Sir Bale in the Gallery
"Now, Janet darling, you are yourself low and nervous, and you treat
this fancy of Bale's as seriously as he does himself. The truth is, he
is a hypochondriac, as the doctors say; and you will find that I am
right; he will be quite well in the morning, and I daresay a little
ashamed of himself for having frightened his poor little wife as he has.
I will sit up with you. But our poor Mary is not, you know, very strong;
and she ought to lie down and rest a little. Suppose you give me a cup
of tea in the drawing-room. I will run up to my room and get these
things off, and meet you in the drawing-room; or, if you like it better,
you can sit with me in my own room; and for goodness' sake let us have
candles enough and a bright fire; and I promise you, if you will only
exert your own good sense, you shall be a great deal more cheerful in a
very little time."
Lady Walsingham's address was kind and cheery, and her air confident.
For a moment a ray of hope returned, and her sister Janet acknowledged
at least the possibility of her theory. But if confidence is contagious,
so also is panic; and Lady Walsingham experienced a sinking of the heart
which she dared not confess to her sister, and vainly strove to combat.
Lady Walsingham went up with her sister Mary, and having seen her in her
room, and spoken again to her in the same cheery tone in which she had
lectured her sister Lady Mardykes, she went on; and having taken
possession of her own room, and put off her cloaks and shawls, she was
going downstairs again, when she heard Sir Bale's voice, as he
approached along the gallery, issuing orders to a servant, as it seemed,
exactly in his usual tone.
She turned, with a strange throb at her heart, and met him.
A little sterner, a little paler than usual he looked; she could
perceive no other change. He took her hand kindly and held it, as with
dilated eyes he looked with a dark inquiry for a moment in her face. He
signed to the servant to go on, and said, "I'm glad you have come, Maud.
You have heard what is to happen; and I don't know how Janet could have
borne it without your support. You did right to come; and you'll stay
with her for a day or two, and take her away from this place as soon as
you can."
She looked at him with the embarrassment of fear. He was speaking to her
with the calmness of a leave-taking in the pressroom--the serenity that
overlies the greatest awe and agony of which human nature is capable.
"I am glad to see you, Bale," she began, hardly knowing what she said,
and she stopped short.
"You are come, it turns out, on a sad mission," he resumed; "you find
all about to change. Poor Janet! it is a blow to her. I shall not live
to see to-morrow's sun."
"Come," she said, startled, "you must not talk so. No, Bale, you have no
right to speak so; you can have no reason to justify it. It is cruel and
wicked to trifle with your wife's feelings. If you are under a delusion,
you must make an effort and shake it off, or, at least, cease to talk of
it. You are not well; I know by your looks you are ill; but I am very
certain we shall see you much better by tomorrow, and still better the
day following."
"No, I'm not ill, sister. Feel that pulse, if you doubt me; there is no
fever in it. I never was more perfectly in health; and yet I know that
before the clock, that has just struck three, shall have struck five, I,
who am talking to you, shall be dead."
Lady Walsingham was frightened, and her fear irritated her.
"I have told you what I think and believe," she said vehemently. "I
think it wrong and cowardly of you to torture my poor sister with your
whimsical predictions. Look into your own mind, and you will see you
have absolutely no reason to support what you say. How _can_ you inflict
all this agony upon a poor creature foolish enough to love you as she
does, and weak enough to believe in your idle dreams?"
"Stay, sister; it is not a matter to be debated so. If to-morrow I can
hear you, it will be time enough to upbraid me. Pray return now to your
sister; she needs all you can do for her. She is much to be pitied; her
sufferings afflict me. I shall see you and her again before my death. It
would have been more cruel to leave her unprepared. Do all in your power
to nerve and tranquillise her. What is past cannot now be helped."
He paused, looking hard at her, as if he had half made up his mind to
say something more. But if there was a question of the kind, it was
determined in favour of silence.
He dropped her hand, turned quickly, and left her.