasped them, they were shaken violently; a man who
had climbed out slipped rapidly down, and I seized him. But he was
lithe and active, as I was slow, heavy, and unused to such an effort.
He shook himself free, but I grasped him again, and once more he escaped
me. But again I tried to seize him, and this time he struck at me, and
I felt a sharp blade pass through my hand.
"It gave him a few moments' start, but not more; and as he ran, a madman
was at his heels. Yes, a madman, for the passion within me was not that
of one in the full possession of his senses."
Alleyne paused for a few moments, and, as Glynne's hands once more,
tremblingly and with a pleading gesture, stole to his breast, his, cold
and dank in their touch, slowly pressed them to his heart, and held them
there.
"Guilty," he murmured, "but for your sake, dearest, and there must be
forgiveness. For my love was strong, and the maddening feeling within
me burned, as in my rage I tore on after the dark shadow that was
hurrying away."
He was silent again for a few minutes, and once more Glynne's head went
down till her forehead rested upon the cold, dank hands which prisoned
hers against the labouring heart beneath.
He spoke again, hurriedly and excitedly now, but the coherency of his
narrative was at an end.
"Some day," he babbled hurriedly, "she shall know--my sweet, pure
angel--what--who says that?--a lie--pure--pure as heaven above. No--
never take her hand in mine--a murderer's hand.--Hah! dog--at last.
Mother--Lucy--it has eaten my heart away--what do you say--her disgrace?
I tell you she is pure as those above--but there is his blood upon my
hands. I cannot--dare not go to her now. What--they have found him?
Yes, I know you--Caleb Kent--no use to struggle--there--wretch--venomous
hound--down into the black slime. Dead? Who said that? I did not know
till I loosened my grasp. There, amongst the cotton rushes--my hands
all wet and numbed--blood? No, the cold, black bog water. I killed
him--I did not know till he was dead, mother. There, dear, I have told
you. Nearly two years now. Let them find him. For her sake I could
not speak. Can you say, dear, that it was guilt? There--some day she
must know--some day, when we are old and grey, and life's passions have
burned to their sad, grey ashes, and once more I can tell her how I
loved."
He was silent again, and Glynne tried to raise her head, but he held it
fast pressed down to his labouring breast. Then, feebly and hurriedly,
he went on,--"These figures--all wrong--I cannot--so vast--so grand.
Who's this?"
"I, Moray, my own, own love," she whispered, as she clung to him wildly
now. "Ah!"
One long, deep sigh of content. "Some day--I must tell you--but look--
there--so far--so vast--so grand--the dazzling stars--the tiny
glittering point--then the faint golden dust--and beyond--the infinite.
Who spoke? Glynne? Forgive me, dear--I loved you--so--"
"Help! help!"
Wild, agonised shrieks, and there were hurried footsteps. Mother,
sister, and a light, which gleamed upon dilated eyes, gazing straight up
into the infinite he had so long tried to pierce.
Volume 3, Chapter XVII.