in years to come it was destined to be a marvel to wilmot how he lived through the days and the weeks of that time. if they had not been so entirely filled with supreme suffering, with despairing effort--if there had been any interval, any relaxation from the immense task imposed upon him, he might have broken down under it. he might have said, "i will not stay here, and see this woman whom i love die in her youth, in her beauty, in the very springtide of her life. i will go away. i will not see it, at least; i who have not the right to shut out all others, and gather up the last days of her life into a treasury of remembrance, in which no other shall have a share. no man is called upon to suffer that which he can avoid. i will go!" but there was no time for wilmot, no chance for him to reach such a conclusion, to take this supreme resolution of despair. the whole weight of the family trouble was thrown upon him; and he, in comparison with whose grief that of all the others, except kilsyth's, was insignificant, was the one to whom all looked for support and hope. as for ramsay caird, he adopted the easy and plausible r?le of a sanguine man. he had the greatest possible respect for dr. wilmot's opinion, the utmost confidence in his ability; but the doctor's talent gave him the very best grounds for security. he was quite sure wilmot would set madeleine all right. she had youth on her side--and only just think how wilmot had "pulled her through" at kilsyth! and as nobody occupied themselves particularly with what ramsay thought, he was permitted to indulge his incorrigible insouciance, and to render to dr. wilmot's talent the original homage of believing it superior to his judgment and his avowed conviction. for the rest, ramsay professed himself, and with reason, to be the worst person in the world in a sickroom--no use, and "awfully frightened;" and accordingly he seldom made his appearance in madeleine's room, after the daily visit of a few minutes, which was de rigueur, and during which he invariably received the same answer to his inquiries, that she was better--a statement which it suited him to receive as valid, and which he therefore did so receive. wilmot saw very little of him; no part of the hardness of his task came to him from madeleine's husband. it was at her father's hands that wilmot suffered most, and most constantly. kilsyth held two articles of faith in connection with wilmot: the first, that he was infallible in judgment; the second, that he was inexhaustible in skill and resources. and now these articles of belief clashed, and kilsyth was swayed about between them,--a prey now to helpless grief, again to groundless and unreasonable hope. certainly madeleine was very ill. wilmot was right, no doubt; but then wilmot would save her: he had saved her before, when she was also very ill. then the poor father would have the difference between fever and consumption, in point of assured fatality, forced upon his attention, and an interval of despair would set in. but whether his mood was hope or despair, an effort to attain resignation, or a mere stupor of fear and grief, wilmot had to witness, wilmot had to combat them all. the old man clung to the doctor with piteous eagerness and tenacity on his way to begin the watch over his patient which he maintained daily for hours, as he had done in the old time at kilsyth--time in reality so lately past, but seeming like an entire lifetime ago. when he left her to take the short and troubled sleep which fell upon her in the afternoon; in the evening, when he came again; at night, after he had administered the medicine which was to procure her a temporary reprieve from the cough, which her father could no longer endure to hear, kilsyth would waylay him, beset him with questions, with entreaties--or, worse still, look speechless into his face with imploring haggard eyes.
this to the man for whom the young life ebbing away, with terrific rapidity indeed, but with merciful ease on the whole, was the one treasure held by the earth, so rich for others, such a wilderness for him! yes--her life! when he knew she was married, and thus parted from him for ever, he had thought the worst that could have come to him had come. but from the moment he had looked again into the innocent sweet blue eyes, and read, with the unerring glance of the practised physician, that death was looking out at him from them, he learned his error. then too he learned how much, and with what manner of love, he loved madeleine kilsyth.
"give her life, and not death, o gracious disposer of both! and i am satisfied--and i am happy! life, though i never see her face again; life, though she never hears my name spoken, or remembers me in her lightest thought; life, though it be to bless her husband, and to transmit her name to his children; life, though mine be wasted at the ends of the earth!" this was the cry of his soul, the utterance of the strong man's anguish. but he knew it was not to be; the physician's eye had been unerring indeed.
lady muriel bore herself on this, as on every other occasion, irreproachably. the first enunciation of the doctor's opinion had startled her. she did not love her stepdaughter, but of late she had been on more affectionate terms with her; and it was not possible that she could learn that she was doomed to an early death without terror and grief. lady muriel knew well how unspeakably dear to kilsyth his daughter was; and apart from her keen womanly sympathies all enlisted for the fair young sufferer, she felt with agonising acuteness for her husband's suffering. the first meeting between lady muriel and wilmot had been under agitating circumstances; and the appeal made to him by kilsyth had at once established him on the old footing with them--a footing which had not existed previously in london, having been interrupted by wilmot's domestic affliction, and the tacit but resolute opposition of ronald. but even then, in that first interview, when emotion was permissible, when dr. wilmot was forced by his position to make a communication to the father and brother which even a stranger must necessarily have found painful, and though he imposed superhuman control over his feelings, lady muriel had seen the truth, or as much of the truth as one human being can ever see of the verities of the heart of another. she had received him gravely, but so that, had he eared to interpret her manner, it might have told him he was welcome in more than the sense of his value in this dread emergency; and it had been a sensible relief to ronald to perceive that lady muriel had not suffered the pride and suspicion which had dictated her remonstrance to him to appear in any word or look of hers which wilmot could perceive. but when lady muriel was alone she said to herself bitterly:
"he did love her, then; he does love her! he is awfully changed; and this has changed him--to her illness, not the fear of her death--the change is the work of months--but the loss of her. her marriage--this has made his life valueless, this has made him what he is." then she remained for a long time sunk in thought, her dark eyes shaded by her hand. at length she said, half aloud,
"she is not all to be pitied, even if this be indeed true and past remedy. she has been well beloved."
there was a whole history of solitude and vain aspiration in the words. had not she too, lady muriel kilsyth, been well beloved? true; but all the homage, all the devotion of an inferior nature could not satisfy hers. this woman would be content only with the love of a man her intellectual superior, her master in strength of purpose and of will. she had seen him; he had come; and he loved not her, but the simple girl with blue eyes and golden hair who was dying, and whom he would love faithfully when she should be dead. lady muriel did not deceive herself. she had the perfect comprehension of wilmot which occult sympathy gives--she knew that he would never love another woman. she knew, when she recalled the ineffable mournfulness which sat upon his face, not the garment of an occasion, but the habitual expression which it had taken, that the hope which but for her might have been realised, had been the forlorn hope of his life. it was over now; and he was beaten by fate, by death, by lady muriel's will. he would lay down his arms; he would never struggle again.
knowing this, lady muriel kilsyth dreamed no more. the vision of a love which, pure and blameless, would have elevated, fortified, and sweetened her life, faded never to return. her gentle stepdaughter, who would have been incapable of such a thought or such a wish, had she known how lady muriel had acted towards her, was at that moment amply avenged.
in vain she had laboured to effect this loveless marriage; in vain she had placed in the untrustworthy hands of ramsay caird the happiness and the fortune of her husband's beloved daughter; in vain had she been deaf to the truer, better promptings of her conscience, to the haunting thought of the responsibility which she had undertaken towards the girl, to the remembrance of madeleine's dead mother, which sometimes came to her and troubled her sorely; in vain had she tempted that dread and inexorable law of retribution, which might fall upon the heads of her own children. how mad, how guilty, she had been! she saw it all now; she understood it all now. how could she, who had learned to comprehend, to appreciate wilmot,--how could she have imagined for a moment that any sentiment once really entertained by him could be light and passing! she recognised, with respect at least, if with an abiding sense of humiliation, the truth, the strength, the eternal duration of wilmot's love for madeleine. truly, many things, in addition to the beautiful young form, were destined to go down into the grave of madeleine kilsyth.
there was so much similarity between the thoughts of lady muriel and those of chudleigh wilmot, that he too, after that first visit, which had shown him the dying girl and revealed to him how he loved her, pondered also upon an unconscious vengeance fulfilled.
mabel! she had died in his absence, neglected by him, inflicting upon him an agonising doubt, almost a certainty, but at least a doubt never to be resolved in this world--a dread never to be set at rest. he did not believe that had he been with her he could have saved her; but no matter: he had stayed away; he had given to another the love, the care, the time, the skill that should have been hers, that were her right by every law human and divine. and now! the woman he had preferred to her, the woman by whose side he had lingered, the woman he loved, was dying, and he had come to her aid too late! he could see her, it was true; he might be with her; it was possible he might hear her last words--might see her draw her last breath; but she was lost to him, lost unwon, lost for ever, as mabel had been! it was late in the night before wilmot had sufficiently mastered these thoughts and the emotions which they aroused to be able to apply himself to studying the details of madeleine's ease, and arranging his plan, not indeed of cure, but of alleviation.
among the letters awaiting his attention there was one from mrs. prendergast. she requested him to call on her; she wished to consult him concerning the matter they had talked of. the following morning he wrote her a line saying he could not attend to anything for the present; and subsequently henrietta learned from mrs. charlton, through mrs. m'diarmid, that wilmot had consented to act as physician to mrs. caird, whom he pronounced to be in hopeless consumption.
henrietta went home grave and pensive, thinking much of her dead friend, mabel wilmot.
time had gone inexorably on since that day, laden every hour of it with grief to wilmot, with immense and complicated responsibility, with the dread of the rapidly-approaching end. there had been hours--no, not hours, moments--when he almost persuaded himself that he might be wrong, that it was still time, that a warm climate might yet avail. but the delusion was only momentary; and he had told madeleine's father and brother from the first that she was unfit for a journey, that the most merciful course was to let her die at home in peace, among the people and the things to whom and to which she was accustomed. he understood the attachment of an invalid to the inanimate objects around her; an attachment strongly developed in madeleine, whose dressing-room, where she lay on the sofa all day, contained all her girlish treasures. she was always awake early in the morning, and anxious to be carried from her bed to her sofa, whence she would wistfully watch the door until it opened and admitted wilmot. then she would smile--such a happy smile too! only a pale reflection in point of brightness, it is true, of the radiant smile of the past, but full of the old trust and happiness and peace. her father came early too, and received the report of how she had passed the night, and controlled himself wonderfully, poor old man! for agitation and disquiet were very bad for his darling; and he was strengthened by wilmot's example. it never occurred to kilsyth to remember that wilmot was "only the doctor," and therefore might well be calm; he never reasoned about wilmot at all--he only felt and trusted. the world outside the sickroom went on as usual. within it madeleine caird lay dying, not poetically, not of the fanciful extinction which consumption becomes in the hands of the poet and the romancer, but of the genuine, veritable, terrible disease, not to be robbed by wealth, or even by comfort or skill, of its terrors. those who know what is meant when a person is said to be dying of consumption need no amplification of the awful significance of the phrase. those who do not--may they remain in their ignorance!
and madeleine? and the contending emotions, amid the varied suffering which surrounded her, and had all its origin in her, how was it with madeleine? on the whole, it was well. a strange phrase to apply to a young woman, a young wife, an idolised daughter, who was dying thus, of a disease which kills more thoroughly, so to speak, than any other, doing its dread office with slowness, and marking its progress day by day. she knew she was dying, though sometimes she did not feel it very keenly; the idea did not come to her as relating to herself, but with a sort of outside meaning. this dulness would last for days, and then she would be struck by the truth again, and would realise it with all the strength of mind and body left to her. realise it, not to be terrified by it, not to resist it, not to appeal against it, but to accept it, to acquiesce in it, to be satisfied and profoundly quiet. madeleine's notions of god and eternity were vague, like those of most young people. she had been brought up in a careful observance of the forms of the episcopal church in scotland, and she had always had a certain devotional turn, which accompanies good taste and purity of mind in young girls. but she had never looked at life or death seriously, in the true sense, at all. sentimentally she had considered both, extensively of course; had she not read all the poetry she could lay her hands on, and a vast number of essays? of late a voice whose tones she had never before heard, still and small, had spoken to her--spoken much and solemnly in her girlish heart, and had taught her, in the silent suffering and doubt, the unseen struggle she had undergone, great things. she kept her own counsel; she listened, and was still; and the chain of earth fell from her fair soul while yet it held her fair form in its coil a little longer. madeleine had looked into her life to find the meaning of her creator in it. she had found it, and she was ready for the summons, which was not to tarry long.
one day, when she had told wilmot that she was wonderfully easy, had had quite a good night, and had hardly coughed at all since morning, he was sitting by her sofa, and she, lying with her face turned towards him, had fallen into a light sleep. he drew a coverlet closely round her, and signed to the nurse that she might leave the room. then he sat quite still, his face rigid, his hands clasped, looking at her; looking at the thin pale face, with the blazing spots of red upon the cheekbones, with the darkened eyelids, the sunken temples, the dry red lips, the damp, limp, golden hair. as in a phantasmagoria, the days at kilsyth passed before him; the day of his arrival, the day the nurse had asked him whether the golden hair must be cut off, the day he had pronounced her out of danger. outwardly calm and stern, what a storm of anguish he was tossed upon! words and looks and little incidents--small things, but infinite to him--came up and tormented him. then came a sense of unreality; it could not be, it was not the same madeleine; this was not kilsyth's beautiful daughter. his hands went up to his face, and a groan burst from his lips. the sound frightened him. he looked at her again; and as he looked, her eyes opened, and she began to speak. then came the frightful, the inevitable cough. he lifted her upon his arm, kneeling by her side, and the paroxysm passed over. then she looked at him very gently and sweetly, and said:
"are we quite alone?"
"yes."
"do you remember one night at kilsyth, when i was very ill, i asked you whether i was going to die?"
"i remember," he said, with a desperate effort to keep down a sob.
"and i told you i was very glad when you said, 'no.' do you remember?"
"yes--i remember."
she paused and looked at him; her blue eyes were as steady as they were bright. "if i asked you, but i don't--i don't"--she put out her wasted hand. he took the thin fingers in his, and trembled at their touch--"because i know--but if i did, you would not make me the same answer now."
he did not speak, he did not look at her; but her eyes pertinaciously sought his, and he was forced to meet them. she smiled again, and her fingers clasped themselves round his.
"you will always be papa's friend," she said. "poor papa--he will miss me very much; the girls are too young as yet. and ronald--i have something to say to you about ronald. sit here, close to me, in papa's chair, and listen."
he changed his seat in obedience to her, and listened; his head bent down, and her golden hair almost touching his shoulder.
"something came between ronald and me for a little while," she said, her low voice, which had hardly lost its sweetness at all, thrilling the listener with inexpressible pain. "i cannot tell what exactly; but it is all over now, and he is--as he used to be--the best and kindest of brothers. but there is someone--not papa; i am not talking of poor papa now--better and kinder still. do you know whom i mean?" the sweet steady blue eyes looked at him quite innocent and unabashed. "i mean you."
"me!" he said, looking up hastily; "me!"
"yes; best and kindest of all to me. and when ronald will not have me any longer, i want you to promise me to be his friend too. they say he is hard in his disposition and his ways; he never was to me, but once for a little while; and i should like him to see you often, and be with you much, that he may be reminded of me. as long as he remembers me he will not be hard to anyone; and he will remember me whenever he sees you."
thus the sister interpreted the brother's late repentance, and endeavoured to render it a source of blessing to the two men whom she loved.
"when you left kilsyth," she said, "and came here, and when i heard the dreadful affliction that had befallen you, it made me very unhappy. it seemed, somehow, awful to me that sorrow should have come to you through me."
"it did not," he replied. "don't think so; don't say so! did anyone tell you so? it would have come all the same--"
"it would not," she said solemnly; "it would not. if i never felt it before, i must have come to feel it now, that i caused unconsciously a dreadful misfortune. you are here with me; you make suffering, you make death, light and easy to me. and you were away from her when she was dying who had a right to look for you by her side. i hope she has forgiven me where all is forgiven."
there was silence between them for a while. wilmot's agony was quite beyond description, and almost beyond even his power of self-control. madeleine was quite calm; but the bright red spots had faded away from her cheekbones, and she was deadly pale. his eyes were fixed upon her face--eagerly, despairingly, as though he would have fixed it before them for ever, a white phantom to beset, of his free will, all his future life. another racking fit of coughing came on, and then, when it had subsided, madeleine fell again into one of the sudden short sleeps which had become habitual to her, and which told wilmot so plainly of the progress of exhaustion. it was only of a few minutes' duration; and when she again awoke, her cheeks had the red spots on them once more. he watched her more and more eagerly, to see if she would resume the tone in which she had been speaking, and which, while it tortured him to listen to it, he had not the courage to interrupt or interdict. there was a little, a very little more excitement in the voice and in the eyes as she said,
"you are not going to be a doctor any more, they tell me, now that you are a rich man."
"no," he said, in a low but bitter tone. "i am done with doctoring. all my skill and knowledge have availed me nothing, and they are nothing to me any more."
"nothing! and why?"
"o madeleine," he said,--and as he spoke he fell on his knees beside the sofa on which she lay--"how can you ask me? what have they done for me? they have not saved you. i asked nothing else--no other reward for all my years of labour and study and poverty and insignificance--nothing but this. even at kilsyth, when you had the fever, i asked nothing else. i got it then, for they did save you. yes, thank god; they did save you then for a little time! but now, now--" and, forgetful of the agitation of his patient, forgetful of everything in this supreme agony, chudleigh wilmot hid his face in the coverlet of the sofa and wept--wept the burning and distracting tears it is so dreadful to see a man shed. madeleine raised herself up, and tried to lift his head in her feeble, wasted hands. then he recovered himself with a tremendous effort, and was calm.
"i must tell you," he said, "having said what you have heard. madeleine, there is no sin, no shame in what i am going to tell you. i will tell it to your father and your brother yet; i would tell it to your husband, madeleine. when i went away from england, i took a vision with me. it was, that i might return some time and ask for your love. it faded, madeleine; but i claim, as the one solitary consolation which life can ever bring me, to tell you this: you are the only woman i have ever loved."
madeleine looked at him still; the colour rose higher and brighter on her wasted cheeks; the light blazed up in her blue eyes.
"did you love me," she said, "because you saved my life?"
"i don't know, child. i loved you--i loved you! that is all i know. i know i ought not to say it now; but i must, i must!"
"hush!" she said; "and don't shiver there, and don't cry. it is not for such as you to do either!" he resumed his seat; she gave him her hand again, and lay still looking at him--looking at him with her blue eyes full of the inexplicably awful look which comes into the eyes of the dying. after a while she smiled.
"i am very glad you told me," she said. "people said you never cared for the patient, only for the case; but since you have been here i have known that was not true. it is better as it is. if your vision had come true, i must have died all the same, and then it would have been harder. it is easier now."
another fit of coughing--a frightful paroxysm this time. wilmot rang for the nurse, and kilsyth and lady muriel entered the room with her.
* * * * *
several hours later madeleine was lying in the same place, still, tranquil, and at ease. she had had a long interval of respite from the cough, and was cheerful, even bright. her father was there, and ronald; lady muriel also, but sitting at some distance from her, and looking very sad.
when the time came at which madeleine was to be removed to her bed, ronald and wilmot took leave; the first for the night, the second to return an hour later, and give final instructions to the nurse.
wilmot's left hand hung down by his side as he stood near her, and madeleine touched a ring upon his little finger.
"what is the motto on that ring?" she asked.
"the untranslateable french phrase, which i always think is like a shrug in words: quand même," he replied.
the ring was the seal-ring which his wife had been used to wear. it struck him with a new and piercing pain, amid all the pains of this dreadful day, that madeleine should have noticed it, and reminded him of it then.
"quand même," she said softly. "notwithstanding, even so--ah, it can't be said in english, but it means the same in every tongue." he bent over her, no one was near, her eyes met his; she said, "i am very happy--very happy, quand même!"
* * * * *
wilmot went home and sat down to think--to think over the words he had spoken and heard. he was overpowered with the fatigue, the excitement, the emotion of the day. a thousand confused images floated before his weary eyes; the room seemed full of phantoms. was this illness? could it be possible? no, that must not be; he could not be ill; he had not time. after--yes, after, illness--anything! but not yet. he called for wine and bread, and ate and drank. his thoughts became clearer, and arranged themselves; then he became absorbed in reflection. he had told his servant he should require the carriage in an hour, and, hearing a noise in the hall, he started up, thinking the time had come. he opened his study-door, and called--
"is that the brougham, stephen?"
"no, sir," said the man, presenting himself with an air of having something important to say.
"what is it, then?" said wilmot impatiently. "a messenger from brook-street, sir; captain kilsyth's man, sir."
wilmot went out into the hall. the man was there, looking pale and frightened.
"what is it, martin? what is it?"
"captain kilsyth sent me, sir, to let you know that mrs. caird is dead, sir,--a few minutes after you left, sir. went off like a lamb. they didn't know it, sir; till the nurse came to lift her into bed."
