Over and over again that night in his watch that lasted until dawn, as
he walked the floor of his little parlour-kitchen and listened, as he
stood in the window before the soundless winter night and listened,
Fairfax said the word he had said to her when she had paused in the
doorway--
"Wait...!"
For what should she wait?
Did he want her to wait until he had caught the image of her on his mind
and brain that he might call upon it for his inspiration?
He called her to "wait!"
Until he should become a great master and need her with her simplicity
and her humble mind less than ever? Until he should be honoured by his
kind and crowned successful and come at last into his own, and she be
the only shadow on his glory? Not for that!
Until Fairfax one day should need the warmth of a perfectly unselfish
woman's heart, a self-effacing tenderness, a breast to lean upon? She
had given him all this.
He smelled the ether and strange drugs. The doctor came and went. The
nurse he had engaged from the hospital, "the woman from below stairs" as
well, came and went, spoke to him and shut him out.
He was conscious that in a chair in a corner, in a desperate position,
his head in his hands, Rainsford was sitting. Of these things he was
conscious afterward, but he felt now that he only listened, his every
emotion concentrated in the sense of hearing. What was it he was so
intent to hear? The passing of the Irrevocable or the advent of a new
life? He stood at length close to her door, and it was nearly morning. A
clock somewhere struck four presently, and the whistle of the Limited
blew; but those were not the sounds he waited to hear.
At five o'clock, whilst it was still dark in the winter morning, he
started, his heart thumping against his breast, a sob in his throat. Out
of the stillness which to him had been unbroken, came a cry, then
another, terribly sweet and heart-touching--the cry of life. He opened
the door of his wife's room and entered softly in his stocking feet.
There seemed to be a multitude between him and his wife and child. He
did not dare to approach, but stood leaning against the wall, cold with
apprehension and stirred to his depths. He seemed to stand there for a
lifetime, and his knees nearly gave way beneath him. His hand pressed
against his cheek. He leaned forward.
"_Wait!_"
He almost murmured the word that came to his lips.
For what should Molly Fairfax wait? Life had given her a state too high.
She had brought much grace to it and much love. She had given a great
deal. To wait for return, for such gifts, was to wait for the
unattainable.
She went through the open door that she saw open, perhaps not all
unwillingly; and she was not alone, for the child went with her, and
they came to Fairfax and told him that she had gone through gently
murmuring his name.