 CHAPTER VI THEO The letters that were faithfully written to Downport during the following month were the cause of no slight excitement in the House of David North Esquire. The children looked forward to the reception of them as an event worthy of being chronicled. Theo was an exact correspondent and recorded her adventures in progress with as careful a precision as if it had been a matter of grave import whether she was in Belon or Bordeaux or had stayed at one hotel or the other. It was not the pleasantest season of the year to travel, she wrote, but it was, of course, the gayest in the cities. Lady Throckmorton was very kind and very generous. She took her out a great deal and spent a great deal of money and sightseeing, which proved conclusively how kind she was as her ladyship knew all the places worth looking at as well as she knew Charing Cross or St. Paul's, and at the end of the month came a letter from Paris full of news and description. We reached Paris three days ago, wrote Theo, and are going to remain until Lady Throckmorton makes up her mind to go somewhere else or to return to London. She has a great number of friends here who have found us out already. She is very fond of Paris and I think I would rather stay here than anywhere else so we may not come away until spring. We went to the opera last night and I saw Faust again. You remember my telling you about going to see Faust in London the first time I wore the rose-pink satin. I wore the same dress last night and Lady Throckmorton lent me some of her diamonds and made Splatin puff my hair in a new way. Splatin is my maid and I don't know what to do with her sometimes, Pamela. You know I am used to waiting on myself and she is so serious and dignified that I feel half ashamed to let her do things for me. Two or three gentlemen who knew Lady Throckmorton came into our box and were introduced to me. One of them, I think Lady Throckmorton said he was an attaché, called on us this morning, and brought some lovely flowers. I must not forget to tell you about my beautiful morning robes. One of them is a white merino trimmed with black velvet and I am sure we should think it pretty enough for a party dress at home. I am glad you liked your present, my darling Pam. Give my dearest love to Joanna and Ellen and tell them I am saving my pocket money to buy them some real Parisian dresses with. Love and Kisses to Mama and the Boys from Your Theo. She did not know, this affectionate handsome Theo, that when she wrote this innocent schoolgirl letter she might have made it a record of triumphs enumerable, though unconscious. She had never dreamed for a moment that it was the face at Lady Throckmorton's side that had caused such a sudden accession of life to the faithful. But this was the case nevertheless and Lady Throckmorton was by no means unconscious of it. Of course it was quite natural that people who had forgotten her in London should remember her in Paris, but it was even more natural that persons who did not care for her at all should be filled with admiration for Theo in rose-colored satin. And so it was. Such a change came over the girl's life all at once that, as it revealed itself to her, she was tempted to rub her bright eyes in her doubt as to the reality of it. Two weeks after she reached Paris she awoke and found herself famous. She, Theodora North, to whom, as yet, downpour and shabbiness and bread and butter-cutting were the only things that appeared real enough not to vanish at a touch. People of whom she had read six months ago regarding their very existence as almost mythical, flattered, applauded, followed her. They talked of her, they praised her, they made high-flown speeches to her, at which she blushed and glowed and opened her lovely, half-uncomprehending eyes. She was glad they liked her, grateful for their attentions, half confused under them, but it was some time before she understood the full meaning of their homage. In rose-colored satin and diamonds she dazzled them, but in simple white muslin with a black velvet ribbon about her perfect throat and a great white rose in her dark hair she was a glowing young goddess of whom they raved extravagantly and who might have made herself a fashion if she had been born a few years earlier and been born in Paris. Lady Throgmorton was actually proud of her, and committed extravagances she might have repented of if the girl had not been so affectionately grateful and tractable. Even as might be expected, there arose out of the train the indefatigable adorer, who is the fate of every pretty or popular girl. But in this case he was by no means unpleasant. He was famous, witty, and fortunate. He was no less a personage than the attaché of whom she had written to Pamela, and his name was Victor Morien. He had been before all the rest, and so had gained some slight footing, which he was certainly not the man to relinquish. He had gained ground with Lady Throgmorton too, and in Dennis Oglethorpe's absence had begun almost to fill his place. He was graceful, faithful in her ladyship's service. He talked politics with her when she was gravely inclined, and told her the news when she was in a good humour. He was indefatigable and dignified at once, which is a rare combination. And he thought his efforts well rewarded by a seat at Theo's side in their box in the theatre, or by the privilege of handing her to her carriage, and gaining a few farewell words as he bade her good night. He was not like the rest either. It was not entirely her beauty which had enchanted him, though, like all Frenchmen, he was a passionate worshiper of the beautiful. The sweet soul in her eyes had touched his heart. Her ignorance had done more to strengthen it than anything she could have done. There was not a spark of coquetry in her whole nature. She listened to his poetic speeches, wondering but believing, wondering how they could be true of her, yet trusting him in all the world too seriously to accuse him of anything but partiality. To the last day of his life Victor Marien will not forget one quiet evening when he came to the hotel and found Theodore North by herself in their private parlour, reading an English letter by the blaze of a candelabra. It had arrived that very day from Downport, and something in it had touched her, for when she rose to greet him her gypsy eyes were mistily soft. They began to draw near to each other that night. Half unconsciously she drifted into confiding to him the yearnings toward the home whose shadows and sharpnesses absence had softened. It was singular how much pleasanter everything seemed. Now she looked back upon it in the past. Downport was not an unpleasant place after all. She could remember times when the sun shone upon the dingy little town and the wide spread of beach and made it almost pretty. I am afraid I did not love them all enough, she said. Lady Throckmorton does not intend that I shall go there to remain again, but if I were to go I feel as if I could help them more. Pamela, you know, and Mama. I want to send Joanna and Ellen something to show them that I don't forget them at all. I think I should like to send them some pretty dresses. Joanna is fair and she always wanted a pale blue silk. Do you think a pale blue silk would be very expensive, Miss Youmourien? She started and colored a little the next moment, recognizing the oddity of her speech, and her little laugh was very sweet to hear. I forgot, she said, how should you know to be sure? Political men don't care about pale blue silk, do they? And she laughed again, such a fresh enjoyable little laugh that he was ready to fall down and worship her in his impulsive French fashion. Until Lady Throckmorton came, she amused him with talking of England and the English people until the naivety of her manner had an indescribable fascination for him. He could have listened to her forever. She told him about Downport and its small lines, unconsciously, showing him more of her past life than she fancied. Then of course she at last came to Broome Street and Miss Elizabeth and Miss Priscilla and Mr. Dennis Oglethorpe. He is very talented indeed, she said. He has written, oh, a great deal. He once wrote a book of poems. I have the volume in one of my trunks. He looked at her quietly but keenly when she said this, and he did not need more than a second glance to understand more than she understood herself. He read where Mr. Dennis Oglethorpe stood by the queer, sudden inner light in her eyes, and the unconscious fluctuation of rich color in her bright glowing face. He was struck with a secret paying in a second. There would be so frail a thread of hope for the man who is only second with a girl like this one. I know the gentleman you speak of, he said aloud. We all know him. He is a popular man. I saw him only a few weeks ago. Her eyes flashed up to his. The whole of her face flashed with electric light. Did you, she said? Where was he? I didn't know. And there she stopped. He was here, was the answer, in Paris, in this very hotel the day before you came here. He had overworked himself, I think. He was looking paler than usual and somewhat worn out. It was fatigue, I suppose. Her eyes fell and the light died away. She was thinking to herself that he might have waited twenty-four hours longer, only a day, such a short time. Just at that moment she felt passionately that she could not bear to let him go back to England and Priscilla Gower without a farewell word. And all the whirl of excitement that filled her life, through all the days that were full of it and the nights that were fairly dazzling to her unaccustomed eyes, she never forgot Dennis Oglethorpe. She remembered him always in the midst of it all, and now her remembrance was of a different kind. There was more pain in it, more unrest, more longing and strength. She had ripened wonderfully since that last night in Broome Street. Among the circle of Lady Throckmorton's friends and even beyond its pale, she was a goddess this winter. Her dark, viant face with its innocence and freshness of beauty carried all before it, and this her first season was a continuation of girlish triumphs. The chief characteristic of her loveliness was that it inspired people with a sort of enthusiasm. When she entered a room a low murmur of pleasure followed her. There was not a man who had exchanged a word with her who would not have been ready to perform absurdities as well as impossibilities for her sweet young sake. How kind people are to me, she would say to Lady Throckmorton. I can hardly believe it sometimes. Oh, how Joanna and Ellen would like Paris. They had been two months in Paris, and in the meantime had heard nothing from Dennis Oglethorpe. He had not written to Lady Throckmorton since the letter dated from Vienna, so they supposed he had lost sight of them and thought writing useless. There were times when Theo tried to make up her mind that she had seen him for the last time before his marriage. But there were times again when, on going out, her last glance at her mirror had a thrill of expectation in it that was almost a-paying. She was sitting in their box in the theater one night, half listening to Maureen, half to the singers, and wondering dreamily what was going on in Broomstreet at the moment when she suddenly became conscious of a slight stir among the people in the seats on the other side of the house. She turned her face quickly as if she had been magnetized. Making his way toward their box was a man whom at first she saw mistily, in a moment more quite clearly. Her heart began to beat faster than it had ever been in her young life, her hand closed upon her bouquet holder with a nervous strength. She turned her face to the stage in the curious, excited, happy, and yet fearing tremor that took possession of her in a second. By some caprice or chance they had come to see Faust again, and the marguerite who had been their attraction was at this very moment standing upon the stage, repeating softly her simple, pathetic, little love spell. Er lieber mich, er lieber mich nicht. Theo found himself saying it after marguerite to the beating of her heart, er lieber mich, er lieber mich nicht, er lieber mich, and there she stopped breathlessly for the box door opened and Dennis Oglethorpe entered. She had altered so much since they had last met that she scarcely dared to look at him, even after the confusion of greetings and formalities was over and he had answered Lady Throckmorton's questions and explained to her the cause of his protracted wandering, for though she did not meet his eyes, she knew that he was altered too. He looked worn and fatigued, she thought, and there was a new unrest in his expression. It was fully a quarter of an hour before he left Lady Throckmorton and came to her side, but when he did so, something in his face or air, perhaps, made Victor Marien give way to his greater need in an impulse of generosity. There was a moment's silence between them after he sat down, during which, in her excited shyness, Theo only looked at marguerite with a fluttering of rich warm color on her cheeks. It was he who ended the pause himself. "'Are you glad to see me, Theodora?' he said, in a low unsteady voice. "'Yes,' she answered tremulously, "'I am glad.' "'Thank you,' he returned, and yet it was chance that brought me here. I was not even sure you were in Paris until I saw you from the other side of the house a few moments ago. I wonder, my dear Theodora, slipping into the old careless whimsical manner, I wonder if I am doomed to be a rascal. It might be that her excitement made her nervous. At any rate there was a choking throb in her throat, as she answered him. "'If you please,' she whispered, "'don't.'" His face softened as if he was sorry for her girlish distress. He was struck with a fancy that if he were cruel enough to persist he could make her cry. And then the relapse in the old manner had only been a relapse after all, and had even puzzled himself a little. So he was quiet for a while. "'And so it is foused again,' he said, breaking the silence. "'Do you remember what you said to me the first time you saw foused, Theodora? The night the rose-colored satin came home? Do you remember telling me that you could die for love's sake? I wonder if you have changed your mind among all the fine people you have seen, and all the fine speeches you have heard. I met one of Lady Throckmorton's acquaintances in Bordeaux a few days ago, and he told me a wonderful story of a young lady who was then turning the wise heads of half the political Parisians, a sort of enchanted princess with a train of Adores ready to kiss the hem of her garment. He was endeavouring to be natural and was failing wretchedly. His voice was actually sad, and she had never heard it sad in all their intercourse before. She had never thought it could be sad, and the sound was something like a revelation of the man. It made her afraid of herself, afraid for herself. And yet above all this arose a thrill of happiness which was almost wild. He was near her again. He had not gone away, he would not go away yet. Yet there was a girl's foolish loving comfort in the world. It seemed so impossible that she could lose him forever, that for the brief moment she forgot Priscilla Gower and Justice all together. In three months the whole world had altered its face to her vision. She had altered herself. Her life had altered she knew, but she did not know that she had been happier in her ignorance of her own heart than she could be now in her knowledge of it. Her little court were not very successful tonight. Dennis Oglethorpe kept his place at her side with a persistence which baffled the boldest of her admirers, and she was too happy to remember the rest of the world. It was not very polite, perhaps, and certainly it was not very wise to forget everything but that she herself was not forgotten. But she forgot everything else. This pretty Theo, this handsome and impolitic Theo. She did not care for her court, though she was, sweet temperately, grateful to her courtiers for their homage. She did care for Dennis Oglethorpe. Ah, poor Priscilla! He went home with them to their hotel. He stayed, too, to eat of the petit souper Lady Throckmourne had ordered. Her ladyship had a great deal to say to him and a number of questions to ask, so he sat with them for an hour or so, accounting for himself and replying to numberless queries, all the time very conscious of Theo, who sat by the fire in a mist of white drapery and soft thick white wraps, the light from the wax tapers flickering in Pamela's twinkling sapphires, and burning in the great crimson-hearted rose fastened in the puffs of her hair. But Lady Throckmourne remembered at last that she had to give some orders to her maid, and so for a moment they were left together. Then he went to the white figure at the fire and stood before it, losing something of both color and calmness. He was going to be guilty of a weakness, and knowing it, could not control himself. He was not so great a hero as she had fancied him, after all, but it would have been very heroic to have withstood a temptation so strong and so near. Theo, he said, the man who ran away from the danger he dared not face is a greater coward than he fancied. The chances have been against him, too. I suppose tonight he must turn his back to it again, but she stopped him all at once with a little cry. She had been so happy an hour ago that she could not fail to be weak now. Her face dropped upon the hands of her lap and were hidden there. The crimson-hearted rose slipped from her hair and fell to her feet. No, no, she cried. Don't go. It is only for a little while. Don't go yet." CHAPTER VII PARTING is sweet sorrow. He did not go away. He could not yet. He stayed in Paris day after day, even week after week, lingering through a man's very human weakness. He could no longer resist the knowledge of the fact that he had lost the best part of the battle. He had lost it in being compelled to acknowledge the presence of danger by flight. He had lost it completely after this by being forced to admit to himself that there was not much more to lose. That in spite of his determination Theodore North had filled his whole life and nature, as Priscilla Gower had never filled it and could never fill it, were she his wife for a thousand years? He had made a mistake, and discovered having made it too late. That was all. But he blamed himself for having made it, blamed himself for being blind, blamed himself more than all for having discovered his blindness and his blunder. Thinking thus he resolved to go away. Yes, he would go away. He would marry Priscilla at once, and have it over. He would put an impossible barrier between himself and Theo. But though he reproached himself and unathematized himself, he resolved to go away. He did not leave Paris. He stayed in the face of his remorseful wretchedness. It was a terrible moral condition to be in, but he absolutely gave up, for the time, to the force of circumstances, and floated recklessly with the current. If he had loved Theodore North when he left her for Priscilla's sake, he loved her ten thousandfold when he forebored to leave her for his own. He loved her passionately, blindly, jealously. He envied every man who won a smile from her, even while his weakness angered him. She had changed greatly during their brief separation, but the change grew deeper after they had once again encountered each other. She was more conscious of herself, more fearful, less innocently frank. She did not reveal herself to him as she had once done. There is a stage of love in which frankness is at once unnatural and impossible, and she had reached this stage. And her letters to Priscilla were not frank, after his reappearance. Since the night of their interview after their return from the theatre, he had not referred openly to his reasons for remaining. He had held himself to the letter of his bond so far, at least, though he was often sorely tempted. He visited Lady Throckmorton and Theo as he had visited them in London, and was their attendant cavalier upon most occasions, but beyond that he rarely transgressed. It was by no means a pleasant position for a man in love to occupy. The whole world was between him and his love, it seemed. The most infatuated of Theodora North's adorers did not fear him, handsome and popular as he was, dangerous rival as he might have appeared. Lady Throckmorton's world knew the history of their favourite, having learned it as society invariably learns such things. Most of them knew that his fate had been decided for years. All of them knew that his stay in Paris could not be a long one. A man whose marriage is to be celebrated in June has not many months to lose between February and May. But this did not add to the comfort of Dennis Oglethorpe. The rest of Theo's admirers had a right to speak. He must be silent. The shallowest of them might ask a hearing. He dared not for his dishonoured honours' sake. So even while nearest to her he stood afar off, as it were a witness to the innocent triumph of a girlish popularity that galled him intolerably. He puzzled her often in these days, and out of her bewilderment grew a vague unhappiness. And yet, in spite of this, her life grew perilously sweet at times. Only a few months ago she had dreamed of such bliss as Jane Ayres and Zulix, wonderingly, but there were brief moments now and then when she believed in it faithfully. She was very unselfish in her girlish passion. She thought of nothing but the wondrous happiness love could bring to her. She would have given up all her new luxuries and triumphs, for Dennis Oglethorpe's sake. She would have gone back to Downport with him, to the old life, to the mending, and bread-and-butter-cutting, and shabby dresses. She would have taken it all up again cheerfully, without thinking for one moment that she had made a sacrifice. Downport would have been a paradise with him. She was wonderfully devoid of calculation or worldly wisdom, if she had only been conscious of it. An absurdly loving, simple, impolitic young person was this Theodora of ours, but I, for one, must confess to feeling some weak sympathy for her very ignorance. Among the many of the girl's admirers whom Dennis Oglethorpe envied jealously, perhaps the one most jealously envied, was Victor Marien. A jealous man might have feared him with reason under any circumstances, and Dennis chafed at his good fortune miserably. The man who had the honourable right to success could not fail to torture him. It would be an excellent match for Theo, was Lady Throckmorton's complacent comment on the subject of the attaché's visit, and the comment was made to Dennis himself. Monsieur Marien is the very man to take good care of her, and besides that he is, of course, desirable. Girls like Theo ought to marry young, marriages their fort, they are too dependent to be left to themselves. Theo is not like Pamela, or your Priscilla Gower, for instance. Queenly as Theo looks, she is the various, strengthless baby on earth. It is a source of wonder to me where she got the regal air. But perhaps Lady Throckmorton did not understand her lovely young relative fully. She did not take into consideration a certain mental ripening process which had gone on slowly but surely during the last few months. The time came when Theodora North began to comprehend her powers, and feel the change in herself sadly. Then it was that she ceased to be frank with Dennis Oglethorpe, and began to feel a not fully defined humiliation and remorse. Coming in unexpectedly once, Dennis found her sitting all alone with an open book in her lap, and eyes brooding over the fire. He knew the volume well enough at sight. It was the half-forgotten, long-condemned collection of his youthful poems, and when she saw him she shut it up and laid her folded hands upon it, as if she did not wish him to recognize it. He was in one of his most unhappy moods, for some reason or other, and so unreasonable was his frame of mind that the movement, simple as it was, galled him bitterly. "'Will you tell me why you did that?' he asked abruptly. Her eyes fell upon the carpet at her feet, but she sat with her hands still clasped upon the half-concealed book, without answering him. "'You would not have done it three months ago,' he said, almost wrathfully. "'And the thing is not more worthless now than it was then, though it was worthless enough. Give it to me, and let me fling it into the fire.' She looked up at him all at once, and her eyes were full to the brim. Lady Throckmorton was right in one respect. She was strengthless enough sometimes. She was worse than strengthless against Dennis Oglethorpe. "'Don't be angry with me,' she said, almost humbly. "'I don't think you could be angry with me if you knew how unhappy I am to-day, and the tears that had brimmed upward fell upon the folded hands themselves.' "'Why, to-day,' he asked, softening with far more reason than he had been called. What has to-day brought the Adora?' She answered him with a soft little gasp of a remorseful sob. "'It has brought Mr. Marian,' she confessed. To send him away again,' he added, in a low, unsteady voice. She nodded, her simple, pathetic sorrowfulness, showing itself even in the poor little gesture. "'He has been very fond of me for a long time,' she said tremulously. He says that he loves me. He came to ask me to be his wife. I am very sorry for him.' "'Why?' he asked again, unsteadily. "'I was obliged to make him unhappy,' she answered. I do not love him.' "'Why?' he repeated yet again, but his voice had sunk into a whisper. "'Because,' she said, trembling all over now, because I cannot. He could not utter another word. There was such danger for him, and his periled honour in her simple tremor and sadness, that he was forced to be silent. It was not safe to follow Mr. Marian at least, but as might be anticipated their conversation flagged in no slight degree. The hearts of both were so full of one subject that it would have been hard to force them to another. Theo, upon her low sultane, sat mute with drooped eyes, becoming more silent every moment. Oglethorpe, in regarding her beautiful downcast face, forgot himself also. It was almost half an hour before he remembered he had not made the visit without an object. He had something to say to her, something he had once said to her before. He was going away again, and had come to tell her so. But he recollected himself at last. "'I must not forget that I had a purpose in coming here to-night,' he said. "'A purpose?' she repeated after him. "'Yes,' he answered. I found last night, on returning to my hotel, that there was a letter awaiting me from London, from my employers, in fact. I must leave Paris to-morrow morning.' "'And will you not come back again?' she added, breathlessly almost. The news was so sudden that it made her breathless. This was the last time, the very last. They might never see each other again in this world, and if they did ever chance to meet, Priscilla Gower would be his wife. And yet he was standing there now, only a few feet from her, so near that her outstretched hand would touch him. The full depth of misery in the thought flashed upon her all at once, and drove the blood back to her heart. "'Why?' she gasped out unconsciously, through the very strength of her pangs. "'You are going away for ever!' She scarcely knew that she had uttered the words, until she saw how deathly pale he grew. The beads of moisture started out upon his forehead, and his nervous hand went up to brush them away. "'Not for ever, I trust,' he said huskily, only until—until—until July,' she ended for him, until you are married to Miss Priscilla Gower. She held up one little trembling dusky hand, and actually began to tell the intervening months off her fingers. She was trying so hard to calm herself that she did not think what she was doing. She only knew she must do or say something. "'How many months will it be?' she said. It is February now—March, April, May, June, July. Five months—not quite five, perhaps. We may not be here, then. Lady Throckmorton intends to visit the spas during the summer.' From the depths of her heart she was praying that some chance might take them away from Paris before he returned. It would be his bridal tour—Priscilla's bridal tour. Ah, if some wildly happy dream had only chance to make it her bridal tour, and she could have gone with him as Priscilla would, from place to place, near him all the time, loving and trusting him always, depending on him, obedient to his lightest wishes. Miss Priscilla was far too self-restrained ever to be as foolishly, thrillingly tender and fond, and happy as she, Theodore North, could have been. She could have given a little sob of despair and pain as she thought of it. As it was, the hopeless, foolish tears rose up to her large eyes and made them liquid and soft, and when they rose Dennis Oglethorpe saw them. Such beautiful eyes as they were, such ignorant, believing, fawn-like eyes. The eyes alone would have unmanned him. Under the tears he broke down utterly, and so was left without a shadow of control. He crossed the hearth with a stride, and stood close to her, his whole face ablaze with the fierceness of his remorseful self-reproach, and the power of his love. "'Listen to me, Theo,' he said, "'let me confess to you. Let me tell you the truth for once. I am a coward and a villain. I was a villain to ask a woman I did not truly love to be my wife. I am a coward to shrink from the result of my vanity and madness. She is better than I am. This woman who has promised herself to me. She is stronger, truer, purer. She has loved me, she has been faithful to me, and God knows I honour and revere her. I am not worthy to kiss the ground her feet have trodden upon. I was vain fool enough to think I could make her happy by giving to her all she did not ask for, my life, my work, my strength, not remembering that heaven had given her the sacred right to more. She has held to our bond for years, and now see how it has ended. I stand here before you tonight, loving you, adoring you, shipping you, and knowing myself a dishonoured man, a weak, proved coward, whose truth is lost for ever. I do not ask you for a word. I do not say a word further. I will not perjure myself more deeply. I only say this as a farewell confession. It will be farewell. We shall never see each other again on earth, perhaps, and if we do, an impassable gulf will lie between us. I shall go back to England and hasten the marriage if I can, and then if a whole life's strenuous exertions and constant care and tenderness will wipe out the dishonour my weakness has betrayed me into, it shall be wiped out. I do not say one word of love to you because I dare not. I only say, forgive me, forget me, and good-bye. She had listened to him with a terrified light growing in her eyes, but when he finished she got up from her seat, shivering from head to foot. Good-bye, she said, and let him take her cold, lithe, trembling hands. But the moment he touched them, his suppressed excitement and her own half-comprehended pain seemed to frighten her, and she began to try to draw them from his grasp. Go away, please, she said, with a wild little sob. I can't bear it. I don't want to be wicked, and perhaps I have been wicked, too. Miss Gower is better than I am. More worth loving. Oh, try to love her, and—and only go away now, and let me be alone. She ended in an actual little moan. She was shivering and sobbing, hard as she tried to govern herself. And yet, though this man loved her, and would have given half his life to snatch her to his arms and rain kisses of comfort upon her, he let the cold little hand drop, and in a moment more had left her. CHAPTER VIII. CHAPTER VIII. Theo's First Trouble He had been gone three days, and, in their laps, Theo felt as if three lustrums had passed. Their parting had been so unexpected a one that she could not get used to it, or believe it was anything else but a painful dream. After all, it seemed that fortune was crueler than she had imagined possible. He was gone, and to Priscilla Gower, and she had never been able to believe that some alteration, of which she had no very definite conception, would occur and end her innocent little ghost of a love story, as all love stories should be ended. It had never been more than the ghost of a story. Until that last night he had never uttered a word of love to her. He had never even made the fine speeches to her, which she might have expected, and, doubtless would have expected, if she had been anybody else but Theodora Norrith. She had not expected them, though, and, consequently, was not disappointed when she did not receive them. But she found herself feeling terribly lonely after Dennis Oglethorpe left Paris. The first day she felt more stunned than anything else. The second her sensibilities began to revive keenly, and she was full of sad, desperate wonder concerning him—concerning how he would feel when he stood face to face with Priscilla Gower, how he would look, what he would say to her. The third day was only the second intensified, and filled with a something that was almost like a terror now and then. It was upon this third day that Lady Throckmorton was unexpectedly called away. A long-lost friend of her young days had suddenly made her appearance at Ruan, and, having by chance heard of her ladyship's presence in Paris, had written to her a letter of invitation which the ties of their girlhood rendered almost a command. So to Ruan her ladyship went, for once leaving Theo behind. Madame Saint-Étune was an invalid, and the reason could not be a very interesting one to a young girl. This was one reason why she was left, the other was the more important one, that she did not wish to go, and made her wishes known. She was not sorry for the chance of being left to herself for a few days. It would be only a few days at most. "'Besides,' said Lady Throckmorton, looking at her trifle curiously, "'you do not look well yourself. Theo, you look feverish, or nervous, or something of the kind. How was it I did not notice it before? You must have caught cold. Yes, I believe I must leave you here.' Consequently Theo was left. She was quiet enough, too, when her ladyship had taken her departure. It was generally supposed that Miss North had accompanied her chaperone, and so she had very few collars. She spent the greater part of her time in the apartment in which Dennis Oglethorpe had bidden her farewell, and, as may be easily imagined, it did not add to her lightness of spirit to sit in her old seat and ponder over the past in the silence of the deserted room. She arose from her autumn and one night, and walked to one of the great mirrors that extended from floor to ceiling. She saw herself in it as she advanced, a regal-like young figure, with a head set like a queen's, speechful dark eyes and glowing lips, a face that was half-child's, half-woman's, and yet wholly perfect in its fresh young life and beauty. Seeing this reflection she stopped and looked at it, in a swift recognition of a new thought. Oh, Pam! she cried out piteously. Oh, my poor, darling, faded Pam! You were pretty once, too, very dear, pretty and young. And you were happier than I can be, for Arthur only died. Nobody came between your love and you nobody ever could. He died, but he was yours, Pam, and you were his. She cried piteously and passionately when she went back to her seat, rested her arm upon a lounging chair near her, and hid her face upon it, crying as only a girl can, with an innocent grief that had a pathos of its own. She was so lovely and remorseful. It seemed to her that some fault must have been hers, and she blamed herself that even now she could not wish that she had never met the man whose love for her was a dishonour to himself. Where was he now? He had told Lady Throckmorton that business would call him to several smaller towns on his way, so he might not be very far from Paris yet. She was thinking of this when, at last, she fell asleep, sitting by the fire, still resting her hand upon the chair by her side. It was by no means unnatural, though by no means poetic, that her girl's pain should end so. But when the time-piece on the mantle chimed twelve with its silver tongue, she found herself suddenly and unaccountably wide awake. She sat up and looked about her. It was not the clock's chime that had awakened her, she thought, it must have been something more, so she was very wide awake indeed, and her senses were so clear. One minute later she found out what it was. There was some slight confusion downstairs. A door was opened and closed, and she heard the sound of voices in the entrance hall. She turned her head and, listening attentively, discovered that some one was coming up to the room in which she sat. The door opened, and upon the threshold stood a servant bearing in his hand a salver, and upon the salver a queer official-looking document such as she did not remember ever having seen before. A telegram, he said rapidly in French, for Milady, they had thought it better to acquaint mademoiselle. She took it from him, and opened it slowly and mechanically. She read it mechanically also, read it twice before she comprehended its full meaning, so great was the shock it gave her. Then she started from her seat with a cry that made the servant start also. "'Send splayton to me,' she said, this minute without a moment's delay. For the telegram she had just read told her that in a wayside in, at St. Quentin, Dennis Oglethorpe lay dying, or so near it that the medical man had thought it his duty to send for the only friend who was on the right side of Calais, and that friend, whose name he had discovered by chance, was Lady Throckmorton. It was, of course, a terribly unwise thing that Theodora North decided upon doing an hour later. Only such a girl as she was, or as her life had necessarily made her, would have hit upon a plan so loving, so wild, and indiscreet. But it did not occur to her, even for a second, that there was any other thing to do. She must go to him herself in Lady Throckmorton's stead. She must take splayton with her, and go try to take care of him, until Lady Throckmorton came, or could send for Priscilla Gower and Miss Elizabeth. Mamzell began the stricken splayton, when, as she stood before the erect young figure and desperate young face, this desperate plan was hurriedly revealed to her. Mamzell, you forget the imprudence. But Theo stopped her, quite ignorant of the fact that by doing so she forfeited her reputation in splayton's eyes for ever. He is going to die, she said, with a wild little sob in her voice, and he is all alone and—and he was to have been married, splayton, in July, only a few months from now. Oh, poor Priscilla Gower! Oh, poor girl! We must save him. I must go now, and try to save him for her. Oh, if I could just have Pamela with me!" The woman saw at once that remonstrance would be worse than useless. Theo was slowly revealing to her that this despairing, terrified young creature would not understand her resistance in the slightest degree. She would not comprehend what it meant. So, while splayton packed up a few necessary articles, Theo superintended her, following her from place to place, with a longing impatience that showed itself in every word and gesture. She did not dare to do more, poor child. She had never overcome her secret awe of her waiting woman. In her inexperienced respect for her she even apologized pathetically and appealingly for the liberty she was taking in calling upon her. I am sorry to trouble you, she said humbly, and feeling terribly homesick as she said it, but I could not go alone, you know, and I must go. There is a lace collar in that little box that you may have, splayton. It is a pretty collar, and I will give you the satin bow that is fastened to it. Scarcely two hours later they were on their way to St. Quentin. It never occurred to Theo, in the midst of her fright and unhappiness, that she was now doing a very unwise and dangerous thing. She only thought of one thing, that Dennis was going to die. She loved him too much to think of herself at all, and besides she did not, poor innocent, know anything about such things. It was a wonderful trial of the little old French doctor's calmness of mind when, on his next visit to his patient, he found himself confronted by a tall young creature with a pale desperate face and lovely tear-fraught eyes, instead of by the majestic elderly person, the perusal of Lady Throckmorton's last letter to Dennis had led him to expect. It was in the little impaler that he first encountered Theodora North when she arrived, and on seeing her he gazed over his spectacles, first at herself, and then at the respectable splayton, in a maze of bewilderment, at seemingly having made so strange a blunder. Lady Throckmorton, he said, at last, in English, or in a broken attempt at it. Oh, oui, I understand. The sister of Monsur? Ah, m'lady! Theo broke in upon him in a passionate impulse of fear and grief. No, she said, I am not Lady Throckmorton. I am only her niece, Theodora North. My aunt was away when your telegram arrived, and I knew someone must come, so I came myself. Monsur and I can take care of Mr. Oglethorpe. Oh, Monsur, is it true that he is dying? Will he never get well? How could it happen? He was so strong only a few days since. He must not die. It cannot be true that he will die. He has so many friends who love him. Monsur, the doctor, softened perceptibly under this. She was so young and innocent-looking, this girlish little English mademoiselle. Monsur upstairs must be a lucky man to have won her tender young heart so utterly. Strange and equivocal a thing as the pretty child—she seemed a child to him—was doing, he never for an instant doubted the ignorant faith and love that shone in the depths of her beautiful agonized eyes. He bowed to her as deferentially as to a sultana when he made his answer. It had been an accident, he commenced. The stage had overturned on its way, and Monsur being in it had been thrown out by its falling into a gully. His collarbone had been broken, and several of his ribs fractured, but the worst of his injuries had been a gash on his head. A sharp stone had done it. Monsur would understand her in the danger lay. He was unconscious at present. This he told her on their way to the chamber upstairs, but even the gravity of his manner did not prepare her for the sight the opening of the door revealed to her. Handsome Dennis Oglethorpe lay upon the narrow little bed with the face of a dying man, which is far worse than that of a dead man. There were spots of blood on his pillow and upon his garments. He was bandaged from head to foot, it seemed, with ghastly red wet bandages. His eyes were glazed, and his jaw half dropped. A low wild cry broke from the pale lips of the figure in the doorway, and the next instant Theodore North had flown to the bedside and dropped upon her knees by it, hiding her deathly, stricken young face upon her lover's lifeless hand, forgetting Splaton, forgetting the doctor, forgetting even Priscilla Gower, forgetting all but that she, in this moment, knew that she could not give him up, even to the undivided quiet of death. "'He will die, he will die,' she cried out, and I never told him. Oh, my love, love, oh, my dearest dear!' The little old doctor drew back, half way, through a suddenly stranger impulse of sympathy. He was easily conscious of the fact that the staid, elderly person at his side, was startled and outraged simultaneously by this passionate burst of grief on the part of her young mistress. He had seen so many of these unprepossessing English waiting women that he understood the state of her feelings as by instinct. He turned to her, with all the blandness possible under the circumstances, and gave her an order which would call for her presence downstairs. When she departed, as she did in a state bordering on petrification, he came forward to the bedside. He did not speak, however, merely looking down at his patient in a silence whose delicacy was worthy of honour, even in a shriveled, little snuff-taking French village doctor. The pretty young mademoiselle would be calmer before many minutes had elapsed, his experience had taught him, and so she was. At least her first shock of terror wore away, and she was calm enough to speak to him. She lifted her face from the motionless hand, and looked up at him in a wild appeal for help, that was more than touching. "'Don't say he will die,' she prayed. "'Oh, monsieur, only save him, and he will bless you for ever. I will nurse him so well. Only give me something to do, and see how faithful I shall prove. I shall never forget anything, and I shall never be tired if—if he can only live, monsieur.' The terrified catching of her breath making every little pause almost a sob. "'My child,' he answered her, with a grave touch of something quite like affection in his air. "'My child, I shall save him if he is to be saved, and you shall help me.' How faithfully she held to the very letter of her promises only this little shriveled village doctor could say. How tender and watchful and loving she was in her care of her charge only he could bear witness. She was never tired, never forgetful. She held to her place in the poor little bedroom, day and night, with an intensity of zeal that was actually astonishing. Priscilla Gower and Pamela North might have been more calm, certainly would have been more self-possessed, but they could not have been more faithful. She obeyed every order given to her like a child. She sat by the bedside, hour after hour, day and night, watching every change of symptom, noting every slight alteration of colour or pulse. CHAPTER VIII PART II The friendship between herself and Missour the Doctor so strengthened that the confidence between them was unlimited. She was only disobedient in one thing. She would not leave her place either for food or rest. She ate her poor little dinners near her patient, and, if the truth had been known, scarcely slept at all for the first two or three days. "'I could not sleep, you know,' she said to the doctor, her great pathetic eyes filling with tears. "'Please let me stay until Lady Throckmorton comes at least.' So she stayed and watched, and waited, quite alone, for nearly a week. But it seemed a much longer time to her. The poor handsome face changed so often in even those few days, and her passions of despair and hope were so often changed with it. She never thought of Priscilla Gower. Her love and fear were too strong to allow of her giving a thought to anything on earth, but Dennis Oglethorpe. Perhaps her only consolation had something of guilt in it, but it was so poor and desperate a comfort, this wretched one of hearing him speak to and of her in his fever and delirium. "'My poor handsome Theo,' he would say. "'Why, my beauty, there are tears in your eyes. What a scoundrel I am, if I have brought them there. What? The rose-coloured satin again, my darling? Don't wear the rose-coloured satin, Theo. It hurts my eyes. For God's sake, Priscilla, forgive me.' And yet, even while they added to her terror, these poor ravings were some vague comfort since they told her that he loved her. More than once her friend the doctor entered the room and found her kneeling by the bedside, holding the unresponsive hand, with a white face and wide tearless eyes, and seeing her thus he read clearly that his pretty, inexperienced protégé had more at stake than he had even at first fancied. It was about six days after Theodora North had arrived at St. Quentin when, sitting at her post one morning, she heard the lumbering stage stop before the indoor. She rose and went to the window, half mechanically, half anxiously. She had been expecting Lady Throckmorton for so long a time that it seemed almost impossible that it could be she. But strangers had evidently alighted. There was a bustle of servants below, and one of them was carrying a leather and trunk into the house immediately under her window. It was a leather and trunk rather shabby than otherwise, and on its side was an old label, which, being turned toward her, she could read plainly. She read it, and gave a faint start. It bore, in dingy black letters, the word downport. She had hardly time to turn round before there was a summons at the door, and, without waiting to be answered, Splaton entered, looking at once decorous and injured. There are two ladies in the parlor, mademoiselle, she said. She always called Theo mademoiselle in these days. Two English ladies, who did not give their names, they asked for Miss North. Theo looked at the woman and turned pale. She did not know how or why her mother and Pamela should come down to this place, but she felt sure it was they who were awaiting her, and for the first time, since she had received the telegram, a shock of something like misgiving rushed upon her. Suppose, after all, she had not done right. Suppose she had done wrong, and they had heard of it, and come to reproach her, or worse still—poor child, it seemed, worse still to her—to take her away, to make her leave her love to strangers. She began to tremble, and as she went out of the room she looked back on the face upon the pillow with a despairing fear that the look might be her last. She hardly knew how she got down the narrow staircase. She only knew that she went slowly in a curious sort of hysterical excitement. Then she was standing upon the mat at the parlor door. Then she had opened the door itself and stood upon the threshold, looking in upon two figures just revealed to her in the shadow. One figure—yes, it was Pamela's. The other—not her mother's—no, the figure of Priscilla Gower. Pamela! she cried out, O Pam, don't blame me. She never knew how the sight of her standing before them, like a poor little ghost with her white, appealing eyes, touched one of these two women to the heart. There was something pathetic in her very figure, something indescribably so in her half-humble, half-fearing voice. Pamela rose up from the horse-hair sofa and went to her. Each of the three faces was pale enough, but Pamela had the trouble of these two as well as her own anxiousness in her eyes. Theo! she said to her, What have you done? Don't you understand what a mad act you have been guilty of? But her voice was not as sharp as usual, and it even softened before she finished speaking. She made Theo sit down and gave her a glass of water to steady her nervousness. She could not be angry even at such indiscretion as this, in the face of the tremulous hands and pleading eyes. Where was Lady Throckmorton, she said, What was she doing to let you come alone? She was away, put in Theo faintly, and the telegram said he was dying, Pam, and I didn't come quite alone, I brought Splaton with me. You had no right to come at all, said Pam, trying to speak with asperity and failing miserably. Mr. Oglethorpe is nothing to you, they should have sent for Miss Gower at once. But the fact was the little doctor had searched in vain for the exact address of the lady whose letters he found in his patient's portmanteau, when examining his papers to find some clue to the whereabouts of his friends, and it was by the nearest chance that he had discovered it in the end from Theo's own lips, and so had secretly written to Broom Street in his great respect and admiration for this pretty young nurse, who was at once so youthful and indescribably innocent. In her trouble and anxious excitement Theo had not once thought of doing so herself until during the last two days, and now there was no necessity for the action. And Mr. Oglethorpe, interposed Miss Gower. He is upstairs, Theo answered, the doctor thinks that perhaps he may be saved by careful nursing. I did what I could. And she stopped, with a curious click in her throat. The simple sight of Priscilla Gower, with her calm, handsome face, and calm, handsome presence, set her so far away from him, and she had seemed so near to him during the last few days, she felt so poor and weak through the contrast. And Pamela was right, she was nothing to him, he was nothing to her. This was his wife who had come to him now, and she—what was she? She led them upstairs to the sick-room, silently, and there left them. It had actually never occurred to her to ask herself how it was that the two were together. She was thinking only about Dennis. She went to her own little bedroom at the top of the house, such a poor little bear place as it was, as poor and bare as only a bedroom in a miserable little French roadside inn can be. Only the low white bed in it, a chair or two, and a barren toilet table standing near the deep window. This deep square window was the only part of the room holding any attraction for Theo. From it she could look out along the road, where the lumbering stages made their daily appearance, and could see miles of fields behind the hedges, and watch the peasant women in their wooden sabbots journeying on to the market towns. She flung herself down on the bare floor in the recess formed by the window, and folded her arms upon its broad ledge. She looked out for a minute at the road, and the fields, and the hedges, and then gave vent to a single, sudden, desperate sabb. Nobody knew her pain, nobody would ever know it, perhaps everything would end and pass and die away for ever, and it would be her own pain to the end of her life. Even Dennis himself would not know it. He had never asked her to tell him that she loved him, and if he died he would die without having heard a word of love from her lips. What would they do with her now, Priscilla and Pamela? Make her go back to Paris, and leave him to them, and if he got well they might never meet again, and perhaps he would never learn who had watched by his bedside when no one else on earth was near to try to save him. She dropped her face upon her folded arms, sobbing in a great, uncontrollable burst of rebellion against her fate. "'No one cares for us, my darling, my angel, my love,' she cried. They would take me from you if they could, but they shall not, my own. If it was wrong, how can I help it, and oh, what does it matter, if all the world should be lost to me, if only you could be left? If I could only see your dear face once every day and hear your voice, even if it was ever so far away, and you were not speaking to me at all?' She was so wearied with her watching and excitement that her grief wore itself away into silence and exhausted quiet. She did not raise her head but let it rest upon her arms as she knelt, and before many minutes had passed her eyes closed with utter weariness. She awoke with a start, half an hour later. Someone was standing near her. It had been twilight when she fell asleep, and now the room was so gray that she could barely distinguish who it was. A soft, thick shawl had been dropped over her, evidently by the person in question. From Thio's eyes became accustomed to the shadows, she recognized the erect, slender figure and handsome head. It was Priscilla Gower, and Priscilla Gower was leaning against the window, looking down at her fixedly. "'You were cold when I found you,' were her first words, and so I threw my shawl around you. You ought not to have gone to sleep there.' "'I fell asleep before I knew that I was tired,' said Thio. "'Thank you, Miss Gower.' There was a pause of a moment, before she summoned courage to speak again. "'I have not had time yet,' she hesitated, at last. "'To ask you how Miss Elizabeth is. I hope she is well?' "'I am sorry to say she is not,' Priscilla replied. "'If she had been well she would have accompanied me here. She has been very weak of late. It was on that account that I applied to your sister when the doctor's letter told me I was needed. "'I have been expecting Lady Throckmorton for so long that I am afraid something has gone wrong,' said Thio. "'To this remark,' Priscilla made no reply, she was never prone to be communicative regarding Lady Throckmorton, but she had come here to say something to Theodora North, and at last she said it. "'You have been here how long?' she asked suddenly. "'Nearly a week,' said Thio. "'Is Mr. Oglethorpe better or worse than when you saw him first?' "'I do not know exactly,' answered the low humble voice. Sometimes better, though I do not think he is ever much worse. Another pause, and then—' "'You were very brave to come so far alone.' "'The beautiful dark, inconsistently un-English face was uplifted all at once, but the next moment it dropped with a sob of actual anguish. "'Oh, Miss Gower!' the girl cried. "'Don't blame me. Please don't blame me. There was no one else, and the telegram said he was dying.' "'Hush,' said Priscilla Gower, with an inexplicable softness in her tone. "'I don't blame you. I should have done the same thing in your place.' "'But you,' began Thio faintly. Priscilla stopped her before she had time to finish her sentence, stopped her with a cold, clear, steady voice. "'No,' she said. "'You are making a mistake.'" What this brief speech meant, she did not explain, but she evidently had understood what Theodora was going to say, and had not wished to hear it. But brief speech as it was, its brevity held a swift pang of new fear for Thio. She could not quite comprehend its exact meaning, but it struck a fresh dread to her heart. Could it be that she knew the truth and was going to punish him? Could she be cruel enough to think of reproaching him at such an hour as this, when he lay at death's door? Some frantic idea of falling at her stern feet and pleading for him, rushed into her mind. But the next moment, glancing up at the erect, motionless figure, she became dimly conscious of something that quieted her. She scarcely knew how. The dim room was so quiet, too, there was so deep a stillness upon the whole place, it seemed that she gained a touch of courage for the instant. Priscilla was not looking at her now. Her statuesque face was turned toward the wide expanse of landscape, fast dying out, as it were, in the twilight greyness. Thio's eyes rested on her for a few minutes in a remorseful pity for, and a mute yearning toward, this woman whom she had so bitterly, yet so unconsciously wronged. She would not wrong her more deeply still. The wrong should end, just as she had thought it had ended, when Dennis dropped her hand and left her standing alone before the fire that last night in Paris. This resolve rose up in her mind with a power so overwhelming that it carried before it all the past of rebellion and pain and love. She would go away before he knew that she had been with him at all. She would herself be the means of bringing to pass the end she had only so short a time ago rebelled against so passionately. He should think it was his promised wife, who had been with him from the first. She would make Priscilla promise that it should be so. Having resolved this, her new courage—courage, though it was so full of desperate, heart-sick pain—helped her to ask a question bearing upon her thoughts. She touched the motionless figure with her hand. Did Pamela come here to bring me away? she asked. Priscilla Gower turned, half-starting, as though from a reverie. What did you say, she said? Did Pamela come to take me away from here? Theo repeated. No, she said. Do not be afraid of that. Theo looked out of the window, straight over her folded arms. The answer had not been given unkindly, but she could not look at Priscilla Gower in saying what she had to say. I am not afraid, she said. I think it would be best. I must go back to Paris, or to—to Downport, before Mr. Oglethorpe knows I have been here at all. You can take care of him now, and there is no need that he should know I ever came to St. Quentin. I daresay I was very unwise in coming as I did, but I am afraid I would do the same thing again, under the same circumstances, if you will be so kind as to let him think that—that it was you who came. Priscilla Gower interrupted her here in the same manner and with the same words as she had interrupted her before. Hush, she said, you are making a mistake again. She did not finish what she was saying. A hurried footstep upon the stairs stopped her, and as both turned toward the door it was opened, and Pamela stood upon the threshold and faced them, looking at each in the breathless pause that followed. There has been a change, she said, a change for the worse. I have sent for the doctor. You had better come downstairs at once, Theodora, you have been here long enough to understand him better than we can. And down together they went, and the first thing that met their eyes as they entered the sick room was Oglethorpe, sitting up in bed with wild eyes, haggard and fever-mad, struggling with his attendance, who were trying to hold him down, and raving aloud in the old strain Theo had heard so often. Oh, I, Theo, my beauty, there are tears in your eyes, good-bye, yes, forgive me, forget me, and good-bye. For God's sake, Priscilla, forgive me." End of CHAPTER VIII. WHAT COMES OF IT ALL? The hardest professional trouble the shriveled little French doctor had perhaps ever encountered, was the sight of the white, woe-stricken young face turned up to his when Theodora North followed him out of the chamber upon the landing that night, and caught his arm in both her clinging hands. "'He will die now, doctor,' she said, in an agonized whisper. "'He will die now. I saw it in your face when you let his hand drop.'" It would have been a hard-hearted individual who would have told the exact truth in the face of these beautiful agonized eyes, and the little doctor was anything but heart of heart. He patted the clinging hands quite affectionately, feeling in secret great apprehension, yet hiding his feelings admirably. "'My little mademoiselle,' he said. The tall young creature at his side was almost regal, head and shoulders above him in height. "'My dear little mademoiselle Theodora, this will not do. If you give way, I shall give way, too. You must help me. We must help each other, as we have been doing. It is you only who can save him. It is you he calls for. You must hope with me until some day when he awakes to know us, and then I shall show you to him, and say, Here is the beautiful young mademoiselle who saved you. And then we shall see, Miss Theodora. Then we shall see what a charm those words will work!' But she did not seem to be comforted, as he expected she would be. "'No,' she said. "'The time will never come when you can say that to him. If he is ever well enough to know me, I must go away, and no one must tell him I have been here.' Monsieur the doctor looked at her over his spectacles sharply. The pale face at once touched and suggested to him the outline of a little romance. And he had all of Frenchman's sympathy for romance. Monsieur the doctor. It was une grande passion, was it, and this tractable, beautiful young creature was going to make a sacrifice of all her hope of love upon the altar of stern honour. But he made no comment, only patted her hand again. "'Well, well,' he said, "'we shall see, mademoiselle, we shall see. Only let us hope.' The days and nights of watching, in companionship with Priscilla Gower, were a heavy trial to Theo. Not that any unusual coldness in the handsome face was added to her troubles as an extra burden, both Priscilla and Pamela were very mindful of her comfort, so very mindful that their undemonstrative care for her cut her to the heart sometimes. Yet somehow she felt herself as a stranger, without the right to watch with them. It was so terrible a thing to stand near the woman she had innocently injured and listen with her to the impassioned adurations of the lover who had been false in spite of himself. It seemed his mind was always upon the one theme, and in his delirium his ravings wandered from Priscilla to Theo, and from Theo to Priscilla, in a misery that was not without its pathos. Sometimes it was that last night in Paris, and he went over his farewell, word for word. Sometimes it was his wedding day, and he was frantically appealing to Priscilla for forgiveness, and remorsefully anathematizing himself. They were both together in the room one evening when he was raving thus, when he suddenly paused for an instant, and began to count slowly upon his fingers. January, February, March, April, May, June, July—my pretty Theo, what a mistake it was—only seven months, and then to have lost you! Good God, my darling!—and his voice became a low, agonized cry! Good God, my darling, and I cannot give you up! Theo glanced up at Priscilla Gower, mute with misery for a moment. The erect, black-robed figure stood between herself and the fire, motionless, but the fixed face was so white that it forced a low cry from her. She could not bear it a second longer. She slipped upon her knees on the hearth-rug, and caught the hem of the black dress in her hands, in a tumult of despair and remorse. He does not know what he is saying, she cried breathlessly. Oh, forgive him, forgive him! I will go away now, if you think I ought. He knows that you are better than I am. I will go away, and you will make him happy. Oh, I know you will make him happier than I ever could have done, even if he had really loved me as—as he only thought he did. A moment before Priscilla had been gazing into the fire in a deep reverie, but the passionate voice stirred her. She looked down into the girl's imploring eyes, without a shadow of resentment. Get up, she said, a trifle huskily. You have done no wrong to me. Get up, Theodora, and look at me. Unsteadily as she spoke there was so strange a power in her voice that Theo obeyed her. Wonderingly, sadly and humbly, she rose to her feet, and stood before Priscilla as before a judge. "'Will you believe what I say to you?' she asked. "'Yes,' answered Theo sorrowfully. "'Well, then I say this to you. You have not sacrificed me. You have saved me.' It was perhaps characteristic of her that she did not say anything more. The subject dropped here, and she did not renew it. It was a hard battle which Dennis Oglethorpe fought during the next fortnight, in that small chamber of the wayside inn at St. Quentin, and it was a stern antagonist he waged war against—that grim old enemy death. But with the help of the little doctor, the vis-menocatrix natural, and his three nurses, he gained the victory at length and conquered, only by a hair-spreadth. The fierce fire of the brain wearing itself out left him as weak as a child, and for days after he returned to consciousness he had scarcely power to move a limb, or utter a word. When first he opened his eyes upon life again no one was in the room but Priscilla Gower, and so it was upon Priscilla Gower that his first conscious glance fell. He looked at her for a minute before he found strength to speak, but at last his faltering voice came back to him. Priscilla, he whispered weakly, is it you, poor girl? She bent over him with a calm face, but she did not attempt to caress him. Yes, she said, don't try your strength too much yet, Dennis, it is I. His heavy, wearied eyes searched hers for an instant. And no one else, he whispered again, is no one else here, Priscilla? There is no one else in the room with me, she answered quietly. The rest are upstairs, you must not talk, Dennis, try to be quiet. There was hardly any need for the caution, for his eyes were closing again even then through sheer exhaustion. Theo was in her room lying down and trying to rest, but half an hour later when Pamela came up to her bedside the dark eyes flew wide open in an instant. What is it, Pam, she asked, is he worse again? Pam sat down on the bedside and looked at her with a sort of pity for the almost haggard young face drooping against the white pillow. No, she said, he is better, the doctor said he would be and he is. Theo he has spoken to Priscilla Gower and knows her. Theo sat up in bed, white and still. All white it seemed, but her large hollow eyes. Pamela, she said, I must go home. Where, said Pam? The white face turned toward her pitifully. I don't know, the girl answered, her voice fluttering almost as weakly as Dennis's had done. I don't know, somewhere though, to Paris again or to Downport, with a faint shudder. And then all at once she flung up her arms wildly and dropped upon them face downward. Oh, Pam, she cried out, take me back to Downport and let me die. I have no right here and I had better go away. Oh, why did I ever come? Why did I ever come? She was sobbing in a hysterical, strained way that was fairly terrible. Pamela bent over her and touched her disordered hair with a singularly light touch. The tears welled up into her faded eyes. Just at the moment she could think of nothing but the day, so far away now, when her own heart had been torn up by the roots by one fierce grasp of the hand of relentless fate, the day when Arthur had died. Hush, Theo! she said to her. Don't cry, child. But the feverish, excited sobs only came the faster and more wildly. Why did I ever come, Theo gasped? It would have been better to have lived and died in Downport. Far better, I can tell you now, Pam, now that it is all over. I loved him and he loved me, too. He loved me always from the first, though we both tried so hard, so hard. Yes we did, Pamela, to help it, and now it is all ended and I must never see him again. I must live and die, grow old, old and never see him again. There was no comfort for her. Her burst of grief and despair wore itself away into a strained quiet, and she lay at length in silence. Pamela at her side. As she was suffering fearfully in her intense girlish way. She did not say much more to Pamela, but she had made up her mind before many hours had passed, to return to Paris. She had even got up in the middle of the night in her feverish hurry to make her slight preparations for the journey. She could go to Paris and wait till Lady Throckmorton came back if she had not got back already, and then she could do as she was told as to the rest. She would either stay there or go to Downport with Pamela. Fortune, however, interposed. A carriage made its appearance in the morning with a new arrival, an arrival no less than Lady Throckmorton herself bearing down upon them in actual excitement. An untoward accident had called her friend from home and taken her to Cannes, and there, at her earnest request, her ladyship had accompanied her. The blunder of an awkward servant had prevented her receiving the letters from Saint Quentin, and it was only on her return to Paris that she had learned the truth. Intense as was her bewilderment at her protégé's indiscretion, she felt a touch of admiration at the simple, faithful daring of the girl's course. It is sufficiently out of the way for Priscilla Gower to be here, and she is his promised wife, and Pamela is nearly thirty-two years old and looks forty, but you, Theodora, you, to run away from Paris with no one but a maid, to run away to nurse a man like Dennis Oglethorpe, it actually takes away my breath, my dear innocent little simpleton, what were you thinking about? It would be futile to attempt to describe her state of mind when she discovered that Dennis had not learned of Theodora's presence in the house. But being quick-sighted and keen of sense, she began to comprehend at last, and it was Priscilla Gower who assisted her to a clearer state of mind. Two days later, when, after a visit to his patient, the little doctor was preparing to take his departure, Priscilla Gower addressed him suddenly, as it seemed, without the slightest regard to her ladyship's presence. "'You think your patient improves rapidly?' she said. Very rapidly was the answer. Men like him always do, mademoiselle.' She bent her head in acquiescence. "'I have a reason for asking this,' she said. "'Do you think he is strong enough to bear a shock?' Of what description, mademoiselle? Of grief, or—or of joy?' "'Of joy, monsieur,' she answered distinctly.' "'Mademoiselle,' said the doctor, joy rarely kills.' She bent her erect head again. She had not regarded the fact of her old enemy's presence ever so slightly while she spoke, but when the doctor was gone she addressed her. "'I have been thinking of returning to London at once, if possible,' she said. Miss Gower's ill health renders any further absence in neglect. If I go, would it be possible for you to remain here with Miss North?' Pamela suggested Lady Throckmorton. Theodora was the calm reply. An odd silence of a moment, and then the eyes of the two women met each other in one long, steady look. Lady Throckmorton's profoundly searching, wonderingly questioning. Priscilla Gower's steadfast, calm, almost defiant. Then Lady Throckmorton spoke. "'I will stay,' she said, and she shall stay with me.' "'Thank you!' with another slight bend of the handsome head. "'I am going now to speak to Mr. Oglethorpe. When I open the door will you send Miss North, Theodora, to me?' "'Yes,' answered her ladyship. So Priscilla Gower crossed the narrow landing and went into the sick-room, and her ladyship summoned Theodora North and bade her weight, not telling her why. But past behind the closed doors only three people can tell, and those three people are Dennis Oglethorpe, his wife, and the woman who, in spite of her coldness, was truer to him than he dared be to himself. There was no sound of raised or agitated voices, all was calm and seemingly silent. Fifteen minutes passed, half an hour, nearly an hour, and then Priscilla Gower stepped out upon the landing and Lady Throckmorton spoke to Theodora. "'Go to her,' was her command, she wants you.' The poor child arose mechanically and went out. She did not understand why she was wanted, she scarcely cared. She merely went because she was told, but when she looked up at Priscilla Gower she caught her breath and drew back, but Priscilla held out her hand to her. "'Come,' she commanded, and before Theo had time to utter a word, she was drawn into the chamber, and the door closed. Priscilla's was lying upon a pile of pillows, and pale as he was, she saw, in one instant, that something had happened, and that he was not unhappy whatever his fate was to be. "'I have been telling Mr. Oglethorpe,' Priscilla said to her, "'all that you have done, Theodora, I have been telling him how you forgot the world and came to him when he was at the world's mercy. I have told him, too, that five years ago he made a great mistake which I shared with him. It was a great mistake, and it had better be wiped out and done away with, and we have agreed what it shall be, so I have brought you here.' All the blood in Theodora North's heart surged into her face, in a great rush of anguish and bewilderment. "'No, no,' she cried out, "'no, no, only forgive him and let me go. Only forgive him and let him begin again. He must love you. He does love you. It was my fault, not his. Oh!' Priscilla stopped her, smiling, in a half-sad way. "'Hush,' she said quietly, "'you don't understand me. The fault was only the fault of the old blunder. Don't try to throw your happiness away, Theodora. You were not made to miss it. I have not been blind all these months. How could I be? I only wanted to wait, and to make sure that this was not a blunder, too. I have known it from the first. Theo, I have done now. The old tangle is unraveled. Go to him, Theo. He wants you.' The next instant the door closed upon Priscilla as she went out, and Theodora North understood clearly what she had before never dared to dream of. There was one brief, breathless pause, and then Dennis Oglethorpe held out his arms. "'My darling,' he said, "'mine, my own.' She slipped down by his side, beautiful, tremulous, with glowing cheeks and tear-wet eyes. She remembered Priscilla Gower then. "'Oh, my love,' she cried, "'she is better than I am, braver and more noble, but she can never love you better, or be more faithful and true than I will be. Only try me. Only try me, my darling.' Three months subsequently, when Pamela and Priscilla had settled down again to the routine of their old lives, there was a quiet wedding celebrated at Paris—a quiet wedding, though it was under Lady Throckmorton's patronage. In their tender remembrance of Priscilla Gower it was made a quiet wedding. So quiet, indeed, that the people who made the young English beauty's romance a topic of conversation and nine days' wonder scarcely knew it had ended. And in Broom Street Priscilla Gower read the announcement in the paper, with only the ghost of a faint pang. "'I suppose I am naturally a cold woman,' she wrote to Pamela North, with whom she sustained a faithful correspondence. I will acknowledge, at least, to a certain lack of enthusiasm. I can be faithful, but I cannot be impassioned. It is impossible for me to suffer as your pretty Theo could, as it is equally impossible for me to love as she did. I have lost something, of course, but I have not lost all.' Between these two women there arose a friendship which was never dissolved. Perhaps the one thing they had in common drew them toward each other. At any rate, they were faithful, and even when, three years later, Priscilla Gower married a man who loved her, and having married him, was a calmly happy woman, they were faithful to each other still. The End. End of Chapter 9, read by Kara Schallenberg, www.kray.org, and The End of Theo, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.