GEORGE FARRINGDON'S SON
I need thee, Love, in peace and strife;
For, till Time's latest page be read,
No other smile could light my life
Instead.
And even in that happier place,
Where pain is past and sorrow dead,
I could not love an angel's face
Instead.
That night Elisabeth wrote to Christopher Thornley, telling him that she
believed she had found George Farringdon's son at last, and asking him
to come up to London in order to facilitate the giving up of her kingdom
into the hands of the rightful owner. And, in so doing, she was
conscious of a feeling of satisfaction that Christopher should see for
himself that she was not as mercenary as he had once imagined her to be,
but that she was as ready as he had ever been to enable the king to
enjoy his own again as soon as that king appeared upon the scene. To
forsake the reigning queen in order to search for that king, was, of
course, a different matter, and one about which Elisabeth declined to
see eye to eye with her manager even now. Doubtless he had been in the
right all through, and she in the wrong, as all honourable people could
see for themselves; but when one happens to be the queen one's self,
one's perspective is apt to become blurred and one's sense of abstract
justice confused. It is so easy for all of us to judge righteous
judgment concerning matters which in no way affect ourselves.
Elisabeth was still angry with Christopher because she had deliberately
made the worst of herself in his eyes. It was totally unjust--and
entirely feminine--to lay the blame of this on his shoulders; as a
matter of fact, he had had nothing at all to do with it. She had
purposely chosen a path of life of which she knew he would disapprove,
principally in order to annoy him; and then she had refused to forgive
him for feeling the annoyance which she had gone out of her way to
inflict. From the purely feminine standpoint her behaviour was
thoroughly consistent; a man, however, might in his ignorance have
accused her of inconsistency. But men know so little about some things!
The following afternoon Cecil Farquhar came to see Elisabeth, as she had
bidden him; and she smiled grimly to herself as she realized the
difference between what she had intended to say to him when she told him
to come, and what she was actually going to say. As for him, he was full
of hope. Evidently Elisabeth meant to marry him and make him into a rich
man; and money was the thing he loved best in the world. Which of us
would not be happy if we thought we were about to win the thing we loved
best? And is it altogether our own fault if the thing we happen to love
best be unworthy of love, or is it only our misfortune?
Because he was triumphant, Cecil looked handsomer than usual, for there
are few things more becoming than happiness; and as he entered the
room, radiant with that vitality which is so irresistibly attractive,
Elisabeth recognised his charm without feeling it, just as one sees
people speaking and gesticulating in the distance without hearing a word
of what is said.
"My dear lady, you are going to say _yes_ to me; I know that you are;
you would not have sent for me if you were not, for you are far too
tender-hearted to enjoy seeing pain which you are forced to give."
Elisabeth looked grave, and did not take his outstretched hand. "Will
you sit down?" she said; "there is much that I want to talk over with
you."
Cecil's face fell. In a superficial way he was wonderfully quick in
interpreting moods and reading character; and he knew in a moment that,
through some influence of which he was as yet in ignorance, such slight
hold as he had once had upon Elisabeth had snapped and broken since he
saw her last. "Surely you are not going to refuse to marry me and so
spoil my life. Elisabeth, you can not be as cruel as this, after all
that we have been to each other."
"I am going to refuse to marry you, but I am not going to spoil your
life. Believe me, I am not. There are other things in the world besides
love and marriage."
Cecil sank down into a seat, and his chin twitched. "Then you have
played with me most abominably. The world was right when it called you a
heartless flirt, and said that you were too cold to care for anything
save pleasure and admiration. I thought I knew you better, more fool I!
But the world was right and I was wrong."
"I don't think that we need discuss my character," said Elisabeth. She
was very angry with herself that she had placed herself in such a
position that any man dared to sit in judgment upon her; but even then
she could not elevate Cecil into the object of her indignation.
He went on like a querulous child. "It is desperately hard on me that
you have treated me in this way! You might have snubbed me at once if
you had wished to do so, and not have made me a laughing-stock in the
eyes of the world. I made no secret of the fact that I intended to marry
you; I talked about it to everybody; and now everybody will laugh at me
for having been your dupe."
So he had boasted to his friends of the fortune he was going to annex,
and had already openly plumed himself upon securing her money! Elisabeth
understood perfectly, and was distinctly amused. She wondered if he
would remember to remind her how she was going to elevate him by her
influence, or if the loss of her money would make him forget even to
simulate sorrow at the loss of herself.
"I don't know what I shall do," he continued, with tears of vexation in
his eyes; "everybody is expecting our engagement to be announced, and I
can not think what excuses I shall invent. A man looks such a fool when
he has made too sure of a woman!"
"Doubtless. But that isn't the woman's fault altogether."
"Yes; it is. If the woman hadn't led him on, the man wouldn't have made
sure of her. You have been unutterably cruel to me--unpardonably cruel;
and I will never forgive you as long as I live."
Elisabeth winced at this--not at Cecil's refusal to forgive her, but at
the thought that she had placed herself within the reach of his
forgiveness. But she was not penitent--she was only annoyed. Penitence
is the last experience that comes to strong-willed, light-hearted
people, such as Elisabeth; they are so sure they are right at the time,
and they so soon forget about it afterward, that they find no interval
for remorse. Elisabeth was beginning to forgive herself for having
fallen for a time from her high ideal, because she was already beginning
to forget that she had so fallen; life had taught her many things, but
she took it too easily even yet.
"I have a story to tell you," she said; "a story that will interest you,
if you will listen."
By this time Cecil's anger was settling down into sulkiness. "I have no
alternative, I suppose."
Then Elisabeth told him, as briefly as she could, the story of George
Farringdon's son; and, as she spoke, she watched the sulkiness in his
face give place to interest, and the interest to hope, and the hope to
triumph, until the naughty child gradually grew once more into the
similitude of a Greek god.
"You are right--I am sure you are right," he said when she had finished;
"it all fits in--the date and place of my birth, my parents' poverty and
friendlessness, and the mystery concerning them. Oh! you can not think
what this means to me. To be forever beyond the reach of poverty--to be
able to do whatever I like for the rest of my life--to be counted among
the great of the earth! It is wonderful--wonderful!" And he walked up
and down the room in his excitement, while his voice shook with emotion.
"I shall have such a glorious time," he went on--"the most glorious time
man ever had! Of course, I shall not live in that horrid Black
Country--nobody could expect me to make such a sacrifice as that; but I
shall spend my winters in Italy and my summers in Mayfair, and I shall
forget that the world was ever cold and hard and cruel to me."
Elisabeth watched him curiously. So he never even thought of her and of
what she was giving up. That his gain was her loss was a matter of no
moment to him--it did not enter into his calculations. She wondered if
he even remembered Quenelda, and what this would mean to her; she
thought not. And this was the man Elisabeth had once delighted to
honour! She could have laughed aloud as she realized what a blind fool
she had been. Were all men like this? she asked herself; for, if so, she
was glad she was too cold to fall in love. It would be terrible indeed
to lay down one's life at the feet of a creature such as this; it was
bad enough to have to lay down one's fortune there!
Throughout the rest of the interview Cecil lived up to the estimate that
Elisabeth had just formed of his character: he never once remembered
her--never once forgot himself. She explained to him that Christopher
Thornley was the man who would manage all the business part of the
affair for him, and give up the papers, and establish his identity; and
she promised to communicate with Cecil as soon as she received an answer
to the letter she had written to Christopher informing the latter that
she believed she had at last discovered George Farringdon's son.
Amidst all her sorrow at the anticipation of giving up her kingdom into
the hands of so unfitting a ruler as Cecil, there lurked a pleasurable
consciousness that at last Christopher would recognise her worth, when
he found how inferior her successor was to herself. It was strange how
this desire to compel the regard which she had voluntarily forfeited,
had haunted Elisabeth for so many years. Christopher had offended her
past all pardon, she said to herself; nevertheless it annoyed her to
feel that the friendship, which she had taken from him for punitive
purposes, was but a secondary consideration in his eyes after all. She
had long ago succeeded in convincing herself that the grapes of his
affection were too sour to be worth fretting after; but she still wanted
to make him admire her in spite of himself, and to realize that Miss
Elisabeth Farringdon of the Osierfield was a more important personage
than he had considered her to be. Half the pleasure of her success as an
artist had lain in the thought that this at last would convince
Christopher of her right to be admired and obeyed; but she was never
sure that it had actually done so. Through all her triumphal progress he
had been the Mordecai at her gates. She did not often see him, it is
true; but when she did, she was acutely conscious that his attitude
toward her was different from the attitude of the rest of the world, and
that--instead of offering her unlimited praise and adulation--he saw her
weaknesses as clearly now she was a great lady as he had done when she
was a little girl.
And herein Elisabeth's intuition was not at fault; her failings were
actually more patent to Christopher than to the world at large. But here
her perception ended; and she did not see, further, that it was because
Christopher had formed such a high ideal of her, that he minded so much
when she fell short of it. She had not yet grasped the truth that
whereas the more a woman loves a man the easier she finds it to forgive
his faults, the more a man loves a woman the harder he finds it to
overlook her shortcomings. A woman merely requires the man she loves to
be true to her; while a man demands that the woman he loves shall be
true to herself--or, rather, to that ideal of her which in his own mind
he has set up and worshipped.
Her consciousness of Christopher's disapproval of the easy-going,
Bohemian fashion in which she had chosen to walk through life, made
Elisabeth intensely angry; though she would have died rather than let
him know it. How dared this one man show himself superior to her, when
she had the world at her feet? It was insupportable! She said but little
to him, and he said still less to her, and what they did say was usually
limited to the affairs of the Osierfield; nevertheless Elisabeth
persistently weighed herself in Christopher's balances, and measured
herself according to Christopher's measures; and, as she did so, wrote
_Tekel_ opposite her own name. And for this she refused to forgive him.
She assured herself that his balances were false, and his measures
impossible, and his judgments hard in the extreme; and when she had done
so, she began to try herself thereby again, and hated him afresh because
she fell so far short of them.
But now he was going to see her in a new light; if he declined to admire
her in prosperity, he should be compelled to respect her in adversity;
for she made up her mind she would bear her reverses like a Spartan, if
only for the sake of proving to him that she was made of better material
than he, in his calm superiority, had supposed. When he saw for himself
how plucky she could be, and how little she really cared for outside
things, he might at last discover that she was not as unworthy of his
regard as he had once assumed, and might even want to be friends with
her again; and then she would throw his friendship back again in his
face, as he had once thrown hers, and teach him that it was possible
even for self-righteous people to make mistakes which were past
repairing. It would do him a world of good, Elisabeth thought, to find
out--too late--that he had misjudged her, and that other people besides
himself had virtues and excellences; and it comforted her, in the midst
of her adversities, to contemplate the punishment which was being
reserved for Christopher, when George Farringdon's son came into his
own. And she never guessed--how could she?--that when at last George
Farringdon's son did come into his own, there would be no Christopher
Thornley serving under him at the Osierfield; and that the cup of
remorse, which she was so busily preparing, was for her own drinking and
not for Christopher's.
Christopher's expected answer to her epistle was, however, not
forthcoming. The following morning Elisabeth received a letter from one
of the clerks at the Osierfield, informing her that Mr. Thornley
returned from his tour in Germany a week ago; and that immediately on
his return he was seized with a severe attack of pneumonia--the result
of a neglected cold--and was now lying seriously ill at his house in
Sedgehill. In order to complete the purchase of a piece of land for the
enlargement of the works, which Mr. Thornley had arranged to buy before
he went away, it was necessary (the clerk went on to say) to see the
plans of the Osierfield; and these were locked up in the private safe at
the manager's house, to which only Christopher and Elisabeth possessed
keys. Therefore, as the manager was delirious and quite incapable of
attending to business of any kind, the clerk begged Miss Farringdon to
come down at once and take the plans out of the safe; as the
negotiations could not be completed until this was done.
For an instant the old instinct of tenderness toward any one who was
weak or suffering welled up in Elisabeth's soul, and she longed to go to
her old playmate and help and comfort him; but then came the remembrance
of how once before, long ago, she had been ready to help and comfort
Christopher, and he had wanted neither her help nor her comfort; so she
hardened her heart against him, and proudly said to herself that if
Christopher could do without her she could do without Christopher.
That summer's day was one which Elisabeth could never forget as long as
she lived; it stood out from the rest of her life, and would so stand
out forever. We all know such days as this--days which place a gulf,
that can never be passed over, between their before and after. She
travelled down to Sedgehill by a morning train; and her heart was heavy
within her as she saw how beautiful the country looked in the summer
sunshine, and realized that the home she loved was to be taken away from
her and given to another. Somehow life had not brought her all that she
had expected from it, and yet she did not see wherein she herself had
been to blame. She had neither loved nor hoarded her money, but had used
it for the good of others to the best of her knowledge; yet it was to be
taken from her. She had not hidden her talent in a napkin, but had
cultivated it to the height of her powers; yet her fame was cold and
dreary to her, and her greatness turned to ashes in her hands. She had
been ready to give love in full measure and running over to any one who
needed it; yet her heart had asked in vain for something to fill it, and
in spite of all its longings had been sent empty away. She had failed
all along the line to get the best out of life; and yet she did not see
how she could have acted differently. Surely it was Fate, and not
herself, that was to blame for her failure.
When she arrived at Sedgehill she drove straight to Christopher's house,
and learned from the nurse who was attending him how serious his illness
was--not so much on account of the violence of the cold which he had
taken in Germany, as from the fact that his vitality was too feeble to
resist it. But she could not guess--and there was no one to tell
her--that his vitality had been lowered by her unkindness to him, and
that it was she who had deliberately snapped the mainspring of
Christopher's life. It was no use anybody's seeing him, the nurse said,
as he was delirious and knew no one; but if he regained consciousness,
she would summon Miss Farringdon at once.
Then Elisabeth went alone into the big, oak-panelled dining-room, with
the crape masks before its windows, and opened the safe.
She could not find the plans at once, as she did not know exactly where
to look for them; and as she was searching for them among various
papers, she came upon a letter addressed to herself in Christopher's
handwriting. She opened it with her usual carelessness, without
perceiving that it bore the inscription "Not to be given to Miss
Farringdon until after my death"; and when she had begun to read it, she
could not have left off to save her life--being a woman. And this was
what she read:
"MY DARLING--for so I may call you at last, since you will not read this
letter until after I am dead;
"There are two things that I want to tell you. _First_, that I love you,
and always have loved you, and always shall love you to all eternity.
But how could I say this to you, sweetheart, in the days when my love
spelled poverty for us both? And how could I say it when you became one
of the richest women in Mershire, and I only the paid manager of your
works? Nevertheless I should have said it in time, when you had seen
more of the world and were capable of choosing your own life for
yourself, had I thought there was any chance of your caring for me; for
no man has ever loved you as I have loved you, Elisabeth, nor ever will.
You had a right to know what was yours, when you were old enough to
decide what to do with it, and to take or leave it as you thought fit;
and no one else had the right to decide this for you. But when you so
misjudged me about my journey to Australia, I understood that it was I
myself, and not my position, that stood between us; and that your nature
and mine were so different, and our ideas so far apart, that it was not
in my power to make you happy, though I would have died to do so. So I
went out of your life, for fear I should spoil it; and I have kept out
of your life ever since, because I know you are happier without me; for
I do so want you to be happy, dear.
"There is one other thing I have to tell you: I am George Farringdon's
son. I shouldn't have bothered you with this, only I feel it is
necessary--after I am gone--for you to know the truth, lest any impostor
should turn up and take your property from you. Of course, as long as I
am alive I can keep the secret, and yet take care that no one else comes
forward in my place; and I have made a will leaving everything I possess
to you. But when I am gone, you must hold the proofs of who was really
the person who stood between you and the Farringdon property. I never
found it out until my uncle died; I believed, as everybody else
believed, that the lost heir was somewhere in Australia. But on my
uncle's death I found a confession from him--which is in this safe,
along with my parents' marriage certificate and all the other proofs of
my identity--saying how his sister told him on her death-bed that, when
George Farringdon ran away from home, he married her, and took her out
with him to Australia. They had a hard life, and lost all their children
except myself; and then my father died, leaving my poor mother almost
penniless. She survived him only long enough to come back to England,
and give her child into her brother's charge. My uncle went on to say
that he kept my identity a secret, and called me by an assumed name, as
he was afraid that Miss Farringdon would send both him and me about our
business if she knew the truth; as in those days she was very bitter
against the man who had jilted her, and would have been still bitterer
had she known he had thrown her over for the daughter of her father's
manager. When Maria Farringdon died and showed, by her will, that at
last she had forgiven her old lover, my uncle's mind was completely
gone; and it was not until after his death that I discovered the papers
which put me in possession of the facts of the case.
"By that time I had learned, beyond all disputing, that I was too dull
and stupid ever to win your love. I only cared for money that it might
enable me to make you happy; and if you could be happier without me than
with me, who was I that I should complain? At any rate, it was given to
me to insure your happiness; and that was enough for me. And you said
that I didn't care what became of you, as long as I laid up for myself a
nice little nest-egg in heaven! Sweetheart, I think you did me an
injustice. So be happy, my dearest, with the Willows and the Osierfield
and all the dear old things which you and I have loved so well; and
remember that you must never pity me. I wanted you to be happy more than
I wanted anything else in the world, and no man is to be pitied who has
succeeded in getting what he wanted most.
"Yours, my darling, for time and eternity,
"CHRISTOPHER FARRINGDON."
Then at last Elisabeth's eyes were opened, and for the first time in her
life she saw clearly. So Christopher had loved her all along; she knew
the truth at last, and with it she also knew that she had always loved
him; that throughout her life's story there never had been--never could
be--any man but Christopher. Until he told her that he loved her, her
love for him had been a fountain sealed; but at his word it became a
well of living water, flooding her whole soul and turning the desert of
her life into a garden.
At first she was overpowered with the joy of it; she was upheld by that
strange feeling of exaltation which comes to all of us when we realize
for a moment our immortality, and feel that even death itself is
powerless to hurt us. Christopher was dying, but what did that signify?
He loved her--that was the only thing that really mattered--and they
would have the whole of eternity in which to tell their love. For the
second time in her life she came face to face with the fact that there
was a stronger Will than her own guiding and ruling her; that, in spite
of all her power and ability and self-reliance, the best things in her
life were not of herself but were from outside. As long ago in St.
Peter's Church she had learned that religion was God's Voice calling to
her, she now learned that love was Christopher's voice calling to her;
and that her own strength and cleverness, of which she had been so
proud, counted for less than nothing. To her who longed to give, was
given; she who desired to love, was beloved; she who aspired to teach,
had been taught. That strong will of hers, which had once been so
dominant, had suddenly fallen down powerless; she no longer wanted to
have her own way--she wanted to have Christopher's. Her warfare against
him was at last accomplished. To the end of her days she knew she would
go on weighing herself in his balances, and measuring herself according
to his measures; but now she would do so willingly, choosing to be
guided by his wisdom rather than her own, for she no more belonged to
herself but to him. The feeling of unrest, which had oppressed her for
so many years, now fell from her like a cast-off garment. Christopher
was the answer to her life's problem, the fulfilment of her heart's
desire; and although she might be obliged to go down again into the
valley of the shadow, she could never forget that she had once stood
upon the mountain-top and had beheld the glory of the promised land.
And she never remembered that now her fortune was secured to her, and
that the Willows and the Osierfield would always be hers; even these
were henceforth of no moment to her, save as monuments of Christopher's
love.
So in the dingy dining-room, on that hot summer's afternoon, Elisabeth
Farringdon became a new creature. The old domineering arrogance passed
away forever; and from its ashes there arose another Elisabeth, who out
of weakness was made stronger than she had ever been in her strength--an
Elisabeth who had attained to the victory of the vanquished, and who had
tasted the triumph of defeat. But in all her exaltation she knew--though
for the moment the knowledge could not hurt her--that her heart would be
broken by Christopher's death. Through the long night of her ignorance
and self-will and unsatisfied idealism she had wrestled with the angel
that she might behold the Best, and had prayed that it might be granted
unto her to see the Vision Beautiful. At last she had prevailed; and the
day for which she had so longed was breaking, and transfiguring the
common world with its marvellous light. But the angel-hand had touched
her, and she no longer stood upright and self-reliant, but was bound to
halt and walk lamely on her way until she stood by Christopher's side
again.
This exalted mood did not last for long. As she sat in the gloomy room
and watched the blazing sunshine forcing its way through the darkened
windows, her eye suddenly fell upon two notches cut in the doorway,
where she and Christopher had once measured themselves when they were
children; and the familiar sight of these two little notches, made by
Christopher's knife so long ago, awoke in her heart the purely human
longing for him as the friend and comrade she had known and looked up to
all her life. And with this longing came the terrible thought of how
she had hurt and misunderstood and misjudged him, and of how it was now
too late for her to make up to him in this life for all the happiness of
which she had defrauded him in her careless pride. Then, for the first
time since she was born, Elisabeth put her lips to the cup of remorse,
and found it very bitter to the taste. She had been so full of plans for
comforting mankind and helping the whole world; yet she had utterly
failed toward the only person whom it had been in her power actually to
help and comfort; and her heart echoed the wail of the most beautiful
love-song ever written--"They made me the keeper of the vineyards; but
mine own vineyard have I not kept."
As she was sitting, bowed down in utter anguish of spirit while the
waves of remorse flooded her soul, the door opened and the nurse came
in.
"Mr. Thornley is conscious now, and is asking for you, Miss Farringdon,"
she said.
Elisabeth started up, her face aglow with new hope. It was so natural to
her not to be cast down for long. "Oh! I am so glad. I want dreadfully
to see him, I have so much to say to him. But I'll promise not to tire
or excite him. Tell me, how long may I stay with him, Nurse, and how
quiet must I be?"
The nurse smiled sadly. "It won't matter how long you stay or what you
say, Miss Farringdon; I don't think it is possible for anything to hurt
or help him now; for I am afraid, whatever happens, he can not possibly
recover."
As she went upstairs Elisabeth kept saying to herself, "I am going to
see the real Christopher for the first time"; and she felt the old, shy
fear of him that she had felt long ago when Richard Smallwood was
stricken. But when she entered the room and saw the worn, white face on
the pillow, with the kind smile she knew so well, she completely forgot
her shyness, and only remembered that Christopher was in need of her,
and that she would gladly give her life for his if she could.
"Kiss me, my darling," he said, holding out his arms; and she knew by
the look in his eyes that every word of his letter was true. "I am too
tired to pretend any more that I don't love you. And it can't matter now
whether you know or not, it is so near the end."
Elisabeth put her strong arms round him, and kissed him as he asked.
"Chris, dear," she whispered, "I want to tell you that I love you, and
that I've always loved you, and that I always shall love you; but I've
only just found it out."
Christopher was silent for a moment, and clasped her very close. But he
was not so much surprised as he would have been had Elisabeth made such
an astounding revelation to him in the days of his health. When one is
drawing near to the solution of the Great Mystery, one loses the power
of wondering at anything.
"How did you find it out, my dearest?" he asked at last.
"Through finding out that you loved me. It seems to me that my love was
always lying in the bank at your account, but until you gave a cheque
for it you couldn't get at it. And the cheque was my knowing that you
cared for me."
"And how did you find that out, Betty?"
"I was rummaging in the safe just now for the plans of the Osierfield,
and I came upon your letter."
"I didn't mean you to read that while I was alive; but, all the same, I
think I am rather glad that you did."
"And I am glad, too. I wish I hadn't always been so horrid to you,
Chris; but I believe I should have loved you all the time, if only you
had given me the chance. Still, I was horrid--dreadfully horrid; and now
it is too late to make it up to you." And Elisabeth's eyes filled with
tears.
"Don't cry, my darling--please don't cry. And, besides, you have made it
up to me by loving me now. I am glad you understand at last, Betty; I
did so hope you would some day."
"And you forgive me for having been so vile?"
"There is nothing to forgive, sweetheart; it was my fault for not making
you understand; but I did it for the best, though I seem to have made a
mess of it."
"And you like me just the same as you did before I was unkind to you?"
"My dear, don't you know?"
"You see, Chris, I was wanting you to be nice to me all the
time--nothing else satisfied me instead of you. And when you seemed not
to like me any longer, but to care for doing your duty more than for
being with me, I got sore and angry, and decided to punish you for
making a place for yourself in my heart and then refusing to fill it."
"Well, you did what you decided, as you generally do; there is no doubt
of that. You were always very prone to administer justice and to
maintain truth, Elisabeth, and you certainly never spared the rod as far
as I was concerned."
"But now I see that I was wrong; I understand that it was because you
cared so much for abstract right, that you were able to care so much
for me; a lower nature would have given me a lower love; and if only we
could go through it all again, I should want you to go to Australia
after George Farringdon's son."
Christopher's thin fingers wandered over Elisabeth's hair; and as they
did so he remembered, with tender amusement, how often he had comforted
her on account of her dark locks. Now one or two gray hairs were
beginning to show through the brown ones, and it struck him with a pang
that he would no longer be here to comfort her on account of those; for
he knew that Elisabeth was the type of woman who would require
consolation on that score, and that he was the man who could effectually
have administered it.
"I can see now," Elisabeth went on, "how much more important it is what
a man is than what a man says, though I used to think that words were
everything, and that people didn't feel what they didn't talk about. You
used to disappoint me because you said so little; but, all the same,
your character influenced me without my knowing it; and whatever good
there is in me, comes from my having known you and seen you live up to
your own ideals. People wonder that worldly things attract me so little,
and that my successes haven't turned my head; so they would have done,
probably, if I had never met you; but having once seen in you what the
ideal life is, I couldn't help despising lower things, though I tried my
hardest not to despise them. Nobody who had once been with you, and
looked even for a minute at life through your eyes, could ever care
again for anything that was mean or sordid or paltry. Darling, don't you
understand that my knowing you made me better than I tried to
be--better even than I wanted to be; and that all my life I shall be a
truer woman because of you?"
But by that time the stupendous effort which Christopher had made for
Elisabeth's sake had exhausted itself, and he fell back upon his
pillows, white to the lips, and too weak to say another word. Yet not
even the great Shadow could cloud the love that shone in his eyes, as he
looked at Elisabeth's eager face, and listened to the voice for which
his soul had hungered so long. The sight of his weakness brought her
down to earth again more effectually than any words could have done; and
with an exceeding bitter cry she hid her face in her arms and sobbed
aloud--
"Oh! my darling, my darling, come back to me; I love you so that I can
not let you go. The angels can do quite well without you in heaven, but
I can not do without you here. Oh! Chris, don't go away and leave me,
just now that we've learned to understand one another. I'll be good all
my life, and do everything that you tell me, if only you won't go away.
My dearest, I love you so--I love you so; and I've nobody in the world
but you."
Christopher made another great effort to take her in his arms and
comfort her; but it was too much for him, and he fainted away.