Madelaine Van Heldre closed the book and sat by the little table gazing
towards her father's bed.
Since he had been sufficiently recovered she had taken her father's
task, and read the chapter and prayers night and morning in his
bedroom--a little later on this night, for George Vine had stayed longer
than usual.
Madelaine sat looking across the chamber at where her father lay back on
his pillow with his eyes closed, and her mother seated by the bed's head
holding his hand, the hand she had kept in hers during the time she
knelt and ever since she had risen from her knees.
Incongruous thoughts come at the best of times, and, with the tears
standing in her eyes, Madelaine thought of her many encounters with Aunt
Marguerite, and of the spiteful words. She did not see why a Dutchman
should not be as good as a Frenchman, but all the same there was a
little of the love of descent in her heart, and as she gazed at the fine
manly countenance on the pillow, with its closely-cut grey hair
displaying the broad forehead, and at the clipped and pointed beard and
moustache, turned quite white, she thought to herself that if Aunt
Marguerite could see her father now she would not dare to argue about
his descent.
The veil of tears grew thicker in her eyes, and one great drop fell with
a faint _pat_ upon the cover of the Prayer-book as she thought of the
past, and that the love in her heart would not be divided now. It would
be all for those before her, and help to make their path happier to the
end.
"`And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against
us,'" said Van Heldre thoughtfully. "Grand words, wife--grand words.
Hah! I feel wonderfully better to-night. George Vine acted like a
tonic. I've lain here hours thinking that our old companionship would
end, but I feel at rest now. His manner seemed to say that the old
brotherly feeling would grow stronger, and that the past was to be
forgotten."
He stopped short, and a faint flush came into his pale cheeks, for on
opening his eyes they had encountered the wistful look in Madelaine's.
He had not thought of her sufferings, but now with a rush came the
memories of her confession to him of her love for Harry on that day when
she had asked him to take the young man into his office.
"My darling!" he said softly, as he held out his arms; and the next
moment she was folded sobbing to his heart.
No word was spoken till the nightly parting; no word could have been
spoken that would have been more touching and soothing than that
embrace.
Then "Good-night!" and Madelaine sought the solitude of her own chamber,
to sit by the open window listening to the faintly heard beat of the
waves upon the bar at the mouth of the harbour. Her spirit was low and
the hidden sorrow that she had fought hard to keep down all through the
past trouble had its way for the time, till, at last wearied out, she
closed her window and went to bed. Still for long enough it was not to
sleep, but to think of the old boy-and-girl days, when Harry was merely
thoughtless, and the better part of his nature, his frank kindness and
generosity, had impressed her so that she had grown to love him with
increasing years, and in spite of his follies that love still lay hidden
in her heart.
"And always will be there," she said softly, as she felt that the
terrible end had been the expiation, and with the thought that in the
future Harry Vine, forgiven, purified--the Harry of the past--would
always be now the frank, manly youth she idealised, she dropped off to
sleep--a deep, restful slumber, from which she started with the
impression full upon her that she had only just closed her eyes. There
must have been some noise to awaken her, and she sat up listening, to
see that it was day.
"Yes? Did any one knock?" she said aloud, for the terror was upon her
now, one which had often haunted her during the unnerving past days--
that her father had been taken worse.
All silent.
Then a sharp pattering noise at her window, as if some one had thrown up
some shot or pebbles. She hurried out of bed, and ran to the window to
peep through the slit beside the blind, to see below in the street Liza,
the Vines' maid, staring up.
"Louise--ill? or Mr Vine?" thought Madelaine, as she quickly unfastened
and opened the window.
"Yes, Liza. Quick! what is it?"
"Oh, miss, I've been awake all night, and, not knowing what to do, and
so I come on."
"Is Mr Vine ill?"
"No, 'm; Miss Louise."
"Ill? I'll come on at once."
"No, miss; gone," whispered Liza hoarsely; and in a blundering way she
whispered all she knew.
"I'll come on and see Mr Vine," said Madelaine hastily, and Liza ran
back, while her blundering narrative, hastily delivered, had naturally a
confusing effect upon one just awakened from sleep.
Louise gone, Mr Leslie found bleeding, Mr Vine sitting alone in his
room busy over the molluscs in his aquaria! It seemed impossible. Aunt
Marguerite hysterical. Everything so strange.
No mention had been made of Uncle Luke by the girl, nor yet of Leslie's
departure.
"Am I still dreaming?" Madelaine asked herself as she hastily dressed,
"or has some fresh terrible disaster come upon us?"
"Upon _us_," she said, for the two families seemed so drawn together
that one could not suffer without thrilling the other's nerves.
"Louise gone! It is impossible!"
She said that again and again, trying all the while to be cool and think
out what were best to be done. She felt that it would be better not to
alarm her father by waking him at that early hour, and that she could
not arouse her mother without his knowing.
She was not long in deciding.
Uncle Luke had shown during the troubles of the past how he could throw
aside his eccentricity and become a useful, helpful counsellor, and it
seemed the natural thing to send a message up to him, and beg him to
come down. Better still, to save time, she would run up there first.
Liza had not been gone a quarter of an hour before Madelaine was well on
her way, after stealing silently out of the house.
The effort to be calm was unavailing, for a wild fit of excitement was
growing upon her, and instead of walking up the steep cliff-path, she
nearly ran.
Would Uncle Luke be at home? He was eccentric and strange in his
habits, and perhaps by that time out and away fishing off some rocky
point.
She scanned the rough pier by the harbour, and shuddered as the scene of
that horrible night came back. But there was no sign of the old man
there, neither could she see him farther away, and feeling hopeful that
perhaps she would be in time to catch him, she hurried on, panting. As
she turned a corner of the devious way, and came in sight of the
cottage, with Leslie's house and mine chimney far up at the back, she
stopped short, breathless and wondering, and with a strange reaction at
work, suggesting that, after all, this was some mythical invention on
the part of the servant, for there stood Duncan Leslie outside Uncle
Luke's cottage awaiting her coming.
Volume 3, Chapter XI.