In the morning he was detained by many matters of importance, and it
was towards evening when he at length found leisure to visit his guest.
He felt a certain hesitation and delicacy in entering her presence. He
was conscious that he had done so much for her that, on her side, she
could not meet him without some embarrassment, some pain.
He had seen her but twice; he was no more to her than a name. Yet he
had known her in her island life: he thought that tie of memory would
make him seem to her less of a stranger than any of these white-coifed
pious women who changed places in vigil at her bedside. And a wonder
which was warmer and wider than mere curiosity made him anxious to
learn how she could have become alone and adrift in Paris, she whose
life had been so safe and so sweet and so simple in the midst of the
blue water and the flashing sunbeams, and free from spot or stain as
the white narcissus growing in the orchard grass, as the white wings of
the pigeons cleaving the azure air.
When he entered her chamber she was lying on a couch beside the open
window; one of the Sisters was sitting near her doing some needlework.
She flushed over all her face as she saw him, and she put out her hand
timidly. Othmar bent over it and touched it with his lips in silence.
Emotion held them both mute. The nun looked inquisitively at them.
Damaris was still weak, and pale, and changed, but there was the look
of fast returning health about her. She was thin still, but no longer
emaciated; her lips had regained a little of their damask-rose colour,
her hair which had been cut short was bright and shining; she wore a
loose plain linen gown which the women had made for her, and her arms
were bare to the elbow; the afternoon was close and sultry, and she
seemed to breathe with effort.
'I am so glad to see you so nearly well, my dear, and my wife will be
no less glad to hear of your recovery,' said Othmar, as he recovered
his self-possession. It was a subterfuge, in a way an untruth; but he
used his wife's name almost involuntarily, as the only possible way of
reconciling this child to her presence in his house.
'You have been very good,' said Damaris simply. Her words seemed poor
and thankless, but she could think of no better ones. She was still
bewildered at her own position, and wounded in her tenderest pride by
the charity she had received. She was not ungrateful, but now that she
saw him face to face, she would have given her soul that he had let her
die on the stones of Paris.
'Where did you find me?' she added, 'I cannot remember--at least not
everything.'
'You were taken unwell on the Solferino bridge,' said Othmar evasively.
'Do not think about that. You are safe here, and all my house is at
your service; it is yours whilst you are in it, as the Spaniards say.'
He spoke a little hurriedly; he felt the embarrassment which every
generous nature feels before one whom it has benefited.
The red blood came quickly and painfully over her face and throat.
'I do remember now,' she said. 'They were going to take me to prison.
Can they do that when one has done no harm?'
'The guard thought you looked ill, and were too young to be alone at
night,' Othmar answered, evasively still. He wished to learn something
of her position, but he would not even hint any question to her. She
should say what she chose in her own time and way.
'I do not mind being alone,' she replied, with something of the old
pride and independence which Loswa had admired in her. 'I was weak
because I had not eaten.'
She stopped abruptly, and grew scarlet.
It seemed very shameful to her to have been without food. She had
always despised the poor crawling beggars whom she had seen on the
mainland, even whilst she had given them all the loose coin in her
pocket. 'Only the lazy and the idle ever starve,' her grandfather had
often said to her, in the hardness of heart of a man full of energies
and riches; and she had believed him. And now she had starved, she
herself, and it seemed to her pitiful, miserable, hateful, a very brand
for ever of disgrace.
'Do not think of it,' said Othmar kindly, as he took her hand in his.
'I shall think of it all my life!' she said bitterly, whilst the
intensity of the tone told him that it was no mere empty phrase. She
turned her face from him and looked steadfastly out into the green
spaces and pleasant shadows of the gardens below, whilst her young
features grew cold and stern, and full of repressed pain. Then all at
once her head drooped on her breast, and she burst into a passion of
tears.
'Oh, why did you not let me die!' she cried in reproach to him. 'Why
did you not let me die when I was dying? I should have known nothing
now!'
'That is thankless and sinful,' muttered the nun. 'Thankless and sinful
to heaven and to earth.'
'Hush!' said Othmar to the Sister with a frown; he was troubled and
distressed by the child's passionate rebuke. He hated at all times to
see the sorrow of a woman, and he was too ignorant of her circumstances
to know how to console her. He could not have told why, but a memory
of Yseulte passed over his mind; a memory which rarely ever rose at
any time before his thoughts. Nothing could be more unlike her than
this sea-born, impetuous, daring child; yet he remembered her as he saw
Damaris weep. How many tears had the dead girl wept for him! how often
had her young eyes looked wistful and sorrowful out on these green
gardens, on these towering trees, on these distant and gilded domes of
Paris!
The nun cast angry glances at him, and began to tell her beads.
Othmar remained silent till the first force of grief had a little spent
itself. Then he said the first consoling words which occurred to him,
without remembering all to which they might commit him in the future.
'My dear child, do not talk of death. Death and youth are horrible
in the same phrase. Your life is scarcely begun, why should you wish
it away? If you have no other friends than ourselves, do not deem
yourself friendless. We will supply the place of others to you. You
will remember the interest which my wife took in you at St. Pharamond.
Believe me, it will be only strengthened by any sorrow or misfortune
you may have had since we saw you then.'
She looked at him, strongly grateful, yet hurt and ashamed.
'It is charity,' she said, in a low tone. All the pride of her
indomitable childhood was in the word.
'I do not like the expression,' he replied. 'You will pain me if you
use it. I should be a cur if I had not done the little that I have
done, for you would certainly,' he added more gaily, 'have done as much
for me if I had been wrecked off Bonaventure.'
She sighed wearily. No kindness of speech could reconcile her to
the burden of debt which she felt laid on her. She knew she was all
alone in the world and homeless, except so far as this stranger's
home was momentarily hers, and she shrank with horror from the memory
of all she must have owed to him during these weeks of sickness and
semi-consciousness.
He saw the pain and humiliation there were in her, and rose to leave
her in peace.
'I will return whenever you wish me, my dear,' he said, as he laid his
hand on hers. 'For the rest, look on my house as yours.'
She hesitated.
'Wait,' she said faintly, 'I have so much I ought to tell you.'
'You can tell me in your own time. I shall not leave Paris, at least
only for a day or so at a time. My uncle died a few weeks ago, and many
affairs in consequence keep me here. Adieu, my dear: rest and recover.
That is all you have to do now.'
'But I have no right to be in your house, and you know that the lady
despised me!' she murmured with a painful agitation, which said,
without more words, how cruel a dilemma it seemed to her in which her
weakness and her helplessness had placed her.
'You have every right,' said Othmar. 'And she would be the first to say
so. Do not hurt me by taking this kindly chance which made us meet as a
burden or an injury. I have often thought of you since we parted that
night upon your island beach, and always with a deep regret that my
wife had so fatally influenced your life. Will you not believe how glad
I am to be able to do you any little service to help efface that wrong?'
He kissed in grave farewell her wasted hand, once so plump and brown
with youth and health, and the bronze from the sun and the sea, and now
so pale and fleshless.
She looked at him and stopped him with something of her old pride and
spirit in her face, as she said a little abruptly:
'You remember you told me it would be mean not to tell him where I had
been that day?'
'Yes, my poor child. I remember.'
'I did tell him.'
'That was very brave of you and very noble. I fear my advice cost you
dear.'
A smile that was almost happy at his praise parted her lips and showed
her small white teeth.
'You told me what was right,' she said. 'It would have been cowardly to
say nothing.'
'It was very brave to say the truth. You shall tell me all that
happened from it on another day. I can never forgive myself for all the
misery which my wife's thoughtless invitation has entailed on you. Let
me do my best to atone for it.'
Then he bowed low with unfeigned reverence, and left her. What was so
worthy of reverence as so much innocence, as so much courage?
She drew a long sigh, and her eyes closed. She was tired with the
exhausted sense of failing powers which the feebleness of illness
causes after every slight exertion. But his visit had left on her a
deep, sweet sense of serenity and safety.
'How good and great he is!' she said dreamily to the nun, as the door
closed on him.
The pious woman did not reply. Othmar was not her idea of human
excellence. He went to no church, and he supported no religious
institutions. Besides, as she thought to herself, who could tell what
motives he had in taking this handsome child off the streets? It was
not her business to speak; her superiors had sent her there, and had
said to her: 'Nurse the girl, and say nothing.' But the Sister had
not gone on her many errands of mercy for a score of years in all
the quarters of Paris, good and bad, rich and poor, without knowing
the meaning of human vices. She began to convey vague warnings, and
cite praiseworthy examples of temptation resisted and overcome to her
patient. Her voice went on and on unanswered, like the flowing of a
slothful brook, and when at last she looked up from her embroidery,
Damaris was asleep upon her couch, the last red reflection from the
sun, which had set beyond the trees of the gardens, tinging her face
with its warmth, and her hair with its light. For the first time since
she had been brought there her expression, as she slept, was one of
peace.
But soon she woke again, startled and distressed. The tears sprang to
her eyes; she pressed her hands together in passionate agitation.
'I spoke so badly!' she said, in great contrition. 'I said such poor
weak words! He will never know all I feel. He will only think me
ungrateful!'
'Tut, tut!' said the nun roughly. 'Take your gratitude to God, not man!'