"I charge thee, by the living's prayer,
By the dead's silentness,
To wring from out thy soul a cry
That God may hear and bless;
Lest heaven's own palm fade in my hand,
And, pale among the saints I stand
A saint companionless."
Constance was lying on a couch near the fire propped up by many pillows.
She felt weaker than usual: what she had gone through in the morning had
exhausted her. Guy never knew, till long after, that the effort she had
made to secure the meeting with him had, in all human probability,
shortened her life by weeks. She thought it cheaply purchased at that
price--and she was right. Even the excitement of the moment had hardly
brought a tinge of color into the pure waxen cheeks, but the beautiful
clear eyes were more brilliant than ever. A ribbon of the blue which was
Guy's favorite was twisted in her bright glossy hair.
He saw nothing of this at first; he did not see her raise herself with a
faint joyful cry as he advanced with his eyes cast down; he never knew
how it was that he found himself kneeling by Constance, with her arms
clinging fondly round his neck, and her voice murmuring in his ear, "I
said you would come--I knew you would come."
Though her soft cheek lay so very near his lips, they never touched it.
He drew back, shuddering all over, and said, hoarsely,
"I can not; I dare not; I am not worthy."
I do not know if she guessed what he meant, but she tried to lift his
head, which was bent down on the cushion beside her, so that he might
look into her true eyes as she answered,
"You must not think that--you must not say so. I know you have been
angry and almost mad for many months, but you are not so now, and you
never will be any more. It was my fault--yes, mine. If I had not been so
cold and proud, you would never have left me. You thought I did not love
you; but I did; my own, my darling, I did--so dearly!"
All Guy's stout manhood was shivered within him, utterly and suddenly,
as 4000 years ago the rock was cloven in Horeb, the Mount of God. Now,
too, from the rift in the granite the waters flowed; the first tears
that he had shed since he was a very little child--the last that any
mortal saw there--streamed hot and blinding from his eyes down on the
thin, transparent hand that he held fast.
Would those with whom he was a by-word for hard sternness of character
have known him then? They would have been almost as much surprised to
see Constance Brandon--thought so haughty and cold--overcoming her
terror at his passionate burst of grief, to soothe him with every
tenderest gesture and with words that were each a caress, till the
convulsion passed away, and calm self-government returned.
Guy did not speak till he could quite control himself; then he said
firmly, but with a sob in his voice still,
"Yet I have killed you!"
"No, no," Constance answered, quickly; "indeed it is not so. A cold
which attacked my chest caused this illness; but they say my lungs were
affected long ago, and that I could hardly have lived many months. You
must think of that, dear; and perhaps it is much better that it should
be so. Life is very hard and difficult, I think, and I should never have
been strong enough to bear my part in it well."
Guy shook his head sadly, as if only half convinced, though he knew she
would not have said an untrue word even to save him from suffering.
"If you could only stay with me--if I could only keep you!" he cried
out, and threw his arms round her, as if their strong clasp would hold
her back one step on the road along which the messengers of God had been
beckoning her for many days past.
"Hush!" Constance whispered; "you must be patient. Yet I like to think
that you will not forget me soon. Now listen--" and she held up her
finger with something of the "old imperial air." "I have something to
ask of you. Will you not like to do it for my sake, even if it is hard?"
He did not answer; but she understood the pressure of his hand, and went
on.
"I have been fearing so much that something terrible will happen between
you and Cyril. He is so passionate and willful, he will not listen to
me, though he loves me dearly, and though I have tried every entreaty I
could think of. (She grew paler than ever, and shuddered visibly.) And
you are not patient, Guy, dear; but you would be this time, would you
not? Only think how it would grieve me if--"
The deep hollow cough that she had tried hard to keep back _would_
break in here.
"You can not doubt me," Guy replied, caressing her fondly: "I promise
that nothing he can say or do shall tempt me to defend myself by word or
deed. How could I, even if you had not asked this? Has he not bitter
cause? Ask me something harder, my own!"
Constance hesitated; then she spoke rapidly, as if afraid to pause when
she had once made up her mind. The lovely color came and flickered for a
moment on her cheek, and then went out again as suddenly.
"I know it is easier for me to submit than for you, yet it is very hard
to be obliged to leave you, Guy; it is harder still to leave you to
Flora Bellasys. I hope my jealousy--I _am_ jealous--does not make me
unjust; but I don't think she will make you better, or even happier in
the end. Now do forgive me; perhaps I ought not--"
Guy interrupted her here: he had not stopped her till she began to
excuse herself.
"I must see her once again (the knitting of his black brows omened ill
for the peace of that interview); afterward, on my honor and faith, I
will never speak to her one word, or willingly look upon her face."
O true heart! that had suffered so long, and hitherto unavailingly, till
your life-blood was drained in the struggle, be content, for the victory
is won at last. Never did loyalty and right triumph more absolutely
since those who stood fast by their King in the _dies iræ_ of the great
battle saw the rebel angels cast headlong down.
If, in the intense joy that thrilled through every fibre of Constance's
frame, there mingled an element of gratified pride, who shall blame her?
Not I, for fear of being less indulgent than I believe was her Eternal
Judge when, not many days later, she stood before him.
She needed no further protest or explanation; she never thought that,
because her lover had once been entangled, there was danger of his
falling into the net again; she never doubted for an instant--and she
was right. The gaze of the spirit is far-seeing and rarely fallible when
so near its translation as was hers.
As she leaned her head against his shoulder, murmuring, "You have made
me so very, very happy!" there were pleasant tears in the beautiful eyes
that had known so many bitter ones, and had not lost their brightness
yet.
There was silence for some minutes; then Constance spoke again, looking
wistfully, and more sadly than she had yet done, on her companion:
"Do you know, Guy, I have been thinking that yours will not be a very
long life? You are so strong that it seems foolish in me, but I can not
help it."
The faintest glimmer of satisfaction, like the ghost of a smile, came
upon Livingstone's miserable, haggard face: there had been nothing like
it there for many hours; there was nothing like it again for many days.
"You may be right," he said, very calmly. "I trust in God you are."
"Yes," Constance went on; "but I was thinking more than that. I was
hoping that perhaps, for my sake, if not for your own, you would try to
grow better every day. Only think what it would be if, throughout all
ages, we were never to meet after to-day." She drew him closer to her,
and her voice almost failed her. "I don't believe you ever could be what
is called a very religious character. I am so weak--strong-minded as you
thought me--that I fear I have found an attraction in this fault of
yours; but you could keep from great sins, I am sure. Try and be gentler
to others first, and with every act of unselfish kindness you will have
gained something. Any good clergyman will tell you the rest better than
I. Remember how happy you will make me. I believe I shall see and know
it all. It may be hard for you, dear, but it may not be for long."
The same strange, wistful look came into her eyes again, as if shadows
of the dim future were passing before them.
Poor child! Pure as she was in principle and firm in truth, she would
have made but a weak controversial theologian; but her simple words went
straight to her hearer's heart, with a stronger power of conversion than
could have been found in the discourses of all the surpliced Chrysostoms
that ever anathematized a sinner or anatomized a creed.
Yet Guy did not answer so soon this time. When he did, he spoke firmly
and resolutely: "Indeed, indeed, I will try."
Constance nestled down on his broad chest, wearily, but with a
long-drawn breath of intense relief.
"I have said all my say," she whispered; "I have not tired you? Now I
will rest, and you shall pet me and talk to me as you used to do."
What broken sentences--what pauses of silence yet more eloquent--what
lavish, tender caresses passed between those two, over whom the shadow
of desolation was closing fast, I have never guessed, nor, if I could,
would I write them in these pages. I hold that there are partings
bitterer to bear than a father's from his child, and sorrows worthier of
the veil than those of Agamemnon.
Though Guy repressed now all outward signs of painful emotion, he
suffered, I believe, far the most of the two. It is always so with those
whom death is about to divide. The agony is unequally distributed,
falling heaviest on the one that remains behind. If the separation were
for years, and both were healthy and hopeful, very often the positions
would be reversed; but--whether it be that bodily weakness blunts the
sharp sense of anticipated sorrow, or that, to eyes bent forward on the
glories and terrors of the unknown world, earthly relations lessen by
comparison--you will find that with most, however impetuous it may have
been in mid-channel, the river of life flows calmly and evenly just
before its junction with the great ocean stream. Besides, the dying girl
had suffered so much of late that the present change left no room for
other feelings than those of unalloyed happiness, and the words of love
murmured into her ear brought with them a deeper delight than when she
heard them for the first time from the same lips.
Both were so engaged with their own thoughts and with each other that
they never noted how the narrow space of time allotted to them was
vanishing, rapidly as the last dry islet of sand when the spring-tide is
flowing. They never heard the footsteps, more impatient at every turn,
sounding from the room beneath, where Cyril Brandon paced to and fro.
Constance had cut off one of her long sunny braids, and was twining it,
in and out, in fetter-locks round Guy's fingers as she lay nestling in
the clasp of his other arm: it was only their eyes that were speaking
then. They started as the door opened suddenly, and Mrs. Vavasour came
in, her face white, and her eyes wild with terror. She was too
frightened to be gentle or considerate.
"You must go this instant!" she cried out, catching Livingstone's arm.
"Constance, make him go; he has staid too long already. You know you
promised."
"I did promise," Constance answered, calmly, almost proudly "and he will
keep it."
Then she turned to Guy, who was kneeling by her, and hid her face in his
neck, locking her arms round him. Her aunt caught the words--"Not
forget!" Beyond these her farewell was a secret known only to her lover
and the angels.
But the parting, which had come so suddenly, drained the last weak
remnant of strength already taxed too hardly. Guy felt the lips that
were murmuring in his car grow still at first, and then cold; the tender
arms unknit themselves, and his imploring eyes could draw no answer from
hers that were closed.
"She has only fainted," Mrs. Vavasour said, answering his look: "I will
recover her. But pray, pray go!"
He laid the light burden that scarcely weighed upon his arm down on the
pillows, very softly and gently, smoothing them mechanically with his
hand. Then he stooped and pressed one kiss more on the pale lips; they
never felt it, though the passion of that lengthened caress might almost
have waked the dead. And so those two parted, to meet again--upon earth
never any more.
The next time woman's lips touched Guy Livingstone's they were his
mother's, and he had been a corpse an hour.
He went, without looking back; his step was slow and unsteady, very
different from the firm, even tread of three hours ago. The power of
volition and self-direction was very nearly gone. Through a half open
door on the lower story he caught a glimpse of a haggard face lighted up
by wolfish eyes, and heard a savage, growling voice. He felt that both
eyes and voice cursed him as he passed; and afterward, recalling these
things vaguely, as one does the incidents of a hideous dream, he knew
that, for the second time, he had seen Cyril Brandon. Guy could hardly
tell how he reached London that night, for the brain fever was coming on
that the next morning held him in its clutches fast.