He received his patients in the consulting-room, visited Leroux, and
went on his morning rounds. On his return, he perceived Ella at the
gates of Woodlands. He raised his hat and was proceeding to turn into
his own little carriage drive, when she made a gesture of arrest. He
pulled up, descended from the trap, and went to meet her.
“How is poor Mr. Leroux? we have all been so anxious. Of course the
nurse has reported, but we wanted to know from you.”
“I am afraid it's a serious matter,” said Sylvester.
“Do you mean that he may die?”
“Possibly.”
“I am so sorry,” she said, laying a sympathetic touch on his arm. “I
know what a dear friend he was.”
“A dear friend,” he assented grimly.
“You are looking so fagged. You have been sitting up all night, I hear.
Two nights.” He confessed his vigils, explained Leroux's symptoms,
and gave her an authoritative report for his father. If he found any
material change since the morning, he would send a message across. The
topic exhausted, there was a short silence. She tried to speak, after an
embarrassed glance, but his sombreness daunted her. He was taking this
danger of his friend greatly to heart.
“You are coming in to see Uncle Matthew some time to-day?” she asked.
“It depends upon my work,” he said. “I have a great deal to occupy me.”
With a word of adieu he left her and went into his own house. Ella
passed through the gate of Woodlands and strolled slowly down the
shrubbery walk, carrying a little burden of depression. For all his
anxiety on Mr. Leroux's behalf, he might have made some reference to
his letter, some allusion to the sweet and delicate suspense of their
present relations. She felt vaguely disappointed at the lack of appeal
to her sympathy. But her spirits revived when Matthew Lanyon, coming
briskly home to lunch, overtook her and asked her in his cheery voice
for news of the invalid. She took his arm in girlish fashion and gave
him Sylvester's message.
“He seems dreadfully distressed,” she said.
“Poor old Syl! But he'll pull him through. He doesn't realise his
own powers. I don't think we respect Syl half enough. He's a great
physician, you know.”
He rattled on, proud of his son, quite glad to have a pretty girl
hanging, in that daughterly way, on his arm. He stopped now and then,
pointing to the tiny green shoots on the trees. The fine weather of the
last few days was the cause. Did Ella remember how black everything
was only a week ago? He spoke as if it were a miracle performed for
the first time and not the recurring phenomenon of a million springs. A
thrush flew out of a laurel bush. He named it, followed it with his eyes
to the elm where it alighted, stooped down and picked a snail from the
middle of the gravel, where it might get crushed, and threw it lightly
on the grass. The tender simplicities of the old man touched the girl
deeply that afternoon, and his steady optimism made her feel ashamed of
her misgivings. So the sunshine came into her heart again.
But two days passed before they saw Sylvester. News came frequently.
Leroux was sinking. At last Sylvester entered the library at the hour of
tea and announced gravely,--“He is dead.”
Miss Lanyon uttered a little cry, and tears flooded her eyes. Matthew
held out his hand.
“I'm sorry, Syl.”
“He died about half an hour ago,” said Sylvester. “He never recovered
consciousness, so what were his last wishes God alone knows. I have put
all his papers into a sealed envelope, which I had better hand over to
you, father.”
Matthew took the packet in silence and locked it in a drawer of his
writing-table.
“You had better let me look after the funeral too, Syl,” said he,
kindly. “It's the first chance I 've had of doing anything for the poor
fellow.”
“Thank you, father,” said Sylvester.
Miss Lanyon tearfully enumerated Leroux's virtues. What a frank,
open-hearted, generous lad! And to be taken away, like this, in his
prime! Who could fathom the will of God? Ella remained silent, grieved
at Sylvester's loss. But he refused to meet the ready sympathy in her eyes,
and looked stonily through the window on the grey March sky. Presently
he turned away. To remain there longer was unendurable.
“I have a patient to see, some way out. One mustn't neglect the living
for the dead.”
Then for the first time he met Ella's glance, and a special application
of his saying occurred to him.
“Good-bye, all,” he said, and strode hurriedly from the room. He drew a
deep breath on reaching the open air. It was good to be alone, away from
the torturing irony of sympathy. And it was good to be away from the
foreshadowing of reproach in a woman's eyes.
That night, before he slept, he shut his teeth upon a horrible
repulsion, and went into the death chamber to see that all things had
been decently done. The man lay cold and pale, his jaws swathed and his
eyes closed, an awful sphinx. Sylvester stood and gazed upon him till
his heart grew as cold as the dead man's. It was well that he was dead,
so that he could blab the disastrous secret no more. Sylvester had
questioned the nurses discreetly. To his relief he had found that the
delirious ravings had made no impression on their memories. He alone had
been the confidant. He had tended the man with devoted skill. The
strain of that terrible task was over. Now the dead past would bury its
dead,--his own heart and youth therewith. He was glad the man would no
longer cumber the earth--and he was glad that his wife was dead.
Three days afterwards, Leroux was buried. A fussy elderly man, Leroux's
cousin and sole surviving relative, shared with Sylvester the post of
chief mourner, and departed into the unknown whence he came. Sylvester
stood by the grave with a set, impassive face, and his father stood by
his side, looking strangely like him. On the drive home it was Sylvester
who exchanged a few courteous remarks with the cousin; but the old man
remained singularly silent.
They sat together alone that evening in the library.
“Leroux died intestate,” said Matthew, breaking a long silence. “He was
in a troubled state of mind and was coming to me to help him with his
will.”
“He had been drinking heavily,” said Sylvester.
“I presumed so. He had roughed the will out. He only had a few
thousands. But Dorothy was to have the greater part. I showed the draft
to John Leroux to-day, who is a man of great wealth. He is desirous that
his cousin's wishes should be carried out.”
“I can accept no gifts from Mr. John Leroux,” said Sylvester.
The old man argued the point. Morally the money was Dorothy's. Sylvester
listened stubbornly. He revolted at the thought of touching Leroux's
money. It was a ghastly impossibility. He repeated,--
“I cannot accept it.”
“Money is money, Syl, after all; and I may not be able, perhaps, to do
what I had hoped for Dorothy.”
“While my daughter bears my name I can support her decently. If Mr.
Leroux will not benefit by what is legally his, he can devote it to
charity. It is a matter of principle.”
They were both inflexible men, and they understood each other's nature.
Matthew did not press the point.
“Very well,” he said in a business tone. “I will tell Mr. Leroux of your
decision.”
But the impassiveness of his tone was belied by the almost yearning
earnestness with which he regarded his son, who sat staring into the
fire. He would have given years of his own happiness to know whether
a gnawing suspicion were baseless; but the question could not be put.
Sylvester was silent. What troubles were at work behind his sombre
brow the old man could not fathom; and Sylvester, though his heart was
bursting, could not speak.
How could he disclose, even to the being who now was dearest to him
in the world, his wife's shame, his own dishonour? Better to keep the
hideous fact locked up in his breast. But yet, if he could have found a
rush of tumultuous words, what heart-ease were in it! So many, with
that great gift of expansiveness, had come to his father and gone away
comforted, and he, the son deeply loving and deeply loved, was powerless
to utter a complaint. He bit his lip to repress a groan.
And so it was all through the remainder of his residence in Ayresford.
His relations with his father continued their old undemonstrative
course. To please him, he assumed his wonted cheerfulness and spoke of
matters political and parochial. And by degrees the old man forgot the
cloud he had seen hanging over him and only thought of his approaching
departure. Dorothy came to live at Woodlands, so as to grow accustomed
to the change, said Sylvester, and he only saw her on his rare visits.
He forced himself to be kind and take notice of her as formerly. But the
sight of her was a great pain.
Ella he avoided as much as possible, never seeing her alone. One day she
was standing by the porch as he came up.
“Is my father in?” he asked.
“He hasn't yet come back from the office.”
“I will go and meet him there,” he replied, and went away forthwith.
“Have you and Syl quarrelled?” asked Miss Lanyon, who had observed the
scene from indoors.
Ella laughed; not a happy laugh.
“You are behind the times, Aunt Agatha. Nowadays unceremoniousness is a
proof of friendship.”
“I should call it rudeness, my dear,” said Miss Lanyon.
“That's a proof of affection,” said Ella.
But she went quickly up to her room, lest the elder lady should see the
angry tears that rose in her eyes.
At first she strove to explain away his change of attitude. Then she
examined her own conduct, with a view to discover therein some possible
cause. She could find none. A dull sense of pain and dread crept over
her. What did it mean? He had kissed her, all but asked her to be his
wife, and now, suddenly, he ignored her existence. The realisation of
the fulness of her love for him smote her cruelly as she lay awake at
night. She shrank, fearful-eyed, from the prospect of life without him.
It stretched before her a dreary waste of futile years. Then the quick
hope of youth came back. It was some foolish misunderstanding. Sylvester
was worried, preoccupied, saddened. There were so many things to be
reckoned with in the strenuous life of a man. He would speak, explain.
All would be well.
But the days passed and that of Sylvester's departure drew nigh. He
had hurried it on. His successor had arrived, been introduced to the
practice; no advantage could be gained by remaining at Ayresford, where
all save his father was strangely hateful. Ella waited, but Sylvester
never spoke nor looked her way. At last she could bear the mortifying
suspense no longer. It was the evening before his departure. She was
sitting with Miss Lanyon in the drawing-room after dinner, having left
the two men below to their coffee and cigars. Her companion was
silently knitting, her eyes somewhat dim, poor soul, at the prospect of
Sylvester's absence. Ella went to the piano and tried to play, but her
heart was not in the music. The men lingered downstairs. An hour passed.
The silence and the aching of her own suspense acted on her nerves.
Suddenly she left the room and went downstairs and opened the
dining-room door. Both men rose as she stood on the threshold, a
graceful figure, with heightened colour and eyes unusually bright.
“I want to say something to Syl before he goes,” she announced boldly.
“Here he is,” said Matthew, coming forward. “I was just going into the
library for a little as you came in. No; really, Syl, I was. I'll join
you upstairs when you have had your chat.”
“You spoil me, Uncle Matthew,” said the girl, touched, as she always
was, by his old-fashioned courtesy. “Why can't Syl and I go into the
library?”
“Because I'm master in my own house, my dear,” smiled the old man.
He closed the door behind him. Sylvester motioned Ella to a chair.
“No,” she said. “I have not come to stay.”
She was silent for a moment, looking at the tip of her slipper that
rested on the fender.
“Have I done anything to offend you lately, Sylvester?” she asked at
length.
“Nothing that I am aware of,” he answered gravely.
“We don't seem to be such good friends,” she hazarded.
“I am sure you must be mistaken.”
The cold formality of the phrase was a knell to her hopes. She looked up
somewhat piteously and met hard, unsympathetic eyes.
“I thought--you made me think--” she began. He raised his hand slightly
to check her.
“If I did,” he said coldly, “I was wrong. I owe you all my apologies.”
There was a moment's silence. “If I could say more, I would,” he added.
But a quickly gathering anger in the girl's heart suddenly broke out.
She drew herself up, flaming-cheeked, with eyes flashing through the
tears that would come.
“You have behaved horribly, cruelly, and I want never to see your face
again.”
Sylvester bowed his head. A swift rustle of skirts, a sound of the
door, and she was gone. He raised his head and drew rather a choking
breath. He knew that Ella had just cause for reproach. But what could
be done? The new budding love had been killed outright. He regarded her
with aversion, with something akin even to horror. And his heart was as
cold as a stone.