A fine, drizzling rain was falling; I was just conscious of it as an
element of discomfort, but it did not make me quicken my steps. I
wanted no rapidity of motion now. There was nothing to be done, nothing
to look forward to, nothing to flee away from. Olivia was dead!
I had said the same thing again and again to myself, that Olivia was
dead to me; but at this moment I learned how great a difference there
was between the words as a figure of speech and as a terrible reality. I
could no longer think of her as treading the same earth--the same
streets, perhaps; speaking the same language; seeing the same daylight
as myself. I recalled her image, as I had seen her last in Sark; and
then I tried to picture her white face, with lips and eyes closed
forever, and the awful chill of death resting upon her. It seemed
impossible; yet the cuckoo-cry went on in my brain, "Olivia is dead--is
dead!"
I reached home just as Jack was coming in from his evening amusement. He
let me in with his latch-key, giving me a cheery greeting; but as soon
as we had entered the dining-room, and he saw my face, he exclaimed.
"Good Heavens! Martin, what has happened to you?"
"Olivia is dead," I answered.
His arm was about my neck in a moment, for we were like boys together
still, when we were alone. He knew all about Olivia, and he waited
patiently till I could put my tidings into words.
"It must be true," he said, though in a doubtful tone; "the scoundrel
would not have married again if he had not sufficient proof."
"She must have died very soon after my mother," I answered, "and I never
knew it!"
"It's strange!" he said. "I wonder she never got anybody to write to you
or Tardif."
There was no way of accounting for that strange silence toward us. We
sat talking in short, broken sentences, while Jack smoked a cigar; but
we could come to no conclusion about it. It was late when we parted, and
I went to bed, but not to sleep.
For as soon as the room was quite dark, visions of Olivia haunted me.
Phantasms of her followed one another rapidly through my brain. She had
died, so said the certificate, of inflammation of the lungs, after an
illness of ten days. I felt myself bound to go through every stage of
her illness, dwelling upon all her sufferings, and thinking of her as
under careless or unskilled attendance, with no friend at hand to take
care of her. She ought not to have died, with her perfect constitution.
If I had been there she should not have died.
About four o'clock Jack tapped softly upon the wall between our
bedrooms--it was a signal we had used when we were boys--as though to
inquire if I was all right; but it was quiet enough not to wake me if I
were asleep. It seemed like the friendly "Ahoy!" from a boat floating on
the same dark sea. Jack was lying awake, thinking of me as I was
thinking of Olivia. There was something so consolatory in this sympathy
that I fell asleep while dwelling upon it.
Upon going downstairs in the morning I found that Jack was already off,
having left a short note for me, saving he would visit my patients that
day. I had scarcely begun breakfast when the servant announced "a lady,"
and as the lady followed close upon his heels, I saw behind his shoulder
the familiar face of Johanna, looking extremely grave. She was soon
seated beside me, watching me with something of the tender, wistful gaze
of my mother. Her eyes were of the same shape and color, and I could
hardly command myself to speak calmly.
"Your friend Dr. John Senior called upon us a short time since," she
said; "and told us this sad, sad news."