Beyond the hotel the street is intersected by a wide space, at once a
convenience and a provision against the fiery power which threatens
Norse towns. The houses are irregular, an atmosphere of shipping hangs
about, vessels are moored alongside the pier, seafaring men stroll.
When Wareham wanted a breath of fresh air, he went there.
Monday was an anxious day; the fever showed no signs of abatement, and
Wareham would not leave the house until late. It had rained all the
previous night, pools lay in the broken ground, overhead white shreds of
clouds sailed gaily across sweet depths of blue. All was ruffled
movement in the harbour, dance of water against the bigger vessels, and
a toss from right to left of the smaller boats. Splashes of scarlet, of
emerald green, struck out boldly against the black sheds which rose
sharp from the waters edge. Red-roofed houses curved round the wood of
masts, and the dominating mountain rose in a grand sweep behind.
Here Wareham carried his unquiet spirit. He feared for Hugh, he hated
himself for the penetrating dreams of Anne which haunted him. Honestly,
he had tried to avoid her, had chosen Dr Scott for his companion, and
declined invitations to the yacht, of which Colonel Martyn was the
bearer, with scant civility. But she was in the air. He heard the
rustle of her dress on the stairs, Hugh babbled her name, he was in the
house with her, and the effort to shut her out of his thoughts made him
the more conscious of her influence, and kept her always before him.
He strolled along a short pier, where a steamer was unloading, sat down
on a coil of rope, and faced the water. Only a few minutes had passed
before he caught the sound of voices, and a group bore down upon him,
Mrs Martyn and Sir Walter in front, Anne and Lord Milborough behind.
"You have gained a nickname. We call you the Invisible," Mrs Martyn
began, and rained reproach upon him for his love of solitude.
He made no effort to excuse himself.
"Will you come with us now? We are only to be out two or three hours,
and I assure you, Anne keeps Lord Milborough to time."
Anne spoke gravely.
"Why tease Mr Wareham? I admire him for his friendship. If I were
allowed to be of use, I should leave you all to amuse yourselves by
yourselves, but my offers are invariably rejected."
"I'll fall ill at once, Miss Dalrymple, if only you'll nurse me," said
Sir Walter. He had a small languid face, and an unwholesome skin.
Wareham wondered how Anne could tolerate his company and smile upon him
as she did.
"Don't flatter yourself you'd be permitted the choice. Now-a-days a
sick man lives under an iron despotism. It is not what he likes, but
what he is allowed."
"Luckily for us," Lord Milborough remarked, in a low voice.
"I detest those nurses," broke in Mrs Martyn. "One must submit to
them, and all that. Still, I shall always believe that they delight in
exaggeration. I'm sure one hears enough of such an illness as Mr
Forbes', and of course it must run its course. But I do not see why one
should be alarmed as to the result."
Wareham looked without answering. Anne shot him a glance which meant,
"Do not mind her." She chattered on--
"And you won't be tempted? It really is a pity. Well, come in to-night
and hear our adventures."
Anne lingered a moment behind the others. "Let me hear from yourself.
Such garbled reports reach me! I am so sorry for him!"
"He shall be told that."
"And for you. But that I dare say you don't believe."
He was too ready. She sighed.
"All this going about does not look like it, but what can I do? We live
in a world in which poor women can't speak or act without remark
fluttering about them like harpies. If one could only be oneself!"
With that she was gone. Wareham paced up and down his stones. What did
it all suggest? If her words were for Hugh, vanity was scarcely
answerable for the conviction that something was meant for him. He
hastily pushed away the thought, which at such a time seemed brutal, and
looked round him in search of assistance for casting off meditation.
The energy of movement presented itself invitingly; he saw a boat near,
and signing to its owner, rowed for half-an-hour with purposeless vigour
about the harbour, coming in stiff, but braced. As he reached the
hotel, Dr Scott met him, and answered his unspoken question. "Very
ill."
"Worse?"
"With the fever so high he must be worse. It saps the life of a man.
Poor fellow! I suppose no one can come?"
"No one. I gather you have little hope?" Silence answered the
question. All the hours seemed to have been leading up to this moment,
yet Wareham was unprepared for its shock. He turned white. Dr Scott
went on to soften his unpronounced doom.
"I may be mistaken. One is never absolutely without hope in these
cases, where youth is on our side, and I think Sivertsen is more
sanguine than I am."
Wareham went slowly up the stairs, heaviness in his heart. The turmoil
about Anne which had filled his mind was suddenly swept into
nothingness. Until this moment, it appeared to him he had never
realised what hung over them, and all tender recollection of past years
surged up like an overwhelming wave. Opening the door, he heard the
babble of words rushing incessantly, not loud, but unintermitting. Hugh
had grown so accustomed to his presence, that there was no longer a
dread of added excitement, and he was admitted at all hours. Sometimes
he sat by his bedside, openly in view; sometimes, when the fever ran
high, placed himself behind the bed, an unseen watcher. He dropped
there now, on a sign from the nurse.
Eyeing the floor, remembrances flitted across it. Hugh the school-boy,
as he first recollected him, a fair curly-headed young giant, blue-eyed
and open-faced, fighting an older and bigger fellow with indomitable
pluck, and at another time taking a punishment which should not have
been his. Once on the track, a dozen such memories of acts which had
first drawn the two together, upstarted. Times down at Sir Michael's,
where Wareham, a lonely boy, was always welcome. Older life, when
Wareham's intellect had taken him to the front, and Hugh's idleness
hobbled him. Then the days he did not care to think about even now rose
up; no words could have made them clearer; he recollected his misery and
the young man's patience, and the recollection thrilled him, striking,
as it did, across the mutter of delirium. In natural sequence followed
Hugh's own trouble, which Wareham looked at now through cloudy remorse,
impatient with himself that at first sight of the syren he did not fly,
that he had been so dull in reading signs, that he had not waited,
repressing the hateful letter. Imagination conjured up reproof in
Hugh's hollow eyes; at times, when he caught them fastened on his face,
mute reproach, a hundred times more pathetic than words. His ear was
constantly on the alert to catch something bearing on it in delirious
sentences, he had an insane notion that then he might have quieted him
with assurances. Every now and then something struck on his heart with
a sound like a knell.
He spent the greater part of the night in the sick-room. Anne's request
that he would himself bring her news of the patient, he ignored. The
morning showed a change, but one enemy retired only to make room for
another, for which indeed it had been working, and doctors and nurses
gathered all their resources to meet deadly weakness. That morning came
a request for which Wareham was prepared. Could he see Anne? The
doctor had to decide, and gave unwilling permission, fencing it about
with limitations of time. In answer to Wareham's questioning eyes, he
said--
"We have not the right to refuse."
What passed, his friend never learned. He absented himself, and took
care not to go up till all fear of meeting with Anne was over. He knew
only that the interview had not lasted more than a few minutes, and that
the nurse was cross, admitting no right to human nature in a patient.
Love, of all disturbing forces, should be shut out of a sick-room. Not
venturing to snub the doctor, she snubbed Wareham, while nursing her
charge devotedly. But in the course of the day, Hugh looked at him and
said "To-morrow," and he understood that something was to be said to
himself. It relieved him, for he had the longing of a woman for a word
out of the silence of darkness which he foresaw.
"He wants to speak to you alone," Dr Scott said the next morning. "The
interview won't be so disturbing, I imagine, as that of yesterday?"
Wareham had to intimate that it was not unlikely it would.
"Bad," said the other. "However, as I said, I couldn't consent to
prevent a man from saying what he wished at this stage of his illness.
You must do your best to keep him quiet."
"And when?"
"In ten minutes."
Ten minutes passed, and Wareham was at Hugh's side. His heart sank at
the alteration, and his voice, when he tried to speak cheerily, had a
false ring which he fancied audible to all. Hugh looked at the nurse,
who retired reluctantly, showing Wareham as she went out that a
restorative was on the table.
"I waited," said Hugh.
Wareham forced his face into a smile.
"Wait longer, old fellow, if you're not up to talk. I'm here, night and
day."
"I know. You've been awfully good."
His friend did not answer, except by laying his hand on an arm which
shocked him by its thinness, and for a little while there was silence
which Wareham did not dare to break. What lay beyond it? Hugh's next
words touched the sore.
"The letter."
The answer was in a shaken voice.
"I would give my right hand never to have written it!"
Fun once more gleamed in Hugh's eyes.
"Poor old Dick! Odd, wasn't it? I couldn't help laughing to find you'd
been so bowled over!"
His voice was little more than a slow whisper, broken by pauses,
sometimes sinking so low as to be almost inaudible. Wareham felt that
the time had come for him to speak.
"Don't try to say anything, but just listen. On my honour, the thing
was on me before I knew where I was, and, while I flattered myself--like
a fool--that I detested her for the way she treated you, I never thought
that all the time she was slipping into my very heart. At last, one
day, I saw myself and her. Hugh, that very day I wrote that letter.
And, look here--though I said just now that I would have given my right
hand not to have written it, I don't know how I could be facing you now
if I hadn't." He reined himself back into slow speech. "I never spoke
a word to her. The secret rests between you and me. She hasn't an
idea. Get well, Hugh, and God knows whether I will not stand aside and
be thankful that you have her!"
Silence, and the ticking of the clock. The nurse looked in at the door,
but retreated at a sign from Wareham. Hugh said at last--
"I urged you to stay."
"And now you know why I refused?"
"Yes. Poor Dick!"